Moving stone, nefarious, maneuvering licentiousness brooded and demanded, curled, coiled, tore across open lands in pursuit of everything and nothing all at once. There were moments in his enigmatic depravity where he’d craved intuition, a moment of inspiration to strike him down and tell him what he should be doing – more than just wandering and patrolling, more than just grumbling and hunting, more than just perceiving where the next threat lurked and where the next blow would be harpooned (deep into his chest, next to that blackened, decrepit piece of his heart? Along the roots and funnels and marrow of his blood, poisoned and vexatious, vehement and violent?). They needed to be more, he needed to be more, and despite his wicked allure, despite his deadly enchantments, despite all the ferocious unwinding of his brutality, of his force, of his avid, rapier determination, naught came to him.
 
Instead, he was haunted by his own failures.
 
They traveled with him like ghosts, one on each ear, bending and whispering in his skull. They detailed each and every defect he carried, numerous and spiraling, ghoulish and triumphant, like the most grotesque and ravenous of scavengers. His father’s words echoed from time to time, but they couldn’t pull past the demonic throngs of a deplorable, horrible beast, and he listened to each and every sin he’d manifested – too many to name. When they were done they started again, laughing at the memories of all his wasted time and efforts, mocking and snickering and smirking until he thought he’d had his fill of penance, and he could stare over the deepening, green valleys and pretend he’d done something grand in his time here. Then they’d start once more, renewing their own cycle, one by one, claw by claw, cutlass by cutlass, and his impassive features would be rendered into something else.
 
It was hard to name. When they spoke of Huyana, it was shame, it was desperation, it was longing, looking out to the clouds for rain he could drown beneath. When they spoke of the Forsaken, it was humiliation and defeat. When they spoke of the GildedBlade, it was disaster and ruin. Everything began to blur together after that, and he fixed nonchalance back upon his face so no one else could see the truth, the accuracy, of the abomination he’d become.
 
Deimos’ eyes fixed on Ashamin, in the distance, gathering his deer for whatever journey lay ahead. The King’s first instinct was to flee, back into rubble, back into mist, back into ruin because it was easy, it was expected; that was the way he’d always been. He didn’t want to see their disappointment. He didn’t want them to see his disappointment. Instead, though, he wandered down into the thicket, into the parcels of Birdsong wares, steeling himself for whatever laid ahead. “Ashamin,” he called, bending his head and lifting it back into place, like he wasn’t the worst Lord they’d ever had, like he hadn’t been aligned into assortments of nothingness for longer than he could ever remember. “What are you doing?” What were any of them doing?