He was always wanting.
 
It was a necessity in his mind, a Machiavellian stream, torrent, deluge, of cravings, aspirations, and ambitions. It breathed familiarity amidst the blood and barbarity, it crooned comprehension in the unwavering press of his determination, it steered him across the endless rubble and ruin, and it coiled within his charred heart when everything seemed for naught. He wanted his herd to thrive. He wanted his empire to be mighty, strong, and bold. He wanted his kingdom to be feared – for the words, the herald, the christening of the Basin to be a shudder in another’s limbs. Hadn’t there been days when their wicked tempers flashed, flared, and the rest of the sovereign had held their breath, waited to see what chaos, what horror, what beastly, savage methods they’d chisel into the void next? He wanted the world to see what they truly were.
 
The Lord wondered if this was a test – one of patience, diligence, or simple, manifested persistence.
 
But time always put a notch in his plans; swirled and swarmed, laughed and chortled, reckoned and wrote another pact with the devil that he hadn’t seen, hadn’t touched, hadn’t known. It whittled away at his constituents, drove them back into alleys of shadows and cloaks. It pieced together weakness instead of strength, led to sedition instead of unity, cut slivers and fragments off of their stronghold, until when he finally looked over his reign, his borders, his terrain, nothing was to be found. He’d let everything slip away, out of his grasp, out of his path, out of his prowess, power, and distinction, because he hadn’t been enough. The Reaper left the realm wanting too.
 
There was no give and take, only reality; harsh, brutal, slashing and cutting, a scythe held against his throat as he drove against onslaughts and terror, poignant, haunting spells and wild invocations, as he dove into midnight oils and tempting vows, but nothing seemed to change. The days still passed, empty and abandoned, the lands still seemed vacant, desolate and forlorn. They even seemed to maintain the shape of his blasted, damned essence: stark, grim, dismal.
 
But he was too wild, too savage, too untamed, too much like his father to give in. His blood was fire, stone, might, will, and desecration, and he’d never allow them to sink deeper into the mire without tumbling down headfirst. There was history here, there were stories and legends and pieces lined, and if they could just get them coordinated, get them to fit together, they could reign, supreme, dominant, masters of cunning and violence, upheaval and distortion, triumphant and glorious.
 
Deimos’ gaze rested on the Sentinels; more fragments and slivers falling apart, breaking away, colliding with ice and snow. The Engineer had never come to claim his metal, and so there they stood, a fickle, mercurial reminder of power they once held, of crafts and abilities they once knew, of great things that had been done in another time, another place, when his ridiculous figure didn’t inhabit the throne. He stood guard with them, yards away, blinking into the steadfast wind and the sculpted mountains, waiting for some moment to spirit him back into the present, gone from the brooding fixtures of his failures and imperfections (everyone knew; they were all over his features, his movements, his motions, a walking contortion of flaws and disasters). Morning came, dawn drawn over his physique, and he wore it without a thought, pressed into the stone and rubble, jaw clenched, world torn apart before his eyes; before his stare fixated on another.
 
Rhiannon, gone and back again – the same old story, the same old tale. The fact that she returned always made him all the more grateful to see her – at least she obliged her oaths, months, decades, eons later, by wandering back into the cold kingdom, instead of reaching past loyalties, gesturing towards newfound faiths and dedications. The beast waited, lingering for a few moments, merely watching as she seemed to fall into old habits, patrolling, despite a change in rank. He was silent, vigilant over the vigilant, before maneuvering towards her, the wayfaring tempest, the barbaric, twisted King of the North), a Mephistophelean shadow only hastened by patterns and traditions. “Rhiannon,” he began, coaxing the gravel of his vocals to rise over the horizon, blunt and keen, sharp. “Where have you been?” His brow arched, genuinely curious, because while he stayed, while he strayed, while he forged empires and alliances, he wondered where all of them went.