On rare occasions, he wandered. The King slipped from his throne, pretended he’d lost his crown, and slid beneath the Sentinels’ empty gaze, seeking out obliteration and carnivorous decadence elsewhere; beyond the protective thicket of his own rooted desolation. The seclusion of his northern abode perfectly suited his disastrous wares, his tyrannical indulgences, but every now and again, he was spurred into action in another venue, comprising his chieftain motions, his savage indulgences, his nefarious, heinous movements to routes not well known, to paths barely taken. Once, he’d been driven from his home, down into the Endless Blue, on the taste of fire and the burning of ash, deep, deep into the grooves of his black, black heart – and he’d thought it was his family, coming to serenade him into death and desecration. In other moments, he’d traversed between caves of embers and stone, where they’d all hid for a time because it was the only way they could’ve been safe – and saw his father, great, bold, bitter Ignatius, a ghost, a legend, telling him how to become a great monarch, a better beast than himself (and he wondered every day if he’d ever fulfilled that vow, if his sire looked down upon him and shook his head, sneered, or smirked, snickered with pride or with disaster).  Some days he’d assisted in besting villains or monsters, demons who thought they were gods until they fell apart in the wreckage, in the ruin, the grand, barbaric plunge of Helovian daggers and knives, as the world turned upon them, as the realms fought for something they never understood. Other portions had passed in diplomacy, gone shockingly well, not festering on fringes of hate, not withering as other leaders stared into the eyes of the bestial, northern monarch and glimpsed into debauchery, sin, and iniquity.
 
There was no purpose to today’s roaming except to stretch his muscles, his skin, his coiled, undulating form – rumbling and rampaging past stones and secrets, down mountain slopes and ferocious, gnarled pathways. The Reaper drifted between murky fog and seething mist (remembered the Edge, looked towards its direction as if it had spouted and sprouted between the folds of yesteryear, still truly to far away to see its veneer of glass and cliffs, the toil of the surf, the gnarled, crashing bout of waves; wondered why he was so haunted by it now, when he could’ve had it again), then split the heavens with his sword as the clouds departed, lifted back up to a place he’d never reach. The mountains toiled behind him, steady and sleek, passionate and dark, beautiful and treacherous – but before his figure was the endless slate of fields, rumored to be from Elysium, departed from glorious hallelujahs he’d never sung, from reverent raptured he’d never want to hear. He chose nowhere in particular, slinking through grass, through verdant blades, through canvases and tapestries of green, winding his way amidst its lacquered layers, a mighty, dominant figure who looked as though he belonged, ruled, and reigned, but knew he never could.