He was accustomed to violence, the dominating villainy of massacre, of slaughter, of vengeance and malice, coercing the living to fall where they stood, perished, destroyed, and ruined. The reticent creature, however, was not habituated to ceaseless, useless prattle and chatter. His words refused to flow unbidden from a chiseled, rancorous mouth, didn’t dabble the air with toxic indulgences, and dismissed the notion to hiss and growl unless the situation deemed it a necessity. Any prose he posed was action, the only eloquent motions and movements he gathered, chained to the armaments and brutality of his nefarious sculpture, the unholy vehemence of his collected lethality, his carved menace. He severed, detached, lacerated and ruptured, terminated ambiance and repose in the taut air of silence, in the hushed atmosphere of death, destruction and carnage, and spurned the notion of applying his mouth to the same recoil. But this stag before him didn’t follow the same formula, guidelines and methods. He rambled, mumbled about being irritating (which Deimos was inclined to agree with him upon that subject), hastening his greetings with elongated conversation that merely left the Reaper silent, staring at the other in his usual, blank reticence. Inwardly, there was temptation to rip out the Disciple’s vocals, ensure the wagging of his tongue would never prosper again, a jumbled shell of syllables and phrases left to the air, executed and exterminated. Even when this Zikar-Sin finally managed to pause, the statue remained silent, grave and mute, extending the taciturn void into a destructive force of hostility and tension. His impassive features barely moved as the apostle shifted to alleviate himself of water and brine stuck to his pelt, the piercing, puncturing gaze watched as droplets cascaded over ice and rime, offering naught but the entropy of his wicked figure. The demon and infidel wondered, briefly, if his incantations still churned about his veins, would the opposing male no longer exist, caught by the tangled threads of pernicious puissance, coated and annihilated, damaged and depraved, sensing nothing before it was too late? The notion itself was a pleasing image.

But Zikar-Sin continued, and Deimos was not permitted the imagination of a fallen, eerie comrade, tongue stopped and mouth gaping. He mentioned the darkness, the overwhelming stature of gloaming and gloom, and though the fiend had not complained about it, the effect of no magic centered into his bedlam, into his chaos, into his mayhem, was still a disconcerting sentiment. But he had no answers to give, no response to offer or bestow the other, and if one who followed the Gods had naught for explanation, an irreverent, infernal soul surely had nothing. The depths of his cruel gaze flickered towards the horizon, watching it play against the backdrop of shadow, caressed by complete, eternal darkness; heathen and witches’ brew, heavens tainted, disorder enacted. Lined with persecution, oppression and tyranny, the supremacy and dominion of its inaction should have left him mesmerized, contemplating how to acquire such power, but he already believed in his own dominance, mastery and authority, and to be controlled and contorted by something else invoked only frustration, barbarity anointed and hallowed in the crisp shell of his violence. His eyes returned to the glowing, ethereal countenance of Zikar-Sin, and his tones reflected the stark reality of his brutality, he had little to offer, little to say, little to feel but the sharp prick of vexation. “I am unaware of the cause.” He paused, thought to reveal nothing at all about his own affliction, but perhaps, in the weight of upheaval, insurrection and mutiny, the Disciple could find answers in the enduring shade. “My magic is gone.” Stolen, taken, absconded and pilfered, like freedom and disaster all at once, smothering, strangling, choking and uplifting.