Frustration had ebbed into a hostile flow of acrimony and disdain, constant revulsion, consuming, devouring contempt, imminent loathing and conspiring abhorrence, slinking and brewing from each ancient, arcane, glacial pathway, the North once again daunted and ashamed. Too often Deimos pondered over the mass of quandaries laden at their villainous feet, the calculations, the audacities, the aspirations wound and winding over their nefarious pinnacles, how they strove, how they glorified, and how they sank so readily into their own tangled upheaval. Some cowardly strings had been strung too tight, some callous wounds had been opened too widely, some slithering, crawling anomalies had crossed over their features and disregarded the fuel of their motivations, fleeing, retreating, disembarking from the poignancy of their malice, of their malevolence, of their abominable convictions and creeds. To which end did they conquer now? Where was triumph but in the hands of their enemy, time and time again? Where was the pride of their species? Hadn’t they yearned to rip into the beasts that took their kin? Hadn’t they wished for a moment, a chance, to prove their wicked, iniquitous, diabolical machinations had purpose, had revolution searing, had sedition seething, into the molten pulses of their blood? Hadn’t this been the opportunity to soak their enmity and aversions into the eager opposition? Where was the annihilation, the persecution, the obliteration of the weaker, the inept, and the vacuous? Who possessed more might, more prowess, and more mastery now? Given the opportunity, under poor circumstances, the newfound, demonic King sought to retrieve the essence, the tangibility, of their forgotten stature, of their beaten conquests, remind the world of their puissance, their pernicious discord, their turbulent fixtures and figurines.

So the Reaper’s first act as Lord was not to hold a herd meeting to discuss unwinding, unraveling changes within the icy, chilling cords of their heinous discordancy, not to chain faltering soldiers or wayfaring mercenaries to shackles and oubliettes, but instead, to close the distance between enemy and imprisoned. The monster, the heathen, the Tartarean infidel, was no diplomat, was no emissary, and held not a single political thread within his body – and now, thrust into a sudden position, was forced to assimilate into the role of monarch, ambassador and savage, with only the latter for experience. The barbarity of his motions only gave rise to the vexations corrupting his movements, the stony bombardments of sinuous antipathy, animosity layered and lacquered to the lengthy corridors of open, chaste fields. Were he capable of rupturing, lacerating and severing them all singlehandedly, he would have, slowly slinking massacre into their bones, into their vigilance, into their serene, smug repose, witnessing them waste away into the rocky outcrops of their home. The infidel was no bleeding heart, no knight, no champion, but he’d guarded children from their shadowy hands, he’d defended the alluring, bewitching, tempted bombardments and absconding fingers, but the Edge’s claws had slipped beyond him, had enticed, spellbound, delivered harmless, benign, innocuous beings into the coves of cliffs. They, belligerent monsters, tyrannical demons, had been so heinously drawn, tempted, by the scorching of brethren, by the plucking of youth, and too enamored in cowardice, maligned and ruined by their own inefficient actions. They’d concocted their own undoing. Sown and sculpted by iron, by intimidation, by damnation and cold, vicious entropy, the sovereign of the Basin cast his reticent, piercing glare upon the horizon, and awaited the ignition of his seething, imperial furor, as the shadowy femme answered the minatory friction of his appearance.

@[Mirage]

What had she done?

Lace's words cut her deep. The crown that had been thrust at her was discarded, thrown over the side of the cliff she called her home, watched by intense, golden eyes as it became lost, swallowed amongst the darkness of the rocks and ocean below. From there, the mare had felt the activation of magic return - though she did not see the Sun rise, not until she silently requested her beloved Akaith to remove the band from her foreleg, and allow the Sun's light, hat had been absent for so long, to touch down upon the misty earth of her home. The mare loved the night, but she would not take the day from her herd permanently, especially when it had been gone for so long. The world transformed before her, as Akaith floated upon the morning breeze - the first morning breeze to grace the realm in many seasons. To the North her gaze was then drawn, to the white-topped peaks of the frosty realm that seemed a world away, and yet their frozen claws had extended south, one by one, they slowly picked away at her beloved kin. It was their actions of evil, of death and destruction that had spurred her own reaction, her thirst for revenge, her need to prove that they would not be bullied.

Her methods were, perhaps, not as honourable as she would have liked. Perhaps she had been blinded by the devastation she felt for the loss of so many close friends. Perhaps she had felt pressured by her herd to take action, to incite a war so that they might rise victorious, and prove their point to their enemies once more. Perhaps…

Perhaps I should just leap of here now, and let them choose their own leader. I am not worthy.

They chose you.

I have led them poorly.

Have you asked them?

Silence permeated, and it was mid-morning by the time the mare realised she had been standing for hours with her cloak of illusion draped over her shoulders. It was a default reaction, a security blanket, and one that she did not remove even when she realised it was on. The one thing she did do, instead, was walk.

And walk.

It was as aimless as the path of thoughts and processes running through her cranium. When she found herself at the base of the path to the Fields, she paused, peering up the path with a long sigh. Akaith wordlessly landed by her, and replaced the bracelet that seemed to be carved from wind and moonstone, with a touch of gold glinting if viewed under the right light. As it settled upon her flesh, she felt its pull on the world around her, its effects reaching out as far as her gaze could see - it was early afternoon, and yet, now, it could have been midnight. The stars glimmered above, and the Moon smiled from her celestial perch on high. In the darkness, the mare climbed the treacherous trail, reliving the very first time she ever set foot upon the lands of Helovia. She had climbed here then, too, and she had met the kindest, brightest soul she probably would ever meet. And he had been taken from her. Would he have wanted her to react the way she did, once she discovered who was responsible for his death? Shame flooded through her, not for the first time, as the little shadow finally came to the fields above, to look out over the expanse of space.

A pause halted her frame, then, as she considered what was ahead. The Moon glowed brightly above, banishing the Sun that had risen only hours before. It was then a wave of nausea washed through her, followed swiftly by fatigue, and then a great sense of dread. Ahead, the outline of a monster, the Grim Reaper himself, the Lord of Death, the drainer of all life. She recognised him from the war where she won her home - rather, she recognised the sensation of losing her lifeforce. Images flooded her mind, memories of her brother falling before his ghastly magic, her brother who was so like her father in his furious, enflamed will to live. The mare steeled herself, then continued to step forth. Akaith hissed in the sky above, but otherwise the mistress of the night showed no emotion, gave nothing away upon her blank façade. Movement ceased when she was standing before the steel steed, her silence as questioning as her voice, as she offered him no harm, but rather, the sheer and complete focus of her attention.

@[Deimos]

The permanent, enduring cataclysm of his callous carnage cast an imposing, seditious predilection upon a diplomatic faction. The reticent rapier, the recherché bedlam, the seething maelstrom of his treachery, of his tyranny, didn’t ebb, didn’t fade as the shadowy fixture glided into their open vestige, incised, enveloping, surrounding and pervading the loam with its severity, with its savagery. They knew each other well enough to not suppose the length of ineptitude or foolishness, to unwind in some sizzling duel, in some slinking, sinuous friction of resolution, demise and decay; but the underlying tension remained, of danger, of brewing convictions, of souls fastened to the chambers of supremacy, domination, and condemnation. Each time the ebony mare had crossed into their corridors, they had failed, from the smoking boundaries and fringes of the Edge, to the wayward pursuit of their lost kin, stolen from their glacial archways. The Reaper would not think her mindless, unintelligent or grasping for the fortitude of others, she’d managed to obliterate their attempts at upheaval, at revolution, at sedition. But to the dominion now at his command, these were faltering, stumbling, wobbling steps. Every humiliation, every defeat, every thrashing incited and invoked, enflamed and enraptured, until the stone bodies, the staunch, steadfast heathens, the clambering, dissonant fiends found perseverance, discovered ire, wrath, and outrage all over again; nettled across their hides, pricked along their minds, their skulls, their bones and flesh. Humiliations inspired the same for their opponents, and as his piercing gaze captured her presence, he pondered over the various ways to ruin them, to annihilate them, to punish and crush the pride, the dignity, the satisfaction at rendering the Basin at a loss once more. The demonic King wanted naught more than an end to their victories, to their achievements, to their fulfillments, and if given the opportunity beyond this venue, he’d take it, ensnare it, entice and tempt the sumptuous decadence, the diabolical insurrection, the unholy, licentious credence of their powerful opulence. The cowardly would be punished, the weak would be trained, honed, polished, and the keen would be unveiled, permitted to persecute the supremacy of the Edge. Yet, for now, he had to play a part he didn’t fully embrace, to clutch at those absconded from their hold.

Two indiscernible figures, with damnation, with fortitude, with might and brawn and cunning, were strangled into silence. The menacing conjecture of his hushed calamity, of his quiet acrimony, continued their invocations amidst the savage study of the femme, who’d arrived just as he, no one and nothing accompanying them. Both were far too dominant in their own regards to have need of these services, and in such a position, Deimos couldn’t afford ambushes, deceit or duplicity. The stolen babes and Nurse would never see the light of day if he were to stir further iniquity, feverish, devouring discord. After a few puncturing moments, he unwound his clenched jaws, fostered and polished the singular deliberation of his presence, of his demands. “We want them returned.” The Edge had seen what they would do for their kin, for their brethren, and if necessary, what’d they have to commit to again and again to express their discontent, to reveal and release their smoldering havoc, stoic scheming, harbored, harpooning strife.

@[Mirage]

He saw her.

The little shadow mare didn't shift her weight, she didn't turn her golden eyes away, she barely breathed as his icy blue pools held her own. There were no polite acknowledgements, no noble gestures or motions of honour bestowed to either party. They simply were, together at the Fields, beneath this magical midnight that seemed to hum from the bracelet clasped about her foreleg. His own magic tried to draw on her, and she felt the fatigue, the drain pull on her, but something within her seemed intent on refusing him. It was as if the dragon that resided beneath her skin would breath its fiery breath and consume his magic before it was able to consume her, and perhaps it held some truth. Akaith flew out of range of the Reaper's deathly enchantment, and through the bond that had hatched her golden egg, the little queen further gave her beloved the energy, the will, the determination to go on, to move past this obstacle that was her own mistakes, her own actions.

What had she done?

She had inspired action. It was what she had intended to do this whole time. The devious little shadow knew they would not listen to reason, to a diplomatic solution - or at least, that was what she assumed. She had been held prisoner in their lands, along with many others of her kin, her family, and she had seen the cruel way they treated even their own kind. Xanthos had been as much a prisoner there as she, and she had liberated him, welcomed him into the clutches of a family where his skills could be put to a use that would benefit the land, and all of them. The Reaper spoke, and in those words, Mirage felt like she was compelled to simply release them to him, then and there, without another word as to their future or their past. Deimos had been held within the walls of the Edge against his will too, her own sister had captured him to ensure her safe return home - something that both horrified and warmed the little shadow's heart. That there were those in this world willing to sacrifice their own skin in the name of her own was touching, for she would do no less for them, but it horrified her that she had come so close to losing her sister forever - what if Kali's grasp upon the Reaper's magic had slipped, and both of them had fallen?

The mare didn't linger on the past, for it was too clouded, too convoluted to make sense of right now. She listened to his words, and a breath later, she replied with her own, in tones that were no less promising of doom to come should they be ignored.

"We want peace."

@[Deimos]

Deimos was not a creature of repose. He craved condemnation, corruption, destruction, ravaging and pillaging the walls of his enemies, his opponents, with molded munitions lacquered in enmity, acrimony and antipathy, drenched in loathing, embittered by rancorous failures. Twice they’d been thwarted and diminished by this shadowy mare and her cohorts, removed from their homes, and finally, when they could no longer stand the acts of absconding children and mothers, they fell to the same forest. What a thing to seek – peace – when nearly every moment was spent attempting to annihilate the adversaries of the mist, when they plucked and squandered youths, when they snuck amongst the embroidered darkness and sought to snag more, to entice, to captivate and lead them into the abysmal cliff tops, when they melted hypocrisy into dreams of tranquility and serenity. The Reaper didn’t ever entail such ambitions or sow false pretenses into his heretic, irreverent philosophy; he ruined, he wrecked, he yearned for havoc and assailed with the same premise, the same assertions and beliefs. Perhaps these miserable cretins hadn’t realized how far they’d truly fallen, to speak of quiet, solitude, sanctuaries and sanctums, and twist the fabrics of their natures until they were just as distorted, just as chaotic, just as meticulous, rigorous and devoted to their diabolical machinations as the wintery peaks and valleys. They antagonized, irritated and provoked for harmony? They invaded their old home for armistice? For a world without violence? For divinity, truth, absolution and salvation? To show their valor, their honor, their morality and goodness (yet, when the Basin committed similar actions, it was villainy, licentious and depraved, contradictions woven into precarious double-standards)? His indifferent brow conjured no sign of his vexations, his frustrations, how the culmination of all these actions always seemed to settle so nicely upon the shoulders of gentle, world-weary dreamers and the eyes of the draconic femme before him. Instead, the deep gravel of his voice punctured the air once more, smothered the depths of the meadow’s breeze, and tangled with the ferocity, the sanctimony and duplicity of her words. “So you steal children.”

The moments passed in methodical interlude, the newfound Lord casting his first diplomatic stones and waiting for them to sink to the murky bottom of callous, crooning depths. His rapacious instinct urged him to deny their request, to sully their regard, to tarnish and stain the endeavors of their sententious, holier-than-thou resolutions. However, this would not earn their stolen back, and with nothing else to bargain with, for they held none of the Edge’s inhabitants as prisoners, he was left to churn over the aspect of “treaties”. It would be a sacrifice on his cadre, and most, like himself, would be unwilling to even embark on these noble, righteous doldrums; they wanted their dissonance, their brutality, their barbarity, ripping, tearing, scalding and bewitching the bestial shades of their wickedness. With no emissaries, consuls or envoys, he was left to dig into the stitched seams of his satanic opus and prick at a vein until it resembled a bleeding heart. To sacrifice his vile necromancy, his sculpted villainy and machinations, so portions of their family could return to their icy empire. His lips drew into a thin line, impassive, reticent, distant and indistinct, snatching at naught but the wry pinnacles of some otherworldly pawn twisting a knife into his barrel. “I can offer one season.” Until the reign of Tallsun ends. Enough time to rebuild and restore his fractured army, enough time to hone and keen newest recruits, to engage, incite, provoke his compatriots back into the fiendish declarations of mayhem, bedlam and chaos, to dissuade the enemies. He couldn’t bestow eternity, because he would have no intentions of festering in such a lie, for they would arrive, again and again, apocalyptic heathens swallowing the horizon, for an opportunity to lay waste to Mirage and her merry band of staunch, stalwart inhabitants. If the notion wasn’t accepted, another could take its place, with the taste of violence, with the scintillating, ambrosial quality of cruelty and disorder all over again.

@[Mirage]

The little shadow mare cast her request, just as he had done, and she watched for a reaction. His chiselled façade gave nothing away - he was as stony in his resolve as she was. Though Mirage had inner turmoils writhing and roiling within her, she did her best to do as she had done all her life - to hide it, to show nothing but that which she wished the opposing party to see. The deep, resonant voice murmured a reply then, her harks lifted to grasp it - you steal children. It was not the first time someone had raised the hypocrisy of her actions, and it was not as if she had endeavoured to follow through with her plan without heralding some doubts within her mind. How else were they to get the Basin's attention? To truly threaten them in a way they would listen and consider? Mirage's followers had captured this very Reaper within her walls before, and even prevented him from escaping by his own will when he attempted to. It was only by her word then that he had been allowed to go home, and yet still they murdered and stole the Edge's members, still they resorted to violence rather that diplomacy.

It was impossible to know who cast the first stone. Would that Mirage could have this conversation with Mauja, the spotted steed she had first met in the presence of the Moon Goddess, where he reigned as King beneath her silver light in the very misted lands she now held dear. Why hadn't she accepted his offer to reside in the moonlit lands then, as his follower? Why had she left then, and worshipped the Goddess from afar, in her own way, and gathered her own forces? It was the impossible question, one that hindsight should have offered her clear insight on, yet at this moment she was at a loss. Yes, she had done wrong, but was stealing children as bad as murdering their parents? The Basin had, in three foul swoops, taken the lives of three parents, leaving behind foals who were orphaned.

"We gave them shelter and food. They were not harmed." And many of them had already escaped in the chaos of the invasion, but Mirage was not about to let that stop her bargaining for peace. Her voice was quiet, merely stating the fact that they had taken the lives of those the Basin held dear and treated them with the respect they deserved as prisoners of war.. which was more than she could say for her own captivity in the Basin. It was a curious observation, to realise that both of them had spent time in the other herd as a prisoner, and yet, who had come out on top? Who was 'victorious', if that was even what it could be called?

"We held four captives in return for the two lives the Basin was witnessed in destroying. Perhaps you should be grateful we did not choose to react in kind to the treatment we have been receiving." Surely this monster would appreciate their actions now? Surely he would see that the Edge had merely done what any family would do, and reacted in grief, barely controlled and spurred by the rush of emotions in the moment of discovering the identity of both killers. Then Mirage remembered, he was the Reaper, the wielder of death, his very presence meant one walked along that thin, unsteady line that separated one from the land of the living and the land of the dead. The shadow mare dismissed the thought as hopeless. It was Mauja that Mirage wanted dead anyway, she yearned for his horn to be delivered to her, with the associated body attached still or naught, it mattered little to her.

"One season, and another meeting, you and I, at the dawn of OrangeMoon."

He was never grateful that they existed, let alone captured their children. He was never grateful for the humiliations and defeats the Basin had suffered at their hands, at the foolish, grasping, avaricious cling of old wounds festering, deep and open, withering and decaying at the edge of conquest. He was never grateful for his own capture by their specious chicanery and deceptive ploys, at absconding his enchantments and invocations, the cruel necromancy pulsing amongst his veins, for an opportunity to unravel their lands into further bedlam, subdued. The Reaper would rather crush his own carcass into one bony pile then allow them to swindle, conquer and devour their heathen, infidel aspirations and ambitions again. To even submit the art of peace discourse and conversations was enough of a sacrifice of his contemptuous, incited, incensed loathing. Their perils and frustrations enamored and lacquered to this mare’s tongue all over again only tore and unraveled him further into the Machiavellian regime of furtive, treacherous designs, wishing he could consume, devour, ravage and pillage their misty earth until there was naught left but the burning coil of their feverish mendacity. For now, he had to promise for peace, for a passing, idle season where their hearts calloused and their fiendish, diabolical schemes drove them to the weight of augured cataclysms, where they could rise from inept ashes, not by valor, not by honor, not by the treatment of sanctimonious creeds, but from malice, menace, and abhorrence. Their fires had been stoked, the embers had been fanned, and the distorted rapture of their bedlam, of their mayhem, of their enmity and acrimony had been unleashed into a languid, blistering fortitude eager to bend, break, destroy. The monster’s indifference was worn into the strong muscles of his face, the clenched jaw, the devilish aperture of his piercing, lacerating eyes, the depth and brevity of his glare singeing, unholy, villainous peril waiting for the taste of victory, for the pedestals of sedition and revolution to unravel the world beneath his feet. He offered no response to her attempts at further exposition over cruelty, brutality and barbarism, eternally reticent, behemoth silence, and merely answered to the finale of the deal, waited for the clink of the locks, the opening of prisons and oubliettes. “I accept.”

@[Mirage]

The reaction, or rather, lack thereof, was to be expected. Mirage couldn't read whether he knew of them or not, whether he sanctioned them, directed them, or whether he was completely ignorant to the actions of those he called kin. She yearned to ask for their punishment, for their deaths in exchange for those she had received - but then, she wasn't capable of that, was she? The little shadow mare had merely taken from them something precious, a mate and her children, and kept them safe and secure for a time, shedding blood only when the opposing force attempted to ransack their home.. It was never Mirage's intention to follow through with the violent thoughts that cascaded through her mind, though there were times that she had lost control, that she had committed murder herself - always she justified it. Did they justify their murders too?

I accept. So they would meet again come the dawn of OrangeMoon - and what? Declare war? Negotiate further on this fragile treaty they had created? Time would tell whether they were capable of keeping the peace for even a season, though Mirage held onto the hope that they would. The dark mare nodded once, bowing her chin to her chest, before meeting his hard stare with her own aureate gaze.

"It is done."

Tell them the prisoners are free to go. The DragonHeart spoke to the keeper of her soul, her beloved Akaith, who still flew in the skies above, a silent predator hidden by the enchanted night her beloved cast over the realm. The little queen did as she was instructed, touching upon the minds of those dragons still within the Edge, those who would know to release the captives, the foals and the mare. Did Mirage have any regrets for her actions?

No. Not when the peace she sought had finally been achieved.

Calling upon the magic that would turn her into an illusion, the shadow mare cloaked herself, and made the slow climb down the Fields once more.