Cold malevolence seized the chilled, remorseless morning, silenced into the heedless trap of peace and good will, presided over the icy graves and the devilish throng, arched detachment while he burned and boiled underneath, wild, barbaric, and carnivorous. The Reaper stared across the abyss of ice and snow, reigned and ruled over its decadent ramparts, its callous fortifications, its foul, unearthly wake, and yearned for depravity. He was made for annihilation, for revolution, for persecution and disaster, and when that quelled and quieted, he was lost to the throes of idleness and ethereal ruins. What was there to unravel? What was there to maim? What was there to crush and pursue? Listless, lethargic murmurings and heedless wanderings were not his strong suit; carved and molded into a chaotic statue, eager for the finessed forbidding, for the fall of veritable virtue, for the potent puissance lingering in the coils of his feral flesh. A seething maelstrom, a primitive enmity, immersed and coated in the serrated rapiers of his forefathers, of satanic rites and bestial calculations, with nowhere to go and naught to do but wait and bide his time. Was this how they were to be remembered, chiseled in memory and legend? Was this how minstrels would serenade them, the proud and meticulous blades, fighting and fumbling, chased into hostels and chains? The beasts that were vanquished, conquered, over and over again (once in the mist, their home, another through the edges of those same cliffs, or in the spiritless dust of the desert)? They prescribed and meandered for repose, harked and heralded, destined for tranquility and serenity, when all he wanted, all he craved, all he yearned for was the meticulous blessing of supremacy, destruction, and abhorrence slinking between his teeth and over his tongue, devoured, consumed, swallowed. He hungered for his brethren to rise to great, corrupted power, for his family to dance among the diabolical insurrection they’d cruelly carved, for intimidation and mayhem to distort, to contort, to ripple across ages, sages, and hags – break, slash, rip and tear the rhythm of tranquility. And what did the rest of the world hunger for, covet between their inept ears and pacified smiles: destruction of the Basin, resolution to fallen pariahs, to thwart them at every turn? For singsong wiles and unchanging dials, their faces painted for shallow rectitude, marching to mindless beats and innocent crafts? Irked, rigid, savoring the hot grind of meticulous domination and the unholy havoc of supremacy, he wandered over the Steppe’s frigid strokes and piercing caresses, nettled and torn into the archaic canon of his stoic scheming. The demonic Lord, the ferocious King, took to the peaks, the summits, and overlooked the hollowed void; dreamt of damnation in his cold, chilling ruminations, in his iniquitous, hazardous gaze, framed by the constancy of snow, of winter’s blunt embrace, and wondered how to achieve it, how to grant it, how to give everything to his throne, to his empire, to his patriots, with naught in his grasp but the unsung itching of eldritch incantations.

[Open to anyone.]

A devil’s tower, anointed and consecrated in irreverence, in pernicious breaths, fallen and forsaken, ruthless, remorseless, merciless, the dangerous incantations of a long-lost soldier, risen to Lord and King, carved the reaches of Lucifer doldrums with each unholy, immoral strike. Sanctioned to the darkest threads of abhorrence sculptures, the iron fortress, satanic reaches, nefarious opus, Mephistophelean oeuvre, gazed over the towering wiles of serrated, meticulous anarchy – the purring, clawing, slithering repose lying wickedly inept and decadent, awaiting the steady, rigid, macabre slide of his blade. Plucked into the sinuous synapses, the searing fervor, the murderous, raptorial incantation of fiend wiles and treacherous considerations, the puncturing, indiscernible countenance watched the world slowly gather its serene immersion, while he became consumed in the unholy, smoldering havoc of his unwinding ministrations. Deplorable, horrible, fierce and arcane, swallowing brutality and unleashing it through the savage hymns of Tartarean temptation, the howling, silent chords of licentious credence, pulsed and pervaded the surroundings of his kingdom with the impassive dominion of his everlasting control; wondering, pondering, scintillating and seething when all of it could be unleashed. The taste of distortion, the relish of destruction, the callous, cruel disregard of feral indignation laying waste to delusion and desolation, writhing in the fallen throes of compassion and sentiment, was a sullen, inaudible chorus and promise he proffered to his minions, to his patriots, and for each moment the world reigned in peaceful serenades and bountiful bliss, he counted down the minutes, hour strokes, undulating, serpentine days, until his brethren tore it away, rigid, possessive supremacy, rippling, absolved disdain, fire and hot, ferocious damnation. Sometimes the sovereign was his and his alone, withering in his barbs, in his terror, in his horrible, carnivore wake, and other moments he was another card, another pawn, in its trapping incantations; he ensured today was the former, bound and allured in his heathen coils.

The tempo of another stoked the ember coals of his unearthly, frozen exterior, the scent familiar, and the intimidating fixture, the piercing gaze, slid in aloof opulence towards the femme – Liriope, another banshee, another asp, cloaked in hunter camouflage and furtive regard. He appreciated her for the strength, for the prowess, for the promise and potency she enacted and contained, simmering and boiling under the surface, a heady, witch’s brew, steaming in the gloaming shadows of their primordial carnage. Like poison lurking and serpentine, unwinding in the midst and mist of another’s follies, predator amore with barbarous, taut, annihilation breathing villainous murmurs. The stoke of her longing gaze, however, was chiefly ignored; he’d never fallen into siren arms, temptress songs, fractured smirks and snickers, refused their bounty and simpering, coy calculations, and instead, spurned to turn them loose upon the tumultuous, unfortunate earth, watch them sparkle and shine, shimmer and waltz, into bedlam’s malignant lethality. She was offered naught but the nod of his wicked cranium, filled to the brim with machinations, with Machiavellian designs and necromancy ruin, unattainable menace and monstrous regard, never reaching towards her wanton yearnings, never stirred into the thrashing bits of lustful, bestial tides; too consumed by another, the drifting rain cascading into distant showers. If she roared, if she cackled, if she whispered for his discordant boughs, all she’d receive was the spurn of his empty, nefarious, blackened heart. Impassive, indifferent, her zealous, fervent, feverish croon only coaxed the blunt, brusque, inscrutable poise of his bestial regime, heinous bastion failing to yield. “Often.” As she grew closer, sidling and sliding towards the tainted exultation of his deadly veins, of his fatal figure, of his deleterious being, the Reaper turned, continued along the frozen, chilling path, encompassing, embracing, the fractious gleam of its icy conjectures.