Cold apertures were disturbed again, chilling fringes and frigid borders mauled and possessed by those not marked or chiseled by caverns and frost; Deimos maneuvered through the autumn depths with meticulous ease, like another part of winter sculpted into life. Eldritch essence, behemoth iniquity, and malicious intrigue pulsed through the intertwining of his coiled potency, and the penetrating stare fixated upon equine forms and draconic figures, not canines, not wolves, not monsters flowing through the wild tempest (whether or not this disappointed him, another lost opportunity for bloodshed, went unsaid and remained unknown). He recognized only one out of the strangers lined up before their Sentinel, Archibald, the former General of the Grey, with all of their contracts and wiles, but as he neared, as he stalked, as he advanced along his icy kingdom, the scent of the Edge pulsed through the air (a smell he’d never forget, even if the days of their sovereign were gone and vanished, even if the cliffs wouldn’t recognize the beasts expelled from their rolling shoal), and his curiosity expanded. Were they to receive another answer from their armistice negotiations? The previous group, the Falls, had been disappointing fixtures on the blighted walls, but at the very least, as he glanced towards the gathered throng once more, the Edge hadn’t sent a drunken stooge. In fact, as he approached and stood a fair distance away from the GildedBlade, diligently examining the notion of threats, the position of rigid, impassive, stoic, reticent beast, one of them offered herbs and poisons: gifts bestowed from a world they’d always wanted back. His brow arched for the scarcest of moments, surprised, bewildered, at their offerings, but rescinded back into its impassive nature immediately thereafter. The briefest of speech calculated and pervaded through the Orangemoon pinnacles, anointing heralds and the briefest of appreciation. “Deimos, Lord of the Basin.” He paused, eyed the plants, the healing powers and the toxic reveries, seemingly a cluster for each Mender: Lena with the gentle, mild flora, and D’art, with the rasping, grating vices. “Our healers will value your gift.” Then, he strung himself back into murky, indulgent silence, sculpting and unwinding the pieces of chaos, of maelstroms, awaiting the true answer to their offerings, if the bestowal was a consolation, if ceasefires and truces were naught but a false nuance, if their efforts were lifted back into nothingness, and they’d have to spiral and convolute back into another plan, another plot, another wayward crusade.