Winter damnation and glacial vows, an unholy venture set aside for queries, for questions, for virulent inquisitions. Hollowed capacities, clinging and absorbed in the slaughtering condemnation of his malicious reverie, were torn, shambled, and shredded through the murky, springsong abyss; his Siberian fuselage drifted over to the mare – another of their Menders – and watched as his idle brewing unraveled. He stewed in malicious chords of unbroken silence, vicious strings, choking strands, and suffocating threads ensnared, failing to comprehend, unaware. Hanging moments and streamlined seconds were caught in taut, rigid contortion, for he had every intention of prompting her to leave, pervading the surroundings with naught but his ambitious, potent coils, perniciously craving the puissant devices of a devil’s rancor: yearning to be free of judgment, allowed to ruminate over lost dominance and regaining superiority. It was more familiar, more comfortable, to drag her away from his searing edges, to bestow rapier brevity and soulless might, to harpoon in unrelenting predilection until everyone disappeared and he’d be left in the discarded remnants, stifled, resolute, secluded over and over again. But even the essence, the undulations, the catastrophic, chaotic balance of his invocations didn’t disenchant her, the silver creature simply failed to flee, failed to escape, the discontent, the vehemence, the acerbic traces, of his carnivore abyss. What was more vexing, the fact he couldn’t grasp supremacy, or his presence no longer sent them running?

The difficult angle was to chain himself deeper into the walls, into the heathen vows, into the sullen symphonies and permit her presence to stray amidst the bounty of his baleful, wicked entity: but then he thought of how distant he was to nearly every creature in his empire. The ones he adored, beloved, were few and far between, members of his family, of rain and death, or beasts who’d held the same fury as he all those seasons before, whittling away their commotion and violence into the strength, the perseverance of the barbaric clan. Was this how the ridiculous Ophelia had earned her followers, the winks, the smiles, the virtuous rejoicing of her ascension when they didn’t even know her, when they slinked and slunk through ignorance? What had he obtained, merited, in his time within his throne? Further seclusion, desolation, sitting amidst a throne far, far, far above and away from all their winsome glory and paralyzing triumphs, sinking into shadows and stones? Was this what he missed, procuring trust and defiance, faith, and conviction? Or were those built upon all his actions, all his runes, all his protecting vows and guardian hostilities, sharpened and sculpted as he carved death into their enemies’ bones? He didn’t know – perhaps the comprehension was far beyond his reach. Too many moments spent adrift and aloof, indifferent and apathetic, scaling and scorching apertures and holy endeavors, never acquiring need for conversation except when required, building and burrowing deeper into his sequestered hold; and maybe he was just as bad as he’d been before he met Huyana, too entrenched in the savagery, in the sinister boughs, to see beyond nefarious minds and seditious splendor.

Even so, he dragged the iron slate of his stare over to the querying femme, granted the smallest, the minute, traces of acceptance, a piercing echo, a daunting shade, of the truth. “The Basin is fine.” Because it always would be: strong, vigilant, enduring, no matter when he inhaled his last breath or when the empire burned. He, like all of them, was just a mere placeholder in the constant, abhorrent reel of change.


[Open! :D]