Deimos scalded the shadows, kept to the doldrums, the agonizing, bestial eaves, listened to the distant drums of challenges and upheavals – sought their vigilant violence, and only answered it with indifference. The new Lady caught the eldritch behemoth only moments later, and he met her distant approach with indifferent, recherché features, entangled back into sovereign duties with their deity’s hand picked occupant. If he continued to garner her disapproval, he said or thought nothing of its harpooning devices; his ineptitude had already been established and his pride had already been slashed, he had no will to delve back into their riotous fathoms. The keen edge of his gaze settled upon her dragon nearby, then ghosted back to her presence, a merchant of death pondering over the wiles of others, eternally wishing to be consumed and swallowed into the depths of desecration than spend another moment basking in the lulls of conversation. She chattered and explained in rapid fashion, from one topic to the next, and his skull was buzzing with the swift agendas: spars set up and ready (good, perhaps he could catch one or more of his own, bask in the only symphony he was capable of composing), trades with other herds (noteworthy, they could be in need of devices and materials in the future), and then the last: Hotaru, an impressive sneak, a worthy member, taken by the Throat (vexing, a spark kindled, a flame ignited, an ember brought back to life). Willingly defaulted, absconded in the stead of sand and dunes (he remembered the bloody battle, the shift in some flier’s leg, her, broken, crippled fall to earth – he’d do it all over again, crack and chisel demise into their spines, into their hearts, into their souls), and as he ruminated, clenched his jaw, and formed pathways to subversion, he realized he hadn’t responded at all. “Fine.” The blunt chord segmented off in a hissing tone, a token of the latter information (because Hotaru could spy and hunt and gather, but she’d also been apprehended and before, their children had been preyed upon as well). “It is fine.” He glared, not towards her, but in the direction of the seething horizon and the galvanized scenes, a coil of barbaric muscles boiling, brooding, brewing, uttering one more addition to the diatribe. “What do you need me to do?” Cold-blooded calculations swarmed through his mind, one measure from the next, yearning, itching, churning with the desire for mayhem, for disaster, for anarchy – and if she, someone he presumed peace-keeping and altruistic, granted him permission to unravel, to demolish, to ruin, he’d begin his sculpture of bedlam.

Death, you bring death, and destruction to all that you touch.

The only movement betraying his interest was a swivel, a twist, of his ears, captured and enticed by the first set of her words: prepare yourself and others for a show of force - it was all he’d ever craved, an anarchic rapture, a carnivorous reverie. The Reaper and his brethren could string and strand together potent disaster, pernicious assault, puissant sieges, the simmering, searing, seething predilection of all their faulted trials, all their demonic traces, all their infidel creeds and convictions. How many times were they to be thwarted, condemned, before the gavel fell and they were the swarming heathens once more, driven to onslaught, to terror, to horror and abominations, by the idiocy, by the foolhardiness, of others (like stolen babes, like absconded maidens – he remembered each and every time he guarded their children, and the moments where he couldn’t snag them fast enough). His indifferent mask held none of the zest, the zeal, the fervor, the feverish ardency driven and awakening in his bones, a kindled possession of ferocity, brutality, savagery, darkening the doors, tracing the thresholds, barbing the borders. It would take time, it would take hours and cycles and seasons to drum sense into soldiers, to stoke disorder and turbulence through innocence, to harpoon and holster the strands legacy and legend had granted, given them (was the third time the charm?). In a strange anomaly, the creature he thought would turn winsome smiles and lark crescendos, wrap tinsel and garland over their lands, sprinkle glitter and grandeur amidst tundra blossoms and ruin them through ineptitude, had been the one to grant him permission for condemnation. The Lord almost smirked, almost snickered, almost gave in to the satanic decadence; restored simultaneously from suspicion to triumph, slinking in his veins, in his poisonous, diligent vectors, in the humming, drumming void of persistent invocations – death granted his scythe all over again. But he said naught except for the blunt, hardened agreement, failed to twist his callous features into anything but their constant state of apathy, while he reeled, while he churned, while he burned inside. “Agreed.” Maybe this time they could show the world what crossing the Basin meant. They’d swallow and unearth, maul and destroy, pillage and plunder, until the earth felt icy, chilling catastrophe.

Death, you bring death, and destruction to all that you touch.

He could have laughed at her question: what enemies didn’t they have? Master instigators and agent provocateurs, sinned and sinned against, blistering foes and combining masses of theories, of cretins, of fiends and spies – a network, a convolution of heresy beneath furtive, specious interludes and innocent rites. Even when they didn’t press, when they didn’t grind, stab, or lance, others found them to be a deadly rapture, a heathenous reverie, and attempted in desperate throngs to contain their bloodied rule. His diatribes could have long and winded, from the days where they lost their home to the draconic witch and her peace-loving kind, to the hours stretching beyond measure where they took and stole, festered and withered in the frostbreath caverns, when they finally grasped hold of a home, and when inept empires stole their children and absconded through shadows. But it was the latest, the Regime he held close to the heart, close to the sword, close to swift, utter damnation; and the memories cloistered, tethered together in his mind and in his lungs, Arah and her babes snatched, tortured, terrorized, when he took one of the bestial members and committed the same actions (only his ended in quietus, and he’d watched as the life seeped and writhed away from the lad; enjoyed every single moment of it). Then Hotaru had seized the snake, the head, the asp of their little band, and the juncture had seemingly ended, toppled, with no sovereign, no ruler, to take its place. But now – with the latter snagged by the Throat, the cobra would be allowed freedom and liberation; a consternation brewing in his barbaric schemes. Only when the Forsaken offered to bludgeon his mind, sneak and corrode his memories, did he finally respond with reticence and indifference. There was no need to hide the recent plagues, the instruments bent on plaguing them, because in due time, another pestilence was sure to follow. Whether or not it would be in the same pattern, the matching, identical, sinuous design, would have to be determined. “No need.” His piercing eyes slid over the edges of their land, searching, seeking, remembering the shades of damnation and wondering if he could push more into it. “The more recent enemies were The Regime, led by Tyradon and Confutatis. They sought rule through violence and thievery – stole several of our own before Confutatis was captured by Hotaru.” The Reaper’s eyes narrowed a minute fraction, jaw clenched, tight and taut, rigid and unyielding. “Which means with Hotaru’s imprisonment, the Regime leader has been freed.” Brows furrowed, lips parting only to inform of allies, of attempts, of stitches sewn and divided, snagged. “We are at peace with the Edge. Efforts were made to include the Falls, but they declined.” And none had bent towards the sand, the dunes, the wild, flying abyss of the Throat.

Death, you bring death, and destruction to all that you touch.