The monster failed to react to the lashing of Thranduil’s tongue; the other’s anger slanted off his unattainable nonchalance, more interested in the story behind the rage. He fed off of wrath and indignation, devoured and consumed the molten aspects of ire and outrage, conspired through its infernal brew. The fact that the Thief’s lack of composure was of his own doing only caused a slight bristle, as if the Thief was suddenly wasting the Reaper’s time, and the notion to wander off back into the folds of darkness was a tempting reel – damning the benefits of his stoked barbarity. He wasn’t worried about this Cetan or Thor, if the brigand was obliged to battle for his goods or for his actions, the concern wouldn’t whittle its way into his notions; it was the second set of statements ensuring he would not take leave. They crossed and mired, sprang and collided, in the chaotic, bedlam enterprise of his mind, carved and sculpted amidst the Machiavellian, Mephistophelean preludes to a flame: he knew much about the aforementioned harpy. The name had ground and festered its way through their lands seasons before, bewitching and beguiling in its withering power, tempting and damning, awaiting constant persecution. She’d stolen children, absconded with Arah and her brood, had contemplated gaining access to their home via Illynx, had pierced their glacial fortress with talk of Regimes and empires – and they’d responded. He remembered the rage courting his frame, licking over the icy tendrils of his loathing, of his abhorrence, and it all seemed to combine and contort over and over again, like the day he’d massacred her son after he spilled each and every secret he could muster. Was it destined to happen all over again, with the grand skull-woman raising her head from the doldrums, from the throes, of her ruins? Did she seek destruction by their hands once more (he’d gladly bestow it upon her, thrust his rapier through her chest, across her nape, down the length of her carcass until she was just blood and bones)? The mention of her name caused his jaw to clench, his irritation to spike, cleverly invoked and conspiring, decadent and callous in its immoral grasp. His gaze narrowed to a dangerous, treacherous threshold, a menacing, malicious credence, granting abhorrence in the godless, acrimonious onslaught – voice granting all the information he held on the wench who yearned to rot in their halls. “Enough – she targeted us once before. While running her outcast band, the Regime, she abducted Arah and her children. They managed to escape, and we eventually stole Confutatis and her son.” He said nothing of the scion’s fate, of his bones lying beneath snow, of his frame withered and decayed, fading into naught, left and discarded. “She escaped when Hotaru, her captor, was stolen by the Throat.” The slightest sigh escaped his mouth, as if the irritation would only spread again at her resurgence – but then the rage fastened and took hold, sparked and spread through his structure, devilish hands tending and fueling the fires, building, blistering, scorching. If she didn't want to go away, to flee back into her burrows and warrens, they'd send her there. “It seems we need to teach her one more lesson.”