A wealth of information rekindled the instigated statue of seething maelstroms and blistering, scorching abhorrence; like a flame, it drew towards the mouths of infernos, igniting, conspiring, unwinding bit-by-bit, ember-by-ember. The Forsaken arrived, galvanized by her own mishaps and experiences with the restless entrails of a wench who thought herself mastermind – perhaps her true art lain in provocation, because that’s all that seemed to transpire from her actions. A cycle of stupidity: resurgence, revelations, and revolution, a renewal of the bestial shades and the sinful masses, grinding and unfurling to the heathen immoralities and infidel infatuations, chasing down a skull-bearing woman who did naught but mock. Where they’d pressed against her in the genesis of malice he truly had no idea, but the hatred stuck, and it coiled, and it festered until the contemptuous wrath lurked and brewed in a steady cauldron of fire and brimstone. She’d pricked and plucked at the wrong empire, sought to bring her bones and armor into the heart of their ice, and even after she’d been taken into their glacial prison, seemed to yearn for it again. What was it that made lunatics tick? The fact the harpy had managed to breed again after he’d already wiped out one of her line caused the beast to almost roll his eyes in irritation; instead, a tick wore in his jaw, a press of annoyance, of agitation, building and grinding as his aversion and animosity built a steady crescendo. Ophelia had already given her a trial, to no avail it appeared, and now she drummed outside their gates like a lost idiot, begging for release into her brindled barbs of hell. He could give her what she wanted: demise, quietus, death, stabbing and lancing against her until she was nothing but skin and bone and blood, dying in the eaves of wintry boughs, where no one would mourn the loss of another fool. Discarded and forgotten, one more cretin put to condemnation for their insane wiles against a foe more powerful than themselves. He could nail cowardice into her spine and pin it through her skull, rake her bones over stones and rubble and ice, watch it settle and fall down prison ramparts. It was his turn, after all.

The piercing gaze, signifying Ophelia’s presence before turning towards Thranduil, landed upon the Thief with chilling indifference, already composed and eager for the fray. The latter couldn’t be obliged in his request, not while he fell over himself and clung to a tree for assistance and guidance – in truth, the glory and triumph should’ve been his to own, but his state left little appeal for vigilance and survival. The Reaper snorted, quirked a brow, and manifested a cold, dry endeavor. “I do not doubt your capability,” here he paused, fortifying the hard enamel of his precision, of his prowess, of his corporeal, tangible power, drowning and draining the ramparts. “However, your current state will prove ineffective.” He twisted back towards the Lady, a chiseled canvas of war and all its drums, all its bonds, all its blood, armor, and ferocity, proffering the mutinous, revolution chords he’d longed to utilize for so long. Like a conviction, like a promise, like a song of the destitute and an opus for the devil, awakened and unfolding, blistering and blinding, immorality sanctioned and justified: “I will do it.”