Entangled and fixated on bits of enigmas and traces of inquiry (without death, without bloodshed, without persecution), he was allotted the carved ramparts of silence and intrigue, gazing back and forth from familiar to strange and unknown. He thought to give the boy a series of questions, dive past the layers of menace and wreckage and peer into the foundation of so many things: how is your father? Have you seen him? Do you know, some days, I actually miss your mother? But the words never came across, and he lowered his eyes, almost ashamed he couldn’t bring them to voice or speech – held back, tethered, tied by something unseen and intangible, as if the lost connections made him weaker, noted his faults and flaws, wove each and every defect so they became all the more prominent. He held onto many fixed lines and puncturing arches and demonstrative, devilish components, and to whittle away the fabrications, to peek behind the veil, to allow them to witness how far he’d truly fallen, was too much for his antagonistic prowess. So, instead of leaning into the fold, of becoming part of the chain between herd members and their ensnaring, guileless qualities, he stayed away, he backed off, he lingered in shadows and caves and catacombs; but afforded the boy the smallest of compassionate gestures, a fatherly nod, a hint of a smile, a ghost of the days spent with his sire’s engineering, tinkering sounds, a wraith of moments spent with his dam’s tireless lectures and banshee wails. “Thank you for your efforts,” was all that pulsed from his mouth, bestowing so many things in between: congratulations on finding his way back home, on becoming part of the ice and rime again, at still being a close companion to his son (a boy fashioned with so much rain that he had no issues grinning or reminding others of his existence), at doing his part in making the Basin strong, and potent. The Reaper knew he’d never given enough credit to the lad’s family, he couldn’t fill the hole, the void, left and resonating – but he tried, determined and resolute.
 
To the other, a femme coated in so many foreign interludes, he expressed his undying curiosity – a scalding fixture of his youth he’d never managed to erase. Ming Yue, from the Rift already presented a series of queries boiling and brewing amidst his skull, and maybe he’d been tucked into his caverns and glaciers for too long, because he didn’t recognize the strange, serene way she told of her land. Tilting his head, examining, studying, scrutinizing amidst veils and shrouds, the beast highlighted his ignorance, but proffered his potency and prowess. “Please enlighten me – what is the Rift?” Was it like his old home, Isilme, scattered and polished with the beauty of the ocean? Was it like his terrain thereafter, the World’s Edge, pervaded by mist and poignancy, haunting diatribes, menacing, lasting contempt? Before he could delve even further into the annals of probability and calculations, the searing taste of more queries funneled past his lips and out into the plucked, scattered, Birdsong edges. “What do you seek in the Basin?” Was there purpose to her wandering? Did she hold talent, or regards, towards anything in particular? Or had she come to be another of the Romani, listless, pondering, and only suited to wondering?