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02-20-2016, 10:25 AM
The Reaper could’ve spent hours amidst the winter edges and smoldering vehemence, strayed and adrift, brooding and brewing, calculating and devising. The desolation, the forlornness, was comfortable, safe, and familiar (and sometimes bitterly pathetic, wrenching whatever dredges of his heart still left beating in his vile chest). He could assail the world with dreaded touches and devastating strokes, but alone, without company, without others flocking at his beck and call, no ruin, no devastation, and no desecration could befall those he considered brethren.
But the hands changed, altered, morphed from isolation into confusion and befuddlement. For one moment, he was beside the lake, staring at the outcrops of chilling ardor, and the next, there was a child near him, winged and greeting. The narrowed glimpse of his stare took her in, painted and cloaked in feathers and plumage, fox companion in tow, and not a horn to be seen on her brow. No sword. No cutlass. No rapier. Not even a stub, an inkling of slow growth and precision.
His first thoughts were that perhaps he was hallucinating. They’d had several winged cretins within their midst, but all of them still carried a useful object along their crowns: dastardly blades, cutting antlers, and smoldering sabers. But this child had naught to be seen – and he wondered who on earth thought it’d be a grand scheme to allow this girl into their realm with nothing, nothing at all, to ward herself against the demonic beasts of the Basin. Hadn’t she known? Hadn’t she heard? Didn’t she understand that they were all bonded by blood, by disaster, by ruin, and they cherished it, lavished it, lacquered it to those treacherous foils extended into the sky, into enemies, into battles? He didn’t grant her the same nervous, twittering smile, the same shaky greetings – instead, all he could surmount from his mouth was the grasping, snarling query emboldening his mind. “Why are you here?”
And then another crossed into their midst – like foreign objects wandering in from nowhere – because he’d never seen any of these creatures (and how could that be, when he strove and dove through pathways and cliffs and icy shoals just as frequently as the rest of them?). She stood close to the filly, perhaps knowingly protecting her from the treacherous sway of their world, or maybe simply understanding his intimidating, overwhelming fixture (then why approach at all?). She didn’t even know who he was. His stare swept to her, a crafter, doomed to Johnny’s strange ministrations, and his lips parted again, attempting to delve into the odd situation. “Deimos, Lord of the Basin.”
More, more float across the snowy grounds as if heralded by a beacon (and surely it couldn’t be him – he always cast individuals away, and those who stayed, strayed, by his side were either patient or strong-willed to endure the unwinding calamity, the stiff, taut notions, the inability to do anything but listen and destroy). Ki’irha, all stars and strength, pinpointed his gaze from the peculiar filly (to which he could naught – not with so many eyes upon them, not with so many conflicts brewing and simmering below the surface), but he administered his salutations there as well, bowing his head in a familiar gesture. “Corporal.”
Even Ming Yue, all mysterious and enigmatic, all vibrant hues and collisions from the Rift - he still felt as if he knew nothing about that world – floated in, and he was stuck, strangled, and tethered to this menagerie of souls longing for his attention, for his discourse. “You are welcome,” he said to her, baffled and perplexed all the same at the amount of figures seeking his fixation. Some were menacing, some were sad, some were there out of simple curiosity. The demon was overwhelmed, plotting out an escape path by shadow and disaster, thinking perhaps to glance over at Ki’irha and see if she’d be willing to aid him in his plan, but thought better of it a moment later.
Did they want something from him? Did they need assurances, security, or measures he couldn’t quite comprehend?
He thought of his sire and the ways he’d told him to become a great leader – to love his people. But it was difficult to love, to cherish anything he didn’t know, didn’t grasp, didn’t understand – he dug his soul and buried it into the icy earth, but he hadn’t done the same for his patriots. He lowered his eyes then, perhaps a bit ashamed of his actions, of being the statue of vigilance but not the pride, not the esteemed, grand King they deserved. The beast clenched his jaw, attempted to ponder over the ways in which he could make amends for his ridiculous errors, for the same flaws he depicted and sketched over and over again.
But what could he do?
Then, it came to him, on a spark of knowledge, on a realm of sagacity. He’d been here for years, first a ghost of spectral ruin, a phantom of wreckage and havoc, and then their sovereign, wiling away on thrones and pathways – and he knew the history, knew the stories, knew how they’d come to be. But how many of them understood the lengths, the trials, the tribulations of how they’d founded their empire? The beast could tell them. He could inspire them. He could weave dedication and influence from the toils he’d experienced ages before.
A smile, real and genuine, small and hidden, tucked along his lips. It disappeared almost immediately thereafter, as his words melded their way into the fold, into the blooming crowd nestled at his daggers. The address was made to all of them, likely to launch a thousand stares. “What do you know about the Basin?” Perhaps the question would seem perplexing and distorted, reaching out to snag and snarl, disjointed from earlier proclamations – but he wanted to see, to visualize, what they knew of their home. How far would they go to save it, if they simply resided there, day in and day out, merely glancing at snow and rubble? How much would they cherish it if they remained completely, wholly ignorant of the people who clawed and scratched and maimed their way to ensuring the empire existed?
[Impending history lesson for those who requested it. Feel free to join! ;D]
But the hands changed, altered, morphed from isolation into confusion and befuddlement. For one moment, he was beside the lake, staring at the outcrops of chilling ardor, and the next, there was a child near him, winged and greeting. The narrowed glimpse of his stare took her in, painted and cloaked in feathers and plumage, fox companion in tow, and not a horn to be seen on her brow. No sword. No cutlass. No rapier. Not even a stub, an inkling of slow growth and precision.
His first thoughts were that perhaps he was hallucinating. They’d had several winged cretins within their midst, but all of them still carried a useful object along their crowns: dastardly blades, cutting antlers, and smoldering sabers. But this child had naught to be seen – and he wondered who on earth thought it’d be a grand scheme to allow this girl into their realm with nothing, nothing at all, to ward herself against the demonic beasts of the Basin. Hadn’t she known? Hadn’t she heard? Didn’t she understand that they were all bonded by blood, by disaster, by ruin, and they cherished it, lavished it, lacquered it to those treacherous foils extended into the sky, into enemies, into battles? He didn’t grant her the same nervous, twittering smile, the same shaky greetings – instead, all he could surmount from his mouth was the grasping, snarling query emboldening his mind. “Why are you here?”
And then another crossed into their midst – like foreign objects wandering in from nowhere – because he’d never seen any of these creatures (and how could that be, when he strove and dove through pathways and cliffs and icy shoals just as frequently as the rest of them?). She stood close to the filly, perhaps knowingly protecting her from the treacherous sway of their world, or maybe simply understanding his intimidating, overwhelming fixture (then why approach at all?). She didn’t even know who he was. His stare swept to her, a crafter, doomed to Johnny’s strange ministrations, and his lips parted again, attempting to delve into the odd situation. “Deimos, Lord of the Basin.”
More, more float across the snowy grounds as if heralded by a beacon (and surely it couldn’t be him – he always cast individuals away, and those who stayed, strayed, by his side were either patient or strong-willed to endure the unwinding calamity, the stiff, taut notions, the inability to do anything but listen and destroy). Ki’irha, all stars and strength, pinpointed his gaze from the peculiar filly (to which he could naught – not with so many eyes upon them, not with so many conflicts brewing and simmering below the surface), but he administered his salutations there as well, bowing his head in a familiar gesture. “Corporal.”
Even Ming Yue, all mysterious and enigmatic, all vibrant hues and collisions from the Rift - he still felt as if he knew nothing about that world – floated in, and he was stuck, strangled, and tethered to this menagerie of souls longing for his attention, for his discourse. “You are welcome,” he said to her, baffled and perplexed all the same at the amount of figures seeking his fixation. Some were menacing, some were sad, some were there out of simple curiosity. The demon was overwhelmed, plotting out an escape path by shadow and disaster, thinking perhaps to glance over at Ki’irha and see if she’d be willing to aid him in his plan, but thought better of it a moment later.
Did they want something from him? Did they need assurances, security, or measures he couldn’t quite comprehend?
He thought of his sire and the ways he’d told him to become a great leader – to love his people. But it was difficult to love, to cherish anything he didn’t know, didn’t grasp, didn’t understand – he dug his soul and buried it into the icy earth, but he hadn’t done the same for his patriots. He lowered his eyes then, perhaps a bit ashamed of his actions, of being the statue of vigilance but not the pride, not the esteemed, grand King they deserved. The beast clenched his jaw, attempted to ponder over the ways in which he could make amends for his ridiculous errors, for the same flaws he depicted and sketched over and over again.
But what could he do?
Then, it came to him, on a spark of knowledge, on a realm of sagacity. He’d been here for years, first a ghost of spectral ruin, a phantom of wreckage and havoc, and then their sovereign, wiling away on thrones and pathways – and he knew the history, knew the stories, knew how they’d come to be. But how many of them understood the lengths, the trials, the tribulations of how they’d founded their empire? The beast could tell them. He could inspire them. He could weave dedication and influence from the toils he’d experienced ages before.
A smile, real and genuine, small and hidden, tucked along his lips. It disappeared almost immediately thereafter, as his words melded their way into the fold, into the blooming crowd nestled at his daggers. The address was made to all of them, likely to launch a thousand stares. “What do you know about the Basin?” Perhaps the question would seem perplexing and distorted, reaching out to snag and snarl, disjointed from earlier proclamations – but he wanted to see, to visualize, what they knew of their home. How far would they go to save it, if they simply resided there, day in and day out, merely glancing at snow and rubble? How much would they cherish it if they remained completely, wholly ignorant of the people who clawed and scratched and maimed their way to ensuring the empire existed?
[Impending history lesson for those who requested it. Feel free to join! ;D]
Death, you bring death, and destruction to all that you touch.
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@Zahra @Eldala @Ming Yue @Ki'irha
