He knew that look. He knew that tone. He knew who’d carved, sculpted, and born the girl before she even uttered the name.
 
The shame was overwhelming, bound and broken, whittling and thorned, hastening immediately to his chest, to his mind, to his skull. It slinked and slid, like a burden, like a snake, like the asp Psyche always had been; reminding him of all his brutal failures, of all his ridiculous flaws, mishaps, and faults, those imperfections he’d made as a soldier, as a fool, forcing their way to his soul. It crawled, vicious and scathing, contorting and unraveling, burrowing him deeper into the throngs, the fury, the ferocity of his errors – a brilliant, searing hot condemnation meant solely for him. He’d been too silent, too quiet, too immersed in his own nonchalance, in anger, in wrath to have ever defended her as she cast aside her throne, her crown, her titles – and then too late when she was gone, dead, murdered, and massacred. Standing at her funeral pyre, paying tribute to her burning body, hadn’t been enough atonement; he was all too aware that there was no salvation, no mercy, no clemency granted to an avaricious king, to a sovereign of the north who wanted the best for his kingdom but hadn’t seen that she’d been the best. He’d carried the weight, the burden, the notion of his predacious slander across his shoulders, along his back, for years, seasons, and it felt like a lifetime, pulling and tying, tethering his noose tighter and tighter until it didn’t matter anymore, until it was all the same choking, smothering notion. The monster hadn’t been enough for her, for anyone, for anything in those icy shackles and chains, and to face her daughter now, imperfect and dastardly, wicked and damned, seethed worse than her mother’s cold, chilling wrath.
 
The Reaper almost dropped his head, bent his knee, and proffered his sword to the darker dame, to the daughter of their once illustrious Empress. Instead, his reticent, nonchalant gaze, so full of fury and contempt moments before, melted and molded into a quiet reverence; piercing eyes examining, studying, meticulously grasping at what used to be – days of illustrious moments strung together by viper tendencies and overflowing vehemence. Maybe she could be his salvation now, maybe he could make amends for all the rotten, wretched things he’d done – and it wouldn’t change him, wouldn’t alter him, wouldn’t ascend him to heaven (not when he was already consigned to Hell, already Hades locked in his fiery crypt, sealed away without Persephone) – but he could give something back to Psyche, an opportunity he’d never granted her when she was alive. So, his voice shuddered, shook, quaked, and quivered, head lowered so he could stare at her fully, so they were sword to sword, and he see Psyche spitting at him between her eyes. He swallowed away the bile winding along his vocals, charring away at him, bit by bit, and at last he was only shards of gravel and disaster. “I am Deimos, Lord of the Basin, former General to Psyche.” Then he paused, as if the mere statement opened up all of his transgressions, all of his sins, before rendering his gaze solely upon the girl, and the girl alone. “What do you wish to know?”