The acrimonious anchor was hauled away, and in its place was the soulless soldier who’d wandered from the shadows of Isilme into the fog of the World’s Edge, sails sleek and refined in surrender. He’d once stolen across fringes and edges, as if he’d been born to it, as if he’d been measured and found barbaric, twisted, and annihilated enough for the vehement disciples of Mauja and his legions; promising death and desecration, glory and abominations; and he’d been right all along. He watched her demand beneath the cloak of her mother’s ashes, and he gave in readily to her, wondering if the thorns, the virtues, of redemption were ever allowed to flow into his veins, or if it was all too little, too late – forced to wander more and more halls on the pathway to Hell, without Huyana, without rain, without sun. The beast’s features were cast away into their fine stone and rubble, like marble tarnished in inky textures, one of Lucifer’s finest masterpieces brought to wreckage and ruin – where he’d always been destined to falter, to skid, to crawl. The Lord’s eyes briefly wandered to his son’s, so much like his mother’s that his heart clenched and his jaw tightened, nodding as the boy threw him a lifeline, where to start, where to begin. The depths of his stare swindled to the girl all over again, her expectant ardency, the glowering tribulations, the bitterness, the rancor, she must have held for him because of what he’d done. It was odd, to even think that he cared what she thought, for he’d always been lacquered into indifference, into nonchalance, into cold-hearted reticence – it was easier when the earth died beneath one’s feet to simply cease bothering with anyone and anything. But this error had gone on for too long, this mercurial mauling, this indignity and iniquity was a sin he’d never enjoyed; he’d taken its throne, its crown, but they’d never formed to his skull, to his figure, properly. The King had been born into too much devastation to ever rule without imperfection – and it had started from the moment the title passed to his name. “We started at the World’s Edge, where Mauja reigned,” he began, coaxing the memories back to the forefront, curled and coiled between his curt speech and his roughened vocals, pressing to the youth as his eyes failed to leave hers.
 
“Weeks after I joined, we were invaded by an Outcast group called the Qian, led by Mirage. They were allied with the Dragon’s Throat.” The history crawled through his membrane, and he could remember the sights, the sounds, the glory, the triumph, of the battlefield, hastening to his chest, to his soul, to every ounce of nefarious demon beckoning inside his predacious decadence. “We fought, but we were outnumbered. We lost the herd, and became Outcasts.” His brow furrowed, just a slight hint of the disappointment, of the defeat, that still haunted him every time he roamed close and within the misty depths; as if there’d been a moment where they could have turned the tide. “I did not know your mother well then, but she and several others took us into the Frostbreath Steppe, where we lived as refugees.” He negated words of the Plague; that had been a defining moment worth celebrating in the company of those who still hated, still believed, and it was so far gone, so past its prime, that he didn’t give praise to its group. Psyche’s true furtive coils would remain a secret. “Psyche inspired us to fight back. There, we plotted and schemed, scavenged and pillaged. We stole from other herds. We irritated the masses.” It had been something worth living for, in those feral, spiteful moments, where all they’d wanted to do was bludgeon and annihilate, find satisfaction and contentment in knowing they could conquer something.
 
He could still recall when Psyche had seen his capabilities, when she’d peered at the white Pegasus Queen, Svetlana, and in the measures of silence he’d known the quiet, unholy depths of praise.
 
Had anyone looked at him that way since?
 
Deimos paused then, glanced off towards the horizon, where the mountains rose, where the valleys fell, where there group of fallen comrades and begrudging brethren had come together, altered, changed for the better. “Eventually, the Time God thought to reward us with land. Your mother led us here, to the Aurora Basin.”
 
And that was only the beginning.