He waited again, a portion of the mountain, a piece of mortal flesh woven into death threads and quietus notes, as she listened, as she took in the genesis of their actions. The beast wasn’t sure to expect anymore – she seemed to tolerate it all, take the notions and information in stride, and the tense bridge he’d built around his throat loosened, presuming her noose would come in time to strangle his meaningless endeavors and pursuits. History had unfolded in such cycles and patterns, series and sequences, seasons cavorting and entangling with demonic intervals and persistent waves; vengeance would be sought year after year, for one reason or another. Before the monster could grant her the next chapter, however, she sparked, sizzled, over a particular line – perhaps proud, glad, to hear of her mother’s involvement and plotting with the god of their realm. “Yes,” he granted in his solemn reverie, in answering anything she asked of him, in passing one legend to another; shaping and shifting, sculpting and refining, the last bits and pieces he could hold together. “She did.” However much more than that, he couldn’t say – he only ventured to speak to their deity in times of trouble, trial, or tribulation, or amidst the clamor of a Haruspex. Did she want to know the celestial being too, and all his rancor, all his defiance, all those chords of power? The Reaper’s eyes glanced along his son, because the boy had started that tide of curiosity, had allowed it to flow, and the Lord could understand it, could comprehend the notion of seeking out omniscient creatures and cretins, immortals who could stand and wallow, puncture and devastate – but he’d seen others of their ilk fall too, down in the valleys of the newfound lands. They’d been bones, skeletons, lifeless just like the rest of the mere peasants, and he wondered if any God should be revered, if they could be so easily torn apart. He’d let them decide where they stood amongst the stars, the heavens, and hell – if either child would fixate their loyalty to one element or beast, if they would bow their heads to sparks, to flames, to darkness, or to the earth.
 
The girl’s next query snapped him out of his ruminations, and he peered at her again, staring at the set of Psyche wiles and inquiries, brow forming a slight arch as he rumbled over the lacquer of his response. It’d been a similar question he’d asked himself in the days that followed – in between the bitter, acrid taste of blood on his tongue and wounds stitching back together – if they could have succeeded without the Throat’s interference. “It is difficult to say,” he finally surmised, nodded, because they’d been a collection of brambles, of thorns, of experienced and green alike, thrown together by the loyalty of skies, seas, and cliffs, a cloak of mist dappled across their skin, a fog boiling along their schemes and ambitions. “Some had never battled before. Some had seen many wars.” His voice paused in its chiseling grain, plucking over the seams of the caves, memories clogged and clouded over, back in the moments of bloodshed and fury, where the dais of battle drummed like a familiar song, ghoulish and gruesome, maddening and reverential. “And some were lost.” The weight of his gaze went back to her, away from the rush, from the peak, of restless spirits and demons, infidels, not thought of in a millennia (the beast of Mauja’s, he could remember now, devoted, like a dog). Deimos’s vocals reigned again, fire and ash, embers and soot, cinders and darkness, tilting his head, affording and proffering her the next direction. “Would you like to hear more?”