Moving stone, nefarious, maneuvering licentiousness brooded and demanded, curled, coiled, tore across open lands in pursuit of everything and nothing all at once. There were moments in his enigmatic depravity where he’d craved intuition, a moment of inspiration to strike him down and tell him what he should be doing – more than just wandering and patrolling, more than just grumbling and hunting, more than just perceiving where the next threat lurked and where the next blow would be harpooned (deep into his chest, next to that blackened, decrepit piece of his heart? Along the roots and funnels and marrow of his blood, poisoned and vexatious, vehement and violent?). They needed to be more, he needed to be more, and despite his wicked allure, despite his deadly enchantments, despite all the ferocious unwinding of his brutality, of his force, of his avid, rapier determination, naught came to him.
 
Instead, he was haunted by his own failures.
 
They traveled with him like ghosts, one on each ear, bending and whispering in his skull. They detailed each and every defect he carried, numerous and spiraling, ghoulish and triumphant, like the most grotesque and ravenous of scavengers. His father’s words echoed from time to time, but they couldn’t pull past the demonic throngs of a deplorable, horrible beast, and he listened to each and every sin he’d manifested – too many to name. When they were done they started again, laughing at the memories of all his wasted time and efforts, mocking and snickering and smirking until he thought he’d had his fill of penance, and he could stare over the deepening, green valleys and pretend he’d done something grand in his time here. Then they’d start once more, renewing their own cycle, one by one, claw by claw, cutlass by cutlass, and his impassive features would be rendered into something else.
 
It was hard to name. When they spoke of Huyana, it was shame, it was desperation, it was longing, looking out to the clouds for rain he could drown beneath. When they spoke of the Forsaken, it was humiliation and defeat. When they spoke of the GildedBlade, it was disaster and ruin. Everything began to blur together after that, and he fixed nonchalance back upon his face so no one else could see the truth, the accuracy, of the abomination he’d become.
 
Deimos’ eyes fixed on Ashamin, in the distance, gathering his deer for whatever journey lay ahead. The King’s first instinct was to flee, back into rubble, back into mist, back into ruin because it was easy, it was expected; that was the way he’d always been. He didn’t want to see their disappointment. He didn’t want them to see his disappointment. Instead, though, he wandered down into the thicket, into the parcels of Birdsong wares, steeling himself for whatever laid ahead. “Ashamin,” he called, bending his head and lifting it back into place, like he wasn’t the worst Lord they’d ever had, like he hadn’t been aligned into assortments of nothingness for longer than he could ever remember. “What are you doing?” What were any of them doing?

  He stared his most recent failure in the face.
 
The words and world spiraled against him all at once, a complex, woven art of facts and figures he hadn’t seen, despite all his calculations, despite all his machinations, despite every ounce he’d given to the land and what he believed he’d given to his herd. His guard was up, armor encrusted between layers of stoicism and apathy and nonchalance, woven over his bones so no one saw how deeply the art of desolation crept, the moment Ashamin spoke: I’m glad to see you. No one was ever glad to see him, the executioner, the scythe, The Reaper, nestled in his statuesque depravity; they always looked away or stared or shuddered, they always ignored or tore or stole. He said nothing as the painted Haruspex and the Queen embraced, an entanglement Deimos had never perceived, never known, never thought about because it’d been none of his concern or business, because he watched the world through war and famine and persecution instead of love and empathy. He understood nothing at all – his mind was a network of spider webs, intricate designs, plots meant to fold, methods meant to hurt, but he suddenly felt very lost, very adrift, out in the deep ocean or fumbling, bumbling, sinking between waves, incapable of comprehending the strange cultivation of loss brimming over their surface.
 
Leaving now, no fault of yours…
 
The phrases and syllables slipped together, devouring the inner columns of his nefarious soul, arching and defiant, sweeping and ridiculous. His first instinct, after everything aligned, after everything crossed over, was pure, utter rage – simmering and slinking along his marrow and intertwining through his heart, until all he could feel, all he could taste, was the desecration of their loss. Time and time again beasts left, fled, the confines of their home, of their mountains, of their promises and oaths and assurances, like it was so easy, like it meant nothing, even after they’d spent hours and days and seasons enduring the harsh snow and unrelenting savagery. They pledged dedication, then found something else, while he stayed, while he never strayed, while he basked in naught but snow and loyalty, when hardly anyone around him could understand what that damned word meant. The monster wanted to hurl bitterness and rancor through his chest, through his vocals, through his keen, blasted sword, so he wouldn’t have to face the irony of everything all over again – because no matter how hard he tried, nothing mattered. Even Ashamin, whom he’d thought would forever bask in the glory of the asinine Spark God, whom he’d thought would fuel fires in the Basin caverns for eons, saw how little the Lord mattered, saw how little the summits gleamed, saw the embers dying, flickering, withering amidst the midnight oil. Anger rolled along his teeth and tongue, but then he sighed, and it disappeared, like smoke, like fumes, against the frigid air.
 
It would always be his fault.
 
He remembered Ophelia – the vicious way they’d parted, the avaricious gleam of wrath, the contemptuous peeling of layers and failures and ineffectual nature – and he was too tired to go through all of it again.
 
The King’s penetrating gaze folded back and forth on the Queen’s swollen belly and Ashamin’s pleading refrain, as if he was to grant mercy from all this. He was the least forgiving, lenient, or gracious beast there – but perhaps he owed it to them, to the Haruspex, to the painted one he’d have to call a stranger – even when no one bestowed it upon him. “You will have our loyalty. Your skills were a great impact to this herd,” the notions lingered through his rough tones, and he waited for someone to run him through so he didn’t have to stay and watch his defects continue to pile up, one by one, until they consumed him whole. “They will not be forgotten.”