The Reaper didn’t thrive as a King. He wilted and stumbled, he faltered and failed, he whittled his endurance and hostility to bare bones and managed to triumph only through vigilance and acrimony, hatred and contempt. The savage beast, the monstrous Lord, only flourished under mutinous bouts of terror, of danger, of treachery, slinking and slithering beneath outcrops of darkness and vile, persistent anarchy. The eldritch abomination only succeeded under a reign of demolition and ruin, promising, assuring death and desecration, devastation and annihilation; he breathed ammunition and sedition, granted it like a hurricane, like a ghost, like a wraith, rapping his scythe against bark and branches, against fir and pine, against the endless, swarthy plumes of heresy. The brutal, barbaric titan only advanced when everything seemed against them – when determination carved a nettle, a spine, a barb, in the phantom tremors of his heart, when puissance sculpted a tempest, a storm, a terrifying, welcome manifestation of enmity, down into the reaches of his Mephistophelean soul.
 
That time was now.
 
Deimos reached out past the stones and rubble, past the chilling, turbulent winds, past the icy caverns and their memorized pathways, past mirrors that saw more than just reflections, rushing into the maddening world of Stygian pursuits and gloaming tirades. His steps were predatory, wicked things, striking against soil and earth, dust and limbs, bracken and broken, collapsed ideals, wreaking calamity as he marched against his failures, against his defects, against each and every flaw he seemed to possess. There were so many – haunting and gliding, dominating and masterful, weaving their way down into the vigilant contortions of his movements, so all anyone ever saw, ever heard, ever witnessed, were the chains of his imperfections (nonchalant and impassive, detached and isolated, as desolate as the rest of his body; Lucifer’s crowned masterpiece). His faults were eternal and never fleeting, presented in the spider web of scars or in the silent composition of his marble figure; a quiet, chilling opus, a bold, audacious weapon, a cold-blooded killer and monarch of mountains and snow. But here, here in the dusk, in the trees, in the hollowed thicket of merciless beings, he was just another one of the monsters, dim and brooding, stark and defiant, a heartless, remorseless foe eager to take the world on his shoulders again and again, for them. It was always for them.
 
He ceased abruptly at the sound of collisions – some weapon smacking against trees (a horn, a sword, a cutlass?), rushing through groves, crashing and intending to annihilate something, someone, and he stood to listen, breathe in the scent of another –
 
Thranduil. It sparked, incensed, rolled against his brain, his mind, his skull, like a machine, blistering and scorching, malicious and vicious. His first notion was an overwhelming, beseeching rage, curling and coiling, unfurling and unrolling, down into the lengths of his limbs and marrow, because he didn’t know where the other Lord had gone, disappeared, or run off to. He’d never been informed to the hows, the whens, the whys of his absence, just chosen to accept it as another one of their own snagged and tangled by something else entirely. It’d always been an endless pattern, and he’d thought Thranduil stronger than the pull, than the snare, of other things (that his avaricious greed had been enough to keep him on a throne, surrounded by crowns and gilded ambitions). But to know, to see that the Thief had remained, instead of explaining, instead of clarifying, irked, irritated, and exasperated the demon, the infidel, and he stepped forward into their training area, all prowess, all power, all domination and supremacy, head raised and subversive to the last. “Thranduil,” his voice uttered, untamed, leaning on a tether of either hatred or incomprehension, attempting to maintain composure (remembering the Forsaken, then the Clovenheart), gaze puncturing, piercing, menacing, clawing for truth beyond the aspirations. His stare fixated first on the golden beast himself, then the companion, and the marks across trees, the weapon in his grasp. “You have been busy.”

 
It was as if nothing had changed.
 
Thranduil was much the same – deceitful, shrewd, cunning, and audacious, sporting the flinty grin, the specious, rebellious sanction, the stance of duplicitous beings concocted from gilded underbellies and seedy inspirations. Deimos still had no fruition, notion, of what transpired between the cogs and whirls, the springs and schemes, the plots and miscreant, mischief notations of the golden stag’s mind; he was certain it was like a spider’s web, with silk forged from steel and ire, with trails and tremors leading down too many rabbit holes. He wondered how much of the dastardly smile was forced – out of spite, out of madness, out of cold-blooded wrath, while the Lord of the North still maintained his frosty, distant composure, away from stone and rubble, but remaining tied to the icy vapors, chilling winds, and remorseless deities of a world they once ruled together. Neither lowered their heads, neither channeled or funneled respect, bravado, or loyalties; perhaps more silent oaths to power, to prowess, to potential, one harboring more skill than the other – Thranduil with his wiles, Deimos with his war. The Reaper did not deign to bow his head to someone who would surely cut it, given half a chance, and maybe the gilded monster felt the same (rage would be enough, simmering, smoldering plumes of irritation, of exasperation, could tumble over the edge of the King’s control, and he’d be a violent tirade, a vicious tempest, again and again, the same vehement song of blood and disaster). The last moments he could remember with the other had been amidst one more ridiculous meeting, where he’d scolded everyone and everything, where he’d commanded and demanded so that someone was in control of the acrimonious tirades.
 
“Miss me?”
 
His first thoughts were instant: no. He didn’t miss the dramatics, the theatrics, the pull and ploys of a character at work, of a stage that always seemed polished, of scenes rendered and tugged from some other world. He didn’t miss the sinuous, serpentine deeds, so surreptitious, so clandestine, so conspiratorial, for his gains, instead of the herd’s. He didn’t miss the utter ridiculousness of some days, new enemies brimming and brewing because of foolish, inept, impulsive actions.
 
But there were some moments he wanted again, simply because Thranduil had mastered abilities the Reaper was lacking. Flawed, faulted, imperfect, scarred, and maimed, the monstrous infidel had always been inadequate in ways others were not (conversation, discourse, diatribes that went on endlessly and without issues was just one talent he’d never snagged). He didn’t have enchantments to hide him from the world, to disguise him as another (he’d always been Deimos the Reaper, known and feared, a shadow on the horizon, a savage cretin on the move, a hunter, a predator, eternally destined to roam with a scythe and a blackened, nefarious heart). He knew the loss of Thranduil had been a blow to the Basin’s credentials and skills in covert operations. The puncturing weight of his gaze landed solely upon the chiseled devil, with his snarky smiles and his Cheshire grins, features never altering, never faltering, from their nonchalant exposition. “Your skills, perhaps.” There, he tilted his head, study in motion, perusing and piercing over the slate of the other figure, checking for new scars, for intangible levels, for ways he could understand why he’d left when the world had seemed right at his daggers, right where he’d wanted it. “I was never told why you left.”

 
The abrupt transformation from the wiling, gilded fox, like a scavenger suddenly baring its wares, its abilities, almost made the Reaper laugh. He’d caught the predator in its own trap, somehow, someway, and while the notion was diverting, the ultimate reason behind it was what amused him all the more. Thranduil did not drop his mask frequently; he usually deigned to dance and prance his way around a masquerade, filling the void with mercurial temperament and annoying, grandiose gestures. But here, now, the beast had narrowed his eyes, drawn into speculation, into almost a quiet, unsung fury, and the King of the North studied him in turn, pondering over the brewing enigma. The Laurelin was not known for being rattled (he preferred his games, sneaking and cavorting), though Deimos had seen it for himself during the herd meeting, when the fiend had exploded in defense of his own character – and presently, something else had unhinged him, carved off the visor, veil, and disguise. While the monster hadn’t deliberately provoked the other, Thranduil was leaving himself wide-open, unguarded, tempestuous and spiraling, a creature cast aside by something undetermined.
 
The King’s machinations seared, scorched, and burned, etching and sketching over the fine, unspoken lines, the inaudible distinctions, and the notable distaste. Hotaru played a role – which didn’t surprise him, truthfully, because they’d all ruled and reigned together once; she’d always appeared to be an integral part between the pair of them when either hackles were raised or a crisis needed averting. They’d even been dual thieves, hiding in their cloaks and daggers, in their furtive, speculative traces, rooting away at secrets and taciturn encounters. He’d always presumed they were neutral, not distinct one way or another with each other, celebrating or boasting over latest triumphs without ill ease or immoral depths – perhaps he’d erred. Maybe there were more, entrenched, reticent notions he’d failed to notice, soulless, devoted scars shared between brethren.
 
He’d asked her about them once – when she’d shown up to another gathering, bearing nothing but blood and no answers, telling him he’d know later, trying to appease him from the protective, blackguard acrimony twisting in his soul, from annihilating the branches, brambles, and nettles of whatever had fallen to her. But the moment had passed by, he hadn’t queried her again, and she’d never been forthcoming. He’d allowed her another secret just as she permitted his. Is this what irritated the golden one – because somehow, someway, he wasn’t being given or granted the credit he was due? Deimos’ eyes narrowed again, scrutinizing and lacerating, deciding on which manner to attend to. He had an inclination to remind Thranduil that the world was never going to bestow or award him every emblem of service, every notable charity, every kind act he concocted – beasts were selfish, avaricious things, prone to forgetting who or what sheltered and protected them, expecting shields, armor, and sanctuary. Instead, he brandished the truth, intent on seeing the bestial outcome. “No,” his cold indulgences rattled, his nonchalant veneer wove. “Nothing at all.”

  The Lord was certain he’d underestimated something; ferocious and fierce, feral and fractious, sinking and simmering past the pelt, hide, and hair of Thranduil, seething and scathing until he seemed eager to leave. The beast betrayed his interest, his devilish, smoldering curiosity with a quirk of his brow, forgoing detachment for the greater need of intrigue and defiance. Thranduil was partial to ostentatious bouts, but lacquered in all his ruffian fury, the Reaper didn’t believe this was a canned performance (besides, Deimos would’ve been a poor audience member). Any and all revelations were attuned to the cold, hard silence, and the demon waited, as he often did, for an ax to fall, for a weight to shift, for a movement or assault, a siege or assailment that didn’t come. Thranduil, instead, nearly left, crackling and fuming, pervading the darkened forest with the stature of his restlessness, and the King had no urgency to follow, only granted a bestowal as the gilded Laurelin shifted back, forced to find whatever words, whatever memory, stirring him into action.
 
Following into his predacious, carnivorous pattern, the infidel listened. His ears twisted as Thranduil delved into the tale he’d wanted to hear, but never asked for again (because some moments were collected and stored for the wounded, the terrorized, the haunted). A protective, exasperated pull of his flesh and bone coiled and curled on instinct, on the retelling of Hotaru (he scoffed at the notion of her ever being helpless) and a monster from her past (and why hadn’t she come to find him, because surely the demon would have persecuted, annihilated, corrupted, and consigned whomever dared to touch one of his own to oblivion, to death, to those final, barbaric moments where all they’d remember was the sound of their last gurgling breaths?). The curiosity wove itself deeper and deeper as Thranduil continued, as he painted the images of tigers, of a morphing golden steed, pretending and setting up his pretenses, his acts, blood prices paid and dealt, furnished and finalized, no more traces left in the dust and sand. Then, he’d healed, and never returned – and the line made no sense to him, because there was no preventing the dual King from his former stature. A beast had been felled, a haunting poignancy had been conquered, the ripple in the current ceased. “Yet, you did not come back.” The Basin had excellent healers. He couldn’t fathom a worthy excuse.
 
Thereafter though, Thranduil dealt his own blow: a question spiraling into the abyss, locked and loaded, transfixing the bestial fiend’s features to stare back at the chasm of gold and leonine possessions. It spoke to him of sentiments that ran deeper than mere connections as ruler and leaders, proffering, bestowing, evidence of a weakness bubbling and brewing through the Laurelin’s dastardly shades and crooked cloaks. The other beast had handed him a weapon. He could have been cruel and vindictive, speaking at length of the last time he’d seen her, barrel rounded and filled with a child (Ashamin’s, he’d been led to believe). The power, the notion, was resting right there in front of him, dangling like a snare, and if he pulled it, tugged at it, he’d have the gaping, open wound Thranduil might have always deserved.
 
Perhaps he had changed in all those years of erosion and despair. Maybe he’d learned from cherishing and loving Huyana, then watching her slip away time and time again, incapable of following her to the ends of the earth. Or he truly didn’t believe Thranduil merited such a stinging laceration to his nefarious heart – if Hotaru wished him to know, it would come from her mouth, and not the Reaper’s. “She is well,” was all he said.