He was always wanting.
 
It was a necessity in his mind, a Machiavellian stream, torrent, deluge, of cravings, aspirations, and ambitions. It breathed familiarity amidst the blood and barbarity, it crooned comprehension in the unwavering press of his determination, it steered him across the endless rubble and ruin, and it coiled within his charred heart when everything seemed for naught. He wanted his herd to thrive. He wanted his empire to be mighty, strong, and bold. He wanted his kingdom to be feared – for the words, the herald, the christening of the Basin to be a shudder in another’s limbs. Hadn’t there been days when their wicked tempers flashed, flared, and the rest of the sovereign had held their breath, waited to see what chaos, what horror, what beastly, savage methods they’d chisel into the void next? He wanted the world to see what they truly were.
 
The Lord wondered if this was a test – one of patience, diligence, or simple, manifested persistence.
 
But time always put a notch in his plans; swirled and swarmed, laughed and chortled, reckoned and wrote another pact with the devil that he hadn’t seen, hadn’t touched, hadn’t known. It whittled away at his constituents, drove them back into alleys of shadows and cloaks. It pieced together weakness instead of strength, led to sedition instead of unity, cut slivers and fragments off of their stronghold, until when he finally looked over his reign, his borders, his terrain, nothing was to be found. He’d let everything slip away, out of his grasp, out of his path, out of his prowess, power, and distinction, because he hadn’t been enough. The Reaper left the realm wanting too.
 
There was no give and take, only reality; harsh, brutal, slashing and cutting, a scythe held against his throat as he drove against onslaughts and terror, poignant, haunting spells and wild invocations, as he dove into midnight oils and tempting vows, but nothing seemed to change. The days still passed, empty and abandoned, the lands still seemed vacant, desolate and forlorn. They even seemed to maintain the shape of his blasted, damned essence: stark, grim, dismal.
 
But he was too wild, too savage, too untamed, too much like his father to give in. His blood was fire, stone, might, will, and desecration, and he’d never allow them to sink deeper into the mire without tumbling down headfirst. There was history here, there were stories and legends and pieces lined, and if they could just get them coordinated, get them to fit together, they could reign, supreme, dominant, masters of cunning and violence, upheaval and distortion, triumphant and glorious.
 
Deimos’ gaze rested on the Sentinels; more fragments and slivers falling apart, breaking away, colliding with ice and snow. The Engineer had never come to claim his metal, and so there they stood, a fickle, mercurial reminder of power they once held, of crafts and abilities they once knew, of great things that had been done in another time, another place, when his ridiculous figure didn’t inhabit the throne. He stood guard with them, yards away, blinking into the steadfast wind and the sculpted mountains, waiting for some moment to spirit him back into the present, gone from the brooding fixtures of his failures and imperfections (everyone knew; they were all over his features, his movements, his motions, a walking contortion of flaws and disasters). Morning came, dawn drawn over his physique, and he wore it without a thought, pressed into the stone and rubble, jaw clenched, world torn apart before his eyes; before his stare fixated on another.
 
Rhiannon, gone and back again – the same old story, the same old tale. The fact that she returned always made him all the more grateful to see her – at least she obliged her oaths, months, decades, eons later, by wandering back into the cold kingdom, instead of reaching past loyalties, gesturing towards newfound faiths and dedications. The beast waited, lingering for a few moments, merely watching as she seemed to fall into old habits, patrolling, despite a change in rank. He was silent, vigilant over the vigilant, before maneuvering towards her, the wayfaring tempest, the barbaric, twisted King of the North), a Mephistophelean shadow only hastened by patterns and traditions. “Rhiannon,” he began, coaxing the gravel of his vocals to rise over the horizon, blunt and keen, sharp. “Where have you been?” His brow arched, genuinely curious, because while he stayed, while he strayed, while he forged empires and alliances, he wondered where all of them went. 

There were clockwork patterns whittled and sculpted, carved and sketched, over mountainous foundations and rocky caverns; he was nearly certain. They repeated in the same way, scattering proclaimed loyalists to seas and tides, to valleys and clearings, to groves and catacombs, branching and falling away from the icy pinnacles, from the rime peaks, from the glacial expanse that had welcomed them with open, demonic arms. He never quite understood the call – he’d never heard the siren wails against his ears, he’d never heard the haunting, poignant reach of another world heralding his name. He’d always stayed until he couldn’t anymore. The Reaper had been from Isilme, and it had shattered, became mired in shadow, so he resumed his soldier prowess into the Edge, and when they lost, when they were forced away from their cliffs and fog, mist and secrets, he lived like a refugee with the rest of their voided hearts. Once they had the Basin though, he planted his roots, he fixated his stone, he tarnished his rubble and ruin only for the desecration of snow and northern expansion, breathing in the frigid air and becoming part of winter itself, a maneuvering Hades never chasing after Persephone (even when she journeyed on without him, even when he’d felt her love and wanted more, and she never turned back to beseech him again). The monster stayed because it was home, because it was shelter, because it was sanctuary from everything and everyone – it was desolation and comfort, isolation and beauty, danger and treachery lanced and laced through every corridor – it was him and what he wanted to be, what he craved, what he desired. And sometimes, deep in the remorseless marrow of his soul, it hurt when others couldn’t see, couldn’t feel, couldn’t believe what he envisioned, what dazzled his sights every morning, every evening, every nocturnal splendor, every twilight vision, every ghoulish, violent thought.
 
The King had believed Rhiannon was another piece of the regal, wild, untamed expanse, born within its frosted raptures and merciless reveries. But she left, like so many others, coiling and curling this way and that, so when she disappeared, he didn’t know what they’d lacked or what he’d yearned for outside their remorseless realm. She uttered the same oaths and convictions, then fled them, just as quickly as she’d spoken their promises and pledges; so he wondered if they were meaningless, if they were broken, fragile things, if they were weak and feeble, so easily uttered and then found, collapsed, beside the rest of fallen affirmations. He’d even asked to avoid the anger, the bitterness, the rancor settling in his chest (because he’d given her chances, far more than some, and she still evaporated through the pines, fir, and snow, as if his granted invocations lacked meaning too), to understand why and how and where they always seemed to go beyond the walls and chambers of a empire he cherished. But her simple utterance, her blatant disregard and dismissal (away), caused his gaze to narrow, dangerous and bestial. There were a few frigid moments where all he did was breathe, consume the air around him, draw and swallow composure so he didn’t become even more of a monster, even more of a demon.
 
Then, he listened. She spoke again, words suddenly pouring, chasms suddenly widened, her gaze suddenly locked with his, and he couldn’t comprehend the puzzle she was showing. “What demons are these?” How could she, a femme he’d always presumed full of strength, full of tenacity, full of her father’s poison and her mother’s bravado, could be devoured by more fiends, by more cretins? They were all devils, poised for the slaughter, prosed and posed for upheaval – but to know she was plagued by one of her own…the echoes of his treacherous slate softened, head tilted, curiosity brimming and brewing as she continued, as she laid out her grievances, as she proclaimed him Lord, the only thing left for her.
 
He didn’t know what to say – except he knew he was unworthy.
 
The words spilled from his mouth without forethought, brewing below the surface, where his blackened heart had cracked and still beat a crescendo from time to time. “You have always had my mercy. Others have not been so lucky.” She had - he’d bestowed it to her over and over again, because she’d been a part of something grander once, something died off and extinct (those days where hatred was allowed, where contempt for others was expected), because he thought themselves very similar. How many more was he supposed to allow? Deimos wasn’t regaled for his leniency or compassion – very little of it even managed to form a nuance, a synapse, in his mind – he hadn’t been given a title of death and damnation because he was renowned for his charity. But he wanted her there, amidst the blood and bile, amidst the bones and tombs, amidst the rattle of supremacy and domination that still lingered, rested, there. The notion churned through his skull, pulled and skimmed over the surface of his features, restless and conniving, bemused and frustrated. His brows furrowed for an instant, a rare change in complexion, so she could see the pit and pendulum of his ties. “But you need to show me why I should grant it again.”
 
Then, a final set of vocals, the only blessing he had to give. “The Basin is your home. Cease fleeing from it.”

He stared, statuesque immortality begging and pleading for a chance, for an opportunity, to lay waste in feral decadence, in smoldering havoc, in Stygian mayhem, for one of his own. It’d been so long since he’d roamed animosity and acrimony, since he’d scorched and smoldered, simmered and emboldened, turned his sinful credence and his wretched, vile dissonance upon an enemy; sliding swords into hearts, into minds, into souls. She’d mentioned demons, and he thought of plagues, pestilence, the mordant embrace of his Reaper scythe slashing through their innards and entrails until they were nothing in his deadly elegance, in his scathing, seething rapture. But her words cut along the dagger insights and the predatory madness, because they were of the mind and nothing he could rip, tear, and lacerate for her. It would have to be on her own – a test of strength, a guidance of will, a fiber of strength and endurance through Machiavellian concoctions and invocations. The King wasn’t disappointed by these notions (one day he’d have his nefarious prose again; write, sculpt, and orchestrate the symphonies of devastation), and still proffered his words, his sagacity, his wisdom for the invisible misgivings surrounding her skull. “We always have something haunting us.” He made no inclusion on what carved its way through him, but everyone already knew of his Tartarean decadence, menacing opulence, his vile, heathenous insurrection, the din of sedition rolling between his muscles and polished in his lungs, in his bones, in his craft. “It is how you conquer it that determines your character.” Or how you live with it, he’d wanted to say, but never bothered to give voice to the writhing brutality coiled and curled along him; the deadly enchantments had been a part of him since he was a year old, breathing ferocity, unholy, carnivore sentiments, perennial rapier toils and tribulations, until he finally gave in, until he finally sank into the hollowed bits of hell still pervading his predilections. Maybe Rhiannon was stronger than him, and would never succumb to what ailed her, would never give word to fiends that they’d triumphed over her (because they’d dragged him down, down, down ages, decades, lifetimes ago, and he’d been weak to their deplorable treacheries ever since).
 
The King waited in silence thereafter, dragged and drug into his macabre chords, into his audacious meld and mold, gaze shifting between ice and stripes, witnessing her as she tumbled and rose from the vocals he’d proffered. Her response, when it’d finally emerged from her crooked grin and self-loathing (he wanted to say something to that expression too, but he couldn’t surmount what, why, or how), echoed along his skull and surrounded his ears – and he wished everyone in the land could’ve uttered the refrain, pitch for pitch, line for line, so the realm, the empire, the kingdom, didn’t feel so listless. There is nowhere else I wish to be. He nodded in agreement, and couldn’t offer anything more. The statement said more than he’d ever be able to.
 
Her ties to a rank were another frustrating proposition for her – and he understood that notion quite well too. The monster had longed for days of nothing but the battlefield, all art, all poetry, all finesse driven from savagery and wreckage, havoc and chaos, mayhem and bedlam, especially now, when his moments were made from glacial indifference and chilling politics, driving the ruthlessness in his pariah indignation to an incensed clarity. “Then what do you wish to do?” He queried from his remorseless shell, from his features that had begun to break, whittle away into an infernal bliss; because one iniquitous soul comprehended another, and he thought he knew where the phrases where launching, down into raptorial directions and arcane defiance – allowing them to be themselves for those few, ferocious moments.