He was a beast made from damnation and Hell, painted black and gray from the skin of Stygian monoliths, nocturnal horrors, and reticent treachery. It clung to his breath in darkened shades of hollowed, scintillating splendor, where the ghosts of ravaged infidels crooned out their malicious ardor, bade the rest of the world to rush, to chase, the annals of cruelty. The Reaper hadn’t been allowed his wandering, seething blade, his annihilating reverberations, his hushed, righteous furor in ages; the politic depravity had been clinging to his bones far more than the ruffian gallows, the ruthless fixations, or the incensed ferocity. They all still dwelled though, chaotic and deceitful, decadent and wondrous, a grinding, aching, hallowed contortion of condemnation and menace deep in the confines of his bestial figure, contorting, curling, waiting for the moments where he could become whole again – the unrelenting sword of the Aurora Basin.
 
Then the King’s eyes were drawn across the borders, where he lingered for many hours, guarding and supervising, alone and armed, prospering the silence, the friction, and the fervor. There would be days stretched with nothing and no one remarkable passing beneath the decaying metal giants, and he’d stare at them, wishing they could be mended when there was only one creature who could do so – the infernal existence would continue onward, fleeting and devilish, unwinding and packed with more benedictions than trivial pursuits. But now, something dashed, a massive form, under the Sentinels, into the heart of his home, his kingdom, his empire, and the soulless, immoral, iniquitous portion of his soul craved a vindictive release: at last, it shuddered in the cold, machinations of his movements.
 
The Reaper was a blur on the horizon, a twisting, turning, malevolent shadow bending and brewing across the lands – unleashed, muscles of a warrior carved ethereal, deadly brutality along his core. He was a smoldering, molten mass of scorched nefariousness, chasing, pursuing, hunting down the foolish, inept stranger who’d dared to enter their grounds (to what purpose, to what end?). The rage burned, violent and vehement, venomous and boiling, curling over the depths of his cold-blooded mind as he took to the cadence of a rapier, strung on ruined wares, on destruction, on mayhem, on horrific, demonic, debauched dominance. He was a potent cutlass, pernicious puissance, vengeful, artful, hushed insurrection, seeking, lavishing, yearning for the slash of his blade to enter an intruder’s nape, skewer them whole, run their heads along a pike on the top of the peaks for everyone to see, for everyone to cheer, punishing the stupid, the idiotic, for rampaging into a world that was not theirs. His hooves churned, his teeth clenched, and his passions gave way to twisted, malevolent invocations, death harboring, calling, for its silent scythe to wage glacial ministrations, disaster, devastation.
 
But then he closed in, and recognized the foe – not an enemy at all, but Tembovu, King of the Edge. His motions slowed, dimming immediately to a dull disappointment, heart crushed, soul deprived (incapable of rendering his opponent unconscious or dead, a carcass tossed aside because they were too dumb, too ignorant, too dense), ears swindling several times as he caught the bleating roar not meant for him, but for their Thief. “Tembovu,” he called, near, bestial, crossed and irritated, brutal, a stone fixture dipped in nonchalance and impassivity, but inwardly, reeling from the loss of potential iniquity, and the strange circumstances surrounding the entire spectacle. “Our alliance does not allow you to access our kingdom at your leisure.” The slate of his piercing eyes narrowed, sharp and precise, roaming over the possibilities of this insufferable charade. “Most wait at the borders,” he noted in reminder, just as they had done each time they met with another kingdom; perhaps common courtesies were only bestowed by monsters nowadays (what an odd turn of fate). Then, his vocals stirred again, protective and devout, shielding and adamant, a piece of glacial force the other stag would have to get through if he insisted on harming their cloak and daggered femme. “Why do you require Rexanna?”

  A great, diligent portion of him, made up of blood and fire, darkness and death, was ready to run a blade through the other King’s chest for trespassing, for wanting to see their Thief, for obliterating their defenses – it crawled and seethed, displeased that none of these decadent desires would be able to thrive amongst the murk, the gloom, the damnation whittling away at his bones. Instead, he was forced to play the calm, composed monarch again, shackled and tethered to diplomacy lines instead of those aching, beautiful moments of ruin and condemnation (when riots became background din and the thunder of his heart, of his sinew, of his flesh, of his bones, were all-consuming sounds, and the whispers of abominations, of heresy, of sedition plagued all of his movements; true, Mephistophelean poetry). His prose could only be composed in the fine sketches and assignations of a bestial monster come to barbaric command, his severe gaze lashing on tightly to the larger stag’s stare – listening to the heaves, the billowing breaths, the fury, the finality, the strange, anxious, whims of apprehension coiled and notched upon the heavy, cumbersome boughs. What vexed the giant? He thought at first Rexanna had caused some sort of mayhem or knew important information – held secrets she wasn’t meant to hear, know, and required coercion to keep them tightly locked, and if Tembovu intended her harm, yearned to threaten her, to ensure everything was gated and secured, the savage fathoms of the Reaper would refuse the notion entirely –
 
But the words that followed were not what he’d imagined.
 
Rexanna has had my children and I must see them.
 
He blinked steadily, once, twice, a bit stupefied and dumbfounded, bewildered, caught along a snare he hadn’t seen, noted, or realized. The phrase formed itself over and over again in his head, as if his skull wasn’t entirely sure he’d heard everything correctly, but they continued in the same strange way, rambling about the gilded brigand and her children. Truly, he wasn’t sure what to say or do about the matter. The idea that Rexanna had meandered her way into the Elephant King’s heart (or at least…chambers) hadn’t ever crossed his mind – but he rarely fraternized or gossiped with his people and subjects. He didn’t normally care about whom they cherished or where they found another, and no one questioned him either. If they caught him staring at rainclouds or standing beneath a wailing storm, they said nothing. The icy Lord preferred it that way, was content with the privacy, respected everyone from a safe, impenetrable distance. To a part, he could comprehend and understand Tembovu’s alarm – he’d been there to witness both his children born, excited, overwhelmed, rendered proud and content all at once. He’d loved them from the moment he set his eyes upon their tiny figures. The titan before him had yet to realize that. He chuckled a little, a vague, minute sound that was soon swallowed on a sigh, brow continuing its arch, lips trying not to gesture into some form of a smile. “Congratulations,” he bowed to the new father, then swindled his skull to the right, indicating the direction of Rexanna’s usual haunt. “I can lead you to her cave.”