Enigmatic envoy quaked and pulsed near the Empress, delved into the deep reaches of his debauched derision, his sinuous, savage scorn, his torrential tension, moving and swindling, motioning and traversing with the pinnacles of his menace, his abhorrence, his loathing and contempt. Terror and horror drifted through the arts of machinations and despair, twisted into the foundations of distorted calamity, incensing dread, invoking fear. He choked, he strangled and he suffocated, malicious and menacing, conjuring demise amongst the wicked doldrums of a scintillating, seditious din. He marched into the clamor of destruction and allured, beguiled, the quiet, hushed essence of slaughter, stealing the last chords of breath from an impromptu finale. Severe, savage and brutal, he slunk, slithered, amongst the bramble of cold mountain air and chilling reveries, stealing, absconding, pilfering the lavished finery and applying it to the villainous threads of his apathetic grandeur. He slid along foundations of bestial horizon and crooned heinous predilection, molded into the expanse to wander into the tombs of mercenaries. Contracts swindled and decayed – he didn’t particularly relish the idea of tying their synapses to another group, but if it was a necessity, some brandished doldrums and cauldrons of concoctions and calculations he’d missed, he’d ensure his presence amongst the gathered so that they were not threatened, warned and driven into some disturbing, disgusting covenant. The Foothills General had already attempted it once, and the beast, heathen and monster wouldn’t allow any further cumbersome embargo placed upon their hides. The cold, chilling reverberations of his frigid silence followed the footsteps of Ophelia, a creature he’d never thought could muster any intelligence (but had rendered herself nearly witty beside Archibald), and Psyche, wounded, serpentine asp and viper. Did she have misgivings? Did she presume too much of the avaricious, the covetous? His stare didn’t focus on her, didn’t stray to her injured frame, and instead, over the vast scenery, watching the shadows, the shade, the veils of hushed void. His entity would establish they were not be taken for fools, vagabonds and inept fiends, one mustered swindle, one crowned fixation of wily cunning, and he could demolish, destroy and obliterate, or simply aid in annihilation with the harsh, blunt chords of his wicked words.

Forever enshrouded in silence, he watched the political proceedings through calculating, cold eyes. The Constrictor, with her own measures of brutality, the ingénue Ophelia, with her head in the clouds, lined with shambles of ignorance, the wounded Empress with a temper brewing in the midst of rancor. He studied, malicious machinations coiling in the hedonistic reverie of his infernal desires; the witness, the flame, the living death breathing in their midst, poised for protection, prosed for annihilation. He was layered in their midst for assurance and insurance, but the behemoth, the terror, the horror, still listened, still considered and reviewed the words seeping from mercenary mouths and woven junctures, possible lies fragmented into decrees, specious whims spoken as sonnet and laurels. Proposals wrought in two different venues, guardians and protectors, warriors and soldiers, shades forgotten in snippets of passing tirades and fuming ailments, and the cold, chiseled exterior of his statuesque frame rekindled an earlier affirmation, to cement the tides of their purpose. Chilling and glacial, a reminder of what they sought – for why would anyone offer and bestow remuneration on something they didn’t want, didn’t claim, didn’t render useful? “We will not pay for unwanted services.” Not defenders, but fighters. Either the Grey could grant them what they’d come for, or they would not receive what’d they wished; the transactions were simple, but he presumed a layering, a lacquering, an enamel they were unaware and ignorant of, materials dipped in shadow, not revealed in the light. What possessed Ktulu, other than a long-standing grudge, to shirk from their sentiments? What had happened to their cut and dry assertions and declarations of avaricious pursuits and upheavals, to their acquisitive, grasping holds? Or did they play favorites, extracted prizes from those preferred, a lying midst of partisanship and partiality, a hypocrisy driven from the unknown?