Carve Out a Niche [Seasonal Event]

Deimos the Reaper You can't take back the cards you've dealt on this long and lonely road to hell the throne must be such a sad and lonely place They rounded corners and ventured further into warren outskirts; and he had no intention of uttering too many revelations. His stare was reserved for the walls, for the heights, for the monsters to come erupting from nowhere, presuming the worst well before it arrived. But Alistair was chatty, intending to spiral discourse instead of silence, and the bestial man thought about ignoring it entirely. The only thing keeping him from completing the obvious indifference and apathy was the gifted blade in his hand; his mother had taught him enough morals and codes to not be an outright jerk (but the temptation was still there, regardless). “Isilme.” It wasn’t a lie, and it wasn’t a great disclosure or confession; the lands were long gone, split apart by warring kingdoms and blistering sovereigns, anyone he’d ever cared about long since passed in the gloaming hills. The soldier turned his head, not watching Alistair’s feet, a critical error, brooding as it were; attempting to shirk off any further questions with noncommittal replies and shortened, clipped phrases. “Alone.” He’d been alone for so long that it was normal, it was routine, to be a discarded, forlorn figure, presumption of desolation and abandonment kept him far, far away from high expectations and camaraderie. He left others to their own devices, and they did the same to him – the sort of forsaken ambition and aspiration that left even a lone wolf out to slaughter. Then came a pumpkin peeking over the barrier, extinguished by arrows well before Deimos had an opportunity to maul it (and perhaps that’s what he was here for most of all: for the simple act of violence and vehemence, to shove a blade into something’s chest, to feel the zealous, ardent, fickle fervency again, barbaric and twisted). But temptation had reared its ugly head no sooner than Alistair’s latest statement (and he’d made many), a vine snaking around his ankle and yanking him into the shadows; and the warrior made to follow, slinking his way into the darkness. It was all for naught again, and it was torment; the other man simply maneuvered back into frame covered in slime and goop. Deimos sighed for the ridiculous nature of it all. The roar thereafter was a damned, nefarious blessing, and he finally had a moment to sink every nuance of frustration, vigor, contempt, and outrage into the incoming monster. It wasn’t too overbearing – he’d seen far worse – but enough of a demon, of an infidel, to give him practice, to allow him to enter the fray again. He’d been awakened on the battlefield more than once, forced out of listless lethargy, out of brooding fruitions, claimed by Ares’ contortions and barbarous notions. This would be no different. He watched the beast for a fraction of a second, scrutinized, calculated, the weight and trajectory of its vines. He leapt out of the way of one, drawing the knife back into his grasp, but didn’t escape a second twining its way around his middle. For an instant, the most sinister snicker wrapped itself around his mouth, and he was just as menacing, just as malicious, just as ominous and forbidding as the cretin – and didn’t use the blade. Instead, before it could lift him off the ground, it was the force of his invocations, of his deadly, noxious magic, that entangled and wrapped itself in his motions, palms grabbing hold of the vine and pulsing, pervading, every ounce of lethal magic into its being. Its ensuing scream was magnificent.

_{Photo and Table by Time
Photo taken at Hero's Square in Budapest, Hungary}