[seasonal event] should have seen this coming

DEIMOS Delivered from the blasts Old Gods, New Gods, likely didn’t make much of a difference to the Reaper. Neither had ever responded to him favorably. Neither had ever glanced his way. Neither had saved those he cherished. But he listened anyway, because it was better than remaining an ignorant boulder tossed within the trees, stupefied and inept, ineffectual and discordant, because he had yearned to chase down newfound opponents instead. He strived to relax, to settle the weight along his shoulders down the length of his spine, but it remained just so, teetering along the edges and fringes of his muscles, undulating, coiling, furling, waiting there to strike him again. Time was of the essence, but so was information, and he’d be a fool in the worst possible way to shove him theories and beliefs into the threshold, to bury his head in the sand rather than turn his ear towards stories and myths. There might be something he could use in the midst of it all, beyond the enigmas and the quandaries, the spells and invocations of sacrifices, the mystery and awe cracked and reduced. He might’ve once tied himself to nature, to the elements, as his parents had done: fire and water, flame and purity. Death had reigned on his blood, on his ichor, on his invocations instead, made the path to virtue and paragons difficult, and despite his great strides, strives, and lengths, nothing ever worked out accordingly; just destruction, just mayhem, just devastation. Perhaps the Fae coaxed the woods, the grains, the fields, the leaves to work in their favor, regarded by the ether, the air, the otherworldly adornments as one of their own. Capturing the sun had never even crossed his mind (unless they were describing Amalia), and he quirked his brow, curious all the more, piercing gaze remaining on Ianto. “I have not. What does it entail?” the last of a line of lasts