we're all killers
The Basin’s history was lined with loss and defeats. For as many victories as they could muster, there were more devastations and annihilations moored within. The mountains had their claws ripped apart and off so many times that the frequency was almost expected amongst conquests; condemnation even in their greatest successes. They were hollowed, hallowed ventures, always drawn in the pits and pendulums, in the rise and fall, in crushing blows and feral grasps, yearning to prove themselves amongst kingdoms and sovereigns, so no one bothered, no one tampered with them again. There was the fiendish inclination that no invasions had ever reached their lands, between the savage interludes along borders, the monoliths and their crimson eyes, their power, their prestige, their predilections – all conducted elsewhere, all haunting interludes brought back to their seething empire. Then the peaks were carved into niches and desperation, longing for some sort of nefarious salvation in the rocks and crag, in the ice and snow, in the wolves and rivers.
He waited for some sort of sculpting nuance, a backlash because he’d been the observer in Psyche’s downfall, the guilt that had plagued down his spine years later – when he’d seen the DarkEmpress changed and altered (sickened, weakened, something else altogether, not the asp, not the viper, not the storm, not the mercurial, tempestuous woman who’d made them her soldiers), when he’d met her daughter and apologized for the nature of his throne.
Lost again, lost again, lost again; a dirge in his mind, a song they always managed to grumble, growl, croon, and hiss, in the dark shadows of the summits.
Her curiosity seemed to meld towards Ulrik though, and his engineering prowess. “Yes,” he nodded, memories spiraling back over the twin monsters, blackguards with magic stored in their frames, treacherous and dangerous to anyone who dared trespass upon the aurora’s terrain. How many had he met outside their gaze? How many had tried to serpentine their way in? How many had he warned, warned, and warned, before granting them an opportunity for death, the magic flowing through his veins and out towards theirs? “The Engineer was vital to the Basin. When he left,” after another dramatic meeting, when he’d passed crowns to those influential, and he’d managed to somehow offend Ulrik in his decisions. Another comrade lost. “The monoliths crumbled. We did not have the ability to fix them. Not without him.” So he imagined them rusty beside their glaciers, parts fallen on the ground, disintegrating just like everything else.
And that’s how became King of the North; no pomp and circumstance, no ceremony, naught but a tossed crown and a nod of his head, acceptance of one of the greatest weights he’d ever bear, an icy throne, a bitter scepter, a distorted, desolated sovereign carved into rime. “I went to Mirage and we formed a peace treaty.” Which sounded so strange, coming from his mouth, from his actions, but after their languishing, embittered defeat, he didn’t have much else to offer. A truce, a ceasefire. A means to an end. “The children were returned,” he mulled this over. Sacre, hadn’t it been? One of D’art’s boys? “Though one opted to stay.” Perhaps he’d found his new confines better – the Reaper had never asked.
He waited for some sort of sculpting nuance, a backlash because he’d been the observer in Psyche’s downfall, the guilt that had plagued down his spine years later – when he’d seen the DarkEmpress changed and altered (sickened, weakened, something else altogether, not the asp, not the viper, not the storm, not the mercurial, tempestuous woman who’d made them her soldiers), when he’d met her daughter and apologized for the nature of his throne.
Lost again, lost again, lost again; a dirge in his mind, a song they always managed to grumble, growl, croon, and hiss, in the dark shadows of the summits.
Her curiosity seemed to meld towards Ulrik though, and his engineering prowess. “Yes,” he nodded, memories spiraling back over the twin monsters, blackguards with magic stored in their frames, treacherous and dangerous to anyone who dared trespass upon the aurora’s terrain. How many had he met outside their gaze? How many had tried to serpentine their way in? How many had he warned, warned, and warned, before granting them an opportunity for death, the magic flowing through his veins and out towards theirs? “The Engineer was vital to the Basin. When he left,” after another dramatic meeting, when he’d passed crowns to those influential, and he’d managed to somehow offend Ulrik in his decisions. Another comrade lost. “The monoliths crumbled. We did not have the ability to fix them. Not without him.” So he imagined them rusty beside their glaciers, parts fallen on the ground, disintegrating just like everything else.
And that’s how became King of the North; no pomp and circumstance, no ceremony, naught but a tossed crown and a nod of his head, acceptance of one of the greatest weights he’d ever bear, an icy throne, a bitter scepter, a distorted, desolated sovereign carved into rime. “I went to Mirage and we formed a peace treaty.” Which sounded so strange, coming from his mouth, from his actions, but after their languishing, embittered defeat, he didn’t have much else to offer. A truce, a ceasefire. A means to an end. “The children were returned,” he mulled this over. Sacre, hadn’t it been? One of D’art’s boys? “Though one opted to stay.” Perhaps he’d found his new confines better – the Reaper had never asked.
DEIMOS
