the replays run for you

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 He was wiser than the current exhibition, but it was difficult to tell – control manifested its gnarled surface over his reticent features, yet the rest was left to chance, opportunity, and seditious impudence. Deimos was an embodiment of contradictions; forceful but quiet, aggressive but cool, a blaze of fire and ice contorted to fiendish perfection. Today, however, the unknown battered him in the face, and he stared into its heedless void like a blackened, tarnished, ashen entity - do your worst bled from his thoughts and he might’ve laughed, might’ve chuckled, had he not wandered directly into stairwells and innermost chambers. How he’d managed to meander further and further into the reaches of nefarious folds and savage temptation was its own mysterious classification – and the man was too far gone to truly care. One moment, he’d been hunting, a predacious, glorious figure peeking into shadows, into rifts, into crags, and rocks, becoming every bit, every piece, of ruin and stone, and the next, a sullen mercenary left with naught (a deranged pattern; clockwork and cyclical, gaining and watching it all fall apart in his hands). Audacious, an emboldened step and stride bolstered by nefarious muscle, by utter indifference, by a beast who’d lost, lost, and lost, the fiend marched straight into the tavern’s distortion. Drink and ruin were familiar when everything else was not; his eyes didn’t bother following others movements and motions within the same sanction, instead, his gaze was pinpointed solely on the bar, on forgoing anguish, on circling right back into his personal demons and further oblivion. Why carry on when the past sank its teeth into his flesh? Why glance to the future when he could remain steadfast and haunted? Destruction, self or otherwise, was a favorable distinction amongst the abhorrent and fallen. “The strongest you have,” a request and a demand: he uttered to the bartender in deep, harsh tones, gravelly from lack of use. He was frequently meant to linger and brood in silence, and kept to its hushed, quiet fathoms (a gargoyle, a carnivore, a molten rapier stalking its prey) until it seemed unsuitable – the worker wouldn’t be able to read his mind, or tell his preferences by the nonchalant look on his face. Thereafter, he reached into pocket of his trench coat, managing to procure a few coins that had managed to make it from his wayward journey, placing them across the barricade.

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

R E X A N N A this is not your destruction One moment, shouts from guards lit up the town from outside the house she had snuck into. It was late, and she was covered in bruises and dirt from her months on the run, hiding between place to place and doing everything she could to be sure she was unseen. She hadn’t talked in what seemed like weeks, and her lungs were tight in her chest any time she even thought about speaking. But despite all her careful attempts, someone had seen her face – had recognized the head of dark hair that reached midway down her back, those sapphire eyes and full lips, and reported it. She felt as though they were closing in, doors a few houses down were being barged into; the shouting grew louder and louder until Rexanna was certain they had gotten to her door. Quickly, she rushed from the first room, finding solace in the closet of one of the bedrooms. The door barged open, and Rexanna’s hand slipped from the closet door frame. One moment, she was there in an outskirt of Halyven. The next, she was here; wherever here was. Suddenly, darkness of the inside of a poorly built house became ruins and … was that a tavern? She closed her eyes, blinked rapidly for a few moments and even went so far to pinch herself to make sure she wasn’t just hallucinating. When she was certain, she looked down at herself – noting that nothing had changed really about herself. Her clothes and hair were still slightly dirty from being on the run, tangled despite her desperate attempts to finger-comb it. Her clothes were torn in some places, the shirt big and loose on her thinner body, the pants ripped on the side of the leg where a small healing wound had almost been her captor. She didn’t know where she was, but Rexanna knew for certain that it didn’t seem like home – and if she went into the tavern she’d be able to see if her face were plastered there. And if not, then some welcome relief. Stepping toward the tavern felt a bit strange, and she kept her steps light and cautious. Her eyes adjusted to the darker hues of the inside of the room and the strangers about. None seemed particularly threatening aside from the giant man asking for a drink. Quietly, she glanced around for any boards that might bear faces and wanted posters, and finding none she realized she might need to step closer to the strangers in the bar. She gave the man a lot of room, but slipped into a seat by the bar – asking for nothing but hoping for information. this is your birth

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 Deimos appreciated the lull; the bartender smoothly, efficiently, slid the required drink across the dirty, wooden surface and he grabbed it with restrained enthusiasm, bringing it up to his lips in swift, earnest approval as burned down his throat. It barely numbed the hollowed surfaces, the etched, sculpted, mottled edges of his nefarious, demonic presence, covered and coveted the thorns and nettles of his taciturn demeanor, but it would do for the moment. Given the opportunity, he might’ve merely stood there and brooded throughout the rest of the evening, anguish, melancholy, and poignant thoughts stretching along the perimeter of his mind until it was time to move on, destroy, devastate some other ruin, some other fortress. He could win battles, just not against himself. The notion was interrupted by a noise: soft, almost imperceptible. Had he not been a predacious, ravenous creature, he might not have bothered with curiosity at all, and left the small shuffles to another’s wandering stare – but he watched, succumbing easily to the pressures of inquiry and vice, to the layers and shackles iniquity and interest knotted along his skull. He was reminded briefly of a mouse, a little thing yearning to be hidden, unknown, hardly noticed, blending into the background, into the walls, into the scenery. Then why come at all? he half-wondered, but left the query to himself, like most other things, nursing another sip – waiting for something to happen, pondering if he would have to be the one to glean more than silence (an affront to his senses; he was far more likely to recede into the evening, turn a corner, be gone into the midst of twilight and abominations). The Reaper muffled a sigh, turned his gaze back to other things; shifting shadows, strangers coming and going, naught intriguing save for the woman still remaining nearby. For a moment, as he glanced at her from the corner of his eye again, he thought he should’ve known her; familiarity was a strange nuance in a foreign land, but perhaps she reminded him of someone, distant and uncertain, cloaked and concealed, waiting to dart between shards of light. Her quietude was almost vexing and irritating; though he was loathe to admit his actions would’ve done the same to anyone in his company. “Is there something you require?” He questioned from the side of his mouth, almost a growl, an echo of pasts left buried in sand, ash, dust, and soot.

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

R E X A N N A this is not your destruction Honestly she shouldn’t have been surprised that she caught his eye. Regardless of how quiet she tried to be, he had this appearance of a hunter that was more than likely the root to her nervousness. She had come across many like him, hoping to catch the highest rewarded bounty. What kind of lifestyle that led, she wasn’t sure – all she knew was she evaded them the best she could and when she couldn’t she did everything her power to escape. She had been successful this far, and with that in mind, she remained. Turning her head slightly to pick up any conversations that might be happening nearby. What she didn’t really expect, was the man to start talking to her. Immediately her head shifted to him, her posture straightened and she let her blue gaze get a good look at him. He was threatening, yes, but not in the ways the hunters back home were. Perhaps she was going insane, but she still wasn’t certain how she got here and if it wasn’t some grand illusion. “I think I’m just lost is all.” She offered briefly, pursing her lips and glancing around the tavern once again. After a few brisk moments, she turned her head back to him, her dark hair falling across her shoulder against the loose shirt. “It’s really hard to explain? One second I was somewhere else, the next I was here” She mentioned, her eyes turning sharp as she glanced back at the man. “That doesn’t make sense, does it?” She quietly questioned with a sharp sigh out her nose. this is your birth

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 Her stare altered, and he understood the change in her stance; he was ominous, he was foreboding, he was a piece of slab and rock and ruin, ravenous and rapacious even sitting amidst the decadence of silence. He hadn’t always been this way – but shards of compassion, benevolence, and kindness had slid away in his childhood, roughened, distorted, coiled, tied, and tethered to some other realm he no longer inhabited. Between destruction and devastation, he’d been simple and hardly complex; young and mischievous, keen and eager to embark on sojourns and crusades, favored sword at his side, smile on his face, the world destined to fall at his feet. However, triumphs had costs, and the victories had begun to erode when the casualties were clearer, closer, when death was at his fingertips and in his sights, in his soul, burning a hole in his chest, a contorted, blasphemous enmity sparked from horror after horror, anguish after anguish. Bright spots and sparks flickered away at the pulse of a heartbeat, at the swift stitch of a knife, at the callous embrace of nothing: because in no time at all he was naught but a pinnacle of a wasteland, desolate, forlorn, fruitless, disregarded. Solitude and persecution were familiar waves, abhorrent and blunt, a void where he could sink and be left alone to scatter across the stars, hunting when he chose, marauding when he longed for melee and brutality, as wild as the rest of the kingdoms, lingering in idle savagery, in listless acrimony. In a way, he could start over again – he was still young, slightly less reckless and brash, but seditious and irreverent all the same, trials and tribulations cutting him down; not enough for him to descend straight into Stygian confines. Deimos simply didn’t know how; a classic case of confusion and chaos building through furrowed brows and reticent features, slashing along his mind while the alcohol nursed his inward miseries. Traversing through the unknown hadn’t settled any demons; merely made them ricochet back to the forefront, where he could properly wither, fade, and seethe – but his brooding had been intercepted and discarded, shackled for some other time when wolves didn’t address lingering mice. He shifted again to the bartender once more, a rough command rumbling through his chest, through his furs, through his coat. “Another,” he beckoned, grabbing hold of the glass as it traveled towards him. In another realm, he might’ve been a roaring, howling fiend, prowling and patrolling for the next feast, for the greatest kill, for the malicious end to a common enemy, but he was otherwise occupied now: carved and sculpted straight back into revolution and irritation. Not towards her, though his exasperation with the present might’ve pervaded his presence, but at the lack of information, at the oddities of the situation, of the patterns that were beginning to fall into place. Just lost is all could be an adequate response; he might’ve said the same, because the truth was bitter and rancorous, and so was the rest of the abyss, quietly murmuring its chuckles, its wiles, its machinations down the columns of his skull. His story was similar – a journey through mist and wood, to find monsters bigger than him, to slay fiends and ghouls so he’d be amongst the last of the last, and he’d fallen into some other hole, some other world, some other damned land. Gods below, didn’t he hate the scalding ignorance lacquered to his form. He relied on his awareness, on his senses, on his ability to read the darkness, the oblivion, the tactics, the tells of foes; and here he was, incapable of seeing what lay beyond here and there. The beast shrugged, turning back to her so his cold, icy, nonchalant gaze focused entirely on her – seeing less mouse now, more mercurial cat, more whimsical fairy, with sharper fringes, bite somewhere in the sunshine and bewilderment, and his eyes narrowed. “It should not,” the man cast, drawing his lips together back into a thin line, a forewarning to his meticulous thoughts, to his calculated airs, to how much he was willing to say, to how fast the alcohol worked and loosened his tongue. “But I had the same experience.”

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

Plopped luxuriously on the counter was Chunk. Opening his eye good eye (despite the large scar running down its length), the old and fat cat looked at the two newcomers with whatever was as far from interest as was possible. Content that what had been poured into their cups was not poisonous, the true proprietor of the Rathskeller decided to go back to sleep.

R E X A N N A this is not your destruction He had a robust, rough voice that seemed to cut through the quiet dim of the tavern in a way that caught glances.  But the more she sat near him, as he let her ramble, she felt as though he wasn't that threatening. Sure, if provoked he appeared to be able to hold his own and win but she wasn't there to fight. She wanted to seem as small as possible, only there to figure out where this place was and what she had experienced. But as she sat there and watched as another drink slipped toward her company, she allowed her gaze to slip back around the tavern. He seemed like a man of few words, which worked for her. She wasn't much in the mood of idle chit chat. If she needed information she'd rather have facts than gossip. And glancing back at the man, he seemed highly unlike the gossiping type. The thought turned the corner of her lips up slightly for a brief moment before it vanished again and his attention turned completely onto her. His icy eyes, bright against his complexion and gravelly voice as he confirmed a similar thing happened to him and her brows inched together. Sure, the whole portal thing was strange. But there was a familiarity with this man — an odd coincidence that Rexanna couldn't pinpoint. She sat there in silence for minutes, watching him curiously as if she were looking through him. Memories rushed back — not from Halyven, no, someplace else entirely. The longer she surveyed his face, should he let her, the more she remembered brisk cold mountains, a dark equine with the brightest blue eyes. A man of little words, the sense of death, a warrior and a king. It didn't make any sense either, but her eyes widened and she leaned slightly closer to him. “I think I know you.” She breathed in some sort of disbelief. She couldn't remember his name, but she could remember the feeling she felt when they had worked together, when she had been told of his death. Perhaps it was coincidence, and he wasn't who she thought he was. After all, it all seemed like a dream. A very realistic dream of mountains and love and gods. She leaned back, still eyeing him, but with a new gleam to her eye. “I'm Rexanna.” She offered in the hopes it might make some sense to him. this is your birth

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 There’d been a thousand stares directed at him over his scalding lifetimes and lifelines; the quick utterances, the shifting gasps, the swift departures and escapes – or the menacing curl of lips and hackles, the rise and fall of tempestuous designs. He’d bore their weight in the beginning, felt his shoulders and chest ache from the culmination of dread and apprehension, from foreboding intervals, from the decadent, cold, unwitting airs smoked and fumed in his direction. Eventually those moments wore away though – when he wandered, when he roamed, when he scalded and seethed, when he swore vengeance, when he claimed blood and ichor from adversaries. Desecration and derision held more promises than the stones of their mettle and the burden of their ultimatums; Deimos became all the more indifferent, nonchalant, reticent to the fleeing factions, to the shivering, shuddering public, to the quaking imbeciles, to the rotted, wretched, inept. He dug his heels into sand, into soot, into ash, into snow, and didn’t root anywhere; the world had been his annihilating maelstrom, and he’d breathed calamity and woe into their beings, into their spotlights, into their opulence before their eyes had spotted him from the crowd. Their scrutiny, their cutting, their splitting, their seething, their examinations meant so little to him now that he was surprised hers remained – studying him without pretense, without charades, without semblances or provocations. He waited for some notion to sear and the artifices to play their way across her features, for spells and invocations to be cast, for dark, eldritch titans suddenly waging war on his soul. It’d happened before, time and time again, like a seasonal, perennial dance of the macabre, eerie and forsaken, cadaverous and torturous, one more terrible, ghastly, gruesome pinnacle for him to strike against. He refused to shy away from her scrutiny, grabbing his glass again and raising it to his lips, swallowing, bearing his unearthly countenance, a challenge, defiance while he tested, while he processed the next thing that spilled from her mouth. A younger Deimos would’ve spit out his drink at her proclamation – the present-day fiend arched a brow, tilted his head a fraction, and wondered if she’d been inebriated before she’d arrived. “From where?” The possibilities were nearly endless – he’d traversed countries and kingdoms for as long as he’d been alive, master of nothing, wandering and wandering while the earth crumbled beneath his feet, while time and beings withered away, while politics reigned, while benevolent creatures died, while he mourned the loss of kinsmen and family, while grief became normal, a constant occurrence. She could’ve been a part of the background, blending into the surroundings like she’d attempted earlier, born to camouflage and subterfuge, ether and sky, charms and spells, deception and dismay. The Reaper eyed her again, a little more indulgent, a little bolder, pondering why gold suddenly clouded his brain and dazzled his senses, why she was suddenly a reminder of halcyon moments and aureate tenacity, why mountains washed over his form, why the winter seemed attainable when he was unreachable, why gilded crowns never fit quite right on his head, why betrayal stung and nestled its way into his heart; thorns and loyalties crossed. Even her name was something like a whisper, a memory, a formation of times long since passed, but he couldn’t recall anyone or anything with such a herald or moniker. It ate at him, made his jaw clench, his nostrils flare; a hunt, a chase, for intangible notions and concepts. Perhaps he’d been dropped on his head when invisible portals and strings tied him to these gnarled lanes, and this was nothing – a whimsy, a folly, a wrinkle meant to be smoothed away. He didn’t though; there were no intentions to escape, to liberate himself back into the unknown. He stared it plainly in the face and provoked, poked at the bear. “Deimos.” Then the demon lifted his hand away from the favored mug, and offered it to the woman.

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

R E X A N N A this is not your destruction The man seemed indifferent despite her proclamations, and embarrassment flashed through her mind for a brief moment. Perhaps she was wrong? But she could have sworn that there was some sort of history there. He mentioned from where, perhaps a bit bored in his response or the tone of his voice – and she began to wonder where too. It was like a dream, but not. It was real, or was it? Her lips parted slightly, pink rosebuds ready to speak before the words died on her lips. She averted her eyes from him, brows furrowing together in confusion so easily read on her face. “I’m not sure the name. It seemed like a dream, but it felt so real.” She began, shifting slightly to cross one leg over the other in her seat. “I had just arrived, at the same time I arrived here – but at that time I was found by a golden thief in the night. He took me to a land of mountains and caverns, the best hot springs I’d ever seen. I think you were there –” She paused, looking back to him beneath long dark lashes as he looked back at her and studied her. She didn’t shrink under that gaze like she typically would have – but there was a familiarity about this man, something that resonated with the word home and safety, and her ultimate betrayal because of love of all ridiculous things. The Rexanna now seemed to think that there were no options for love in her future – so how she had managed to there was surprising. Regardless, she watched him as he began to speak – the utter the name that she had been reaching for like a whisper on the wind. “Deimos.” It was like a puzzle fit back into place and her eyes softened slightly at the realization. He reached his hand out and offered it to her, to which she extended her own pale hand. It was quite small in comparison to his, bruised and scratched in a few spots despite the softness of their touch. She looked at him then, fully, with her hand in his and offered him a brilliant smile. “I think you were the king. The Reaper. And I think I served you for a time as your Thief.” She almost laughed, it seemed to real but so strange. “Do you remember it? The mountains… The Aurora?” She questioned with a cock of her head, her brown hair still slightly tangled, but falling easily over her shoulder. The more she spoke of it, the mountains and the name he had given her, more memories seemed to open up. It came flooding in, so strange as though she was reliving this odd parallel universe – one that they both had been a part of, she was certain of it. Rexanna wouldn’t blame him, however, if he thought she was insane. At this point, she felt as though she was. this is your birth

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 As a child, he’d felt the weight of dreams and nightmares. There’d been glacial walls and high-rising peaks, floating just out of reach, resolute and dauntless, never cowering, never bending, and he’d called out to it, another cold fortress beckoned by the opulence of ruin. There’d been calamity and hatred chiseled and engraved into his psyche, broken swords and callous horns, divisions and enmity spouting, sprouting from valleys, layers of triumph and treacherous gallows sinking between his ribs and heart. There’d been war and outcries, betrayal, duplicity, savagery rippling on mayhem and menace; towers faltering, brick by brick, stone by stone, dismantled for reasons beyond his means. There’d been never-ending rain drowning his senses. There’d been thieves and wolves and monsters springing from shackles and shells, roaring beside him, howling at him, growling and stirring the irreverence, the sedition, the despicable, yearning claws of war from his breath. He’d always woken up from the end though – blackness, sharp, stark, and Stygian, glaring at him from frozen plains and winter foundations. The youth didn’t recognize the patterns though, and soon forgot them – but in hazes, in trances, in staring out over vast fields of prairie and ponds, sometimes he thought he saw wraiths, ghosts, phantoms, sliding along the horizon, forms of bestial monsters with ties to fiends, to contempt, to bloodshed, to annihilation. Perhaps they’d been mere premonitions, because soon after the specters faded away and reality dug its way into his careless, heedless wiles; everyone gone in an instant, in flames, in fire, in persecution. The impressions, the reveries, the chimeras never came again; he’d become too locked in the forlorn, in the desolation, to see, to hear, anything else. His gaze instantly became riveted to something else, ears listening, catching the intonations, the decibels, the harsh realities of imaginations being very vivid, very whole, very tangible – woven threads that spelled out collapse and wreckage, fate’s intervening methods. He was not one to fall into the traps of destiny or predetermined courses. The soldier believed in his own efforts, in his own worth, in his own abilities – but to hear history sung like it was providence, like it was meant to be played over and over again (you will lose, you will fail, you will be nothing) nearly made him snarl. Was he already doomed to become rubble again? Had it been prophesized, to name a boy as death and let him lead the world to slaughter, to let him believe in conquering when it would simply be his downfall? Not this time he wanted to bellow, carve and etch into the surface of the bar; but that would mean he believed in some higher being mapping his soul towards misfortune, and the man was too tenacious and obstinate to ever admit defeat at the hands of gods, at the strands and threads of Fates. Instead, he turned back and laughed – it was rich and resonant, strong and uplifting, a moment to poke and prod at his competency, hiding the dissatisfaction, the uncomfortable pressure suddenly pushing on his shoulders. “A king?” He still took her hand though, small, engulfed by his broader palm and digits, lifting a brow again as he let her fingers slip free. “Must have been horrid.” The warrior would’ve been unsuitable – he could barely picture thrones and crowns, diadems and chariots. But she kept prodding, kept poking, kept opening a wound he didn’t know he’d had; the lacerations split apart when she uttered her name, her rank, the glimmer of more than just gold lingering in the background. There’d been others too, so many inhabitants and individuals he couldn’t pinpoint by name, but by the measures of their perseverance – they’d tried, they’d all tried so hard, and he swallowed the vicious bile clinging to his throat. Too many lines blurred together, sunk down into his heathen outreach; Aurora and Rexanna. “Perhaps,” he uttered with a clench of his jaw, with a drink drenching his tongue. So he tried to turn it back to her, back to memories, back to foundations where he didn’t have to dwell for long, hanging his head and staring at sculptures, at walls, at surfaces unknown, only catching her stance out of the corner of his eye, when he dared to lift his cranium above his arms. “What did you steal?”

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

R E X A N N A this is not your destruction There was a laugh, deep and rich that surprised her slightly yet warmed her deep in that odd place of memories. In that strange, otherworldly place, had she ever heard the man beside her laugh? She couldn’t recall it as the memories flooded back, but she watched Deimos with her sapphire gaze and a smile twitching on her lips as he began to speak. Then, he shook her hand and let it drop, her hands returning to her lap as her head tilted. “Actually, I think you did a great job.” She mentioned, her smile growing a bit brighter and bolder – pearly whites beaming at the giant man beside her. But Rexanna continued to speak, of the mountains and skies and home they had known for what seemed like forever, her eyes nearly glued to him to see of any twitch of remembrance. When quietly, his jaw clenched and he uttered a perhaps. She blinked for a moment, uncertain of what else to say to help prod the memory – though the clench of his jaw made her second guess continuing. This man seemed to be a newfound ally, she wasn’t about to try and piss him off here. So instead, she remained silent, his head slipped back toward her and asked her point blank what she’d stolen. Her head shook briefly as she gave a half hearted laugh. “I don’t remember a lot, but I’m pretty sure I stole a man.” She mentioned. “Something to do with him being a member of the land before and then vanishing – I think you wanted him back, but for what I don’t know.” She trailed off briefly, her eyebrow arching slightly as she surveyed the bar before her. Then, she got the bartenders attention and asked for a drink as well, crossing one leg over the other and running a pale hand through her somewhat tangled dark hair. “I don’t recall really stealing a lot, if anything valuable. I was better for information. I think there, in that land, nobody expected the bubbly, flirtatious soul to be a spy in their midst.” She muttered with a slight laugh, taking a deep drink of the alcohol and sighing through her nose as it burned her throat. She turned to him then, eyes surveying the man and all his scars and the story it seemed to tell. “I obviously don't know you well enough in this world, but if it's any indication, you made a good king.” She added, glancing at him to see if he’d choose to talk about the current world they found themselves in without her prodding or if he simply wanted to talk more about the kingdom in the mountains that he ruled for what felt like eternity in another life they had both managed to share. this is your birth

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 The avid denial yearned to pierce his throat. Deimos knew himself well: his actions would never dictate well-orchestrated sovereignty. His life was fine-tuned to the battlefield, to the stretches of war cries, to the bellicose veins of immortality, to the decadent, discordant reveries and raptures of death. He’d sent men to oblivion. He’d carved entrails and insides. He’d laid waste to villages simply because he was commanded to – rage and crusades, glory and fortune favoring the bold, battle for battle’s sake. Did foretold kings leave their heritage behind to seek triumph? Did great, grand emperors seek out prestige and splendor in trails of ichor? Did wondrous monarchs summon devastation and ruin for amusement, for diversion, for supremacy? He’d committed each and every action because he’d been told to, because he’d bent down his head and roared out strength and brutality, because he’d relished in the feeling of victory over the weak, over the inept, proud and foolish, already condemned, already slaughtered, already incensed and fueled for corruption. When they’d returned from their halcyon merriment and their irresolute wonder, there’d been nothing left – lives altered, transformed, warped, and desecrated in their absence. Everything gone, gone, gone, and even in his most idle moments, he couldn’t imagine the conquests he’d chased down had ever held such a high price. The regrets curled and contorted along his sharpened mind again, the drink had done little to curb the aches, and it seemed no matter how much he drenched the images, they’d still come to the surface, remind him just how infernal and revolting he’d become. No, even in a past life, even in a parallel universe, even in some wretched, other world, there was no way he’d been a great lord; the Reaper traversed as a nefarious stone, smoldering havoc, anarchy and bedlam in statuesque depravity. Rexanna was mistaken; perhaps drawn to some other bright, shining beacon, for it certainly hadn’t been him. His nonchalant gaze watched her smile, and he couldn’t understand it, closed himself off from its illuminating fixtures – always the way of his being – close and closer still until he failed to justify the meaning, denying absolution and deliverance. She might’ve been the key to gaining access to any deeper notions, to any fathoms of what he’d lost, but the ineffectual, apprehensive contortion of his character meant he balked, clenched his jaw, became the unyielding cretin again. But she kept telling these illustrious stories that he wished were more tangible, more attainable, than the current doom and gloom he’d drowned himself in; thieves and forgotten men, vanishing acts and apparent manipulations going on behind cloaks and daggers, his Machiavellian pursuits a mystery to the rest of the terrain. He shrugged, not knowing what else to say, how to proceed when the walls were slowly coming back up and the mountains seemed out of reach. So the beast merely listened; attuned to the sights, to the sounds, struggling to align himself to a time where he might’ve existed, where he might’ve been awful and unredeemable, where he’d followed the same clockwork pattern, where he’d failed and failed and failed again. “And then what?” He said to her – brief and curt, almost a keener edge to his words, because something etched and sketched its way around his membrane, more than flirtatious spies, more than coy intervals, something akin to betrayal, duplicity shoved his way, notched and caught on a tether, on a sword, on an arrow. Then there was the afterwards, the intervals of extinction: for sometimes his dreams had merely been surrounded in black, like a dungeon, like a cauldron, like a void, where he no longer breathed, where he no longer did anything but succumb to the Stygian veil. Perhaps it’d been his curse, his fate, the punishment for terrors and treachery. Maybe he’d earned his way straight to the bottom, a level of Hell, doomed because he’d damned so many before him. In response to her other statement, for he’d nearly ignored it, too detached, too reticent, too withdrawn, he stared at his drink, but didn’t touch it, lowering it back down to the surface of the bar. “Not anymore.”

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

R E X A N N A this is not your destruction Of course it wasn’t long before the inevitable. He seemed somewhat uncomfortable, yet Rexanna continued on – pushed on, even, to see if she’d get a reaction out of him. But she knew if she were to finish the story, about her betrayal and leaving him that it might result in him leaving; regardless if she assured him that it wouldn’t happen again. Hell, she didn’t even know Deimos in this world, would he be the same as he was in that alternate side? Willing to put up with her and be her friend regardless of what bitterness might have happened in the other land? She was afraid to find out, but he continued, egging her on somewhat as he asked what then with a short tone that she was certain he probably already knew. Her smile instantly faded, her face shifting from him to the drink before her as she stared at it with those dark sapphire sad eyes, wincing slightly as she recalled the memories like far away dreams. “Well, I met a man and bore his children.” She began, pausing to take a swig of the drink before her in an effort to ease the anxiety. “He wasn’t just any man, though. He was the King for another part of the world.” Her head shifted toward him, her eyes full of sorrow and some painful regret flashing across them. “My son was stolen, and I left the mountains, the aurora, you. Betraying your own trust in me to be there for you and be someone you could rely on.” She sighed through her nose, turning her head away again. “And then, at some point, I had heard you’d died. And I regretted all of it, the children, the love I thought I had, the move to a misty and strange place where people hated me for who I was and some that enjoyed my company well enough. Mostly I regretted losing you and the home you helped make for me when I arrived much like I arrived here, confused and hopeful for a future.” Her voice shifted slightly as she stared further into her glass. “I’m sorry.” She admitted, breathing out the breath she seemed to hold onto, clutching it like a farewell song. “At least I got to see how that life played out, and it’s not something I intend to do here. I thought I had it all figured out there, but I didn’t. I hurt more people than it was worth – I hurt myself too. None of it was worth it.” Her voice grew a bit quieter, and she shifted her head slightly to glance at him from the corner of her eyes, hoping he wouldn’t leave. this is your birth

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 The uncertainty and restlessness came full circle: heavy like an anvil, crushing against the back of his shoulders, stabbing like a stiletto rhythm down the column of his spine. She’d written out treachery, treason, and duplicity as if it were a novel – scribing her latest works for the Reaper to see, to understand, to comprehend the blackened holes in his memories, the visions he’d lost at night, the dreams that spun and whirled and curled in the seething, malicious embers of his brain. The beast of the past likely would’ve either screamed at her or renounced her entirely; believing her perfidious nature shouldn’t have sullied, shouldn’t have ruined, shouldn’t have come against him. Maybe that was where the King had errored: too trusting in his subjects, prospering loyalty and honor when it was wasn’t given in return, promising them the world if they did just as he described, and becoming surprised when the world, the wounds, the knife, the dagger twisted right back into his flesh. If he was meant to learn from history, caustic, embittered mistakes, this was likely one of many blinding, blistering spots: to turn her away, to chase her out of his sight, to belittle and defy her apologies, her admissions and amends, or to bow his head against the confessions and explanations, the way her heart had been swayed by more dashing sovereigns and the fruit of her favors. He nearly asked her what made her alter, what made her stare at the other world’s beckoning claws instead of the one she knew, the one she served, but it didn’t matter now. The ferocity of his gaze landed back upon her as she stared at the abyss, as she rattled out every chord and sin, as she painted a picture he’d known all along, but couldn’t justify or measure. The darkness had been the mark of his death – empty, shoved downward on a Stygian slope, crossing over the river Styx with no one at his side, alone, alone, alone; no rain, no comfort, the hell home for a beast who’d been destined for its threshold from the moment annihilation crossed his breath. So in this interval, in this opportunity, in this chance upon chances, what was he supposed to do? Cut her loose? Start a chain of revenge, shame her, cast her aside for all the unraveling motions, for the mendacity? Or let it go – float off into the shades and veils of current existence, let the world start anew? Had she suffered enough? Had she seen the error of her ways? Had it even been a mistake, for her to run into the arms of woodlands and clifftops, to mist and fortune? Was she damned and doomed to repeat the same rituals here, in another world, in another time, in another place? Was he just as consigned, reigning over the void, brooding with an iron fist, steely determination and fortuitous vengeance? A part of him ground against those concepts, because he was fortitude and perseverance, because he was brazen and incensed, because he’d been taught long before to always persist and forget those aiming to whittle away at one’s path – he forged it himself, with steel will and irreverent, fervent derision. His silence was foreboding – crushing, sitting on a knife’s edge, rolling along the walls of the bar well before she’d finished. Everything appeared to be out in the open, stark and cold, desolate and haunted, and he wondered if there would ever be moments where they weren’t covered in rue and regrets, in spite and ghosts, in phantoms and specters. He downed the rest of his drink, then settled the glass back down on the surface, maneuvering it back and forth as he thought, as he mulled over what to say, how to feel, why the orchestrations of the past threatened to consume the present. “We never have it all figured out,” he spoke, finally, into the midst; his gaze focused on a hole in the wall, before shifting back to her. “But if you are looking for forgiveness…” he paused, gaze narrowed, and all the cold reticence behind his eyes must’ve burned, because there’d been days where he’d been warm and bright, instead of callous, aloof, and bestial; the wraith’s edge of a smile curling across his lips. “You have not wronged me here.”

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