In this womb or tomb - ALL

[Pollock]

I called you to announce sadness falling like burned skin
I called you to wish you well, to glory in self like a new monster
And now I call you to pray

He watches then leave, scrabbling away like so many plague-carrying rodents.

He watches the others that still come to gather, too, neither incensed nor please by their ‘lateness’—he has yet to figure out what he wanted to, or even could, demand out of them. For now, the gift-giver is content to let them enough rope to hang themselves with, if they wanted to. This is a place, perhaps, where even those unwilling or unwitting could find their place—he’s the sort of king who would reward handsomely for the things some of these beasties liked to get up to.

If such proclivities could be twisted to his benefit, or to their collective benefits.

Some leave a big, heavy silence when they are missing, however.
Some, he cannot help but hope to see on days like today.
Some, he believes, are better suited to his chaos than others.

The war machine.
Weapon, by any other name.

His ears flick, but there is no direction from which that voice comes. He knows, at once, that it is meant for his ears only, for it fills them perfectly, simultaneously disquieting and soothing; it elicits a shiver, quaking down his neck and back. Pollock turns his head to face where Deimos stands, alone and impressive, flat eyes unblinking, lips, unmoving—he knows without knowing that this will work well enough, that monster has his hooks in his brain, already:

‘Go.’

It was someone else's to take. But someone else was too slow.
Everything is anyone's to take—should they so desire.

‘Find me her weaknesses; them them see our faces.’

Power. That single word runs through his mind, seizing him like a libation does a violent drunk, the king turns away, his heart thumping. 

POLLOCK
the gift giver

@[Deimos]