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 eats himself. The way a star does, of course, at its cannibalistic end. 
But it is not an End. They all know that. Even as the brief silence Carnage leaves in the wake of his mighty, cosmic implosion is a terminal one, they know. The rocks he had so diseased creak under the weight of his creation and swift abandonment. An arid breeze whistles funerary songs through the cracks of that ruined rock – or is that cheering? From the cowed parts of this scorch earth that still remember what it once was, who it once belonged to; what He had done to it?

The thick, muddy river, splitting Pangea’s spine in two, gurgles as it struggles to take on meltwater from some faraway place. Slowly but surely, it is filling with icy spills.

Gone. But not gone in the way a beggar is, when last he closes his eyes and succumbs to the will of his poverty.

Gone, like a king, leaving idols of dust and stone, in his image.
Gone, like a god – chosen, instead, the Martian court.
Gone, indeed, like a cancer. That is, violently and uncertainly.

He stands, for a moment more, in that bewildered quiet, those constellations still hanging in his eyes as bright, white sparks. He breathes. He breathes dust and crooked magic into his lungs; his dark, stern eyes flutter closed, 

the blood and the cold, slings and arrows, oh! the flesh and bone he had lain waste to…

to get here.
To wear a crown of ash.
His mother might even be proud, that abject sow.

He turns to them finally, that small and ignoble band of savages, who had seen a beautiful thing ravaged for their pleasure. He smiles his crocodile smile.

“Well. It is too bad your man did not show,” he turns to Harmonia first, a woman he had thought he felt strange power emanating from the day they all came together in the Meadow for the first time, despite her unassuming looks. A feeling he cannot shake, “I will hear your proposition, Harmonia, now or in private.” Pollock turns from her, the hope, of course, being that they could all be friends. In another time and place, her choice of champion may have rung traitorous in his arrogant ears.

He needs no enemy like her. 

He moves on to the confused young man.

“As Harmonia said, this is Pangea. You seem to have wandered into my kingdom, rather uninvited,” he looks him over for a moment, with flat, black eyes, “welcome to our new world, boy. Carnage raised this place for us because Beqanna got a bit uppity, and then seemed to have had her little favourites when the time came to be generous again. We were not among them.” At this, he addresses them as a whole. Those he thinks, with some semblance of respect, would never have bent the knee; those, he suspects, are more like morsels snared in a web to be made meals of.

“I have said what I thought Pangea stood for, to the satisfaction of its maker, I am curious what everyone else here thinks. I need names, too.

I believe, as I said, that it is very likely we are unique in Beqanna. Not just because of how Pangea came to be, and the consequences of that, but because all the other lands were gained by mewling and knee-bending to the goddess, who took much from us all. And still, they begged.” His lip curls in marked disgust as he paces slowly in front of them.

“I think we’d best introduce ourselves to these other groups. For all we know, we may have a bit of a bad reputation. Very likely, none at all. We should change that, quickly,” he has not traveled to see what the mists have given Beqanna’s beggars, curiosity and a feeling of superiority compels him, “if anyone wants to join me on the tour, say so now. 

For now, I will rule on my own. As I said to Carnage, I am not a politician. Not a politician, and yet, a king. I may well find someone deserves a place more… beside me, but in the meantime, I will need qualified,” he eyes them, with an look that can only be interpreted as dubious, “horses to take up positions of import. Advisory positions. We will need to discuss, as well, how we’d like to see Pangea structured. Something that fits the... unique array of skills we may have in our midst” He takes a breath, again that dust and stale air. And exhales.

“This will not be a place for cravens. Not a safe place, anyway. This is not a sanctuary,” he makes a point to gesture around them with those mighty, curved horns. To every corner of this barren, rugged place, whose scant offerings would toughen them up. It remains to be seen how much would grow from this scarred earth, “not that I want it to be hostile. 

I do so love peace.”

POLLOCK
the gift giver