DEIMOS
No sooner than the satisfaction had appeared, rare, emboldened, then it defused – any grins mustered or managed fading away to grim, drawn lines, retreating straight into nonchalance the moment Remi slumped down. It wasn’t the off-the-book motions that bothered him (though it had in the moments – stretched far too thin and the crumbling rocks ricocheting, bounding for something that could’ve promised death), but the notion that Ronin was no better (which meant, in another regard, that Kiada wouldn’t be cured either).Nothing. Nothing they’d done mattered. All that success, all that finality, all those hopes and promises plummeted just as quickly as they’d been surmised, and then there was naught but a wasteland – a waste of time, a waste of efforts, a waste of potential, prowess, and regard, wounds earned, ominous emblems cursed, and it hadn’t been the answer at all.
“I am sorry,” he uttered into the bakery walls, because he was, he was regretful and apologetic and burdened again that these accomplishments had been worthless, benign, inconsequential, that at some points they’d nearly been vanquished multiple times for empty solutions. What had they conquered? What had been the victory? Less poison, less venom, less vitriol amongst the air – but everything else still lingered in the throes and throngs of sickness. On a sigh, he found a chair nearby, pulling it toward the counter where he’d laid the bottles, opening one and sliding it towards Remi – who might’ve required it more than him. The warrior unlatched a second, raising it to his lips on a long, consuming swallow, pressuring it to burn down his throat and soak him in more of the forlorn, biting, gnawing parallels; the claws, the talons, clipping, dragging, tearing; familiar bouts of trials and tribulations. He placed it back down for an instant, eyes riveting back to Remi. “What can we do now?”
He was something solid
to lean against
violent and fierce and unmoving
