quiet like a fight
Amalia Chandrakant
the Archangel
Baker

Age: 29 | Height: 5'6 | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Stormbreak
Level: 5 - Strg: 49 - Dext: 45 - Endr: 52 - Luck: 49 - Int:
JYOTI - Mythical - Starwhale (Humpback)
Played by: shark Offline
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Posts: 3,098 | Total: 4,577
MP: 2580
#1
"So I guess I'm getting arrested."

Amalia sits in Deimos' kitchen, having arrived with little fanfare- just the letter clasped in her hand. The letter which now sits in the middle of the table, taunting her with its appealing scent and repetitive language, a bizarre bastardization of something that should be beautiful into caricature and infamy. She had spent a long time staring at it, reading and re-reading, as though the words might change, as though if only she scrutinized enough something reasonable and sensible might take shape.

But theirs is a nonsensical world. Once Amalia understood it, could see the logic and patterns of the home she inhabited. It was wild, and wondrous, and monstrous at times, but still it was hers: she knew it, loved it, belonged within. Now, though? Now her world is theirs, and Amalia does not know her place, how to survive in a place that has become hostile to those who wish only to give it life. Her shoulders slumped, her head bowed down, the girl is a picture of resignation, exhaustion, Atlas collapsed beneath his weight, voiceless, expressionless, small.

Is this to be her life, now? Is she to be thwarted and knocked aside every time she tries, punished for simply attempting to maintain some small semblance of order and beauty in the world? Sitting in Deimos' kitchen, Amalia wonders if perhaps the answer is to simply give in. Perhaps she ought to surrender herself, protect the ones she loves from persecution, from the fallout of her good intentions, the desolation of her mistakes. Oh, she could run, but then what? How long until Zariah came looking for her here, began to cut down those she loved in an attempt to flush her out? Amalia is not strong enough to let others bear her burden: she would break and fall were they faced with danger, give in and give up, given the smallest threat.

She is not strong enough for any of this. Perhaps she never was.

Amalia & Jyoti
WE MIGHT BE HOLLOW, BUT WE'RE BRAVE
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Deimos Ignatius
the Resurrected Sword
Warden of Halo / Guildmaster

Age: 33 | Height: 6'4" | Race: Hybrid | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Halo
Level: 14 - Strg: 72 - Dext: 72 - Endr: 73 - Luck: 80 - Int: 3
BELIAL - Mythical - Peryton (Blend) ZURIEL - Mythical - Unicorn (Healing)
Played by: Heather Offline
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Posts: 6,559 | Total: 10,652
MP: 9824
#2
DEIMOS
Delivered from the blasts
Not long before, this Spartan expanse had housed comfort and ease, relaxation and repose, a sanctuary he’d carved for himself, for her, with naught attached but some semblance of peace and serenity. Now though, by the way she sat, by the letter clutched in her hand, by the way she’d breezed through the door, by the way silence had spun itself back into the domicile, like ice, like a chill, the tranquility was gone. In its place sauntered trepidation and misgivings, and he’d had enough of them to last him two lifetimes – fallen comrades, dead allies, lost brethren, shadows chased and disappeared, buried friends, deceased family, and then the crossing of wires on his kin here, over and over and over again – a record no one wanted to hear.

He hid the sigh tucked in his chest, letting it out as he stewed and brooded around his counter top and cabinets, pulling down a couple mugs, thinking to fill them with one of her favored teas (though he’d really prefer some sort of alcohol; the pending intentions lacquered around these frameworks weren’t going to be good – he could tell just by the look on her face). While he put a kettle of water on the stove, waiting for it to heat up and boil, he threaded his way along the table, before finally sitting down in a chair beside her.

It was so ominous that he felt ill; a noxious bile coiling itself around his throat, into his stomach, flickering out on his bated breath. One of his hands reached for hers, while the other ghosted over the parchment, pulling it closer so that he could read its contents.

The more his eyes roamed over the lines, the arch of script, the context, the more his grasp became a tauter, more rigid consternation; a blistering, ferocious rage began to fill the spaces of consternation, apprehension, and disquiet. They no longer existed in the state of his fury, a contempt brutally unraveling its way in ridges along his ribs, pulsing with the beat of his primordial, annihilating heart. It’d been a long time since he’d loathed anyone so foul, so outrageous, so despicable, but he certainly remembered how. The state of his features were cold and menacing, a rapacious chill conforming to his brows – the ice king again, the Siberian soldier, hastened off to chase down those that threatened his own. In Helovia, he’d been capable of calling them out on their own front steps, brutalizing, savaging, ripping them apart the way they’d intended to do to his people. In Isilme, he’d cut them down where they stood because otherwise they’d have done the same to him or any of his colleagues. In Caido, the Queen, the enemy, sat behind mansions and guards, waiting for one of them to come sidling her way, a snake in the grass, hoping to make the right strike.

She’d already done it with Rexanna. She wasn’t getting to Amalia.

“You are welcome to stay here,” he managed to utter through clenched teeth and jaw; tossing the paper onto the table, where it fluttered and sat, wishing he could burn it, releasing her only so that he could survey his weapons nearby, his options, calculating, machinating, pondering how he would get to her without losing bits and pieces of his own flesh first.
the last of a line of lasts
Amalia Chandrakant
the Archangel
Baker

Age: 29 | Height: 5'6 | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Stormbreak
Level: 5 - Strg: 49 - Dext: 45 - Endr: 52 - Luck: 49 - Int:
JYOTI - Mythical - Starwhale (Humpback)
Played by: shark Offline
Change author:
Posts: 3,098 | Total: 4,577
MP: 2580
#3
Amalia tucks the cup against her palms almost without conscious thought, staring, blankly, into the empty vessel, as though the porcelain might hold some answers, as though she can magically will the thing to fill itself up with tea. Where had it come from, this old piece of pottery? Cracked lines and broken pieces suggest he did not make it, that it comes from a time before he arrived, fractured enamel and absent shards. Who had held it before her- a child, a family? A grandfather with weathered and gnarled hands as he whispered stories to eager listeners, told of spirits both light and dark?

What did they worry about, except for Long Night, the coming harvest, the scorching sun?

Amalia misses the absent days when demons were the greatest part of her worries, when her trials were, at the least, predictable, manageable in their approach. Once she understood the dangers: they were dismal, terrifying, but they were hers. No knowledge was far from her fingers, no information quite outside her reach. She understood the Hollow Grounds and her place within them, as small and insignificant as that might be.

Now, though, the girl is lost, adrift in a sea of mistaken choices. She does not look up at his pacing, still too caught in her own unsettled, useless thoughts. What had she been thinking, putting up that notice, trying to correct another issue far larger than herself? Of course she botched it - of course there were consequences, far greater and worse than where she started, dismal and dangerous, painful and vast? She does not look up when Deimos speaks, but something in her stiffens and shudders, the lines of her body growing taut. You are welcome to stay here- because he is leaving, because he cannot bear to be here.

Because at last she is too much.

Of course - of course - but what was she thinking, bringing him this latest evidence of her foolishness, another mistake? The last of her shatters, breaks apart. Of course she has managed to ruin this, too.

A choked laugh rings from her throat, strangled, halfway to a sob; she is shaking as she rises abruptly from her chair, palms splayed out upon the table, her head swaying dangerously in denial, despair. "No, I'll go," the girl exhales, reaching out to snatch up the note, trying and failing to hide the tremble that strums and taunts the edge of her voice. "I'm sorry. I should get back- there's a lot to do- the bakery, and- and- and Jyo will need to stay somewhere- and- I'm sorry, I shouldn't have bothered you, I just- "

I just wanted someone to hold me. I just wanted to be told that things would be okay.

She isn't crying. She isn't crying.

But oh, god, she is close.

Amalia & Jyoti
WE MIGHT BE HOLLOW, BUT WE'RE BRAVE
image credits
Deimos Ignatius
the Resurrected Sword
Warden of Halo / Guildmaster

Age: 33 | Height: 6'4" | Race: Hybrid | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Halo
Level: 14 - Strg: 72 - Dext: 72 - Endr: 73 - Luck: 80 - Int: 3
BELIAL - Mythical - Peryton (Blend) ZURIEL - Mythical - Unicorn (Healing)
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Posts: 6,559 | Total: 10,652
MP: 9824
#4
DEIMOS
Delivered from the blasts
Somewhere in the midst of his rage, in that untamed, feral interlude where his machinations and calculations sometimes brooded into cinders, ash, and embers – too far gone, too far gone – he’d missed her layer of thinking. While he paced and brewed, while he cultivated and orchestrated the seething thoughts of strangling Zariah with his bare hands, or running a blade to and through her heart, no conscience, no release but the rancorous indulgence of a beast slain; Amalia rose, going, leaving. Stupefied, bewildered, incapable of understanding where the twists and turns had gone, he blinked, stepping back, pondering when and where and why this world had instigated him into being such a fool. He’d been rapacious and bloodthirsty the moment he’d read the monarch’s writing, had thought of naught but destruction and mayhem, menace for menace, depravity for depravity, a threat not empty; cast into the whirlwind of tempestuous, mercurial designs, instead of the coldblooded ruses and schemes he usually imparted, implored, and instigated.

As he ran his hand along the pommel of his favored sword, as he ceased admiring the keen edges, the spun silver and steel, the way it’d been orchestrated to kill, his eyes drifted to her and his heart sunk.

Because underneath all of the anger, all of the wrath, all of the contempt, was the absolute, primal fear that he was going to watch them all die, incapable, ineffectual, useless, worthless, the Reaper reaped, with nothing to show for it but more crypts, more burials, more sepulchers.

He abandoned the weapon on the floor, moved, swiftly, quickly, a shadow, a touch, a taste of darkness, to impede her path to the door. There was no need to apologize to him. There was no need for any of this if others could simply find particular ways to rebel, if everything wasn’t placed across his shoulders, if he were better, stronger, mightier than he was now. “That is not what I meant,” he said at first, hands grasping softly, carefully, placed upon her shoulders, only so she stayed, here with him, out of danger for the moment. His features were stalwart, desperate things, struggling with actions and reactions, imploring, reaching for what haunted his heart, his lungs, his soul. “I do not know how to fix this.” But I want to. Other than death, other than demise, other than the Merciless gone; his merciless blade taking its plunge through ribcages. For the instant, it was all he could surmise – outlines and schemes forgotten in the wake of terror, of apprehension, for her. “What do you want to do?” His breath quaked and shuddered, his hands suddenly dulcet things, reaching for her face, cupping her cheeks, begging for her to look at him. He wasn’t sure if she could feel the trembling in his fingers, the wake of trepidation and discord shivering in his efforts to remain in control, composed, not bursting at the seams into some terrible, terrifying monster, or breaking, fraying apart, strands plucked away from their seams all over again. His next statement was quiet, but only for her – not the walls, not the wind, not the horrors waiting to pull the trigger. “I cannot bear to lose you.”
the last of a line of lasts
Amalia Chandrakant
the Archangel
Baker

Age: 29 | Height: 5'6 | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Stormbreak
Level: 5 - Strg: 49 - Dext: 45 - Endr: 52 - Luck: 49 - Int:
JYOTI - Mythical - Starwhale (Humpback)
Played by: shark Offline
Change author:
Posts: 3,098 | Total: 4,577
MP: 2580
#5
She senses his movement even as he makes it but does not turn around, does not look to see his rejection, to watch him watch her walk away. She is surprised, then, to find him in front of her, his large hands on her narrow shoulders, a bulwark in her path. Compliantly the baker stops, her gaze still down-turned, her body tense, awaiting judgment, consternation, blame. I did this. I did all this. I made this mistake. How can she face him, he who is good, he who is strong, a lighthouse, a shelter? What storm has she brought into his haven, what turmoil and tragedy will her presence here wreak. Let me go, her brain is howling; Hold me close, her heart retorts.

He doesn't deserve this, the mess that she is. She cannot let him be a casualty to her despair.

"Maybe it can't be fixed." Her voice is a whisper, a resigned exhalation, shaking beneath the weight of her misery. She closes her eyes, not willing, not able, afraid to have him see her like this, broken and aimless and scattered on the floor. "Maybe I break everything I touch." Maybe isn't part of it- the confession in her voice is absolute, knowledge that this must be a fact. Her relationships, her family, her home, herself-

-She remembers a day she sat on the bone bridge, looking down into the abyss and wondering, wondering, wondering what it would be if she simply took that step.

How much of this would have been prevented, had she not been such a coward, so weak?

Could she have saved him?

Could she still?

His hands cup against her cheek, and she shudders, tears burning hot behind her closed eyes. How strange, that even now he is giving, offering him the things she has never deserved. How, how, does he still not see the deep abyss that the girl is, that all she can do is take and take, destroying everything beautiful and good? I cannot bear to lose you- as though she has worth, as though she is something to be cherished and loved. Unbidden her fingers rise over his, intending to pull them away before faltering, still too selfish, still too weak. "Lose me?" she whispers, laughs, chokes. "You couldn't lose me if you tried."

Sighing, Amalia drops her hands, her dark eyes opening, though they remain downcast. "This is my fault. Everything- everything I've tried to do-" Everything fails. "Zariah was right. I'm nothing- I'm worthless- I... I don't know why I thought I could make a difference."

Amalia & Jyoti
WE MIGHT BE HOLLOW, BUT WE'RE BRAVE
image credits
Deimos Ignatius
the Resurrected Sword
Warden of Halo / Guildmaster

Age: 33 | Height: 6'4" | Race: Hybrid | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Halo
Level: 14 - Strg: 72 - Dext: 72 - Endr: 73 - Luck: 80 - Int: 3
BELIAL - Mythical - Peryton (Blend) ZURIEL - Mythical - Unicorn (Healing)
Played by: Heather Offline
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Posts: 6,559 | Total: 10,652
MP: 9824
#6
DEIMOS
Delivered from the blasts
She forced the stars to fade; the wrath in his form faded to behind his eyes, underneath the layers of conviction and tribulations, conspiring in the depths – for later, later, later – the present was a dismal consequence without the vehemence of his ire. He breathed, brought back composure when all he wanted do was wring someone (Zariah’s) neck, ferocious and unrelenting. It was her resigned whispers that blistered and scathed, the overwhelming amount of guilt and sorrow, the hovering anguish, that he didn’t know what to do with. His reactions to anything melancholy were to brood, were to brew, were to seethe and simmer by himself, touch and scald into the dark, maybe wait for the void to consume him entirely, for the abyss to take him into perdition and purgatory. He couldn’t recall a time she’d ever been broken or snapped or flickered apart – always strong, always enduring, a paragon of faith and virtue, belief and credence in her gods, in accepting of their sweeping hands and benedictions. It was his role to play – the beast, the vermin, the fiend, the infidel, the scorned, the abandoned, the forsaken – not hers. It was unfamiliar and he didn’t know what to do with it – had difficulty in comprehending another’s grief when he could barely ever manage his own, chest heaving as she shuddered in his grasp, as tears threatened along her lashes, as her laughter over his confession seemed to brush into the hollowed sanctions too –

But he knew loss. It’d been a part of his existence for so long it was hard to fathom a time without its hanging presence, its scythe, its rags, its shadows.

Hadn’t she already died once?

You couldn’t lose me if you tried sounded like an omen, like a foreboding cloud that they were testing, because worlds were cruel, bleak, and vicious. He believed in his strength, in her power, in their devotion, but it would be so easy, so simple, so straightforward to have it taken away, like everything else. Zariah’s words are written plagues; marching over his skin, turning and toiling in his mind. He resisted, he clawed, he fought; but for now, Amalia’s admissions, her platitude, her essence was paramount.

He didn’t say anything at first, absorbing the blows she inflicted upon herself, before lowering his hands to her waist, and lifting her up into his arms. Eloquence and things left unsaid in simple actions, one hand coiling beneath her knees, the other supporting her back, as he carried her over to the only larger chair in the living room. Brawn and fortitude, perseverance and regard, hoping to somehow infuse that into her, to embody, to incite, to rekindle and provoke those assurances back along her frame; settling himself within the chair, unceremoniously sitting in its sanction, coiling and curling her into him, arms wrapped along her figure as he mulled over discourse. His voice was a rumble, purposefully calm, rational; attempting to stoke fibers of her ethereal soul into their otherworldly presence, swallowing down the choking bile coating his lungs, his throat, or the apprehension blistering against his mind. “We find a way. We try.” He paused, incapable of giving in, one of the many who dug their heels in; a persevering devil, an enduring demon, knowing she was just as capable, just as competent. The world had ground down, down, down on their enamel, and he worked on stitching the seams together again. “Only when we give in are we truly helpless.” And he wasn’t about to – given her nod of approval, his blade would’ve been heading straight for the Merciless and her soldiers, her guards, fire in his veins, burning down her manor. Was any of this comforting? He was so out of his element he could barely think past all the mumbled whispers of defeat and melancholy; lips pressed against her hairline, here, here, here, in the strangled moments of the unknown.

“You saved Safrin, Jigano, Jyoti, and yourself from the Fae. You saved me.” These declarations were only the surface, there were depths either unknown or pending, her actions a catalyst for so many others. “You are not nothing, nor will you ever be. You have done more for this world than Zariah ever will.” The last was on the slightest, deeper timbre, only because of the festering loathing lingering under the weight of everything else. “Why should you listen to her manipulative lies? That is her method. That is how she strives to break you – because you are a threat to her reign.” Because you dare. Zariah was trash. Zariah was debris. Zariah was a monarch only because she’d taken an empty throne with no one to fight back. Zariah was a bully, and at some point, she was going to irritate and irk the wrong individuals. In his pause, he regained his cool again, an inhale, an exhale, fighting against her urge to blame, to blame, to blame. “So what are our options?”
the last of a line of lasts
Amalia Chandrakant
the Archangel
Baker

Age: 29 | Height: 5'6 | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Stormbreak
Level: 5 - Strg: 49 - Dext: 45 - Endr: 52 - Luck: 49 - Int:
JYOTI - Mythical - Starwhale (Humpback)
Played by: shark Offline
Change author:
Posts: 3,098 | Total: 4,577
MP: 2580
#7
Of the things she expects to have happen, being scooped up into Deimos' arm is not one of them. Her face drops immediately as he unhands her chin, his silence resounding, resonant, painful, a clear acceptance of the truth of her words, the validity behind what she is trying to say. You could never lose me, but she could lose him, watch him walk away and be unable to stop him, unable to do anything but collapse, her knees buckling her down onto the floor. It is what he deserves, what she deserves, to be alone, isolated, where she can no longer hurt, no longer ruin, no longer damage the world.

So she does not expect Deimos to stay. She does not expect his hands on her waist. She does not expect to leave the ground until his arm is below her knees and she is cradled against his chest, her arms rising instinctively around his neck, her face pressed into his sternum. Stunned to silence, the girl is a feather in his strong arms, a lost bird on an ocean current , blown away by a summer storm. She is a ship without a mooring, and he is the only thing keeping her afloat. She can smell him, taste him, feel him on her skin. He is haven, he is heaven.

For a moment she feels safe.

As they settle into the chair she thinks of slipping away, easing out of his embrace and falling to the floor. Swift and slender, she might be able to do it. It would be another opportunity for him to escape, another way to grant him freedom. She does not want to be this thing, broken and bashful in his arms, tears lurking just beyond her vision, hands coiled up upon each other as she curls closer to his chest. She could try to leave, but she really couldn't, because she is captive, because she is his, because he has given her everything she needs, everything she wants, everything she doesn't deserve.

His words do not particularly matter. They fall upon her like so much rain, pattering down against her defenses, soft and dulcet, tender and deep. More than the content, Amalia listens to the rumble of his chest, the sound of air traveling through his larynx, the vibratory hum of his baritone. Curled and coiled against his body the baker begins to breather a little easier, her body no longer trembling, her figure no longer taut. Warm ears press against her skull; she purrs into his lap, a tail wrapping around his arm, fur rising up from her goosebump skin.

By the time he poses his practical question Amalia is not equipped to answer with anything more than a rumbling growl. In place of a girl, Deimos now holds a leopard, the big cat kittenlike as she peers up at his face.

Amalia & Jyoti
WE MIGHT BE HOLLOW, BUT WE'RE BRAVE
image credits
Deimos Ignatius
the Resurrected Sword
Warden of Halo / Guildmaster

Age: 33 | Height: 6'4" | Race: Hybrid | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Halo
Level: 14 - Strg: 72 - Dext: 72 - Endr: 73 - Luck: 80 - Int: 3
BELIAL - Mythical - Peryton (Blend) ZURIEL - Mythical - Unicorn (Healing)
Played by: Heather Offline
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Posts: 6,559 | Total: 10,652
MP: 9824
#8
DEIMOS
Delivered from the blasts
Silence, he received only silence in return for the seams he’d tried to stitch together, and he wondered if he should’ve just stayed in those hushed platitudes, the comfortable, familiar hole of hushed observations and quiet contemplations. They didn’t seem to matter, or bear any weight, and the notions curved against him, like knives, like daggers, and he wondered if it was possible to become hollow again. Maybe he was useless. Maybe she didn’t need him. Maybe they were too broken and splintered, fractured against every single blasted onslaught flung their direction, and it’d just been too many assaults, too many blows. Maybe she believed he was incapable – maybe she was right. But there’d always been those convictions stored within him, unsung pledges and abhorrent vows, streamlines of machinations and ruses meant to protect those he cherished. He’d utilized them once before, became their weapon, their munitions, their blackguard in the shadows, embracing every ounce of every sin, iniquitous and primordial, a breathing blade, an immoral vessel, weapon, weapon, weapon. Perhaps he wasn’t meant for comfort, perhaps he didn’t have a clue what to do when everything around him started to crumble (flee or fight – sometimes he buried his soul in the sands and waited for the world to smother him whole, sometimes he took up arms and drove his cutlass into the heart of the nearest man). Perhaps she understood that, and merely waited for the inevitable: his failures, his defeats, his head lowered into the dark, tossed against the barrage of rocks and the crag rising from the sea.

He listened though, because in those garbled, strangled moments that was all he could do – as he brooded, as he seethed, as he returned to glacial king, sovereign of the mountains sitting upon his throne with gallows in his sights and irreverence on his skin; looking down at the brush of fur on his arm, a shift from baker to predator. He bit back a retort, a snort, was slightly gratified in that her trembling had ceased, but the subjects drifted away – pondering if she was avoiding everything, if she didn’t want to answer his inquiries, if she thought him incapable. A measure of ire and abhorrence clawed its way back into his flesh again, pulsing, pervading at his veins – horrible at assuaging, at soothing, when naught he did held any significance, any consequence, except specks of dust, ash, and cinders.

One hand went to an ear, scratching behind it, then ghosting to the puff of whiskers at her cheek, incapable of smothering the sigh shuddering through his chest. “What do you want me to do?” She hoped he could hear the refusal in standing down, the tone of tenacity, of endurance, of fortitude, action in the eloquence, so many more things he could say by ambitions and aspirations alone. Let me do something. He’d burn the world. He’d stab the Merciless through the heart. He’d defend and slay and perish. For her. The depth of his gaze flickered away from her, piercing and penetrating, deep insurrection, staring into the shadows crawling along the walls, baritone fixed and rooted. “Because I refuse to do nothing.”
the last of a line of lasts
Amalia Chandrakant
the Archangel
Baker

Age: 29 | Height: 5'6 | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Stormbreak
Level: 5 - Strg: 49 - Dext: 45 - Endr: 52 - Luck: 49 - Int:
JYOTI - Mythical - Starwhale (Humpback)
Played by: shark Offline
Change author:
Posts: 3,098 | Total: 4,577
MP: 2580
#9
The leopard skin is as much a reflex as curling up away from pain, retracting from a searing candle or the deadly bite of a snake. It is as much a suit of armor as any steel dress, a way to shield against the dangers, the damages, the painful responsibilities of her human skin. She wishes he could understand how much it means to her, how much she needs to be the leopard, how sometimes it is the only way she can make sense of the world. It is not that she thinks Deimos incapable: rather, she thinks it of herself, knows she cannot be the things he sees in her, the things they all see in her. Even Zariah seems to think Amalia is more than she is, some sort of leader, of guardian, of shield.

Why don't they all see that she is nothing, unworthy of their fear, their devotion, their hatred, their love?

Her deep purr reverberates through the room as Deimos caresses her ear, the simple caress as soothing as any sentiment he could offer, enough to keep her from balking at his words. What do you want me to do? She doesn't have an answer. She does not know what she wants him to do, except to stay here, stay with her, to love her and hold her and shield her from the dark. She wants to feel safe again, to know that there are walls and worlds keeping her from the storms. What do you want me to do- everything and nothing but be there for her, but forgive her her transgression, but allow her to be scared.

Because oh, but she is terrified, more than she has ever been.

But she cannot hide forever, cannot ask him to do these things while she wears a leopard skin. Sighing, Amalia curls and shifts, human features returning slowly, lips and eyes and hair and flesh, though her tail and ears remain. Onyx eyes gaze up at Deimos from her place still in his lap; she reaches up with a trembling hand, curling gently upon his cheek. How can he still offer the world, when she has proven time and again that she does not deserve it, has never deserved it, will never deserve his love?

"Stay with me," she whispers, chokes, her voice shaking and quiet, an earnest plea. "Just... please. I'm sorry. I can't- I don't-"

But oh, the tears cannot be stopped, and the girl turns her face away, her body coiling as she sobs.

Amalia & Jyoti
WE MIGHT BE HOLLOW, BUT WE'RE BRAVE
image credits
Deimos Ignatius
the Resurrected Sword
Warden of Halo / Guildmaster

Age: 33 | Height: 6'4" | Race: Hybrid | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Halo
Level: 14 - Strg: 72 - Dext: 72 - Endr: 73 - Luck: 80 - Int: 3
BELIAL - Mythical - Peryton (Blend) ZURIEL - Mythical - Unicorn (Healing)
Played by: Heather Offline
Change author:
Posts: 6,559 | Total: 10,652
MP: 9824
#10
DEIMOS
Delivered from the blasts
He didn’t have a leopard skin to wear – his armor was his own, fortified along shoals and battlefields, flesh forged into chainmail, walls inclining up and over his features, the stoic, the nonchalant, the viciously, visibly detached. It was a way to persist without constant agony. It was a way to endure without consistent anguish. It was a way he could remain upon this earth without falling horrifically apart; a broken, whittled shell of a man, reassembled only by bits and pieces, by shards and fragments. He wanted to retreat into that sanction, that sanctuary, that haven he’d built for himself for what felt like lifetimes ago; a shelter against the storm so he didn’t fail her, so he didn’t disappoint her. But he was so damned lost, so damned hopeless, so utterly damned that everything scraped down his throat and choked him down, suffocating, smothering, drowning him from the inside out. The beast had hope and affection now, and in its stead he was momentarily trapped in the snares of his past, yearning to bleed into those primeval, primordial refuges of warriors and refugees, tucked away from the brutality of the world so he could think, so he could muse, so he could compose something worthy of her, worthy of this, worthy of them.

Maybe he pushed too much. Maybe, because they’d suffered so many other things, because they’d managed and obtained survival even amidst darker intonations and incantations, he thought it simply be another hurdle to launch over, another line to cross. Was this deeper – fathoms he couldn’t see within, depths he couldn’t burn his way out of? Or were these alterations of the same old nuances; differing calculations and notions, but the sentiments the same?

She purred instead of trembled, instead of shaking, and he took it, threading all his notions into a scathing silence, yearning to rip things into splinters and remnants; but rendering this, here and now. His hand followed the same ritual, scratching over fur and proffering some form of comfort (but it was too new and he was too stupid and it simply, couldn’t possibly be, enough). She shifted though, back to human form, tail and ears remaining, an incomplete transition that might’ve leant her more ease than he could – then her fingers skimmed over his cheek, and the quivering seemed to return. He glanced down, and he had no idea what his eyes portrayed: a mixture of frustration and affection, hopelessness and strength? The warrens were wide and the labyrinths were massive, overwhelming, overbearing, but he shifted his other hand to her cheek, gently placing her head in between the junction of his shoulder and neck; then curling his arms back around her, a tight embrace, a shield in the storm. “They will not have you,” he whispered into the dark, into her ear, into her cheek, into her skin, while her tears flowed and the nefarious reaches of his heart pulsed. His chest hurt. His lungs seized. And somewhere, the promise, the conviction, was laden against his soul; another vow he intended to keep.
the last of a line of lasts


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