and the only solution was to stand and fight
Carving his magic through the log grounded him; moved past the anguish of lost souls, not having the heart to say both Adam and Peter had turned into Ascended years later, and then been gone again, in that sea of war frameworks. To Mort, he supposed, where the world was greater and grander and the suffering over and done with. He liked to think they would’ve preferred living though – but the wood nearby had already been severed, and he tossed it along as if it were nothing – listening to the echoes of the sled, to the screeches of Belial overhead.
The question pierced through with such a directness that he could almost feel a snort building. Perhaps he wasn’t used to others being as blunt and curt to him as he was to them – gaze turning back to Damien briefly, before rounding towards another fallen tree, though upon checking, it had rotted out, and he left it for other foragers while his thoughts clung and spun together.
The Sword knew loss and death better than most elements of the world – it had been a steady fixture in his life since his teenage years, no matter which realm he called home. War as a youth, to friends buried beside battlefields, to his own flesh and blood rendered and destroyed…then there’d been Helovia itself, with all its multitudes of ruin and chaos. And there’d been hours of simply giving in to the anguish – where he hadn’t been capable of reaching for any tethers, hadn’t even bothered to raise his head against the pounding waves. To let it sink and consume and suffocate.
Which hadn’t been the end to his story – but a chapter, a turning point, one of a dozen forks in the road.
So eventually he mired through the inquiry, the twist of a grin beginning to wane its way back to his features. “My days of giving up are long gone.” He had too much at stake now. A region. A home. A family. Friends. Things he’d carefully crafted and built over despair and torture, terror and trepidation. “Too many things to live for nowadays.” He couldn’t fathom wearing away into nothingness when there were so many things he’d fought for along the way. “It takes time – to find those moments, people, or places. But worth it, just the same.” At which he glanced back at Damien, expecting some rebuttal, before dragging the vessel further up the stream.
Altering the subject, in case the other man didn’t want to respond, he jutted his jawline towards the west. “My companion spotted some deer,” not luxere,“over that way. When we finish up, we can hunt, if you want.”
The question pierced through with such a directness that he could almost feel a snort building. Perhaps he wasn’t used to others being as blunt and curt to him as he was to them – gaze turning back to Damien briefly, before rounding towards another fallen tree, though upon checking, it had rotted out, and he left it for other foragers while his thoughts clung and spun together.
The Sword knew loss and death better than most elements of the world – it had been a steady fixture in his life since his teenage years, no matter which realm he called home. War as a youth, to friends buried beside battlefields, to his own flesh and blood rendered and destroyed…then there’d been Helovia itself, with all its multitudes of ruin and chaos. And there’d been hours of simply giving in to the anguish – where he hadn’t been capable of reaching for any tethers, hadn’t even bothered to raise his head against the pounding waves. To let it sink and consume and suffocate.
Which hadn’t been the end to his story – but a chapter, a turning point, one of a dozen forks in the road.
So eventually he mired through the inquiry, the twist of a grin beginning to wane its way back to his features. “My days of giving up are long gone.” He had too much at stake now. A region. A home. A family. Friends. Things he’d carefully crafted and built over despair and torture, terror and trepidation. “Too many things to live for nowadays.” He couldn’t fathom wearing away into nothingness when there were so many things he’d fought for along the way. “It takes time – to find those moments, people, or places. But worth it, just the same.” At which he glanced back at Damien, expecting some rebuttal, before dragging the vessel further up the stream.
Altering the subject, in case the other man didn’t want to respond, he jutted his jawline towards the west. “My companion spotted some deer,” not luxere,“over that way. When we finish up, we can hunt, if you want.”
DEIMOS
