this is the reckoning
There were some days where Deimos had wanted naught more than to be residual things that had once made him whole – ruthless, conniving, barbaric, colossal, terrifying. Lacking in control and confinement, in decorum and compassion, just reckless and abandoned from anything but those feral tendencies. A rarity and a scarcity, which was a plausible advantage for everyone else’s sake, but sometimes he was so confined and restrained that he was just a coiled, entangled knot of imminent destruction. Unleashed torrents upon ningos had been a satisfying measure; purposeful in multiple pursuits, and enough to have him no longer clawing at the edges of the Citadel walls, striving for something to wrench and break apart until there was naught below his wake.
That Ashetta, and several others in their midst, was the same was somewhat less disconcerting and more of a notion of camaraderie. Perhaps it was all the predacious instincts layered and contorted; he didn’t care to look too far inward at all the lines of carnivorous pursuits. He knew what he was, and when the situation called for it.
What little he’d known of the Kalt incident had been miniscule scraps from Theea, and even then, he didn’t pry. He knew the heavy weight of loss and the overbearing toil it took, how far one had to go to strive and rise above the surface of all the grief. Sometimes they were small steps, head barely along the water, and other times it was as if they’d been pulled down into the fathoms, already adrift and drowned. To hear it had been in the Fangs earned a slight nettling behind his ears, bothered that another had been taken in a part of his own region. I am sorry for your loss, he gave instead – they’d experienced a litany of such ends in the same threshold. From dragons to shifting lands to pools and springs gone – Halo had never been short on casualties. There might’ve been so many more, had they not made a horde of other efforts.
Taking hold of another ningo, he sighed, but let it filter and flicker elsewhere, in mere puffs of warm air from his hound nose. Agreed. A notion crossed his mind, the same sort he might’ve granted to Theea, but he was uncertain how far families might have discussed such parameters – given how many ghosts hovered over their lives. Have you talked to Remi about trying to reach him? An idea; maybe, in the fine line of things, knowing the Lullaby’s capabilities, to let her linger upon as they made their way towards the Citadel.
[FIN]
That Ashetta, and several others in their midst, was the same was somewhat less disconcerting and more of a notion of camaraderie. Perhaps it was all the predacious instincts layered and contorted; he didn’t care to look too far inward at all the lines of carnivorous pursuits. He knew what he was, and when the situation called for it.
What little he’d known of the Kalt incident had been miniscule scraps from Theea, and even then, he didn’t pry. He knew the heavy weight of loss and the overbearing toil it took, how far one had to go to strive and rise above the surface of all the grief. Sometimes they were small steps, head barely along the water, and other times it was as if they’d been pulled down into the fathoms, already adrift and drowned. To hear it had been in the Fangs earned a slight nettling behind his ears, bothered that another had been taken in a part of his own region. I am sorry for your loss, he gave instead – they’d experienced a litany of such ends in the same threshold. From dragons to shifting lands to pools and springs gone – Halo had never been short on casualties. There might’ve been so many more, had they not made a horde of other efforts.
Taking hold of another ningo, he sighed, but let it filter and flicker elsewhere, in mere puffs of warm air from his hound nose. Agreed. A notion crossed his mind, the same sort he might’ve granted to Theea, but he was uncertain how far families might have discussed such parameters – given how many ghosts hovered over their lives. Have you talked to Remi about trying to reach him? An idea; maybe, in the fine line of things, knowing the Lullaby’s capabilities, to let her linger upon as they made their way towards the Citadel.
[FIN]
DEIMOS
