DAMIEN
I know it's been a long time coming
I'm angry and I know that's weak
I'm angry and I know that's weak
Damien accepted the answer with a slow nod, though it sat strangely in him, like a stone lodged in the throat of a stream. He didn’t think Deimos was lying—nothing in the man’s bearing suggested that—but maybe he’d just been luckier than most. Maybe his steps had carried him along paths where the gods hadn’t let the ground fall away beneath his feet. That happened, didn’t it? Some people lived in the shadow of storms and never got struck. Others burned the moment the lightning found them.
He didn’t voice it. Just let his gaze follow a raven dragging its shadow across the pale sky, wings black and hard against the smear of clouds. The bird floated easy on the wind, like it had been built to belong up there. Damien envied that. His own thoughts didn’t glide. They caught, snagged, spun back around to chew the same raw edges.
Maybe it wasn’t just caution. Maybe he’d never asked because some part of him never believed he had the right. What would a god want with a trapper’s boy who hadn’t managed to keep anyone he loved alive? Why would a herald waste the time, when there were priests and kings and better men kneeling with polished words and hands? He’d told himself he didn’t need them, that he was stronger for standing on his own. But the truth itched meaner than that. He didn’t think he was worth the asking.
And if he did ask? If the gods listened, he wouldn’t know what to do with it. If they didn’t—if they turned their shining faces elsewhere—that would only prove what he already suspected down in the marrow: he was nothing to them, just another body moving across the snow.
“I've never asked the gods for anything,” he admitted after a long stretch, his voice quieter now, thinned by the wind scouring the tundra, “but… I don’t believe they’d give a damn what I had to say. Why would they? I’m no priest, no king. Just a man trying to keep meat on the table and his bones out of the snow. What business would gods have with me?”
His jaw worked, something restless there, like he was chewing on words better left unsaid. After a moment, he added, softer still: “Maybe it’s easier to tell yourself you don’t need them, than to face that they’d have no reason to listen.”
He didn’t voice it. Just let his gaze follow a raven dragging its shadow across the pale sky, wings black and hard against the smear of clouds. The bird floated easy on the wind, like it had been built to belong up there. Damien envied that. His own thoughts didn’t glide. They caught, snagged, spun back around to chew the same raw edges.
Maybe it wasn’t just caution. Maybe he’d never asked because some part of him never believed he had the right. What would a god want with a trapper’s boy who hadn’t managed to keep anyone he loved alive? Why would a herald waste the time, when there were priests and kings and better men kneeling with polished words and hands? He’d told himself he didn’t need them, that he was stronger for standing on his own. But the truth itched meaner than that. He didn’t think he was worth the asking.
And if he did ask? If the gods listened, he wouldn’t know what to do with it. If they didn’t—if they turned their shining faces elsewhere—that would only prove what he already suspected down in the marrow: he was nothing to them, just another body moving across the snow.
“I've never asked the gods for anything,” he admitted after a long stretch, his voice quieter now, thinned by the wind scouring the tundra, “but… I don’t believe they’d give a damn what I had to say. Why would they? I’m no priest, no king. Just a man trying to keep meat on the table and his bones out of the snow. What business would gods have with me?”
His jaw worked, something restless there, like he was chewing on words better left unsaid. After a moment, he added, softer still: “Maybe it’s easier to tell yourself you don’t need them, than to face that they’d have no reason to listen.”
And I'm longing out that open window
For whatever it is I seek
For whatever it is I seek
