DEIMOS
ache first, but then let the cuts close
spit out the blood
spit out the blood
A stone, a rock, a monolith carved and sculpted from patience and fortitude, he simply waited again. Let the words sink in. Let them ruminate and wander. Let them come to pass as they were; modicums of his opinion, but never the end-all, be-all. That was Hotaru’s decision to make – to either wander back into the midst of the Flood and his tidal waves, his drowning abyss, his title and platitudes all finally making sense, or to find herself again, claw and tear and rip and maim. When they used to be Reapers and Valkyries and cold, glacial storms against the world. Where his heart had been a mauled, embittered, rancorous threshold, before it withered and decayed and blackened now. Where she’d been a monarch of triumph over tragedy, no matter how many seemed to encompass her existence.
What a pair.
Deimos remained silent while she stoked and finalized her choice, for good buried in the wood of the room, in the crackling of the fire, in the quiet breaths Zuriel took, in the perma-winter expanse outside. “Do what is best for you,” he rumbled again; and if it was leaving the fools behind to sort out their own messes, their own priorities, then so be it. She could make another stand somewhere else, clamber to arms, rustle in her spirits, awaken some other fortitude, some other might, she’d buried along the way, when she was trying to compensate for a life with an idiot. No need, not now, not when the realm was threatening to crack and fray.
He laughed when she brushed her lips against his knuckles, a ticklish sensation, and he would’ve swatted her away if he still hadn’t been holding her. Another sigh echoed and reverberated after that, his head shaking on top of hers, a muffled sort of grumble flickering past the normally closed and clenched jaws. “Maybe I was not worth the effort.” And Amalia had come to realize that, seen it, well before he ever had. The beast furrowed his brows again, aching over this self-inflicted wound, and stared back down at the floor, a multitude of emotions rotting through.
And then there was Kiada – and the monolith could recall pieces, portions, of conversation he’d started to enact upon on notions of the Penumbra. “Maybe. I had asked Ludo and Mort’s demigod if there was a way, because of Rexanna.” He released her a little, in case she wanted to maneuver away while he settled into plots and schemes. “Supposedly she holds the souls somewhere high in the mountains.” But that was all he’d received.
The inquiry thereafter though pierced, over similar conversations they’d had, over the wayward way she’d been resurrected and come back to them. “She made her choice. She knew who she was following.” And his features then grew very grim, threatening to fold back into nonchalance rather than face the likelihood of damnation hovering over them once more.
What a pair.
Deimos remained silent while she stoked and finalized her choice, for good buried in the wood of the room, in the crackling of the fire, in the quiet breaths Zuriel took, in the perma-winter expanse outside. “Do what is best for you,” he rumbled again; and if it was leaving the fools behind to sort out their own messes, their own priorities, then so be it. She could make another stand somewhere else, clamber to arms, rustle in her spirits, awaken some other fortitude, some other might, she’d buried along the way, when she was trying to compensate for a life with an idiot. No need, not now, not when the realm was threatening to crack and fray.
He laughed when she brushed her lips against his knuckles, a ticklish sensation, and he would’ve swatted her away if he still hadn’t been holding her. Another sigh echoed and reverberated after that, his head shaking on top of hers, a muffled sort of grumble flickering past the normally closed and clenched jaws. “Maybe I was not worth the effort.” And Amalia had come to realize that, seen it, well before he ever had. The beast furrowed his brows again, aching over this self-inflicted wound, and stared back down at the floor, a multitude of emotions rotting through.
And then there was Kiada – and the monolith could recall pieces, portions, of conversation he’d started to enact upon on notions of the Penumbra. “Maybe. I had asked Ludo and Mort’s demigod if there was a way, because of Rexanna.” He released her a little, in case she wanted to maneuver away while he settled into plots and schemes. “Supposedly she holds the souls somewhere high in the mountains.” But that was all he’d received.
The inquiry thereafter though pierced, over similar conversations they’d had, over the wayward way she’d been resurrected and come back to them. “She made her choice. She knew who she was following.” And his features then grew very grim, threatening to fold back into nonchalance rather than face the likelihood of damnation hovering over them once more.
watch your body pull itself back together
then let your soul do the same
then let your soul do the same
