[se] between two lungs

Deimos

we are all b r o k e n
that's how the l i g h t gets in

So even companions had a mercenary, grasping pull to them; yearning to embody and understand everything, the nuances, the sentiments, the raw undulations of the kingdoms and sovereigns coming to claim their forms. Perhaps they are not so different, animals with differing features, and even as Amalia shrugged away the discomfort, the fear, she might’ve felt, locked away in their captors’ hold (he fought off another growl at the insinuations), the beast turned his head towards Jyoti again, appreciative and indebted to her for a role he could not fulfill. “Then I am grateful for her too,” he offered quietly into the nook, fingers extended should she wish to slide by for a scratch on her mission to fill the void with stars. The whale could be another catalyst for the baker, another bridge to cross, another ladder to climb, another world she could encounter, venture, grow, and prosper within; ideal and wondrous in every sense of those attainments.

She might’ve finally recognized the somber notes in his vocals, the ones buried and burrowed under legions and legacies of loss after loss, where they blended and burned, where they chiseled, marked, and scarred, raw and real, tangible and extreme – he didn’t want to recount the way his mind had pulsed and persisted in those maddening hours where he just assumed she was gone too, lost in the way of so many others along his path. He didn’t want to be one most renowned for burying his companions, for surviving when no one seemed capable, the monumental tower left to his own devices (and they would’ve been cold, harsh, and unrelenting again, sinking straight into those barbaric machinations, doom, oblivion, the chilling void pressed behind his eyelids). So he snagged and snared what he could, inhaling and exhaling with a rush of avarice, her words meandering their way down the length of his shoulders, his spine, his chest, his heart – but they could so easily been collapsed too – but he kept the intonations, the thoughts, the desperations at bay. It was impossible for him not to brood; he’d spent several lifetimes cultivating the act of mooring into his melancholies and miseries, but he had no intention of pulling these fragile, futile, finite instances back into hell and anguish. “Nor am I,” he challenged back, allowing her to tuck the strands of loosened mane behind his ears, tempted by the teases, by the promises, smirking beneath those implicit, tactic measures.

The insecurities were eternally present though; sometimes inescapable, too often corroded and enticed by the experiences they’d lived amongst, within, struggling to take a breath at the surface. Their walls might be thick and fortified, but even the tiniest of cracks could find their way through maintained structures, and he’d be the first to loathe, to admit, the unrelenting nature of apprehension and consternation – not for himself, but for her - how it’d muddled and mocked him deep in the woods, how it lacerated his ribs when Jigano spoke the truth, how it ridiculed the facets of his structure, of his skeleton, of his bones and enamel, flesh and blood, when he was completely, utterly ignorant to everything, to everyone, around him. Out of place, out of touch, and incapable of mustering anything but vehemence and resolution – and even then, he wasn’t certain how far it would’ve taken him into the copses, into the glades, with no stars to guide, with no mission but irreverence and rebellion. He reverted straight back to the coldblooded king within an instant; no matter how many times he’d raised his head and strived to overcome the denizens of damnation spread between lives and memories; the bitterness still clawed, still rampaged, still seethed and smoldered in his behemoth stance. The shame of it burned, and Deimos had half a mind to mention, once more, about his lack of worth, about how she might wish to escape, about how she should find someone far better than himself.

Then she descended with him, followed, followed, followed, all rays and beams of light along the dusty, hollowed floor, where pockets of hallowed vessels suddenly began to take up space, and he nearly bowed to the exchange, undeserving and inept. She curled in amongst his long limbs, leaned into his existence, and despite not being able to understand it, he accepted the notion with every fiber of his being, wrapping and sheltering, protecting and shielding. He leaned down, a ghostly whisper of movement and motion, lips brushing along where her nape joined her shoulder, catching the patchwork of skin with an intricate softness, as if he might have never been there.

She turned in his arms, and there was danger in the gleam of her eyes, smoke and fumes; he responded to it in kind with heedless, wanton gestures of his own, a hooded gaze, the slightest of smirks, mischief and treachery and longing tied up in ancient blue and regal onyx. He stilled only so his stare could fully rivet and entangle its reverence upon her; fingers gliding along his face, taking his head in her hands, he surrendered almost immediately. Her lips swept along his, and he took it for everything that it was worth: the stars, the moon, the skies, returning promises with promises, affection with affection, resolve with resolve. He was mighty and seditious, but in her palms, something more; moving his mouth across hers with the inferred beacons of a stalwart, steadfast heathen – closing his eyes and feeling; opening them again when she broke away, the traces of his breath unwinding, skin still on skin. Her statements were muddled in his head, and it took a second or two before reality coiled its way back into the ether, tilting his cranium ever so slightly to regard her with a mischievous, enticing grin. “Perhaps I should return the favor.” It was a tease, naturally, he never had any true regard to scare her; but knowing himself all too well, it may happen simply out of his revolutionary, or far too curious, nature.

keep the ones who
h e a r d y o u
when you never said a word