quiet like a fight

DEIMOS Delivered from the blasts She forced the stars to fade; the wrath in his form faded to behind his eyes, underneath the layers of conviction and tribulations, conspiring in the depths – for later, later, later – the present was a dismal consequence without the vehemence of his ire. He breathed, brought back composure when all he wanted do was wring someone (Zariah’s) neck, ferocious and unrelenting. It was her resigned whispers that blistered and scathed, the overwhelming amount of guilt and sorrow, the hovering anguish, that he didn’t know what to do with. His reactions to anything melancholy were to brood, were to brew, were to seethe and simmer by himself, touch and scald into the dark, maybe wait for the void to consume him entirely, for the abyss to take him into perdition and purgatory. He couldn’t recall a time she’d ever been broken or snapped or flickered apart – always strong, always enduring, a paragon of faith and virtue, belief and credence in her gods, in accepting of their sweeping hands and benedictions. It was his role to play – the beast, the vermin, the fiend, the infidel, the scorned, the abandoned, the forsaken – not hers. It was unfamiliar and he didn’t know what to do with it – had difficulty in comprehending another’s grief when he could barely ever manage his own, chest heaving as she shuddered in his grasp, as tears threatened along her lashes, as her laughter over his confession seemed to brush into the hollowed sanctions too – But he knew loss. It’d been a part of his existence for so long it was hard to fathom a time without its hanging presence, its scythe, its rags, its shadows. Hadn’t she already died once? You couldn’t lose me if you tried sounded like an omen, like a foreboding cloud that they were testing, because worlds were cruel, bleak, and vicious. He believed in his strength, in her power, in their devotion, but it would be so easy, so simple, so straightforward to have it taken away, like everything else. Zariah’s words are written plagues; marching over his skin, turning and toiling in his mind. He resisted, he clawed, he fought; but for now, Amalia’s admissions, her platitude, her essence was paramount. He didn’t say anything at first, absorbing the blows she inflicted upon herself, before lowering his hands to her waist, and lifting her up into his arms. Eloquence and things left unsaid in simple actions, one hand coiling beneath her knees, the other supporting her back, as he carried her over to the only larger chair in the living room. Brawn and fortitude, perseverance and regard, hoping to somehow infuse that into her, to embody, to incite, to rekindle and provoke those assurances back along her frame; settling himself within the chair, unceremoniously sitting in its sanction, coiling and curling her into him, arms wrapped along her figure as he mulled over discourse. His voice was a rumble, purposefully calm, rational; attempting to stoke fibers of her ethereal soul into their otherworldly presence, swallowing down the choking bile coating his lungs, his throat, or the apprehension blistering against his mind. “We find a way. We try.” He paused, incapable of giving in, one of the many who dug their heels in; a persevering devil, an enduring demon, knowing she was just as capable, just as competent. The world had ground down, down, down on their enamel, and he worked on stitching the seams together again. “Only when we give in are we truly helpless.” And he wasn’t about to – given her nod of approval, his blade would’ve been heading straight for the Merciless and her soldiers, her guards, fire in his veins, burning down her manor. Was any of this comforting? He was so out of his element he could barely think past all the mumbled whispers of defeat and melancholy; lips pressed against her hairline, here, here, here, in the strangled moments of the unknown. “You saved Safrin, Jigano, Jyoti, and yourself from the Fae. You saved me.” These declarations were only the surface, there were depths either unknown or pending, her actions a catalyst for so many others. “You are not nothing, nor will you ever be. You have done more for this world than Zariah ever will.” The last was on the slightest, deeper timbre, only because of the festering loathing lingering under the weight of everything else. “Why should you listen to her manipulative lies? That is her method. That is how she strives to break you – because you are a threat to her reign.” Because you dare. Zariah was trash. Zariah was debris. Zariah was a monarch only because she’d taken an empty throne with no one to fight back. Zariah was a bully, and at some point, she was going to irritate and irk the wrong individuals. In his pause, he regained his cool again, an inhale, an exhale, fighting against her urge to blame, to blame, to blame. “So what are our options?” the last of a line of lasts