fair warning

D e i m o s

Send a heartbeat to the void that cries through you
Relive the pictures that have come to pass

A hint of exasperation started knotting its way through the Reaper’s mind. In another circumstance, predator in his voracious repose, he might have raised his hackles and told Jigano to move along; they were talking at cross purposes, parallel and never seeming to link up. There were so many tangled threads amidst the possibility of this plan, and he wasn’t certain if the opportunity to delve into the Spire was more for the stone snake, the potential portals, or destroying the plants – or if the bard intended to mold into all three. But surely he must have known, must have noticed, must have realized the level of danger…how was he going to protect them all, when the insects swarmed, when something else inevitably happened? “Hope is not a lot to go on,” he murmured, eyes cast out over the fields, striving to collect and phrase his words together so they were meaningful, and not misunderstood. “I meant magic for uprooting.” Here his stare sharpened back over to the Loreseeker, as if he were purposefully not listening, or rambling onto something else – his jaw clenched, his chest heaved with a sigh, and he lingered along the threshold of going too far or not far enough, waxing and waning the calculations in his mind. Because while some of these contortions seemed paramount – the poisonous plants first and foremost – why was he risking others’ lives for a snake that might not even remain? If the Tulmhainar protected it, and the turtle was long since gone, who was to say the serpent wasn’t? Who was to say this wasn’t a venture into slaughter, leading his friends down into the abattoir? It was that notion that truly irked him; as if hiding around corners would ensure their safety, as if these people didn’t have families or loved ones, striving to make the world a better place while suffocating and choking on the bile of that damned Spire. Deimos’ whole entity had once been comprised into teamwork, camaraderie on the battlefield, ensuring the man next to you was still alive and kicking, defending, protecting, yearning for everyone to make it to the end. Everything in this discussion felt cold, stark, and desolate, not the essence of a troupe with a game plan, but scattered together, despite all the known threats, and the ominous ones laced and courted in that hellhole. His voice was quiet, but distinct: he wanted Jigano to hear, he wanted him to know, he wanted the inquiries spread across the plain so that there was something in place for when everything came crashing down. “The insects came in a swarm and crawled into our wounds. The poison and the explosion nearly killed us. And you want to bring in those you care about? How are you going to protect them all?” It lacked warmth, but it spoke of experience, it spoke of the clarity of the moments, it spoke of a mountain who had always strived to tend to those he’d sworn to defend, aiming to call off the zigzagged agenda until they had something clearer, more precise. “What are you going to do when they start dying? When they are tired?” Those edges were more raw, more real, because not only had he attempted to defend others in that void, in that abyss, but he’d used up so much of himself that more than the nettles and thorns of exhaustion had peeked through. “The blight has to be stopped, but this plan…” He trailed off, shaking his head. I am afraid you are going to get them all killed. For now we stand alone, the world is lost and blown And we are flesh and blood disintegrate with no more to hate