DEIMOS
the reaper
I can’t read your mind fluttered and battered, a whisper, a snap, and they were both feral, both wild, both savage, caught in the throes and throngs of their own broken, embittered, brittle contortions. I can’t read your mind pummeled like an echo, like the claws on her fingers, like the formidable weapons that had long since left their scars on his skin. He wouldn’t want her to – to see the woes, the trials, the tribulations, the awful, barbaric intricacies, the catacombs and graves beneath his feet, the haunting, dreadful things stoked and kindled, incensed and infernal, the notions he bit and swallowed and consumed, the hell he saw every evening. Everything contained within was under lock and key, cloak and daggers, and very few could ever claim to have witnessed all. Beneath the plans, the strategies, the war-frames, the munitions, the snares, and the brutality, were just peeks of vulnerability, the architecture of lonely particles collapsing in on themselves; a sensation of desolation, of loss, of despair, of self-inflicted torture, of melancholy, of all the restless souls that had left him behind. A vessel, a shell, wrapped around enigmas and shards, collected fragments of nefarious hearts and their decayed chambers, their frozen channels, their bleeding veins; that’s all he’d ever been.
Sometimes he caught the rays of the sun and thought himself alive, whole, for an instant, for a second, for a brief, beatific moment.
It was easier to be lonely, to stretch himself out across an abyss and simply remain – existing, corporeal, tangible, unattainable, the Reaper on the mountains, brewing and brooding those chilling voids and formidable, intimidating condemnations.
But that didn’t mean it was better.
For all his abhorrence, havoc, and enmities, the sentiments finessed back into their own iniquities and shadows, sharpened on his reticence. Deimos shouldn’t have been that way, shouldn’t have hid, shouldn’t have tucked himself and froze from the inside out. But it was so innate, so inherent, so routine, to breathe in heathen brushstrokes and to smolder in his own wake, poised to annihilate, not comfort, to unveil meticulous predilections, not hang his head when the terrors of yesterday spoiled the present. Yet, if he was not allowed to run, to bolt, to retreat, to evade, to slide off into the distance, to slip away into his own mind, where the carnivore intentions would rather tear into torment, then neither was she. So while she gripped and seethed into her own palms, his fingers worked beneath them, intertwining, trying to pry the claws and talons from prickling into her flesh, trying to ease the anguish, the despair, when he didn’t even know how to fix his own.
He’d carry the world on his back for all of them – for any of them, cumbersome load upon load, not complain, not utter a single damned word, Atlas with broad shoulders, Colossus with eternal strength – until the day he fell apart and remained on the ground, covered in dust, earth, and ash.
So they’d both languished in fear – not for themselves, but for one another, for the rest of the inhabitants who attempted and dissolved just as much as they did – lashed out in anger, because it felt better to raise hackles than shake and tremble, because it felt easier to scrape and whittle away into nothing than ever give it a voice. He listened to her confessions, to her anxieties, to her concerns, to the worry that always seemed to plague her, to the lack of strength in her soul (he wanted to immediately refute, wrong, wrong, wrong). What was he supposed to say in response? What was he supposed to do that wouldn’t be rebuked, scoffed at, denied, or rejected? The little times he’d invoked concern, when ominous threats had beckoned, when warnings had pressed their scythe into skin and flesh and bone, had all been dashed away – as if they didn’t matter.
“Those actions make you brave.” He started, he inhaled, he exhaled, he sighed, he clenched. “That is what courageous people do. They are afraid, but they go and try anyway. That is all we can do.” He blinked, lowering his head, tilting it in attempts for blue to meet black, so there was a connection beyond the shaking of fingers, of hands, of forms and figures. “Think of all the things you have accomplished.” Just since he’d known her – and from legions and years before that, before Outlanders wandered into her midst, into her home, into her realm. “Think of all the lives you have made better.” The soldier could feel his lacquer peeling away, and he wanted to stick it back to his flesh, not reveal the depths, the bones, the clusters of coiled nuances and sentiments, hide, hide, hide, so no one could see, so no one could know.
Except her.
“You can try. I will not stop you.” As much as he wanted to; as much as the notion of that horrendous Spire loomed in the distance, poison and venom collapsing in on lungs and smoke, on their broken frames, on their unspoken vows, on the realm of reassurances that couldn’t be salvaged. It was for Ronin. It was for Remi. It was for a goddess. It was for everyone else who suffered, who had no idea that they were embarking and sojourning for their cause, their plights. His voice was quiet and hushed, looming in between the warmth of the pastries and the wounds they wore. “But I will protect you as best I can.” Sword and shield, shield and sword, not one without the other.
Hadn’t he told her before? I cannot bear to lose you. He’d fall apart. He was held together by so little now, the way her claws pricked at frayed strands, at portions he thought knotted and stable. He’d sink right back to where he’d been before, lost and diminishing, biding his time until hell swallowed him up again. “All I have ever done is lose.” His eyes narrowed down to the counter, to the desserts, not seeing them – not picturing anything but the fragile pieces and beacons pulling him along their haunted crawl. He lowered his head, breathing across their expanse, uncoiling, unraveling. “So we will triumph. Together.” And he had to believe it.
Sometimes he caught the rays of the sun and thought himself alive, whole, for an instant, for a second, for a brief, beatific moment.
It was easier to be lonely, to stretch himself out across an abyss and simply remain – existing, corporeal, tangible, unattainable, the Reaper on the mountains, brewing and brooding those chilling voids and formidable, intimidating condemnations.
But that didn’t mean it was better.
For all his abhorrence, havoc, and enmities, the sentiments finessed back into their own iniquities and shadows, sharpened on his reticence. Deimos shouldn’t have been that way, shouldn’t have hid, shouldn’t have tucked himself and froze from the inside out. But it was so innate, so inherent, so routine, to breathe in heathen brushstrokes and to smolder in his own wake, poised to annihilate, not comfort, to unveil meticulous predilections, not hang his head when the terrors of yesterday spoiled the present. Yet, if he was not allowed to run, to bolt, to retreat, to evade, to slide off into the distance, to slip away into his own mind, where the carnivore intentions would rather tear into torment, then neither was she. So while she gripped and seethed into her own palms, his fingers worked beneath them, intertwining, trying to pry the claws and talons from prickling into her flesh, trying to ease the anguish, the despair, when he didn’t even know how to fix his own.
He’d carry the world on his back for all of them – for any of them, cumbersome load upon load, not complain, not utter a single damned word, Atlas with broad shoulders, Colossus with eternal strength – until the day he fell apart and remained on the ground, covered in dust, earth, and ash.
So they’d both languished in fear – not for themselves, but for one another, for the rest of the inhabitants who attempted and dissolved just as much as they did – lashed out in anger, because it felt better to raise hackles than shake and tremble, because it felt easier to scrape and whittle away into nothing than ever give it a voice. He listened to her confessions, to her anxieties, to her concerns, to the worry that always seemed to plague her, to the lack of strength in her soul (he wanted to immediately refute, wrong, wrong, wrong). What was he supposed to say in response? What was he supposed to do that wouldn’t be rebuked, scoffed at, denied, or rejected? The little times he’d invoked concern, when ominous threats had beckoned, when warnings had pressed their scythe into skin and flesh and bone, had all been dashed away – as if they didn’t matter.
“Those actions make you brave.” He started, he inhaled, he exhaled, he sighed, he clenched. “That is what courageous people do. They are afraid, but they go and try anyway. That is all we can do.” He blinked, lowering his head, tilting it in attempts for blue to meet black, so there was a connection beyond the shaking of fingers, of hands, of forms and figures. “Think of all the things you have accomplished.” Just since he’d known her – and from legions and years before that, before Outlanders wandered into her midst, into her home, into her realm. “Think of all the lives you have made better.” The soldier could feel his lacquer peeling away, and he wanted to stick it back to his flesh, not reveal the depths, the bones, the clusters of coiled nuances and sentiments, hide, hide, hide, so no one could see, so no one could know.
Except her.
“You can try. I will not stop you.” As much as he wanted to; as much as the notion of that horrendous Spire loomed in the distance, poison and venom collapsing in on lungs and smoke, on their broken frames, on their unspoken vows, on the realm of reassurances that couldn’t be salvaged. It was for Ronin. It was for Remi. It was for a goddess. It was for everyone else who suffered, who had no idea that they were embarking and sojourning for their cause, their plights. His voice was quiet and hushed, looming in between the warmth of the pastries and the wounds they wore. “But I will protect you as best I can.” Sword and shield, shield and sword, not one without the other.
Hadn’t he told her before? I cannot bear to lose you. He’d fall apart. He was held together by so little now, the way her claws pricked at frayed strands, at portions he thought knotted and stable. He’d sink right back to where he’d been before, lost and diminishing, biding his time until hell swallowed him up again. “All I have ever done is lose.” His eyes narrowed down to the counter, to the desserts, not seeing them – not picturing anything but the fragile pieces and beacons pulling him along their haunted crawl. He lowered his head, breathing across their expanse, uncoiling, unraveling. “So we will triumph. Together.” And he had to believe it.
I am comfortable with violence
