the replays run for you

Deimos the Reaper You can't take back the cards you've dealt on this long and lonely road to hell the throne must be such a sad and lonely place Learning from mistakes; a bitter, acerbic taste on his tongue, fixtures of brutal reminders and recollections that he had so much to grasp. He could’ve been a master at penitence, drowning in remorse and rue, waiting to be scalded, seared, and smoldered again. It had turned him into rock and rubble, abhorrently apprehensive, waiting on the sidelines, calculating where he could survive another error, another state of ineptitude. It left him cold, unfeeling, detached from the rest of the world – soldier and mercenary through and through, because he had control over blades and cutlasses, because he could fathom death, because it was a skill, a talent, he possessed beyond the ruse of obliteration. His boldness had led him down great, grand paths, and some harsh, reeling ones – borne him from boy into unreachable, unattainable beast, bristling and barbaric, staying in the abyss, in the void, of familiarity and dissolution. But now and again he softened, remembered what it was like to have companions and friends, fellow allies and comrades, all consigned to oblivion together, fighting for the same thing, for the glory, for the triumph, for the conquest of anything and everything; marauders of kingdoms, mercenaries for hire, armies meant to crush and divide. When they were gone, when beings he cherished, devoted himself to, were eradicated, he withdrew, tucked himself away in the quiet corners of shadows and shade, of dusk and twilight, of the twisting, turning, meticulous scruples and veils of the hollowed impartial. He left burning structures and husks of the past, the clawing sickness sticking to his ribs, the smirking, snickering rhythms the earth dictated towards his own personal hell. Vengeance hadn’t even been his to grasp: everything fallen, fallen, fallen, sinking stones and intangible frameworks barring his path towards irreverent, molten, infernal wrath and condemnation. His brooding convictions and sorrowful vendetta hovered along his bones, summoned by the vast memories of days when he’d shattered and hadn’t been enough; and the fear that it would all occur again, a rapid, churning, burning, swallowing, all-consuming haze, segmented and nettled its way right into his chest. He raised his glass at Rexanna’s wink and clamor, to the beacon of familiar, gilded light, but didn’t murmur the consternations suddenly eating at his sinew and flesh. I’ll fail you, he nearly said, silence and anguish stinging, behemoth thorns daring to drive their way into his skin, burying and seething in his veins. Just like the rest of them. He should’ve been pushing forward, just as determined, just as boundless, just as brutish, barbarous, and depraved; yet, in the clouds of ignorance, in the state of bewilderment and the unknown, he’d betrayed his own normal considerations. The Reaper had often been led by his damnable curiosity, bewitched and distorted by interests and intrigue, starved until he found the answers – and here? Here he’d dragged his feet and found a bar, aimed to settle back into his old ways and drink himself into the ground, until he couldn’t remember the wounds, the scars, the losses, until he couldn’t murmur his name, until he was just a pile of ash and dust, blown away by the wind. The soldier muffled a sardonic, scorching laugh, the smile previously worn all but fettered away, head down, piercing eyes glowering at the wood instead of at Rexanna, whose essence would likely blister his gaze; undeserving of the resplendence. He loathed ignorance and yet soaked and sullied himself in it, sat there amidst a group of unfamiliar, unknown casts, and had done naught to reach into it, claw his way out. “I do not,” he gave, his frame, his figure, his mere existence the only thing he could offer. There was no information rolled and coiled in his brain; just machinations of the past that had little impact on the present. A low growl curled its way through his throat, but it was only to himself, and he squeezed his glass a little harder than he should; clenching his jaw, withholding sighs and curses. “I cannot even explain how I arrived.” I have nothing was loud and clear; an empty cauldron of deadly incantations.

_{Photo and Table by Time
Photo taken at Hero's Square in Budapest, Hungary}