DEIMOS
Quiet and contemplative, even in the midst of drinking, he listened for a spell – learned magic from other regions and folds, growing from the midst of minds, already christened, already anointed, incapable of gaining anything if one wasn’t concocted with the skill. Helovia had been different in that regard – anyone and everyone consecrated with the predilection to wield intervals of enchantments, some blessed at birth, others hastened to the Gods and gifted, granted their powers, some by sheer luck, perseverance, or artifacts cultivated from the beckoning unknown. “It is fine. Nothing to apologize for.” It wasn’t Remi’s fault that for every inquiry they answered, Caido somehow unraveled another question; so in the end, they were left more bereft then when they’d all begun. He stared into his glass, nearly empty, contemplating, pondering how far he could push, how far he could pull, if it was just a matter of insinuating himself into a situation where the notions and creations were necessary and vital, or simply a regard to time, to strength, to oblivion. At least the alchemist had tried.His eyes swung back to Remi as he asked his own entanglements, and the fathoms of his stare followed and flickered wood grains too, as if they were rivulets and pathways to days of old, yesteryears and ghosts, phantoms and wraiths billowing from the blue. “Yes.” He nodded, even if the alchemist couldn’t see it, purely out of habit and ritual. “Some were born with it. Some discovered it on their journeys. Some were ordained by the Gods.” He’d never been the latter, but the former had pressed in on his soul – once, when he’d traversed towards the sea, threatened to be drowned by a crimson bull – refusing to adhere to its treachery, flames in his hands, and he thought his father had led him there. It must’ve fallen away upon his death, not due to return on a second lifeline. “I had life drain since birth.” And it must’ve sounded strange – but two lifetimes had melded and molded the surface of disaster and oblivion straight into his flesh and blood, contorted the inclinations of death when he was a child, forged it further when he was an adult.
He was something solid
to lean against
violent and fierce and unmoving
