our terrible story of survival

Deimos the Reaper master of nothing place, of recoil and grace For all his walls and fortifications, his savage steps and minatory intentions, the beast had never believed he’d shaped anyone’s lives. He had been an existence on a corporeal, tangible plain, a weapon on the horizon, a set of munitions along mountains, and then nothing at all – dust and air, cinders and ash. Kingly commands or imploring another to recognize their talents, their regards, were naught much – perceptions and ambitions, coiling someone else’s aspirations to blend, to lend, them into the Aurora Basin’s threshold, to inspire and invoke them towards icy causes and rime avarice. Otherwise, he’d been a monster, a brutal, ominous, intimidating force, ensuring safety and protection. Never enough to warrant christened livelihoods. Never enough to embody a beacon. Never enough to be an enticing, alluring figure, leading them down the road to iniquity, to sin, to stoked, feral fires. Nothing. You are nothing. And thereafter, on battlefields, on crusades to glory, he’d been one of many amongst the mass, a multitude of mayhem bristling and harking for their makers – howling along streets, hastening across daises of war, seething triumph with their bare hands. Then, after failures and defeats, he’d simply been one of the few left. Out of habit and routine, a safe structure orchestrated for himself, Deimos settled amidst his targets, hastened to the many blades in his stockpiling. Snow had blanketed a portion of his makeshift field, but the cold didn’t bother him. It was a part of his essence. It was a portion of his existence. He was winter, feral and blistering, chilling and stark, made of desolation and stone. His calloused hands wrapped around the wooden, training sword, heavier than his steel or iron forgings, swinging it upon an effigy, instigating the undulation of muscles and brawn, relishing, savoring, the feeling of power striking into the still, statue. It would’ve been even better had it been something he could truly assault – but plants and blight had no foothold except in his friends – so the pummeling continued, something he could ascertain to conquest while the rest of the world wreaked havoc and devastated their efforts. There was a distant knocking sound, and were he not distracted he might’ve presumed it was his door being hastened upon. Zuriel, watching from afar, was the greeter instead, ambling around the back of the house where she’d been witnessing (making unsaid commentary), to the front, to the aperture, peeking and poking along the entrance. Her head tilted with mild, benign curiosity, glancing at the unfamiliar blonde, hardened gaze swinging back and forth from her bonded and back to the stranger. If she were capable of smirking, she would’ve; a pride, superior smug look took over instead, and she ambled forward, quiet, a thing of silent forests and groves, attempting to sneak behind the woman and then loosened a draconic sounding snort.

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