our terrible story of survival

Deimos the Reaper master of nothing place, of recoil and grace If unicorns could wear smirks and snickers, she might’ve embodied it perfectly – instead, the assemblage of her features were rendered in smug, pompous outlooks, haughty, a little patronizing and condescending, as the stranger jumped. Her head tilted, a slashing emblem along the depths of her brow, pondering if she’d have to utilize it, have to maul, have to maim; a creature of the forest, noble and proud and sometimes not wholly dignified. The laughter caused her eyes to narrow, as if irritated there weren’t any further ministrations, a leap, a launch, into suspicions or dangerous declarations, if her powers of repose had shambled off somewhere as the Reaper’s, the Sword’s caustic, acrimonious sentiments curled into hers. Zuriel snorted again, less derisive this time, not sinking into the grin, and meandered along and around the corner, a slow shuffle of her hooves towards the man this stranger intended to see. Why? was a strung-along inquiry, and out of rooted curiosity, she followed, the woman’s form racing to the backyard, along the tell-tale signs of weaponry smashing into effigies and a figure upholding icy precision, frigid prowess. And the beast, for all his purposes, maneuvered just as he once had: intimidating and unattainable, an unreachable force biding his time or alluring danger, his slashing wake winding, twisting, slinking in the bows of meticulous, raptorial eaves, sinuous machinations, a silken thread of predacious grandeur and decadence. He placed his hatred, his frustrations, into the insurrection, an unholy sedition he hadn’t been permitted or allowed to release in the breadth of ire and condemnation, layered and lacquered abhorrence for his inadequacies, penetrating, piercing, searing, seizing fervor. His arms maneuvered in brushstrokes of argent domination, macabre melancholy, treacherous considerations he would’ve liked to have released onto the spreading blight or the unknown’s arcane, primordial discord; instead, he managed to remain in the depths of carnage, in the fathoms of taut, minute failure, strung along with the rest as they stayed in the ineffectual ranges. Minatory enticement bound from his motions and leapt from his calloused palms, purposefully overwhelming upon something that couldn’t seethe and simmer back. He altered his pace, glacial mayhem in its antagonistic elations, puffs and plumes of air, like iron, like steel, forged from his mouth, from his chest, and bound into the target, until he stepped back, glanced upon the beaten figurine, neither satisfied or content. Except all the enmity and guard cracked: a voice pricked against his edges, his senses, and he turned towards the sound of his name - the vocals familiar, a sketch, a detail, an unwinding motion fanning from the flames, from archaic mountains and serrated decisions. It billowed and pushed, rattled and clawed, something tearing along his ribs. His head swung, lifted, while his gaze sharpened, narrowed, then widened again, as if trying to figure out why memories conformed, why there was one more before him, a call to the past, disbelief shuddering from his mouth. “Hotaru?”

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