DEIMOS
The twilight air was a bristling contortion – a feeling of effortlessness careening along feathers he’d never thought to have, along plumage he never thought to hold, along a triumphant, proud machination simmering between his veins. A victory, however small, however meager, however miniscule in the facets and faces of all their other defeats and collapses, felt like a conquest – and he breathed in its liberation, its promised, reverent rapture, rapacious ether gliding over his features, high, high above canopies and the incandescent vessels of lantern light. You are more was a vow he’d somehow stuck to - you will be better an anchor, a repositioning of wings a providential deliverance all on its own, freedom across seas and groves, between boughs and branches, along twisted vines and murky clouds. He was capable and it was breathtaking – strength inside pushing and pummeling, unraveling some of the walls, some of the barricades, laying waste to seeds of self-doubt for the moment, for the exultant, elated efforts of Swords turned beasts. Magic pulsed and bound, and so did predator instincts, inherent abilities casting him into unleashed talons and enduring movements, shifting on the wind, coasting on snowflakes threatening to unravel in the sky, equipped for moonlight ventures, able to go anywhere, anywhere he chose – perhaps to mountains, to oceans, to rocky shoals and rivers, to wide open plains and their bountiful game.
The ghosts: fire, water, and rain, had told him to fly.
So he went to her first.
The glade was the same, except dusky and dusted with the night; his fall had come earlier, his descent through clouds, his inevitable demise punctured and pierced in evening ink – the glow stones in their illuminated bounty, Zuriel nearby, a touch of their bond simmering on his senses. Mischief ignited for a moment, gesturing to her with an indignant press; her head snapping in the distance, sea eyes poignantly staring, then glaring at him.
Then he lingered in the air, for as long as he could, twisting and turning as if a scavenger, silent, noiseless, hushed, until he could pinpoint the Shield, gilded crown and the reverence of his heartbeat colliding in his chest, hovering on a rush of wind, then gliding downwards, until he could land on a stump near her. Could eagles smirk? Could eagles smile? His blue eyes might have been the only tell-tale sign of an otherworldly connotation in order.
"who's gonna let you?"
they asked. i said
"who's gonna stop me?"
