DEIMOS
Deimos hated the notion of being predictable, as if he were an open book, capable of being read out loud to passerbys – the way he so easily grasped hold of Kiada’s challenge, a shake of his head, a roll of his eyes, before they were out the door. But he lived for dares and summons, provocations and incensed chicanery, devious exploits and duplicitous efforts, and those in his life seemed intent on pressing them into his sights, into his senses, into his oblivion. Maybe it was because they knew him well enough that they could see, that they knew, when it was safe to poke the beast, when it was necessary to beat down war drums and announce some foretold onslaught, bring him back to some other form before he unraveled or broke before them. He answered her goading and incitement with little fanfare – a spread of his wings on his front steps, plumage extending from arms, feathers rendering him to a smaller frame than her; a sienna ghost on the horizon in fast, swift measures, circling over the confines of his shelter. There was pride and some range of amusement tied into his motions, no hesitation, no stretch of the void coming to haunt their precision. It was the present, not the future, not the past, and he fed into those flames instead of all the other ones binding their souls. It wasn’t LongNight. It wasn’t the blight. It wasn’t some other wretched moment. It was merely the air, the earth, the dust, the clouds, and the snow.
So he plummeted, gliding over the tops of trees and the outliers of leftover targets lain about his rime-drenched fields. It was an unsung bid to her, a chase into the expanse.
"who's gonna let you?"
they asked. i said
"who's gonna stop me?"
