no solace in idle conviction

D e i m o s

Send a heartbeat to the void that cries through you
Relive the pictures that have come to pass

Maybe it was simply growth, a product and machination of all these other maneuvering parts, a pattern, a clockwork cycle, the longer one stayed, immersed in the pandemonium, the trials, the tribulations, the better they became (if they survived). Perhaps he wanted it to be edges and lining of Ignatius though, boisterous and incandescent, reigning over tides and shores, blistering the world with his presence, a likening he would never have. Too coiled in upon himself, too struck down by disaster after disaster, too hellbent on raising power, on unfurling might; and now, bewitched by ghosts and memories of a life he couldn’t have anymore, hadn’t for a long, long time. The Sage could’ve been doing him a kindness by anointing the possibility, the probability, and it sunk, harpooned, nettled at his flesh and bone, until the fire vanished from his hands, wondering if the hurt lingered in his marrow because there were simply too many lost things to deal with – all careening back on embers and cinders, the brandished coal, the dimming coast. He said no more on the subject, thought about hanging his head, about drifting back into seas. His eyes glanced back to Jigano though, descriptions of shifts and Attuned christenings, benedictions risen from more tempestuous, mercurial eaves. “They come when they are required,” he mused under his breath, a low rumble, gaze downcast upon the floor again. Maybe they were chained, locked away until there was a certain parameter, maybe it was nothing and pure happenstance, maybe it didn’t really matter, and in the end, they were there when called, when summoned, to arms and munitions and fleets. “Safrin dropped me from the sky,” he proffered, the slightest inclination of a smile, after all the phantoms screamed and chastened, the water offering her wisdom, the rain granting her guidance, the fire assuring his survival. “So then I became an eagle.” He paused, reflected, tilting his head to examine the floorboards. He didn’t revel in the failures – they already knew those, had lived those, had died in those, had pooled around as fools for too god damned long. “I went to arrest Roana and became a tiger.” Not that it pertained to here and now. Before she’d been annihilated by monsters and slain by Ronin, she’d been locked away, placed in jail. Residual moments, or fleeting intentions, driven and scarred and mutilated until they couldn’t do anything but become more? Then there was the other nuances at hand, death struck down upon their mantles and sanctum, despite their attempts to create a safe haven. “I did not know Caiside.” He inclined his head, fathoms glancing back at the bard’s, an open distinction and invitation in case the Sage required a moment to grieve, to understand, to contemplate, or simply to revel in what had been, instead of the overwhelming loss. If not – that was fine too, and they could stew in silence. For now we stand alone, the world is lost and blown And we are flesh and blood disintegrate with no more to hate