who we are and all that we're trying to be
He cared very little in the exchange, reserved and indifferent all the more, intending to return to his obligations and responsibilities in the moments he could slip away. The Sword nodded at Phoebe’s apology, taking it aside, no harm, no foul, but then the boys had to apologize, and he stood there, all the more towering, all the more apathetic, wondering how he could carve his way back out into the hollows, flicker off into the air. The one who challenged, an air of sedition, might’ve caused him to lift a brow, but only just so, because the revolutionary tactics rooted by a child couldn’t last long under the penalty of authority. The midwife grabbed hold and ensued her position, and the youth bowed down, the third apology swift, but muttered. The beast didn’t require them, but released the sigh he’d been holding, piercing gaze flickering on each in turn. “Accepted.”
As for help, Deimos inwardly cringed. A contortion rippled through him at the means and measures of evasion, to wander through the streets by his lonesome, out in the air, out in the sun, out of the boundaries and fringes of anything but his own volition – but then his gaze fell on the children again.
He hadn’t been as young as them when he’d lost his parents – but been lost just the same.
His hands concocted four more buckets, one of for each individual in his presence, handing them over with little fanfare. “You may help clean,” crouching and bending down for a moment to take hold of one of the memory mud puddles at their feet, before placing it in his bucket, and rising again; demonstration of a penance even little boys could manage. Then the General nodded once more, before maneuvering away from them, intending to maneuver down another avenue.
It takes dying to know
How to live as ghosts
