the stars lined our heartbeats

Deimos

we are all b r o k e n
that's how the l i g h t gets in

Halcyon days, gilded and mantled, finally christened and crowned again, leaving behind the woebegone tides of LongNight and the dreaded wiles of the future. Too often he’d lived and immersed himself within those granules of the past, torturous, treacherous, meticulous assignations, and too often he’d embedded himself in the parables and possibilities of ominous tidings. But these moments were for savoring, for relishing, for reaching out and cherishing; things he’d never thought he’d be able to do again. The alterations were in sunshine and rays, in stars and galaxies, in bristling, simmering, smoldering lacquer, rapacious and ravenous in the way they’d reshaped, carved, whittled the harsh denizens, the nefarious properties, straight into their roots, instead of harshly laden along his presence; manifestations of hearts and lungs and souls, instead of violence, instead of vitriol, instead of ash, embers, cinders, and dust. No longer so broken. No longer so tired. No longer so damned.

So the Sword left behind the likelihood and probabilities of others asking him for more favors, for more assistance, for advice, for sagacity, for anything and everything, crossing across the earth, not a long, harsh divide this time, towards the bakery stall. The latter year’s precipices had seemed daunting, the lightest of teasings, the smallest of torments, of taunts, of furtive nuances bristling beneath skin, flesh, and bone, locked away, away, away, for fear of ghosts, for apprehension of chances and circumstances. Everything else lodged and disguised, perhaps poorly, by the hour he’d come to barter for bread, harbored secrets and tendencies, hidden, rooted affections strangers had glimpsed over. Then dances, then tricks, then ruses, then new sojourns, new life, new breaths, new cataclysms and machinations for a beating, nefarious heart.

And what did he have to conceal now? Nothing.

Too massive to shirk around anything, too mischievous to warrant cloak and dagger tendencies, too emboldened to cease and desist, Deimos abandoned his guild stall to another, and threaded his way behind the kiosk – enveloped by aromas, by scents, and by the maneuvers of others working the booth. Parting the sea of movement and motion, shunning, evading, everything but her, he announced his presence by dropping his head on top of her golden one, arms reaching around to snag, to possibly steal away, away, away. “Hello,” a rumble, a storm, a wayfaring tempest speaking only of amusement and diversions.

keep the ones who
h e a r d y o u
when you never said a word