DEIMOS
There were sounds of riotous blasts, ricochets, torn ethers, vestiges, demolished movements – and for a few seconds, he thought nothing of it, an addition to the calamity within their wake, unbidden terrors, unrelenting onslaughts, no time for sanctuaries, no time, no time, no time for anything but solid movements and motions, inherent things, no requirements of thoughts or feelings. Those could come later.
Those could come now.
The sense of dread and foreboding, that the world wasn’t done consuming them just yet, hovered and harpooned over the edges of his mind, and he glanced up to watch the world spiral in the distance again – directions he’d known she’d gone, for what seemed only moments before. An age-old sensation of primordial panic shifted in his chest, in his lungs, in his soul, and a shaking, trembling breath bordered on the hinges of his chest. Zuriel, he called, and the unicorn was instantly there, nothing needing to be said, nothing needing to be added, the blood sticking to his skin, the pandemonium crippling down in the wake of anything else. For a moment, he was numb, a maneuvering Colossus, over fields, over grasses laden with blood and bone, swallowing down the length of bile tracing its way over his throat. Together they ran, and he didn’t give a single sentiment to the pain still rolling in his hip, in his shoulder, in the time and wake of scattered semblances, the consternation stinging far more, the unknown beckoning and twisting.
Maybe she was fine.
Maybe she wasn’t.
And it rampaged back and forth until he neared, until there were forms on the ground, until familiarity and love and affection somehow managed to stab him straight in the chest.
Not again. He couldn’t do this again. You cannot have her he might have screamed and bellowed at the walls, at death’s door, at decrepit, ancient gods whom he’d fight with every breath left in his body. You cannot have her repeated and reverberated, an anthem stuck to his fervency, to his irreverent soul. It was all he had.
The gilded hair, darkened by ash, by soot, by rubble, gave it all away, and he had half an inclination to shatter right there on the earth beside her, let his cinders and bones rot, let his soul dissipate. Closer and closer, legs moving, maneuvering, while his mind flickered and tore itself apart, Jigano's and Wessex's presences, words mattering so very little, when all he could see was her. Amalia, he proffered, and it sounded so weak, so pathetic, so haphazardly drawn, tired, exhausted and done in, expecting no response – gaze fettering over her broken form, realizing she was breathing, she was alive, before tears started to well and collect and there were no dams to shore them up. He fell to his knees, hands wanting to reach out, to hold, to assure her and himself and somewhere in the midst everything was falling down around him.
He settled for the rock instead, incapable of healing, incapable of proffering anything else but some endless despair and just letting her know he was there (was that even enough?); hands gently, gingerly, lifting at the stone, trying to remove it from her legs.
Zuriel was instantly beside her too, kneeling, crouching, while stars flew above their heads and she strived to soothe, to mend, to assuage the aches, the pains, the fissured, splintered fragments.
Those could come now.
The sense of dread and foreboding, that the world wasn’t done consuming them just yet, hovered and harpooned over the edges of his mind, and he glanced up to watch the world spiral in the distance again – directions he’d known she’d gone, for what seemed only moments before. An age-old sensation of primordial panic shifted in his chest, in his lungs, in his soul, and a shaking, trembling breath bordered on the hinges of his chest. Zuriel, he called, and the unicorn was instantly there, nothing needing to be said, nothing needing to be added, the blood sticking to his skin, the pandemonium crippling down in the wake of anything else. For a moment, he was numb, a maneuvering Colossus, over fields, over grasses laden with blood and bone, swallowing down the length of bile tracing its way over his throat. Together they ran, and he didn’t give a single sentiment to the pain still rolling in his hip, in his shoulder, in the time and wake of scattered semblances, the consternation stinging far more, the unknown beckoning and twisting.
Maybe she was fine.
Maybe she wasn’t.
And it rampaged back and forth until he neared, until there were forms on the ground, until familiarity and love and affection somehow managed to stab him straight in the chest.
Not again. He couldn’t do this again. You cannot have her he might have screamed and bellowed at the walls, at death’s door, at decrepit, ancient gods whom he’d fight with every breath left in his body. You cannot have her repeated and reverberated, an anthem stuck to his fervency, to his irreverent soul. It was all he had.
The gilded hair, darkened by ash, by soot, by rubble, gave it all away, and he had half an inclination to shatter right there on the earth beside her, let his cinders and bones rot, let his soul dissipate. Closer and closer, legs moving, maneuvering, while his mind flickered and tore itself apart, Jigano's and Wessex's presences, words mattering so very little, when all he could see was her. Amalia, he proffered, and it sounded so weak, so pathetic, so haphazardly drawn, tired, exhausted and done in, expecting no response – gaze fettering over her broken form, realizing she was breathing, she was alive, before tears started to well and collect and there were no dams to shore them up. He fell to his knees, hands wanting to reach out, to hold, to assure her and himself and somewhere in the midst everything was falling down around him.
He settled for the rock instead, incapable of healing, incapable of proffering anything else but some endless despair and just letting her know he was there (was that even enough?); hands gently, gingerly, lifting at the stone, trying to remove it from her legs.
Zuriel was instantly beside her too, kneeling, crouching, while stars flew above their heads and she strived to soothe, to mend, to assuage the aches, the pains, the fissured, splintered fragments.
i'm in the mood to dissolve in the sky
