hands off

DEIMOS And in your darkest hour, I hold secrets flame Another nod, registering and pondering over the best substances and matter to use, while his palsm first manifested some wrapping material, bandages meant to soak up the life fluid. Behind his eyes he could recall, remember, the way Rexanna’s had still pulsed, a form of bleeding, over tables during LongNight’s reign, winding it around the stump while Zuriel healed, mended, and tended, her concentration bound along the vibrant, blue glow of her horn. He left the hand where it remained, mangled and lifeless; Amun could decide what he’d want to do with it. Then the sword was wiped down, tucked away, and he could bend, manipulate, and contort a new limb amongst the folds of darkness and eerie lantern light, head tilted to listen to the details of the event, to where he could place his anger, to where he could rage or understand. For some reason he hadn’t expected Ronin. The carnage at the fields had been a blurred, hazy series of events, echoes of screams bounding through festivities and lighthearted music, everything a discordant, warped image until reality sunk and tarnished, slashed and tore. The Fallen Star, despite ongoing trauma, disasters, and ruin, had always seemed calm, somewhat composed – another one of those stalwart, steadfast individuals. But then again, the form of his daughter had been still amongst the crowd striving to save Remi. Mad with grief; and suddenly he understood. Deimos could have just as easily slid into those parameters, done in, withstanding enough of the damage, the sorrow, the hurt, the anguish, loss after loss after loss, to be consumed and devoured by abhorrence and contempt. Sometimes it hadn’t even taken that much; and he truly hadn’t in this round because there’d been too many others to accomplish, to try, to attempt, while smothered, choked, and weighted down by the strangling torment. While metallic features began to materialize between his hands, the familiar glow puncturing through the dark haze of evening, his brows furrowed, mind whirling to imagine the happenstances. The Temple being blasted over and over again. Individuals trying to invoke reason, a man incapable, too drowned in misery and agony to be bothered with listening. Amalia knocked out (fighting down a snap of fury, a grind of his ivories), Wessex taking her outside. The Voice incapable of stopping the Fallen Star. Safrin being attacked by one of her own. Absolute chaos. And Amalia, to no one’s surprise, trying to hold it all at bay. He might’ve been proud had the circumstances been different. Instead he was silent, stewing, brewing, brooding beneath the information, the sketched outline of the Voice arriving to snag at her own, Jigano getting out in time (without the Shield? Was this one more example of his liberation and deliverance over hers? He stored it to process, to ponder, to wonder in the growing vividness), and Amalia crushed in the wake of shattered remnants. A sigh billowed out as he finished his work on the newly-furnished hand: dark and metallic, lightweight, titanium-ensued and plated, similar to bone, the digits, the fingers, jointed to enable actual use instead of something for display. “Thank you.” For telling him. For not honing in on hatred and vehemence as some of the others might have. For allowing the Sword an opportunity to delve deeper into situations and incidents. Then he raised the prosthetic for inspection. “Will this be efficient?” master of nothing place; of recoil and grace