DEIMOS
The mountains called, as they so often did, in the pendulum of his dreams. Sometimes they were nightmares, grating maelstroms of war and infamy, of pernicious schisms, of a weight he’d never be able to throw off his broad shoulders. Sometimes they were blessed streaks of auroras and song, hues blending together in orchestrated, beatific light. Sometimes they were nothing but strained memories, and though he knew, he knew Halo was not the Basin, he still glided across its sanction, relishing for pieces, for places, he could no longer have.His gliding was a savoring string of instances and intervals, piercing eyes drifting over the endless tundra, the makeshift town rising out of the snow and ice, the pockets of rime chilling down into his marrow, his bones. Cold ether and grating hazes, a combination he once understood so readily, used so easily to their kingdom’s advantage. If he glanced hard enough, he might’ve imagined monoliths towering over borders, reddened eyes staring down trespassers and strangers, engineers tirelessly orchestrating their efforts to avoid invasions. If he pierced and punctured the earth beyond, to the caverns restlessly holding precious things, would their ghosts, their wraiths, their figures, crawl out of the depths?
Then, nothing – just an abyss, just a market square, just a conflagration of stone.
The eagle swallowed down the noxious bile clinging to his throat, and hovered on, a mass of feathers, plumes, and wingspan.
"who's gonna let you?"
they asked. i said
"who's gonna stop me?"
