who we are and all that we're trying to be
None of the Outlanders did. Taken and scattered away from their worlds, some falling, some spiraling, some merely found the kingdoms shifting beneath their feet. There’d been no time to understand how, why, when, or where – just a sudden alteration, a massive change, in how they were expected to live, abandoned in another way. The initial rage and bitterness over the adjustments had long since disappeared and faded from his form – though he’d had two years to endure the loss of the yesteryears and things he’d known, understood, and adapt to this one. Chulane, and others still managing to make their way here, through whatever the Voice concocted now, didn’t have the same luxury, and would learn more as the seasons strung along in their familiar cycles: disaster, ruin, and repose, some sinking and dissolving more than others, some understood motions suddenly ceasing, unraveling into a different rumination.
His life before had been caring for animals though, an occupation Deimos could only liken to farming, a utility in service to the fauna around them. The emotions rolling through were nostalgic and burdensome, and he nearly sneered, nearly growled, nearly pierced and sliced them all away; no need to relive the same sentiments he’d smothered and diffused ages before.
But it was the blind devotion thereafter, the abrupt, sudden onslaught of acceptance that blunted the keen, sharpened edges. Maybe Chulane was foolish, to immediately surrender to the antics and ambitions of this world. Deimos had fought, fought, fought, in his nature to ponder sedition rather than contentment; and eventually it eroded, it pierced away, it slid off his intentions, ambling, curling, and contorting elsewhere. Maybe Chulane was wise, to immediately, logically, comprehend the spiral, the distinction, of the land around him. It’d taken the Sword a long time to even process coming under a herald’s power. Maybe none of them ever knew what they were doing, and they were merely committed to survival, to perseverance, to enduring whatever this earth had in store for them.
So he withheld a sigh, canine ears swiveling back and forth, otherwise remaining perfectly still, a manifested statue in the dark. Have you gone to see one yet? A deity, a cosmic being, if he was so willing to indiscriminately pledge faithfulness.
It takes dying to know
How to live as ghosts
