centuries deep

DEIMOS And in your darkest hour, I hold secrets flame She appeared while he worked, as the lantern finished in his grasp. Not the same, lacking in the starwhale essence (Jyoti not nearby, something Amalia would have to mend in this cluster), the glass melded together from his fire, earth, and creation. The beast placed it down on the ground, to be completed, rendered, or inspected, coats of sheen and veneer, resins cooling. He followed through in the midst of silence, in the precarious ruins, enabling and utilizing the elements all over again to contort and coil another set of windchimes, for the ones no longer there. A furrowed brow remained when she finally spoke, eyes lifting from his work, as one column after another conformed into stars, moons, crescent beacons, and cosmos. He understood the measures of her words; it would’ve been far easier to merely walk along to the back of the Temple and call to her there. But there’d been too many damned things lurking in those halls, anguish, despair, grief, torment, and a myriad of others, from when he’d guarded a tomb. “I did not want to stay in there any longer.” He paused, gaze boring down at the music-makers in his palms, a breath threatening to stifle through the control, the composure, clawing through his spine. “The door’s effects bore the opposite of my intentions.” Hadn’t protected, hadn’t shielded – only mauled, only murdered. A harsh lesson for a Sword, who’d only ever wanted to do the former. She must’ve known; he wouldn’t expect a herald to be ignorant of the deaths surrounding their world, even if they hadn’t been there in those moments. His voice remained level, no accusations bared, no hackles raised, no growl emitted, but a simple inquiry – to comprehend how far everything had gone. “Was that your goal?” To take down the Ascended? master of nothing place; of recoil and grace