remember that you can't save everyone
remember that you have to try
Deimos had never been someone intent on showing off; determined, confident, tenacious, and bullheaded, certainly all of those things, but it’d hadn’t been about showcasing his abilities or talents. Deeper insecurities perhaps, in striving, in attempting to achieve, in providing usefulness, in asserting protection, roles, and tasks, so he had a place. So he could become something. So he had chances, opportunities, to ensure no one else was hurt, maimed, and wounded, so he could take the brunt of it all, so that others more deserving continued to live, persisted, and gave no thought to his own safety. He never had. Not in his youth. Not in his training. Not in his days of roaring, howling, and desecrating across the battlefield – it’d always been for another. A land. A world. People. Not the Reaper, and not the Sword. He took a drink, and nearly choked down the remnants at her response – not expecting the bluntness, the concern, in return. His eyes widened momentarily instead, a slower swallow beckoning the liquid to burn down his throat, while he measured out an adequate response. There was half an intention in mollifying the semblances – habitual too, to assume no one should’ve bothered with him, even though he’d had many before who had done just that. That he wasn’t worth the effort. That he wasn’t good.
The beast could feel something at the back of his mind bludgeoning, rampaging, tired of the same old mantra. He released a sigh instead, stare returning to his drink. “I will try.” A wrinkle to his nose followed, as if the notion was distasteful, unpleasant, a mumble thereafter on a snicker, low and rumbling. “I already did that once anyway.” Worked and worked and worked, persisted, carried on, until he perished, until his last breath was scattered amongst the rain. “And I have no intention of being a burden.” They’d already carried him across the tundra, when they could’ve easily left him out in the cold, frozen and gone again.
Thankfully Morgan didn’t pry further into the hallucinations, into the ghosts, into the agonies, and his head tilted briefly, gaze on the ceiling, an inquiry molding its way behind its teeth, until he could finally give it a voice. “How do you move past it?” The death, the despair, the constant, overwhelming anguish? As a soldier, he presumed she’d had her own share of fatalities. Before, he’d attempted to remain numb, nonchalant, and impassive, but those rituals no longer stuck. Too many loved, too many gone, too many he couldn’t save.
But then they were talking about council members amidst the new starts, which was a far safer topic, and he breathed a little easier, taking another swallow, eyes returning back to her. “I already knew Chulane and Loren. Are there others?” Uncertain of how large the government was – Rexanna had employed many, and Evie had only found him. At the notion of the Firebrand, he permitted the smallest of smirks to embed its way back along his mouth. “Loren told me of his recent errors.”
out for vengeance
DEIMOS
