Wide eyes gaped back at him, and it wasn’t the first time. He was used to the art of intimidation, of overwhelming anyone nearby, of scattering enemies or inept cretins back to their thresholds. This one still didn’t go though, and Deimos remained there too, next to his chosen rock, waiting to execute some sort of response. The other man wobbled, like a newly-fledged fawn, and the warrior was a bit baffled by it all, trying to make sense of what was occurring. He waved the notion of interruption away; at the very least the stranger hadn’t blown up his resources like Edrei, so he wasn’t incensed, irritated, or vexed, just uncertain of what to do or where to go. “I was trying to see a luxere.” The statement sounded stupid the instant it left his mouth, and he took to guarding himself again by turning his attention back to the setting sun, the dusk threatening, haunting, the steady glow. He was probably one of the remaining few who hadn’t glimpsed one at all – and the other man would be allowed to entertain whatever verdict he had on the summation. Maybe the glowing deer would remain a complete mystery to him, fully aware of his darkness, of his barbarity, of the violent vehemence coursing through his veins, another price he paid for being a leaving, breathing weapon.
The next notion to coil from the ailing figure though struck the Reaper as bizarre, enough so that he tilted his head once more, presuming he simply hadn’t heard correctly. Pain is new to me left him befuddled and bewildered – because Deimos had known pain from the very start, had been chained and tethered to bouts of anguish, melancholy, and disaster for as long as he could remember. Youth had inspired him to go for glory and come back riddled with scars; connections had engaged him in ferocity and compassion, then left him in flames, in dust, in ash and annihilation. What would it be like, to wander the world, free and liberated from the notion of agony? He would’ve been a killing machine on the battlefield. He would’ve been a complete monster, thriving in demonic intervals, in fiendish corridors, in obliteration and devastation. He wouldn’t have been held back from anything; fortune would’ve favored the bold, and he’d be lost in the entanglements of bedlam and triumph. But this one seemed to have never flaunted its worth, had been used to the absence, and was now overwhelmed by the merest scratch. “You will survive,” muffled its way through his gruff tone, meant to be as assuaging as he could embody. “You get used to it,” came thereafter, but he didn’t mention how sometimes a demon was crushed by its power, by the raw, tenacious bindings of suffering and wretchedness, how one lived with it like a weight across a chest, clawing its way through a heart. Perhaps this individual would never learn how to entertain such an immense burden, and be all the better for it.
He let those notions slink their way into the Stygian intervals, the penetrating depths of his stare finding the stranger in the dark again. “I am Deimos. Who are you?”
