[se] came back alive

DEIMOS And in your darkest hour, I hold secrets flame Perhaps that was part of the problem too. A greater majority of the world expected him not to care; had seen the angles of his pretenses and masks, had thought the voids and reticence all truth, rather than a way to disguise the pain, torment, and anguish of worse days. But he’d hoped that his constituents, fellow citizens, people he’d sworn to protect, defend, teach, and shield, didn’t think him so utterly indifferent. Too immersed in his own head, unaware of the way his guarded platitudes truly hurtled and harpooned – and he’d have to eventually skewer those pitiful methods of communication. His mouth opened at her apology, half-inclined to say it was no matter, but then she carried on, and he listened. Prone to being the rock, the marble, the granite, the stone, in which people cast their worries, their disbeliefs, and their frameworks, he absorbed the multitudes. A different view from the one Kiada had given him all those months ago: while the Harpy had been valiant and proud, Elide seemed diminished, downcast, by the way things had maneuvered. A child (Azrael; he presumed) and the rest of them: hiding, running, fleeing from something far more dangerous, far more powerful, far more devious, and the General saw no shame in it. “You survived, and that is success enough.” His eyes didn’t leave her, though his head tilted, open and pondering. “I accept your apology. But do not believe people do not care about you.” At her next admittance though, his gaze went downward; because gods it was a feeling he’d grappled with so many times before. Of when reaching to the surface was too much, and there was only so much strength left. Why Elide would feel that way though – especially when she couldn’t fathom or comprehend it from her own perspective – was a line that maybe neither wanted to cross. Instead, he breathed again, wandering closer, back to the puddle that Belial meandered through. “LongNight has never been about a glorified battle.” Nothing like the tales of old, nothing like the wars he’d been tossed within. master of nothing place; of recoil and grace