[Training] [se] stronger than all of it

Deimos Where the Sword had expected a simple answer became anything but – so in one glance and exchange with Zuriel, he wandered over to the nearest boulder, staff in hand, toying with it as he sat down for the careening tempest unfurling before him. Because there was far more below the surface. He’d take the jab about not be so bloody serious all the time (presuming it was aimed in his direction), tilting his head, listening to the intensity rise and the gestures fall, and everything else careening in a wayward state. There were some proportions readily understood and some not at all; experience and multiple lives too far embedded in his mind to ever have drifted so far back into the same deluge. And perhaps, some explanations required of him, for why he was cross, frustrated, irritated, and vexed by the willful, emboldened decisions she’d opted to make. “I have seen many do the same. They ignore what the pain is telling them. They push on. They disobey orders. They do not listen to anyone around them.” Foolhardy and reckless, with pride lacquering their senses and not much else, driven to onslaughts and danger, until it became too much. “And then the desperation leads to more stupefying decisions. Until they are dead.” Incapable of being brought back. Slung out on the battlefield because a mender couldn’t attend to them. Because they’d been too complacent. “This world is dangerous, and it does not take long for one false move, for one error, to be your last.” His eyes focused on her, narrowed and not hinting at the amount of comrades he’d lost. Friends battered and gone. Bodies dragged out. Graves dug. Families told. The barrage settled against his chest over and over again. Across Isilme, Helovia, and even Caido; because he’d had his fare and share of decisions that had cost him dearly. “And while it may have been safe to do so here, you should have told me that was your goal.” The armament rolled in between his hands as he passed it from palm to palm, while his mind was busy, extending a long sigh into the eaves of the autumn air, tones all the more composed and calm. “How do you want to be treated?” How did she want the world to see her? What picture was she orchestrating? To not be her mother? Or her father? His brow arched while the tirade continued, thoughts wandering back to a time where Kiada had fallen apart too, in the echoes of LongNight, when actions simply hadn’t been sufficient, and nothing more could’ve been done. “Most of us do not know what we are doing. We have goals. We try to stay committed. Some are not strong enough, so that is what they work on. Some crave wisdom, so that is what they aim for.” A snort followed through, glance tilting towards the sun, the wind, the vestiges. “You cannot have everything all at once. It takes time.” Out of sight and out of mind Make everything alright So let the sky and sea collide Just not in our lifetime