DEIMOS
Observant to a fault, his piercing stare swung back to watch her reactions – permitting a brief smile in between the rest of the fault lines as her nose wrinkled to his counterpoint, but no measures came thereafter. Instead, there were others to consider, and he took his time in weighing out parameters, leaning away from his drawings in the sand, taking a drink of water as the nuances came once more. “They may.” A breath, certain, steady, self-assured again, unwound from his chest. But considering Safrin and Ludo, he was more inclined to believe they’d have misgivings, and then more. “In these circumstances, Morgan in power means Halo is swayed towards the Voice.” Her relationship with Neron, her escalations in prior actions, the twists and turns of snagging at other Ascended to battle for her. “She has already negated her throne once before,” to him, and here he regretted handing it back so readily for the hundredth time. He’d sat in that damned seat to guard her supremacy, stupidly, ignorantly. “To fight for the Ascended. For Neron." A pause, before more. "She has openly admitted to praying to the Voice, and attempted to aid them in obtaining a relic on the Sea of Glass.”
He broke apart another roll, and then left it to sit as he meandered over the lines of what had been said in a meeting he hadn’t been privy to. He had points to argue – such as the newly risen not being allotted a choice, how Kiada had battered against those hinges and fringes so many times over, but maybe it didn’t matter. Not when the inevitable came knocking. But to the rhetorical, he still answered. “No.” He’d fight. He had every intention of doing so anyway – there hadn’t been a notion otherwise.
It was the vestiges she’d held back that made his head tilt once more, feline and inquiring, curious to the inclinations. “What do you mean?” He had some insight, some machinations, and likely some agreements in the stead, but could wait to hear her conjectures and speculations.
Thereafter though came on a sigh, reliving a battering of images he wouldn’t be able to forgo or forget regardless. The rendering of ignorance, the blind faith in striving, in trying, to ensure their actions mattered, for trying to make the world see exactly what the Glacier had become – and how it all seemed to come to naught. “We never cast out the Ascended. Only Morgan and Neron.” The latter for his faults in prior leadership roles, and the former for obvious reasons. The Sword’s voice came on a more solemn tone, a deepening rumble of rue and regret, of bitterness and rancor, mingled and interwoven. “Noah and Ru surrendered so more were not marred. Ru was pregnant. I was helping with getting the people to safety.” Because they’d always been the first thing on his mind. A litany of consequences, with his eyes turned to the sand. “We could not beat Wessex, and were outnumbered. And if it had carried on, how much damage would they have caused to Halo? To the citizens?” Whitebrim had already been destroyed. And Morgan had stood there, so proud of potentially laying waste to a land she’d cultivated. “And we refused to be their political prisoners.” They wouldn’t have been able to keep him for long anyway – not with his power.
His jaw clenched, and the past lacerated deeply. “I worry it would happen again too. But that is why I am asking those of Halo – because if it comes from all of you, how could she refute it?” His gaze turned back towards her – half a shrug wound into his shoulders. Maybe that was too hopeful. “In all the time I had known her, I never believed Morgan would have attacked the world she had sworn to protect.” Yet, here they were.
Eventually, he simply came to another shrug, eyes downcast. "Something to think about, anyway." A mulling over for the future, or the present.
{FIN}
He broke apart another roll, and then left it to sit as he meandered over the lines of what had been said in a meeting he hadn’t been privy to. He had points to argue – such as the newly risen not being allotted a choice, how Kiada had battered against those hinges and fringes so many times over, but maybe it didn’t matter. Not when the inevitable came knocking. But to the rhetorical, he still answered. “No.” He’d fight. He had every intention of doing so anyway – there hadn’t been a notion otherwise.
It was the vestiges she’d held back that made his head tilt once more, feline and inquiring, curious to the inclinations. “What do you mean?” He had some insight, some machinations, and likely some agreements in the stead, but could wait to hear her conjectures and speculations.
Thereafter though came on a sigh, reliving a battering of images he wouldn’t be able to forgo or forget regardless. The rendering of ignorance, the blind faith in striving, in trying, to ensure their actions mattered, for trying to make the world see exactly what the Glacier had become – and how it all seemed to come to naught. “We never cast out the Ascended. Only Morgan and Neron.” The latter for his faults in prior leadership roles, and the former for obvious reasons. The Sword’s voice came on a more solemn tone, a deepening rumble of rue and regret, of bitterness and rancor, mingled and interwoven. “Noah and Ru surrendered so more were not marred. Ru was pregnant. I was helping with getting the people to safety.” Because they’d always been the first thing on his mind. A litany of consequences, with his eyes turned to the sand. “We could not beat Wessex, and were outnumbered. And if it had carried on, how much damage would they have caused to Halo? To the citizens?” Whitebrim had already been destroyed. And Morgan had stood there, so proud of potentially laying waste to a land she’d cultivated. “And we refused to be their political prisoners.” They wouldn’t have been able to keep him for long anyway – not with his power.
His jaw clenched, and the past lacerated deeply. “I worry it would happen again too. But that is why I am asking those of Halo – because if it comes from all of you, how could she refute it?” His gaze turned back towards her – half a shrug wound into his shoulders. Maybe that was too hopeful. “In all the time I had known her, I never believed Morgan would have attacked the world she had sworn to protect.” Yet, here they were.
Eventually, he simply came to another shrug, eyes downcast. "Something to think about, anyway." A mulling over for the future, or the present.
{FIN}
i'm in the mood to dissolve in the sky
