Deimos
Dare we know the halo's hanging low
He could hear the rancor. It drummed in beats of resentment, causing his gaze to narrow, brows to furrow; not dangerous, not lethal, but certainly measured. Eventually, his eyes flickered away, pinpointing them on the cake. Thereafter, he lowered the mug for a moment, prying off another piece of the confection, not permitting himself to feel any residual irritation or indignation; he’d worked, he’d strived for those moments where he hadn’t been disregarded, spurned, or thought to be nothing – insignificant. He’d been molding that to his bones for each of his lives. To be worthy of anything.
“It took a long time,” Deimos finally answered, once he’d swallowed cinnamon and sugar, his grin gone, diminished, faltered. Stages of begging, of pleading, for loved ones that wouldn’t return, for the safety of those he cherished, for the sanctity of people. In another world, he’d sneered at them – and here, where the very fabric of their existence was everywhere, the beast adapted. “There were many instances where I was ignored.” And without insistence from others, particularly the Shield, he may not have tried again – tending to those ferocious, begrudging lines, neither here nor there. “But I wanted to be better, stronger, and Safrin eventually saw it.” Heard it. Honed it.
The question gave him pause, cracked away at the attempts at nonchalance and masks – not a tangible one like Chaele’s – the habitual to his brow conforming back to the present. “No. They have my loyalty.” Along with many others – to places, to lands, to homes, to shelters in storms, to individuals who remained pressed against his soul.
