DEIMOS
ache first, but then let the cuts close
spit out the blood
spit out the blood
Another snort unfurled as she crashed into him, and he withstood. Storm after storm, tempest after tempest, he remained firm and unyielding, half-afraid the world would find the cracks nettled along bones and fragments. And when they didn’t, the monolith held fast, steady in the incoming waves and the unfurling ridges, head above the surface of the tides and the slamming wake of winds. Maybe he’d worn them over. Perhaps the scars weren’t so open, and he’d learned how to hide the inward lacerations; no bleeding on the surface.
The General lifted her, for half a second, to curl underneath brawn and might. If he noticed the wet eyes and the tremor in her voice, he made no mention of it; only laughing, forcing all the wraiths away as the comment assailed his ears. “Too busy to become fat,” despite the amount of sweets he still found around the markets; but he’d never been the type of creature to fall prey to complacency – training, exercising, fulfilling all the fundamentals his warriors needed and then some – no protector of Halo could go rolling and stumbling through the streets.
Releasing one another, his eyes took her in quickly, efficiently, as any soldier might scrutinize, though his look was teasing, age-old, familiar from years and years before. “You clearly need it.” With a wrinkle to his nose and a boyish grin, and perhaps a poke to one of her arms, he offered a thicker pair of gloves from his pockets, before turning, maneuvering away from the Fangs maw. Zuriel bobbed her head towards Evie, and Belial followed suit, screeching overhead.
Only then did he address anything else – while they were moving, while they had opportunities to sink and slink without the other truly seeing. “How are you?”
The General lifted her, for half a second, to curl underneath brawn and might. If he noticed the wet eyes and the tremor in her voice, he made no mention of it; only laughing, forcing all the wraiths away as the comment assailed his ears. “Too busy to become fat,” despite the amount of sweets he still found around the markets; but he’d never been the type of creature to fall prey to complacency – training, exercising, fulfilling all the fundamentals his warriors needed and then some – no protector of Halo could go rolling and stumbling through the streets.
Releasing one another, his eyes took her in quickly, efficiently, as any soldier might scrutinize, though his look was teasing, age-old, familiar from years and years before. “You clearly need it.” With a wrinkle to his nose and a boyish grin, and perhaps a poke to one of her arms, he offered a thicker pair of gloves from his pockets, before turning, maneuvering away from the Fangs maw. Zuriel bobbed her head towards Evie, and Belial followed suit, screeching overhead.
Only then did he address anything else – while they were moving, while they had opportunities to sink and slink without the other truly seeing. “How are you?”
watch your body pull itself back together
then let your soul do the same
then let your soul do the same
