[SE] you can't plant flowers if you haven't botany

i fell in love with a war

Even with Deimos’ reassurance and soft snort of laughter, Icarus’ cheeks stayed slightly inflamed from his perceived misstep. He knew he wasn’t the only one in Halo with ache beating in his heart for a life that used to be, for people who are no longer here. He wouldn’t even be embarrassed to let the memory slip to most people, knowing they would fall on sympathetic, if not commiserating, ears. Still, the memories falling upon Deimos’ ears seem not just a breach of his conduct, but hard to fathom. Deimos has gone through no shortage of pain and loss in his storied life, no doubt had memories that also ripped through him sometimes. This was just a fact of nature, of love. But imagining the Warden, the Sword, with his magnitude of great powers and seemingly-unbreakable spirit, feeling breathless with pain and loss the same way a common soldier like Icarus did? The myth didn’t quite fit with the reality, even though logic and Icarus’ own time with the man demanded it did.

Icarus hopes Mort did appreciate the efforts. He hopes the God, with his gentle nature and open arms, made sure it didn’t hurt for the solider’s mother.

His fingers continues to weave his misfit flowers’ crown, filling in any holes and gaps with extra leafs as instructed. It’s shaping up to be a lopsided thing, but Icarus decides it has plenty of personality and gumption, and that always matters more than a pretty exterior. Every so often he’ll look up from his work to toss a silly face at Idalia, hoping to incite more of those happy-baby squeals.

”Is this right?” He asks, holding up his resilient crown of strange findings. It holds itself together well enough, plants interlocked, holding itself together in spite of it all. Studying Deimos’ significantly more well-crafted wreath, he grins, ”Is there anything you’re not good at?”, letting a slight tendril of teasing slip into his tone. It’s a line he’s toed many times before, pressing up against the wall of protocol and nearing to genuine, boyish affection; not quite on one side or another, it looks like affection either way.

Icarus

and nobody told me it ended

DEIMOS

Deimos had lived with so much loss that it bore into his bones just like the scars upon his flesh. Carved its aches and pains into him, let the anguish burn bitterly into his ichor and blood, so that it had sometimes flared far more brightly than any fire he’d ever hoped to achieve. Those notions came with wars, with death, with demise, with the way one tried so hard to protect everyone and everything and could never possibly do it all. Not everyone could come back on their shields. That he’d been at the center of multiple crusades and battles didn’t help, called upon again and again and committed to the fault lines, the fissures, the depths of desecration and vehemence just for the chance those he cherished would survive. His spirit certainly wasn’t unbreakable; it’d been consumed and fractured, and he’d wished for the world to swallow him whole more than once – but nowadays it wasn’t nearly as fragile. Not as brittle. Strong, enduring, formidable. Built over and over until those walls were tough and steeled, forged behind more than just nonchalance and adversity. And still, mired and rooted in trepidation; waiting for that next dam to break.

He put the finishing touches on his own crown, studying and examining it for any faults or defects, before tucking a stray leave or petal back into the clutches of stems and brethren. While Idalia giggled, he put his aside, shaking his head and snagging at more to repeat the process for Evie and Amhran’s, immediately going for more of the green hues.

When he looked at Icarus’s, with its interlocking measures and haphazard decrees, he granted a small smile. “Yes. You should go see,” jutting his jawline towards one of the greenhouse pools, in case Icarus wanted a reflection of his work. At the question though, he snorted, and even Idalia rendered another giggle and squeal. “Plenty,” but giving no inclination as to what those flaws might be, landing the notions with a smirk.

think about this
you have the ability to survive anything

i fell in love with a war

Icarus is pretty sure Deimos is lying about not being good at things, and suspects that if circumstances called for him to successfully backflip, that the Warden wound find a way to pull it off flawlessly on his first try. Whatever flaws and cracks the man is privy to, whatever grief and tragedy wrings his bones, Icarus only senses through his years serving under the man, from rumors in the barracks, from his own keen eye and sharp propensity to sense the things that hurt from where they linger in the shadows. Still, it all floats in the realm of inferences and keen observations; it’s not real. Icarus does not think someone like Deimos unfolds their depths to someone like him. And so, even with his gathered knowledge, the myth overlays what he knows of the man, leaving Icarus’ picture blurred and unfinished.

There’s so much that burns at the back of his throat to say, to ask, but his flower crown is finished and it needs to be witnessed. He follows the jut of Deimos’ chin towards the pool and carries the crown over. It coronates itself on his head, settling into his dark wreath of curls, and after only taking a second to gather his courage, Icarus peeks his head into the shining mirror of water.

He looks the same as he always does, his hair windswept even as it’s tied back, his eyes dark and empty. The curve of his mouth is a severe slash across his face, and he tries to pull it into something a little more befitting of someone wearing a whimsical flower crown. He looks tired, he thinks. He looks like his father.

Icarus pulls away from the pool a bit hastily. ”Looks good to me,” he says, and he’s not even lying; the crown fit nicely on his head, the mismatched flowers working together in a strange harmony. He could say something in that lightly familiar tone about how he had a good teacher, but the crown on his head feels like it’s too delicate to be jostled by true words hidden in insincerity.

”Thank you. For your instruction,” He says instead, and then gestures to the crown in Deimos’ large hands. ”Are you going to try yours?”

Icarus

and nobody told me it ended