Shoot the Messenger

D e i m o s

Send a heartbeat to the void that cries through you
Relive the pictures that have come to pass

The trepidation, the apprehension, failed to leave him as Jigano seemed to embody him with a sense of caution, too quiet, buried under an inauspicious clarity. The tangible threads of dread wound themselves around his jaw, clicking shut and clenching tightly, chest rising and falling with a distinct, calculated measure, striving to keep himself calm and composed as the weight threatened and loomed on his spine, as the revelations had yet to succumb to his countenance. How many times had he seen someone come to him in the same way – agitated, nervous, tense? How many times had he been delivered the grating summons, the haunting news, the pressing, tightening noose? The warrior advanced, stepping forward a few paces, closer to Jigano, narrowing his eyes, suspicion scraping its way to his features, the nonchalant position beginning to wear away the more the nuances nettled and barbed, the more they hovered and beckoned, the more urgent and desperate the unspoken portents pounded against his temple. He mentioned Kiada – not telling him something? The girl and him had always been fierce allies. Deimos couldn’t imagine her forgoing to proffer information – they’d been comrades in arms for lifetimes before this one…so the choking clarity began to stifle and railroad his thoughts, clenching a fist without recognizing it, vocals nearly becoming a growl, a rasp, a knife on the edge. “I have not seen her.” Where had she gone? Had she journeyed with him, Attuned and eternally capable, her harpy feathers spread above the forest? Then where was she now? The beckoning inquiries clawed and thorned, clogging up his chest before he even knew or understood the incoming confessions. The note’s scribbled writing haunted him, as if he already had put it all together, and he merely required the divulgence. “What was she supposed to say? Why do you need help?” His brows were furrowed, his Machiavellian mind drawn and conspiring; the devious measures tying themselves together, urgent for answers, for more than just the careful discretion. For now we stand alone, the world is lost and blown And we are flesh and blood disintegrate with no more to hate