[seasonal event] to find a soul somewhere

Deimos The Reaper expected remonstration, a colder wind blowing in from the light’s sails; some vociferous action to compel and admit a step too far in nonsense and misconduct. It wouldn’t have been the first, nor the last, a beast of many burdens and ambitions, occasionally stalking too close to border lines and upheaval. He ducked his head in a muted regret, but the devilry in his eyes was too far gone, and he rarely wore a pretense well. She clung to him instead, no pout, no indication of the blatant chaos, and perhaps she understood he wouldn’t have let harm or pain scorch her frame; just a game, just a ruse, just play, just a form of amusement he’d hoped she’d share. But the unknown had gaped and sizzled, seethed, bit back, and he listened to divulgences as sun-kissed fingers found the arch of his muscles, the solid, stalwart rudiments of his bones; an outline of cornerstones and essences. Nobody wanted to teach me dug a little into his chest, curved around his ribs, the slightest of frowns marking over his brow; then softening at her shrug, wondering if she let it go, like so many other moments, like they all occasionally did, even when they deeply desired something, anything (sometimes the world died and disappeared inside them, walls for different reasons, different confessions, different paradigms, but still all crisscrossing lines; parallel, never touching, never meeting, never reaching again when the chances were gone). “I can, if you want.” He proffered, more of a blessing than his previous movements and motions, continually aching to give back to the sun and stars. It was an apology and a peace offering, a blend of the valor beneath layers and layers of black soot and Stygian cutlasses. He was stupid and inept and ineffectual at best; but he tried, some days, to become less of a mess. For her, the reason intense, vibrant, and strong, a smoldering, simmering benediction in his heart – one of the few, one of the only. One of her hands skimmed away from his frame, and he felt its loss, a sudden pang, only for it to return, brushing away a droplet of water threatening his stare – his gaze sharpened in that millisecond, in the gentle caress, deep blues shifting to hooded and hot, back into the fire and flames. It was the same impasse, only much more acute; a piercing slight to his heart, the molten discord pulsing and pervading flesh, skin on skin, soused and drowned on the clustered embankment. Given enough of a push, enough of a shove, enough of a wanton need from her mouth, from her lips, he would have devoured and consumed, easily rectified the heat coursing through. He swallowed, throat bobbing, lowering his head to accommodate hers, breath billowing and fanning along the length of her neck, before pressing a soft kiss behind her ear, sliding it down, down, down, tracing a dulcet outline. She exhaled against his cheek at the distraction, at the deterrent of shiny things and objects, pulled away – and he chuckled, laughed, put the distance there again too – too soon, too fresh, too much. When her toes finally settled along soft shoal and rock, his attention dissipated and flickered back to the glistening artifacts below the water’s rippling surface – a challenge curling and coiling over his brain. He arched a brow and chased her image down immediately, fully aware of what she was concocting, but also incapable of escaping it. He lived, thrived, on dares and provocations, the endless I doubt you can echoing past his skull and out through his ears, a rapacious, voracious entity hellbent on tearing walls down and making the world bear witness to his triumphs. It was a reflection of weeks before; when seasons ran into dancing and chaos, when boundaries were glanced over and blessings were exchanged, where he proffered and she accepted and they didn’t linger quite so far into the unknown. The beast snorted, rolled his eyes, then lingered on their locked hands, free of the rest of his embrace, brazen and cheeky. There was half a moment, a second, a synapse, where he thought about leaving the dare where it stood, coming back and reclaiming yearning, longing hums and hymns; studying her as she was now, clothes clinging, confident again, radiant in the sun. The warrior’s fingers squeezed hers, and then he was gone. The Reaper dove underneath, smoothly, easily, baptized in its midst; plunging, swimming upstream, against the current, the incitement sliding on his skin, on his clothes, on his arms and legs as they pumped with strength, endurance, and might. He kept his eyes open, catching and snagging glimpses of gilded, golden scales, fish adrift and making their way upon the tides too. He pondered for a length if he could capture one, raise it above the water in a fist and cheer, but his lungs ached and churned, reminded him he was one that required air, and so he returned to the surface, further upward than he’d intended. On another gulp of oxygen, he slid back down, hands outstretched and poised, knowing, understanding, that despite his swiftness on land, it may not have multiplied in the fathoms, where the fish were adapted to its swindling embrace, and he was a mere outlier, someone who forged and abandoned. If he had a spear, a trident, something from above, where he could angle it properly, he’d stand a better chance, thought about creating it from his magic. Would it be cheating? The baker might claim it as such, and he’d be left with an empty summons, a gauntlet thrown but not picked up. Had he not been underwater, he would’ve sighed; instead, the beast committed to a quick, rapid motion, barely plucking at the goldfish’s tail as it tried to escape and evade his claws, his talons, his brutal, monstrous movements. He grabbed and retreated quickly, pushing and pulsing his way back up to the sky, to the sun, to the horizon, with the fish still in his grasp. When he broke through the glassy veneer, it was on a silly, rebellious laugh, an I told you so collected in his throat, tossing the wayward animal so that it might make a graceful arch in front of Amalia, still landing back in the water, safe and sound despite the antagonistic approach. Out of sight and out of mind Make everything alright So let the sky and sea collide Just not in our lifetime