[seasonal event] to find a soul somewhere

Deimos The Reaper waited, because he was infinite patience and composure, because deep, underneath all the flesh, all the sinew, all the entities, he was just as lost as she. Boundless and fleeting, in and out of vitriol, cast aside between abandonment and self-isolation, treading on thin lines and wires, uncertain of the directions, the intervals, the sways. He knew what he wanted but not what she declared – not in the choking, suffocating silence, where the simmering lacquer stuck to his throat, where the humming, siren yearnings crossed over his mind, a croon, a whimper, a tenor of possibilities. He was willing, he was fervent, he was avid; but it didn’t really matter if she wasn’t; the fires had been stoked, but not released, unleashed – drawn and taut, rigid and solid, an arrow cast along a bow. They went nowhere, a slow, languid, listless pace, the tension buffering in the still silence, in the listless air, lingering and loitering in the suspense, a ghost, a wraith, billowing across his back. Her whisper just barely reached his ears, too distracted, too kindled, too incensed, to make much sense of it until moments after, when it smoldered along the edges and fringes of her shirt. “I cannot recall.” Which was the truth of the matter; too rattled and addled, too indulgent and wanton, he could barely think straight – nor could he give much more clarity to those phantoms of the past, some small and minute, a passing spear thrown and hurtled, some enormous and all-encompassing, destroying company after company. They all blended together in a sinuous dance of the macabre, death knells and striking drums, fog and labyrinths and screams, where he learned bravery and stalwartness and valor amidst sepulchers and catacombs, makeshift tombs where his comrades and companions fell, ripped apart, shredded, torn asunder. His eyes watched beneath their hooded assemblage, not understanding, not processing, contorted in the heat and fire, in the molten entanglements; she licked her lips and he barely breathed – but she didn’t reach out, didn’t come to claim him, didn’t do anything more than push away, back into sand and salt, escape, evasions. Nothing and nothing. It chilled the inferno in his bones. He fought against the sting of rejection – for maybe it wasn’t that at all, but maybe it was. The warrior should’ve been used to it, to those sentiments, to the detachment, to the sudden uproar of naught. But it still gnawed at his marrow and he hung his head, staring down at the ground; perfectly willing to give everything and anything to her, to bask, to inspire, to provoke, to incite, to run his hands along warm, soft skin, to brush his mouth along curves and angles, to sink down into all of her and proffer what he could, carnal, carnivore abyss. Perhaps he was too much. Perhaps he wasn’t enough. Perhaps they simply weren’t ready and they were just fighting against onslaughts and disasters, a consuming plunge, past points of no return. Perhaps he was very foolish and not as imperturbable as he’d always believed. Perhaps he was weak and stupid, inexperienced, out of depth. Only her voice brought him out of the sudden, diminishing aspects, the flaws, the defects, of his existence. He didn’t know what to make of his stare now, less eclipsed and bright, lapsing back into reflective wraiths and decadent interludes, snapping back and watching her movements, her motions. He didn’t know what to make of her actions either, as she followed through on the exact thing he intended to do for her – as if it had been a shield, a barrier all along, a shirt, a tunic, to brush him aside, to keep him away, at a distance. The Reaper didn’t expect her to pull a blanket out of a pack, allow it to settle on the sand, or stay within the domicile either. He didn’t know what he envisioned anymore – the unknown and ignorance scorched in his chest, and he stood there like a damned fool, soaked and stupid. For a few seconds, he did nothing but stare, placing himself back into an unrelenting torment, wondering why she wanted to know about scars, if she wanted the ones lingering on his skin or the blasted pieces carved inwards, hemorrhaging along his lungs? Deimos followed, swallowing, devouring, consuming the length of their distance again, the haze not crossing over his face, taking an opposing corner, settling on the fleece, and then thinking better of it, laying down and stretching his body out  - never meant to fit in tiny spaces, legs extended well over the length of the blanket, but melded and molded, another open invitation. He pressed his eyes shut and then drew an arm up over them for good measure, hidden from the sun and its layers, ashamed, embarrassed. You are ridiculous he told himself, you deserve nothing, but instead of giving it any other solid explanation, his other hand raised and lingered in the air above a particular scar running down his right side, curving along his hip, before disappearing into his trousers. They were memorized: he knew them by heart, by pain, by torment, and by agony, by the stories and reasons when they cut and slashed into his skin. “Mr. Shade had a run in with a knight’s sword. A friend of his had fallen, and he was due to be next.” The deep tones rumbled and rambled, cut through his chest like all the other knives, a whisper of demise and tragedy, of those things immersed in his body and soul. He traced another upon the ether and over his skin, a deeper, broader slash embroidered and indented into his shoulder, down over his collar bone. “An adversary’s ax – but Mr. Shade was quicker.” Even as it burned and tortured, the warrior had slid his weapon straight into the other’s heart – one last breath, one last exhale, and then only death in the eyes. “Any in particular that interest you?” At this, he lifted his hand away from his eyes, allowed the depths of those puncturing hues to linger on hers, to inquire in an innocent bemusement. Out of sight and out of mind Make everything alright So let the sky and sea collide Just not in our lifetime