[seasonal event] to find a soul somewhere

Deimos The paths divulged: bracken and mire, murky in their steps, stirred up mischief brimming to the surface, then leaving everything else to shift and scatter in its wake. He’d tied himself into columns of disarray and devilry because it was safe, a sanctum, a sanctuary of relentlessness while maintaining a wicked composure: juvenile tactics allowed to be freed. Violence wouldn’t have had the same pleasures, the same acceptance, and he was permitted to fray all his Machiavellian strands with smirks and grins, with the gallantry, with the valor, still stuck into his sides somewhere. It’d been a shared affection from the start, beyond indifferent features and reserved statures, enticing, pulling, pushing, closer, closer, and closer still, and when the diversions ended, when the antics dissipated, they were left with the premise and preamble. He couldn’t hide there, out in the open, vulnerable and discarded, the worthless beast aligned before someone far better than he could ever be – flawed, defective, tucked behind his armor and shields, struggling desperately to rebuild them before she could see, before she could understand, just how pathetic and diminished he truly was. You would not want me he almost said, the words brushing along his teeth, even though she’d promised, she’d persevered, she’d rooted herself deep into his thorns and nettles, kept little blossoms and blooms there, amidst his shards and shadows. Why couldn’t she comprehend that there was naught else to him but ruin and loss? Sometimes he was just a maneuvering carcass, a silent vessel, dragged along by the inhibitions of his wake – never quite freed from his chains. Sometimes he was just one massive, colossal mistake, wandering and wandering, lost and lost, crumbling, disintegrating, struggling to understand what to do besides obliterate and weaken, erode, then solidify. Maybe he was only vehemence and bloodshed, then the blight that came after, destined and doomed to roam alone, a sardonic cloud, a bewitched, eldritch skull, macabre motions, unearthed so the world could witness what happened when they rebelled and seethed. But Amalia wanted all these revelations, and he had naught to give but those concave scars and tangible defacements; his eyes still on her, disbelief smoldering on the blue, then tucking his arm back over them, so he could conceal the pain again. It would be easy to have the ground swallow him whole, for the sand to sift and devour, consume, to escape and evade so she wouldn’t be hurt, so he wouldn’t be so ashamed. Was he such a coward? His fingers pulsed, still dusting along the emblems and scorch marks on his flesh and bone, turning and twisting, a mess, a contradiction, a bestial, barbaric shade of everything clustered together in self-doubt and loathing. They trailed above his hip and picked one nearby, a rush of rash memories, a cluster of daggers and rapiers, stupidity and weaknesses, bound, gnarled, knotted. “Too slow,” and then they swayed towards the tip of his ribs. “Arrow,” before trickling down a line on his left arm, haphazard seams sewn. “Slash; the field doctor stitched me up and sent me back out.” It sung of desperation, the haunting doldrums and echoes of the battlefield, where wounded men were called out again and again, ears ringing, blood flowing, pouring, shooting, ichor drenching their shirts, their tunics, their armor, fighting a battle they’d never truly win. For glory they’d once shouted, yells stirred by drunken stupors and nefarious, ancient air - for triumph, they’d once sputtered and laughed, dreaming of the future, when hardly any in that room would ever obtain one. Those were the concrete lacerations and lesions, where blades settled for an instant in their rapacious, voracious songs; the veiled, concealed ones were sharper, much more painful, when the ghosts never waned and the haunting catacombs thrived. I am nothing he thought to signify to her, nearly begging her to run when all he wanted was for her stay. “You can have it,” he laughed, a cold, dark chuckle, empty, truthful. You already do lying in between them, in the space, in the sand, in the hallowed sanction barely keeping him together. “But it is not worth much.” The Reaper was giving her ample opportunity to flee – a warning, a foreboding, ominous edge, saving her from his stupidity, from his nature, from the fault lines, from the inadequacies, from the obvious, utter failures. He wasn’t asking her to save him, to pull him out of the deep, out of the fathoms he managed to sequester and lock himself within (he was trying; but the surface was so far away, and he kept holding his breath, waiting for the tide to turn his way). He heard her shifting but thought about burrowing into the dirt and soil and remaining there; ashamed, ruined man. Only when she called his name – like a ritual, like a summoning, like a siren – did he turn back towards her, arm lifted from his gaze, the unrelenting hues pinpointed on onyx, on sable. Her next statement echoed and reverberated, struck him straight into his soul, until he was simply silence. For a second, he believed he’d misheard, replayed the instant over and over his head for a few moments while his eyes widened and his entire figure maneuvered towards hers, on his side, head supported by his arm, a line of broken, chinked armor in his wake. The warrior’s initial reaction was to ponder why: what could she possibly see in him to ever believe him worth loving? There were a thousand others who were far better than he would ever be. There were ones who were brave and strong and determined to be something other than a foul, grim monster, who weren’t held back and down by wraiths and contempt. There were ones who conveyed everything without secrets, who were unafraid, who basked in the glow of happiness, who could relish other sentiments besides sedition. The second thought was to shy away, duck and run, save her from herself. The third intonation was to revel in it, to somehow process this shard of wonder, try to reason and explain how he’d been so lucky, so fortuitous, to have been granted hundreds of chances. He couldn’t fathom it, couldn’t comprehend it, couldn’t do anything but shake himself and presume it was a dream; gods, he wanted to be worthy of it though. Deimos wanted to sink into her radiance and never retreat. He wanted to glide along her light and find his own. He wanted to be bold and chaotic, embraced by something other than hatred and malice. Love and love and love, affection and warmth and attachments when his lonely soul had been pierced too many times, devotion and passion and all the ardent sentiments that came with it. The silence was thick on his tongue, and he knew he had to say something, do something, otherwise it would resound as rejection; and he could never refuse her, even when she shouldn’t have ever glanced his way. He slithered along the fleece, serpentine, body fluid in its arches and tilts, until he slid by her side again, the void gone, the distance vanished, the tension carving its blade down his spine. Then he reached and reached and reached, hot, molten, scared, vibrant, resolute, intending to pull her against him, so she could feel the boundless tenors and tones of his heart, frantic and exuberant, wild and chaotic, untamed, afraid, variances pulsing, pervading, scattering like stars and galaxies and moons and suns. He ducked his head into the space between her neck and collarbone, breath a ghost, lips pressing his love and affection on her skin, the howls behind his eyes roaring, blinked away, a rush of salt on his cheeks. “I do not deserve it,” he whispered, choked on it, barely audible, barely surfaced. “But I will try,” an echo, a reflection, of his failures and misses, of things he wanted and craved and somehow inevitably missed. Out of sight and out of mind Make everything alright So let the sky and sea collide Just not in our lifetime