[SWE] Capturing the Sun

Deimos It was Jyoti first, swimming through the air, gliding and circling around the Reaper, alerting him to Amalia’s presence. In reality, the little calf didn’t need to – the warriors stares were always watching for her, in and out of crowds, across a distance of throngs and dins. He would recognize her anywhere, gold and onyx, now garbed in ivory and crimson, a stark image along the cloaks of darkness and stars. His hands, now out of habit and ritual, as if it were an old routine, flickered across the starwhale’s skin, affectionate scratches, his eyes going to her, watching, waiting, a statue, a stone, a monolith along the intervals and sea of people. But she didn’t arrive; sweeping along the crowd, and he was just the lone, desolate witness again – another custom, practice, and tradition, now almost innate and inherent, to linger on the outside looking in. She crossed lines and chords, and finally, nearly there, along his path, until she noticed Remi. He hadn’t noticed the man at first – too pre-occupied, head too full of sun and moons and stars – but as he shifted his gaze upon him, he noted bandages across his eyes, no pride in his stance, a fumbling of hands and fingers as Amalia led him to dance. Curiosity and inquiry beckoned, a tilt of his head even as he continued tending to Jyoti, pondering all the while how he’d acquired such brutal wounds, layers and lacquer hidden underneath gauze and wrappings. He missed the removal of the dressing and covering; turning his head and striving to do something other than stand around, looking like a fool. At the last festival, he’d been surrounded by allies and comrades, had felt more than blessed, unworthy and undeserving of the notions and individuals, but accepted, tolerated; they hadn’t done so this time, each going off in different directions, and the whispers of desolation, isolation, stirred against his bones. Just try echoed again, and he didn’t know where to strive, but knew, understood, that the rest of the world wasn’t going to wait on him. How many times had he encountered it? How many times had he forgotten how to chisel allies and forge friendships? How many times had he let it simmer and sink into the dust, ruined and muddled before he’d even noticed? Amalia was a godsend, a blessing, but he had to be able to do this on his own. It wasn’t fair to either of them. Then she was gone, behind a garden wall, and he chuckled, smiled. Arching a brow at the calf still close-by, he gently grabbed ahold of one of her fins and tugged her along; impersonating a dance as an air of mischief stole over him again – furrowing his brows and pinpointing his next set of motions and movements. They twirled and spiraled, he rampaged and seared, laughing amidst Jyoti’s croons, taking careful aim on his impending approach. Done purely out of impishness, and some juvenile glee, mixed and coated with infantile spite, he spun the companion along the air, and ended up with his frame, his mighty, colossal figure, on a collision course for Jigano. “Sorry!” He passed by, clearly not at all; the rogue grin settled on his features, before winding along back the way they’d came. Out of sight and out of mind Make everything alright So let the sky and sea collide Just not in our lifetime