fine in the fire

Deimos The mountain waited while she rummaged and meandered around the room, gathering adequate supplies for another process. While she accessed his shoulder, he gave no indication of the searing, blinding, burning pain; he’d had worse at some point in his life, hastened off the bloodied fields to be stitched together again, then tossed back out into the fray. His experiences, rituals, and endless trials were always going to be part of some maelstrom, some malice, some menace – it was who he was, who’d he become along the way, to here and now. A burn was not going to keep him down for long. When she applied the salve, he simply remained, chiseled and infinite, enduring and patient, unflinching, unattainable, unreachable in those brief moments – curling his mind to where the pain didn’t reside (lakes that never froze, despite the angles of the sun, despite the chilling, cold ramparts, despite the glacial expanse crooning over its water; tides that chased the earth and the moon). Once the doctoring was complete, he turned back to her, hands clutching the jar of salve. He listened to her directions, already contemplating how he was going to hide his wounds from prying eyes, and nodded an affirmation. “Thank you again. For everything.” he said once more, as if he hadn’t uttered it several times already, striving to make his acknowledgments clear when he had naught else to offer. The dressing was wrapped as best it could, bunching and coiling over muscles, flesh, and raw, gnarled sinew; but eventually, it’d heal. He’d probably be back here again for some other ailment or injury before too long. “Do you require anything else?” His head tilted, piercing gaze back on the mender, awaiting some signal or intonation of departure. Out of sight and out of mind Make everything alright So let the sky and sea collide Just not in our lifetime