[se] chasing the rapture

Deimos Reckless, fervent, and committed, to stars, to suns, to outlandish trouble just for the sake of it, he waited for Jyoti to tell of all their conspiracies and mischief. Daring and provoking for the sheer trill of it had been a juvenile endeavor, now back in the open, after quiet, stoic, detached days, after withering and decaying for so long: he cannot describe his gratitude for her, for all these other wondrous entities in granting him something other than despondency, melancholy, and treachery. So he lingered there, beholden, crowned, and laureled in mischief, awaiting the right moment – when she turned, when she shuddered, when the Cheshire grin turned into a more rampant, easygoing grin; loose and free, liberated and delivered. He leaned in, another tease, another ruse, while she clutched her basket and spoke his name on esteem and regard (which, in another time, another place, would have been absurd; then it was intimidation, fear, and wrath), wild locks rippling past his shoulders as he caught the glimmer of his title. The warrior proffered the same, uttered her calling with a marked, piercing reverie, syllables sliding across his tongue, against his teeth, past his lips. “Amalia.” His hands clutched behind him, gift entangled in his calloused fingers, awaiting the right moment, the correct interval, the play, the games they shared – There it was, the laugh he required, obtained, kept locked away in his chest with heartlines and savage ichor. “Do you now?” His voice was an edge above a whisper, a knife, a dagger, gaze hooded, purposefully, methodically, a battle of perseverance and fortitude, as his gaze swept over her mouth, her eyes, her smile. “A dilemma.” Then the great beast shook his head, a pretense, a masque, as if there was no solution at all – no end to the wickedness, to the trails and traces of audacity they meandered and employed, clawed and toyed. He sidestepped as she pulled towards him, beckoning, tenacious, intentionally drifting on stiletto edges so she couldn’t duck around him and see; no honor amongst thieves. It could’ve easily been another molten battle of who would outlast the other: and the warrior was prepared to counteroffer, to bludgeon, to root himself into the very ground on the sheer notion of stubbornness. But curiosity usually got the better of him, and he was not a soul often gifted. While he’d laden promises, vows, assurances, dead, broken bodies and disheveled tyrants upon doorsteps and feet, the same couldn’t be said amidst Basin inhabitants. Here though, where nearly everyone accepted and tolerated his ridiculous, asinine qualities, had been a present and reassurance upon itself. However, the avaricious pull was strong, the inquiries and inquisition stronger, so much so that his eyes dared and his head tilted to perhaps peer into the basket, intending to catch the slightest glimmer of an artifact meant for him. Because she’d seen something and thought of his ineffectual, monolithic entity. It cornered its way into his heart, stammered, reverberated, made him straighten up and pretend he hadn’t been concocting anything untoward; innocent, blameless (not a day in either of his lives). He unhinged his shoulders in a haphazard shrug, but intentions were clear on the strength and puncturing depiction of his eyes. “We could always exchange them.” Out of sight and out of mind Make everything alright So let the sky and sea collide Just not in our lifetime