Serenity

DEIMOS Delivered from the blasts Years spent as a mountain leant him towards folding secrets and conniving tactics; years spent on a throne meant politics and diplomacies had carved their niche into his mind, even if he abhorred them. She crooked an inquiry for closer inspection, to drive a wedge into his thoughts, but there was little he chose to unravel, a barbaric beast contorted and garbed in his chosen cloak, invoking his right to be a stoic monolith, a solid barrier. “Factors. Variables. Things to fight against. They learned how to survive LongNight. How to endure monsters.” There were so many things he didn’t say; but the latter intonation was an indication that they could persevere, persist, fortify, without the bludgeoning crack of a whip, without the need for reckless, ensuing violence, without the incoming threat of a building force careening and pressing down on their backs. He wanted to dive into the water again and be released from these strangled, smothering moments, liberated by the embankment’s edge, where the fringes of upheaval could be left for another day, another instance. But her smirk curved and she tried to simmer, sink, deeper; he gave no other indication of his presumptions or mulling thoughts except the casual arch of his brow. Was she asking for advice, or merely manipulating the venue, hoping to salvage something out of his reticent silence? What he proffered was meager, only ensued from experience: the burdening hostilities around the notice board, the ridiculous display of Rory’s subsequent incrimination. “Forcing others to bend to your will was not the wisest of choices, especially over minor discrepancies.” Or did that matter to her, really? Perhaps she enjoyed the ferocity, the fury, the stupidity of it all, turning the country against her in one fell swoop because power was power, and she enjoyed the relish of it? “Threatening to jail those for writing one word incorrectly is asinine. Why not listen to their questions and appeals?” Too hostile, too hasty, too rash, too brazen: perhaps her worlds had not trained her for actually leading, but dictating, and terrorizing. That wasn’t a Queen. That was a tyrant. the last of a line of lasts