Serenity

DEIMOS Delivered from the blasts The Reaper had never had patience for diplomacies, treaties, doublespeak, or political intrigue. He could wield his own cloak and daggers, his own machinations, his own ruses, schemes, and snares for manipulative means, to disparage an enemy, to disclose a furtive note, but when it came to a larger picture, he found no comfort in it. There were too many ridiculous meanings and vague undertones, when the arch of a brow could mean life or death, when the past unfurled, unleashed, and invoked tidal waves of betrayal and enmity. The beast would much rather terrorize an onslaught of warriors intending to flay him alive, than spend one more aching moment pressed into delicacies, finesse, and primordial ambiguity. He employed it now only because from experience, it was the safest way to engage in those he was unfamiliar with, in tyrannical sovereigns who intended to rule with iron manacles. He detested every instance of it, feeling the strain, the discomfort, curling around his edges. But his visage remained perfectly intact: stoic and indifferent, a detached soldier waiting for opportunity. His voice was monotoned, no zeal, no fervency behind it, not betraying the frustration layered in its discourse. “How do you intend to make them thrive? By forcing them to fight?” Her blasé, asinine shrugs blistered and scathed against him too – because it seemed as if she simply didn’t care: about anyone or anything, except her own ambition, her own aspirations; perhaps amidst the most deadly and vicious kind of rulers. Then she went on – describing how she was asked to lead, and he had to swallow down the defiant laugh threatening to beckon and rumble from his chest. How many had truly asked? Her guard? How many were in such a state? Were they as power-hungry too, longing for the moment to beat down citizens or thrust them into chains for the lightest of reasons? Or was that a lie too – formed and plotted out so she could take her throne with little force? None of the individuals, save for Edrei, lingering along the notice board had seemed particularly enthused with the latest proclamation – some surprised, befuddled, others incensed and enraged by the newest arrangement. Had they ever been truly led? And if not, why did they need someone now? Was it just an instance where she saw her moment, her time, and made it happen? Was this an occasion for fortune favoring the bold? His mind was a whirl, but his ears listened, trapping her words in his nuances and notions, peeling them apart, hoping to find the measure and means of their worth. Her latest proclamation, proffering times and instances, had him fighting a roll of his eyes – the commanded, reticent precision a continuation of marble and scars on his face, sculpted straight out of composure, strife, and apparent apathy, even when his blood boiled and seethed for these people, some who’d never thought or wished for the tyranny suddenly on their doorsteps. “I am certain you can surmise why they may not come.” A queen who’d already unleashed her power, her dominion, upon those signing a document, asking them to come to her quarters? Where her guard lingered, lying in wait, for one word, for one proclamation, to send some poor inhabitant, who had managed to muster their disagreements and courage, straight into a cell. the last of a line of lasts