DEIMOS
Heave the silver hollow sliver
The rosy tint and hue to her cheeks was all the encouragement he required, raising his arm only slightly to resist her nudge, thoroughly amused, cheeks dimpling, lips turned into a roguish glint as he watched her from the corner of his eyes. “I suppose the Whispershore is nice too.” The beast, the behemoth, the warrior rolled his shoulders, but the sultry intonations were already there, in the ether, in the air, struggling not to laugh – they’d explore and delve into new roots and fields together, because there had to be worlds beyond these.With no vegetables left to chop or peel, he settled his attentions on the grouse, grabbing a nearby utensil and stirring up the meat, listening to the crackle and sizzle as it cooked. He didn’t expect Amalia’s rapt, wondrous attention, gaze sliding back to hers as he asked about the ocean: and perhaps some of them had simply never seen something so marvelous, so wide, so powerful, tucked away in the bubble before the Spire fell. “Very,” he answered, ducking his head down to carefully pull his hair back into a bun, wrapping it around with spare ties nearby. His memories were a thousand leagues away, digging into sand and squalls, laughing with the gulls, chasing down current after current, diving headlong into its mysteries and majesty; a vivid representation of potency and beauty – an unforgiving paradise. “There is bound to be one nearby. The rivers have to go somewhere. We can find it.” Maybe after everything was said and done, and they could be free, liberated, cast off into the dunes and sunsets.
The sun mentioned her mother again, and his head tilted a little, listening as he poked at the grouse again. Similar parenting styles might have brought about a pattern of characteristics, but where he rose under his mother’s unrelenting force, he wasn’t sure what had happened to Amalia: the daring, the boldness was there, but not from the beginning. The Reaper arched his brow, pried only a little deeper. “Was she a baker too?”
The monolith watched as she grabbed hold of the dough, and he cleared off a section of the counter, maneuvering remnants and remains, shifting pots and pans so she had ample space to accomplish her work. And all the while, the inquiry that would start a story teased and taunted from across the kitchen – he raised his head a fraction, as if surprised, bewildered, by the query. He hadn’t mentioned his other life – dark and darker still, eyes narrowing as he contemplated how to go about it. There were a lot of parts she didn’t, wouldn’t, want to know, or perhaps already presumed, understood: the violence and menace still contorted and coiled along his frame, vicious and calculated, blistering and seething. “That is a longer tale,” and he leaned back against the table, wishing for something to do so he had other places to look instead of her face – dreading some sort of maddened, frightened, or disappointed outcome. “I had another life before this one – similar starts and pitfalls. That time, I lived in the mountains. We still had wars and invasions, and we still lost quite a few of them.” He swallowed down the bile, the contempt, hastening his gaze to settle on the vegetables, or on the dough. “At some point, I rose from General to King. Rexanna was my Thief.” The beast allowed the smallest of smiles to pull at his lips. “She had twins: Kiada and her brother, Kianzo, with a King from another land. The children were both bold and brazen. I may have encouraged Kiada’s spitfire tendencies.” His grin grew, recalling the audacity springing up from her exuberance, the rise of her onslaughts and upheavals. “Then I died.” The smile loosened and decayed away, a passing of time, rubble, and ruin, entombed in a mountainside, in the darkness, in purgatory. “For whatever reason, I was given a new life, and did not see her again until we found one another in Caido.” Was that enough of an explanation? He wasn’t certain – felt the need to shrug away a myriad of emotions, sentiments, and memories, but they pressed against his skull, alleviating nothing.
Unite and spread the heart apart
