who we are and all that we're trying to be
Remi had sonnets, Ronin had silence, Amalia had comfort, and Deimos had persistence, a perseverance, a tenacity, for things he shouldn’t have sought to claim. But the beats passed, and he placed his drum back into his bag, felt the baker coincide with guidance, with tolerance, with an acceptance of his ridiculous, asinine, unworthy schemes. Before long, the situation altered and changed again, and he swallowed down some strange discomfort, some bizarre apprehension, as Amalia offered up her lantern: prized possessions, heirlooms, fond, family memories for a goddess to have (do they even care? he wondered; as years cultivated into decades, eons, and millennia, as they became specks of dust and soil, withering into the earth). He kept his head down as she explained, because a part of him wanted to steal it back for her, tell her to find something else – but she wouldn’t, he already understood; deities required their sacrifices.
The Reaper bit back a retort, knowing his damned silence must have made this whole evening awkward and uncomfortable, hands fumbling into his satchel for his own offering. He didn’t have a stalwart presentation, and he didn’t have the luxury of objects or items from another world – they were gone, as gone as his family, as gone as old kingdoms – the warrior only had his own hands and some magic to weave together the proffered lacquer.
As he pulled the artifact out, it jingled and jangled restlessly against one another, a flinty, metallic tune as it slowly revealed itself. He’d managed to construct and design a garland of stars fashioned into windchimes; interwoven and laced with one another, one massive star on top with holes (for the sun or the moon to shine through), and a hook; the others following suit along a band of tinier elements and fragments. It didn’t even have a single knife embedded in it (the thought had been there, but it never quite fit in the right places). He rose from his seated position, and followed suit with Amalia’s lantern, tying it beneath the lantern, along the altar, waiting for the breeze to catch it.
It takes dying to know
How to live as ghosts
