fair warning

D e i m o s

Send a heartbeat to the void that cries through you
Relive the pictures that have come to pass

He drew in the wilderness, the calm platitudes, the mountainous regions of his primordial summits, the strength, the ruminations, the bestial inferno amongst composure – because this was a tangled road he now lingered upon. The back and forth, the defensive measures, the bestial shades drawing over their lingering doubts of one another: and he gave nothing, nothing, nothing, the primeval ice king with his glacial walls and his nonchalant fortifications. It was reticence again in the self-possessed, detached demeanor, forbearance for friends, for allies, for comrades, who he feared were going to be annihilated, tossed against, and brutalized for one individual’s agenda. Because for all the inquiries Deimos had prospered, for all the blunt, keen notes, the answers still weren’t there. Jigano’s presence might have been a planned precaution, but against what? What could he do about the insects? What could he do about the gas? What could he do but linger along a threshold, and then have to be saved himself? Why not just let the mages go? They knew how to protect themselves. They knew how to arm. They knew their own munitions. “I did not ask how they would fight.” He trusted in them. He had faith in them. Their enchantments, their invocations, were a part of their existence; just the same as the coldblooded intonations pulsing and pervading through his blood. “I am asking how you will fight, Jigano.” A blanket statement needed to be more than just I will; where was the wisdom and sagacity in these ventures? There might’ve been other threats, other dangers, besides hordes of unrelenting insects, or poison simmering in the air. How was he meant to safeguard them? Where was that portion of the plan? His analytical, scrupulous mind dug for details, nuances, reassurances that a guardian was truly there, and not just in it because of the latter, the potential results – And then, perhaps because he’d cut a nerve, the bard swung back to him. You had to leave us down there. And you left. Because I will not abandon anyone. His eyes narrowed a fraction, the only indication of an infernal, incensed, bestial force careening and harpooning through his chest. Jigano had known exactly where to press, exactly where to claw; used his words as weapons – and what might’ve been a scandalous annihilation to anyone else, ensured Deimos was a rigid, taut statue, a behemoth, a monolith. He’d survived much worse than the unsaid accusations. “Vai left. I was determined to stay.” And he would’ve; he would’ve died there in the sanction of stone, entombed and enshrouded again by rock and rubble, taken and mauled, not mattering in the least. Would he have served a better purpose then, in his second demise? “I was the only one available to call Safrin, at Amalia’s request.” Her screams along the horde of earth – hadn’t Jigano heard them? Maybe his snake eyes behind the loam and dirt and mounds of insects hadn’t seen the Reaper hesitate, fully entrenched in horrific decisions, to stay or to go, leave behind his friends or run to get more help. Maybe he wanted to paint the Colossus as the weaker, as the lesser, as the useless, as the inept, and in some contortions, he might’ve been right. Not today though. Not now. Not in the midst of all this deviousness, all these calculations, all these manipulations striking away from the heart of the subject. It was a device, a ruse, to deflect. He knew it. He’d experienced it. “Perhaps you were not listening when Kiada mentioned I tried to come back for all of you.” And he couldn’t, struck down no sooner than the stardust had been cast along his gaze (another failure). “But then we were attacked.” He’d nearly died there too. Would his merits have been better served with him cold and dead, losing the battle of wills and survival all over again? That appeared to be Jigano’s case, an underlying insinuation. His emotionless visage and vocals exposed the lines in the sand, in the dust, in the ashes. Where Deimos hadn’t used any incriminations, any mettle other than inquiries as to why Jigano had to be the one to save them all, the Loreseeker twisted allegations to suit his needs, his purpose. I know you have courage. I know you have strength. “Yet, here you are, implying I do not." By suggesting he should've simply perished; that would've accomplished something in the midst: death again, no one's actions ever as much, never as purposeful, as the bard's own. "Use what you must for your narrative.” Because the Reaper’s plans were already forming, altering, morphing with each new breath, each new vexation. For now we stand alone, the world is lost and blown And we are flesh and blood disintegrate with no more to hate