we're all killers
For a beast who harbored hundreds of secrets, furtive, deceptive measures, tight-lipped and coiled, the notion of not sharing the implication of the guardians didn’t bother him. How many measures and machinations had the rest of the world never told him? He’d allotted the information to very few – and by then, it likely hadn’t mattered anymore. They’d had enough soldiers. They’d had enough guards. They’d had him – and for a while, before pouring rain and drowning emblems and sunken banners, it had been enough.
The Reaper, the Sword, masked the laugh threatening to flicker out of his chest at her insinuation of meeting D’art as a pleasure – it depended on one’s preference – because the Doctor had been a snarky, calloused, cold, but intrepid, valiant thing, particular in his pursuits and persistence, meticulous in some of his designs. Deimos had considered him a formidable ally: D’art and his nurse had also been prolific in their meetings, either conspiring to fill the Basin with their children or simply take over the earth with their poisonous aspirations.
But that was all gone now – and she raised her glass a moment later, a wicked inset to her grin he couldn’t quite fathom until she cheered, until she relished, until he tilted his head. “Successful,” he tasted the word on his tongue, and didn’t think he met the standards – yearning to shake his skull at the implications, but settled for sighing instead, taking another swig of his drink instead of having to respond with self-deprecation again.
What had he done that was ever successful?
Her next statement caught him, secured and rooted him to the spot, tilting his head to indicate he was listening, the piercing depths and fathoms of his gaze segmented, riveted, to her. He watched her movements with obvious meticulousness, taking in the motions until he realized what she was displaying: a ring, gilded, crimson stones, like fire, like flames, like infernal, bestial representation of things she already had her grasp. “Congratulations,” he extended with a cheeky grin, memories of the last wedding curling along his mind (dick fireworks included), taking the offered item in his fingers, in his palm, with an applied reverence, studying and perusing as they fell to silence. As long as you are happy echoed upon him again, because she deserved it, a man who wasn’t a complete fool, who could treat her with respect (the notion and memory of Tembovu was a reverberation of frustrations and enmity; but without him, there would be no Kiada; he replaced the growl with something like indifference). “I have only met Bastien a few times.” The first had been in the midst of Long Night, opening doors to permit others to cross the threshold (a still Amalia in Edrei’s arms), helping to hold the baker down while she was mended and brought back to life. “I do not know him well. But if he makes you content,” he smiled again, acceptance again in the darkness, in the flickering embers and coals, in the glow of unicorn horns. Even the ability for her to be able to make her own choices, to not follow anyone else’s guidelines, conform to their rules, adhere to their commands, and demands, should’ve been celebrated.
The warrior, the mountain, didn’t expect the next set of words. His head snapped back up from his inspection of the ring, eyes widening – the uncertainty suddenly looming large in his mind, in his membrane, as it spiraled and divulged. The initial instinct was to shy away from it completely, not good enough, not worthy, not deserving, surely there was someone better in the midst who wasn’t pathetic, who wasn’t ineffectual, who wasn’t entirely inept at everything. But then he presumed it must have taken a lot for her to even ask, to even inquire, and they’d been together through a multitude of mistakes, blights, ruins, and upheavals – triumphing somehow, through thick and thin. He followed her smile, wondered what he’d done to earn such a regard. “I would be honored,” sprung from his mouth, finally, giving her away, but not damned and doomed to part.
The Reaper, the Sword, masked the laugh threatening to flicker out of his chest at her insinuation of meeting D’art as a pleasure – it depended on one’s preference – because the Doctor had been a snarky, calloused, cold, but intrepid, valiant thing, particular in his pursuits and persistence, meticulous in some of his designs. Deimos had considered him a formidable ally: D’art and his nurse had also been prolific in their meetings, either conspiring to fill the Basin with their children or simply take over the earth with their poisonous aspirations.
But that was all gone now – and she raised her glass a moment later, a wicked inset to her grin he couldn’t quite fathom until she cheered, until she relished, until he tilted his head. “Successful,” he tasted the word on his tongue, and didn’t think he met the standards – yearning to shake his skull at the implications, but settled for sighing instead, taking another swig of his drink instead of having to respond with self-deprecation again.
What had he done that was ever successful?
Her next statement caught him, secured and rooted him to the spot, tilting his head to indicate he was listening, the piercing depths and fathoms of his gaze segmented, riveted, to her. He watched her movements with obvious meticulousness, taking in the motions until he realized what she was displaying: a ring, gilded, crimson stones, like fire, like flames, like infernal, bestial representation of things she already had her grasp. “Congratulations,” he extended with a cheeky grin, memories of the last wedding curling along his mind (dick fireworks included), taking the offered item in his fingers, in his palm, with an applied reverence, studying and perusing as they fell to silence. As long as you are happy echoed upon him again, because she deserved it, a man who wasn’t a complete fool, who could treat her with respect (the notion and memory of Tembovu was a reverberation of frustrations and enmity; but without him, there would be no Kiada; he replaced the growl with something like indifference). “I have only met Bastien a few times.” The first had been in the midst of Long Night, opening doors to permit others to cross the threshold (a still Amalia in Edrei’s arms), helping to hold the baker down while she was mended and brought back to life. “I do not know him well. But if he makes you content,” he smiled again, acceptance again in the darkness, in the flickering embers and coals, in the glow of unicorn horns. Even the ability for her to be able to make her own choices, to not follow anyone else’s guidelines, conform to their rules, adhere to their commands, and demands, should’ve been celebrated.
The warrior, the mountain, didn’t expect the next set of words. His head snapped back up from his inspection of the ring, eyes widening – the uncertainty suddenly looming large in his mind, in his membrane, as it spiraled and divulged. The initial instinct was to shy away from it completely, not good enough, not worthy, not deserving, surely there was someone better in the midst who wasn’t pathetic, who wasn’t ineffectual, who wasn’t entirely inept at everything. But then he presumed it must have taken a lot for her to even ask, to even inquire, and they’d been together through a multitude of mistakes, blights, ruins, and upheavals – triumphing somehow, through thick and thin. He followed her smile, wondered what he’d done to earn such a regard. “I would be honored,” sprung from his mouth, finally, giving her away, but not damned and doomed to part.
DEIMOS
