gunmetal bones and wolf's teeth

DEIMOS And in your darkest hour, I hold secrets flame Deimos had learned not to underestimate anyone either; long ago, past mistakes and brutal convictions, death knells around a throat, ominous beacons and political, marginal lines cuffing him upside the head months and seasons later – cycles of indulgences and belligerence, abhorrence and scorn, that had landed him in more trials and tribulations than they were worth. Especially as a soldier – one could never assume their foe, their adversary, their enemy was weak; it was easier to presume their strength could rival above, a pinnacle, a paragon, and then machinate how to take them down. So he did not ponder over any feebleness or power of a wolf-girl, who stood small but like a predator, like a carnivore, like the rapacious and the deadly. In another time, in another place, in another venue, he would’ve scrutinized her for her abilities, pondered over what she could do for a kingdom, for a sovereignty; here, he was just one more shadow in the darkness, not aligned to regions, but to himself and those he cared for. Whether or not she was a threat would remain to be seen. While his eyes were piercing, hers were too, and he wondered if she came from ruins and from debacles, where the youth had to become far older, far wiser, far stronger before they were ready, if everything was hardened, if worlds corrupted and condemned, reaching across globes and seas, just as damned as the rest of them. His gaze didn’t leave hers, acknowledging her name with a nod, committing it to images, faces, and memories (Ashe; remnants of fire and the things it burned, left behind – an inferno in her wake), and that she was not wounded. He did manage to loosen the lightest of chuckles at her admission of fairy tales and how they’d been nicer then – everything easier when one was a child, listening to the beckoning hands of fables and myths. He’d enjoyed them for a time too, believed in the legends and prophecies, until actualities slapped him in the face. “Reality is often harsher,” he shrugged, the warrior merely tipping his head in her direction; she would likely know that anyway. When her feral look drifted back to him, pinpointed inquiries, he was reminded eerily of Kiada, and smothered another bout of laughter. Should he have answered truthfully? That he was avoiding the ongoing dramatics of everything within the Hollowed Grounds? It was a partial notation. His gaze segmented back on the nocturnal eaves and the splendor of the quiet, the brandished shadows, the lingering boughs. “Exploring. I had not been this way before.” Hunting. Evading blistering talks in basements. Forgoing botched diplomacies and failed rebellions. The puncturing stare riveted to her only thereafter the silence crept in again. “And you?” master of nothing place; of recoil and grace