gunmetal bones and wolf's teeth

DEIMOS And in your darkest hour, I hold secrets flame For his part, he was rapt and riveted to hear of other worlds, portals opened and left behind, similarities and distinctions between sovereigns and the next. It was a scholarly habit, to listen, to blend his curiosity into connections and distinctions, to remember in case they were ever required, a necessity when dealing with surrounding people and forces. To hear Ronin and Remi’s land: Northwind, was intriguing, he’d never heard it mentioned before (but hadn’t asked either; not a beast entirely driven to pry – only when the notions and inquiries sunk well and deep, a tongue forced to question and spout). Then Northraven, and an encountering of other things: stone beasts (like the golems?), massive cats (large enough to devour the Spire; which he almost wished he could’ve seen – a version of monoliths far greater than anything except his blessed mountains). His eyes swung over to her pinky, contorted and coiled with a prosthetic, brows arching for a moment as if he were impressed. “How did you combat it?” How did she only lose a finger? He matched the wry smile, a lapse of mischief and warrior manifestations, always yearning to hear of monsters and how they were slain; legends absorbed in blows and bellows. Shadow monsters and beasts; they’d had their own set of mayhem, pestilence not unlike the blight, forced to leave their homes for refuge in caves, or gods forcing mortals to murder on their behalf. Most of the time their chaos had been orchestrated by themselves – too greedy, too condemning, too vicious, too raptured and irreverent in their own beliefs and systems – peace ultimately restored before his death, but long since before it’d been too little, too late. It was bizarre to think of a time there hadn’t been acrimony and hostility, a seething, contemptuous slate bordering on their skin, on their flesh, on their bones. “We had magic too,” he finally answered, the Cheshire smile lost along his train of thoughts, mouth drawn back into its flattened lines and nonchalant demeanor; a mask, a pretense, when the scorching seams seemed to settle back on his spine. “It was almost expected to have something.” And a massive variety – everything from healing, fire, water, earth, wind, electricity, to darkness, the pooling, pouring essence crawling in his veins. To have creation now aligned to his heart was bizarre, and seemingly against the grain – a new visage, a new chapter, a new arc to a story he thought he’d been within before. The Sword caught her glancing at him, did the same in return, brow arching again until her question slipped out. The craving for peaks and summits, for prominences and palisades that stretched all the way to the auroras hurt and churned, but it wouldn’t matter in the end. “There is nothing to return to,” he uttered instead, piercing gaze sliding back over the woods, glad he had perished long before he’d had to ever bear witness to shadows destroying one of the things he craved the most. master of nothing place; of recoil and grace