DEIMOS
the reaper
The hushed precipices scalded, but he waited, waited, waited, a shadow, pressed and backed into the corner of his own making. Silence was a routine, to be still and stoic while the rest of the realm damned itself; but he’s the one orchestrating oblivion now, his own, others, and it burned and twisted its way into his gut like a knot, gnarled and distorted. He didn’t say all the words pressed into his skull, the things bordered and laced with fear, with apprehension, with recoil, with experiences tethered into his mindset. But they spiraled and shifted no sooner than her softening, not bringing her eyes to him at first, at her I will bring my staff saying far more than the lone phrase (you can’t stop me when he craved and yearned and longed to do just that). The clipped tones and syllables pushed and sizzled against him, a vehemence coursing through his veins, on the air hastened by sharp inhales, on his lungs, on his heart, on his soul. I do not want you to come; predictable, a prelude, a preamble, to everything else falling apart. I want you to be safe.
I cannot bear to lose you hung in there too, said once before, only to be rebuffed, rebuked. It still stood, gathered in his eyes.
He would like to have been a barricade, a wall, a fortress, not allowing her to pass, to wander straight into the midst of treachery and danger; but then, there was that blinding double-standard, the hypocritical venture to those measures. She was strong. He’d always told her that – brandished and beholden, anointed and consecrated, with convictions, with persistence, with beliefs, faith, and creeds – and here, when she was starting to smolder it against him, he was going to ask her to suspend it?
How many times had he asked warriors of his legion to come along with him? To strike out against terrors threatening their kingdom? To embolden, to lacerate, to demolish, and to diminish an adversary? Had he ever second-guessed them? Had he ever thought them weak? Had he ever thought them not up to the challenge? Had he ever faulted or doubted them? Had he ever shoved one aside because they weren’t enough? Tooth and nail, they’d driven onslaught after onslaught, side by side, waging and wreaking havoc.
The differences here were loss and love, too much of one, and not enough of the other.
I cannot bear to lose you, haunted and hovered again, a whisper in the anarchy, a truth in his vulnerabilities and absolutions.
The warrior was torn between protection and predilection – but as his stare went back to her, and he recalled all the moments, the instances, the events, that had tried to strangle them and failed. He surmised about how this world made soldiers of them all. He thought about being back-to-back, the sword and shield, careening into the realms of the unknown, blistering, condemning, and devastating those in their way.
“What else can you bring?” He asked, instead, instead, instead of the weight on his shoulders, the rigid contortions to his spine – he’d followed her into doom, and she’d follow him, and he clenched his jaw at the notion that one day it wouldn’t work anymore. Defiance and defiance and defiance, rooted and fortified in their blood, in their actions, in each and every spark of sedition springing past their lips.
I cannot bear to lose you hung in there too, said once before, only to be rebuffed, rebuked. It still stood, gathered in his eyes.
He would like to have been a barricade, a wall, a fortress, not allowing her to pass, to wander straight into the midst of treachery and danger; but then, there was that blinding double-standard, the hypocritical venture to those measures. She was strong. He’d always told her that – brandished and beholden, anointed and consecrated, with convictions, with persistence, with beliefs, faith, and creeds – and here, when she was starting to smolder it against him, he was going to ask her to suspend it?
How many times had he asked warriors of his legion to come along with him? To strike out against terrors threatening their kingdom? To embolden, to lacerate, to demolish, and to diminish an adversary? Had he ever second-guessed them? Had he ever thought them weak? Had he ever thought them not up to the challenge? Had he ever faulted or doubted them? Had he ever shoved one aside because they weren’t enough? Tooth and nail, they’d driven onslaught after onslaught, side by side, waging and wreaking havoc.
The differences here were loss and love, too much of one, and not enough of the other.
I cannot bear to lose you, haunted and hovered again, a whisper in the anarchy, a truth in his vulnerabilities and absolutions.
The warrior was torn between protection and predilection – but as his stare went back to her, and he recalled all the moments, the instances, the events, that had tried to strangle them and failed. He surmised about how this world made soldiers of them all. He thought about being back-to-back, the sword and shield, careening into the realms of the unknown, blistering, condemning, and devastating those in their way.
“What else can you bring?” He asked, instead, instead, instead of the weight on his shoulders, the rigid contortions to his spine – he’d followed her into doom, and she’d follow him, and he clenched his jaw at the notion that one day it wouldn’t work anymore. Defiance and defiance and defiance, rooted and fortified in their blood, in their actions, in each and every spark of sedition springing past their lips.
I am comfortable with violence
