DEIMOS
we've all got blood on our hands
something somewhere had to die
so we could stay alive
Hardly any others came – whether or not the lack of participants was due to Zariah’s enforced tactics, and freed from her bindings, the citizens had no intention of swarming to violence, or the rest of the world was disinterested. Perhaps they believed there’d be enough to protect them, to shield, to safeguard, wards amidst an age of blight, impending monsters, and whatever else trickled in through the shadows. His eyes ran over the others assembled, strong, determined, stalwart beasts and heathens, but what would they conquer without mass numbers?The depths of his gaze maneuvered back to the Queen, listening as she shrugged, of votes like the arches of rebellion (little matter to them in the end), and the insinuation of his prior notions. The sentiments were clear, but he’d bear the weight in his shoulders, in the breadth of his chest, in the undulations of muscles and power, prestige, and domination – the only supremacy he could understand, could comprehend, were the slashes and lacerations and terrors of war.
But he was still surprised to hear his name clamoring over the others - most trust an even more bewildering, sobering inferno – and he wondered if there were ghosts and wraiths in his sights. It was a continuation, a cycle, a pattern again, where he’d started in Isilme, in Helovia, where the stretch of his barbaric prowess had bent him to higher ranks and commands, General of forces far, far larger than this.
But it didn’t mean it had to be this small, this miniscule. They could be more. They could do more. His back became straighter, posture more open to warfare, poised for predilection, honored, struggling not to show it. “Yes,” the singular word rang, acceptance like they’d always tolerated him, as if he was molded and melded for its foundations, for the clarity and scope of these small moments. What most might’ve found insignificant, he discovered traces of yesteryear, ancient, primordial sanctions of this is where you belong; in the fight, in the vehemence, in the bestial slide of massacres. “What do you want us to do?” What would be the first task? Where should he lead them? Where would they go from here – meager militia, trained and honed for something, if he had his way.
