DEIMOS
The warrior shrugged at Loren’s proclamation; never calling for the darker traces of his flesh to coil and unleash. They were often reserved for treachery, for omens, for ultimatums, for those who dared to taunt, to hurt, to prey upon those he devoted himself too. Once, it’d been used almost exclusively on his sojourns along borders and rime, piercing and piecing upon fools, infidels, and morons thinking to sneak, to crawl, to slither into his kingdom. – demonic crowns and rapacious scepters. During battles it’d been swift perfection, not even requiring a singular touch, just a sweep of silence, a breath of air, a sinking of irreverent raptures and reveries – complete, utter control of death in his hands, in his ploys, in his tactics. Times where ruthlessness was expected, when tempestuous decisions were high, when life hung in the balance, precarious at best. It might’ve been the same way here too, except his nefarious, insidious incantations cannot pluck blight out of bones, blood, and marrow, cannot proffer any sense of salvation, cannot riddle and scar and mark pestilence from tissues and flesh. Sometimes, all he could be was demolition and desecration, abominations and annihilations, rapture in death, contemptuous nothings. Loren didn’t wish to see it, didn’t wish to experience it – and he didn’t blame him.
No, perhaps the worst possible place wouldn’t be the forest, with thickened groves and hanging branches, but when the Reaper had come for you, quiet scythe and wrath unhinged, when destruction was imminent and terror a beating, bestial onslaught.
The mere inquiry seemed to make the other man nervous. Ordinarily settling someone in an apprehensive position, given his intimidating stature and overall demeanor, might’ve amused him; it had ages before, lifetimes ago, when he basked in the forge and iron of his mountains, when he dared the world to best him. Now though, he hadn’t intended for it – so he shrugged, whisked the vitriol away, adapted to a lighter approach, form less rigid, less taut, less triggered for assaults. “You could test that here then.” There might’ve been a smirk within his lips too, a touch of mischief, a ghost of amusement – Zuriel lifted her head and regarded him suspiciously, and he carried on, wandering closer to another puddle out of meager curiosity once more. “Could you summon a kitsune?” A challenge, a dare, a light provocation; partly inquiry, partly out of a world that had so many of the wily foxes, a comfortable notion to the former lord of peaks and summits.
No, perhaps the worst possible place wouldn’t be the forest, with thickened groves and hanging branches, but when the Reaper had come for you, quiet scythe and wrath unhinged, when destruction was imminent and terror a beating, bestial onslaught.
The mere inquiry seemed to make the other man nervous. Ordinarily settling someone in an apprehensive position, given his intimidating stature and overall demeanor, might’ve amused him; it had ages before, lifetimes ago, when he basked in the forge and iron of his mountains, when he dared the world to best him. Now though, he hadn’t intended for it – so he shrugged, whisked the vitriol away, adapted to a lighter approach, form less rigid, less taut, less triggered for assaults. “You could test that here then.” There might’ve been a smirk within his lips too, a touch of mischief, a ghost of amusement – Zuriel lifted her head and regarded him suspiciously, and he carried on, wandering closer to another puddle out of meager curiosity once more. “Could you summon a kitsune?” A challenge, a dare, a light provocation; partly inquiry, partly out of a world that had so many of the wily foxes, a comfortable notion to the former lord of peaks and summits.
i'm in the mood to dissolve in the sky
