DEIMOS
Deimos didn’t sleep as an eagle. The form wasn’t familiar enough for him to be comfortable in any vulnerable state – no feathers lined his edges, no plumage meandered along his figure, gone by the wayside for his human embodiment, tall and broad and contorted for this evening’s spread into morning. At some point he’d started out curled around Amalia, and then lingered, lost, along the bed, caught in torrents of tempestuous dreams that turned into nightmares; visions of other years taut and tethered behind his eyes, freshly dug graves with battlefield cinders wrapped in their accord, names pressed along stones, pyres with rooted ashes and titles. After he’d shuddered away from her, not wishing to disturb her sleep, he’d had difficulty returning to slumber, hesitant to dive back into those outlines and sketches, staring at the wall, pondering over why the distortions had returned. Perhaps it had been the constant consternations of the world around them, the failures, the disasters, the blight, pounding and grinding its way into their unsuccessful ventures, an overwhelming reminder of defeat, defeat, defeat.
At some point though, his mind must have shut off again, because he didn’t awaken before the press of dawn, his normal routine, rising when she did, seeing her off to the bakery, gathering supplies to hunt or continue with some other efforts necessary before Long Night. The sun lingered from windows, and he blinked rapidly, pondering over why and when and how, closing his gaze again, pressing his palms against eyelids, stretching undulating muscles and breathing slowly; no misguided returns of the chimeras, that he could recall, that he could remember. On his expansion of arms and limbs however, he found Amalia again – flipping and flopping nearby, shocked she was still immersed in dozing too, out of the patterns and rhythms too.
His hands rested on fur, and he nearly laughed, but it only came out as a sigh, acceptance of the inevitable, in her shifting overnight. “Morning,” he murmured, eyes reopening, watching, waiting, reaching for her in adapted habits.
You aren't afraid of throwing yourself
in the path of danger
but you're terrified of letting anyone in
