DEIMOS
The brooding king, the silent throne-keeper, the icy scepter: keeping it all together in his stoic, reticent interludes because otherwise he’d crack, fissure, and fray, returning to the numbed contortions, to the days where he would slip behind enemies and unravel throats. He could’ve said a thousand things, but none of them would’ve mattered, weighted and overwhelming, only to be devoured and consumed by the madness flowing through her. Weren’t they truths, after all? Weren’t they tangible, corporeal things, the moments and intervals he strived to avoid each and every day, the haunting layers and lacquer, the instances of barbed shards – she knew exactly where to hurt, where to maim, where to torture. And though he wouldn’t give the acrimony, the torture, the noose a voice, the vicious venom was enough to slowly erode into barbarity and defeat.The lines were blurred and choking, cloaking, as they flew in a hunting, carnivorous rapacity. The blood on his spine flowed and trickled down onto the ground, cascading droplets of ichor and anguish, reverberations of his hushed suffering. The Reaper, the Sword, knew she’d fought hard, had recognized it from day one, had sought to behold it in the stretch of those winter worlds – then she departed with her mother, and he died, and everything clattered and crashed. Wasn’t she the one who had admittedly consigned herself with the false god? How was this his fault? Or was it more torture, because he wasn’t there, because his last breath had been lost in the channels of snow and ice, beneath soaking rain, because his heartbeats no longer existed, and the plains of his presence had been vanquished? Did she believe he would’ve done it all over again, to be consumed by his own damned magic, to be heralded straight back into hell before he could do anything for them?
Wanting to do something; chants of maddened convictions, beyond Ru’in, beyond gods and monsters and becoming the savage – but they were all the same now, living in and amongst twisted barbarity, and he yearned to proclaim that he’d been trying to do things too. That they hadn’t mattered. That they’d been immaterial, meaningless, flickerings of success only to be rankled into paltry, trifle moments.
He’d wanted to protect everyone – not just her, not just Amalia, not just those riddled with pestilence.
Not enough, not enough, not enough, his feral, stiletto anthem, a knife in his heart, a dagger in her echoes.
Even now, when the thorns rankled into her hide, he bore the weight of the action, hurting her to save her. For a moment, he merely hovered above her, wings flapping, blood spilling, everything aching, hurting, crushing, until she began to fall. He plummeted with her, a diving stretch of muscles, sinew, flesh, bone, feathers, and plumes, striving to get to the ground before her, to descend recklessly in hopes of catching; turning and shifting and lifting his arms so the earth didn’t meet her so wickedly. Even then, he failed, wounds hampering his speed, her form a loud thud into the ice.
He could feel the darkness shifting away, an asphyxiating mechanism over his throat, along his mind, crawling and curling until it lingered no more; replaced by despair, by terror. Perhaps she thought he’d return the favor, slink into the barbarity, into the cruelty, finish and rip her apart. Were she an enemy, an adversary, he wouldn’t done just that – shown absolutely no mercy in the frayed strands and filaments, ensuring ferocity was unleashed, owed, indebted in the torturous decibels.
But he had no anger for her. No rage. No vexation. No vehemence. It was just quiet misery, a sort of wretchedness peeling away in more than lacerations and scars – a reopening of stitches and seams he once thought closed, tucked away, hidden. Kiada, he spoke into their bond, a heavy word now, a proclamation of exhaustion, of fatigue, too world-weary as he landed.
"who's gonna let you?"
they asked. i said
"who's gonna stop me?"
