dented metal

We're lost in the space between
who we are and all that we're trying to be

Welcome to the club (more than gnashing teeth and war-torn bones, refugees built with hate and vehemence in their brains, soaked and absorbed with so much callousness and debauchery) with a broad smile and an encouraging whisper was likely all the beast needed, raising his head and easing a breath, casting off the anchors he’d weighted down along intangible lines. That was freedom and liberation too, more acceptance, more tolerance, something he’d always craved right down to his bones. “Thank you.” He didn’t expect the current though, suddenly impacting his mind, not his, not his, not his, but Remi’s, a distinct sea rising out of the depths and his heart pounded; it could’ve been like his childhood, like his birthplace, the Moonlit Tides’s shore and shoal, the sinking waves, the torrential power. He waited until he was composed again, striving to regain something out of nostalgia and some distant, reeling pain, the agony of not having, not grasping, not ever again, and he wondered if Remi had borne all that too. “Where was that from?” And he wished, somehow, someway, he could impart the notions back, rising mountains, glorious, stalwart, and strong, glacial expansion with snow and rime and monoliths at every turn, dominion and auroras, the blaze of brilliant, beatific hues. Maybe one day. Maybe one day he’d be better; more capable.

But they had to flicker and diminish back into the clarity of the hour – his curiosity intent on the piece of glass Remi had received from Safrin. It was better than nothing, which was about all they had at the moment. “If it comes to it,” he sighed there, a nail digging into the table in thought, “We can always have it available to try.” He didn’t know, none of them did, the ignorance still blinding even when they’d already experienced one cycle of Long Night’s revolution. The previous year had been a debacle, between the multitude of deaths, never knowing when to answer the door, never understanding which lines to cross or when it was appropriate to do anything; held at bay in their ineptitude and ineffectualness, and brandished it all over again at each knock of the door. If they were prepared, it might make life easier, less daunting, less intimidating – but the unknown beckoned and pushed and howled, and they could only go off of the last one they’d experienced: a jumbled inferno of trials and tribulations.

DEIMOS

Stop trying to show how to save our souls
It takes dying to know
How to live as ghosts

if you make it all wrong then i'll make it all right

"Northaven." He said with a touch more melancholy than he'd expected. Remi's lips twitched slightly as a smile flickered across his lips at the memory. "The settlement we arrived in was built right on the coast. I could fly and fly and never see land.." Pulling in a breath as if able to smell the salty air, he let his eyes open slowly. "The city was built within a wall that we were not allowed to leave. The sea was the only real...bit of freedom we could experience." With a weary and boyish smile, Remi shrugged off the memory with ease.

"I promised Ludo I would not let any die in the cold. I..am still not entirely sure how to keep that promise. My only hope is that Loren's spark birds do work. Though..I suppose that only helps if he and I are together." Remi added, his jaw feathering slightly as colour tinged his cheeks.. "To put his magic into an amulet for me. I'd not want to waste seven if I can avoid it."

Then again, Loren, Remi, and Ronin together for all of LongNight? What were the chances of that.

We're lost in the space between
who we are and all that we're trying to be

Northraven; other worlds distinct and bright, places gone or forged away, to fly and fly and never see the end of its eternal waters, not allowed to leave, but the liberation, the freedom, the deliverance of providential means simply by wings – once, he might not have been able to imagine. But now he could, and something chiseled and clawed in his chest, in his ribs, to wonder what it would’ve been like to be so chained and immersed behind walls, and suddenly, incandescently, wild and unbidden. He would’ve liked to have flown over mountains and peaks, screeching beyond the starlight and grace, power, of their worlds, another view, another format, another way to embody the glaciers and frost. He could’ve flown between snowflakes, could’ve launched and plummeted at frames and figures daring to threaten; another way to defend, another way to honor. But while Remi seemed to shrug off those memories, Deimos couldn’t; too imbedded, too rime-laden, too immersed in a world that wouldn’t have him again – death and destruction, bones laden in its tombs. “I was born beside the ocean,” and here he smiled again, striving not to show the wistful moments, his eyes glancing at the ground. “It was nice to see it again.” Isilme; another shadow, another ghost, another stitch in the seams of all his unraveled moments and journeys, uncertain which one hurt or healed the most, the stretch of the waves always promising to carry him home, home, home, the sand sinking beneath his feet, the cries and calls of the gulls, the seaweed and salt air. “Remind me, when I can,” he paused, because determination was always a foremost trait, and he damned well would be able to one day, “to show you the mountains.”

Then the conversation turned to Ludo – to promises with gods the alchemist was uncertain how to keep. The Sword’s promise to Safrin alone was difficult – to simply look within himself for strength instead of the other way around – he couldn’t fathom taking upon a task of no death in the cold, no frozen forms lying amidst the snow, left on their own to bleed and despair and drift off. “I think we could all strive for that.” Should they be plucking them out of the void? Should they be opening the door to anyone passing by? What was the best answer, the right solution? Loren’s spark birds could do well – last year’s had ended on the fringe of fire and embers coiled from feathers, from magical light. Deimos didn’t miss the undertone of something there; recalling the way Loren had deflected to not hurting Remi, and there was some embedded history within that he didn’t understand. But he wouldn’t pry. He wouldn’t ask. That was for the alchemist.

Instead, he leaned into the parameters of the amulets again – remembering the efforts of his own incantations and enchantments immersed into its fold, hastened by Amalia in the basement of the Spire. “Should we be putting any other magic in them?” Just in case?

DEIMOS

Stop trying to show how to save our souls
It takes dying to know
How to live as ghosts

if you make it all wrong then i'll make it all right

"Oh?" Hard as the Sword was to read, in the creases beside his eyes and the glimmer behind his long lashes, Remi could see what the man must be like to Amalia. The depth of soul that was there, behind the rocky cliffs. "Ronin and I keep promising each other that one day we will see the ocean again." Now it was Remi's turn to appear wistful as he sighed, his shoulders slumping down.

One day, one day, one day.

"I have never seen mountains." The alchemist said with a boyish smile. "Our lands were quite flat...someone once described a...volcano? Which I think is supposed to be like a type of mountain." Tilting his head slightly to the side for the Sword to either confirm or deny, Remi nodded again, welcoming the opportunity to be shown mountains.

"Certainly. Healing magic would be good.." Again, Loren. "Perhaps...fire? I know Wessex thought perhaps it might harm the monsters, but I do not know if that has been confirmed." Thinking back to what he'd used before, Remi twitched his lips. "I..used earth to reinforce the doors?"

We're lost in the space between
who we are and all that we're trying to be

Promises, vows, assurances, and convictions – they’d all managed to somehow embolden some along their teeth, fighting for a better future, as long as they could seethe and sear past the obstacles standing in their way. If it wasn’t the blight, it was Long Night, and if it wasn’t Long Night – then what next? The General would yearn to believe in something better, something grander, like last year’s Fiat Lux, but their pathways were never smooth, rubble and ruin flanking the sides, holes opening up from within. He didn’t miss the wistfulness, the waves of nostalgia, immersed in those notions of the past and what couldn’t be – not again, not in the same way, everything else new and foreign. He’d faced it before. They would conquer it again – perhaps to their benefit, perhaps to their detriment. “It is a good goal to have,” he smiled, small, a motivation beyond these means and ventures, instead of plunging into some other side-winding aspirations.

At the thought of never having seen mountains, his nefarious heart lurched. What would Deimos have been, without the callousness of winter, without the glacial expanse, without the rush of frozen, caustic voids? “No volcanoes on ours,” he chuckled and thought; though perhaps he wouldn’t have been surprised by some of them exploding just to carve chaos into the abyss like it’s inhabitants. “Those tend to explode, and cause immense amounts of damage.” The Basin had contributed in some of those same attributes; in coldblooded rage, in chilling calculations. No, he’d show Remi exactly what the Aurora kingdom had been – beautiful and cold and powerful and malicious.

At their turn back towards amulets, purposes and motivations linked into possibilities and potentials, features losing their smile and conforming back into stoic thoughts, reticence sinking in simply due to thoughts, to ruminations, to sentiments coiling over. “I agree.” The more healing potential, the better, who knew what sort of situations they’d find themselves within, and even though they both had unicorns, who was to say someone else wouldn’t be in need, or too far away? The room for calamity and treachery was immense and wide. “If the Spark Bird was something to make the Long Night cease, it would make sense…” but whether or not they could replicate such an impressive array of fire to combat monsters was another hypothesis and theory they wouldn’t be able to test until it stared them in the face. Earth to reinforce the doors was grand enough, he recalled the way Remi had handled it along Amalia’s basement. “Let me know if you have use for life drain,” shrugging again; uncertain how it would help, when they weren’t sure what could combat the demons and monsters outside thresholds and apertures.

DEIMOS

Stop trying to show how to save our souls
It takes dying to know
How to live as ghosts

if you make it all wrong then i'll make it all right

"Why would anyone want to be anywhere near them, then?" Remi asked, head tilted to the side. If volcanoes were truly as dangerous as both Caiside and Deimos were making them out to be, then what possible benefit could there be being around them? Unless of course, like with most things, there was some benefit amidst the destruction?

Thinking of life drain, Remi paused thoughtfully, his fingers tapping out an errant rhythm against the table. "I wonder if it would work on them. Have you ever used it on an ascended before?" If the monsters really were abandoned ascended projects, then it stood to reason (maybe) that perhaps this was one theory that could in fact be tested before the week-long darkness came. "Then again, given how ... difficult some get while locked up, perhaps it will be more useful on those inside." Remi said with a wry grin, only half-kidding.

We're lost in the space between
who we are and all that we're trying to be

The notion about volcanoes and why anyone would tend to be near them was a fair question, and he pondered on it, on what little knowledge he once ascertained. For the most part, the beast had never truly journeyed into the heart of those boiling lava plumes and fumes, but sometimes he wondered on the flow of the magma intertwining along the Veins of the Gods, where the source pulsed and pervaded. Not that it mattered any longer; destroyed, altered, and ruined. “Sometimes people simply do not know the volcanoes are there. Might be no warning sign.” Until it was too late, an eruption spewing out into the void. He shrugged – who knew what was out there, beyond the Greatwood or the Hollowed Grounds, aching to be discovered – or if this was the end of the line, determined to wander and meander through thickets and brush for a lifetime; the expanse just a riddle, just a nuance, just a hopeful, wistful dream, and all they had for other kingdoms and lands was nostalgia.

As for the uses of life drain, he hadn’t had those particular experiences either. He couldn’t recall a time he cast them upon an Ascended – or why it was so specific to those species. His brows furrowed in thought again, uncertain of where Remi was going with the interval, but curiosity lending its scholarly attributes again. “I have not.” A pause, a shift along his chair, stare riddled somewhere on the objects in Remi’s kiosk. “Why an Ascended?”

At the joke, at the grin, Deimos snorted, loosening the depths of his brow, eyes a bit more woven into the air, glancing this way and that. “Tempting.” Another extension of jocular pursuits, of course, not intending to riddle his life-drain at anyone in particular; depending on level of irritation at being cooped up together for any length of time.

DEIMOS

Stop trying to show how to save our souls
It takes dying to know
How to live as ghosts

if you make it all wrong then i'll make it all right

"Oh? Are they not explosive all the time, then?" The alchemist asked, a dreamy sort of look on his youthful face as he tried to imagine what it might be like. It was difficult enough to picture mountains and mountain ranges as they had been described to him, but to add in fire and lava—and now perhaps a timer? It was inconceivable really, based on his experience.

"Oh, Wessex and Jigano both mentioned that the monsters might be failed experiments of the Voice..or, if not experiments, perhaps just old iterations of her creations? That the demon that guarded the Spire, and the Prince in the underground are of the same type. Newer though, as they can be out more often. Or at least... I assume." In truth, Remi had been weary and uncaring during the meeting during which all of this had said. It was when Ronin was at his worst and though an audience with the Wraith and the Sage demanded his attention, he'd had little of it to give.

Grinning more broadly, Remi merely shrugged as he raised a brow as if to indicate the utter innocence of his suggestion.

We're lost in the space between
who we are and all that we're trying to be

“No, not necessarily.” The beast shrugged, his experience with volcanoes limited too – but knowing enough that some were constantly explosive and deadly, and some were rooted and dormant, resting and sleeping and unthreatening until they suddenly weren’t anymore; brooding, brewing forces. They weren’t unlike some individuals, foreign and unknown, lurking in the quiet before growing more and more potent, more and more powerful – he’d seen it time and time again, in the clutches of their very own mountains, and in the regard of hate and abhorrence, a festering wake.

But he was pulled away by those insinuations and memories by Remi’s information on the monsters of LongNight: might be failed experiments conspired by the Voice, or something else altogether, the first brambles and branches of her constituents, like trials, like practice for further precision. The notion that the Spire Demon was of the same ilk, and some Prince character lurking in the underground, was intriguing too – and while he listened, while he pondered, the clarity meandered and wandered, murkier depths to tread along. “So, the thought is that the old monsters could bear the same weaknesses as the Ascended?” Namely, fire? Wasn’t that why the Spark Bird scattered LongNight away – the brambles of the enchanted flames, the living, breathing inferno? “If worse comes to worse,” which he hoped didn’t happen, because it meant some other foolishness was afoot, that they’d put themselves into unnecessary risk, danger, and harm, again, “we can always try.” – fire, life drain, or whatever means they had available, no other options left in sight except survival.

DEIMOS

Stop trying to show how to save our souls
It takes dying to know
How to live as ghosts

if you make it all wrong then i'll make it all right

Chewing on the idea still, the alchemist hummed to himself. Was it a pipe dream to think he'd ever see the sea again? To see a volcano or a mountain? Would Deimos ever show him a mountain range? Longshot or not, Remi decided he'd allow himself this bit of hope and optimism about the future.

"Mmhmm. Wessex even thinks that perhaps they would not harm the ascended, kindred spirits and all that. Although.." Well, spirits really wasn't the right word. But not knowing what was, Remi merely shrugged. "Though I wonder. After all, Rex said she used Loren's Spark Bird magic and was unharmed. If they were the same sort of thing, and the Spark Bird repels the monsters, surely it would have had some effect on her as well?"

With a stern nod, the alchemist grumbled his agreement. They were more prepared this year than last, and yet? Yet it all still felt just as unknown.

We're lost in the space between
who we are and all that we're trying to be

Deimos was not one to shirk or evade a conviction, a vow, or an assurance; one of those cretins who pledged and promised, but with weight behind the ministrations. They weren’t empty diatribes or discourse; when he spoke, his words had meaning, more weight and worth to them because they weren’t so easily unfurled or unleashed. He instilled pieces and shambles of necessity, not to be idle, not to be leisurely, not to hold together conversations for as long as he could; but to proffer his oaths, his ultimatums, his devotions, or his warnings. Given the opportunity, he would show Remi exactly what mountains were made of: the rich earth doused, absorbed, and falling into nothing but white and blue, the spectral machinations of the chilling void, the way the peaks rose into the heavens, never dissipating, never disappearing, old like the oceans, primordial like the seas, stretched out beneath aurora hues.

But not now – not when there were other measures and motives to consider. Rexanna’s lack of harm or impactby Loren’s Spark Bird was interesting – but she also held a foot along the enchanters and mages. “Would her Hybrid status have affected it?” Or something else altogether - shouldn't fire effect them all? He'd been blown apart enough by its infernal attributes. It was another musing, uncertain, vastly unknown, no way to really test or examine the properties. Had they tested a full-Ascended, like Wessex? Like any of the others? Had any other circumstances unwound themselves, granting them some kernels and granules of information? LongNight was damned to be another trial and error thread, reacting based on whatever seemed to unfold and unravel their way. The more preparations, the better off they would be – yet, the unknown was still a massive, gaping hole, an aperture, a threshold, for the monsters to sink within. All of it would remain to be seen – which just made it all the more difficult to counter and conquer.

DEIMOS

Stop trying to show how to save our souls
It takes dying to know
How to live as ghosts

if you make it all wrong then i'll make it all right

With a boyish and crooked smile, Remi blushed, chuckled, and looked down at his hands. "Do not take this as a slight, but you are much more clever than I have ever properly given you credit for." He said, looking up and beaming joyfully. Indeed, it had never once occurred to him at all that it was due to her hybrid status that Rex was able to summon the bird.

"I should probably mention that to Loren, actually...before he inadvertently reduces our queen to cinders." The alchemist says, shooting an unreadable look that might have been mischief towards the Sword, before pushing his chair back out and standing.

We're lost in the space between
who we are and all that we're trying to be

Deimos had the ability to withhold a great degree of bewilderment, given enough time to apply his stoic, apathetic traces, but he blinked several times in surprise at Remi’s first statement. Being underestimated wasn’t typically something he was affixed to – strength wise anyway – and perhaps he’d done a number of ridiculous, ineffectual deeds since arriving here, mostly contrived amidst ignorance, striving to understand the vast, unknown quandaries of these lands. He still managed to learn something new every day, other modicums and surprises, intervals rooted in curiosity and value. In Helovia he’d been manipulative, deceptive, a subterfuge, a duplicitous tactician, and then, in other moments, merely a battering ram, chasing down ramparts and fortifications, beating down doors, swearing oaths and vows to render an adversary’s blood on the floor. He’d never bothered with gaining credit either; he’d always known exactly what he’d committed, even if the rest of the world didn’t.

So he arched his brow and snorted, shaking his head. “Perhaps I had not given any indication of cleverness before.” A ruse, an amusement, further self-deprecation to indicate he was neither nor offended, gratified to receive the compliment nonetheless, with the way his eyes flickered towards the floor, or on Amalia’s staff, hands pushing on its surface. At the notions of more mischief extended, there was only a mere indication of a sharpened grin lancing its way over the Sword’s mouth; could’ve been Cheshire, given more antics. “Might be wise.” Wessex wouldn’t suffer any fools gladly.

DEIMOS

Stop trying to show how to save our souls
It takes dying to know
How to live as ghosts

if you make it all wrong then i'll make it all right

"Oh I think you likely had. I was just to blind to see it." Get it? Blind? Remi? Grinning at the absurd pun, he chuckled to himself letting his shoulders boyishly rise and fall.

"We will see if I am believed." The alchemist murmured, not wanting to air his dirty laundry but unable to help the slight  frown from tugging at his lips.

"I am sure I will see you shortly, for LongNight preparations and such." And it was true, they would, just not at this guild. "Perhaps we can see if that powder can fix frayed tempers, mm?" A joke, a bad one, but still Remi grinned.