Deimos
Frustrations were paramount, but he did his best to hide it, behind walls, behind shields, behind fortifications and ramparts he’d dragged over the surface of his face. A portion of them belonged to the sentiments and ruminations not quite left behind in Helovia: when the world had challenged his kingdom and he’d challenged it in return, bidding his worst against enemies, chasing down adversaries, running them aground with bestial, barbaric shades, garbed in apathy, awaiting the moment he could assault and siege upon those who’d goaded, who’d challenged, who’d scalded his kin. In Caido there were other rules, other strategies, other ruses, and he kept lingering on the outside, puzzling his way through them, risking, risking, risking as if it were the only strategy he could fathom and understand.
There were no doubts about Kiada. He believed in her capabilities, in her strength, in her courage (since the day he first met; tiny fire child belonging to the ice and snow), but he also remembered the strain of last year’s LongNight, the loitering rounds of death, the constant, unwinding treachery lurking in the distance. She didn’t ask him to travel with her though, didn’t crave his help, didn’t beg him to join in the dangerous tides. Instead, the request immersed in armor and weaponry, things and artifacts he could make within an instant, his breath funneling and fissuring in a long, inaudible sigh.
He placed his plate down on the table, unconsumed, too devoured and swallowed by the mercurial sways and alterations. With his hands free, with his silence tethered, he listened as his palms glowed – the gilded efforts contemplating and orchestrating the depths of munitions all over again. It wasn’t enough, it would never be enough, but it was better than falling into those denizens of nothingness, tied and tethered in his ineffectual attempts. The Sword had already conjured a dagger and shield for her in the past; so this time he polished and perfected a lengthy rapier, room for distance in an impending fight, light, hilt adorned in tiny flames, passing it over to her with little fanfare or ceremony, before following through on another. This one was a smaller weapon, a kopis, maintaining its long, cutting edge with a thrusting ability, a recurved distribution of weight – etched and scattered with snowflakes at the bottom, tucked and hidden away. When that too was completed, he extended it forward again, before working on the armor.
All the while, he’d been quiet, strung straight back into his tendencies to yield along bulwarks and palisades, pretending to concentrate when reality simply ensued a battle between ire and exasperation. The last portion to her speech though made his head swing back up, the deep fathoms of his eyes narrowed. “You have to slay him?” As if the boy dying twice hadn’t been enough – she was being asked to maim and murder his soul one more time? How was that supposed to bring him back? Or was that the point – that he wouldn’t be? It would just be an act of enigmatic, shattering kindness, a way to send him to the grave for the final hour.
There were no doubts about Kiada. He believed in her capabilities, in her strength, in her courage (since the day he first met; tiny fire child belonging to the ice and snow), but he also remembered the strain of last year’s LongNight, the loitering rounds of death, the constant, unwinding treachery lurking in the distance. She didn’t ask him to travel with her though, didn’t crave his help, didn’t beg him to join in the dangerous tides. Instead, the request immersed in armor and weaponry, things and artifacts he could make within an instant, his breath funneling and fissuring in a long, inaudible sigh.
He placed his plate down on the table, unconsumed, too devoured and swallowed by the mercurial sways and alterations. With his hands free, with his silence tethered, he listened as his palms glowed – the gilded efforts contemplating and orchestrating the depths of munitions all over again. It wasn’t enough, it would never be enough, but it was better than falling into those denizens of nothingness, tied and tethered in his ineffectual attempts. The Sword had already conjured a dagger and shield for her in the past; so this time he polished and perfected a lengthy rapier, room for distance in an impending fight, light, hilt adorned in tiny flames, passing it over to her with little fanfare or ceremony, before following through on another. This one was a smaller weapon, a kopis, maintaining its long, cutting edge with a thrusting ability, a recurved distribution of weight – etched and scattered with snowflakes at the bottom, tucked and hidden away. When that too was completed, he extended it forward again, before working on the armor.
All the while, he’d been quiet, strung straight back into his tendencies to yield along bulwarks and palisades, pretending to concentrate when reality simply ensued a battle between ire and exasperation. The last portion to her speech though made his head swing back up, the deep fathoms of his eyes narrowed. “You have to slay him?” As if the boy dying twice hadn’t been enough – she was being asked to maim and murder his soul one more time? How was that supposed to bring him back? Or was that the point – that he wouldn’t be? It would just be an act of enigmatic, shattering kindness, a way to send him to the grave for the final hour.
i rule the stars, not the other way around
