Before the storm

D e i m o s

Send a heartbeat to the void that cries through you
Relive the pictures that have come to pass

Deimos wasn’t adverse to knowledge. He’d been a great purveyor of it, often as a child, and then twisted in their winter eaves, imploring his thieves to wind their way through ether, smoke, and devastation, layered and lacquered into the shadows, bring forth the tangible sagacity of other worlds, other kingdoms, other individuals they could use, manipulate, or exploit. They’d been magnificent – cloaks and daggers, smiles and grins, far, far greater than he could ever be at trickery and duplicity, amongst the columns and quandaries of deceit. His presence had always been the ax, the sword, the blade, the Reaper, finality and intimidation, devastation and ruin; by the time he’d come to arrive at doorsteps, at thresholds, within parlors and residences, the warnings and ultimatums were already extinguished. The beast had earned his reputation, his prestige, his prowess; whispers of utter irreverence, demolition, and havoc, a plague upon those who dared to defy the realm of ice and snow (and some had; still thinking to poke the bear, to seethe against those who knew exactly how to respond). That Jigano utilized wisdom to solve his problems extended not a single nuance of surprise. It did harbor, however, a legion of inquiries that Deimos knew far better than to voice (because there’d been days lacking in defenses; hovering, harpooning, fallen comrades to Fae intervals and labyrinthine woods) – settling for arching a brow, as if he were subtly amused. “Formidable,” he prospered instead, almost a smile ghosting along his mouth. He wouldn’t scoff at the legions of muses and shrewd, uncanny astuteness; learning from experiences, from mistakes, from errors, from mishaps, had taught him a great deal in a short amount of time, especially with the lacquer of ignorance sizzling against their forms what felt like ages before: Outlanders, ignorant and foolish. Eventually, with nothing left to do or busy himself with, he settled along a chair, grabbing hold of the rest of the armor, stacking them back into neat piles in accordance to size, shape, and purpose, intending to take them over the Monster Hunter’s Guild later. “It has its place,” he mentioned, off-handedly, its uses; understanding and comprehending an enemy’s weaknesses or abilities, what they would try, what they would attempt, across battlefields. For now we stand alone, the world is lost and blown And we are flesh and blood disintegrate with no more to hate