after fury
what do you do
The Sword had lived amongst a lifetime of flaws and defects. They were a much broader scale and faction than his virtues, mottled portions and contortions of his existence that sometimes made up the very way he breathed, maneuvered, and existed. Perfection wasn’t a prevailing action – but other things were: creeds and convictions, faith and beliefs, devotion and ardor. The monolith chose his reverential regards carefully, had only collected them amongst a scarce few, regarded his efforts to protect, to shield, to harpoon, to devastate for them as shards and traces of eternal vows. But it was a part of being human, to slide back into those sketched moments of ill regard or infinite stupidity, a war of ignorance and ineptitude; and he was capable of forgiving, and held steadfast faith that those he surrounded himself with were too. Growth, instead of erosion, renewal, instead of demise, sprouting, clambering towards the sun, instead of withering – things he’d learned, things he’d cherished, things he’d attempt to endeavor for again and again. Because there’d been a time where he’d held grudges and raised hackles within his disappointment, gestured wildly and commanded swiftly, made oaths of bloodshed and annihilation, prospered vengeance well before absolutions were a thought.
The notions scattered, the upheaval segmented, eased a breath from his lungs, billowing air soft, not wounded, not massacred, not defeated. His lips pressed somewhere along her brow and skimmed upward, an outline, a sketch, along her hairline, grateful, supportive, cherished. At his turn though, the cosmic pull of resistance bit at him, bore a familiar retreat, a torrent into nothingness; a makeshift void and abyss in his mind, where he drifted and went when wounds threatened to escalate, to deepen, to do anything more than remain. But it wasn’t fair – to ask her to tell him things when he wasn’t willing to do the same, and his gaze dropped away, uncertain of how to proceed. He didn’t voice these ruminations. He didn’t give them credence or credit. They simply existed in the back of his mind, a weight, an anvil, a space filled with ghosts and wraiths, presuming he’d merely hold them there for an eternity, allowed and permitted to haunt him. They were his notes of failure. They were his infernal doubts. They were his punishments and defeats, collapsing, floundering moments.
So his voice didn’t rumble in their structure, because he didn’t know how to proceed when they were given freedom of speech, of notice, of anything beyond his skull. I wish I could have done more for Cera. For Rexanna. The Golden Prince’s death was a blow; barely known him for an instant beyond titles spread from Helovia’s primordial ages, dunes and dust and ice and rime never crossing paths until lifetimes later. And what had he done for Rex, besides pull a beam out of her chest? Zuriel had done the rest – and even then, it hadn’t amounted to what she truly required.
Amalia’s honesty remained though, and as he quieted, she settled into his chest, and he remained the rumbling fortress, the wall, the steadfast Sword, listening quietly at her admission. A rough snort managed to segment its way along his form, incapable of being ceased or stopped, trying desperately hard not to laugh. “I have done the same.” Except he meant them and probably could say them again – hostile and infuriated, irritated and exasperated with the bard for multiple things at one time or another. He hesitated in noting the Sage sometimes enjoyed and reveled in being the martyr, the wounded, poor, downtrodden soul. “What do you want to do?” Perhaps Jigano had needed to hear the pieces the Shield had to say; maybe it was good for him.
with the remains?
DEIMOS
