Deimos
The teasing gave way to his forbearance and silence, for all those wishes, for all those dreams, for all those taunting gestures, contortions of a world they’d had and now they settled adrift in this one, striving to figure out where they belonged. Outlanders; broadening, assimilating, attempting – or struggling, diving in too far, clenching his jaw, staring at shadows on walls, on flames in the hearth, on emblazoned blue on a unicorn’s horn. We both love you curled and coiled against him and he wondered why, bit down on the choking response, and it went nowhere else but into his ether, locked and corded away, uncertain of where and how and when he’d gained all these pervading comrades along the way, yearning to cherish them instead of run, instead of yield, instead of hide. “I think we all suffer the same affliction.” Herein the smile was a ghost, a shell, faith in one another, but always terrified of what lingered on the other side, when they’d lost, lost, and lost, seasons and series and cycles of demise, of death, of disquiet, of bedlam, of worlds with such short spans of harmony, they didn’t know what to do when peace and repose pervaded their space. They all would’ve charged in. They all would’ve been scared. Replace any of them on a rotation, revolutionary spin, and every single one of their hearts and souls and conjectures would’ve administered the same convictions. He’d died before. Hotaru had lost her children. Kiada had mired her way through failed attempt after failed attempt. All of them wounded. All of them stabbed. All of them lacerated – even if the lacerations weren’t visible.
When their gazes locked he knew she understood the vicious chords, the way Helovia’s grasp still held and chased after them – an eternity, another lifetime of phantoms and ethers, wraiths and specters, reminders of what they couldn’t have. He took in her softened gaze and narrowed his in response, then allowed them to fall to the floor once more, the uncertainty gnashing and gnarling its way through his spine. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been so affected; he’d barely known the lad beyond titles, beyond brief moments of compassion and connections – but that was what he’d been, another lifeline to a world that had long since expelled them. “Yes.” Like a scorching sway of anarchy and finality, extinguished and gone – doors not opened in time.
When their gazes locked he knew she understood the vicious chords, the way Helovia’s grasp still held and chased after them – an eternity, another lifetime of phantoms and ethers, wraiths and specters, reminders of what they couldn’t have. He took in her softened gaze and narrowed his in response, then allowed them to fall to the floor once more, the uncertainty gnashing and gnarling its way through his spine. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been so affected; he’d barely known the lad beyond titles, beyond brief moments of compassion and connections – but that was what he’d been, another lifeline to a world that had long since expelled them. “Yes.” Like a scorching sway of anarchy and finality, extinguished and gone – doors not opened in time.
i rule the stars, not the other way around
