DEIMOS
we've all got blood on our hands
something somewhere had to die
so we could stay alive
There was never any thought of Deimos avoiding danger. Instinctual, inherent, inborn, to rampage straight into the fray while others bounded away, a shield, a structure of monolithic vehemence, to delay, to destroy, to ravage, and savage. Barbarous, remorseless, hardened, primitive enmity, laden in his bones, in his flesh, in his movements, seething, abhorrent disdain amongst and amidst foretold gallows. For eternity, the arcane, reticent rapier: devouring discord and harboring strife, heathen brushstrokes and feral, glacial, frigid mayhem; a step of antagonistic prose and poise for eternities, for multiple lives, for days spent layered in ruthlessness, for beacons and people and citizens not to be immersed in primordial treachery, for his impassive wounds, for his strength to unfold for them, for them, for them. It didn’t really matter to him that he was no longer king. He was still formidable, he was still chilling, he was still terror in unwinding motions of argent domination, simmering contemplation, smoldering, smoldering, smoldering havoc, yearning to wield havoc and carnage beneath ruin and friction. Piercing, penetrating, howling, arcane and primeval, ensuring no one else had to ache and anguish under bedlam, under terror, under vile, deplorable, horrible manifestations. Do you know how many I have lost? he wanted to utter beneath an unholy growl. Because he couldn’t get to them in time? Because he wasn’t enough? Because for all these distinct, marred, layered efforts, his potency, his prowess, couldn’t safeguard, couldn’t cloak them all, couldn’t ensure they were alive and well at the end of the day? His eyes fell again while she talked, while she proffered advice he likely wouldn’t take. Some had asked, and he’d gone. He’d heard screams and followed them. What was he – compared to so many others? “Old habits,” he murmured, as if it was an excuse, and not his entire being, the core of his existence. The other strands she poked and prodded at might’ve raised a growl if he wasn’t so damn tired, wondering when this had turned upon him, just because he hadn’t wanted her to rampage out into a monster’s grasp all over again. An argument brewed and blistered behind his teeth the moment she said he mattered, simmering along his tongue, immediate sedition and defiance to things that couldn’t be true. It snapped and coiled along his flesh, tucked her in embrace, swallowing down the choking bile, the smothering alms, not sinking into their materials, their filaments, their surface, as if he were some irreverent shard, desperate to remain afloat in his beliefs. They would all manage without him – they had before. If he could muster his strength to ensure their survival, their continued presences, then maybe it would be enough. Humoring her, a bitter entanglement pressed along his mouth, a long sigh dwindling from his chest. “Then what should we do instead?” Let them all fumble around in disaster? Let them all die? Watch them disappear over the horizon? Become haunted by their ghosts?
What had he told Amalia, when they argued about going into the Spire? I cannot bear to lose you. Except now it conformed to so many others, and he’d willingly sacrifice himself again and again and again.
