Hurt so Good

D e i m o s

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

Defensive maneuvers and protection towards other flanks was nothing demeaning, war was war, and they all had their places, ranks, and remnants within it. Deimos had never held a preference except for action, assault, and violence, given and granted the opportunity to do the most damage effectively, efficiently, a swipe of the blade across torsos before moving on to another, a sword embedded into a back before chasing down similar adversaries, one by one, until muscles ached and dominions fell, toppled, and they tasted victory rather than defeat. But that hadn’t always been the case, sinking and sliding into vanquished proportions far more often, the cost of eminence, prestige, and acclaim, the cost of freedom, the cost of liberation, bloodied hands with nothing to show for it but new wounds and scars. Something in the fragments of Jigano’s ballad statement gave him great pause too – because he’d never been in it for the fame, for the potential rise of soulless renditions of his prowess and potential, hadn’t cared if he dealt the finishing touches or done naught more than pull a friend from the trenches – as long as he was doing something to move them forward, onward, into the onslaught, terror for terror, determination for determination. Too many of them had died, and nothing had been written about them, sung about them. Nothing stayed in those fringes except his memories of digging their graves, makeshift tombs and sepulchers across otherwise empty, riddled fields. For all his ferocity, for all his irreverence, some days it hadn’t been worth it. A stoic void, a sullen shell, gaze narrowed, as if he were elsewhere – staring at the details of drawn defeats, marked and sketched into his skin, into his flesh, into his bone. “Glory soon departs any battlefield.” He remained silent thereafter on the choking brambles, easing into a breath he hadn’t released, striving not to drown in the weight of primitive motions. Satisfactory indeed, to potentially watch worlds burn around them, to dissolve into frenetic, restless shambles, to do unto others the same that’d been wrought upon them. Vengeance, blood for blood, fire and conflagrations and infernos caught, tethered, and lined; rasps of tenacity behind bloodied teeth and malicious derision. Alive, alive, alive, and adversaries not. His eyes swung back to Jigano, to the musing, to the mischief, striving to clamber back into it, away from wraiths, phantoms, and the notched banners of war drums bellowing in his ears. “That could be fun,” at the notion, at the suggestion, the slightest inclination of devilry settling along his mouth again – stare pondering over the wide open plain, recruits emblazoned with streaks of mud and ridiculous statures. For now we stand alone, the world is lost and blown And we are flesh and blood disintegrate with no more to hate