DEIMOS
Heave the silver hollow sliver
He bent down, hammer in hand, waiting for the reason and ruminations, centering and squaring off some portions of the ramp, wooden lip down to the ground, kneeling and machinating, a curl of calculations whirling off in his head, keeping him busy, moving forward, onward, while everything else churned and burned in the pit of his stomach. The beast waited in the midst of silence for an answer, crackling breaths emitted from the other man causing the slightest hint of curiosity, a minute motion of his brows, before his eyes glanced back to the timber, shaping, pounding. The expectation of disaster, ruin, something else boiling and brimming over the surface of their lives, hadn’t anticipated the words to come out of Sunjata’s mouth. Facing the gradient and incline, he had half a moment of his gaze widening, before his heart stammered and shunted; a grinding glimpse of worlds quickly falling apart. He hadn’t told anyone of his own engagement – they’d only had a scarce few hours of contentment and happiness before broken temples and severed spines – his jaw clenched on the thoughts barreling on the fringes of his teeth, like he wanted to bite down on flesh and sinew and bone; ferocious and entangled, sickened and despaired. “Wedding rings,” he nodded, trying to gain some clarity, some insight, some modicum of shock and upheaval away from his chest, rising from his construction to stare over his shoulder at the horns, at the man, sinking into the request. He didn't even bother snorting or chuckling over the notion that he would be the one to see about the necessity of rings and circlets; twice assisting in creation of cases for protection over sacred things. The Sword and Shield's ceremonial bands, careful, precise, beautiful, and ornate, laid inside the house, furtive and secret, in boxes of stars and galaxies - untouched and undisturbed.
The General hadn’t heard of any recent nuptial plans (save for their own – and those had been stifled almost as quickly as they’d begun), but his wanderings hadn’t taken him by board notices, consumed with other, harsher, blinding, binding things. Hadn’t Sunjata and Hotaru been a not-so-subtle thing? Wouldn’t she have told him? Was it even for Sunjata and someone else, or had he been sent out on commission, the only one brave or stupid enough to come find him now? Ignorance bound both, and he removed his gloves from his hands, placed them on the grass for later. “For who?” A dangerous tread they lingered upon, where there was some fissuring, cracking aspect down below his feet, ready to swallow and consume him whole at any moment (and he might just let it).
Unite and spread the heart apart
