Whoa, you let your feet run wild
Time has come as we all go down
They hadn’t been allowed to fall apart in Helovia. There’d been no time, no place, their grief, anguish, and bitterness solidified in the constant upheaval and disdain for other kingdoms. They fought and they trapped and they squandered, scourges from the mountains, promising hell and damnation. There’d been no time to breathe, no time to flicker and wane, only calculations, only brutality, only chasing down the next fortification, rampart, or battle. Here they were afforded space for the unfurling, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t want ruminations. He didn’t want pain. He didn’t want torment. He’d had it all before. He hadn’t sunk then, because he’d never warranted himself the opportunity, and the beginning of such intervals made him clench his jaw, made him skim over the surface, made him lock and cord himself away, further and further into the fold. Contagions of idiocy, losses of fools, and he hoped that she’d managed to see, to understand, that she was better off without the imbecile, and they didn’t need to keep barreling on into their treacherous whims. There were better things to do – there were more monstrous moments to debauch and terrorize, a return to olden days, to something he could grasp and understand. A nod, a smile, a sigh, for their grief and annihilations so far gone, so diminished. In the past, Sunjata wouldn’t have even been a figment on their radar, not even a blip on the horizon.
To burn on his own pyre, to hinder himself on his own wounds; and he listened, to a cycle of vengeance the man would likely start and settle in his own mercurial, capricious maelstroms. Hotaru would lie in wait, like serpents under their flower petals, and he nodded once more, understanding in this potential for retribution. Sometimes karma worked itself out. Sometimes it needed a helping hand. “Still, let me know if you require anything.” An offer, always there in the midst.
His eyes had settled on the table, on the twist and turns of wood, on the half-empty bottle, on the spaces between, when she leaned across its accord, his gaze following, tracking the movement. He didn’t like the way her own softened, as if readying himself for a blow, inhaling sharply, tempted to grow taut and rigid, hide away from the world again. His feelings didn’t matter. Coping was an unfortunate skill the Sword acquired long ago – if it was to be considered in such a way – suppressing, dragging everything down, down, down until it was smothered, until it haunted, until it bled over in dreams and nightmares, but never beyond his chest. “I have been keeping myself busy.” So when the thoughts rendered and took hold, he could shake them away as best he could; focusing on fighting, on training, on wandering, on grabbing hold of leaves, fronds, and whatever else Safrin required. “It will be fine, in time.” A shrug, stifling, hiding, pretenses clawing their way to his brow. A habit, a mechanism, a switch in the mask. “Safrin gave me a task, so once I get everything gathered…” then she should be able to render Amalia’s spine back to normal. It was a hope, and he wasn’t one to rely on such things. Maybe it was desperation too.
Thereafter though, in her beatific words and extensions, he hung his head, unworthy of them. Best friends (now he had two), brethren, family, brothers and sisters in arms and munitions, and he blinked away a thousand things coiling their way behind his eyes. It spun and hurtled into his heart, into his ribs, into his lungs, so the only thing he really could do is reach out his arms, offer them again in the form of a hug, of an embrace, in ways past lives never could.
To burn on his own pyre, to hinder himself on his own wounds; and he listened, to a cycle of vengeance the man would likely start and settle in his own mercurial, capricious maelstroms. Hotaru would lie in wait, like serpents under their flower petals, and he nodded once more, understanding in this potential for retribution. Sometimes karma worked itself out. Sometimes it needed a helping hand. “Still, let me know if you require anything.” An offer, always there in the midst.
His eyes had settled on the table, on the twist and turns of wood, on the half-empty bottle, on the spaces between, when she leaned across its accord, his gaze following, tracking the movement. He didn’t like the way her own softened, as if readying himself for a blow, inhaling sharply, tempted to grow taut and rigid, hide away from the world again. His feelings didn’t matter. Coping was an unfortunate skill the Sword acquired long ago – if it was to be considered in such a way – suppressing, dragging everything down, down, down until it was smothered, until it haunted, until it bled over in dreams and nightmares, but never beyond his chest. “I have been keeping myself busy.” So when the thoughts rendered and took hold, he could shake them away as best he could; focusing on fighting, on training, on wandering, on grabbing hold of leaves, fronds, and whatever else Safrin required. “It will be fine, in time.” A shrug, stifling, hiding, pretenses clawing their way to his brow. A habit, a mechanism, a switch in the mask. “Safrin gave me a task, so once I get everything gathered…” then she should be able to render Amalia’s spine back to normal. It was a hope, and he wasn’t one to rely on such things. Maybe it was desperation too.
Thereafter though, in her beatific words and extensions, he hung his head, unworthy of them. Best friends (now he had two), brethren, family, brothers and sisters in arms and munitions, and he blinked away a thousand things coiling their way behind his eyes. It spun and hurtled into his heart, into his ribs, into his lungs, so the only thing he really could do is reach out his arms, offer them again in the form of a hug, of an embrace, in ways past lives never could.
Yeah but for the fall—oh, my—
Do you dare to look them right in the eyes?
DEIMOS
