From being an Abandoned who had rarely left the Hollowed Grounds, to embracing the call of adventure, to dying and being reborn first as an Ascended and then as an Ancient, Maea has gone through quite the amount of changes in her life. One thing remains common, though, in her attempts to find out just where she belongs; she’s always had a craving for knowledge which has brought her to so many places and to meet so many people here in Caido. We can’t wait to see what else is in store for her!
Congratulations, Maea!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
Skinning and hosting by the epically talented Kaons, and functionality fanciness by the coding magic of Neowulf. If you ever see either of them around, make sure to show them some love!
03-12-2020, 01:01 AM (This post was last modified: 03-14-2020, 04:04 PM by Jigano.)
At the change of the seasons, between one catastrophe and the next, Jigano had asked to meet with Deimos in the sunny land of Torchline to hear about Adam's death and to construct some sort of remembrance for the flamboyant, life-loving man who had been taken from them too soon.
And to hear more about why Adam had died, beyond the rumors that had flown in the wake of the Temple's re-consecration.
So Jigano had sent the General word of a shrine they could meet at in the new region, one dedicated to Ludo - a fitting place to remember one who had been lost. He had arrived in his lightened garb, for despite the onset of Leafchange the coast was still warm and toasty during the day. A simple, sleeveless grey shirt belted over brown linen trousers, bearing only Deimos's bracers on his arms (now with a star inset on each) left the bard looking decidedly underdressed from his more usual long tunics and wide sleeves, but with white hair tied back in a simple tail he looked far more comfortable. Skin that was normally golden-brown was tanned darker by the Longheat sun, but Isuma stretched out in the shade of the statue to Mort, looking far less at home in the tropical heat than her companion.
Jigano stood sketching in a small journal, frowning thoughtfully down at the page covered in charcoal smudges as he passed the time waiting for Deimos .
The bright sun cast a direct juxtaposition to the sullen, taciturn reaches of his mood – staring into the sea, into the opposite of the world where Adam, Peter, and the luxere had been left behind, was enough to scrawl and claw against his shoulders. Jigano’s note had sent him here, along ports and docks, ships anchored, tied, and tethered, or setting off to meander along the coast; attempting to deviate his attention from the spiraling weight he’d either placed upon himself, or the note of failures. Safrin might have told them they weren’t their mistakes, but they continued to maim and rip along his thoughts, and with the notion of building a memorial, a way to commemorate those lost in the damned caverns, the images, the sights, the sounds, pummeled against him like a rough tide. Just more and more additions to every defeat, floundering, foundering motion he’d ever made.
He maneuvered upright, taut, and rigid, Colossus marching across sands along a diligent stride, days and lives before he’d done just the same, rampaging, racing, into the waves. A portion of the General should’ve avidly enjoyed each concept, each avenue, each sight of the of the seas, but the subject matter held him at bay, and his eyes drifted from piers and towards the image of shrines. Eventually, as his movements were purposeful, searching, he spotted Jigano against the backdrop of surf, and like a mighty beast, proceeded towards the Lorekeeper. The other man seemed lost in thought, a frown along sketches in a journal, so the Sword said naught at first, waiting until he was noticed before addressing him. “Jigano,” a nod of his head by way of greeting, the familiar bag of holding on his shoulder, the silence stretching, waiting for some inevitable inquiry, the start of something else.
under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed
He had never been much of an artist, but since no one else in the guild really was either Jigano had begun forcing himself to practice more and more. The lines that came together in his journal were still rough, but the shape that was emerging was recognizable, and his anatomy was improving with each attempt.
It was in taking a break to look over at Isuma that his attention was drawn to the quiet presence that had come to loom nearby, the General looking unexpectedly as if he belonged in this place of bright sun and sudden storms, blue waves and dark depths. Jigano set a marker in the journal and closed the pages gently so as not to smudge them, then gave the General a nod and a weak smile of greeting. They weren't meeting for any happy reason, and it was hard to pretend otherwise as Isuma peeped a sleepy greeting from her place in Ludo's shade.
"Hello, Deimos. Thank you for coming." He hesitated a moment, then sighed as he deflated a little, deciding that directness would be more appreciated than small talk that wouldn't change what they were here for. "I didn't know Peter well," he admitted. "But... Adam and Coffee were friends. I'd like to make a small statue of Coffee to sit beside Ludo's shrine, overlooking the ocean. I think... I think Adam would have loved it here, if he could have pried Peter away from Halo and the Launceleyns." He looked up at Deimos soberly. "Do you have an idea of something that we could do for Peter, too? It seems... fitting. Right. That they should have a memorial together. And... I would like to hear what happened, from someone who was actually there," he finished quietly, tired of rumors and gossip and accusations based on suppositions. "Why did they die, as much as how."
His eyes went to the gryphon first, a subsequent nod extended to the companion, before inhaling, exhaling, a massive gulp of air, chest maneuvering, and slowly extending the motions, as if compelling himself to control, to something beyond the forlorn reaches, when he knew exactly what he’d have to relive. A portion of it reeled in the back of his mind simply because it’d been so long since he’d witnessed someone die in front of him – in war, it had been almost happenstance, pieces and portions of the backdrop as the world was stained red. In battle, he’d intended for it. Here, though, he’d been permitted some moments of peace; the broken, the beaten, and the damned usually forsaken, gone, and he hadn’t been a witness to their final moments, heartbeats, or breaths; just the aftermath. Lately though, it’d been one after another, burning in memories, scorching in winds, haunting in slumber. Those at Fiat Lux, taken and obliterated, Abasi, Peter, Adam, and the companions – a certain cycle and rhythm to each season, and no chances to recover before the next storm, the next terror, the next onslaught.
And he hadn’t known them well at all either, and wondered if it was blasphemous to even believe he could create something to honor their existences. He recalled Peter as someone he couldn’t quite comprehend, beyond the lurking in shadows, next to Adam (pondering how he tolerated the man, then realizing the Sword had gone on to do just that too – capable of enduring his presence in small doses). The General nodded at the notion of statues, of little Coffee and his ilk staring over the sea. He was silent, quiet, and hushed in his considerations, eyes going towards the roll of the ocean, features catching the semblance of the salty air, the breeze, before his gaze fell back to Jigano. “Perhaps a statue of Peter’s luxere?” That way the companions could match; the little skeletal figure next to the dragon, all of them collected and together, souls and emblems.
He dropped his bag then, rifling through it to grab his own notebook papers, and a small pencil, maneuvering through diagrams of defensive instruments and implements, to a blank sanction where he could sketch the design across the document. A few moments more, gruff, brief strokes flickering throughout, and Jigano’s other request reverberated, echoed, through his mind – forced to relive it again and again and again. The beast put the pencil down for a second, letting it rest against the outline of little bony hooves and legs, pondering how best to even begin. “It was stupid, reckless, and we were painfully ignorant.” An accurate summary of the entire journey; in grave, solemn tones, stare flickering back and forth across the horizon. “We thought we would be able to meet up with a dragon for Safrin’s quest. She wanted the heart of a rare creature.” But none of them had really considered the size, the nature, or the power behind a draconic individual, all used to those of Coffee’s dominion and disposition. “It went wrong from the start. We encountered a cannibal. Amalia wanted to save him, try to use him for information. Sunjata killed him.” And maybe they should’ve known, shouldn’t understood, what they were heading into: looking back on the scene, with the ice touching every section of the room, with walls of hordes solidified, minimal treasures blocked, and only one man living in its sanction, barely alive. “You can imagine how that went.” A shrug; no need to describe Amalia’s rage, when Jigano would likely understand.
“Eventually we did find the dragon. Asleep.” And perhaps committed to the dumbest things of all, by not leaving, by seeing this massive creature and wandering into its midst. “We sent the companions to wake it up. Peter changed into a bat and went with his luxere.” Then he shook his head, clenching his jaw, the inevitable, sinking back into his blood, into his chest. “The dragon was not fond of our presence. All of the companions were hit by a blast of ice. Coffee and Apricum did not survive.” He fell into silence thereafter, waiting for a reaction, for more questions, before the tale continued.
under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed
The suggestion was perfectly fitting, and Jigano nodded in relief and gratitude for it. "I never had a chance to meet his companion," he admitted. It would be up to Deimos to come up with the design for the luxere, a task for each of them to undertake. Pencils moved as designs were refined and worked out, but the bard had asked this favor of the General at the hunt and now it was time to collect. Amalia, Deimos, Sunjata... those three knew what had happened, but Amalia had been closest to Adam of all of them, and Jigano trusted Deimos's objectivity the most of the three in something so emotionally laden.
The sun shone a little less brightly when the warrior spoke again, his deep voice drawing the light from the sky with the weight of the memories he shared. Jigano's pencil slowed and then stopped as he looked out over the ocean, seeing not blue waves but white ice in his mind's eye, hearing Safrin's request and sighing at the puzzle of it. So many other rare creatures that could have been killed to satisfy such a thing... Why a dragon and not something else, something closer to home, if not the very hubris she accused him of? A question for Sunjata, though, and he didn't expect Deimos to know, nor waste the other man's time with asking it.
Mention of the cannibal brought an immediate tension to Jigano's shoulders. Someone to question, even if it meant subduing him and tying him up to do it. A pulse of shock and indignation wrapped in baffled confusion made it through the Attuned bond at Sunjata's actions, but the bard held his tongue even then, imagining indeed the Shield's anger and sorrow at the wasting of a life in her presence, one not killed for food or protection but simply... what? Convenience?
A dragon, sleeping, vulnerable - but he had seen the dragon in the Fangs. He could be a dragon, however small and weak in comparison. 'Vulnerable' was misleading, and it sounded as though Deimos had known it. Why was the question on his tongue, over and over, as the story progressed, but in the end it hardly mattered why. All that mattered was who. Who had died, and how it had happened. Jigano bowed his head as Coffee and Apricum's deaths were related. Swift, at least. Perhaps even painless, for what little comfort the thought gave. "And... Peter? And the rest of you?" he asked quietly instead.
Quiet and hushed while his memories worked over their haphazard wake; the Attuned sensations contorting against him, sharpening the horizon. He had tried, they all had, save for Sunjata – binding the cannibal up, threats, spears, aiming to either heal or implore words other than growls and half-chewed ears spit in his direction – nothing really mattering, in the end. They’d gotten what they’d come for – a dragon’s heart – just not the one they believed they’d snag and ensnare. His hands were still, the pencil motionless, a sigh coiled in his chest, yearning to be extinguished. He’d relived the saga over and over and over again, paying the price for not being able to do something else until it was too late, their mistakes warped, their errors massive, their instincts and ignorance tending to the flames.
He thought Jigano might have asked other inquiries, dug deeper, but there was naught but notions of continuing, and he fought away a sneer, disdain for himself, for endeavors they should’ve taken. Hindsight was a brutal, barbaric thing, sometimes more twisted, more condemning, than the moments he’d rekindled now. “Peter was hit too.” Then it’d been a series of unfortunate events, impulsive notions, action, action, action, struggling to remain alive in the bristling motions of so many thoughtless hours. The Shield's prayers coming to naught, the little star whale hurt, Zuriel's gut-wrenching agony, the begging of alms, of opportunities that never came. “Adam grabbed him, and he might have been fine. But he turned around to shoot the dragon with his gun -,” a shake of his head once more, the breath welling up inside him, layered out of his mouth piece by piece, as if dragged and condemned. “The dragon blasted them both, and they were gone.” Frozen – nothing else to be done. No time to be stuck in shock. No time to grieve. No time to do anything but move. “I tried to make a net and rope, to toss it over Coffee, so we could have a dragon for the quest. So we did not have to do any of that again.” So no one else would’ve been left to sink back into those terrible, treacherous moments, looking for the heart of a rare creature, dying and tying others to more and more tragedy. “Missed.” All his training, all his precision, hadn’t materialized either – the netting almost there, and still not enough. He swallowed down the trail of bile threatening to surround and cloak his throat, staring out across the sea as if it were an endless void; things he strived not to drown within, fighting for the surface.
“The rest of us got to the entrance, but there was not much else to do. I used a shield of ice to protect us, and melted the water to finally get Coffee,” and here he didn’t mention the utter sense of loss and hopelessness, the way Amalia had remained still, how time had slowed to define every ache, every pain, how everything was numbing and binding still. “But I could not get to them.” And there they remained, their souls with Mort, but their forms tucked away in a dragon’s threshold. What if he’d tried to get them all at the same time? Would it have been enough? How would they have gotten them all back? “Then we fled.” The silence compelled him, and the sudden sense of finality all over again rendered him back into quiet.
under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed
03-14-2020, 10:31 PM (This post was last modified: 03-14-2020, 10:32 PM by Jigano.)
Of course Peter was hit, such a small and delicate little shape to find himself in. And Adam, the rogue who had fallen so deeply and hopefully in love, would never leave his lover behind. Adam, so full of passion, whose temper could rage as powerfully as his confidence, determined to buy reprisal for the loss of his companion and the wounding of his mate... no thought, only action in the highwayman's response, all instinct and impulse in the moment
Until all moments ended, for him and Peter both. Four dead within seconds, entombed for eternity in Halo's ice, and the world lessened for their loss.
Jigano bowed his head, eyes closed against the fresh pain that hearing the unadorned truth struck into his heart. Isuma chirruped worriedly and fluttered to his arms to be held, sensing her companion's grieving and seeking to comfort him as best she could.
It was just as well. The bard flinched at hearing how Coffee had been used. Not left to lie beside his companion but gathered as a component for a ritual already gone to hell. Teeth gritted together, his jaw feathering as he heard how even that cruel necessity hadn't been enough. Or almost not enough. Deimos maneuvering to defend and stay focused on their purpose, to not let the journey and the deaths be entirely for naught. One body among the four brought back to the surface and the light, for however short a time. Jigano could imagine the dragon's rage, flashing eyes and clashing teeth and the lash of icy breath turned against the intruders who had dared its sanctum. No, there would have been no collection of the dead beyond that last, desperate grasp of water magic.
Gods least fortunate, how it must gall the General, the Sword, who had joined the bard in failure after failure to protect the ones they cared for. It felt as if the pride had been ground out of him over the past year, his holier-than-thou fire guttered and burnt out amongst the dead and wounded that littered their past.
He gave Isuma a squeeze and a scritch in her soft, feathery ruff, then set her down and nudged her over to the General. The gryphlet left him reluctantly, but she could see the weight that rested on the big human's shoulders and soon enough her talons rested on Deimos's knee as she stretched up on her hind legs and looked up at him with soulful golden eyes.
"It was enough, then?" he asked, voice strained as he steadied himself. "Four dead, friends lost, and Coffee's heart? Enough sacrifice to satisfy Safrin into consecrating the Temple Shrine again?" It must have been, for there had been a notice on the Temple Board saying just that. And yet. He knew their luck, his and the General's. When was the 'mere' sacrifice of those they cared for ever enough?
He wondered, looking back on Helovian times, in winds of smoke, fumes, and condemnation, if it had ever felt so hopeless as it did in Caido. Amongst the Basin, he’d known exactly what to do and how to commit to his actions: fight, fight, fight, persist, endure, maim, and tear anything that stood in their way, anything that dared to harm them. He’d been detached, apathetic, nonchalant to those who slunk their way to his boundaries and dared to trespass, watching as they fell away to nothing. He’d been a vessel, a machine, a weapon, and it’d suited everyone just fine. He’d been a colossal, intimidating force, and they’d known him as the Reaper – a cloak, a veil, a dagger, a sword, a weight of unattainable, unreachable dominion. Carving out anarchy, an unrelenting, brutal ferocity, the wake of the chill around his existence like the summits he reigned upon. He’d been bitter with every defeat. He’d been persevering through every tirade. But the agony had never felt so lasting.
Here he loved and cherished, and it just ripped him apart.
The man clenched the pencil hard in his grasp; somehow, someway, it didn’t break or fissure from the force entangled, embroiled, within its sanction. “Amongst the other things she wanted.” He wasn’t certain where his rancor was supposed to lie now, with Sunjata, with Safrin, with the entire fiasco, or like so many others, he was meant to simply move on. For all the wisdom the starry goddess had shared, he still struggled with piecing it together upon his own soul.
He didn’t expect the gryphon to sidle towards him, talons clutching at his knee – staring down at the furry creature, one palm leaving the paper he held, brushing over the top of its head, then scratching behind the ears, as he might’ve done with Auni. The Sword’s jaw worked in hushed decibels: clenching, unclenching, head bowed, tired, exhausted, and withdrawn all over again. “She told us we were not the circumstances we found ourselves in, nor the deaths, mistakes, or words.” But what if they were? Just mere echoes of their flaws and defects, of the way they strived and tried and it never seemed to matter?
under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed
Ah yes. Because sacrifices and hearts were never enough on their own, were they? Always, always the gods wanted something more for their favors. He knew Ludo was no exception, though the masked god had been kind to him in comparison to how it had welcomed Remi to Caido. Then again, he didn't tend to ask for the improbable from the ragged Herald, only the unlikely. Perhaps one day he, too, would find himself leading others into death in pursuit of some god's quest.
He had his own vanities and foolishness to answer for, after all, no less than Sunjata.
It wasn't Deimos's way to give information without being asked for it, but in such a painful remembrance Jigano didn't feel right interrogating the other man, either. He let his curiosity flicker through the bond, wondering what else had been needed to bring a shrine to life, but not pushing the matter if the General didn't wish to go into further detail.
Isuma chirped at the gentle scratching, taking it as an invitation. She crouched and then leapt up, wings giving her the extra few feet she needed to make a precarious landing on the General's shoulder and wrap around behind his neck, purring quietly against his exhaustion. Jigano smiled with a sad fondness at her desire to cheer Deimos up, knowing it was a futile effort but not trying to stop her. "Aren't we?" he echoed the General's words, remembering too many lost to too many failures. "Or are we all those things, but more as well? Our failures and successes. Our mistakes and intentions. Words and actions. Our choices and their consequences, good and bad." He sighed, looking down at his sketch of a black dragon, curled up as if sleeping, as he had last seen Coffee alive, napping beside Isuma in the shade of his dragonwing. "What was Sunjata doing, while Adam was trying to save Peter and you were putting up a shield against its ice?" Not, perhaps, quite at the same time, but the question remained: what had Sunjata been doing after leading them into the dragon's lair?
The Sword hadn’t been involved in gathering anything else of note or worth, so while the curiosity might have buoyed and floated towards him, the beast had naught to give. Maybe that was just as well too – since offering their wares had proven to be foolish and ridiculous too: a tumultuous tirade and parade of failures and distinctions. His previous quest for Amalia, for Safrin, had gone on without a hitch: he’d provided the necessary materials, and the Shield’s legs were in working order once more, along with blessed rings and stars to follow. The Sword’s anger and frustration hadn’t been with the goddess, but the ordeal, and ringleader, itself. He’d called Sunjata reckless, selfish; and the chords still stuck, still struck, attempting to make the fool encounter some sort of epiphany, be held accountable for his actions, while the rest of the world didn’t seem to bother.
The gryphon surprised him again by leaping upon his shoulder, wrapping around his neck, a purr, a drone, a few comforting murmurs elongated and extended. He kept himself together as best he could, returning to the age-old, primordial, stoic form, the hand following her movements to continue scratching, thankful, acknowledging the companion’s efforts.
He listened to Jigano’s speech: knowing full well they were the epitome of every damned motion they’d ever made. The ones they remembered, they chiseled, they sculpted the most though, seemed to be the failures, the defeats, the scars.
The question following had its own piercing edge to it, mind reeling back over others’ actions. “I asked him to grab the net’s rope as we all ran, but it did not matter.” Because Deimos hadn’t succeeded in his attempts, had to follow through on other coldhearted machinations, breathe through the agony, clutch over the ramparts of defeat, bring something home out of the calamity, out of the mess. A series of cycles, of consequences, of never-ending nothingness. “He stood in front of Amalia while I made the shield.” While she prayed and begged for Adam, for Peter, for all of it to cease (though she'd already been guarded, by his ice, by the charm he'd given her). “Pleaded with the dragon.” That fell upon deaf ears, as the ivory form roared and demanded they leave. “I am not certain what else could have been done.” Perhaps fighting back, only to witness Sunjata also being mauled and murdered for his attempts. Besides never going in the first place. Perhaps that was what irritated, irked, and infuriated him the most: the entire fiasco and series of deaths completely unavoidable, had the Flood done any research, had none of them been so blind or naïve, incredibly ignorant and unassuming.
under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed
And why had Amalia needed anyone to stand in front of her? Bold and brave Amalia, who usually chafed at such treatment? Or at least, resented it from him. But Deimos's list of tasks and tacit defense of the Flood soothed some of the bard's feathers, ones that had been ruffled and ready to resent the bartender for his deadly quest. True, the man had made a mistake with the cannibal early on, but it sounded as though after that he had worked with the others to try and redeem something from the debacle, protecting those who remained.
"Did he ever say why a dragon's heart was needed?" A last question into the whole wretched mess, the General's terse descriptions painting a bleak picture in stark blacks and whites. The dragon rousing angry and lethal in its rage, killing and injuring within seconds; no defense against it, no weapon strong enough to turn it aside if even Adam's firearms had failed. A group in shock at the sudden deaths of companions and friends, scrambling to escape without further losses, making a desperate effort to glean some small spark of hope from the wreckage, for the sake of a Temple that Safrin's own demigod had destroyed, to salve the goddess's pride. If Sunjata hadn't killed the cannibal. If Peter hadn't approached the dragon in such a fragile form. If the companions had stayed back, safe and protected behind their humans...
If and if and if. How many of those ifs ran through Deimos's head even now, days and weeks after the event itself?
And then there had been that hunt in the woods, and Sunjata's premature exit from the task...
"Do you blame him?" he asked quietly, a dangerous question, and one whose answer might add new layers of complexity to the tapestry of connections between the Outlanders and those Naturals who stood by them.
The beast continued with his sketch, applying the pencil a little too darkly, a little too sharply, as Isuma remained on his shoulders, as the world spiraled, turned, and revolved, as if nothing they did really mattered. The luxere’s skeletal form continued to take shape, while his head was bowed, while his eyes were on the outlines, while his breathing strived to remain slow and steady. “He needed the heart of a rare creature, for Frey’s portion of the temple rebuilding.” He shrugged then, never quite capable of understanding the whims of gods, and not bothering to try. But there were dozens of other creatures they could’ve contended with, could’ve assaulted, could’ve ripped apart, without watching, without standing helplessly by, as their friends were mauled, mutilated, and destroyed. The what-ifs burned, churned, and rambled through his mind, as they so often did after the event, chafing, smoldering, simmering below his chest, because he was seemingly incapable of moving forward without someone answering for the debacle.
Then he’d taken matters into his own hands – or claws.
But Jigano’s quiet inquiry left something else grating at his senses, a familiar predilection they’d immersed themselves within a year or so prior; the words sitting heavy in his throat, in the back of his skull, where a thousand other decibels remained. They chiseled and sculpted, carved and whittled, and there were a myriad of moments or ways he could respond, jaw clenching once more, eyes narrowing to slits as he stared upon the paper, the parchment. “I blame him for the cannibal and going for the dragon.” He said naught of Wessex or Amun’s words, of instances strung between fallen temples and maimed Shields, of opportunities continually lost, of tempestuous, dangerous, treacherous leagues threatening to brew and brim. His voice was a mere murmur thereafter, hand quickly returning to the luxere’s image. “The rest was a lost cause.”
under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed
Repeated words, the heart of a rare animal, yes, but of all the rare animals on Caido, why a dragon? But what Deimos didn't say was almost as clear, Jigano realized. No reason for a dragon except Sunjata's decision to slay one. Why that and not one of the Landsharks that had killed several Grounders in the past year? Why not a Banshee or a Frost Giant, brutish predators who preyed upon travelers without remorse?
Why Amalia, if Sunjata intended to kill the beast and take its heart, knowing that the Shield of Safrin's duty was to protect life, not take it?
Blame duly apportioned but allowed to fall away where it had no place. Jigano nodded again, resting his fingers on the rough sketch of the black dragonling, sleeping peacefully now, as he hopefully did in Mort's halls beside Adam and Peter and Apricum. They had come a long way from past seasons of ire, but somehow kept ending up back in the same places; a spiral of anger that frayed and slipped but never seemed to break.
He drew a breath as Isuma rubbed her head against Deimos's cheek, purring harder at her companion's roiled emotions. An exhalation that wasn't quite a sigh, and then he flexed his fingers, focusing his magic and what he wanted from the world around him, calling forth a single black iron scale the size of his thumbnail. "I never asked how you and Adam met," he said quietly, turning temper and longing to lash out away and inwards, focusing on what they had come to do for the friends they had lost, rather than focusing on the man who had led them to their deaths. "Or you and Peter, for that matter. How long ago was it?"
Different scenarios, different avenues, different methods, and none of them mattering in the slightest. They hadn’t been able to string or cobble their efforts together into anything but crooked, consigned shambles, and he’d be a fool to pretend otherwise. Diligent and stoic again, smothering it all down into his chest, into his ribs, into his lungs, into his bones, he returned once more to the sketch, piercing it along the paper until it was complete: a diagram of the skeletal luxere. Some portions hollowed out, some portions slivers of enamel, a rendering from what he remembered and recalled before ice and outcries, before stunned silence and impossible motions. The companion on his shoulder must’ve either felt the tension or simply intended to ease it before they all crackled and fumed, the purring reverberating against his cheek, reaching once more to strike and scratch beneath the gryphon’s chin.
No more was asked on the actions, on the ethers, on the vestiges. Perhaps that was just as well. He’d encounter it over and over again for as long as he lived, joining the plagues of battlefields, the rush of defeat, the crushing ache of loss, loss, loss.
He lowered his hands, following the length of his form down towards the sand, where he crouched, attempting to summon something from his creation enchantments. They’d been finicky as of late; and before he could loosen some snarl at the frustration when no gilded glow conformed from his hands, the quiet inquiry pervaded along sea winds. His eyes flickered upward, no longer on the shoal or dunes, but along Jigano’s shoulder, or a far-off distance, entangled with the roll of the ocean. It was only for a moment, focus riveting back to the grainy particles beneath his wake, head continuously bowed. “Besides pulling him out of the pit? LongNight.” And not the most pleasant of experiences either; Peter had been fine, quiet, subdued, as if taking everything in, while Adam had been an antagonistic fool; Deimos half-tempted to vanquish the idiot right then and there. The memory served as a rancorous reminder, scalding, scratching over the surface. “Adam helped me find some things for Amalia too.” A shrug; bones and soil along the Fields, after every other unwavering disaster.
under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed
