who we are and all that we're trying to be
He snorted, some raw semblance of humor at her first statement. He’d only operated them to be enlightened of Loren’s dramatics and details of the bar being set on fire, utilizing the information to go with Remi and get Cera’s remains. If others preferred them for drunken discourse and gossip, he wasn’t really surprised. Perhaps they would just need to set stricter guidelines for their use.
Her softer expansion on the monsters incapable of leaving the Grounds was fortuitous for the lands beyond the portals, and they wouldn’t have to worry about demons crossing over. The one day aspect, if storms ceased, if elements desisted, if some other foreshadowed events truly met their orchestration contorted in the back of his mind, for moments when the rest of the world would have to persevere just the same.
His solemn nod and stoic expression were clearly not favored; he found his jaw, his chin, lifted – piercing stare landing on hers. For half a moment he wondered if he’d errored somehow, someway, again, if her fingers were due to clench and tighten over his throat once more. He fought the notion of flinching, forcing an easygoing breath, while she spoke of sagacity and wisdom, while she attempted to puncture off the responsibility, the weight, he frequently bore across his shoulders.
A hard habit to break, a difficult thing to peel away from his entity, when he’d spent lifetimes doing just that – protecting, guarding, unleashing torrent after torrent, havoc after havoc, ensuring those in his kingdom survived, were sheltered, that he was the storm, the tempest, the savage, bestial blade in the chilling, frigid void. If another faltered, if another swayed, if another stumbled, if another broke, if another was taken, the Reaper always placed the burden upon himself. The Sword was much the same. Because those like Cera should’ve lived.
They will always be at the hands of the Voice echoed and reverberated; and all he could think of was Rexanna, beam in her chest, a product of the same goddess, and brutalized, beaten, punctured, and maimed anyway. He nodded, a modicum of understanding, trying to etch away those skeletal figures, the fire in the guild, the bodies burnt, the wreckage instilled, off his spine. “We will still try our best.” Maybe that was all they could do: to simply continue fighting by existing, enduring, hiding, and harboring.
It takes dying to know
How to live as ghosts
