who we are and all that we're trying to be
Egos and heroes permitted the smallest of smirks to embed itself along his mouth, uncertain of where he fit within those antics, pondering over many others who’d shown they were willing to take the chances the previous year. Locking them away earned the arch of his brow, his eyes sliding along the horizon, and then back to her. Implications, perhaps, of grander scales to be met with defiance and snares, of trials and tribulations from the lingering seasons. Hadn’t they attempted with Roana – distinctly remembering capturing, recapturing, and locking her away in a specific cell (not the one they’d lined with evasion tactics)? She’d still found a way out, still found a way to show up at their door, parade through until she met her demise. She could’ve been the impetus. Or it could’ve been any of the others, himself included, wandering out into the dead of night to accomplish a task they thought worthwhile. Perhaps they should’ve instituted a change in policies, held a forum to insist upon the actions throughout LongNight, what to be done, what to cease and desist. What about those who were still called to heralds’ tasks? The beast had no doubt there were those that would be willing to tell, to say, and those who wouldn’t be at all.
Could he just be a fortress, strive to protect them each and every time they wandered?
“What do you have in mind?” For her chains and shackles? How many to place them upon? Would it suffice, when there were siren calls and wails, when there were monsters’ pretending to be their favored? Would any of their preparations matter, in the end?
Her last statement contorted and clawed over the entity of his soul, and he took a deep, shuddering breath, uncertain of how to answer. Maybe they were all threats to one another. He thought of Rexanna, of Kiada, of the others who contorted their way through the night, endeavoring for things that seemed so obsolete now. “Probably both,” on a more solemn note, the humor gone, because there seemed to be nothing spared against them in the coming days – everyone clenching, grasping, for something out of reach.
It takes dying to know
How to live as ghosts
