who we are and all that we're trying to be
It had always been difficult for Deimos to not glance towards the past, staring over lives before, striving either to not enact the same circumstances or spiraling to find himself stuck in similar mires. He’d grown, evolved, and adapted from the apathetic blade, from the ichor-stained steel, from the irreverence in soulless precision. But still, little bits and pieces of savagery clung to his skin, to the nefarious chambers of his heart, pulsing, pervading, persisting in mercurial accord, foundations of another time, another place. Even here, he often stood in the present with a thought to the years unfolding, where they went wrong, where they went right, cycling back and forth; difficult to gloss over, to move on, when corruptible, condemned bones still etched, still existed, in his heathenous structure. It was all in how far he could manage before the rush of battle beckoned, summoned, and drummed in his fibers. Did that hold him back, or ensure his callous existence, a wake of the Reaper, managed to remain? Did it matter, if violence and vehemence were his favored friends?
But then again, until now, until Caido, Deimos hadn’t been presented with many gifts, hadn’t known how to look, how to understand, how to fathom them for what they were.
The leopard shook his head, and the hound waited, comprehending the notions, the wisdom-gathering before wandering into the midst of shrines, of deities, of heralds. Perhaps it was best to prepare anyway, instead of lunging into the abyss, into foolishly, ignorantly, crossing lines they hadn’t even seen or predicted. The inquiry gestured towards him though was somewhat of a surprise – the Sword would never be the authority on the rulers of this cosmos or the next. Expect nothing rumbled first and foremost – requiring no thought at all. He’d gone to shrines again and again, never asking for himself, but for those around him. He’d bent his head and dragged his knees before broken fragments in Isilme, begging and pleading for Huyana to be healed; no answer. He’d sought information from the ones here, over and over, for either Amalia’s safety, for some amount of guidance in the pending turbulences, in the mercurial sways, with nary a response. It had stung into a bitterness, a rancorous edge, only to begin its slow erosion when he’d helped build Safrin’s shrine, when he’d asked for more strength, more power. Be patient came thereafter, on a sigh, because despite every other composed refrain in his being, he’d simply pondered giving up entirely.
It takes dying to know
How to live as ghosts
