[Mini Event] When your heart has expired

DEIMOS

The sound of iron shots is stuck in my head
The thunder of the drums dictates

Efforts at the pyre had about done him in emotionally, the veneer gradually beginning to slip throughout the day, struggling to repair the reserve, the nonchalance, the reticence implored over his features. Entering the Artist’s Sanctuary, where he’d last learned of her impending child, where they’d last held a meeting of the council, plans formulating that ended in her demise, nearly stifled and stilled him on the doorstep. There were a few moments where he pondered going no further; he’d done enough damage, he’d conjured enough mishaps, problems, dilemmas, and tragedies. To stand on the other side of her once-paradise and strive not to taint it with his presence.

But he also had to see it through; no avoiding the inevitable, no way to numb the pain, no way to make it all spiral away, and pretend it never happened. It was to honor her legacy, her commitments, her talents.

The Sword entered on a fortified breath, but felt it leave him when his eyes adjusted to the adornments, to the artistic renderings, all bearing her namesake, her essence. He swallowed down the length of bile trailing down his throat, spine rigid all the more as he stared at her portrait, waiting for it to diminish, haunt, and denounce him. He nodded towards Bastien and Oliver, and then retreated instinctively to a chair in the back, yearning for the familiarity of shadow, to hide, hide, hide.

The rhythm of the falls, the number of dead
The rising of the horns, ahead