DEIMOS
Maybe the Reaper and Sword had been far easier to destroy than they’d ever realized. It wasn’t on the battlefield, where the rest of the kingdoms were annihilated, but on the slow, unwinding haze of losing everyone he cherished and loved. For all those eternal walls and everlasting fortifications, they came toppling, eroding, when the few that accepted him were gone.
Because they’d been so hard to find, once – he’d been hand-carved and sculpted into machine abyss, solemn and guarded, hostile and cold, impassive and stoic. Hiding behind armor and enamel, and Isilme had taken him down those paths to glory where he lost comrades and allies, where he stretched out his arms and couldn’t snag, couldn’t snatch, couldn’t do anything afterwards but dig their graves and mourn in silence.
And Helovia had taught him to become that dark, dark creature with nothing for a heart but nefarious means, decrepit bones, casting aside anything and everything so his damned kingdom would thrive. They still lost, lost, and lost, but he’d been a monster in the mountains, demolishing, threatening, ready to unravel another world at the slightest indication.
And Caido had permitted him to dream of becoming something more than nooses and knives, where they saw him as more than a beast and scars – where second chances drew into family and love and places to cherish instead of demolish.
A sharpened gasp stung through his lungs, and he was suddenly back in the chair, not gliding down the ramparts and waiting for it to cease holding him up. Brain addled and fogged, barely registering on the later contortions, grimacing at Loren’s name out of habit. He looked up to see the Shield, figure parting through the abyss, reaching for her too, arms wrapping and holding, striving not to unravel any further.
Head tucked somewhere along her shoulder, his mouth muffled, the slightest whisper strangled, came through on a wild, desperate murmur. “All I ever wanted to do was protect them.” Them, connotations of so many damned lives he rushed forward to save and shield, safeguard and shelter. If he couldn’t be there in tangibility, with his body taking the assaults, then he gave armor, pieces of himself to defend while they wandered out into their own ventures. Crouching at bedsides, kneeling at shrines, desperation drowning out the noise, the cacophony, of foretold demeanors. They all perish. “But it never seems to matter.” Another hushed departure of noise from his lips, drowning and ricocheting. ”I have never been enough for you. For anyone.”
Because they’d been so hard to find, once – he’d been hand-carved and sculpted into machine abyss, solemn and guarded, hostile and cold, impassive and stoic. Hiding behind armor and enamel, and Isilme had taken him down those paths to glory where he lost comrades and allies, where he stretched out his arms and couldn’t snag, couldn’t snatch, couldn’t do anything afterwards but dig their graves and mourn in silence.
And Helovia had taught him to become that dark, dark creature with nothing for a heart but nefarious means, decrepit bones, casting aside anything and everything so his damned kingdom would thrive. They still lost, lost, and lost, but he’d been a monster in the mountains, demolishing, threatening, ready to unravel another world at the slightest indication.
And Caido had permitted him to dream of becoming something more than nooses and knives, where they saw him as more than a beast and scars – where second chances drew into family and love and places to cherish instead of demolish.
A sharpened gasp stung through his lungs, and he was suddenly back in the chair, not gliding down the ramparts and waiting for it to cease holding him up. Brain addled and fogged, barely registering on the later contortions, grimacing at Loren’s name out of habit. He looked up to see the Shield, figure parting through the abyss, reaching for her too, arms wrapping and holding, striving not to unravel any further.
Head tucked somewhere along her shoulder, his mouth muffled, the slightest whisper strangled, came through on a wild, desperate murmur. “All I ever wanted to do was protect them.” Them, connotations of so many damned lives he rushed forward to save and shield, safeguard and shelter. If he couldn’t be there in tangibility, with his body taking the assaults, then he gave armor, pieces of himself to defend while they wandered out into their own ventures. Crouching at bedsides, kneeling at shrines, desperation drowning out the noise, the cacophony, of foretold demeanors. They all perish. “But it never seems to matter.” Another hushed departure of noise from his lips, drowning and ricocheting. ”I have never been enough for you. For anyone.”
i'm in the mood to dissolve in the sky
