hold tight the hand of the heart that breaks

i'm tired of the weight of mortality, i want to tear it from my veins

until i bleed silver and gold

“You let people in. You just don’t care for the repercussions for when you outgrow each other.” She shrugs to that, giving him an encouraging smile. “I swear I heard something somewhere… It’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all, right?” It had taken her some time to understand it, but she does. Intimately. Because if Deimos hadn’t loved her, he wouldn’t have these memories to visit and manifest, he wouldn’t have an inkling of any sort of happiness even if it had been taken away.

She’s glad she had Bastien for however long she did. She’s glad she had all of them for as long as she did, even when death and pain tore them apart.

They reach the hot springs, and she practically beams under his pride and compliments, shoulders rising and falling in almost a girlish shrug. “You are special too, Deimos. You just have to act like it.” A wink is granted his way before she’s diving into the hot springs, sighing contently at the warmth that leaks through her bones. As he sits within it too, Rex shifts over to sit at his side, mimicking his stance and relaxation.

“Is she?” Comes the question, a hum of a laugh leaving her. “You’ll have to tell me how they are.” She murmurs, sinking into the water with a content sigh.

“You know… Maybe a trip to Halo or wherever else is just what you need. Go for yourself and explore and live, make new memories and friends that make you happy so you can come back and tell me all about them too.” She tilts her head toward him, smiling softly as the light illuminates her sapphire gaze into soft warm pools of flame.

maybe one day they'll chant our names

and name galaxies after us, and we too shall be eternal

REXANNA

Deimos the Reaper You can't take back the cards you've dealt on this long and lonely road to hell the throne must be such a sad and lonely place He cared though; he cared for the repercussions, he cared for the aching abyss, he cared for the point where he’d been cherished and loved and then tossed aside. “But I am tired of losing.” Exhausted from the effort of grasping, of clenching, of trying to snag them back from the throes of death, from heralds who sought their souls. “Is it?” He wasn’t sure what to believe, what to see, what to feel, drifting, very lost all of a sudden, branching out in discarded, desolate reaches, staring at a space that had been filled and then vacant. Special? A snort ensued, immediate refusal in the depths of the spring, where he could press his head back and become riveted by the sky, by the hard-cut lines the mountains carved into it. “I am not.” Soldiers were a dime a dozen; there were always fighters, mercenaries, selfless idiots flinging themselves into hell so someone else didn’t have to. No one would miss him when he perished again, rejoined his ghosts, his brethren. Not like the holes in his heart, not like the beings he’d adored and who’d taken final breaths, and he couldn’t stop it – At his side, still in the courses of imagination, and he could enjoy those small, minute moments. “We already made mud baths. I did not try them.” The tears threatened again at her insistence, something in her soft smile, in the cut of the suggestion. “It is so difficult.” They drew on his cheeks and clung down the length of his jaw, and he choked down a sob as the warmth flooded over shoulders and brawn, as he broke apart even in his dreams, incapable of keeping any together nowadays. “Without you, or Kiada.” And maybe he’d drown here too. “I do not think I can do this.”

_{Photo and Table by Time
Photo taken at Hero's Square in Budapest, Hungary}

i'm tired of the weight of mortality, i want to tear it from my veins

until i bleed silver and gold

“Of course you are. Nobody wants to lose or get lost.” She comments easily, shrugging her pale shoulders as she focuses on the topics they’ve chosen. “I think so. Would you have rather had none of these memories? Nothing good to visit or enjoy while it’s there just because you’re afraid of it going away?” She questions, tilting her head toward him and offering that very same soft smile.

“You are special. And I will make you a mud mask.” It’s said matter of factly once again, leaving no room for him to argue as they absorb the warmth of the water and Deimos begins to break again beside her. She tries to offer as much warmth as she can, but as a memory of his, she’s unsure how far it stretches and reaches.

So instead, she turns to him as he falls apart, arms wrapping around him and pulling him into her so she might cradle him, might let him cry as long as he needed. “You can. And you will.” She says softly, wet hands moving up to stroke through long dark hair. “Kiada would want that. I want that.” She murmurs softly, a smile on her face, holding him tight. “There are many that want you around, you just don’t let yourself see it. And then when they’re gone you haven’t had enough time.” It’s a quiet observation. “So open up, let them in, enjoy them while they’re here. Death gets us all in the end. It’s a race that we never win. Stop to enjoy the flowers in between them, alright?”

maybe one day they'll chant our names

and name galaxies after us, and we too shall be eternal

REXANNA

Deimos the Reaper You can't take back the cards you've dealt on this long and lonely road to hell the throne must be such a sad and lonely place He’d been terrified then and he was terrified now – of losing everything in his path, of striving and striving and trying and trying and nothing coming of it. Nothing but pain and anguish and torture in the end – when the world fell apart and unraveled. His heart hammered in his chest, and he shook his head, the water pressing against him, more ghosts, more fragments of a world utterly lost and gone to him forever. “No. I just want them to stay.” For eternity, to be with him forever. But it was impossible, and he’d learned that over and over and over again. You are special made him snort once more, and he had nothing to refute any longer. Too tired, too exhausted, by the weight of everything pressing down over his chest, careening between slumber and memories curled, contorted, by his own mind – a fraction of the emotions welled and walled up inside of him. And she took him while he broke, and he could almost recall the feeling of her arms around him as he slid away before – surrounded, loved, cherished for minutes and moments. Even if it was just a memory, just a dream, he could tuck it away until they were all together, in death and not in damnation. His head fell against her shoulder, brow tucked along strong bones, as he wept and choked and ached. “Then why do they leave?” A quiet murmur, a desolate expanse; if they wanted him around, why did they push him aside? The girl in the rain, pieced away into columns of night, and gone, gone, dead, the shield with a heart too large and a mind too overwhelmed. A part of him wanted to argue. But what would it be worth? And she was probably right. It was the acceptance that made it all the more difficult to bear. Another sob, and a quiet nod. “Okay.”

_{Photo and Table by Time
Photo taken at Hero's Square in Budapest, Hungary}

i'm tired of the weight of mortality, i want to tear it from my veins

until i bleed silver and gold

“You know they can’t stay forever.” She says softly, gently, as encouragingly as she can. She knows this too, that if she had it her way, none of those she cherished would have been gone. None of them would have been thrown into dangerous situations like they often found themselves in.

So she holds him as he falls apart, her arms keeping him together the best that she can, the best she knows how to. Her cheek rests atop his crown, keeping him near, letting him cleanse himself. “Because that’s life. And life wants us to cherish the moments we do have. It makes it all the more sweeter to have these moments.” She murmurs softly. “And sweeter still to remember or dream about them.” The world around them shifts now — they’re still in the hot springs, still in the Basin, but the moon rages overhead and the lights dance across the sky, fireworks blowing off in the distance.

“Open up, Deimos. Become a duck in the Oasis, not a stone. Don’t impede the water’s current, just let it… slide off your back.” She pulls away from him then, keeping him in her embrace, but trying to spy that stone face of his, reaching up to wipe away the tears that streaked along his face. “You’ll thank yourself one day.”

maybe one day they'll chant our names

and name galaxies after us, and we too shall be eternal

REXANNA

Deimos the Reaper You can't take back the cards you've dealt on this long and lonely road to hell the throne must be such a sad and lonely place He did know; and maybe it was just factions of some childish, juvenile figment that had never come to fruition, growing up and learning what it meant for families to be ripped apart, torn asunder, slain, derived from everything into nothing in a matter of seconds. It didn’t stop the dream, the wonder, the petulance, but he had to agree, had to understand. There was no recollection of how long he stayed in her hold, comforted by the brink of ghosts and memories, of ethers and vestiges long since passed – winter cycles and glacial wares, piercing through his heart, making him bleed anew. “I do not think I have ever cherished…moments. Not until they were gone.” A pause, while the dusk settled in around them, while the aurora lights flashed above, and he could breathe again, not so hidden, not so stark, not so beaten. “I can try. And see you again. Have better stories for you.” More than death. More than failures. More than wishes and hopes that never made it. Face lifted, thumbs across his face, dashing away the remainder of tears, and he snorted, choked down a harsh intake of breath, striving to be laughter. “A duck.” The Reaper and the Sword shook his head, but remained in her grasp, incapable of pulling away. Not wanting to. “I am not a duck. I am an eagle.” But yes, he had been stone, rock, solid, immovable, for so very, very long.

_{Photo and Table by Time
Photo taken at Hero's Square in Budapest, Hungary}

i'm tired of the weight of mortality, i want to tear it from my veins

until i bleed silver and gold

She’d be content to hold him however long he needed. “You never know how good it is until it’s gone.” She says with a wistful sigh, but there’s a hint of a smile on her face as she thinks back to her cherished memories – the ones of her and him training, the time where she’d managed to paint a bright pink line along his cheek without him realizing she’d gotten close. She thinks of the time her and Bastien had their first date in that tree in the Fields. She thinks of all of those days, ones she keeps as close as she can.

“You’d better.” She chimes, a hum of a quiet sigh slipping from her lips. “I don’t make much of my own anymore.” It was hard to make your own stories when you were gone. But that’s why she has him, why she has Azrael, Bastien, Hotaru… All of them, there to build the stories to share with her when they see each other again.

But she lifts his face, rubs away at the tear streaks along his cheeks, searching the piercing blue gaze she’d know anywhere. “Are you?” She tilts her head, taking his head into her hand and tilting it as well as her brows furrow together as if she doesn’t believe it. “Even if you were an eagle, they still let the water roll off their backs.” She contemplates a moment. “After they snatch the fish from the rivers, of course.” A raise of her brow, a fanged grin shot back toward him.

maybe one day they'll chant our names

and name galaxies after us, and we too shall be eternal

REXANNA

Deimos the Reaper You can't take back the cards you've dealt on this long and lonely road to hell the throne must be such a sad and lonely place The words stung, even in the midst of a dream, even in the throngs of clarity and absence. Worlds before, entangled in brawls and brutality. Wars for vengeance. Water pressing on him in every direction, a caress, instead of drowning, drowning, drowning. Stars chasing, orbiting, satellites and suns, signs of acceptance he’d never dreamed of. Thieves and cloaks and daggers, against kingdoms and searing for the emblems, the banners, of power, for just a few feral moments. “So cherish them in the present?” He knew the answer. He just didn’t know how to do it, how to not live in regret. He sniffed, the last dregs of a final sob, shaking his head in her grasp, not trying to leave. “Do you want to hear some now?” The Sword could try to fill in the gaps, what she might’ve missed, what she might not have seen from wherever her soul was. He couldn’t promise the moments wouldn’t be blends of a time from mountains, from fog, from billows of ash, or the now; it was hard to guess when nothing was concrete, tangible. The denial made his skull tilt, still held, still in her warmth and guidance for a few more intervals. He caught her feral smirk, the entanglements of a joke, at snatching talons. “They take.” They clawed and didn’t care. “I have not done that in a while either.” So he sighed, as if the entire notion left him, and he was empty.

_{Photo and Table by Time
Photo taken at Hero's Square in Budapest, Hungary}

i'm tired of the weight of mortality, i want to tear it from my veins

until i bleed silver and gold

“Yes. Every second.” She hums, smoothing down his hair and letting him pull away when he needs to. But she keeps an arm around him after she’d cradled his head, running cool fingers along his shoulders while her sapphire gaze focuses on his face, on the question aired. “Tell me everything.” And she settles in, legs stretched, keeping him close as the warm water spreads along them and the aurora dances above.

Of course, she can’t help but to give him a crooked smile when he says he hasn’t ‘taken’ in a while, a nudge of her elbow given to his side. “Start taking.” It’s an easy prompt, a soft poke to see what he might do. Would he? Go and rampage and make memories for himself, cherish those close to him in the moment and retain the memories?

She waves a hand and along the edge of the hot spring by their heads arrives the bear claws from earlier as well as the coffee. And she flashes him a wink, taking a bear claw for herself in her free hand, waiting to listen for more stories.

maybe one day they'll chant our names

and name galaxies after us, and we too shall be eternal

REXANNA

Deimos the Reaper You can't take back the cards you've dealt on this long and lonely road to hell the throne must be such a sad and lonely place Together instead of multitudes and layers and lives apart, he settled again, a restless breath unbidden, curling away on plumes of ice and snow. Something to savor, these seconds, these moments, to learn to cherish memories instead of regard them as something he’ll never have again. Still in her embrace, he leaned his head back against the embankment again, the warm water soaking into muscles; if only it were real, and not figments. Magic scalded across the water, forming into the representation of a monster from the deep. Jaws and claws, figments of something that should've been a fantasy, another part of a dream or a nightmare. “Battled a sea panther.” He waited to see her reaction, the ghost of a grin, a snicker, some long-lost glee spread across his mouth. “Got the Flood electrocuted.” A laugh, not broken, not snapped, but whole and real, erupting from his chest, wrapped around his heart, so desperate to heal. “Not on purpose, of course.” An arch to his brow might’ve indicated otherwise, but in tangible circumstances, that’d been the truth. “It was eating people. Then it was gone.” Back out into ethers – he made his snap at air, then dissolve back into foam. More bear claws, more coffee. “What would I do without you?” Came on a whim, but he didn’t know. Didn’t have the answer, and not much had gone well in his life since, as he reached for another pastry and bit into it.

_{Photo and Table by Time
Photo taken at Hero's Square in Budapest, Hungary}

i'm tired of the weight of mortality, i want to tear it from my veins

until i bleed silver and gold

Her gaze immediately moves to the water before them, watching as it shifts and changes into an imagery of the battle that took place. “A sea panther, huh?” She chimes, flashing him a grin and letting a laugh slip from her throat – a slight squeeze to his shoulder from the hand still draped around his. The mention of the Flood however, has Rexanna ‘tsking’ lightly under her breath. “The flood? Wait – Oh! Sunjata?”

Once the realization hits, she very undignifiedly cackles.

“Are you sure? I absolutely would’ve.” She scrunches her nose in clear distaste and amusement. When Deimos continues to shift the magic and the creatures in the water. She lets the thoughts in her mind swirl as the panther begins to dissipate into the foam of the hot springs again. “I take it you all killed it?” Her sapphire gaze flits back to him, a dark brow raised.

But then, the words that leave his lips as she magically makes the bear claws appear, has her grinning a wide fanged grin at him. “You’re never without me, Deimos.” She lifts her free hand once she’s finished her bear claw and taps him on his chest, over where his heart is. “I’m here. Always.”

maybe one day they'll chant our names

and name galaxies after us, and we too shall be eternal

REXANNA

Deimos the Reaper You can't take back the cards you've dealt on this long and lonely road to hell the throne must be such a sad and lonely place Touch expressed but not truly felt, not with wraiths, phantoms, factions of memories, the notions of support still there otherwise. Her laughter was a balm, a press of other days better spent, out of idle seclusion and heartache. He’d orchestrate it again and again if he could; to listen to a sound he’d not otherwise have any longer, to make it last for as long as possible. The cackle was followed by a raw chuckle of his own, guttural and wild, real and tangible for those interludes of seconds and snippets. Even when the subject altered slightly, and only because he didn’t really care if it was dead or not, his brow furrowed, an undulating shrug through soothed shoulders. “It dissolved.” Whether or not that meant it was dead or merely just gone into the ether, back into fathoms and depths, he didn’t know. But he still put on a show, as icicles like daggers curled from the water too, and stabbed at the manifested beast. You’re never without me echoed and ricocheted, and if there was one thing he remembered from all of this, he hoped it was that sentiment, stored in his heart. “And Kiada? And everyone else too?” A plea, falling from lips, from the piercing set of his gaze.

_{Photo and Table by Time
Photo taken at Hero's Square in Budapest, Hungary}

i'm tired of the weight of mortality, i want to tear it from my veins

until i bleed silver and gold

“Dissolved, huh?” She asks, a rogue grin splashing across her face as she works to finish her bear claw, before she settles in the water a brief amount. His laughter ebbs and flows with her own, and she can’t help but to snicker lightly to herself at the end of it – leaning toward him more and more as the flame and firework she’d always embodied, the eclipse she had grown to be.

Still, he distracts her in the water, with icicles stab into the creature like large daggers, a pleased smirk lingering along her face when she goes to turn to him, to tap his chest, over his heart – ensuring the sentiment remained long after she was gone again. “Kiada is there. Everyone else too.” She says softly, head tilting slightly as her smile grows softer, more for him than anything else. “Rumor has it Bastien has a painting of me for you. One Kiada picked out… Talk to us there. We’ll hear it.” She says softly, the glimmer of the aurora above reflecting in her eyes.

maybe one day they'll chant our names

and name galaxies after us, and we too shall be eternal

REXANNA

Deimos the Reaper You can't take back the cards you've dealt on this long and lonely road to hell the throne must be such a sad and lonely place He wondered at the way other things dissolved; moving through the world within an abyss, within a streamlined detachment, until suddenly they flickered into nothingness. Was that how some had died? Was that how some had lived? Was it just a mere token of the void, to swallow and consume, sometimes in the clarity of light and sound, and sometimes in naught at all. Was he like that? Would he eventually just dissolve? He swallowed the pieces down, muffled a snort when she poked him in the chest again. “Then my heart should be very full.” So why did it always feel so cracked? So worn? So tired? So frayed? So exhausted? “Can I talk to you anywhere?” A head tilt, the notice of a painting waiting for him giving him the slightest pause.

_{Photo and Table by Time
Photo taken at Hero's Square in Budapest, Hungary}