remember that you can't save everyone
remember that you have to try
He couldn’t be quite certain; the memories flickering back over the multitudes of mayhem from previous LongNights, where Kiada had arrived back into a shelter he’d eventually burn down (not a sanctuary at all, but a blistering crescendo of monsters lurking in the midst), where she’d sobbed and broken apart and there’d been nothing. Nothing he could’ve done. She hadn’t asked. She hadn’t wanted him out there. She’d longed to do it herself, without his overwhelming, overbearing presence. And here he was, likely to commit that very sin – because she was no longer here, and couldn’t complete it herself. “I believe she had to destroy whatever held him.” A pause; calculating again, returning to grounds he understood, brows furrowing in concentration, eyes riveting to the table surface. “Once I am no longer sick, I intend to ask Ludo for the details and permission.” Jigano had been involved previously, and the man was no longer around. Change after change; enduring it all with his own alterations, striving, struggling to survive.
Dragons seemed to hold the respectable lineage here – and from what he’d learned and experienced, justifiably so. Their mission had been poorly, foolishly executed, and four had suffered from it – and the three survivors meant to hold those burdens for lifetimes thereafter. Or, he had anyway; in his rage, in his frustration, and now, in the haunting eaves of living in this midst, the difficulty in remaining in this land, with their bodies still left behind, contorted and coiled in his notions and contemplations. “They are.” Not a denial in the stupidity of his ideas, but willing to put them forth. “I found a way to retrieve the dragon companion, but there had not been enough time for the others.” Before they’d been under threat and duress, before they’d nearly been bombarded by death, before they crumbled and fell to pieces. “We disturbed the beast initially. If I could find a method in not doing so -,” he shrugged, cutting himself off; thoughts circulating back to the invisibility cloak in his possession. On a whim, he produced a piece of paper, conjuring some charcoal for writing, and flattened the parchment along the table.
Loren, ever the topic of some debate due to his bizarre actions, caused him to lean back in his chair once more, abandoning the writing and sketching for a moment. His drink forgotten, distracted, an arch to his brow molding back on otherwise stoic features, his head tilted, contemplative in different venues. Not planning, not planning, but considering the Firebrand as a whole. “Perhaps your warning will be enough.”
out for vengeance
DEIMOS
