DEIMOS
the resurrected sword
She was unrelenting and he accepted it – the work of her reach and angles, movement and motions, releasing the lifetimes of pressure, friction, and antipathy, and the walls with it. Not that his ramparts and fortifications were felled so easily, but the reality was that he didn’t need them here. So his head leaned against his forearm and he drifted, lulled, eyes flickering shut, blinking rapidly again every so often, incapable of telling her she’d been right all along, but figuring the Valkyrie would sense it all the same.
It wasn’t until she spoke again that his attention wandered back – piercing eyes only peeking out over the brawn of his arm, gazing around the room again, pondering over shallow bonds. Over simple meetings and then nothing more – utilizing others for what they could do, calculating their impacts, and maneuvering on. He’d accomplished those remnants for a long time, and only since Caido had learned to appreciate, delve deeper, find solace in the steadfast units of camaraderie. He’d hoped to concoct similar shelters and sanctuaries in the breadth of his own existence; but apparently had gone too far, setting a path and course for his own self-destruction.
While the monolith had no adequate response for the first, the second, soft and hushed, contorted in a way that hurt. There were several seconds where he would’ve preferred to do nothing more than curl back in on himself, hide and mold and cast all these rendered fibers and sinew right back into a shield. Instead, he flinched, shifting his head so his chin rested along forearms again, half-inclined to clench his jaw, to sink and sink and sink until everything consumed him. But he’d worked tremendously hard at not breaking and bending, and not becoming swallowed, bogged down, by all the heartbreak, all the abandonment, and all the ways he hadn’t been worthy or deserving. “I do not know,” he answered truthfully, tempted to flicker into a low rumble, to tell her to back off and away from the inquiry. “I never searched for it.” But the rain and then the stars had soaked him to the bone, and he’d been lost in both of them. Accepted and cherished for a time, and then left – forsaken, no matter to those he would’ve willingly sacrificed himself for again and again. “If I do not work on myself though, I will probably fall back into the same habits.”
Giving, giving, giving, until there was nothing left.
He didn’t look at her. Didn’t lift or tilt his head any further, only aware of her occurrences and relationships amidst Helovia, and then here. Of her children, and how she’d tried. Of Sunjata and Nate, and how she’d wanted to find a place. Of how it had broken off or away in somehow, someway, each and every time. “You have always persevered.”
It wasn’t until she spoke again that his attention wandered back – piercing eyes only peeking out over the brawn of his arm, gazing around the room again, pondering over shallow bonds. Over simple meetings and then nothing more – utilizing others for what they could do, calculating their impacts, and maneuvering on. He’d accomplished those remnants for a long time, and only since Caido had learned to appreciate, delve deeper, find solace in the steadfast units of camaraderie. He’d hoped to concoct similar shelters and sanctuaries in the breadth of his own existence; but apparently had gone too far, setting a path and course for his own self-destruction.
While the monolith had no adequate response for the first, the second, soft and hushed, contorted in a way that hurt. There were several seconds where he would’ve preferred to do nothing more than curl back in on himself, hide and mold and cast all these rendered fibers and sinew right back into a shield. Instead, he flinched, shifting his head so his chin rested along forearms again, half-inclined to clench his jaw, to sink and sink and sink until everything consumed him. But he’d worked tremendously hard at not breaking and bending, and not becoming swallowed, bogged down, by all the heartbreak, all the abandonment, and all the ways he hadn’t been worthy or deserving. “I do not know,” he answered truthfully, tempted to flicker into a low rumble, to tell her to back off and away from the inquiry. “I never searched for it.” But the rain and then the stars had soaked him to the bone, and he’d been lost in both of them. Accepted and cherished for a time, and then left – forsaken, no matter to those he would’ve willingly sacrificed himself for again and again. “If I do not work on myself though, I will probably fall back into the same habits.”
Giving, giving, giving, until there was nothing left.
He didn’t look at her. Didn’t lift or tilt his head any further, only aware of her occurrences and relationships amidst Helovia, and then here. Of her children, and how she’d tried. Of Sunjata and Nate, and how she’d wanted to find a place. Of how it had broken off or away in somehow, someway, each and every time. “You have always persevered.”
under the bludgeonings of chance
my head is bloody, but unbowed
my head is bloody, but unbowed
