new-rising smoke

DEIMOS

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

But Kiada had made a choice too. And he still couldn’t, wouldn’t, begrudge, demean, or condemn her for it, the way she wanted to stick a barb into his side now. She’d been aware of the Voice, the tension, the weight, of everything before. She’d been immersed in it. She’d been maligned by it. And he couldn’t quite fathom how now she was perfectly fine with all of the notions, all of the nuances, all of the monstrous fringes and boundaries, save for how the Voice had saved her. Had given her another opportunity. Maybe that was the modicum of manipulation too – that the goddess had somehow plucked away the filaments and accord of bitterness, of rancor, of memories so tied, so tethered, so binding, and made her creations forgo the torment of before. His voice rumbled, and he stilled, as if a part of stone again, crushed under the weight of things that tore them apart. “I cannot forget all the things she has done. What she did to you, with the blight. Or the monsters. The Mathair.” And everything else laden in between. Had she forgotten about Ru’in so easily? How her own mother had been butchered and stabbed by the infidel’s methods? Did it no longer matter?

Did she expect him to change his entire being, all his beliefs, to throw it all away, simply because she had?

For some reason, he’d never thought them capable of it. Maybe it’d been naïve. Stupid. Foolish. Ignorant. Of turning upon one another. Of being on opposite ends. As if his love and protection would’ve been enough, as if it ever had been.

The Sword had been wrong about that too, so many god damned times.

He ignored the rumination of bargaining; he’d already cast it aside, had no idea why she mentioned it again. There was nothing to be done – their sentiments placed so wholly upon the angles of darkness, and he wondered if she could see how it brutalized and maimed him, how his features turned downcast, mournful, fleeting, as if she was already gone once more. As he could feel everything they’d ever accomplished together slipping away. Second chances withering, decaying, and things he couldn’t save her from, because she wouldn’t want it.

This had happened before – he could feel it in the echoes of his chest, in the way Amalia had chosen to leave him behind, in the way he’d been tossed aside, and it stuck fast in between his ribs and broke something encased within. Panic and trepidation dealt a heavy blow, warred and circumvented, remembering promises and how they unraveled. “Please do not go-,” and his hands pressed against his eyes, palms covering the wounds in his piercing gaze, elbows leaning forward until he thought he might break in two; the tall, proud structure faltering, buckling. And then Deimos thought he could ask no more of her, because she, like so many others before her, would flee anyway. “I love you. I told you that would not change.”

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

KIADA

i'm sorry to interrupt, it's just i'm constantly on the cusp
of trying to kiss you, i don't know if you feel the same as i do

“I can’t forget it either but I can try to make changes from being within.” She says abruptly, with all the strength she can muster in her words. “She gave me another chance, Deimos.” She shuts her jaw tight, her teeth clicking together with an audible sound as she tries to comprehend what’s happening. She was a victim of the blight, she was a victim of LongNight, of monsters stealing faces and hearts of those that she loved. And yet? She’d fought them this last LongNight. She’d watched as Nate killed a boggart wearing Sunjata’s face just as Kiada had killed Ru’in once upon a time.

And through it all? She’d realized one important thing. That Wessex wasn’t the voice of the Voice. And that perhaps the Wraith had been right when she’d said she needed to talk to the goddess, to find out what she was like. Perhaps Kiada needed to simply try to find a space to carve into, given that she’d likely die anyway.

“She brought me back to life.” She adds on, an iridescent sheen of tears that spring to her eyes have her stubbornly blinking them away as he begins to collapse in on himself. And she wants to help him, she wants to be there for him just as he had been there for her so many times. It hurts and fractures her within, barbs pointed and sharpened in all the spaces she thought she’d had guarded.

Perhaps she’d been a fool to trust it in the first place. Perhaps she’d been right when she’d kept her walls up so high. To stop getting hurt again and again. Perhaps it was always to end like this. Perhaps she should have never come back, never should have given this difficulty between them. Perhaps she should’ve died and stayed dead if only to not have to watch him crumble in on himself again.

She steps toward him, hands removed out of her pockets again, reaching out for his elbow and his arm, fighting the tears in her gaze as she tries to offer something of sympathy. “I love you too.” She breathes, her voice shaking, her fingers trembling. “But what do I do?” She asks, quietly, stubbornly pushing through the way her throat wishes to constrict around everything. “I-I can’t live without her.” She gets it, how difficult it is. “There is no fixing this. I wanted this to come back to you and Chulane and Hotaru… And… And I just made it worse. I shouldn’t…” She shakes her head, bites at her lower lip. “The war is coming and I will die if the Voice is destroyed and there's nothing I can do about it but wait. I don't... I don't want to die again. Not yet. But I will.”

but we could be together, if you wanted to
do i wanna know if this feeling flows both ways?

DEIMOS

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

Changes from within, like it was means of infiltration instead of necessity. Like she had any say in a system of individuals meant for the same manifestations, amidst the folds of Wessex and all her beliefs. And maybe Kiada could morph, could alter, could ensure there were revisions and modifications, but gods, the damage had already been done. And now it tore in his chest, beating and flaring, swift and anxious, because he could feel so many factions and moments and everything slipping away all over again. Could an individual be grateful for a goddess, and hate her all at once? Was that where he loomed now, glad and gratified that Kiada had been granted another opportunity, because she hadn’t been done, but loathing the way it burned into them now?

These weren’t the foundations they’d built. These weren’t the mountains they’d crossed. These weren’t the summits they recalled.

Instead it was heartbreak and disarray, eroding, toppling figures of might and menace, and he was losing every piece so rapidly that it scarcely seemed to matter how far he reached and how much he craved for just some part of the whole. “I know,” he whispered, the granules of his tears beginning to take their path down his cheeks, incapable of being hidden any longer. He could repeat it a thousand times, and it would echo in his mind, in his soul, in his entity, and still sizzle in the same frame, the same broken, frayed seams. Some days he wished he could be the Reaper once more – and not care, not care, not care, indifferent and walled and icy and apathetic as the world churned around him and he only fed it his flames, his ruthlessness.

Instead, now he could feel his hands shaking and bones aching, heart beating against his ribs and stifling his lungs as his brain searched desperately for something. But it was empty, hollow, and vast, a siege upon itself, where all his calculations, schemes, and plots didn’t matter. He couldn’t fix this one. He couldn’t reach out and stand in front of her, take the blows. He couldn’t shield her from a life she’d chosen, and everything that came with it. Maybe he’d never been able to, and reality merely pushed it that much further.

What good was he to any of them?

She didn’t leave – not yet – there at his side while he decayed, and Deimos instinctively reached out for her, tried to clutch and grasp and protect where he could, so she’d fit in the crook of his shoulder and neck and that would alleviate the torment. Where he could guard for a second longer as she whispered horrific things into the darkness. The Sword’s breaths constricted and contorted, shallow, sputtering, at her words, as his hand wrapped around her head and he pressed her further into his furs, into the emerald scarf she’d just given him, grasping until he thought he’d have nothing left. “And we are so glad you did. No one would deny it.” To want to live again, to be renewed, resurrected – just now inexplicably tied and tethered to a goddess on opposing sides. Her phrases clawed at him though, at the misery residing there, at the fracturing shards, at pathways taken and eroded. “You did not make it worse.” The Voice had. Offering to souls who craved second chances.

His voice cracked while he searched for sentiments, for ruminations, forgoing those notions of impending death. “We can keep training. We can-,” and he was lost. “I do not know.”

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

KIADA

i'm sorry to interrupt, it's just i'm constantly on the cusp
of trying to kiss you, i don't know if you feel the same as i do

I know. He says as he crumbles, as he caves, as tears stream down his face and Kiada wonders if the steam coming off of them into the cold night is from anger or if whether it’s from regret. And all she can do is watch, try to help when it feels like all she’s ever been good at is making things worse. She’s made it worse by coming back. She’s made it worse by choosing the wrong side. But everyone had said she should have been happy with Mort’s Realm, that she should’ve been content to drift in the blackness of comfort and happiness for the rest of eternity.

But she wasn’t.

And the opportunity presented itself in a way much like her mother’s had.

Her hand rises to touch his elbow, to try and offer the comfort there where she can, and he sputters as he pulls her into him, against him – so tight that her face buries into the layers upon layers of furs and the strong pane of his body beneath it all – like a marble statue. He crushes her against him and she doesn’t mind, because she can’t breathe, she can’t feel pain, she could stay there as long as he needed for her to be his crutch.

Only… The conversation is too hard and all Kiada wants to do is run from it when he confirms that no one would deny it, that she hadn’t made it worse.

If she hadn’t made it worse, why was it all falling apart again?

His voice cracks and she shrinks further internally, a tremble within her that she can’t quite keep out – like a chill that races down her spine in the cold despite how she doesn’t feel it. And her arms wrap around him in turn, as if it might be one of the last times they got to do this so freely. “Training will help me on the battlefield, but it won’t… It won’t do anything if she’s gone.” She lets the fear and worry pour into her voice.

“If I don’t have a way to get the fluid, I’ll shut down.” And it will have all been for nothing.

And there’s nothing they can do.

but we could be together, if you wanted to
do i wanna know if this feeling flows both ways?

DEIMOS

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

Wrong on both accounts; because the tears were mired in sorrow and the knowledge of loss. Because his life was synonymous with erosion and demise, and he’d already gone through this once – had to listen as the words ricocheted through his head that she was dead. Perished. And the implication that it was all going to cycle back through and there were only miniscule measures he could compile, he could strive for, tore and lanced, lacerated and disassembled, against his beating, aching heart. It felt like his fault, for not being enough, and the age-old wounds and stitching were coming apart, and things like faith, like hope, felt stupefying and useless. Not meant for here, for now, and he could only yield to the pressure burning behind his eyes, to the dangerous, treacherous way the world worked.

Nor was he a statue at all, not any longer; bending into those emotions he always kept so carefully hidden, controlled, contorted, reeling in their factions and bindings like a trapped fool. And he was – ignorant and blundering, incapable of seeing a way out. All he’d ever wanted for her was for the Harpy to become strong and enduring, capable and wise, mighty and tenacious – but the path was away from. Away from them.

This wasn’t his responsibility, and this wasn’t his burden, and this wasn’t where Rexanna would’ve liked either of them to be, but it still cast itself on his shoulders. Still laid there, as he tried to make her understand, as he cradled her against him like it was a lifeline he’d never have again. “Maybe I can make something,” grasping at straws as he stared down at the ground, as he began to whittle away at naught once more. To what? Guard her from the world? Snag at fluid? Keep her tethered and caught, just like the Voice? It gnawed and choked at him, grasped at his throat, at his ribs, and he could hear her worry, even if he couldn’t feel it any longer, and it made him break and snap too.

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

KIADA

i'm sorry to interrupt, it's just i'm constantly on the cusp
of trying to kiss you, i don't know if you feel the same as i do

Oh, but it wasn’t Deimos’ fault. She had chosen to come back, she’d picked the Ascended side – she had to have realized at some point that the gods would bring them all down to war since the moment the barrier had opened. Still, the Harpy had chosen it. Had chosen life from her peaceful black void where she listlessly floated along. She’d chosen fire and brimstone, and now the costs are arising to the surface.

She just didn’t expect the costs to hurt so much.

He falls apart just as she wishes to fall apart, but neither of them can keep each other together. Not with this wedge driven between them. Not with the realization that Deimos could try and do anything, and her knowing that deep down it would never fix her the way he and the Old Gods wanted her to be fixed. If fixed at all.

She was tainted now, regardless. What else was there for her to do other than fight to try and stay alive? She clings to him just as he clings to her, buries her face into his shoulder, hearing and numbly feeling the vibration of his voice as he grasps at straws, and Kiada’s tired of it. Tired of arguing. Tired of trying to get her point across. So she sags into him, jaw tight enough that her teeth nearly creak.

“Maybe.” She finally decides, a whisper aired into the quiet night amongst the emotions and pain.

but we could be together, if you wanted to
do i wanna know if this feeling flows both ways?

DEIMOS

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

It was not very often that Deimos sunk into desperation. A quick, analytical, tactical mind borne from scholarly books, intuition, and ability to examine, scrutinize, and evaluate notions in calculating endeavors had served him well through multiple lifetimes. The battlefield had taught him swiftness and a keen eye; judgement through a single glance. But these notions, these moments, left him with nothing to hold onto but her, and even then, it didn’t feel fair. It didn’t feel right. A mess of fiendish proportions, and he couldn’t see a light at the end, couldn’t ascertain the accord of what he could create or contort that would do any damn bit of good. How he could fix this when there wasn’t anything to mend but severed hearts and withering dreams. Nothing to be done.

But wait? But sit there and mire himself into the same agonies he’d endured before and before and before? Again and again?

Something bitter coated his throat and he swallowed it down, peeling away; understanding her forefront, her argument, her position, but still wanting to skim over the top of it, not relent. Not give in. Fight, fight, fight when there wasn’t anything to win – how he’d survived and endured for so god damn long. Dig heels in. Raise his head. Defy and seditiously spread his vehemence into the world, let them know, let them see, let them understand –

He sighed and stilled, raised a palm to dash away at more of the tears, trying to stop their tracks, agonized and brutalized by the way the earth shifted into these plains of anguish, clutched there, in the thresholds of shadows and darkness. And she’d quieted too; maybe numbed, maybe tired of it all, maybe sickened and weary of the way their paths melded now. And all he could do was whisper back into the fold, with choking nuances and gathered breaths. “I will try to come up with something.” Because if he didn’t, it felt like admitting defeat.

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

KIADA

i'm sorry to interrupt, it's just i'm constantly on the cusp
of trying to kiss you, i don't know if you feel the same as i do

They could try and try, though Kiada seems as though her mind is made. There’s nothing that can be done, nothing that could be made to sustain her, nothing that could be done to change her. If there were, how is she to know that it wouldn’t be a life of suffering? She can’t tell, she’s unsure if she wants to know. He’d said no bargains, but… If the Old Gods wouldn’t help, what then? The Voice wouldn’t. They were her perfect creations.

She’s resigned to simply enjoying what she has left, she supposes. She just hadn’t expected the realization that Deimos wouldn’t choose to try and stay out of it all, only to be picking a distinguished side. And it cuts deep, cuts her sharply in her chest – because no matter how much he loved her, when there were no other option? She’d still be destroyed in the end, too.

He tries to control his emotions and she tries to make herself less stony, less cold inside, less of a whirlwind that wasn’t sure whether it wanted to fall apart or fall into some sort of destruction. “Okay.” She says softly, believing that he’d try what he could, knowing there were lines he wouldn’t cross, and that she’d have to deal with whatever it was he’s chosen.

Her arms give him a light squeeze before she moves to pull away from him again, her insides hollow, and she almost wishes she could feel her heartbeat if only to feel it sink and thunder within her. “Let me know, okay?”

but we could be together, if you wanted to
do i wanna know if this feeling flows both ways?

DEIMOS

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

Had the Sword, or the Reaper, ever been an impartial witness? Perhaps once or twice in his life, amongst the lines of things that didn’t directly affect him or his people, but it’d always been few and far between. Seething on the edges of skirmishes, stalking in the hollows of shadows, a broadening, intimidating faction on his own – striving to ensure no one in his wake suffered needlessly. But they still had, no matter his attempts, and vengeance had usually come swift, keen, blunt, straight to the point, into the muscle and bones of the perpetrator. But that had been Isilme. That had been Helovia. Caido had become an altogether different game for him to wander within: murky, veiled, shrouded, and sometimes he felt he lost the notions altogether, struggling and striving to grasp onto the tethers that resounded the most.

His family. His friends. His loved ones. Openly cherished, and they slid and slipped away despite his best efforts, despite protection and promises –

And it hurt deeply, to extend himself blindly, willingly, into circumstances that couldn’t be salvaged.

Deimos swallowed it down once more, as Kiada began to retreat, as time shifted and he freed her from his embrace. The beast wished he could’ve grabbed hold of her cheeks, squeezed them until she resembled a fish, that there were ways to go back and undo so many god damned things and moments (beg her not to go into the Climb), but then she would’ve never stretched her wings. Then she would’ve never become stronger. Then she would’ve been stuck just the same. So he clenched his jaw and looked down at the stones, before tilting his head, ensuring that saddened, piercing gaze locked on her. “I will.” Solemn and distorted, a quiet, diminished, anguished oath; uncertain if anything would come of it. But he'd never kept anything from her either.

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

KIADA

i'm sorry to interrupt, it's just i'm constantly on the cusp
of trying to kiss you, i don't know if you feel the same as i do

This world, much like the others Kiada’s been to, have all seemed to have one thing very notably in common. That she’d end up on the opposite side of things from those that she cared about, from those that she loved. It happened when she’d followed Kisamoa under the idea of power and strength. It had happened when she’d chosen Kisamoa again in the Rift versus the god with the name Hope who was anything but. And it’s happened here, again, because she wanted a second chance at life, at finishing what she’d started.

And here’s where it feels like it begins to fall apart.

She doesn’t know what else to say other than to prompt him to tell her when he finds something out to try, if only to try it for him.

He confirms that he will and their embrace is released and Kiada doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t know whether it’s a good idea to stray away, to try and figure things out, doesn’t know whether she should go home and try to deal with it or if she needs to be there for him to continue to fall apart all because of her. So all she can do is nod, quietly, clench her teeth, and shove her hands back into her pockets. “So what now?”

but we could be together, if you wanted to
do i wanna know if this feeling flows both ways?

DEIMOS

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

The Sword’s sharp mind had a talent, a knack, for calculating, for corresponding into potential solutions and machinations, for digging deep, solving, processing, striving for areas and routes of probable wiles. But in this moment, he had nothing. Maybe there hadn’t been enough time. Maybe his brain had been hardwired into despair, rather than prospects and likelihoods. Or maybe, deep down, it had already accepted the inevitable (naught), and his heart had yet to catch up. Always the last to know, to go, to understand.

He’d had a whole category of amusements for her in the instances before these shards, and he almost craved he’d said nothing at all – gone right back to his usual mode of keeping everything covered, hidden, under wraps, veiled, shrouded, until necessity drove it onward. But it wouldn’t have been fair to her. And anything he could’ve, would’ve said now was a moot point. All the work he’d done to earn himself some level of normalcy, of not wading through the murk and grime of heartbreak, of anguish, of grief, seemed gone.

And so now they lingered in the fading, disjointed interludes of what had always been a strong, committed bond, fracturing from the inside out, and he didn’t want to look at the writing on the wall. Didn’t want to see. Didn’t want to encompass. Didn’t want to languish in that infernal abyss any longer. Instead of everything else that surfaced over his skin, his eyes focused on hers, before a sigh filtered through; like his entire ribcage forced the mutiny, the sedition, into the air. “We do what we can.” Whether it was fight or flight, diminish or strive, make and manifest something out of the dregs, the dirges, the scraps of what was left.

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

KIADA

i'm sorry to interrupt, it's just i'm constantly on the cusp
of trying to kiss you, i don't know if you feel the same as i do

It felt like a never ending stream of survival for the Harpy – which in a way, it absolutely was. She’d been reborn again, on the wrong side according to so many, and while she harbored frustration and anger toward the Voice for the things she’s done, Kiada has never once entirely felt like she didn’t have a choice when it came to the goddess. The only times she hasn’t has been through Wessex – and even that, as it turns out, wasn’t a truthful representation of the Voice.

It had been Wessex’s mission and Kiada had done exactly as Wessex described when faced with the realization she’d be going to LongNight to fight. She hadn’t gone and seen the Voice and asked of it. She’d simply remained fine with her choices, fine with seeing the result. And now, being on the other side? When she had hoped things would calm down?

Well, it all began to crumble apart again.

So she reaches up to wipe at her eyes, to stubbornly pretend as if the admission hadn’t cut through her as much as it did, before her gaze focuses on Deimos. “We do what we can.” She agrees quietly, afraid that if she speaks too loud her voice might break and give her away. So she remains quiet, solemn, exhausted.

but we could be together, if you wanted to
do i wanna know if this feeling flows both ways?

DEIMOS

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

The semblance, the sense, that both of them were near a breaking point coiled back into him. He could barely maintain any posture of composure now, fighting along the clench of his jaw, the multitudes of everything else grasping and clawing at his cranium. The beast hated that this was suddenly in between them – a gaping chasm he’d seen, he’d noticed beforehand, but ignored for the sake of her revival, her renewal, her chance at life. And he’d been so entirely careful, that now it flared right in his face – no fire, save for the embers beginning to cool and pool into ashes in his chest.

And his eyes searched hers again, suddenly, infinitely tired and exhausted, ready to beg and plead for something neither of them could have. So he’d be quiet again, take the harsh accords right back into the fold of his heart and mind and soul, and wonder where they’d been so skewed and devastated. “Do you want me to leave?” A whisper, a solemn gesture, that he’d give her the time and space she needed, even if that broke him too. Because for the moment he had naught else to offer.

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

KIADA

i'm sorry to interrupt, it's just i'm constantly on the cusp
of trying to kiss you, i don't know if you feel the same as i do

His gaze searches hers again and she tries her best to keep a strong face, tries to keep herself under control, tries not to let him see just how much the admission hurts her within. His question is a whisper on the air, quiet, broken, hollow, just as she suddenly feels within once more, and she can’t help the way her brows pinch together a fraction with it. What does she say? Yes and watch him fall apart? No and sit there in awkward silence?

She tears her gaze away and balls her fists into her pockets where he can’t see them, sucks down an unnecessary breath as she considers it. “You don’t have to.” She decides after a moment. “I would like to go home, though. You can walk me there if you want.” She suggests, finally finding the courage within her to glance over to him once more, searching his face for the answer there.

but we could be together, if you wanted to
do i wanna know if this feeling flows both ways?