i can't breathe anymore

is it better to be a monster with a heart, or a human without a soul?

my hands are shaking

She’d taken a trip to the Tundra in the hopes that the cold might temper her anger, but the isolation had only sparked more of her flame. She knows what she has to do, she’s spoken with Chulane of it, and the plan is set in motion. Now it’s simply trying to figure out the ways to get from point A to point B. So she starts small, boxing up the things to take with her from her and Chuy’s home, pairing it with a few different pieces of her life before she’d died and returned.

And when she’d gotten tired of that, she’d ended up wandering – walking and walking through the snows in the middle of the night, the moonlight glinting off the snows as the wind pushes it to creep up the edges of the buildings where the cobblestone sits.

She finds herself outside Deimos’ door, at least, the one she hopes is still his. She doesn’t know why, the rage within her too unwieldy, too volatile, but she finds herself here regardless – and it’s there that she waits, not knocking, not announcing her presence (sure that his companions would have notified him as they may have seen her on her approach). So all the Harpy does is stand outside the door, leaning against a pillar on the other side, staring. Stewing. Thrumming.

my knuckles are bruised

but i survived

KIADA

DEIMOS

ache first, but then let the cuts close
spit out the blood

Nothing easy, everything exposed, twitches in veins that still made them entirely human. After events unfurled one by one, some by small degrees, changing, altering the Council Hall to the new Wardens’ likings, restoring the barracks to what they were before, and some larger, impending, skimming under the surface. The first, perhaps, was at his door.

The evening had peeled away layers upon layers and left him drafting schematics and particulars on parchment, collected by the fireside and along a desk. Belial sounded the alarm first, merely by scratching at the backside of the aperture, and so he stood, presuming something in its wake – opening towards the outer world, letting the cold settle into his bones, and rounding his piercing eyes upon Kiada. The peryton jumped and squealed, but with one warning, and her body language, even the youth stilled. The Sword breathed, and naught was going to be easy. Would it be a repetition of past conversations? Or something new altogether? “Come in,” not a command or a demand; but an invitation.

He didn’t offer his hand; not like before. She hadn’t wanted it then, and she likely didn’t want it now.

Still solid, strong, and stalwart, he drifted back into his own confines. They were boxed up as well, getting ready to move back into the barracks apartments; boxes here and there on the table, Rexanna’s lantern untouched in the middle, a few other odds and ends collected from the Spartan void (weapons gathered in their own little section). He began to speak, another rumble, grabbing hold of what he’d been working on. “Sah gave me an idea. I do not know if it is feasible, but I wanted to talk to you about it when you returned.” Just the timing was incredibly off, like everything else.

watch your body pull itself back together
then let your soul do the same

is it better to be a monster with a heart, or a human without a soul?

my hands are shaking

Despite the palpable frustration airing from her skin and her body language, an invitation is an invitation, and the Harpy pushes herself off the wall she’d leaned against – slowly at first, as if tentatively – as if she didn’t trust a damned word said in that meeting that had just happened. But she follows through with it anyway, remaining nothing short of a silent pillar, a pillar that’s cracking and crumbling under the pressure of everything piled on lately.

An idea, though? To talk to her about whether it was feasible or not? Her nose wrinkles for a fraction, before she sucks down a breath she certainly doesn’t need, reaching up to run a hand over her hair that’s tucked back into a ponytail before she moves to sit in the chair opposite of his desk, crossing one leg over the other as her glacial gaze dances along Deimos’ plans briefly, before ultimately finding the Reaper turned Sword.

“What’s the idea?” She asks, a bit flatly, unsure and uncertain if she even wants to know. If nothing else, Kiada knows she has an idea, too, but it likely isn’t one Deimos would like.

She supposes they’re past that now.

my knuckles are bruised

but i survived

KIADA

DEIMOS

ache first, but then let the cuts close
spit out the blood

Half-expecting a refusal, for her to remain standing and brooding out in the evening, the surprise didn’t show on his face. Instead, he simply, quietly, closed the door behind her. Belial intended to rush at her, but was waylaid by the Sword’s movements, and Zuriel lifted her head from her spot beside the hearth. The greetings weren’t there; not in their normal, assuaging, soothing adornments. Not with everything else. Kiada’s body language alone offered him nothing but coldness, and so he was lost on where to start or where it ended.

Maybe he deserved it. Maybe he didn’t. But he’d always strived to help her, in any way he could. He moved behind his desk, picking up the paper with details written along it, passing it towards her, shards of little outlines and notes, ending precariously with question marks. This was at an impasse, a roughened out length of potential and possibility, but with the tenuous regard that it was vastly limited, and might go nowhere at all. “Sah mentioned researching the components of Ascended fluid. To figure out how it might be made, and then if it could be re-constructed, perhaps synthetically, without the Voice.” Longshot upon longshot upon longshot. “I do not have the capability for any of that. But maybe someone else does.” Passing it along to her – to do with it what she willed.

Finally, his eyes glanced over to her once more. He would’ve liked to have asked about her trip. He would’ve liked to inquire about Chulane, and if things were going well. He would’ve liked to return to days that weren’t like this, but there was no way back into the past. “Have you thought of anything?” came out instead, stoic and reticent all over again.

watch your body pull itself back together
then let your soul do the same

is it better to be a monster with a heart, or a human without a soul?

my hands are shaking

She settles in the chair and papers are offered her way, a pale hand (paler than she ever had been before, aside from possibly a child living in the Basin) reaches for the information, bringing it close and into her lap so that she might be able to read the strewn suggestions, the question marks that signify the dead ends, and which things there are to pursue.

She doesn’t know this Sah, but she listens regardless, silent and brooding, a tempest of a storm waiting like a lioness in tall grass, waiting to strike at whatever dares to come too close. It’s an option that truthfully sounds incredibly uncomfortable. What if the process is too long, what if the synthetic fluid ran out once the Voice no longer existed?

There were too many what ifs that she withdraws further, lowering the paper to her legs as her gaze lifts to Deimos at the proffered question. “I’ve thought about it a lot.” She begins, her voice tight, muscles feathering in her jaw as if she’s restraining from mentioning too much. “I thought about it a lot, too, before I Ascended to come back.” She pauses, frowning. “And I agreed to it, everything involved. This is who I am and I don’t want to try and fix it, Deimos, I just want to live through a war that has one side actively wanting to murder us.” She shakes her head.

“I don’t agree with the Voice on a lot of things, sure, but… Why do I have to pay the price again for a war to begin with? What are the Old Gods so afraid of that they need their fingers in every pie to ensure that they win this war and eradicate us?” Because there was absolutely no way they’d let them live if the Voice were destroyed. She’d followed Ludo for the longest time, after all, and it was most ardently against the Ascended. “So I have to go where I’m safest. And it isn’t here anymore.”

my knuckles are bruised

but i survived

KIADA

DEIMOS

ache first, but then let the cuts close
spit out the blood

Patient, forbearing, tasked with listening to the parameters, to the way they’d been measured beforehand. A mind eternally willing, wishing they could go back to days spent beneath suns, canopies, mountains, bakeries, catapults flinging flower crowns; but knowing he couldn’t. The past wasn’t something to be buried, cherished, perhaps, but there was no way to cycle within. They’d had moments of wonder, of clarity, of laughter, and now he was going to, in some faction, lose her for a second time.

It ate at him; pooled into his chest as the revolution and discord took full effect. No way to fix. That she didn’t want it.

Something he’d have to learn and accept, deep, deep within. Choices made. Lives altered. And even if he wanted to carve through the patterns, the paths, the primrose-lined world, there were still some pieces where he couldn’t. Shouldn’t. It ground against his teeth and sharpened his breaths, but he nodded just the same, the understanding, the implications, at war with his mind. “I do not have answers for you.” The Sword didn’t know, didn’t know, didn’t know; shook his head, kept his piercing eyes on her. “But you must do what is best for you.”

watch your body pull itself back together
then let your soul do the same

is it better to be a monster with a heart, or a human without a soul?

my hands are shaking

It felt like a slow death. Painful, aching, until there was nothing that remained. And when the ability of having true fluid to explore ran out and it was entirely synthetic? What would happen to the rest of her? It’s unease that spreads through her frustration, unsettling her and causing her to shift as she sets the papers back on his desk, watching him curiously through a narrowed, sharp gaze.

There’s stillness to her now that isn’t from her Attunement. It’s a stillness of mechanical nature, of gears slowing and stopping, of unblinking and not breathing, no heartbeat to jar her. Until he speaks again, and the pieces start moving and she blinks first, nodding before her gaze drops to her hands. “Chulane and I are going to go to the Grounds, I think.” She says softly, gentler through the rage that still tastes like ash behind her teeth. “I can’t stay in a place that’s devoted to the Old Gods knowing that it only sets me up for disappointment.” She frowns, shaking her head before her gaze lifts to Deimos.

“I wanted to tell you before I left. So you would know.” That she hadn’t simply disappeared, but that she was somewhere, even if it wasn’t in the cold embrace of Halo.

my knuckles are bruised

but i survived

KIADA

DEIMOS

ache first, but then let the cuts close
spit out the blood

In the end, they were not the same any longer. Changed, altered, away from the original forms; no longer harbored in mountains, in shifts, or even in blood. And it hurt and clawed at him no matter what, because in his mind she was Kiada through and through; despite gears and fluid, rather than ichor or veins, and he would’ve done anything for her. But that wasn’t what she wanted or craved, and so in these footholds and schisms, there was nothing more he could do. Difficult to wrap his head around, while his bones ached and his ribcage burned, soul desperate for something, anything, to clench and claw his way around. Stubborn, inherent tenacity, carved into the lungs and bodies of those who’d lived in the Basin, of who’d thrived beneath the watchful eye of peaks and valleys –

And now? Now it seemed to be mean nothing.

She may not have needed to breathe, but he did; a long, unwinding sigh curling all the way through his nares. Because this felt like a finale he hadn’t prepared himself for, even though he’d known since the moment she came back.

A stone face and dropped gaze, staring at the floor of his own house, wondering where he could’ve picked up the pieces and made this better. “Understandable.” She didn’t need to keep explaining; it drummed against his heart and echoed in his ears. Something in his jaw clenched and he just waited for it all to stop. “Thank you for letting me know.” A pause, so when he lifted his head she could see all the sadness, all the despair, all the anguish combined into those piercing eyes, incapable of much else. "I am always here if you need me."

watch your body pull itself back together
then let your soul do the same

is it better to be a monster with a heart, or a human without a soul?

my hands are shaking

He understands, at the very least. That in order to make it through until the end of times she needed to leave, to go find friends and people she was safe around, a place where her and Chulane could be safe while everything went on. Sure, she realizes now that she has to fight. But it feels different – having to fight for your life versus the ability to massacre an entire race as well as their god. There are, of course, things she doesn’t agree with, though.

She doesn’t imagine it’s that much different from how Deimos felt with most gods before arriving here, too. But that’s a conversation that should have occurred before now, and Kiada had been reborn, a phoenix in the flames of her death in the Climb, ironic now to find that it would likely be flame that killed her again.

She stands from the seat she’d taken a residence within, the second his gaze lifts and he thanks her. It’s something she doesn’t expect, not as she steps toward him, her rage and prior fury breaking through to her heartache and sorrow as she opens her arms for him again. “I know.” She says quietly, wrapping her arms around him should he let her. She doesn’t imagine where he wouldn’t. “You were a great father to me, Deimos.” A quiet breath, her body cold beneath the furs that do little to keep her moderately warm compared to the rest of the bodies thriving in Halo. “But I have to go now.”

my knuckles are bruised

but i survived

KIADA

DEIMOS

ache first, but then let the cuts close
spit out the blood

How many times would he lose the same people? What game was this? Was it a slow, unwinding torture, to have them for so little, and then for it all to fade? For some, a gradual departure, for others, a quick demise, with nothing for him to do? Taken and taken and taken until there was naught left? Nowhere for him to go or follow, to shelter and protect, to offer sanctuary and refuge; a mere witness, a bystander, in the strokes and eaves of this unrelenting domain. He could’ve reached and denied, but to what end? He could’ve kept her there longer, but for what purpose? He could’ve tucked her under his massive wings, but she never would’ve flown again. And for all those times where he’d been told to selfishly snag and claw, to demand, to do something other than riddle and rankle around his own life like a god damned fool, this was empty and fathomless and he couldn’t change any of it.

The depths were coming up. He could feel them lingering at his sides, rampaging through like an endless sea; a whisper in the clarity of everything else. Where he might drown in his agony. Where he might perish in his anguish. Where he might drift away, and no one would care because there wouldn’t be anyone left. Where he might sink beneath waves and currents, go back to a time of moonlit tides and barefoot races, before any of this pain segmented and lodged itself deep into his soul, and refused to leave.

Her arms opened and closed around him and he tried to do the same – to offer warmth and strength and dominion when he didn’t feel it anymore, when the cold was beginning to seep into his lungs and drag him downward. He grasped and held, one last round of sanctuaries, and wished for hours where it’d only been the Harpy, where they were silly and stupid and not unfolded into these echoes and fringes.

But it was the were, and everything else with it, that ultimately broke his heart. Those age-old anthems returned; ancient and terrible. Not enough, not enough, not enough. They were silent shudders in his frame, tremors in his chest, harpoons in his ribs, whispers in the collected wake. “I love you,” a hushed rumble, choking back on so many other filaments and figments; but he’d said them all before. They hadn’t changed. Lips pressed against her hairline, another rise of torment. “Stay safe,” before he released her.

watch your body pull itself back together
then let your soul do the same

is it better to be a monster with a heart, or a human without a soul?

my hands are shaking

She tries her hardest to make it less hard for him. But it’s hard all around, hard to deal with, hard to compartmentalize everything that’s happened. All she can do is try her best to keep herself safe and she hopes that he understands that – he says he does, and she must take him at his word. If only because it was easier that way.

In a way, she’s thankful there’s no attuned bond to feel the torment within him. Thankful that he doesn’t have to feel her own hurt and sorrow and anger deep down. She can mask it, place it in a space to reflect on later, and when she hugs him and he tries to hug her back, his choked words rumbling from his lips within the hug, she squeezes a bit harder and presses her face into his shoulder. “I love you too, Deimos.” She whispers back, muffled by his clothes, but she knows he’s heard her.

As soon as he releases her, after the kiss pressed to her hairline, she lingers a fraction more – if only to take in the picture before she takes a long deep inhale she doesn’t need, and nods to his parting words of earlier. “I will try.” She doesn’t know whether or not staying safe would be a viable thing with the war coming. For now, though, she could certainly try. And she certainly intended to.

After a few moments longer, she nods to him once again, before she slips out of the door and closes it behind her, reaching up to run a hand through her dark hair to push it back into the braid that’s falling apart, before she activates her speed upgrade and departs into the snow, to head back to the Portal and to the Grounds that await her once again.

- FIN <3333

my knuckles are bruised

but i survived

KIADA