DEIMOS
the resurrected sword
Deimos drew back into his silence and stillness; the poise, pose, and prose of warrior prowess, inevitably waiting for the blade. A soldier who waited, patient and diligent under all that stoicism and reticence, who bled just the same as the rest of them, who hurt and conspired and tried. So he listened, head still tilting into tiny degrees and decrees, an ear swiveling as if to catch the words she uttered, even if it was all contorted inward, across a length of calm and composure pressed into his chest.
Perhaps none of them had the answers. Trials by fire, literally and figuratively, gazing out over horizons that would give nothing to see their insignificance shoved aside and into ash, into dust. The inevitably was something Deimos had already accepted – knew and understood at the heart of his formidable soul – but seemed to be an instant she was working through. Roles and roulettes, tried and true and muddling and perplexing all at once, and he permitted one long breath through his lungs, not certain what to say, what to utter at first.
But his tiger brow furrowed in some wave of confusion as her turn persisted, continued, relenting to him. It was not in his expectations – he’d considered Aurelia to be amongst the many who’d seen his actions, for better or for worse, and cast him off. The olive branch extended was perplexing, still long since ill-used to the notions of forgiveness and repentance, coming from worlds where bitter lives met bitter ends and drowning his wake in his violence, in his vehemence, had been the only thing that mattered once everyone else had disappeared. It’d once been all he’d had.
That battle wasn’t ours stung in a way that he didn’t want to quite voice, pushing to the back of his mind for later (because how many had he forged along for everyone else?). For a moment, he blinked out over the mist, listening to the falls echoing. I did not consider you an enemy, he finally said, pondering the refrain further. Baffled, perhaps, by the way she’d mauled and murdered. But maybe she’d been surprised by his disastrous tendencies, how far he’d go in rancor and vengeance. We all made stupefying decisions that day, and none I care to repeat. Harsh, grueling, life lessons that still stuck in his spine and caught in his ribs. I would like to put the moment well behind me. Even if they couldn’t do the same with the consequences.
Perhaps none of them had the answers. Trials by fire, literally and figuratively, gazing out over horizons that would give nothing to see their insignificance shoved aside and into ash, into dust. The inevitably was something Deimos had already accepted – knew and understood at the heart of his formidable soul – but seemed to be an instant she was working through. Roles and roulettes, tried and true and muddling and perplexing all at once, and he permitted one long breath through his lungs, not certain what to say, what to utter at first.
But his tiger brow furrowed in some wave of confusion as her turn persisted, continued, relenting to him. It was not in his expectations – he’d considered Aurelia to be amongst the many who’d seen his actions, for better or for worse, and cast him off. The olive branch extended was perplexing, still long since ill-used to the notions of forgiveness and repentance, coming from worlds where bitter lives met bitter ends and drowning his wake in his violence, in his vehemence, had been the only thing that mattered once everyone else had disappeared. It’d once been all he’d had.
That battle wasn’t ours stung in a way that he didn’t want to quite voice, pushing to the back of his mind for later (because how many had he forged along for everyone else?). For a moment, he blinked out over the mist, listening to the falls echoing. I did not consider you an enemy, he finally said, pondering the refrain further. Baffled, perhaps, by the way she’d mauled and murdered. But maybe she’d been surprised by his disastrous tendencies, how far he’d go in rancor and vengeance. We all made stupefying decisions that day, and none I care to repeat. Harsh, grueling, life lessons that still stuck in his spine and caught in his ribs. I would like to put the moment well behind me. Even if they couldn’t do the same with the consequences.
still standing
not because you can
but because you have to
