wound relentlessly

DEIMOS And in your darkest hour, I hold secrets flame With the freedom to move, the Reaper wandered to great lengths, surveying territories over and over again, taking in the sights, the sounds, the images changed or altered since Long Night’s wild, nefarious antics. It’s hand had played throughout each region, but there was a distinct lack of treachery in the air now – cleaner, fresher, without the feeling of talons sliding down spines, without the space between each rib filled with dread. It left him to hunt, to roam, to roam on the outskirts of fields like a predacious, diligent beast again, liberated from his shackles. Deimos kept the nuances, the notions, of striving to not sink himself into desolation again, to not always retreat into isolation at the beckoning hand of familiarity and comfort. It was easy, it was security and safety, away from the threats of becoming closer to anyone else; but it was ridiculous, stupid, and ineffectual too. He’d get naught accomplished, and wouldn’t be able to push his ambitions any further if he continued to sink further into the murk, into the grime, into the hollowed, empty vessel of his cold-blooded soul. Days long ago hadn’t been filled with stark, barren potency – they’d been contorted with power, with diversions, with mischievous antics and the unsung potential for disaster, for ruin, for beatific glory and triumphs. It’d just been simpler to slide away from it when the devastation unfurled, the strands frayed, and the victories, conquests, and successes diminished (crushed beneath the weight of greed and avarice, spellbinding to watch their homes burn to the ground). A sigh flowed through his chest, but he persisted along the edges of the grass, puncturing gaze flicking over the blades striving to become long again; it’d be grand covering for future, carnivorous outlooks – but for now, the weaponry, quiver and arrows, across his back were left untouched; distracted and deterred from his normal routine. Trying was an outset, but he wasn’t certain of where to go or how to accomplish the task anointed upon him by ghosts and dreams. master of nothing place of recoil and grace

Kiada

KIADA i wish that i could say, i am a light that never goes out. It feels like years since she’s been in this other form. It feels like betrayal any time she dons the skin of her previous companion – of Khairi whom she had lived soul bound to for years before he was ripped from her and she arrived here. But it is necessary, easier to scan the ground from above, to avoid painful interactions and talking mindless chat, as though her heart hadn’t died with Ru’in on the porch of the Rathskeller forever ago. The world feels like it’s mocking, the sunlight and damp ground a bright and brilliant light against the dark that she can feel spreading with every passing day. She’s not sure if she’s ever going to get better. And she’s not sure if she deserves it. Auni joins her, during her hunt. Not nearly as fun as Khairi had been, sitting upon her shoulder with a bloody creature’s leftovers in his beak – the blood dripping in tiny little plinks along her shoulder to run down her chest. Auni is kind, and sweet, and the complete opposite of the brutal ruggedness of Khairi. She can’t tell if she feels relieved that he’s so different or if it seems to hurt more. She thinks she’s getting soft. The Luxere, such bright and brilliant creatures, and for a time she feels bad that he’s bonded to her and not someone more light hearted. Someone not stained and tainted black from her entire life. Kiada finds herself in the Fields, soaring above the ground in her pale yet slightly reddish feathers, her scarlet gaze spotting Auni below as he runs with such a speed to keep up with her. They don’t have a plan with where they’re heading, they’re just going. And it isn’t until Kiada spots a man with arrows who appears to be hunting that she grows concerned for a moment. Auni’s antlers haven’t fully grown in yet, and without the glow of his antlers accompanying them, she’s not certain he might not mistake him for a normal deer. She circles for a moment, commanding Auni to slow down, and as she cascades down to the ground in a flurry of wind and feathers, of sharp beaks and talons, does the Harpy land before Auni and shift into herself. Her fingers tangling into the furs at the base of his neck – as if claiming that he was hers, a solemn kind of darkness crossing her gaze at the thought of possibly losing more than just Ru’in in this world. Still, they remain a ways away from the man, though dead on if he were to turn to the right. He likely heard the trampling of Auni’s hooves on their approach, might have even seen her fall from her vulture form to become a woman standing before him, donning leathers and furs and a dagger or two along her hip (though those were the only visible ones). She didn’t know what to say, and so she simply dipped her head in greeting. Silence the easiest way to not say something stupid – to not bother anyone when they were doing exactly what she was doing. Picking up the pieces from Longnight. but i flicker from time to time.

DEIMOS And in your darkest hour, I hold secrets flame The rush of movement caught his predatory gaze, and for a moment, he was entirely still, silent, without time to crouch or bend into the scenery. He was one more monolith in the sprigs and rime, collected, ready for the gamble. He wouldn’t have time to reach for his bow or the arrows residing in his quiver, and so he remained patient, calm, a composition of raptorial predilection. He might have a chance, an opportunity, lanced into the foundations of luck and kismet, but they’d never been entirely on his side; abandoned, forsaken, bits and pieces taken away from him before they’d even been cherished, noted, noticed. Then, the strangest things happened, coincide, blend and blur together in keen, brusque strokes, no explanation given or extended. Before he had any other opportunity to gather his wits, the rush of feathers descended upon the incoming fawn (a child, he reasoned, and realized he never would’ve attempted to maul the youth), and he thought it was doomed, damned, claimed by another hunter. It would’ve made more sense than the proceeding events, for no sooner had the talons embarked and asserted their dominance, then the vulture transformed. The Reaper had been witness to many things in his life: fiends, cretins, humans born virtuous and subsequently crawling into demonic madness, enchantments chiseling into the earth, fire bursting from another’s hands, but a conversion from animal to human wasn’t among them. He stood there, eyes widened, motionless, likely looking completely ridiculous in his stunned manifestation. Truthfully, he wouldn’t even need to try to push forward in this scenario. The bafflement molded and melded itself straight into interest and inquisitiveness; a study, a perusal, in enchantments and invocations. “Impressive,” Deimos finally managed to respond. The tone hadn’t been flat or a lie; he had been amazed and astonished once the shock wore away; his machinations and calculations began curling and coiling in his skull almost instantly. His gaze went from the deer, not dead, carried off or marred at all (a companion, perhaps?), and back to the woman. He loosened a breath he didn’t notice he’d been holding through the entire, bizarre scene, and then finally moved, muscles begging to maneuver amidst the restless enigmas, advancing a few steps through avid curiosity and intrigue. “How do you accomplish such a feat?” master of nothing place of recoil and grace

Kiada

KIADA i wish that i could say, i am a light that never goes out. It’s almost an awkward staring contest between the two of them, but she notes the surprise on the man’s face when she shifts – when feathers turn to bone and skin and leather, and a beak turns into a human face. It’s enough that she finds for the first time that she wants to smile, and she breathes deeply before a smirk can cross on her face. Instead, it shifts the corner of her lip upward and she leans forward in a kind of mock bow. “Thank you.” She says to the man, stepping closer now with Auni at her side. The Luxere’s tail wags excitedly at the prospect of new friends, and when Kiada lets her fingers go from his ring of fur around his shoulders, her blue eyes watch while he bounds to Deimos. He sniffs at first, almost tentatively, before aiming to headbutt his head into Deimos’ leg. As if he’s asking for the man to reach down and scratch behind his ears. Kiada snorts at his actions, but returns to the mans question with a bit of a shrug – shoulders rolling beneath leathers and furs. “I had magic in the world I was in before. Fire, if I can remember right.” She offers a bit flatly, though it’s not intentional. “When I came here, I tried to reach for my flames only to find I could turn into that instead.” She’s so nonchalant when she speaks, as if it isn’t magic or special or unique. She certainly doesn’t think there’s anything special about her after all. “I’m Kiada.” She offers as she moves closer, her blue eyes scanning the man for a brief moment before she looks down to Auni. “And that pest is Auni.” She tries to joke, but finds it pains her to do so. All she can think of is the pain in her heart with the mention of him being her companion. Of betrayal over and over again. But she fights through it – her icy gaze slipping from Auni to Deimos now, almost expecting he give her his name. but i flicker from time to time.

DEIMOS And in your darkest hour, I hold secrets flame He detected an almost near mocking grace in her bow, and his eyes narrowed dangerously for a fraction of a second, before realizing perhaps he should be taunted and teased for his endless ignorance. Perhaps there will be a day when he’s not bewildered or stunned by the manifestations in this world – but then again, maybe that notion is a farce too, because then he will have stopped, ceased, learning altogether. The scholarly contortions nettled and barbed in the aspects of his warrior frame refused to compromise on the matter. Even if he was irritated, the sentiments were distorted and stored away the instant the deer companion came bursting toward him, more series and volleys of movement, motion, and noise; a reflection of youth and joviality despite the rest of the earth’s caustic expanse. The Reaper’s response towards animals always varied: some were strictly for hunting, and he didn’t allow his mind, his soul, to be occupied with their emotions or feelings. Others were bonded companions, and therefore strictly off-limits when it came to food or supplies. There had been a few in his old home, some anointed and consecrated with small dragons that landed on shoulders, proffering bloodshed and ruin with their snap of their ivory fangs, some graced with tiny foxes or potent hellhounds. He’d treated them with a healthy respect, and when their owners weren’t looking, several well-earned pats and treats tucked somewhere in his deep pockets. But this one was different, a bit more sacred as it came rambling into his leg, butting his head into muscle and brawn – and the confirmation was noted with the faintest, slightest glow within the growth of its incoming antlers. “Luxere?” His brow arched again, equally impressed she’d managed to acquire one, and then took the opportunity to scrape away his awe, and gently, with obvious control and precision, stroked and scratched his ears. She didn’t have to know that there was little chance he’d ever have this opportunity again – the darkness flowed through him too deeply, too openly, a gaping, devouring, swallowing malice he turned to without hesitation. The fact that this fawn even bothered to come near him was a surprise, and in the warrior’s constant calculations and nuances, he snatched the occasion and moments when it was offered. The ease in her shrug though, as he continued to graze the luxere’s ears, moving to the top of its head, confirmed her gifts had been an innate favor, there since her first breath, the beat of blood pulsing through her veins. It was interesting, however, to hear that it had altered and changed upon a shift in worlds. His deadly incantations were still there, resting beneath the surface of his skin, eager and fervent, ready to be called at a moment’s notice, at the unholy singsong rituals of the battlefield, at the frigid, unwinding chill of his ferocious, contemptuous rage and wrath. “Interesting,” he murmured, for it was, and he had to ponder why hers had turned into something else, when his was firmly in place, a part of him the same why it’d been in his childhood. “Mine did not adjust upon arriving here.” It was a glimmer of information and then nothing else; a peace offering on tenuous grounds. Introductions took place though, as he glanced back and forth from Kiada to Auni, and it seemed his was to be next. “I am Deimos.” master of nothing place of recoil and grace

Kiada

KIADA i wish that i could say, i am a light that never goes out. His brow raises, his gruff voice calling out in the cold brisk breeze of spring and she nods in response. “Yes. He hasn’t grown in his antlers yet, he’s still very young.” She offers as she looks to Auni with a small solemn smile. His name a perfect rendition of what he became – her help, her light in the darkness of her thoughts and the terrible things she had endured during Longnight. If it wasn’t for him and Seiji, she wasn’t sure where she would be at now, but she knew it wouldn’t have been good. As he speaks again, she listens, her head tilting curiously. “What kind of magic did you have before?” She asks him, intrigued to know what the man might have had before. He struck her as someone that could wield something dark and monstrous, someone with a powerful background of sorts, or the will and aspiration to be one someday. She finds an odd comfort with him, now that she knows he’s not going to shoot her or her companion, and realizes that for once she’s actually quite curious. And as she introduces herself and Auni, his name rolls off his tongue and her eyes narrow slightly in confusion and almost pained as it strikes a chord deep within her. Her Deimos had been a wonderful ruler, had awarded her for recruiting the most people for their home, and she had found comfort in his consistent ruling. But despite the strangeness of finding Ru’in here, she had a hard time believing this man was the one she’d known before. “I knew a Deimos once.” She says softly, head tilting avian-like as she surveys him once more. “He was a good man, a great leader.” She adds with a quiet smile, wondering if perhaps he might have any comment on the factor. At least it’d be easy to remember his name. but i flicker from time to time.

DEIMOS And in your darkest hour, I hold secrets flame Deimos presumed the luxere would wander off the moment he touched it – because he was a hollowed entity, desolate, abandoned, a nature embedded with barbs, thorns, and desecration. How many times had he been told they were meant for the lighthearted, the virtuous, the promising paragons? Yet, this one stayed, and he didn’t know what that notion meant. He swallowed down the inquiry, pressed it beneath his chest, funneled it away in his mind; there would be greater things to occupy the moment. So he nodded, as if he understood anything at all, as if he were not one of the hundreds of ignorant cretins sheltered in this world. The enigmas lent themselves to other interests though. “How did you acquire him?” He must’ve caught her curiosity too, for in the next stead she asked about his invocations. They stirred, coldblooded and vicious, along the rush of blood and vice, and he contained the sigh rampaging in his lungs. “Death.” It’d always been death; the stark, slow rush of life fleeting and fleeing another being’s eyes, body, and soul. He’d watched it time and time again, sometimes a quiet, withering, decaying interlude – other times a rush into oblivion, desecrated and decimated in the heat of battle. He’d never looked away from his opponents, witnessed as they fell, shoved their images and memories aside; hardened, stone and ice, beating heart of rock and rubble and ruin. Then he’d done the same as others either retreated from him, grew afraid, intimidated, or snagged him as their living, breathing weapon. Maybe she’d do the same. But then something else occurred, and his gaze caught hers twisting in confusion, hurt?, like his name had been a bramble, a prickle, in her side; he inhaled and exhaled sharply as her words softened, as the keen echo crept over his mind. Rexanna had said the same thing once before, when he’d first come to this land and attempted to drink himself into a stupor. It gnarled at his edges, clawed at his bones, flickered and burned corners of his mind where he dared not stray too far: glaciers and rime, peaks with crowns and summits, a lake that never froze, aspirations rekindled over and over and over again. He’d tried to dig deeper before, pondered over the nuances of blended lives, of reincarnation, of sins passed and glossed over, chances and intervals lacerating down his flesh and blood, and then wondered how far was too far. Did it even have any meaning? Was it a shadow of his former self? Or not him at all – someone else who’d claimed terror and upheaval, sedition and rebellion, in the name of shadows and kings? He laughed, but it was inwardly drawn, cruel and dark to his heart and lungs and mind; softer in the air, masked and indifferent. “This is not the first time someone has told me such a thing.” Deimos shook his head, disbelief still readily apparent. After all, who would follow him? What was good? What was great? Nothing, his skull howled. master of nothing place of recoil and grace

Kiada

KIADA i wish that i could say, i am a light that never goes out. He speaks again and this time it is a question of how she had acquired him. She finds a small smile grow on her face, but it fades after a moment when she remembers the events following her and Auni’s night. “I went out on Longnight. Some of the Luxere had left and I went with after them with a few others to try and get them back. He was hurt, or posessed.” She says and she pauses, her icy eyes lingering on the pale deer as he tries to nudge Deimos leg with his head to see if the man might bet him more. “Whatever was in him attacked and killed one of the people I was with. I approached him then to see if it was gone, that thing inside him, and when I did he became mine.” She says, ending a bit quieter but telling the story all the same. “His antlers glowed a bit on the way back to the Rathskeller and I think it’s what kept us safe that day.” She says after a moment, but rolls her shoulders and returns her attention to him as she asks of his magic and he responds. Death. And she watches him for a moment with an amused eye, and her lips begin to form a small wicked smile. “Seems fitting.” She acknowledges after a moment. But then the conversation shifts as names are given, and he notes that it’s not the first time someone had told him that. She shrugs her shoulders again with a small motion and approaches him a bit closer. “Names can be common. But nicknames not so much. We called him the Reaper.” She says, eyeing him and considering. But no, it couldn’t be. “He had a son named Erebos, and he was a great friend of mine for a time.” She says after a moment, glancing up to the sky as if she could see the mountain peaks and aurora dancing above her only true home. but i flicker from time to time.

DEIMOS And in your darkest hour, I hold secrets flame The truth of the luxere descended – LongNight’s tales and reaches hadn’t deterred her from venturing out into the abyss, encountering monsters and mayhem, possessions and poignancy. Perhaps she’d been braver than him, the man who’d heeded the words of the Naturals and stayed in the damned Rathskeller instead of his own home, poorly equipped with ridiculous ignorance until he’d opened the door to grab Amalia’s lifeless body. His eyes strayed down to the fawn, starting scratching behind its ears again when he realized he’d gone still, staring at the tiny, virtuous thing, wondering at how it had created and sparked a haunting masquerade. Was it worth it? he almost asked, sitting on the edges of his lips, drawn in their reticent lines. Would you do it again? Was she constantly reminded of that evening’s misadventures and sheer, damned luck when she looked at it? He didn’t notice her growing closer, lost in his curiosity, in the darker folds of his skull, only riveting his piercing stare back on her when she declared his invocations fitting, and the resounding titles, the nickname, stabbing, lacerating, puncturing the deeper segments of his soul. We called him the Reaper. He wanted to fight against it, a familiar pattern in his life. Deimos was used to bombarding with action, with power, with potency, until everything in his path was destroyed, consumed, smothered, and vanquished. But this – it wouldn’t go away, because his memories kept ricocheting back and forth, smoldering and seething in design, in execution, as if he’d lived a hundred lives before and they always came back to those singular captions, legends, and descriptions. His friends had started it at first – in bars, after victories, when there was food and alcohol in their stomachs and the sensation of glory hadn’t been lined with bitterness, when they’d been alive instead of maimed, bludgeoned, and buried by his hands across battlefields. Three cheers for our Reaper! and they’d laugh in their drunken stupors, in their triumphant highs, because he’d swung his sword across someone’s throat and he’d invited another’s death by his eldritch incantations. He’d chuckled too, not taking it seriously; he was not ferrying anyone across the river Styx, but the name stuck. Each battle ensured more demises and executions at his ruses, schemes, and acrimony. Before long, they’d all gained some form of nickname and moniker, hollering at each other with humorous banter, stupefied wit. The cold, desolated mountains curled their way behind his eyes, and Deimos still didn’t understand any of it. Maybe he could hide again, withdraw from the world, from the blend of befores, beginnings, and the vast unknown reaching, grabbing for him. He’d already choked on the past – he had no intentions of suffocating in its clutches again. He was only saved by her description of a son, Erebos, whom she’d played with, comrades in some other time, in some other place. Deimos wheeled away from the declarations, from the sudden spark of blue, blue, blue contorting in his mind. “Must be a coincidence then.” A grim, slight smile reached his mouth, and his gaze snapped entirely back to the luxere, because for some reason, looking at her gave him the slightest apprehension – that she knew more and more, that there was something deeper, something clawing its way to the surface. “I do not have any children.” Even those words tormented and disturbed him; a rancorous sigh escaping from his lungs. They hadn’t been blessed before the end; he’d buried the rain by the river bed, alongside a fissure of dreams, aspirations, and ambitions. master of nothing place of recoil and grace

Kiada

KIADA i wish that i could say, i am a light that never goes out. There was skepticism in that stare of his, however brooding and dark it was. But she appreciates the shift in his gaze, the way her words distract and pull at something else entirely. As if the term had hit close to home. But it was strange to her, the man before her so different yet so similar to the one she knew before. And as she looks at him with her icy gaze, she wonders if her Deimos, wherever he is, remembers the girl of flame and fire, a vulture as a pet, and an uncanny drive to accomplish everything and anything in her path. A girl with a twin of the sun, a warrior boy and a killer girl. The sun and moon. Night and day. Her dark hued head in comparison to Kianzo’s pale, gilt one. But it was another world, another time. And she realizes that she misses it, however strange it was. She stuffs her hands into her pockets as Auni seems content to stand against Deimos while they talked – finding him to be a fast friend despite the Abandoned status. The Luxere doesn’t seem to care much about that anymore – just about those that seemed a threat. And as Kiada and Deimos spoke of a strange history, of people with the same name, Auni finds that he appreciates the Reaper’s company too. Kiada wanted to flash him a wolfish smile in response to the mentioning of coincidence, but he continues and for a moment she’s concerned. Has she brought up bad memories? Things he had hoped to forget? She contemplates the silence for a moment before turning her head away from the tall man. “Coincidence indeed.” She says quietly, but she leans back on her heels before she looks back to Deimos with a small shrug. “But gods I miss my magic of that place. The mountains of home, the lights that danced in the sky. That beautiful healer with the most incredible voice.” She reminisced, sighing slightly. “And the hot springs. It’s a shame this place doesn’t have those.” She offered with a quiet laugh, hoping to lighten the mood. Gods knew she needed it. but i flicker from time to time.

DEIMOS And in your darkest hour, I hold secrets flame He remembered many things he should not. Sometimes they came to him in his dreams, grasping, clenching, tugging him down by the frayed ends and the unraveled seams, begging him to bear witness to fantasies and memories that shouldn’t have belonged to him at all. There were arches of green and mist-covered hills, the depths of cliffs bearing the crashing waves, the labyrinthine design of fog and the ends of the earth. He’d breathe and they’d be gone, all the masses, all the pictures, returning in scenes of desolation, bleak thresholds, inhospitable, but the only place they’d begun to thrive. It always ended with a glimpse of mountains, peaks erupting from the terrain with grand summits and promising danger; the synapses of treachery singing in his veins, you will be better coiling its way through endless, fervent, ardent whispers of power and prestige. Home: it rang, it stretched, it vowed, the most assuring, pressing thing in the back of his skull. He’d always awakened to the eerie, enigmatic pull, trying to understand, to comprehend, why Isilme’s war-torn landscape and restless iniquities hadn’t felt so permanent – not like the glaciers, the twin monoliths, his lungs filled with fire and desecration. Deimos very suddenly wanted to flee and not look back. Things were disentangling, and he didn’t want to look them in the eye, didn’t want to see them for what they really were; it was so much easier to hide, to erode, to remain in stasis, never becoming anything other than ash and bone. Lord, when the hell had he become so broken? Such a god damn coward? His fingers continued to listlessly scratch the top of the luxere’s head while he strained to understand a thousand things in a matter of moments. He swallowed, he opened his mouth, and no sound came out; he didn’t know what to say about the fire and fury collecting in his thoughts, about the meticulous, unwavering self-assurance that had somehow been abraded and weathered away; once iron and steel, once fortification and diabolical ruin. He’d been insurrection and rebellion, blood coursing through his veins with simple, outlined menace and mayhem, an intimidating, belligerent creature no one dared cross. Now he just tucked himself into shadows and hoped no one looked his way while he brooded over loss, loss, and loss, unaware and ignorant of how many things he’d managed to never regain. You will be better rang and haunted in his ears when he finally looked up, glanced at the girl who had burned against the grain, who’d tried and tried and tried to show the worlds, the kingdoms, exactly what she was made of. He’d given her a reward, an appreciative offer. Then he was gone. He kept clinging to the notions, the particulars, the details he couldn’t explain. When his mouth finally opened again, the strangest nuances and collections rumbled forth – he couldn’t look her in the eye, not after she laughed, not after she smiled, not after the pieces kept falling off of him.“There was a lake that never froze. A mirror to summon a god. Two guardians at the gates.” Then he whispered, nearly inaudible, wondering just how he was supposed to restart again and why anyone would have given him chance after chance. “I miss everything.” master of nothing place of recoil and grace

Kiada

KIADA i wish that i could say, i am a light that never goes out. She doesn’t expect him to answer, to reminisce in the past. She doesn’t think it’s him but the coincidence is there and tangible, and she feels it on the tip of her tongue as she looks away from him to keep it from coming out. It appears that he cannot look at her either, but she doesn’t mind. Doesn’t mind for the silence that beats between them while Auni remains content to be scratched every which way, and if Deimos were to stop the Luxere would lean harder into him. But there’s silence for a moment, and Kiada finds that she’s content to let him think on things if he wanted. But his lips part, and he mentions things that only her Deimos could know. The lake, the one that never froze. The mirror to summon the gods who’s ex haruspex was the one that fathered a sibling of hers. The two tall guardians that watched over the land from outsiders, hidden into the sides of the mountains for a time. Her eyes snap back to him and her jaw tries to drop. But she doesn’t let it. Instead, there’s almost the pinprick of tears that come across her face as she stares at him. And truly stares deep as if she can see his every action, everything he’s ever done. Everything he’s done for her. She doesn’t know yet that she’s broken him, but she regrets never seeing him after her mother whisked her away. After her brother had gone missing in the night, and she had told her mother and father during that festival. Their last at the Basin. The last time she’d ever seen Deimos. She stares at him with a bit of apprehension and inhales deeply with a shaking sound. “I never came back to see you.” She whispers now too. He had died before, too, like Ru’in. And yet lives now. And she wonders if somehow Caido is a place of resurrection, or purgatory. “My mother took me away, my twin went missing. I heard about it and meant to come back but everything happened.” She whispers more, her legs unconsciously bringing her closer to where she can look up into familiar ocean eyes. “You and the Basin were everything to me. You acknowledged me when everyone told me I was a lost, confused child.” She says, uncertainty shakes within her voice. But she can’t stop now. “Im sorry.” She apologizes, and there’s regret in her voice. And she wants to hug him, to hold the Reaper in her own bloodied hands of years of sacrifices and scream to the world that they both had suffered immensely. Even if he wasn’t the right one. He was here. And she was here. And somehow, someway, she craved the acknowledgement of someone who knew her before. Who knew the darkness lingering beneath the skin. She thinks it was Deimos once upon a time who knew what demons lived beneath her skin, because she had the idea that they lived beneath his too. but i flicker from time to time.

DEIMOS And in your darkest hour, I hold secrets flame His heart suddenly lurched, ached, in the pit of his chest – he’d always thought it cold and unfeeling, long since removed from anything but hatred, scorn, and discontent. The Reaper; stoic and alone, doomed to desolation, death, and behemoth precision. But it pumped and bled steadily behind his flesh and sinew, slowly falling apart, beat by beat, crescendo by crescendo, until he didn’t recall the fathoms of reality. There were too many emblems and banners rambling through his skull, ricocheting and fleeing from those varnished canvases. He felt everything and nothing all at once; suddenly wanted to fall apart and be devoured by the grounds of the earth, swallowed whole, forgotten, worth nothing. The beast wished she was lying and knew she wasn’t, recalled bits and pieces like beautiful, transient portraits, lost in time, space, and worlds, kingdoms crashing down, him dead in a tomb, incapable of saving them. He breathed and his lung rattled, his insides begged to heave, his world flickered and distorted, and he stared at naught – the fields didn’t register, the pathways he’d taken to hunt didn’t matter. “I see them. I see them all the time.” He whispered, reticent and withdrawn, begging to be taken away from the brutal catalysts driving their forces into his brain. How many times had he awakened, gasping and clawing, desperate to cling to the things he thought he’d never had? How many times did he lay in anguish? How many times did he need to before it ended? The warrior lost the feeling in his legs, and slowly retreated to the ground, where he sat, hands suddenly over his face, hiding his contorted features. There was sorrow in the depths of his eyes and absolute despair in the channeling of his brows. There was tenacity in his bones but no fight left in his soul. The luxere leaned into him and he dared not weep, dared not grovel, beg, plead, and hiss in the feral interludes bombarding his presence. Perhaps in his last life he’d earned this heartache, this ridiculous, stupid agony. Maybe he’d made too many suffer, and this was his comeuppance, his just desserts and rewards. The cold lingered over his spine, felt like home, felt like torture, felt like torment. It wrapped around him like a noose, reminded him of serene, gentle words and love that extended despite every single damned sentiment, regard, and action he’d taken. The false, gnarled knots abraded his neck, sunk and clawed his skin, peeled away flesh when I never came back to see you hummed in his ear, nearly inaudible, gone without a trace like so many others things. Suddenly, he brought his knees up to his chest and curled into himself, hidden and notched by the thorns, by the brambles, of maddening recollections. “I lost her twice,” he gasped, hushed and tormented, but it sounded like a man broken by all the ties he’d left behind, incapable of having them ever again. Huyana was a tattoo on his heart, made it whole, made it collapse, because all he’d ever done was lose her, the rain, the need, the quiet, the tranquility. He couldn’t look at Kiada. Not after everything she said lacerated his insides and chilled his marrow. You and the Basin was everything to me, and gods, he wished he could have it again, he wished and craved and yearned and begged in the hollows of his soul, and knew it wouldn’t come. He’d tried to acknowledge them all, in his own way, down in the pits of his nefarious deeds and sinister machinations: they’d had purposes, they’d been great, they’d been grand, and then he’d died. “You had so much drive. Far more than most of the adults.” The bark of a laugh was sad and burdened, erupting from his lungs so sobs didn’t. Lord, how far he’d fallen, how damned he’d become, how anguished and broken he’d always be. Deimos still didn’t look up at her. He didn’t look anywhere, closed his eyes, watched the blue visions streak behind his lids, could feel himself shaking, voice suddenly airing the inquiry likely never to be answered or known. “Why? What was the point of bringing me back?” master of nothing place of recoil and grace

Kiada

KIADA i wish that i could say, i am a light that never goes out. She doesn’t know what she’s done to him, as she unravels his past and their connection like it was common gossip. But it was nothing like that to her, it was her story and he had played a major part. The part that validated her and proved that she had the capability to be a person. That her parents didn’t need to try and hide her away because of the ones from before that hadn’t made it. Their protection suffocated her, and Deimos had always given her a chance to expand and grow. And then he died. And she had left. And things were never the same after that. “I see them all the time.” She feels for him, she yearns to help him. But she doesn’t know how. He had been quiet, brooding, capable in her life that she knew him. And Kiada, a woman of fury and fiery tempers, of love lost and gained and lost again who would howl at the moon at injustice, wasn’t made to comfort. She was made to destroy. And she regrets that too. The Harpy watches the Reaper fall to his knees, and there’s a strong sense of pain and grief that envelops her. But she cannot move, not yet. Instead, Auni presses gently against his side – a constant in the darkness of the mind and strange timelines that come and go like waves that ebb and flow. Kiada stands before him, and her icy eyes never leave his face as he covers it and whispers. And she feels guilty, for causing it. For realizing the pain of everything that happened to the both of them. How life was unfair and brutal. But she knew that if anyone were prepared, at least once upon a time, it was him and her. But she is not that person anymore, and he isn’t the same one that had died among the whitecapped mountains of her one true home. She doesn’t know where that leaves them. “I lost her twice.” He says, and her brows furrow – tears that she had been shedding this past month still brimmed along the waterline of her eyes. She’s not certain she knows who he’s talking about. But she’s heard his name intertwined with another. Huyana. And with it, echoes Ru’in. “I lost him twice, too.” She says quietly, kneeling down to the earth as he pulls his knees to his chest. He cannot look at her, and she doesn’t make him. Instead, she lets him speak. She wants to be near, to comfort, but she knows not how. So she gives him companionship instead, as Auni presses gently into the opposite side that Kiada kneels beside. But his next words stop her chest from hurting for him quite so much. She did have drive. And she was strong, despite her young age. His laugh was a sound of sadness and burdens, of a world that seemed pressed onto his shoulders. And she yearns to help him. And for a moment, she wonders if she touches him, if he’d shrink away from her touch or if she could hold and soothe him. Both creatures with blood on their hands, unable to hold things without breaking them. He still doesn’t look. His eyes, those sapphire pools closed, and he begins to shake. It is then, before he speaks that she reaches out and wraps her arms around him tight. Her head on his shoulder as she hopes to hold him tight to her. “You weren’t done yet.” She says quietly through her own sadness. “I don’t know why we’re here, but we are.” Her voice is quieter now, hinting at almost a whisper as she tries to calm his shaking. “This world has so many problems, too, but it’s nothing like home. We make the most of it.” She says eventually, nearly a whisper. “It’s nothing like the Basin, but I could make it home with you.” She wants to say, but she bites onto her tongue. She’d followed Deimos to pride and strength once before. She’d follow him anywhere. but i flicker from time to time.