[PQ] [seasonal event] kindness keep a lonely company

D e i m o s

Send a heartbeat to the void that cries through you
Relive the pictures that have come to pass

The ambrosial scents of their baking bread filled the air and left his stomach rumbling; he ignored it for the moment, content to clean and idle away in silence after the churn of mischief. There were several moments where he thought he could easily wring out the towel over either head of Jigano or Kiada for pure, sadistic amusement, but it would destroy the effects of the sudden serenity and repose, and he wasn’t going to be the one to disturb it this time. He kept his head down, unaware of the other conspiracies and ruses navigating their way around the room, biding away the seconds until the promise of food would ring its lively tune and they could see just what they’d ended up orchestrating and creating. It’s an odd sort of sensation, to cultivate and generate rather than destroy; but he’d enjoyed it nonetheless, and gave no further thought to it as Amalia spoke again, voice curling into the silence, a word, a whim, he seemed to follow with little hesitation. He left the towel on the counter, and maneuvered beside it, arms folded over his floured chest, Kiada’s palms becoming an eerie, poignant, ghostly sanction on his shirt, staining along his beard and cheeks, some flicking on and off the top of his head occasionally, as if they had naught better to do. He smiled anyway, regardless of the outcome, fully expecting to be hastened and chastised into the bottom of the barrel, though as his stare wandered from the bard to the harpy and back again, he was overtly suspicious that perhaps he was not the most injured, maimed, or scarred, which was utterly bizarre…he could’ve sworn – As the announcement lingered, up in the air, his gaze rested back on Amalia, awaiting the verdict. He arched his brow upward only once more as her cheeks appeared to take on a rosy hue, but didn’t question it, didn’t inquire, entirely fixated on the blend of colors on her face. When she tore her stare away from him, elsewhere, elsewhere, elsewhere, it took him several seconds to realize it was his name she’d proclaimed as victor, the triumphant, gallant winner of the flour contest. He must have looked utterly stupefied for several seconds, eyes widening, glancing back at the others in disbelief, before setting it back into a rather devil-may-care look, as if it would be that way all along: fortune favoring the bold. He mockingly bowed before Kiada and Jigano, but remained the humble champion and conqueror thereafter, breathing in the aromas of the spoils, laughing at how odd, how jubilant, how fervent the prize had made him (because there’d been very few things in his life ever truly won and not taken away, down into the doldrums and throngs). “I could not have done it without them,” and the cheeky grin set itself along his mouth, as he struggled to decide which bread to pick, which freshly baked concoction awaited his mouth and stomach. In the end, he pointed to one of Kiada’s birds, waiting to take flight. “Shall we all try?” Skilled with the knife, he grabbed hold of its sanction, and divided a portion of the bread equally, with great finesse and relish, each one quartered to perfection and swift, keen notches (a blade was a blade, no matter the edges). Then he extended a portion to the other three, all of them victors in some form. For now we stand alone, the world is lost and blown And we are flesh and blood disintegrate with no more to hate