From being an Abandoned who had rarely left the Hollowed Grounds, to embracing the call of adventure, to dying and being reborn first as an Ascended and then as an Ancient, Maea has gone through quite the amount of changes in her life. One thing remains common, though, in her attempts to find out just where she belongs; she’s always had a craving for knowledge which has brought her to so many places and to meet so many people here in Caido. We can’t wait to see what else is in store for her!
Congratulations, Maea!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
Skinning and hosting by the epically talented Kaons, and functionality fanciness by the coding magic of Neowulf. If you ever see either of them around, make sure to show them some love!
He laughs at her, and the girl laughs back, her narrow cheeks coloring a delightful shade of rose as she buries her face against his neck, inhaling deeply from his scent. His beard tickles lightly on her forehead, her nose; she nestles against it, looking for the soft skin underneath, her cheek grazing gently on his neck. There is nothing in her experience to prepare her for this, no lesson passed on by wiser women to tell her how to navigate these waters: only him, and his warm blue eyes, and his dizzying smile, and his laugh reverberating through her hands, and his arms wrapped tight around her waist.
There is no guide on how long this will last, so she clings to it desperately, afraid to move, to break the fragile, beautiful bridge which has spun its way between them. All she wants is to remain in his embrace, where the world is warm and the girl is safe, where somehow against all odds she has found someone who wants her, who wants her, who wants her.
Ah, but no perfect moment is forever, and as Deimos draws her back she agrees, reluctant, her fingers still clenching at his shirt as though to tie herself to him, prevent his attempt to let her go. Even the inches that separate them are fearful, a great expanse in the wake of such intimacy: but Amalia looks up and catches his smile, wild and jubilant, confident and caring, and somehow, inexplicably, for her. Her right hand travels up his chest, fingers gentle against his beard as he lowers his lips to her ear, her name a reverent whisper on his tongue. Each kiss sends a shiver of heat shooting down her spine, electric, elating, so very unfamiliar and yet so natural, so right. By the time he reaches her other cheek her hand is on the back of his neck, tangled loosely in the long dark hair, the other still on his chest. Her eyes have fluttered shut once more; she does not need to see the world.
Her world is right here.
He speaks again, and now it is her turn to laugh, incredulous, her fingers tightening on the back of his neck. What an absurd question for him to ask, as though she has a say in the matter, as though there could be any doubt. Her other hand rises now, trailing to his face, cupping it gently as she takes a moment to pull back and look up into his eyes. With the wondrous blush of youthful romance the girl continues to laugh, her dark eyes glittering, her body shaking as she reaches up to press a soft kiss on his lips, not skilled or confident but fervent, ardent, aching through her smiles, woefully unsure but confident he will not let her fall astray. It is an answer unspoken, the only thing she can think to say, too scared to voice her real answer: Yes, and yes, and yes.
Letting her face fall against his, she closes her eyes once more. "I don't... know what I'm doing," she confesses quietly against his skin, "Or how this happened, or why... why you would want me." Pulling back slightly, she slides her hands back down his arms, looking at him with vulnerable affection, her heart poured out and placed on a platter, an offering from a girl who cares so deeply yet does not freely give herself away. "But I'm yours, Deimos, if you do. I... I have nothing to give you, but I..."
And she sighs, a deep and shuddering breath, her head dropping down again, hands reaching up to cover her face as she laughs, unable to do anything else, fantastically happy and horribly terrified that she will awake to find this all a lovely dream, or an elaborate joke.
It was acceptance in the end, in the beginning, that stole his breath away again; a less powerful man might have been gasping and reeling, and he was laughing, swaying from the adoration and belief (but there was a moment or two when he thought of the tears gathering at the back of his eyes, dashing them away before she could see, curling the proof of astonishment back into his fingers). I do not deserve you echoed back again, might’ve stifled him now, but he kept going, proceeding, a sojourn, a crusade. He could scarcely remember the feelings from before because they’re too shrouded and dampened by the after, by the shards of naught left, by the filaments of nothingness clinging their ways to his skin – but not now, not when devotion surrounded and guided. He was a covetous, insatiable being again, taking and grasping and clawing, swallowing and devouring the ambrosial taste, the shy intimacy, diving headfirst into the reaches of amity long since denied. Deimos could always recall the violence, the vehemence, but never the warmth, the intricacies, the sudden fall, the slow burn, but it settled in his heart now, made him duck his head into the crook of her neck and simply breathe. It was an overwhelming line he’d crossed, blinding and mesmerizing, alluring and beguiling, staring straight into the sun – twisting back into its rays and beams instead of away from it, glowering in the shadows. He didn’t turn away, but simmered and smoldered in it, inhaling and exhaling, pressing and touching, memorizing little curves and lines detailed and sketched by the heavens, permitting his behemoth palms to remain, steady, beacons and sirens, lured and ensnared and having no inclination of leaving. Amalia made him almost reverent instead of seditious and iniquitous, but only for her. His faith and conviction could be tied in knots and gnarled in sword hilts, but it was extended to her too, an eternal resolve, as stalwart as the beast could be; the world was his, the world was hers, the world was theirs. Emboldened and impassioned, lips taking advantage of his location, mouth against her pulse, breath billowing along her skin, then purposefully, mischievously, pushing air past his teeth and tongue in a peppering, ghostly fixation, tickling and tormenting.
Her hands prevailed along his chest, and his heart echoed its rapacious, ravenous appetite, pulsing and beating with its savage, wild, untamed crescendos, moving with his laughter and abandon. Then they were at his neck, at his beard, and his body shuddered, boneless and wanton, the behemoth responding by dragging his teeth along the shell of her ear, teasing, before her grasp was on his face again, and onyx met blue, fallen, broken, brooding kings and forbearing warriors gazing on serenity, sanctuaries, and repose. He leaned his forehead against hers, and listened, chuckled, choked back on the raw suffering pulsing away (gone) from his figure, tones a confident rumble when he admitted he didn’t know what he was doing either – Huyana had carved and whittled his new form out of stone and marble, the apathy chiseled into shards and splinters – but he’d put the armor and chainmail back along his surface long ago. “So we learn.” It was a new path he was eager and fervent to explore, but later, later, later, when they’d somehow sealed the hows and whys – her inquiry a reflection, a reverberation, of one of his unsaid melancholies.
The Reaper couldn’t understand why she didn’t see anything in herself. He purposefully stepped back, only slightly, never truly out of her grasp, reach, or orbit, stuck and tied there, then leaned down, so that his eyes were upon hers, and she couldn’t evade, couldn’t escape, with his hand on her chin, lifting her up again. “You are so many things all at once. I admire your strength. I long for your acceptance.” He tilted his head, as if to examine and scrutinize her. “You have an endless conviction. You are bold. You are radiant.” Do you want me to keep going? the arch of his brow insisted, the hint of a smirk curling and coiling along his lips. It was his bestial soul who’d be without anything or anyone without her – he doubted other individuals, save for a select few who knew what he was, what he’d been, would’ve have even bothered with him, wouldn’t have paid him a second thought as he lurked in libraries, as he offered help and assistance, as he wound his way through shrouds of darkness and shadow because it was all he understood. No one would’ve tolerated him had she not reached out into the Stygian abyss and tried to pluck him from its gnarled claws; he would’ve been the same brooding storm, the same brewing anomaly, the same vigilant, violent fiend waiting for an opportunity to strike. Nothing to give him, as if she hadn’t already, and he wanted to scoff, wanted to laugh, wanted to roll his eyes at the absurd claim – instead, his eyes met hers again, steady and certain. “It is I who have nothing to give you.” She proffered him everything in that moment, and he’d already taken so much, yearned and craved for more (her heart, her soul, her form, her trust, her belief in his stupid, asinine existence), because he was voracious and ravenous, because he couldn’t be sated, because enough was never enough – and he’d do the same for her, bow his head and give, give, and give again. “But whatever you want, I will try to grant it.”
She laughs as he blows against her neck, giggling and twisting under his ministrations, too lost in the moment to stop and consider how deeply she is falling, how hard, how fast. Then there are lips on her ear, and teeth, dangerously exciting, wholly unexpected but not unpleasant, far from it in fact- but overwhelming, so much happening all at once, a wild whirlwind of change and sunlight and fire and raging seas. She feels that she might get lost, that he could swallow her whole and she would like it, giving the pieces of herself away. Her fingers curl tighter against his hair in response; a small gasp escapes her coral lips, exhaled sharply against his skin. Her thoughts are muddled, coiled smoke, wafting in and out of existence. She doesn't know what it means.
There are lines to draw, but she does not know how to draw them. Is this too much? Is it not enough? Voracious hunger gnaws at her, a singing cry for intimacy, closeness, to know and be known in return. What is it he could want from her - her, a mess of contradictions, earnest anxiety and discontent, infinitely curious but ever unable to find answers to questions of the heart? Words tumble past her lips, earnest proclamations for him alone. She says he has her, and it is true, but the promise sounds too wanton, too earnest and naive. Amalia coils back in on herself, hands on her cheeks, disbelieving, self-conscious, still unable to make sense of the change, of the idea that she could be wanted by him.
His hand is on her chin, and she rises half-reluctant, letting her fingers drop to his wrists as her shadowed gaze once more meets sunlit blue. Thumbs trace over his exposed skin, hungry for warmth, fearful that he will push her away. To fall back into darkness now that she has touched the light... to have her resistances be her undoing, to be unmade as he discovers the truth of her, that she is young and stupid and afraid. That there is nothing he can offer her but inexperience, that she is born to take from a giving world and has no idea how to pay it back. If only she could just accept, relax and ease her troubled mind, not demand so much, just be-
Yet the girl asks, and asks again - of herself, of the world, of him.
She should not have doubted. The hope on her face is a symphonic thing, and as he speaks she begins to glow, dropping her eyes in disbelief, unable to prevent the smile which pulls incessant at her mouth. Her head shakes softly, but her hands continue to explore his, and her lips press sweetly over his thumb, his palms, whatever he will give. And then, emboldened, she rises up, toes digging once more into the grass, a kiss on his mouth to still the praise, the prize she knows she will never deserve. One, then another, punctuated by laughs, sighs, soft sounds of happiness which rise from her throat and ghost like promises between their lips. She is not the things he said, but if he believes it she will try, will light a candle in her darkness and expose for him her beating heart.
"You've given me everything," she says into his beard, stepping back to gaze into his face, to show him the adoration clearly written on hers. It is wrong to ask for more of him, when he has already given so much, and Amalia's voice shakes with fervent insecurity, an aching plea for understanding burning in her eyes. Fingers knitting once again, she raises his hands to her face, pressing kisses on the knuckles which have held a hundred swords before holding them against her cheeks. Her hands in his, she rests her face upon them, tilting her head to look up at her behemoth, her bastion, her bulwark, her point of light in the storm. At Deimos - her Deimos - who has dragged her from her shadows, when she had forgotten how to take care of herself, had spent too long caring for everyone else. "Just be patient as I learn."
He couldn’t imagine being anyone’s light in the darkness – if he was anything at all, it was the cloaks, the daggers, the Stygian mantle, obscuring beams of serenity and tranquility, not a sanctuary, not a beacon, but an incoming herald of danger and regret. He’d forged himself into a nonchalant weapon for so long, for the soldier, the general, the king he’d once been, molding his breaths in union with the dance of a sword, sheathed and silent as the grave when necessary, a foreboding beast when the world called for his arms, his munitions. The crowns had long since been disastrous and tumbled, fallen from his skull in the first death, granted a second chance and muffled, muddled, just as easily as the one before; given a purpose in swinging rapiers and cutlasses, to cut the world down, to break it apart in his bare hands and feed it into the infernos, watching as kingdoms disintegrated and his outlooks were destroyed. Time and time again, history repeated, and the shadows bounded off his frame and absorbed them into their threshold, an aperture, an opening, of swallowing, consuming voids, promising winter in their glacial formations, and he stood in its ramparts and marveled at the fortifications, drank from the peak’s ravines, scalded and died and withered and decayed – no, there was no light there, only the depths of Amalia’s grasp bringing him back to the surface, ensuring he didn’t drown in the din and throng of his ghosts. He hadn’t given her anything, nothing she hadn’t earned and claimed for herself. Deimos thought about drifting through the denial with a vehement edge, with an asinine shake of his head, inept and ridiculous, no port in the storm, no vessel in the harbor, just hollow and empty, stretching out into sunbeams and becoming blinded by their splendor. He cherished the flickering flames and coiled them into his palm, made her gasp, smirked, snickered at the noise; too far gone to tell her to run and retreat, that he was an absolute disaster (and why couldn’t she see that already?). The warrior followed the tide, probably asked for too much, permanently fixated on her and her alone; grasping on what she’d allow, taking all the wanton, intimate interludes and soaking in them, reveling in them, riveted and exposed, no longer caring, no longer hiding behind the knives and nonchalance. Apathy was a forgotten, idle thing, tucked behind the other stone pieces and fortifications.
He was young and stupid and ancient and asinine; blended lives seemed to matter very little here, when he had so much to learn and understand.
Maybe that’s what his purpose was, here and now, down in the depths of the unknown, fading from the darkness, stepping into the sun.
The beast permitted her exploration, continued his, made maps of the paths he’d already encountered, circled back to enjoy the ones he’d already relished and savored. She was an oeuvre, a masterpiece, and he only dared for the lightest of caresses now, afraid to damage the artwork, lips carefully pressed along her brow, delicate, airy, ethereal, so far away from the nefarious elements, reaching out for stars and heavens instead of hell. You’ve given me everything was a shake of his head, a chuckle from his throat, raw and real, a snort, a guffaw, and she became bolder and bolder still, so he returned the favor. His mouth stroked over hers, reverential and devout, loosening a growl from his throat. “Not yet,” because he had a lot more to grant and give if she’d let him, if he could even figure out the answers and proclamations for himself. Her lips were on his knuckles then, and he leaned into it, eyes widened, consistently, constantly surprised and befuddled, but deliciously so, incapable of predicting the next motion, where his calculations ended and instinct pulsed. Just be patient, and he laughed again, suddenly seditious gaze raptured and only for her – the resigned, the tolerant, the enduring, the persevering, biding his time when plotting, when devising, when ensuring wins and losses. When loving. “I am always patient,” the Reaper promised, a brow arched, daring her to challenge it. Did she want him to retreat? Did she want him to continue? Tell me, his hands stayed, hovered along her waist, mouth at the ready.
05-06-2019, 05:34 PM (This post was last modified: 05-06-2019, 07:21 PM by Amalia.)
Amalia
I took the stars from my eyes, I made a map
Gods, but it feels good to be looked at with those eyes, blue and brimming with unsaid things and focused solely on her. Voracious, insistent, but gently so, with a delicacy unexpected from one so Herculean, his surprisingly tender touches rising goosebumps on her skin. All of Amalia's careful preparations and pre-planned scenarios have not equipped her for this: none of the futures she replays in her mind have ever been so bright. His mouth on her lips, his hands on her waist - how is she to think of anything else, when he is so tantalizing close; how can she say no to anything he asks when he continues to give and give?
He promises patience, and she smiles in response, shy and grateful, apologetic and pleased. She lets her dark eyes flutter shut, leaning further into his touches, slender fingers wrapped around the large hand on her cheek. There are thousands of things she could say in that moment, but none of them feel adequate, eloquent enough to encapsulate everything she feels. Elation, comfort, devotion, joy, but also fear, anxiety, the ever gnawing dread that this moment will falter and she will be left alone in the dark, that much colder for having felt his warmth. That he has been willing to take the lead alleviates her fear: that he would ask her to step back in, only to learn she does not know dance, weighs like pitch within her gut.
The moment is too perfect, too terrifyingly fragile and beautiful and vibrant and good, and Amalia fears that by holding it too close she will cause it to collapse, shards of glass and deadly hope slicing against her heart. Reluctantly she pulls away, his hand still woven into hers, her heart still throbbing against her ribs. Needing space to think and regroup, but no less his because of it, Amalia squeezes against his fingers and settles them in her hand. "You still need your crown, my king." Trembling with laughter and life and maybe something more, she begins to lead him to where their flowers lie, golden head making frequent turns to ensure he follows still, her jet eyes wide and wondering and blazing, radiant as the thing that fills her heart. Her steps are closer to a dance than any dignified stride, jubilant and childlike, a clear betrayal of the overwhelming feelings which push against her skin.
Halfway to their destination she stops, no longer able to contain. Spinning suddenly back in toward Deimos, she raises her hands up to his face, a luminous grin and a lustrous laugh bubbling from her throat. Rising on tiptoes once again, Amalia smooths one hand around his neck, fingers tangling in his hair, the other back on lips and beard, as she gazes, rapturous, into blue eyes. "Hi," she whispers simply, stupidly, unable in that moment to find better words to convey the things she feels. Hi, her ardent smile seems to say, My name is Amalia, and I am young and foolish and hopeful and scared, and I have never done anything like this, and I am yours.
Equanimity was a place for those with reason, with depth, with restraint. He’s practiced and remained proficient in the art for more dynamic statures: death and desecration, plotting and devising, terrorizing and warning. When the world came at him, he often stepped back, examined, scrutinized, made calculations and predictions, thought several steps ahead (if one does this, then he could do that), because warfare had been a game of strategy as well as mere survival, one wrong maneuver and abhorrence meant very little with a spear in one’s gut. It is somewhat the same here and now; except it’s softness and fragility, a delicacy he could only trace, a foundation on feeble, fawn legs, short caresses and brushstrokes of skin, and then a retreat. The Reaper was aware of the tremulous lines and boundaries, eyed them with zealous endeavors and a more audacious exploit, staring at the sun he couldn’t quite fully embrace, too fresh, too new, guided by the wind and the breeze, rather than the fire and blood. She was tentative and he permitted it because it was understandable, allowed her to breathe in the foreign ether and air, in the grand, opulent luxury and ambrosial efforts of something worth savoring, worth considering, worth enjoying. He sipped from the cup as lightly as he could, slightly fearful in the back of his mind that he swallowed and consumed rather than relished, gluttonous and wolfish, considering her comfort, her ease. Come to me he’d rather roar and bellow, taunt and challenge, the devil-may-care and decadence wrapped around his hooded eyes, the snicker, the smirk, daring the luminous beams to keep guiding his way. The Reaper didn’t want to lose it – he’d already followed the same rituals over and over again, the stings, the assaults, the sieges, the unseen, unholy scars riddled and cast with the tangible blemishes of swords and daggers. The beast had been left in the dark and stayed in its grasp because it was better than facing the monumental sacrifices and depths of torment; kept blinking and staring back into the sun’s vivid beauty and wonder. So he appeased, he composed, he granted, he gave, no more a master of this game than she, but willing to play in it for however long she sanctioned him.
She fanned away, hands still tucked together, fingers enclosed so the separation wasn’t complete, he still chuckled, ducking his head down to stare at their expanse, to wonder, to muse, to deliberate in the midst of silence. His skull swung back up as soon as her voice chased along his hushed refrains – eyes widening in the expanse – and he was back in the mountains, rebuilding the rime piece by piece, staring down trespassers and mauling enemies, pouring animosity and acrimony from the fathoms of his features, by every scalding reach, by every terrifying display, raptor and beast, wraith and menace, the Reaper come to call on every damned soul daring to defy the wintry world. He shuddered, a length of cold air down the straightened, rigid slate of his spine, but it wasn’t anything he could place or name, a myriad of broken threads and strands held together by slender, chiseled fragments. He forgot how to breathe, head reeling, heart sinking, fingers tightening in her grip, led away and away, back into the sun, and he almost didn’t dare to stretch the fibers of his form again, flesh and bone wary, guarded, as if a throne will maul him again, turn him back into ash and dust, stone and monolith, barbaric and twisted. Where did he want to live and survive – out in the depths of the luminous earth, where the light and warmth can find him, or back in the shell of his memories, drowning and discarded, bestial and barbaric?
Deimos looked up to her radiance again, and swallowed down the haunting requiems, the warcries, the slaughters, the crumbling fortifications rising up to his throat. She glanced back and forth, perhaps expecting him to become a ghost, a phantom, lingering on the sways of music and dance, and then drifting back to his hollowed, empty, forlorn state. If the crown was made of ice and snow, he might’ve done just that, retreated, bent and splintered, fractured in the wall of decay, patched together with the disintegrating edges. But it was flowers in her hands, blossoms at her fingertips, warmth and delight buoyant, jubilant, shrouds lifting and clouds parting, and for once he soaked in that essence as best he could, turning his features towards the light, smile coiled along his mouth. This is not before his skull whispered, a promise, a benediction, a parting of ways from the looming, clawing past; he can make his way through the fathoms and depths and hollowed sections because there was a sanctuary right in front of him, a blaze, an inferno, he sought diligently.
The warrior has half a moment to watch her spin directly back into him, life in his hands, in his heart, in his lungs, in his soul, pressing and contagious, a quiet laugh beckoning from the miserable, aching contortions – he freed the melancholy with a devilish twist to his smile, to his grin, to his movements, caught and snared by her glimmers and flares. Her hands wind their way along his core, and he didn’t care, urged them to be there, deeper and deeper still, to varnish and lacquer him in their radiance and benediction, to warm him from the inside out, to keep all the darkness away. The beast might’ve shuddered again in her wake, restless, contorted, taut, dipping his head so it grew closer to her features, to her cheeks, to her gilded shroud, to all the things he couldn’t possibly have. “Hello,” he whispered back, a careful arch to his brow, half-teasing, half-imploring, eyes searching for the unsaid meanings: he can only read so much, bestow so many motions. His lips lingered somewhere near hers, tormenting for the sake of amusement, while his breath pulsed and imbued implicit promises. Hello, he reached for her in silence, a lacerated, mauled goliath, too damned and forsaken and ridiculous. I am not worthy of you. I do not deserve you. But I will try. The ending notes must’ve been the same, sparked and incensed in the afternoon ether. I am yours.
He brings his broad face close to hers, his voice a growl on her lips, teasing, prying, a dangerous game. It takes every force of will she possesses to hold back the shiver, a shuddering surrender which stirs within her soul. She smiles at him, wide and jubilant, a speck of sunlight caught between his hands, glittering and beaming under his touch. Leaning in slightly, the breadth of a hair, Amalia narrows the gap between them until she can feel his beard, her nose on his, his lips less than a breath away. He is heat beneath her body, a fire even through their distance, and it is everything she has not to give in, to crash against it and burn and burn, to lace her heart along with his and let him carry her away. Dark eyes stare into tantalizing blue: "Hi," she repeats, a little deeper, a little huskier, a little closer to something dangerous, something wild and willful and indiscreet. Fingers untangle from his curls, snake and slide across his chin, closer and closer and closer until--
Boop!
The girl draws back with a wicked grin, her index finger falling away from his nose, indulgent pleasure at her antics further illuminating her face. Springing lightly out of his reach (out of danger, because it's dangerous to be so close), she arches an eyebrow in rival challenge, inviting him to a new game. They are parted now, no longer touching, the greatest distance since those careful confessions, those cautious kisses and earnest oaths. The space between them gasps and gapes, screams to be closed, but she keeps it open, staring at the man. It is an invitation to pursue, a final excuse to escape, and into it Amalia breathes her only demand, "Catch me,", before spinning and darting away.
A flash of green and gold and bronze, Amalia weaves through the fringes of the crowd, confident in his pursuit (but glancing back frequently, just in case). Bare toes dancing lightly on the grass, she laughs as she runs, her heartbeat fast, the mischief rekindled in her eyes. Always barely out of reach, lithe and limber and wild as a sprite, she leads him back to their flower crown, bending down delicately to scoop it up without pausing in her flight until she nears a copse of elms, three outliers at the edge of the field.
Stopping in her quick retreat to lean like sunlight upon the bark, the baker turns to face the beast, garland turning lightly between her fingers, a playful smile on her face. She is ready to spring, to fly again, slip between his hands and make him hunt. "I don't know that you really want this-" and it is obvious from her tumultuous tone that she means far more than the circlet of blooms, is challenging for more than a gilded wreath. Unconsciously she licks her lips, remembering the almost-kiss, the moment of near-closeness a tantalizing thing. Should he try to lunge she will duck away, dexterous and deft, spinning around the trunk of the elm and emerging to grin from the other side.
There was provocation in the air, sizzling and snapping against the spring winds, and he narrowed his eyes at the sensation as it seemingly began to wrap its cords around Amalia, cause the sun to wane in his hands, billow outward in teasing machinations. He only sensed the danger in her reverberations seconds before her finger managed to scald his nose; he’d been fervently distracted by hands and fire; snaking along his skin and diverting his intentions. As the boop came full throttle, he reeled and reared back, snorting out a low chuckle, a growl eerily, poignantly, scraping against the back of his throat, down through his ribs, carving its way along his tongue. Then she escaped – much like a doe, a fawn, a wild, untamed creature, defiant and seditious, springing across the grass as if borne solely from the salt and loam of the earth, given wings and fey essence – he arched a brow and simply watched for a few seconds, stunned, lured, beguiled all over again. There was a chasm between them, wide and gaping, no hands held, no fingers touching, no lingering caresses; and he studied it, scrutinized it, the worth, the chase, the beckoning, clawing ministrations and Machiavellian tendencies rampaging through his skull. It was an invitation to a new diversion, but suddenly infinitely more dangerous, perilous, hazardous, precarious, and it sunk against his frame in a menacing, malicious coil, for the beast so dearly loved to hunt. The grin he returned at her behest was positively sinful.
Carnivore upheaval and silent repartees scalded his motions, they were decadent and sinister, a predator’s stalking strides, a calm before the storm, hushed and intangible, the untouchable, unattainable heathen in the wake of whimsical dances and exuberant crowds. She must’ve known he’d give chase, a man who once prided himself on being unpredictable, sliding in amidst the gaps and pathways she left open, some people simply seeing him coming, looming, and swerving out of the way, chaotic intentions distorting the measures of his rapacious heart. It was far too late for her to escape, and maybe she could dart and dash and spin away, but eventually, he’d close in – he was composure and infinite patience, after all, already extending those wares and munitions to her being. However, he was malicious and incandescent too, wolf strings plucked and defiant, the rebellious lure of his desires made all the more apparent on his face; devilish smile, narrowed eyes, mischief, mayhem, and immorality simmering below his skin. He followed the sun here and there, chased down the heavenly beams with every forethought and purpose designated to swallowing the fire whole, a hushed roar to his treacherous furor, audacious amore sculpting its way through his lungs as he laughed back at her. The warrior didn’t run, but blended and maneuvered, swerving as his great height served him some advantages, but not speed, not this time, not with her lithe, limber, willowy motions leaping and launching - he saw the flower crown nestled ahead, scooped and tucked out of his reach again. Her flight was much like a bird, and he merely bided his time, chuckling as she dared to instigate, prompt, and trigger his pursuit; his inhalations were vicious, savage connotations, nearing the top of her head, and then she’d flee, and he’d ensue the same untamed, behemoth invocations. His breaths, ominous and forbidding, billowed purposefully towards the back of her neck, where golden hair curled and escaped, and he’d motion away too, a turn, a twist, in an opposing direction, returning on a frigid wind, on a scalding of smoke, fire, and coals.
He didn’t reach for her, his hands down at his sides, the same arch to his brow conveyed, and the rest of him licentious, twisted together in abandoned, dissolute overtures, thoroughly corrupt, the depths of his gaze lingering on her, barbaric and raptorial through and through. His blood wound a steady pulse in his head, contorted and eager, fervent and ready, waiting for him to reach out and snag, hold, clamoring for it in a wicked, daring display, but his gaze remained on her face, on her cheeks, on her mouth. “I think you know what I want.” It was his own challenge, ensued as he folded his arms, not buying into her current instigations, eyes never quite lingering on the crown and its bulbs, its laurels, its blossoms; far more occupied by the real thing. His smile was dimpled and iniquitous, a blend of impish decrees and the more salacious undertones, but body withholding, consistently a whisper, a murmur, a trace away, playing her own game against her.
05-08-2019, 12:55 AM (This post was last modified: 05-08-2019, 03:45 AM by Amalia.)
Amalia
I took the stars from my eyes, I made a map
If she is the sunlight he is the moon, rising steady in her wake, patient, reflecting her absurdity with a wicked, avaricious grin. Over her shoulder she sees him there, her umbral shadow, her flame-burnt coal, a torch against the roaring anxiety which boils constant in her breast. Even at a distance she can feel his heat, the controlled immolation which threatens to eat her whole, delicious and comfortable and dangerous, too. Perhaps that is part of why she runs: to challenge that blaze, see how hot she can stoke it, how much she could possibly add to the inferno which illuminates her so vividly, scalds her frigid night.
To find out whether it will extinguish in her absence- or worse still, redirect.
But he follows, purposeful, wonderful, the steady confidence of his figure more exhilarating than any frenzied grasp. Darting between bodies and over loam, Amalia is a sprite for him to chase, and he a slow and steady force, glacial and unrelenting and certain to prevail. After all, she does not truly wish to leave - that much is evident in the fervent glances, the way she waits and lingers and hope, breathless and laughing and daring him to come near, to clasp her once more in his arms and refuse to let her go.
Her wooden guardian is in fact unneeded, the tree a shield against no onslaught. Amalia waits with baited breath, certain he will strike, will give in and grasp for her and thus the girl will win. Ah, but her opponent is a wily thing, and as she peers from behind the tree Deimos seems to surrender the chase. Half disappointed, she leans in closer, right arm wrapped around the trunk, head tilted curiously as if to ask, given up?
Amalia is wrong again, wrong about so many things, and never more grateful to be so. Pitch gaze searching across his face, Amalia sees the secret within. It is written in his smile, his stance, the knowing way he smirks. It is written in those piercing eyes, which have always seen so keenly through her shrouds, emblazoned to her soul. No, Deimos has not surrendered: in his face she can see the hunter, and it sends a shiver through her spine. His eyes say he is in control, and the girl believes it, knows it to be true, though she strives to maintain the facade.
Moving around the trunk of the tree, Amalia hangs off the bough, one hand swinging her from the rough bark, the other holding the flowery prize. Still determined to maintain the upper hand, she attempts an air of nonchalance while her flushed cheeks and heartbeat speak of anything but. The crown dances lightly between her fingers, but she does not look upon her work: she has eyes for him and only him, her body wound taut with expectations, aching desire to close the gap. Closer she swings, and then away, rising and falling from heel to toe, her motions a rhythmic, aching dance. In failing to reward her he has changed the game, reversed her role and taken the reins; it is he who pulls her invisible threads, drawing her to him with nothing but a glance, the weight of the moon against her ebbing tide. "I think you should show me," she murmurs in response, her voice less the confident challenge that she intended, more a rough, cautious, whispered thing. Her right hand remains upon the elm; her left extends out just a little, the bouquet dangling in her fingers, her attention entirely centered on him and the battle of wills she does not want to win, a vibrant, ardent, yearning smile on her passionate lips.
In some parameters, he very well could be the moon: distant, forlorn, cold, rock and rubble, stone and ice, never quite maneuvering from its perch, constant and monolithic, incapable of casting its own light. But the beast had never thought of himself amidst the other celestial beings, too trapped in his own earthly shell, slowly eroding, encased in his marauding lacquer, destined to resist and rebel. He stared towards the heavenly bodies instead, occasionally stepping into their bright orbits and illustrious wakes and knew very well he didn’t belong, but inhaled their elegance and finery, brooded and stoked, kindled and incensed anyway. Perhaps it was to take a chance, a glance, at what could have been, had he taken alternate paths and routes, had he not maneuvered so close to ruin, had he not associated himself with death, had he not become a feral, bestial thing. Aloof and nonchalant, he would then scatter amidst the high beams and summer sonnets, chiseling right back to the shadows, where he belonged, where he was comfortable, where he festered, withered, and growled, where he came apart at the seams and didn’t know how to stitch it back together – not anymore. The strands unfurled and uncoiled, and he only held them closer, taut, rigid, controlling and precise, not letting the world see just how many times he’d messed up, a defect, a flaw, an inept, undeserving calamity restlessly toiling in the darkness.
Then he held the sun in his grasp and laughed, chuckled, contorted himself back together again. Time measured him in sets and events: crowned one moment, dead the next, granted renewal for the unknown, swaying purposes, and then chasing after mischief, glory, and finally, sinking down, down, down into self-destruction (grief and agony; heavy on his shoulders, eclipsed along his flesh, his skin, his marrow, his bones). He wasn’t sure where these chapters started, where the tales twisted and turned, sorrow bending its way towards the light, reaching and scalding, tremulous and tender, but he knew they were written in some accord with her ink and benedictions.
But he was a star now, constructed carefully, managed with precision and derision, the wicked smile tucked along his mouth, infernos and chilling contradictions – side by side, winter and summer, pulsing, pervading, with his composed enigma. Beneath, he brewed and boiled, a scintillating, simmering, smoldering conviction, no wraiths, no phantoms, no specters in sight now, a clever, devious fiend fervent to make his mark. Deimos once made the whole world wait in his blistering silence, in the condemnation of living things, in the undulating, coiled roll of his muscles before he fanned the flames and stoked savagery; he could unsettle her too, except this time it was for amusement and temptation. The warrior intended to feed the fire and witness her struggle with its decadence, its ire, its deep, beckoning unknown, the Cheshire grin apparent, the diversion not quite forsaken, but tempered to his wiles and deceptions. Maybe he’s played these games far longer than she; but for brutality and impatience, the demeaning, demanding structure of loosening an enemies’ or opponents skills. This was an entirely different accord – he wanted, yearned, and longed too, but had withstood the demands of his own being for eons.
The Reaper laughed again, not even bothering to suppress the rumble from his chest as she strived to appear nonchalant and dispassionate, not remotely bothered or incensed, when her entire face claimed otherwise (burning bright; roses and petals). He wandered closer, still purposefully out of reach as she swung along boughs and branches, as her sunlit expanse caught the nuances of leaves and blossoms, tilting his head to ensure he had a memory stored of the canvas, the tapestry. Then he studied again, eyes intentionally not locking onto the crown in her fingers, but her, always her, I think you should show me clawing at his mind, stretching to the more unholy ventures and promises – his gaze widened for a few moments, then narrowed again, beguiled and allured, but not falling for it this time. She required patience and he’d give it to her – a tease, a torment, on both of their frames. “Show you?” He inquired, an intense, rooted depth and fathom to his voice, brow arching, a simultaneous dare, as if she didn’t know what she craved (but it held iniquitous in his soul, not even bothering to hide the nuances and notions).
Quick and swift, despite his mass, Deimos reached for her on a closer swing towards his figure, ducking beneath the bough to catch her in his grasp. The hand intended to pull her flush against his chest, where heartbeats gathered, clamored, and reverberated together, gaze hooded, looking down at gold and black. The signs of mischief disappeared for a moment, and his features were a series of broad, enticing, inveigling cords, ducking his head so his mouth, his lips, whispered against hers, then swept on a descent, crossing over to behind her ears, along the length of her neck. He wanted to hear a gasp, a plea, a movement of wilderness through her teeth and tongue.
And all the while, his other hand roamed; not to her sides, not to her waist, not to her face, but along the depths of the arm carrying the cluster of flowers, teasing and toying, skin inching along skin, until his grasp grabbed hold of them, firm, unyielding, striving to pluck the crown completely out of her hold. When it was fully relinquished and in his grip, he tore away from her form; complete, utter mischief and audacity sizzling along his frame, bounding backwards, settling the diadem on his untamed mane. “This monarch thanks you.” His laughter was ruffian and seditious, and the grin accompanying it was marked by the seditious, before he swung around several other trees, pretending to make a worthwhile escape.
Again he laughs in the face of her attempted facade, his blue eyes blazing easily through the walls she tries to build. Amalia glows beneath the sound, her heartbeat an echoing thunder in her ears as the beast stalks nearer, but never near enough. The crown swings toward him and then away, an extension of her arm, a little more brazen now, a little more wild, a little more reckless and craven and beguiled. Pendulous, magnetized, her body arcs toward him, narrowing that gaping space before she oscillates away, the distance that much keener by how nearly it was closed.
The girl tries to taunt, to scintillate and inspire, to be the thing that breaks him and bends him to her will: but she is an unpracticed thing, woefully out of place, wonderfully trapped by her own devices. Perhaps she invites because she is afraid, terrified beneath her giddy infatuation that the thing they toy with is just that: infatuation, focused, fleeting, fading as quickly as it flares up. There are many girls for him to dance with, many hands for him to hold. Countless lips that would long to touch him, to flutter on his and offer more, more than an anxious damsel can, with fewer demands of patience and wait.
Oh, but then his hands are on her, and Amalia has no room for anxieties: her focus is entirely enraptured by him. Swift and seamless he takes her hand, pulling him flush against his figure, his face a heartbeat from her lips. The baker feels her mouth go dry, keenly aware yet wholly oblivious, caught by his skin and scent and eyes. She tucks her lip between her teeth, staring into his hooded gaze, her own black sinking into blue. Her right hand remains gripped on the tree; her left is entirely in his grasp, frozen by the ministration of gentle fingers on her arm, hair rising lightly in response to the careful, measured touch. He must be able to feel her heartbeat; it hammers fast and heavy and loud, enough to shake her slender frame (or is that his breath that makes her tremble, the unsaid things in his smoldering eyes?). His lips touch hers for just a second, and Amalia cannot help the slightest whisper of protest as they leave, too fast for a proper kiss, too fast for anything, too fast too fast too fast-
Perhaps part of her does not want to be patient, and that in itself terrifies her more. There is a battle of body and spirit within her, wants and worries raging like seas beneath her sun-kissed skin. There is a piece of the girl which remembers Frey, the grasping touches of the many-handed god, the way she fit within them as a fluid fills a glass. Deimos' lips light a similar fire, set her ablaze with the lightest embrace, and she yearns for more just as she fears it, aching and terrified by the intensity of his touch. Her cheek, her chin, and oh, her ear-!
"Deimos!" she gasps against his hair, tilting her head as he follows her neck, eyes wide with surprise at the unexpected sensation. Slender hands grasp tighter at the branch of the tree: Wait!, she wants to say, but her tongue is tied, locked by the war inside her skin. She wants him - she wants him - but she also wants him, wants to know and be known by him, wants him to be the sun she orbits instead of just a passing comet, a blazing glow of glorious light which passes by too soon. Once, the girl gave herself, surrendered and allowed thinking it lust was romance, mistaking flirtation for emotion, for love. And once the thing she gave was returned, a little more tarnished for the misuse, an empty crevice left inside her where she'd thought that he might fit.
Deimos is too precious, too magnificent, too dear; he has taken a place in her hollow heart, and the wounded girl cannot bear the thought that his feelings for her might burn out and leave her holding naught but ash.
So it is with no little bit of relief that she feels him pull away, though her body trails after him, still hungry for his warmth. The theft of the crown goes entirely unnoticed until it is upon his head, resting firmly on untamed curls, bright and delicate and not nearly as beautiful as he. Bemused, Amalia can only blink, her dark eyes clouded, her expression still drawn with pleasure and discontent. It his laughter which rouses her from her reverie, reminds her that they are still in the world, that there is more here than him and his hands and his skin and his breath and his fingers and his hair and his lips. There is a game to be won, still in play, the rules always changing but the dancers the same.
Grinning widely at the man, Amalia sticks out her tongue in mock indignation, though her flushed face and trembling hands belie any real rage. "Very well, Deimos the Shade, ruler of the Fiat Lux!" Her laughter ringing through the small grove, Amalia swings in the opposite direction, aiming to take him by surprise, to catch him as he attempts to flee and find her way back into his radiance, to run fleeting fingers over his nose before falling into a graceless bow. "What would you ask of me, my lord, your humble servant for this festival day?" She leans toward the ground, but her head tilts up, dark eyes glittering from behind her tawny mane, long hair falling over shoulder and face, attention and thoughts and allegiance and dreams focused entirely on him.
For a miscreant so firmly, methodically, in complete control, teeth and tongue simmering on the bounds of precision, he wondered if he simply pushing too far. He was never quite sure how much to press and where to cease, desist, because both seemed enraptured and beguiled by the other, because he ached and yearned, and was as wanton as she. She coaxed and instigated, she provoked and goaded, and he rose to the challenge every time, bestial and barbaric, acquisitive and mercenary. She asked and he provided, unrelenting and fervent, pacing the corridors like a wandering predator seeking, stalking, its next meal; never quite sated, never quite satisfied, never quite having enough. The sun would coax the moon and he’d see stars, he’d vanquish demons, he’d conquer foes, and then he’d dive into the flare and settle himself amidst the beams and rays, inveigled, allured, deeper and deeper still. Then he’d wait, wait, and wait, thinking, believing, she’d eventually tire of him, of the stoic, monolithic figure, of the quiet, of the violence and vehemence searing beneath his skin, to and through his heart. So many others had (alone and adrift, on top of his mountain summits with crown in hand and frozen bones fused together, a vacant vessel, a weapon for the world to utilize, to ignore when it suited their fancy, to let him storm into realms and kingdoms for their protection and defense). She’d gasp beneath his ministrations and touches, a cajoling, a ruse, a nuance of so many damned, unsaid sentiments, and he’d remember his name sung on her lips for a lifetime. But then – was it wrong to take and grasp hold of it? Was it too much? He wanted and craved, desired and coveted, simmered his way through movements and motions long since trapped beneath sullen brows and savage arts. But it wasn’t fair for him to demand, for him to command, for him to lead them down a road she didn’t care to traverse, not now, not ever.
He breathed and coaxed the meticulous efforts behind his eyes, heartbeats intertwined and murmuring boundless, infinite connections, and he swallowed down the luminous beams and the molten infernos, keeping them close to his chest, to his soul, ablaze and vast, a sea, a conflagration. Patience he’d promised, and the Reaper had never been one to back down from a conviction, from a vow, even when it cost him; he inhaled again, justifying the brief distance, the wild expanse, to calm the thunderous ambitions of his avaricious mind. It wasn’t an escape or evasion, but just a moment – so his hunger didn’t gnaw or tear away at her, so he didn’t scare her, so he didn’t frighten, terrify, or dragoon. He was used to intimidating tactics and broadening horror across battlefields: he wouldn’t ensue the same abominations and abhorrence on someone he cherished. Wants and needs were two different things: and though he wanted her in so many ways, it wouldn’t matter if he was only a menace, only a beast, only a fiend. If he was without her acceptance, tolerance, or beneficence, he wouldn’t even be standing there with a crown of blossoms on his head, amidst fields and music, within walls of elms and pine, conjuring up different, alternating dances to the rhythm of their own tunes and intonations, their laughter, their mischief, their version of tranquility. He didn’t want to lose any of that.
Restraint, he reminded himself; he knew how, he knew why, but hadn’t conjured a reason in so long, that without the urgency of treachery or deception, it felt new, it felt foreign, it felt like madness crowded amongst the divine.
Deimos settled himself beneath a massive oak, leaning against its trunk, arms folded, mouth widening to a feral, reckless grin, never quite giving way to her mockery or pretend exasperation. If she were truly irked and irritated with him, she’d likely would have left along the hundreds of other opportunities, and he’d be wild and bereft, abandoned and forsaken, just as predicted (a pattern, you know the world kept telling him, and he wondered why now was so different, so calming, so distinct). He had half a mind to reach for her again and bring her shaking hands to his mouth, to breathe and whisper over them with more composed efforts, but then the whole mindset from before would’ve been useless and ineffectual, and they’d continue fighting a battle neither seemed intent on winning. Perhaps this was the true nature of the game they’d been concocting, more rules, more diversions, more antes at stake, building until the intensity was too much, or spiraling along the middle, waiting for the other to burst.
Then she fled after her proclamations (ruler of the Fiat Lux indeed, as if he could ever be a monarch again, brutal and unfit, hollowed and inept, meant for demons and monsters), and he tilted his head, listening to the wind and the laughter, absorbing it with the smallest of smiles. His eyes touched along the ground and didn’t move, waiting again, forbearing and still, inhaling and exhaling with the fathoms, with the coils, with the contortions. Her hands found him moments later, brushing along the tip of his nose, and he raised his skull like a proud, majestic beast, instead of the wounded, twisted warrior he’d become. His gaze was all quiet mischief again, witnessing her mocking bow, the temptation embarking across her face, and he knew he didn’t deserve any of it – was unworthy to fall apart in her hands or in her presence, an unqualifying behemoth to the rest of society. But he stayed because he felt safe and secure there, a sanctum, a sanctuary, amidst the twists and turns of the sun, never quite daring to leave him in the shadows too long.
He didn’t long to ask anything of her that she didn’t dare give. The strong, persistent edge of his stare riveted solely on her again, and his grin dimpled, boyish and mischievous, what he could’ve been without all the follies, all the disasters, all the ruins etching their way across his wake. She was no servant. She was no attendant. “Kings serve their people.” Deimos didn’t wander too deep into that particular threshold, for there’d been days and decades, snippets and seconds, where the sovereignties and his mindset came together, collaborated, for the sole purpose of terror and infamy. They lost and sank their teeth in. They drove wedges. They exploited information. They devised menace to their advantage. Not here; the cold winds blew into his membrane, into his memories, and the quiet, delicacy of the moment didn’t make him falter. Not anymore. “What can this one do for you?” What do you want? was a bastion, was a rampart, was a munition, simmering behind his gaze, in his immobile, tenacious stance.
He is a patch of sunlight that peeks through the clouds, threatening to illuminate her in his warmth but also to burn her with his heat, a searing thing, a dangerous thing, that she does not yet know how to handle. Or perhaps it is she who is the dangerous one, alternating sharp and muted, bright and shadowed, vibrant and afraid. An alien dropped into foreign waters, she is rudderless, wanting and aching but so unsure, pulled by a warring of head and heart. Where he has been open she has been shut, ebbing and flowing far faster than tides, flickering and flippant in the face of his ministrations. How can she tell him what he needs when she had no knowledge of it herself? Only that she could take and take and take and take but it must be at her discretion, her desire.
And she wants to give, too, to repay the debt she already owes and so much more beside. Amalia aches to give him the things he asks for and the things he does not, those unspoken but still made so clear, loudly told by touches and glances, fervent lips and shortened breaths. He is her lighthouse, her sunlight, her bastion, her shield. If she could take her heart into her hands and give it to him she would, beg him to cherish and keep it safe, to hold it against the trials of the world. She does not know how to care for herself, to deserve the things he inspires. And the baker would do anything to hold this moment, to fall into his arms and let him have it all, if only it means he will stay.
She wants him to love her, and in her desire to fill that want she would give him anything, regardless of the cost.
But all he asks - all he has ever asked - is what he can do for her.
And Amalia does not want to tell him. But she knows, deep down, she must.
She steps away from his boyish smile, away from his sunlight and into the shade, reluctant and uncertain, wrapping herself in her arms. A troubled expression crosses her face, darkening the joviality, the youthful bliss. So much of her screams to stop, to go back to him and his arms and his lips, to shy away from selfishness lest she break their tenuous thread. It is so brittle, so fragile, so perfect and new; she should bask in it and ignore her doubts, ignore the stupid part of her that cries for him to wait. For what good could she be to him, if she fails so soon to fulfill his whims?
"Deimos, I-"
But she cannot finish, because the truth is she does not know. Amalia swallows and tightens her grip, dark eyes on the man. Here in the shadow of the trees she is duller, her hair less gilded, her smile less bright. Insecurity is her constant friend; it rises like bile on her tongue, bites and screams and scalds her mouth, threatens to crush her beneath its heel. Shut up! her blood shrieks in her ears, a roar of thunder to swallow her whole. If only she were braver. If only she were better.
I admire your strength. You are bold. You are radiant.
These are the things Deimos sees in her, and she clings to the words, replays them in her mind. They are her lifeline, her harbor, the rope which keeps her from plummeting down, down, into the gaping abyss of her anxious mind. "I don't know what I want," she whispers, brow pulled tight into a frown, pleading, praying to find the words, to help him - and help herself - understand. "I... I haven't done this in a long time, and when I did..." The memory is wet tar, threatening to anchor her deeper into doubt when she wants nothing more than to return to the buoyancy of his embrace. But Amalia is older than she was, wiser, and as afraid as she is to break the fragile thing they have, she is infinitely more terrified of failing to lay foundations that will allow it to be strong.
Whatever you want, I will try to grant it.
"You are... so important to me." A small, shy smile, but full of meaning, rosy and timid on her worried face. I need you. "And I- I want to- I want this to be more than today. And more than tomorrow. And I want it to be everything, because you make me so happy and I-"
Love you, Amalia does not say.
Looking down at the grass beneath her feet, the anxious baker sighs. "But I want to take it slowly, too. I want... I want to know you. And I want you to know me. I want this to be real. And I... I know that's a lot. And maybe it isn't what you wanted, or what you were hoping for, and if it isn't I'm sorry and I understand-" And here she stops, unable to go on, apprehension at last choking down her alto voice. There are tears in her eyes but she will not shed them, will not force him into guilt. Biting her lip, she raises her head, determined to meet his gaze and hide her pain, trying and failing to mask the hope and fear in her expressive face, the shiver of her cold and creeping loneliness, the gripping terror that she has said too much, asked too much, and offered too little in return.
The silence weighed and pressed, and despite his head tilting, his curiosity piqued, a sense of foreboding gnarled and gnashed its way through his mind. He’d pushed again, and perhaps this was the result: the gaping unknown returning to swallow him whole. The warrior wasn’t sure where to turn or where to cross, where the unmarked lines were hidden beneath sand and soil, where he was meant to bend, break, or proffer. The inquiry hadn’t been simple, but a necessity, draped and garbed without specious, devious ruses, but also without serenity, tranquility, the airs of mischief, the purpose of amusement and diversions. They’d been discarded for the here and now, for the pathways etched in various directions, for the primrose trails lined in potential, devastation, or more of the enigmatic twists and turns. The fathoms and depths were murky and cloudy, with their subtle stretch of sunbeams, then drifting behind the devouring heavens, and he wondered if he’d erred, if he’d calculated, if he’d simply run himself aground and this would be the result. He presumed dismissal would ring its head and resound, reverberate, reflect back upon him with distaste and aversion, sending him back to desolation and isolation (familiar, safe, heartbreaking). The routes and avenues he’d traversed before had been straightforward – he’d been loved and loved in return – and before anything more could culminate, she was gone, and it was the last anguish he could possibly bear before completely falling apart. He’d gradually unraveled and unfurled, contorted his disastrous whims into the earth and coiled his mettle back into abominations and abhorrence. The ritual had been brutal and scarring; but here, here he’d been able to lift his head and stare straight into the sky and no one cared, no one gave a damn, no one scorned his tarnished, asinine hide or belittled his quiet, hushed platitudes. They accepted, they tolerated, and he’d grown comfortable.
He’d rooted himself instead of wandering into annihilation. He’d tied his tethers and icy, glacial expanse into the thresholds, the apertures, the roofs, the shelters, the homes, and the abodes. He meandered down the streets and knew others, could address them by name. It was given him into return tenfold – the catalyst stood right before him and didn’t seem to understand just how much she’d granted his undeserving mass, yearned to accord him more. He wanted to shake his head and laugh at the absurdity; he wasn’t worth these efforts, this pain, this torture. The Reaper wasn’t a prize, had more flaws and defects than virtues, contained wrath and contempt, was fueled and urged on by seething hatred and vindictive violence. There was nothing to see there – nothing beyond his strength and perseverance, his endurance and persistence, his ridiculous, Machiavellian mind. The beast didn’t know what he wanted except for her, in whatever capacity, in whatever form, because she was a solace, a spark, an incitement, someone kind, beneficent, the opposite of his damned self. He commended her bravery. He applauded her persistence. He revered her – but maybe that wasn’t enough.
Perhaps she’d simply given too much of herself away, so used to extending her arms and alms out to anyone who required them, who looked tired, who looked starving, who looked like they were withering, decaying. Perhaps he’d read too much into it, and this was just who she was, mistaken so many things for interest instead of her general altruism and selflessness. The misgivings layered on top of one another, one after the other, a meticulous skull combining thousands of potential sentiments into a discordant, suspicious, and apprehensive wound in his ears. It drummed along his heart and pulsed with its madness, not incandescent, but dreading the inevitable – like a high, cruel laugh meant to send him into oblivion and ruin. She stepped back and he waited for it, eyes widening a fraction, expecting the impending wake to settle into his form and splinter it apart. Not you, never you, even though they’d established something, any and all confidence in the moments before evaporated. Deimos must’ve looked like an empty, hollowed vessel then, anticipating the lacerations and blows, steeling and forging himself, rigid, taut, yearning to be defiant but not finding anything to enamel or iron his figure upon.
His name was on her breath, and then nothing else. The potential crush was deafening. He lingered beneath the rush of the shadows, in his elements but so thoroughly flanked by the wicked clamor of his heart; he thought to stare down at the ground so he didn’t have to watch her try to piece together words damning or wounding to his pride. There wasn’t anything for him to do but wait there in the thicket, flower crown blossoms dangling from his hair, wondering just how foolish he’d become, to believe anyone would ever –
Her whisper sizzled against his ears, and his gaze locked back on hers, the uncertainty layered amidst the stones and loam. “Neither have I,” he shrugged and smiled, already admitting once that he’d fell for the rain and then drowned beneath its mercy, beneath its absence. Maybe they were both trapped in scorn and doubt, the past roaring up to meet them, and they were fumbling, struggling to decipher where they were supposed to go after all the pain and misery. Maybe they were fragile and inept, ineffectual because the world had deceived them, because somewhere along the way anything beautiful and cherished had been corrupted, disastrous, and fleeting.
But she continued - you are so important to me, and a snort wanted to flow through his nose, but he couldn’t summon the courage to ask why, why, why. At some point, throughout her speech, his eyes caught the gilded edges and their frayed sentiments, and his lips shifted to a more simplistic, genuine smile, without the mischief, without the follies, without the cruelty festering in his soul. His chest was lighter, his ribs didn’t break or concave, his shoulders didn’t droop with the nuance of weight and plights. He wasn’t sent away. He wasn’t slaughtered. He wasn’t pushed and shoved out of the thicket.
Deimos never had any intentions of leaving her; faithful and committed, ardent and fervent, constant and eternal. He’d just never had the opportunity before. He didn’t know how to establish himself with others - not anymore, not after loss after loss, disaster after disaster, death after death after death. He’d avoided it entirely, because it was easier, because the self-inflicted torment was better than any other torture the kingdoms and realms sought and sent to maim him. But there they were, out in the open, beneath oaks and elms, struggling to understand just what it meant to lay out foundations.
Words were always a bit lost on him – he preferred action, movement, and motion, so he maneuvered from beneath the boughs and eaves, striding toward her, a slow, diligent pace. He didn’t stalk. He didn’t pounce. He didn’t beat or bleed greed, avarice, or cunning. He didn’t possess mischief. He just existed – aimed to wrap his arms around her in a tight, beholden embrace, shifting his arms over her shoulders, hands along her hair and tucking her below his chin, so his skull rested on top of hers, quiet, contemplative. “I am not going anywhere.” It was a promise, the start of a vow and assurance, in whatever capacity she required. “You will tire of me long before I ever tire of you.” Here he laughed, meant to be a joke along the truthful annals and tomes; a gentle rumble amidst the dampening, doused void, struggling with what to say, what to do. She’d accepted him seasons ago, and he could easily do the same – it was effortless, it was natural. He’d already done it.
Real; as if the notion was a mere dream. He snagged at it, like a cat, pawing the air, struggling to catch it and hold it close to his chest.
“I want to know you,” he repeated her intonations, like a verse, deep and curling from his throat, barren and laden out there in the breeze, on a sigh, on an inhale and exhale, staring along the borderlines of the fields with the sun in his grasp. “If you want to know me, then ask away.” He chuckled once more, eyes falling to gaze on the strands of skirts. But you may not like what you hear echoed back at him, and for once, he wondered if he should care, if he should simply lay it all out there, as she had done, or if it would be damning again.
