[SE] sky full of song

DEIMOS And in your darkest hour, I hold secrets flame The warrior was altered, frigid walls collapsing beneath his notice, munitions, fortifications drifting asunder. It could’ve been the sunlight in his hands. It could’ve been the radiance contorting and cavorting along his fingertips, emboldened and brazen before him, rounds of warm laughter like sprigs in his senses, sending him onward. He was precision and recklessness, the ramparts cast aside, left along whatever lonely, wayfaring path he’d followed here, pushed and pushed and pushed again into a series of foolish, silly, exultant intricacies. He didn’t back or balk away from it either, rushing headlong like before, when he hadn’t lost everything, when the world hadn’t abandoned him, when the only thing he needed to worry about was training, scaling heights, or how to lacerate an opponent properly. It should’ve made him feel stripped, bare, naked; and instead he was wicked, impish, bits and pieces of the old Deimos before collapsing spires and treacheries. He acknowledged the current, the undertow, and let it glide him along, tides rippling along his sides and buoying him closer to shore; they rampaged, they charged. Unbound, unrestrained, unchained, untethered, unmoored, naught held him back, and he wouldn’t have let it, didn’t fear drowning, didn’t fear cracking and crumbling, not here, not now. His breaths were calculating, his movements were a barrage, a mere hint of what he might’ve been on the battlefield (the Colossus, the monolith, a sudden, swift force for all his size), muscles rippling and rolling beneath her touch; could’ve easily conquered mountains and summits in her grasp. If she was afraid, he couldn’t ascertain it. Perhaps she should’ve been, because sometimes he was useless, inept, ignorant, and utterly ridiculous – other moments he blended straight into savagery, dragging rapier blades through flesh and stone and snares. But she didn’t fade or escape, and it was acceptance again, belief, confidence, credence in his bestial nature, in the devilry infusing the ground he scourged. He wouldn’t let her regret it. Deimos yearned to be a battering ram – assail and assault and siege his way through the threshold like a barbaric shield – but the laughter rolling through his chest belied his more malicious intentions. It’s all mischief now, the pursuit, the intrigue, the relentless chase, and he hunted, he stalked, he persisted, invoked by her smile, by her responses, iniquitous encouragement. The announcement of groups foretold bombardments left him with another snicker tracing his mouth, bowing his head to hide the chuckle unfurling past his lips, one eyebrow arching as she spun directly into the line. He should’ve (but didn’t) expected her to crash back into him on such a whirling coil, didn’t think her hand would find its way to his chest, frame aligned with his, breath fanning over his neck. There was no way to guard himself, no shield, no armor. He shuddered and shivered beneath the whispers, the murmurs, eternally unsaid things, one undulating roll of his muscles, a growling rumble kindled in his lungs when she maneuvered away. The smirk earned its way back, a quick, calculating air ensuring he’s losing, and he’s loathed to admit he has no intention of falling, of failing. The Reaper’s steps were a bit more ambitious now, more thunderous, more ignited, more nefarious, piercing eyes sliding away from gilded crowns, and towards a strident sound clawing its way through his senses. “Fifteen for horrendous singing.” His nod indicated his intended direction, the only hint she’d receive, before turning her into the first of the pair harking their lyrics and stanzas (not a single harmony between the two of them; it’d be bloody spellbinding in its absurdity if it didn’t remind him of nails on a chalkboard). He spun on the same cue, knocking into the second with a vicious smirk indicating he still wasn’t sorry, and despite their hissing, argumentative tones, he simply maneuvered them further away, incapable of restraining his laughter. Passing by another couple, likely to be deemed the next victims if they didn’t pick up the pace, one of his hands only released her for a few seconds to snatch the flower crown adorning the other woman’s head. It was swift and sure, blindingly quick, hints of soldier skills and survival adornments, before placing it on Amalia’s head – stolen blossoms enriched in pinks and yellows. “Five for every crown remaining by the end.” He shook his skull, listened to the blossoms shake against one another, a little crumpled but still embedded along his cranium. master of nothing place; of recoil and grace

Amalia