[SE] sky full of song

DEIMOS And in your darkest hour, I hold secrets flame How many times had he been challenged? The memories folded over, behind his eyes like phantoms and wraiths, serpentining, intertwining, with the beckoning, untamed facets (stolen beasts, comrades taken by shadow and knives, the desecration in his steps, the promise of his molten iniquity, smoldering vengeance and abominations bursting within his veins). How many times had he won? How many times had he lost? How many times did he still sink into the lure, into the beguiling snares, tempted and intrigued? It made him a beast, it made him a fiend, it made him a heathen – and then it made him brave and bold and daring, bestial plains of mayhem and pandemonium, patron sinner anointed in disorder and disarray; the smirk a dead giveaway for his irreverent raptures. To a point, this game should’ve signified nothing; it was silly and diverting, amusing and chaotic, but there were no swords stabbing into lungs and sides, no daggers thrust into hearts, no vanquishing of foes and adversaries, no kingdoms pillaged, no villages plundered. And still he dove straight into the melee like a voracious wolf, ravenous predator, carnivore amore, unleashed from his makeshift fortress and prison, chasing down sunbeams and radiance as if he hadn’t seen them in years, in decades, in eons. He wanted to triumph in so many ways, and didn’t know which path to take, which rubble-laden road to sojourn upon, which stone to overturn, which trail to blaze – so he simply kept choosing hers. Why she didn’t tell him to leave and disintegrate, wither and decay, was beyond him. But Deimos was not one to abandon another; despite the title, despite the forlorn canvas emblazoning through his flesh and blood. Forsaken by the gods never meant he was a menace to his men, staring out against the vast sea of enemies and retreating away from the onslaught; they were terrors and so was he, howling and roaring amidst the war-torn fields and the ichor-stained rocks, menacing and malicious until the very last scream and outcry fizzled into nothingness. The warrior had often been the last one amidst the rumble, the din, of war’s feral dais; when everything collapsed and finished, the ground shuddered and moaned, and his compatriots laid out against the bare ground, he searched and searched and searched for survivors until someone else pulled him away. While the rest of the world turned away from him, he strayed and stayed, remained chiseled and intangible, the unattainable monolith and stone, untouchable because his armor was thick and lacquered to his skin, because when they begged and pleaded for someone, for something, to relieve them, to aid them, to assuage them all, naught ever answered. He listened to their final words and songs. He watched last breaths unfold and pulse into the midnight sky. He remembered their names, etched like scars across his spine. He’d be the least likely to renounce a friend. An enemy was a different matter. But she wouldn’t know that; his eyes cut across her features and witnessed them falter, dissipating in their humor and bliss, and he concluded he’d errored again somehow, joked a little too far, pressed too close, and he thought about backing away, giving her space, no longer occupying the expanse. Perhaps she was done with him, like most others, granting him a quick departure, the sun gone out and behind the clouds, and the bits of radiance were bound to discard him again. It set him on edge, piercing eyes widening for a few seconds, before he simply defied. For that was what the Reaper was made of: sedition and anarchy, refusing to bear any more damned proclamations and adherences, committing to actions instead of eloquence, striving and trying even while he was starving for so many other things he couldn’t have, couldn’t reach, couldn’t savor. Maybe it wasn’t right. Maybe all he ever did was one wrong maneuver after another; but her laugh sparked and fizzed behind his shoulder again, and he loosened a breath, released the scowl threatening to cloud over his eyes. He charged, chuckles plucking in deep chords from his chest, from his throat, gliding along the breeze, plotting their getaway and deliverance with great efficiency, one hand grasping hold of two more crowns resting on a drunken man’s head (perhaps he’d been collecting too). Before long, his lengthy, swift strides carried them to a sidewalk furnished with bright banners and lacking a massive crowd. His gathered laurel and bloom diadems rested on his arms, quivering slightly at each gesture, as his grasp went to her waist, tugging her off his shoulder and down to the cobblestones. “There. We escaped.” One brow arched, mouth barely restraining a laugh, before glancing at her, at the crowns practicing their balancing acts, thoroughly damaged in their absurd journey. “Shall we proclaim a victor?” His mind whirled to the poor people they’d savaged, then to the circlets gathered in his stead, not counting the one he’d started with, pretending he wasn’t completely covered in blossoms and blooms. “I have 50.” master of nothing place; of recoil and grace

Amalia