[SE] sky full of song

DEIMOS And in your darkest hour, I hold secrets flame Everything was light, bright, defrosting and softening, melting away the frozen, chilling synapses across his features well before he’d ever noticed – staring into the beams of sun and slanted effervescence without looking away, eclipsing and emboldening his frame. His shoulders were not so heavy, his mind was not so maligned, his thoughts not so corroded and rancorous, different but comfortable, an ease on his lungs, on his heart. He watched her spin away, nestling into the grass, laying back and soaking in the repose after the mischief; he wasn’t sure if he could ever be at such peace, free and liberated, pulled away from the hundreds of iniquities nettled into his sides. His stare shuffled out into the crowd, a predator’s narrowed gaze, hovering upon onlookers and potential threats, because he’d forgotten to do so for so long before, tangled up in ferocious, fierce, wanton chaos, and the mere thought of it coiled along his mouth again, a smaller, more satisfied glimmer of amusement. No ominous beacons lingered in his vision, no one came to claim their lost blooms, no sputtering, indignant, exasperated patrons arrived, begging to duel. He sat down beside her, exhaled a long, lingering breath (no ghosts on it, no wraiths pulsing back into the sky, no auroras pervading from its sanction – the here and now, uncertain what to do when he wasn’t presiding in the past, when he wasn’t wounded and marred, bent and broken). Deimos caught the edges of her tasseled halo and pondered about venturing deeper into those notions, into those sentiments, why she lingered close by, why she didn’t refuse his presence, why she didn’t tear off into the rest of the gathered when given ample opportunities. But then, the finality of the situation sprung against him, and he clenched his jaw out of habit, anticipating the desolation, the forlorn expanse. The game will end, and he’ll be left to his own devices again, following the same rituals and routines, ignorant and inept, tracing lines of hunting, of wandering, of chasing specters, of savagery with naught to wrap his hands around. He struggled not to feel the knot tightening in his chest, the dread, the apprehension, curling and fanning itself through the scars and lacerations. He could’ve picked at the strands, but didn’t know what he’d find underneath (and a part of him sat and simmered in the ignorance, in the unknown, because it’d always been safer there, frustrating and irksome, but still safe). So the Reaper remained in silence, awaiting the inevitable, the provocations ceased and dying off, cooling embers, immobile, turned back to stone and recoiling – perpetual and persistent in his reflexes. It was a guard. It was armor. It was a shield. Then the effervescence flickered back upon him, onyx stare elated, declaring the affair a tie. He withdrew from his shell just as quickly, a laugh on a warm puff of air, solid and real, corporeal and tangible. “We cannot have that,” he shook his head, allowed the blossoms to fall around him, completely indifferent to how inane and silly he must’ve appeared. Deimos latched onto the appeal with avaricious, greedy, covetous claws, wanting more and more and more because that was all he’d ever done – standing upon ramparts and fortifications and wondering just how far he could push and assail – but she was a different matter altogether, and his mind was whirling on the intricacies, the delicacies. Some of her rejected blooms landed in his beard and he wore them proudly, tempted to roll his eyes that Kiada’s intentions might come to fruition by mere happenstance, but segmented the piercing, puncturing gaze (blue and blue and blue; ice and rime, and the ancient, rushing, roaring waves) directly back upon her. “We need another challenge.” master of nothing place; of recoil and grace

Amalia