[SE] sky full of song

DEIMOS And in your darkest hour, I hold secrets flame “I am a quick scholar,” rasped through his larynx, an obvious joke because there had been eons before he’d adapted instead of eroded, learned and assimilated instead of bristling against systems and scourges. There’d been days where he pressed against demands and commands just because he could, a vitriolic mess of irreverent proportions, hollowed out and scarred, bludgeoned and beaten down, raising his head out of the muck simply to bellow out his refusals, wait to die, crave and carve hell with his own two hands. It was in his bones, in his heart, in his lungs, to reach out and defy, to bear witness and then come to his own conclusions, to examine and scrutinize so he could apply advantages, so he could ascertain damages, so at some point, he’d be victorious instead of the failure, the inept, the brave, and the stupid. But her resistance and dissent seemed to match his, black on blue, and he refused to back away, noncompliant and insubordinate, the same cheeky smile fastened to his features. He let her look and he did the same, gaze slowly drifting along her high cheekbones, her luminescent tangibility, before landing on her mouth, and sliding upwards, back into her cosmic stare. They were silent, brazen, audacious provocations, hardly subtle, before arching his brow in the same insolent display – made bolder and bolder the longer they played and strayed. He truly wasn’t adept at this game either, had floundered his way through sullen hearts long ago (twice, his memory longed to serve, as if the embittered, traumatic way it all ended hadn’t bent and shifted the ghosts in his head). No one chased after him. Hardly anyone really looked at him for more than an instant; perhaps justified in their singular glances: the broad, rough, massive man, danger and ill omens at his core. Only on a rare occasion had anyone peeked into his shadows and ramparts, had opted to climb the towering walls; so he held them close because they were familiar and particles, beacons from the past (Rexanna, Kiada, from days of snow and rime, chasing down oblivion), those that already understood his motivations, his machinations, the inner workings of a damned being. His companions had always been the ones who didn’t run away, who lingered, who waited, as if their patience was to be rewarded (and maybe it was; he couldn’t be the judge, but he’d given them every ounce of his trust and ambition, every persistent edge of his actions and motives). Most must have believed he wasn’t worth it. Perhaps the better inquiry would be why she was here, cavorting and occupying her time with him? The Reaper gave chances to those who took some on him, and Amalia was still here, breathing in his sanction, in his orbit, in his fathoms. Why, why, why? But victory was granted, the redemption turned away, and he loosened an exhale he’d been holding, close to his chest, strangling in his lungs. There was a slight disappointment in that she wouldn’t be demanding a boon of him; he’d been curious, intent, on discovering what she’d wanted from him (there were a flicker of things circling his mind, and if he were any bolder, the snicker would’ve developed into a haughty thing). He didn’t lord it over her though, like some vicious, irreverent king, and instead, a smile, nothing mocking, nothing Cheshire, spread along his lips. It might’ve been considered entirely boyish, removing the traces of warfare from the planes of his face, the horrors, the treacheries, the wounds he’d met and had scalded over his skin. Triumphs were so scarce, so few, he took whatever was proffered. “Mr. Shade would like a story. A truth from the past.” He laughed, but it was light, not a deep, booming opus, trying hard not to disturb the relative peace, the tension wrapping itself around his heart. Was it wrong to want to learn more about her? About this world and her place in it? “If you want, I can do the same.” Even if she hadn’t won, he still found himself yearning to tell her something, not to let the cobwebs simmer and froth there, in the back of his mind, for too long. master of nothing place; of recoil and grace