[SE] sky full of song

DEIMOS And in your darkest hour, I hold secrets flame 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. master of nothing place; of recoil and grace