[SE] sky full of song

DEIMOS And in your darkest hour, I hold secrets flame The silence weighed and pressed, and despite his head tilting, his curiosity piqued, a sense of foreboding gnarled and gnashed its way through his mind. He’d pushed again, and perhaps this was the result: the gaping unknown returning to swallow him whole. The warrior wasn’t sure where to turn or where to cross, where the unmarked lines were hidden beneath sand and soil, where he was meant to bend, break, or proffer. The inquiry hadn’t been simple, but a necessity, draped and garbed without specious, devious ruses, but also without serenity, tranquility, the airs of mischief, the purpose of amusement and diversions. They’d been discarded for the here and now, for the pathways etched in various directions, for the primrose trails lined in potential, devastation, or more of the enigmatic twists and turns. The fathoms and depths were murky and cloudy, with their subtle stretch of sunbeams, then drifting behind the devouring heavens, and he wondered if he’d erred, if he’d calculated, if he’d simply run himself aground and this would be the result. He presumed dismissal would ring its head and resound, reverberate, reflect back upon him with distaste and aversion, sending him back to desolation and isolation (familiar, safe, heartbreaking). The routes and avenues he’d traversed before had been straightforward – he’d been loved and loved in return – and before anything more could culminate, she was gone, and it was the last anguish he could possibly bear before completely falling apart. He’d gradually unraveled and unfurled, contorted his disastrous whims into the earth and coiled his mettle back into abominations and abhorrence. The ritual had been brutal and scarring; but here, here he’d been able to lift his head and stare straight into the sky and no one cared, no one gave a damn, no one scorned his tarnished, asinine hide or belittled his quiet, hushed platitudes. They accepted, they tolerated, and he’d grown comfortable. He’d rooted himself instead of wandering into annihilation. He’d tied his tethers and icy, glacial expanse into the thresholds, the apertures, the roofs, the shelters, the homes, and the abodes. He meandered down the streets and knew others, could address them by name. It was given him into return tenfold – the catalyst stood right before him and didn’t seem to understand just how much she’d granted his undeserving mass, yearned to accord him more. He wanted to shake his head and laugh at the absurdity; he wasn’t worth these efforts, this pain, this torture. The Reaper wasn’t a prize, had more flaws and defects than virtues, contained wrath and contempt, was fueled and urged on by seething hatred and vindictive violence. There was nothing to see there – nothing beyond his strength and perseverance, his endurance and persistence, his ridiculous, Machiavellian mind. The beast didn’t know what he wanted except for her, in whatever capacity, in whatever form, because she was a solace, a spark, an incitement, someone kind, beneficent, the opposite of his damned self. He commended her bravery. He applauded her persistence. He revered her – but maybe that wasn’t enough. Perhaps she’d simply given too much of herself away, so used to extending her arms and alms out to anyone who required them, who looked tired, who looked starving, who looked like they were withering, decaying. Perhaps he’d read too much into it, and this was just who she was, mistaken so many things for interest instead of her general altruism and selflessness. The misgivings layered on top of one another, one after the other, a meticulous skull combining thousands of potential sentiments into a discordant, suspicious, and apprehensive wound in his ears. It drummed along his heart and pulsed with its madness, not incandescent, but dreading the inevitable – like a high, cruel laugh meant to send him into oblivion and ruin. She stepped back and he waited for it, eyes widening a fraction, expecting the impending wake to settle into his form and splinter it apart. Not you, never you, even though they’d established something, any and all confidence in the moments before evaporated. Deimos must’ve looked like an empty, hollowed vessel then, anticipating the lacerations and blows, steeling and forging himself, rigid, taut, yearning to be defiant but not finding anything to enamel or iron his figure upon. His name was on her breath, and then nothing else. The potential crush was deafening. He lingered beneath the rush of the shadows, in his elements but so thoroughly flanked by the wicked clamor of his heart; he thought to stare down at the ground so he didn’t have to watch her try to piece together words damning or wounding to his pride. There wasn’t anything for him to do but wait there in the thicket, flower crown blossoms dangling from his hair, wondering just how foolish he’d become, to believe anyone would ever – Her whisper sizzled against his ears, and his gaze locked back on hers, the uncertainty layered amidst the stones and loam. “Neither have I,” he shrugged and smiled, already admitting once that he’d fell for the rain and then drowned beneath its mercy, beneath its absence. Maybe they were both trapped in scorn and doubt, the past roaring up to meet them, and they were fumbling, struggling to decipher where they were supposed to go after all the pain and misery. Maybe they were fragile and inept, ineffectual because the world had deceived them, because somewhere along the way anything beautiful and cherished had been corrupted, disastrous, and fleeting. But she continued - you are so important to me, and a snort wanted to flow through his nose, but he couldn’t summon the courage to ask why, why, why. At some point, throughout her speech, his eyes caught the gilded edges and their frayed sentiments, and his lips shifted to a more simplistic, genuine smile, without the mischief, without the follies, without the cruelty festering in his soul. His chest was lighter, his ribs didn’t break or concave, his shoulders didn’t droop with the nuance of weight and plights. He wasn’t sent away. He wasn’t slaughtered. He wasn’t pushed and shoved out of the thicket. Deimos never had any intentions of leaving her; faithful and committed, ardent and fervent, constant and eternal. He’d just never had the opportunity before. He didn’t know how to establish himself with others - not anymore, not after loss after loss, disaster after disaster, death after death after death. He’d avoided it entirely, because it was easier, because the self-inflicted torment was better than any other torture the kingdoms and realms sought and sent to maim him. But there they were, out in the open, beneath oaks and elms, struggling to understand just what it meant to lay out foundations. Words were always a bit lost on him – he preferred action, movement, and motion, so he maneuvered from beneath the boughs and eaves, striding toward her, a slow, diligent pace. He didn’t stalk. He didn’t pounce. He didn’t beat or bleed greed, avarice, or cunning. He didn’t possess mischief. He just existed – aimed to wrap his arms around her in a tight, beholden embrace, shifting his arms over her shoulders, hands along her hair and tucking her below his chin, so his skull rested on top of hers, quiet, contemplative. “I am not going anywhere.” It was a promise, the start of a vow and assurance, in whatever capacity she required. “You will tire of me long before I ever tire of you.” Here he laughed, meant to be a joke along the truthful annals and tomes; a gentle rumble amidst the dampening, doused void, struggling with what to say, what to do. She’d accepted him seasons ago, and he could easily do the same – it was effortless, it was natural. He’d already done it. Real; as if the notion was a mere dream. He snagged at it, like a cat, pawing the air, struggling to catch it and hold it close to his chest. “I want to know you,” he repeated her intonations, like a verse, deep and curling from his throat, barren and laden out there in the breeze, on a sigh, on an inhale and exhale, staring along the borderlines of the fields with the sun in his grasp. “If you want to know me, then ask away.” He chuckled once more, eyes falling to gaze on the strands of skirts. But you may not like what you hear echoed back at him, and for once, he wondered if he should care, if he should simply lay it all out there, as she had done, or if it would be damning again. master of nothing place; of recoil and grace