[se] cauldron of ghosts

DEIMOS

ache first, but then let the cuts close
spit out the blood

The question didn’t surprise him. It was the same inquiry that had come across dozens of times in other instances and circumstances. Years and years before he might have been much the same, or still rancorous, bitter, and dismissive of the divine in general, considering how Abandoned had been treated. But the world had changed, and he had alongside it, evolving and adapting with the times. Keeping his eyes on the horizon, and watching the market-goers as they either ignored the remaining gourds or punted them across the grounds, he kept his tone easygoing and grateful. “Beautiful. Powerful. Values loyalty.” Standard procedures for anyone who’d heard of her. “Treats her followers well – she healed us after the war.” And he wasn’t certain of other deities had done the same. “What about Dygra?” Any Ancients he’d spoken to hadn’t had much to say, or hadn’t visited the goddess.

The alteration in subjects though gave him somewhat of a pause, brow arching at the way Danta seemed far more emphatic about the legions of monsters lurking in the Grounds’ depths. Deimos was used to giving warnings that were subsequently ignored though, and snorted at the presumption. “Banshees are typically in the woods,” though apparently some had ventured into Halo, “Landsharks in the fields, and stone golems tuck themselves away in abandoned places.” Which could’ve been a majority of the Hollowed sanctions nowadays.

watch your body pull itself back together
then let your soul do the same