remember that you can't save everyone
remember that you have to try
Deimos watched, ever the observer, ever the witness, and he knew her well enough to see where the feathering in her jaw had become a defensive maneuver, that while she conceded quietly to the hypocrisy, that the remains bristled underneath. His did too, for the frustrations, for the amount of wounds she’d slashed upon him, and to think nothing of them in these stretched out moments – as if he hadn’t been demeaned at every turn for something she wanted to be now. Somehow his other words had become completely misconstrued, made out to be something so far from the truth, it was almost ridiculous, laughable, to hear coming from her mouth. They weren’t meant to be nettles or barbs, lacerations or undulations, but warnings, tracings of a foreboding happenstance. He stood within the quiet swell of her anger and frustration, dimming his to a stoic, reticent degree, masking over the edges, fringes, of his own hurt layering in the midst. Did she purposefully misunderstand him in these seconds, whenever they came upon this topic? Maybe he wasn’t proud of her presently, when she failed to listen to what he was saying, when she focused on prickly nuances instead of what was truly at hand. “When have I not supported you?” His piercing gaze meant hers, and he truly wanted to know, to comprehend, to understand those nuances she seemed to hang upon – because he couldn’t think of a single one. “I am trying to understand the change of heart.” A pause, a tilt of his head, studying, examining, striving to comprehend what riddled and rankled underneath. Fear? Apprehension? Trepidation? Everything in between? “I do not want you to walk down a path you would regret.” For all the vitriol and vehemence she’d set upon him when he’d admitted the violence, the vehemence, stored within his soul, his past, his present, and then insisting on wandering down the same set was confusing, confounding, and bewildering.
Should he have been glad, that she wanted to take it up? That she yearned for the pommel of a blade in her grasp? Was she seeking his approval? Was she striving to reach him, on those parallels and parameters of mayhem and might?
The General ignored her other lancing and lacing, took it as petulance and shoved the press of it down over his shoulders. If she didn’t want to listen to his instruction, she would be free to leave. So he twisted back several paces, granting, giving her room to breathe, to calm down, to do whatever she required, before implementing a stance, grounding his weight into the earth. “Come at me. I will teach you to block.”
out for vengeance
DEIMOS
