No matter how she tries, her calls of his name don't go any further than a hair's breadth before her face, and every step takes her to another grisly scene--memory? By the gods no.
She runs. And runs. She has to reach him, has to free him from this nightmare. Each strike pierces her through as if with that very spear. Her cheeks are slick with tears without her even feeling the first few fall, but she can feel the pain, the fear, the anger and sadness and confusion and longing and all of these things that in her waking hours, she hasn't the names for. All of these things she's felt to different degree, and knows must be tearing Deimos apart scrap by bitter scrap.
The substance of the dream, perhaps sensing that she does not belong, starts to stick to her feet, slowing her down. A single hesitation in a single step and inky darkness starts to creep up her legs, preventing her from moving, though the scenes keep changing.
"This is a dream," she tells herself, closing her eyes and controlling her breath. "It isn't real, it's just a dream..."
The mantra continues for what feels like hours, or perhaps merely seconds, until her eyes snap open and her feet are free. She can run again, through a vanishing teenage Sten, sure that somewhere in this hell is her Deimos.
The dream shifts, broken again. The images flickering, the boy he kills is beside him, on his hands and knees with him as they bend over the flagstone floor. Cleaning tools in hand, - they could be no older than seven or eight. They are children, they fuss like children, laugh like children, elbowing each other over the things that children find funny as they work hard cleaning the floor.
Until the crack. The twisted, bitter woman appears over them.
"I said clean it!" The boy beside Deimos bleeds from a split lip, Deimos from the cut in his forehead. The woman kicking one then the other, bouncing on the stone below him as they fell, hard enough to cause the cuts from the heaviness of that landing alone. "Clean it! You were caught stealing, caught by Bas! Pathetic. You never should have been caught, I never should even waste food on you both. This is what you get for failing the Qun!" Her hand takes a fistful of Deimos' hair, and the boys, bending over the pair of them like a bitch takes her pups by the back of the neck and thrusts them headfirst into the ground they had been cleaning, that was now a mess again by the blood that trickled from their faces. "Now keep cleaning!"
At least both boys know, now, not to cry as she rubs their faces against the stone like they were dogs, themselves, so barely people for their failure to steal their own food.
Despite her self-assurance that this is a dream, that it isn't real, and that she just needs to find him and wake him up somehow, the sight of the abuse before her makes her blood boil. If she could distinguish between it and green, she'd realize that she's seeing red.
"Leave them alone!" She yells, though the dream swallows her voice without so much as an echo. Athessa lunges at the Tamassaran, because who else could that be, but of course she simply tumbles through the form. It's not real, it's a dream, and yet the emotions swirling around her, tangible outside of herself and engulfing her from within are so, so real. While the dream is in flux yet again, Athessa stays on the ground, on her knees, staring down into infinite blackness that she's somehow propped up on, and pounding her fists on. Ignoring the visions as they flicker past, the cries of war and pain and sorrow and everything else.
Thud. Thud. Thud she beats her fist against the invisible ground, gritting her teeth and trying to muster as much voice as she possibly can to pierce through the din.
"DEIMOS!" This time, it echoes. This time, it doesn't get swallowed up the second it leaves her mouth. She launches to her feet and shouts his name again, his name, because he's not just one Sten of many, he's Deimos, and she is his.
What she gets - is Deimos. A being made, forged, not grown as any other child might. To a point, sharp as his spear, the sword on his hip. The rain comes down thick. Heavy guns that fill the air with Gaat-lock smoke, they pull up beside the Vint war-ship. There Athessa is just one more in the line, one more face holding the shield wall as they prepare to board the enemy. The call of war cries is deep as spears strike against shield in rhythm. A war dance that will not be elegant, but each Sten here knows, they will find beauty in fulfilment.
His eyes don't know her. They watch her unknowingly from behind his heavy striped vitaar. Blinking at her in that familiar haze of blood lust rising in his limbs, his gaze. That woman - she has done her job well. He will not fear the enemy.
She flinches, not at the clash of shield and spear, but at the blank look in those eyes, the lack of recognition. The rain bites, sharp and cold and blown into her face by harsh wind, but it can't sting more than the threat of him forgetting her.
"You are," she answers, but it's not enough. She sets her jaw and starts toward him, hurling the spear that mysteriously appeared in her hand away, across to the Vint warship and into an archer at the same moment he looses an arrow. The shot ricochets off of her shield before that too is tossed aside.
And then as her hands alight on his face, everything around them stops. The other Sten, the waves, every individual raindrop frozen in place like a painting. Athessa pulls him closer until he can't look anywhere else but her eyes.
"You are Deimos, my Deimos," Heedless of the toxicity of the vitaar, she rests her forehead against his. "Come back. Come back to me."
His teeth set, an animal's feral snarl, where for a second, there he pauses - there, something flickers. Confused and furious at being confused.
Where he wants.
But he doesn't know what he wants. His shield-brother's call, loud, cacophonous in his mind even in the frozen minutes. The shattering of bone and wood and searing air that holds in his lungs and fills his mind. Clamouring with its vindication.
And the quietness, that quietness that has no place here, between each inhale, where she sits, like fire against cold bones. Heating from the inside out. When had he ever been touched softly?
He doesn't remember. He never remembers. His mind, a daze, hazed and confused, of seconds scattered with violent clarity. Sunk between stretches of swimming nothingness.
"I am Baresaad. I am Sten." His shoulders hold up and sharp. His spear gripped in his confusion. "I am not - I do not know -" Deimos. He does not know where he is supposed to go, be, should become, is.
But he knows her, and the breath is shaking in that knowledge.
"The Qun calls you Beresaad. Your brothers call you Sten," She holds his face in her hands, looking at him like she's trying to memorize his features in case she ever looks at him the way he just looked at her. Unseeing.
"Deimos is the name you gave when we met, remember? They called me Kabethari, and I corrected them. You didn't speak to me until they were gone," She tries to smile at the memory, but it hitches. "And when we were alone, I was yours."
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She runs. And runs. She has to reach him, has to free him from this nightmare. Each strike pierces her through as if with that very spear. Her cheeks are slick with tears without her even feeling the first few fall, but she can feel the pain, the fear, the anger and sadness and confusion and longing and all of these things that in her waking hours, she hasn't the names for. All of these things she's felt to different degree, and knows must be tearing Deimos apart scrap by bitter scrap.
The substance of the dream, perhaps sensing that she does not belong, starts to stick to her feet, slowing her down. A single hesitation in a single step and inky darkness starts to creep up her legs, preventing her from moving, though the scenes keep changing.
"This is a dream," she tells herself, closing her eyes and controlling her breath. "It isn't real, it's just a dream..."
The mantra continues for what feels like hours, or perhaps merely seconds, until her eyes snap open and her feet are free. She can run again, through a vanishing teenage Sten, sure that somewhere in this hell is her Deimos.
no subject
Until the crack. The twisted, bitter woman appears over them.
"I said clean it!" The boy beside Deimos bleeds from a split lip, Deimos from the cut in his forehead. The woman kicking one then the other, bouncing on the stone below him as they fell, hard enough to cause the cuts from the heaviness of that landing alone. "Clean it! You were caught stealing, caught by Bas! Pathetic. You never should have been caught, I never should even waste food on you both. This is what you get for failing the Qun!" Her hand takes a fistful of Deimos' hair, and the boys, bending over the pair of them like a bitch takes her pups by the back of the neck and thrusts them headfirst into the ground they had been cleaning, that was now a mess again by the blood that trickled from their faces. "Now keep cleaning!"
At least both boys know, now, not to cry as she rubs their faces against the stone like they were dogs, themselves, so barely people for their failure to steal their own food.
no subject
"Leave them alone!" She yells, though the dream swallows her voice without so much as an echo. Athessa lunges at the Tamassaran, because who else could that be, but of course she simply tumbles through the form. It's not real, it's a dream, and yet the emotions swirling around her, tangible outside of herself and engulfing her from within are so, so real. While the dream is in flux yet again, Athessa stays on the ground, on her knees, staring down into infinite blackness that she's somehow propped up on, and pounding her fists on. Ignoring the visions as they flicker past, the cries of war and pain and sorrow and everything else.
Thud. Thud. Thud she beats her fist against the invisible ground, gritting her teeth and trying to muster as much voice as she possibly can to pierce through the din.
"DEIMOS!" This time, it echoes. This time, it doesn't get swallowed up the second it leaves her mouth. She launches to her feet and shouts his name again, his name, because he's not just one Sten of many, he's Deimos, and she is his.
"COME BACK TO ME, DEIMOS!!"
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His eyes don't know her. They watch her unknowingly from behind his heavy striped vitaar. Blinking at her in that familiar haze of blood lust rising in his limbs, his gaze. That woman - she has done her job well. He will not fear the enemy.
What can the enemy do to him, at this point?
His mouth pulls. "Whose Deimos?"
no subject
"You are," she answers, but it's not enough. She sets her jaw and starts toward him, hurling the spear that mysteriously appeared in her hand away, across to the Vint warship and into an archer at the same moment he looses an arrow. The shot ricochets off of her shield before that too is tossed aside.
And then as her hands alight on his face, everything around them stops. The other Sten, the waves, every individual raindrop frozen in place like a painting. Athessa pulls him closer until he can't look anywhere else but her eyes.
"You are Deimos, my Deimos," Heedless of the toxicity of the vitaar, she rests her forehead against his. "Come back. Come back to me."
no subject
Where he wants.
But he doesn't know what he wants. His shield-brother's call, loud, cacophonous in his mind even in the frozen minutes. The shattering of bone and wood and searing air that holds in his lungs and fills his mind. Clamouring with its vindication.
And the quietness, that quietness that has no place here, between each inhale, where she sits, like fire against cold bones. Heating from the inside out. When had he ever been touched softly?
He doesn't remember. He never remembers. His mind, a daze, hazed and confused, of seconds scattered with violent clarity. Sunk between stretches of swimming nothingness.
"I am Baresaad. I am Sten." His shoulders hold up and sharp. His spear gripped in his confusion. "I am not - I do not know -" Deimos. He does not know where he is supposed to go, be, should become, is.
But he knows her, and the breath is shaking in that knowledge.
no subject
"Deimos is the name you gave when we met, remember? They called me Kabethari, and I corrected them. You didn't speak to me until they were gone," She tries to smile at the memory, but it hitches. "And when we were alone, I was yours."