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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"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."