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This is the first time, Licorice realizes, that he stops to look at her.
He watches her as she moves slowly and deliberately; her ruby red eyes are closed in concentration and yet her brows are lifted, serene, as if this came as second nature to her.
(It probably did, Licorice thinks with a groan.)
Pomegranate chants her prayer with a resolute voice as the suzu bell in her right hand moves only according to her will.
Even though the two of them have been living under the same big roof for a while now, Licorice has never once seen the priestess practice her craft like this - he faintly remembers interrupting and making her madly yell at him one time, before she retreated to her room to continue - but he never really thought of simply remaining silent and just… watching.
A strong aroma of fresh leaves and pomegranate fruit fills the room all around them and the necromancer suddenly regrets not doing it sooner.
It was mostly by coincidence that he found himself there today; he was feeling frustrated at yet another failed conjuring spell and, instead of moping around and mopping his licorice goo stained floor, he decided to get out of the castle to blow some steam off, as he often did. This time, however, he couldn’t get much far: the intense vibrant red lights of Pomegranate’s spells shining through the dark brick walls were just too enticing not to follow.
He went along the now multi colored corridors, slowly turning more and more red at every step he took, up until a hidden open corner he had never been in before.
That’s when he finally saw her there, by herself, moving in those same moves he had seen a thousand times before, during their missions, but in the quiet night of the palace she looked… different. Licorice felt as if he didn’t quite have the right words for it yet.
Pomegranate’s voice comes to a halt and Licorice realizes she’s done, so he’s confused as to why she doesn’t turn around to scold him. Perhaps she was too caught up in her prayer to notice him? It might be awkward for him to speak just now.
“Do you need something from me?” Instead her voice, cold as ever, echoes in the empty hall and cuts through his thoughts in an instant, bringing him back down to reality.
“Ah- huh?” The nonsensical sounds escape him before he can even think of anything in response. He sees Pomegranate’s shoulders going up and then down. He can’t hear her sigh from that far back in the room, but he knows she does.
“Uh, no. I don't need anything.” He says and he’s not sure why it comes out as defensive as it does. “I was just walking around here. I’m allowed to do that, y’know.”
Pomegranate finally turns around, her hands carefully hidden underneath her big sleeves.
She stares blankly at him, but Licorice is used to being able not to read her emotions, so he just stares back, a little impatient, waiting for her to speak.
“That you are.” She nods slowly at her own words in mockery. “It shouldn’t surprise me seeing you waste time, I suppose it’s on me.” She says and brings her arms closer to her body, making the gems sewn onto her crimson robes rattle in the heavy silence.
Licorice finally scoffs and rolls his eyes, “Besides, what are you even doing here? Don’t you have space in your own chamber for this- this… stuff?” he says, crossing his arms and looking at her in a way he hopes it’s devious and intimidating enough.
Pomegranate’s expression remains typically blank.
“Whatever I do with my time is none of your concern, Licorice. But if you must know…”
She moves one of her sleeves up to cover her mouth - a familiar move to anyone who knows enough of Pomegranate's habits - and tilts her head up to look at the open ceiling.
Moonlight shines through all of her jewelry ornaments, making all kinds of colorful tricks of light sparkle around her.
“...The reason is simple. I find this place inspiring. It’s especially beautiful here at this time of the night.” she answers while still looking at the dark sky above.
“Y-Yes. Beautiful.” Licorice answers also, caught up in his own self-inflicted panic, even though she hadn’t asked him anything.
For some reason, he finds himself unable to tear his eyes off the priestess.
She seems to notice it too, because she shoots him a weird look he can’t decipher and says “I’m off, then,” before walking away.
All the necromancer can do is weakly wave his hand at her and retreat to his own room, feeling weirdly defeated as he falls onto his bed and cannot shake the images of Pomegranate out of his mind.
His eyes skim back onto the desk at the corner of the room, remembering him of the failures he left there.
So much for destressing.
The second time he stops to look at her is after one of their missions.
Licorice doesn’t know exactly why now of all moments, considering they both had just been beaten pretty miserably, but he stares at her in religious silence as she crosses the entrance of the palace with a furious look on her face; he waits for her to make a tired step inside and follows, taking way too much time to think about something smart enough to say.
He never realized just how big and empty the castle was; the sound of their footsteps reverberates through the corridors and high golden-rimmed ceilings. He’d do anything to have someone break the sullen silence, but Dark Choco and Poison Mushroom were probably still working on their own respective tasks and Dark Enchantress was nowhere to be seen… of this last detail, he’s kind of glad. Licorice had enough disappointment for one day, he’s not sure he could withstand Dark Enchantresses disappointed glare right now, and besides, he can only imagine how Pomegranate would take it;
The priestess, so mercilessly devoted, failing right under the eye of her master… it would surely be a sight hard to stomach even for the most evil evil-doer of all.
To be honest, Licorice never really got it. Sure, he could maybe understand it in a superficial sense: Dark Enchantress was the most powerful sorceress he had ever had chance to meet, after all, that power was the very reason he decided to join her cause; without Dark Enchantress he will never get to show them, those arrogant so-called wizards , just how wrong they are.
And that’s where the point lies, he gets something out of this, a choice made for a specific reason, but Pomegranate? What did she get? Has she even ever wanted something at all? Licorice couldn’t do anything but wonder.
Perhaps that is just what a priestesses' selfless devotion was meant to look like, but he can’t stop his insides from twisting a little at the thought.
Without noticing he ends up walking right by her side, she looks up at him, eyebrows lifted.
“You look strange.” She points out, bluntly.
“What? I’m fine, it’s just- I’m still exhausted from earlier, that’s it!” He spouts, desperately trying to cover up his thoughts as if she could read them right there on his forehead.
Pomegranate frowns a little, “Still? Do you have any wounds?” Her voice comes out softer, more exhausted and less sharp than usual and he tries not to think too much about it when his grip on the scythe tightens.
He just shakes his head no.
“Mh. How odd… no matter, sit.” Pomegranate points at one of the many marble seats that furnish the palace; he slowly sits down on it and she follows suit.
She feels very, very close.
But Licorice has no time to dwell on it, not when she gently grabs his wrist with a fabric-covered hand and takes out her suzu bell on the other. He feels all of his body tense at the almost-contact; he can faintly feel the comforting warmth of her hand through the clothes and smell the pleasant, fresh smell of her hair.
He remembers to breathe.
She had healed him many times before, of course, he knows, but never like this. Never so close, never so… intimately. Which makes sense, because, why would she?
He’s glad that Pomegranate closes her eyes as she chants her spell because, for what feels like the thousandth time lately, he can’t seem to take his off of her.
He remembers the first time she used her magic on him; it wasn’t a particularly memorable day by any means, but it caught him by surprise.
He remembers how hot his bruised body felt as dark red lights and flower petals danced around him like a gentle hurricane before… a spark, energy, flowing within the blood in his veins as any pain he might have felt a moment ago vanished in the blink of an eye.
It suits her, he thinks.
Once he too, like many, was confused as to how someone as cold and ruthless as Pomegranate would specialize in healing magic of all things. He bets that with the knowledge the pomegranate temple had given her and her unstoppable dedication she could do some serious damage if she wanted to.
But he understands why now… or he believes he’s starting to, maybe.
Point is: nothing about Pomegranate was ever about her, he had come to learn that. She gives and gives until her very last breath… all to fulfill her destiny.
She is a terrifying being, and he’d never seen anything more beautiful.
“Why do you have so many scars?” Pomegranate then says out of the blue after she’s quickly finished healing him and Licorice has to blink a couple times to fully and properly restore from his own wandering mind, and even then, he feels awfully self-conscious.
He glances at the sleeve of his robes that he didn't realize had rolled up and exposed the rest of his arm.
“Surely it can’t be from fighting, you cannot possibly have the strength for that.” She reasons, calm and unnervingly serious, and Licorice is already mad enough that he can’t even find a way to counter-argue that, so he just lets his skin boil and sighs dramatically, trying very badly not to lose his perpetually-poor cool.
“Hey! It’s- It’s just from practicing spells, ok?! They’re old, by the way! I’m much better now, so… there!” Licorice blurts out, his other hand reaching to take the sleeve down; Pomegranate lets go of that same arm, her face as blank as ever.
“Spells?” She sounds confused.
“Well, yeah, y’know… there’s not much information on the Dark arts out here, much- much less Necromancy! So I had to figure out some things by myself… or on myself, rather.” He closes his angry eyes and crosses his arms, defensive, waiting for Pomegranate to inevitably ignore him and strike again with her vicious words.
But, as it turns out, she just listens.
“Oh,” The priestess says, and she sounds just as confused as before, although Licorice feels like he has explained himself pretty clearly.
Pomegranate gets up from the seat despite her clearly unfinished sentence and throws one last glance at the necromancer before turning to leave.
“Wait-” Licorice tries to stop her, wanting to say something that he hasn’t thought about yet; it makes him angry to be like this. To never know what to do. His skin feels hot.
Still, Pomegranate to her credit does stop, but of course , doesn’t turn. Déjà-vu hits him like whiplash and all it accomplishes is to make him even more frustrated. Just how many times is he going to have to talk to her back?
…
Right. Talk.
“I’ll work hard and then… I’ll become better than you.” It’s what he eventually says, and it’s maybe not what he really wanted to say, the less cowardly part of his brain tells him, but he still believes every word of it. “You know I can.”
Pomegranate exhales once and he swears to the gods below he can hear her smirk through it, “Good.” she says, with her delightfully evil voice “That way it’ll be more fun watching you fail.”
And with that finally she leaves as she intended to do before Licorice had so pointlessly stopped her. He, on the other hand, can’t find the energy in himself to get up.
The third time he looks at her, he’s not the only one.
A few days pass and the necromancer’s life returns to its awfully slow and normal routine; missions to bring eternal darkness into the world still go on and Dark Enchantress still makes her demands with the same fury as she has always had.
If Licorice had to point out the one thing that felt off, somehow, it would be Pomegranate.
For starters, she began showing up late.
Not too late, certainly not in a way that was concerning, but Licorice and the others always knew her as the first one to be there, every day, without fail. The first time, after she left, they even briefly discussed how she looked different, more disheveled… almost messy. If even someone as detached and distant as Dark Choco was able to see something was odd then it really has to be true.
Today, her eyes are fixated on her mirror; Licorice stares at her as she stares at it, the look on her face is weird to say the least, it’s as if she could see ghosts right through the glass.
Wait. She can’t, can she? He’s not ever really been clear about that little prop of hers.
“Mhh. Hey, Liiicorice?” A quiet, sleepy voice suddenly calls for him, he has to look down to find its origin.
“What do you want, Poison Mushroom?” He answers quickly and dismissively, allowing himself only a second to shift his gaze from the Priestess.
“When are we going to the forest? Dark Enchantress said we have to do it today, right?” The kid reminds him between a yawn and another… and probably reminds themselves too. Licorice blinks his eyes as he tries to find something to say.
There is no doubt that he’d do what Dark Enchantress asked him to, he wasn’t going to disobey her, not in a million years! But did he have to do it now?
As his mind ping-pongs around coming up with no clear answers, Pomegranate gets up and leaves the room.
“L-Later!” He finally answers his younger colleague, completely in the spur of the moment.
“Yeah, Later!” Licorice repeats, this time convincing himself in the process, “For anyone knows nighttime is when evil comes best! Haha! Catch them by surprise.” He slams a fist into the table just to make a point and seem more convincing, “Oh…okay…” Poison Mushroom agrees, completely unbothered by the necromancer’s antics.
“Now stop bothering me, shoo. I’ve got things to do!” Licorice shakes his scythe menacingly to make the other move aside, he can barely hear the poisonous kid murmur something about the enchantress as he quickly sprints out of the room in search of one thing only.
Turns out, Pomegranate is faster than she looks.
Licorice still hasn’t come to a conclusion about why exactly he is doing all this; why he’s trying to find her so desperately. Why the thought of the red priestess keeps taunting him like the most confusing curse to have ever been cast.
Well, maybe she did actually curse him, as payback for the whole voodoo doll thing. It’s definitely a possibility he’s willing to consider.
Still, he can't help the feeling of his throat dry and his heartbeat getting a little faster when he approaches her door and, unfortunately, he doesn’t remember any curses that can do that.
Licorice knocks on the door once with a “Pomegranate?” to no avail, then twice. No answer again.
He knows she’s in there, the sweet fruit fragrance of her still manages to escape through the wood of her locked door.
“Pom, c’mon!” he says “I know you can hear me!” and he keeps on knocking until finally the pestering works and he can’t resist cracking a smile when she opens the door with a downright pissed off face.
“What.” She says, and it’s definitely more of a threat than a question.
Licorice crouches down a little, to somehow meet her eye level “Wow. You look terrible.”
Her eyes snap open not unlike a predator, her mouth does too, but it takes a moment before actually saying something.
“I do not recall asking anyone, much less you of all people, about my appearance.” Is what she ends up saying to him, the insult tamer than Licorice had ever expected; the words missing some of her usual venom… yeah, something must be really bothering her.
“What’s going on with you?” He tries asking, she rolls her eyes in annoyance,
“Nothing is. Now leave.” Pomegranate stands still with her head held up high at the threshold of her room, one hand steady on the door, the other on the opposite wall, clearly trying to shield away any little visibility of her room Licorice might have.
“I know something’s wrong, I can tell.” It’d be hard for anyone not to.
“Has it ever occurred to you that you might be the one who something is wrong with? It certainly wouldn’t be a surprise to me. Or anyone else, for that matter.” She raises her eyebrows at him, allowing some of her old spite to come out.
Licorice is not really sure why that reassures him, there’s a nonzero chance he might just be gone completely insane.
“God. Just- just let me in, ok? I was just here to help.” At that Pomegranate gives him her most impressive glare yet.
“Leave.” She states again flatly, and promptly turns around inside her room.
“Agh, Whatever!” The necromancer wavers his scythe in the air in angry defeat… before quickly realizing something.
She left her door open.
His free hand does a number of nonsensical stammered movements as he reaches to push the door further open.
Should he even do it? Maybe she simply forgot to close it. He knows that’s not true, he knows she wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to slam the door in his sorry face if she really wanted to.
No, this was an invite… or a trial, depending on what is going to happen to him once he enters the room.
Delicate bell sounds and familiar bright crimson colors shine behind the small crack left by the open door and Licorice just can’t force himself to idly stand still anymore, he steps in, making it a point to loudly stump his feet on the wooden floor; still, she says nothing.
Licorice gets closer and closer until he’s finally surrounded by bright red lights and sweet fruit scent, right behind Pomegranate; who is apparently still set on not saying a single word and just moving the suzu bell in her hand in an almost hypnotizing rhythm.
“What-” “Shhh.” She interrupts him before his question can even be a sentence and taps lightly with the back of her hand on the clean bone of his scythe. Wait, she doesn't mean…?
It takes him a second, but he gets the hint. He raises his staff and shouts his spell (much quicker and less elegant than hers) , both of their voices echoing together in the air for a brief, wonderful moment; he skips on summoning any kind of creature this time, letting violet thunderbolts safely zap all around them.
Energy and power, blending in perfect syntony. Licorice’s incredulous gaze wanders all over the room, now filled from top to bottom with purple and red lights, the colors mixing into each other, creating many shades of glowing gradients.
It’s wonderful and confusing… and he can hear his heart beating impossibly fast in his chest.
He shifts slightly trying to catch a glimpse of Pomegranate’s expression, hoping to find an answer in there somewhere; unfortunately she looks just as disoriented as he feels. She turns her head around slightly, now the both of them locked in a staring contest of wide and expecting eyes.
He realizes he wants to touch her. Get closer to her, smell the sweet scent of pomegranate up close and never let go, it’s impossible for him to deny himself further. He’s not sure he can, or if he even wants to.
Yeah, definitely not a curse.
Neither of them talk, lights and colors fading away in the uncomfortable silence only sometimes broken by their uneven breaths.
“Pomegranate-” He awkwardly tries to go first.
“I recall Dark Enchantress giving you a mission today, did she not?” The priestess does not allow him to speak his words, moving to add distance between them. Licorice stutters nonsense, feeling stumped. She does not falter from her position.
“Fine, I’m going then-” he finally gives up.
“Ah, Licorice, wait a second.” She stops him, breaking her silence as she seems to remember something in the moment. He does what he’s told and watches as Pomegranate grabs something from her desk, throwing a quick, charged glance at her discarded mirror right beside it.
She walks back to him and hands Licorice a little piece of paper, he unfolds it carefully, nervous. There, hand written in dark crimson ink, were… instructions and measures for a spell. But not just any spell, it was a spell Licorice had been unsuccessfully practicing for a few days now.
… how did she even…?
“It is not in my interest to interfere with your magic, you can believe me, but it was going to bother me if I didn’t.” She states nonchalantly. “Now leave.”
He stashes the paper away in his robes and leaves the room to Pomegranate, his heart and mind filled with new and scary realizations.
The fourth time he looks at her, she makes him.
Today everyone seems to be busy except Licorice: Dark Choco and Poison Mushroom were ordered by Dark Enchantress to join forces on a mission, while Pomegranate left the castle without so much of an explanation.
The necromancer sighs and kicks the air, begging for something to distract him from his thoughts. Why did things have to become so weird between him and Pomegranate all of the sudden?
Well, it’s not like they were ever friends… or even just nice to each other, they fought all the time and never agreed on anything, but at least Licorice always got where they stood. They were devotees of the darkness, and under Dark Enchantress’s orders, they would have done anything to make her accomplish her goals; It’s where the heart of their rivalry resided, the will to do the very best for their master.
His will to have the powerful enchantress reveal all the secrets of dark magic to him.
His will to defeat and get his revenge on all the wizards to dared doubt and belittle his magic.
All of that was still true.
So then, why did his brain have to go and make things so strange? Why did he have to go and want things that were impossible to have? Well, he’s always been kind of a hothead, so it wasn’t really all that surprising, but…
Not to mention he’s been staring at Pomegranate a lot lately. He anxiously wonders if she’s noticed it… but then, she has been looking at him too, hasn’t she?
He had proof of it.
Licorice finally gives in to the deadly boredom and retreats to his room, where his own personal - and very literal - kind of mess was waiting for him,
“Eh. Might as well-” he sighs and, without even bothering to switch the lights on, takes his scythe in hand, while the other flips through some old book he definitely didn’t steal from his dreadful days at the academy.
Hah. Serves ‘em right. Stupid wizards and their fancy libraries.
Feeling motivated once again by the sweet taste of spite, the bitter Necromancer gives it his all to shout the spell to the best of his abilities and let the lighting around him draw incantations in the air, before… before everything vanishes out of thin air right before his eyes.
“Are you kidding me?! C’mon! Why won’t you work?!” he points an accusing finger to his rather unresponsive textbook and exhales in frustration before lightly slamming his forehead to the desk.
“Huh?”
Out of the corner of his eye he spots it. The piece of paper Pomegranate had given him last night. He’d been purposely trying to avoid looking at it all day, refusing to let her win over him like she always does.
Well, it’s not like she was ever going to know… maybe he could just… skim it, or something.
Once again with scythe in hand, Licorice takes position and carefully reads the words as written by the Priestess’s handwriting, he conjures and outlines the incantations in the air just as she had drawn them.
Suddenly, royal purple lighting bolts electrify the air all around him and the ground begins to rumble and crack. It was working.
Of course it was.
Licorice can’t even pretend to mask his overwhelming joy when melting licorice limbs start to tear their way through the floor, rising tall from their deadly slumber only to follow the Necromancer’s orders.
“So, it works.”
A quiet voice coming from Licorice’s doorway suddenly says, taking him by surprise and completely shutting off his attention from what he was doing,
“WH-?!” The clumsy necromancer attempts to form a question, but slips and stammers in the process, making all of the magical lights around him flash away in the blink of an eye and the licorice beasts explode out of thin air, sending revolting chunks of themselves flying around the room.
Pomegranate composedly takes a step back to avoid the line of fire.
“How- When did you even get here?! I thought you went out!” Licorice scoffs, one hand making gestures at the Priestess, the other attempting to swat away any dark slimy substance away from his ruined robes.
“I did, and now I’m back.” She brings a sleeve up to cover a malevolent smirk, clearly amused by the disaster Licorice had just created.
“Where did you even go? Dark Enchantress didn’t give you any orders today.” He questions her once again, with hands resting on his hips.
For a second, Pomegranate's expression shifts with something that makes Licorice’s insides twist, when it’s gone (and it goes as fast as it appeared) she clears her throat;
“I went to my old village.” she answers, offering him little to no context.
Licorice feels the hairs on his body stand up. “T- the one you-”
“Do you know of any other pomegranate villages?” She interrupts him, already annoyed.
“Why?” He hated his own home as much as any other reasonably evil darkener, but he just couldn’t imagine going back to the licorice village out of his own will. Not to mention he wasn’t the one that reduced that place into ashes in the first place.
“I needed a reminder, Licorice. Going back to the village, or at least what remains of it, reminded me of my duties. Of what I’m willing to do to fulfill my destiny.” The priestess talks with a low, fierce voice that makes Licorice’s entire body shiver, he knows that probably isn’t helping whatever her point is.
“I can’t have anything distract me from achieving Dark Enchantresses' will. Anything.” She finally says, and - for once - something in the Necromancer’s brain clicks.
“Distract you?” Licorice repeats to her, Pomegranate blinks once, not responding.
“What- What’s distractin’ you?”
Her eyes grow angry, but she still dares not answer anything, not even lash out at him.
“My mirror is broken,” She eventually says, ignoring Licorice’s question completely and shifting topic, “I can no longer see through it. It must be punishment for the selfishness that’s been festering in me.”
Licorice doesn’t know what to say to that.
“You know what it is to make sacrifices for what you believe in, don’t you, Licorice?” Pomegranate asks, her striking red eyes burn right into his, forcing him to focus his gaze on her and her only.
“Y-Yeah, of course I do. What a silly question…” The necromancer answers, trying his best at pretending he isn’t profusely sweating right now.
“I had no doubts.” The redhead whispers as if only talking to herself; she reaches for something under her cape, her mirror. She looks at it and holds it tight in her hands, almost as if wanting to break the handle with her own bare strength.
The mirror stays intact, Pomegranate sighs deeply.
“The path to Darkness may be harsh and unforgiving, but it is also my destiny. Think not for one second I will let all of my efforts go to waste.” She’s talking to Licorice again, but she’s not looking at him this time, her gaze instead fixated on the black void displayed on her mirror. She stares at her reflection on it with twitching eyes, emptiness in the form of herself staring back.
What way to live is that? Licorice takes a step closer, then two: “That… sounds really lonely.”
“It is meant to.” Her voice is meant to be unwavering, but her eyes still seem to not be able to move away from the object in her grasp, betraying her.
“What if it’s not?” Licorice almost-shouts. He is close enough that he can see his reflection in the black glass too, and something hits him.
Hands trembling, he reaches for the mirror.
Unexpectedly, Pomegranate doesn’t put up a fight; instead her eyes reach upwards, curious and almost eager. It’s not an emotion Licorice gets to see often on the priestess and it makes the air in his lungs vanish all at once. He wants to see more… a lot more.
Patience. He can’t get distracted now, not when she’s putting so much trust into him. Failing is not an option.
He holds the sacred item in his hand and turns to Pomegranate’s side, reaching out.
The fifth time, they look together.
The necromancer can’t help but hold his breath as the woman next to him stares ahead, in the mirror he is still holding. She stays still and silent for what, to Licorice, feels like a lifetime. Her eyes widen in surprise… then, her body relaxes completely.
“huh…” She says, bringing a sleeve to cover her face; a tell tale as old as time. Licorice releases his breath and grins like an idiot.
In the mirror, both of their own faces stare back at them, all-knowing. In the cherry colored frame, it was them who were being reflected. Only them, and nothing else.
“It seems like it still works.” Licorice snickers, as if he had just single handedly discovered every secret Pomegranate’s prophetic mirror was hiding.
“Who knew, sometimes even an idiot like you can surprise me…” the priestess smirks, leaning into his side, trying to hide her exhaustion, and perhaps something else too.
Licorice holds her by the shoulder with his free arm and brings their heads closer, he’d be lying if he didn’t want to say more to her… about… this. Them.
They will always have tomorrow, he supposes, but for now this was good… no, it was perfect.
Licorice looks at Pomegranate with eyes full of pride. She looks back.