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“I wonder,” Theseus said as they sat on the balcony, the lights of Amarot glimmering around them. The light caught in her short ebony locks, blending into the sparse sliver already woven in. She wore no adornment in it or anywhere on her. She waved down at Thanatos in his garden, “what it’ll be like once I return to the star.”
The shears clipped.
“Why?” Hades asked. She had only been Azem for a few months, surely she couldn’t be thinking of ending her term. What had happened? What was wrong?
She laughed, poking between his furrowed brow. “I have no plans to do so any time soon I assure you Hades. Not when I have so much to see.”
She offered up her hand to him. He laced their fingers together. Beautifully complimentary, his pale skin against her rich brown. Hers were bigger, softer and smooth.
“Sometimes I just think about who will come after me. Where they’ll take my- our- soul. What they’ll do.”
“I see no reason to wonder.” He replied. The city stretched out before them. It’s towers piercing the sky. The expertly planned roads and ways. The districts teeming with life and innovation. “It can’t be better than what we have.”
“Maybe it will be, maybe it won’t.” She mused. Her orange eyes glittered. Those beautiful and brilliant eyes. The ones that could cut through the dark. The ones more precious than any crystal. Like the dawn they glowed. And like the dawn he would seek them.
“I’d still love to see it.”
Thanatos’s rose dropped to the floor.
——————
He’d gotten the hair wrong. Emet- Selch watched the lordling at the table. Lavender highlights. The rest he’d gotten correct.
The audacity he had to parade around with her soul. Cheering at brawls and drinking himself to death. The others hanging off his arms get lavished with his attention.
Emet-Selch stood at the center of the room, concealed by his hood and the darkness hanging off of him.
“My lord.” He spoke. “I offer great power for you and yours. To aid your cause and save your great kingdom.”
The lordling leaned forwards, head on fist.
——————
He watched her and her caravan. She carried silks as green as her skin. Her hair was blue now.
A beast cried out from the edge of the path. She put down the silk and raced over to the creature.
He could clearly see the pity on her face as she turned over the wounded thing. She carefully examined it, cringing each time it whimpered.
She cleaned the gash and dressed it. Scoping it up she whispered. “Everything will be alright.”
——————
His hair was green with some black interspersed. His skin was dark, almost black. It blended seamlessly into his scales.
His knife cleanly chopped the vegetables. Gathering them up he slid them into the pot along with a few other bits and bobs.. He noticed him over his shoulder and smiled.
“What can I do for you Ser?”
The vial in his pocket weighed heavier than it should.
——————
They stood at the seaside. Their hair was gold. Their skin was gray. Their ears and tail naturally matched their hair. They stood no higher than his chin.
They worked their nets with vigor. Hauling and cheering with the other fragmented beings on the dock.
“For trade.” He heard a man nearby say to his daughter. “With those catches we’ll be able to buy enough food to last us through the winter.”
They will not.
——————
His hair was pink and white. His skin was light. He’d forgon the tail, yet adopted pointed ears. He’d regained his height, though it was not enough. Scars littered his arms.
He stood before the man in the desert. The cheers of the arena were distant.
“Are you my doom?” He asked through cracked lips.
“No.” He said drawing the knife from his sleeve.
“Will you help me?”
“Yes.” He replied, thrusting it into his heart.
——————
Her hair was red. Her skin tan. Once again pointed ears, but she’d dropped to the height of his knee. She had a bruise forming on her cheek. She wore her hair long.
Her lantern shined in the dark of the caves. Crystals caught her light as she walked her path, pickaxe in hand.
He pulled back from her reach.
——————
Teal this time. His skin was lost in the fur that covered him. His ears and tails were more of a wild cat’s now. Back to tall but too bulky, his arm was missing. His hair long again but meticulously braided back and laced with beads.
They sat together, watching the stars shoot across the sky.
“Will we see each other again?” He asked him, blood on his lips.
“We will. I promise you.” Emet-Selch replied, holding his hand.
“And if I look different will you still be able to find me?”
“Always.”
——————
Her eyes were blue.
It was no trick of the primordial light. No illusion cast.
Even as he exited his shadows they stayed that way.
Monroe glared at him. She did not trust him, as he knew she would.
The plaza before the tower was open. Too open for him to pull close to her without causing someone to see and intervene. He could not search for even specks of their true color, the one they were supposed to be.
Yet they still cut through his shroud. The darkness he covered himself in in service to his Lord and all that he loved.
This world couldn’t end soon enough.