Chapter Text
The first time Deuce saw her, she was standing barefoot in the sand.
Gold glinting at her throat like the sun itself had bent to kiss her.
Blues, deeper than the Nile that stretched out far from her home.
Beauty unscathed by reality or time itself!
He wasn't supposed to be here; he knew it!
It was like walking into a sacred chapel wearing your most trashy jeans filled with bbq stains.
It just felt fragile and wrong to be here, but he didn't even remember how he got here to begin with.
But every night he dreamt of her. Until that is, he agreed to be a part of a freak time-traveling study.
One that cost him his mortality and eventually his normie-like appearance.
The desert wind whipped his pale arms like sandpaper, and all he could deeply inhale was that scorching heat.
His poor snakes, they hissed softly against his temples as the portal behind him faded.
He turned and found himself staring at a procession of torches cutting through the heat.
At their center stood the girl, crowned in lapis and obsidian, bands of gold, and eyes in coal.
Before she could speak, guards came running at a silent command of "Seize him." From her fingertips.
They were slow to move, no doubt bothered by his odd garments and snake-like coils; he was not like them, but yet they came at the command of the beauty behind them.
His eyes were wrong, glowing and slitted like those of a snake; they had to know he did not belong amongst them nor the gods that watched from above.
Deuce should have run, but something dumb fluttered in his chest.
He lowered, humble and with humility.
Hoping they knew he had only come to worship the goddess of a woman behind him.
It was all on her now, what would happen next, and to his surprise, he could feel her orbs studying him.
As if he were something worthy of being marveled at.
He knew he was in the wrong time period, but he couldn't bring himself to leave.
"You kneel as if you know me." She spoke in a tongue he hadn't heard in ages of his existence.
"I understand what it means to survive, and I know my life lies in your beautiful hands."
A pause, and then a smile graced her lips.
They called her "Cleo, daughter of Ra, blessed of Ma'at."
The princess who spared his life.
The soul who thought the stars were beneath her.
The woman for whom he was willing to sell his soul.
The amulet he adorned glowed once. As if warning him to stray from his heart's desire, but Deuce knew it was no use.
He knew, right then, that he was in love with something never meant to be his.