A/N: Ahhh... -bites fingernails- So, this is the actual story of Forever Moribund, and I really don't know how I feel about it. I started it a while ago, and finished it a while ago, too, but I wasn't quite satisfied. So it underwent much tweaking, and I'm still not really that satisfied... but I feel bad about letting it sit in my document folder and collect dust for much longer, especially after I put so much work into it. And I do like my characters... it's not their fault the plot is so ridiculous. -hugs Eva-

And so, in case you haven't noticed, this story is pretty long.. I was thinking about dividing up into chapters, but it's not really the kind of story that can be broken up like that. :/ Hopefully you're eyes don't start bleeding halfway through. And if they do, I'm very sorry, but please don't sue because I have no money. -is shot-

The passage on Orpheus was not written by me - that is courtesy of Edith Hamilton's Greek Mythology. It's not mine, don't sue; again, I have no money. :)

Anyway, please, try to enjoy, if you're even bothering to read it... -continues to bite fingernails-

Oh, and MUCHAS GRACIAS to Yoona, my partner-in-crime, my fellow writer, my amazingly good friend, who helped a lot with this story, and probably has ten times more faith in it than I do. :D

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Black Cherries and Butterflies

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000

He ran to get out of the rain. His young feet—the soles soft and reddened—slipped slightly across the slicked grass. But only slightly, as he was used to the wetness. He had trained himself to have a natural dexterity when traveling through his rain-washed country, a developed adhesiveness to what would make any foreigner stumble and slide.

Shortly, he reached his destination, a small shelter made of trees that grew close enough together to form a sort of wall, a circle of hard trunks with a single gap that served as a doorway. Their branches stretched across the top, as if the trees were all reaching for each other, creating a leafy roof that leaked, but kept the ground below it relatively dry. This shelter was at the heart of a forest where the rest of the trees grew farther apart, making for a canopy that left the floor vulnerable to the forever sobbing sky. Most of the trees’ roots sprouted out of the ground and dipped back down, looking like the backs of sea monsters in an ocean of silver fog. The gray sky above the treetops completed the somber scene, making the forest seem somewhat transcendental and sensuously mysterious.

Upon arriving at the shelter, the young demon pushed his sopping bangs out of his eyes, eyes that shone with the green of the forest, flecked with brown and gold. He stepped through the gap in the barrier of trunks, and immediately the downpour became an inconsequential drizzle, the rain falling sparingly as drops wormed through the mesh of branches overhead.

But even as the chaos of the deluge around the shelter went still, a different sort of storm brewed within the young demon himself, for in his self-proclaimed sanctuary there was another. Intruder, his mind said as indignation swelled in his chest.

And though he tried, desperately tried, to feed that indignation, he was unable to help being taken by the stranger’s beauty. The trespasser was reclining in the grass, hands behind his head, appearing the same age as the young demon himself. The intruder’s skin was darker, darker than the demon had ever seen someone’s skin. Of course, this wasn’t saying much, as the demon and his countrymen were all of a pale palette that ranged from porcelain to a warm cream color.

The stranger’s skin was a smooth, cocoa-brown. His hair was black and very curly, falling in ringlets that started loose and got progressively tighter as they grew away from his head and almost reached his shoulders. He was robed in a vivid scarlet, and his eyes were…oh, his eyes.

From the second the intruder turned to face him, the paler demon was overcome with a terrifying paralysis. The anger, the turbulence in his chest, it all froze, and then quickly thawed again, so quickly that it made his head spin. The demon felt faint and pressed a clammy palm against his forehead as his tired feet tripped backwards of their own accord.

The trespasser smiled cat-like as he sat up and propped himself on his hands. “Hey there.” He reached to his side, grabbed something that was out of the paler demon’s sight, and brought it into view. It was a small cluster of black cherries, the fruits plump and gleaming darkly in the dim light that permeated the shelter. “Want one?”

The paler demon stepped cautiously forward against his better judgment and sat down beside the intruder. No no no, poison, it’s poison, his mind said, even as his head nodded and his hand reached out traitorously to accept a cherry. He plucked one off of its stem and, his eyes never leaving the intruder’s, popped it into his mouth. His fledgling fangs punctured the smooth skin, red juice dribbled down his pale chin, and…poison or not, he’d never tasted anything so sweet.

000

Shiva leaves the apartment building and steps into a mild rain. He doesn’t bother to find an umbrella or some sort of covering, having grown up in a time when there were no umbrellas and it rained a whole lot more than it is now. He begins down the street with his hands in his pockets. There aren’t many people out today; the demonlings are in school and the adults are attending to their various jobs. Shiva doesn’t have a job—he doesn’t see the need for one. He opts instead to stay home most of the time and paint or read. Whatever tickles his fancy.

What tickled his fancy today was a nice walk, and so he finds himself on some indefinite path, not really sure as to where he’s going, though a vague notion does start to take shape in his mind. He doesn’t care much to look around as he walks, being all too familiar with his town and its attributes—the apartment complex that he has yet to leave the vicinity of, the little plaza on the opposite side of the street, the blossoming trees lining the sidewalks. It’s all very urban, all very domestic.

The one time that his eyes do wander, he sees something to make him pause. On the ground is a small white thing—wet and pathetically tattered. After considering it for a moment, he recognizes it as a butterfly. It’s a beautiful little creature, however fragile and broken. Shiva stares at it, and just as he’s decided that it must be dead it twitches. He shakes his head. “There is no hope for you, my friend,” he murmurs and carries on, stepping over the poor creature without a single backwards glance.

Soon he’s left the development; he feels like it’s easier to breathe, out away from the steel and concrete. There’s a long stretch of grass between where the lattice of sidewalks ends and where the shore of the river starts, and Shiva can see his subconscious destination, a long cobblestone bridge that arches slightly across the smoothly flowing water.

Upon reaching the bridge, Shiva sits down. The seat of his pants immediately soaks through with rainwater, but it doesn’t faze him. His legs dangle over the edge, his hands flat against the cold stones, and his face is gazing down into the river. The slate surface is dappled with thousands of tiny ripples, never having a chance to settle as the rain keeps falling. Shiva is grateful for the rain, and the way it obscures his reflection.

111

So, you are a prince?”

The curly-haired demon nodded with a slight smirk. “Naturally. Don’t I look it?”

“You look like a soldier, to me.”

The smirk slipped a little. “A soldier? Why?”

The paler demon shrugged shortly as he looked away from the other’s mesmeric stare. “Your red clothing.”

The other straightened proudly and tightened his arms across his chest. “Red is a royal color.”

“Really? In my country, it is worn by the soldiers. The color of blood.”

“Well, in my country—wait, your country?” An eyebrow raised at the paler demon’s semantics. “Only a ruler can lay claim to a country in his speech. You talk like you’re a prince or something.”

“…Yes. I am a prince, a prince of this country.” He gestured vaguely with a whitish hand, and the backs of his long fingers seemed to brush the damp silver air as if it were a cherished lover.

“A prince? Why’re you dressed in rags?”

“Rags?”

“Yeah, rags. Such an ugly color, that gray.”

The paler demon tensed. “Ugly… Gray is the color of neutrality, of peace. It is a noble color.”

“Pff. It’s an ugly color. Just like the damn sky out there.” The curly-haired demon looked up, as if he could see through the leafy roof of their shelter. With those eyes, his companion didn’t doubt that he could.

“Then why are you here, if you dislike it?” The paler demon felt rather indignant, being very attached to his country and its dreary weather.

The other shrugged nonchalantly as he ran his tongue across his teeth. “Curiosity.”

A pause, waiting for more. When none came, the paler demon prompted, “Curiosity?”

“Yeah. A land where the sun never shines? A race of white skin?” The smirk reappeared. “Royalty that wears gray?”

“You must be from Sanguis Solum…”

“You’re not very quick, are you?”

A frown creased the paler demon’s white brow, and he looked away, insulted. He said nothing, as he found no words to dignify such a remark.

111

Shiva plucks a pebble off of the cobblestones beside him and drops it into the water beneath his dangling feet. He watches its ripples scatter the others around it and overtake them for a few seconds before the smaller wrinkles reclaim the river’s surface. He’s been staring at the water long enough now that he can start to make out his reflection, to piece it together in the mess of never ceasing rings, and the very notion draws a tight scowl across his lips.

“You know,” a voice calls through the static of rain, “eventually, your face is going to stick like that.”

Shiva allows himself a small smile when the familiar note of that voice touches his heart in the way that only a friend can. Castor sits down beside him moments later, smiling as well. “Now that’s better.” His words are more articulate with the closer proximity. A slice of shelter from the rain covers Shiva as Castor’s umbrella encroaches on his personal space. For a moment, Shiva looks up at it and admires the droplets sliding down translucent blue skin. “You should smile more;” Castor says, “you’re kinda cute when you do.”

Shiva’s lips turn down again, and he grips the edge of the stone bridge tightly. “Try telling Anubis that,” he murmurs, his voice almost swallowed by the ambient shower.

“Oh, I’m sure he knows. How could he not, considering how long you two’ve been together?” Castor swings his legs a little, pointing his toes as if they could reach the water several feet beneath them with just a little stretch. Shiva doesn’t care to humor him with a response. The blond frowns at Shiva as a silence spans tauntingly between them until, finally, Castor attempts to prompt words out of the taciturn demon. “Why’re you so bitter, huh? You don’t seem like the type. Of course, I’ve only known you for a few years, so I can’t say for sure— ”

“What reason,” Shiva says slowly, “have I to not be bitter?”

Castor leans forward slightly, blue eyes wide. “What reason…? Come on! You’re with the hottest demon in the…in…damn, he might be the hottest demon alive. He’s charming, clever, mysterious…” Castor trails off, leaving words for describing Anubis’s appearance to be filled by the imagination, and then picks back up with, “Everyone wants him, everyone loves him, anyone would trade their right arm to be in your shoes, and you’re bitter?”

“Do you not know?” Shiva’s laugh is as dry as a bone in the desert, and cracks like one too. “He hates me,” more anxious laughter, this time moistened by drips of insanity, “he wants me to die.”

There’s an uncertain pause, and then Castor says, “Ah, come on,” with a dismissive wave of his hand, “you… you’re exaggerating.”

“Hahaha…” Shiva’s head rolls back, eyes skyward, as rain slides down his nose and cheeks. “If only.”

Castor twirls his umbrella a little, the neck rolling on his shoulder. “Why does he hate you?” he asks after a few moments of carefully considering the river below.

“I am a prison to him.”

“Prison?”

“Yes. He is bound to me, and I to him. Do you not know the story? The two princes from the Old Countries, their lives exchanged for an everlasting peace?”

Castor hums thoughtfully, and then realization slowly dawns in his blue eyes. “That was you…”

Shiva nods and tosses another pebble into the water.

222

The paler demon prince pulled a cherry off of its stem and rolled it between his fingers contemplatively.

“No matter how much you play with it, it’s not going to do anything, you know.” The foreign demon prince lifted a dark eyebrow at his companion, the shadow of a smirk teasing his mouth.

The paler demon met the other’s gaze, a slight smile on his pastel lips. “Are you so sure?”

“Of course I’m sure! Are you stupid or something?”

“So you must not be a firm believer in the whole ‘anything is possible’ philosophy.”

The curly-haired demon considered the paler one for a moment, his well of sarcastic remarks seeming to have hit a dry spell. “You use too many big words for someone so young,” he said dismissively before biting on a cherry.

“I am a prince.”

“Yeah, …so?”

“Would you rather I sound like an uneducated dolt?” It was the paler demon’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “I am also a firm believer in the ‘be yourself’ philosophy—you know, do not act like something you are not? And I, for one, am proud of my education and will flaunt it as I please.”

The darker demon prince scowled slightly. “You’re such a cocky little son of a—”

“Ani!”

“Shit!” The foreign prince started violently, eyes widening and small fist clutching his chest as he turned towards the cause of his scare. A lilting, airy laughter echoed from behind the trees, and a moment later a young female demon was stepping through the doorway of the natural shelter.

Her face was lit with an amused smile, the corners of her painted eyes crinkled. The paler demon looked her over and noted the smooth, mocha skin and black, curly hair that were very similar to his companion’s. Her eyes, too, once her face had relaxed, were similar to the foreign prince’s—though nowhere near as spectacular. She was garbed in red, like her kinsman, a scarlet toga sort of attire that was cinched at her narrow waist to show off her womanly figure.

Upon taking another glance at his companion, the paler demon prince witnessed a number of expressions flitting across his cocoa-brown face, which looked somewhat more ashen than normal, as if the blood had all rushed out of it. Eventually, the undecided emotions seemed to make up their minds, and settled for angry with a side of fear. Anger was the first to verbalize. “Bastet, don’t do that!” Followed quickly by the fear. “What are you doing here?” The higher pitch of his voice made the paler demon smirk slightly, however unaccustomed his lips were to the supercilious curve.

“What am I doing here?” The newcomer, apparently Bastet, started closing the distance between herself and the darker prince, the corners of her mouth lifted into a feline smile that matched her slinking gait. “I do believe that question goes to you, dearest baby brother.”

The paler demon prince’s eyebrows inched upwards a little. Brother?

She stopped. Her bare feet sank into the plush grass and the gold of her anklets gleamed in the pale light of the shelter. “So, what are you doing here?” She folded her arms across her chest as she gave her brother a pointed look.

“I…” The curly-haired demon prince looked to his companion, as if there was aid to be found in the confused green eyes and quizzical expression.

“This is enemy territory, after all,” Bastet continued languidly, rolling one of her hands in an indolent gesture.

To this, the foreign prince looked slightly startled and shook his head. “What?”

“And who’s this?” Bastet turned her gaze on the paler demon prince, as if suddenly aware of his presence.

“My friend,” her brother replied. His warm, confident mien seemed to return with the change of subject. “He’s the prince of this dull, wet country.”

“Is he, now?” Bastet didn’t look surprised. “You’ll have to excuse my brother’s rudeness,” she said to the paler demon prince. “Just remember that the meaner he is, the more he likes you.” She winked, and her brother sputtered an indignant retort that no one paid any heed. The paler demon prince just laughed.

222

Castor’s eyes widen—small saucers of forget-me-not blue. “I…no way! You’ve got to be kidding! How come you’ve never told me this?” He leans forward, intrigued.

Shiva shrugs. “I never thought it worth mentioning.”

“Not worth—not worth mentioning?” Castor rocks backwards and faces his lonely left side as if someone was there that he could share his incredulity with. Turning to Shiva again, he asks, “How could that not be ‘worth mentioning’?! You’re one of the legendary forefathers of demonkind as we know it today, and you didn’t tell me?!”

Shiva shrugs again, slim shoulders rising and falling with utmost indifference. “It does not matter anymore.”

“Tell me, please! I want to know the story, straight from the main character’s mouth!” Castor implores. “As a friend, please… Sheev, come on. My mother practically rocked me to sleep with fables from the beginnings of demonkind, like the story of the—”

“The Authors of Time?” Shiva receives a blank stare. He sighs and swings his legs a little. “The first four demons, you know…”

“Yeah… What did you call them?”

“Nothing.” Shiva waves his hand dismissively before replanting it on the stone. “It is an archaic title. Titles are not even used anymore,” he says quietly, almost as if to himself. Turning to Castor, he asks, “Do you know the real story of those first four demons, our founders? I am sure you have been fed the glorified versions.”

“Glorified?”

“Yes. During the apocalypse, the planet was battered by chaos, as if Hell had opened its jaws upon the world. (Are you familiar with human mythology?) This is all according to the writings of those demons, of course.”

“Of course,” Castor says agreeably, nodding. “And, I am, familiar with human mythology, that is.”

Shiva continues, looking out across the obscured landscape. “The only ones who have ever seen those documents, the writings of the founding demons, are the royalty from the Old Countries, you know. I have read them myself, learned the stories firsthand—or, as firsthand as anyone can get. They are locked away now, kept safe—and the story has been passed by word of mouth down through the generations. You might have been taught a diluted version—that is why I want you to hear this from me.”

“I know, I know. Keep going.”

Shiva slips back into his memories. His eyes wander occasionally, flicker from image to rain-blurred image, sometimes down at the river beneath their hanging feet. “From the bones and blood of the dying human species, we were born. There were four of us from the start—they were sickly, feeble, weak-minded creatures, two males and two females. The blood of the fallen humans was the seed from which one of the males and one of the females were derived—and their skin was colored dark with the scarlet of their origin. The other two were born from the tears of the fallen humans, and likewise the clear crystal purity colored their skin a fair white. But I am making them sound too pretty—from the onset, they were ugly, and deformed, incapable of communicating or thinking for themselves—living like animals on instinct. They were created to survive in the decimated wasteland that had become our world, where the sun was blotted out by smoke and ash, and the seas swelled, and the land burned perpetually, the air was broiling and scorching. These four creatures were unaffected.

“They fed off of the human carcasses, ate their organs and drank their blood and peeled the rotting flesh off their bones. The humans who were still alive when the birth of our kind began called these creatures ‘demons.’ Demons were creations of the human imagination, part of that institution of religion. They were supposedly evil creatures who lived in Hell and impregnated all sinners with their seed of corruption—and if the apocalypse was indeed Hell on Earth, who knows? We might very well be the demons of human mythos. Either way, slowly, the four demons overtook the moribund humans. The demons were sickly, feeble, weak-minded—yes, but they were like sponges. They seemed to suck the very knowledge from the brains they slurped, the human complexity of emotion from the hearts they ate like fruits from Eden’s trees. As they devoured the human remains, they themselves took on the image and behaviors of humans. Only, they were enhanced.

“They were imbrued with the history of humankind from the beginning up until the moment when last human uttered their dying words. They saw it like a slideshow in their sleeping dreams and even in their waking thoughts, everything, including their own births and their early lives—from a point of view outside their bodies. They were mentally bombarded by philosophies, by facts and truths and feelings, by genius ideas and, of course, by follies—they witnessed the mistakes of humanity in retrospect, and from an outsider’s point of view, were able to learn from them. Did you know that humans were their own worst enemy?”

Castor looks unsure and slowly shakes his head.

Shiva laughs that dry laugh again. “They were. They killed one another—for money, for politics, for land, for glory, for religion. Those were the follies of mankind—greed and pride and blatant stupidity. They were so wrapped up in themselves—they lost sight of the bigger picture of things. And they had pictures, all right! They were able to go up, fly through the stars, photograph this planet as it looks from up there…” Long white fingers reached upwards, as if they could touch the somber clouds. “And yet, they were so blind. They destroyed their planet, they destroyed each other… And all for what?”

“For…nothing.”

Shiva nods as his hand returns to its place at his side. “Yes, for nothing.”

444

The demon prince of Lacrima Terra was reclining in his father’s study and flipping through the pages of a text so ancient that only the most learned individuals could garner an understanding of the story, for only they had knowledge of the archaic language. And the royals of his country were indeed learned; he himself was considered one of the greatest minds around, despite being as young as he was.

He found a stray tress of brown hair beneath his ponytail, one that had escaped his prim red ribbon, and his long finger spooled it. It was an absentminded gesture, slow and automatic, as his calm eyes ran from left to right across the page.

They summoned Eurydice and gave her to him, but upon one condition: that he would not look back at her as she followed him, until they had reached the upper world. So the two passed through the great doors of Hades to the path which would take them out of the darkness, climbing up and up. He knew that she must be just behind him, but he longed unutterably to give one glance to make sure. But now they were almost there, the blackness was turning gray; now he had stepped out joyfully into the daylight. Then he turned to her. It was too soon; she was still in the cavern. He saw her in the dim light, and he held out his arms to clasp her; but on the instant she was gone. She had slipped back into the darkness. All he heard was one faint word, “Farewell.”

Desperately he tried to rush after her and follow her down, but he was—

“My Lord!” Suddenly, the door to the study seemed to explode. It blew back on its hinges and banged into the wall beside it, and the demon prince started so violently that he lost his page. His fingers slipped from the crease in the book’s spine where they had been keeping his place, and his back, previously curved into the plush divan with his knees drawn around him, straightened as he sat up to peer over the back of his seat. He saw the squalid face, sweat running in clean streaks down dirty skin, hair a tangled mess, scarlet uniform slashed in various places. The demon prince recognized the general, more so by his eyes than anything else; the general had a fierce gaze, one that always stood out in their gentle-eyed population.

“Vijaya,” the demon prince murmured. He watched rigidly as the general swept towards Vishnu, the prince’s father—the king. A look of utmost despair was set into Vijaya’s tired visage, and after a heartbeat’s hesitation, he collapsed to one knee before his liege. “Your son—he is dead. The barbarians have breached the gate.” Vijaya’s voice was tortured, as if he was struggling to breathe and every attempt at talking pained him. The demon prince couldn’t say he was faring much better.

Dead, his mind quavered, Damodara—dead. His throat was thick, his lips pursed and paling as he struggled to contain his agony. He averted his eyes, barely aware of the whispery thud of his book as it slipped off his lap and onto the floor.

“My Lord,” Vijaya continued, his head bowed, “we must do something. If they fell our remaining ranks—”

“They won’t.” Vishnu’s voice was calm, and the demon prince knew it was nothing more than a smooth disguise. It wasn’t only calm, but cold. “I won’t let my people fall into the hands of those heathens. I will find a way. Hold them off for as long as you can…”

“My Lord…” Vijaya’s voice had quieted some. “We will do our best. But for how much longer—”

“Go.” Vishnu waved a slender hand, dismissing his general. “But never give up.”

Never surrender. The demon prince listened as Vijaya’s lacerated uniform swished with his departure. A long and tense silence stretched between father and son; it pulled, pulled, and pulled like a rubber band. The demon prince didn’t move, didn’t speak, barely breathed so that his lungs hurt and his head swam with lack of oxygen. After what seemed like an eternity, he slowly leaned over, picked up his book with a trembling hand, found his page again, and forced himself to continue the story. His father’s quiet sobs provided a fitting backdrop.

333

Shiva sighs, drumming his fingers on the cobblestones. “Yes, so much destruction, all for nothing. It is hard to imagine… they were so brilliant, too. They were brilliant… And thus they suffered a brilliant downfall. They went out in a blaze of glory!” He laughs again, this one slightly demented. “They were fond of that saying, you know.”

Castor looks down at the dappled river, eyes narrowed as he thinks. “What were those follies you talked about? Money and politics and…”

“Things that we no longer have. Do you know what word humans would use to describe our society today?” Shiva receives a negative. “Anarchy. We live in an anarchy. That is our ‘politics,’ our government—or lack thereof. Anarchy is a very curious thing, or it was—to the humans. The only way for anarchy to work is for everyone to do it. We do not have rulers, we do not have a monetary system, we do not have upper and lower classes and all that is in between. We have a society in which everyone governs themselves. Humans would laugh at us for this—how can a society possibly last in anarchy? they would ask.

“And I have given this much thought. I have seen society shift from a monarchy to anarchy—and in transit, I wondered how anarchy could possibly work. I was a royal myself, I was born into the monarchial family, I could have one day been the ruler of my country—but no, now…I am just another demon. I am nondescript.” Shiva glimpses Castor’s expression out of the corner of his eye, and adds, “Not that I lament the loss of that power, or anything. I just find it interesting…that we really succeeded in establishing a functioning anarchical society. How? I often wonder. How did we do it? And I have only found one feasible conclusion. The reason that we all tacitly agree to this anarchy, to this peaceful coexistence—this society where we depend solely on each other for a happy survival—is because we are all tacitly determined to not be human.”

444

As the pale demon prince ran across the rain-slicked grass, he kept his eyes straight ahead and refused to face the tree stumps that jutted out of the ground, the charred remains of once mighty oaks and maples and even the more slender, white birches. Since he’d left home he’d been keeping his gaze averted from the rent landscape of his country. So much had changed, so much had died, so much had been born (hatred and fear and the seeds of demise)—he could only hope that one thing remained the same. He could only hope that one thing was still a constant in his turbulent life.

He came to a stop in front of the tree shelter, the ring of sturdy trunks that still proved unmoving to that day. He allowed himself a meager smile as he pushed his bangs out of his eyes and approached the doorway. His heart hammered in his chest, anticipation rising and swelling, forming a wave that he was sure would drown him when it came crashing down. He peered through the entrance and prepared himself as the golden scale in his mind teetered precariously between the hope and doubt and—

Empty.

The demon prince felt his heart plummet, and that wave of building anticipation crashed down on him as he’d known it would. He felt cold all over, colder than he had a moment before from being drenched in rainwater. He touched the motionless trunk of the tree to his right and leaned into it slightly for support. Where was his friend? Where were those brilliant eyes when he needed them? Where was that confident smirk, infuriating but always reassuring, that let you know when everything seemed topsy-turvy that at least someone knew what they were doing? Those bright red clothes, that warm brown skin—traits that he’d grown to connect to images of scourge over the past few decades, but only when detached from those eyes, that smirk, that rich voice and the scent of black cherries.

He bit his lip, and his fangs pricked the plump skin. The teeth were finally mature, having recently replaced the spaces left by the loss of his fledgling fangs. So much had changed… The demon prince briefly wondered why things couldn’t stay the same, just once. Why couldn’t the sun stop moving, the wind stop blowing, the rain stop falling—why couldn’t time stop ticking, just for a little while, so that he could for once feel a bit of quietude, experience that thing of nirvana that was so frequently discussed but barely understood? Where was his peace of mind?

He knew. It was with those brilliant eyes and that confident smirk and that rich voice and the scent of black cherries. And, perhaps it was just a sick joke of his overreaching imagination—but he was suddenly hit with the most nauseating notion that he would never have those things within his presence again.

444

Shiva looks at Castor briefly, then down at his lap. His pants are saturated with rainwater, soaked a dark blue that’s almost black. They cling like a second skin and squelch when he moves even a little, but it doesn’t bother him. He carries on his story, unperturbed. “We are all educated in the history of mankind from the time we’re newborn demonlings… we are all aware of what makes us superior to humans, and we all share a certain pride in that. It is that pride that keeps us united. We learn of human wars and revolutions and bloody power shifts and we think, We can do better, we are different, we are superior to them—we scoff at humans and their mistakes…together.

“Anyway,” Shiva shifts slightly as he pushes a waterlogged lock of hair out of his eyes, “by the time the last of humanity had been physically expunged from the planet, the founding demons had dramatically changed. They were no longer sickly and deformed. They were now proud, beautiful creatures. And just as they had been transforming, so had the planet—the ash and smoke was blown away, the seas settled… almost nothing remained. The earth was cracked and torn, the landscapes leveled—human civilization lay in ruins, much of it completely disappeared, gone up in smoke or swallowed by a fissure or washed away by a tidal wave. But the world was healing itself. Trees began to grow again, animal populations rejuvenated. Of course, this happened over the course of a very long time—how long, we cannot say. The founding demons did not care to tell us. But they began to record things—everything that they knew. They were brimming with knowledge, and the only way to relieve the pressure was to write it all down. Using what they knew of human linguistics, they created their own language—the tongue we speak to this very day.

“They recorded, supposedly, everything. They explored the planet, recovered human texts and technology, and they began to restore the world.” Shiva shakes his head, an nearly imperceptibly, almost proud smile on his face. “It was remarkable, really… But I need not tell you that—it is axiomatic, of course. So, these founding demons recorded everything they knew, and put special emphasis on the mistakes of humanity. In their records, they asked—no, more like commanded, that their posterity never deify them. Religion, they said, was a device of self-destruction. Religion was one of the causes of some of the more horrendous crimes of mankind, even if it was never intended for that purpose. They said that we did not need religion—that we only needed faith in one another to achieve a happy survival.

“You know about religion, of course, from studying human mythology.” Shiva glances at Castor, who nods. “Yes, religion… religion was a curious thing. But it was essential to human survival.”

“…Why?”

“Why?” Shiva takes a moment to think and idly tosses another pebble into the water below. “That is a good question. There are probably many reasons. The main reason, I think, was that…” Shiva pauses, his stare thoughtful and distant as he raises his eyes to the sky once more, rain kissing his cheeks, “they did not want to be alone.”

“What?”

“…Imagine, humans, humans who succumb readily to evil, who are overcome easily with disease, whose lives are fragile and short, full of ups and downs—oftentimes more of the latter, seemingly, than the former. Humans did not feel strong enough to exist alone in this world—”

“But…they weren’t alone! They had whole civilizations! They had overcrowding and overpopulation! What do you mean, alone?”

“You have never felt alone, Castor? We have whole civilizations, we have tight knit communities, but people still feel loneliness…” Shiva’s expression briefly flashes with anguish, so briefly that Castor wonders if it wasn’t just his imagination. “You can be in the arms of the person you love most, and still feel alone. You can be in a crowded room…and still feel alone. Humans needed some sort of stability to lean on when they were feeling lost, broken, lonely, when their problems seemed too great to be healed by other people. When they’d lost faith in other people. When they were lost and confused. Sometimes, life was terrifying and gruesome and dark. Sometimes, things seemed haphazard and helter-skelter. Religion was necessary for the human psyche because it provided equanimity in a world that seemed ever changing, ever tipping on an uncertain scale. It was something that humans could take and say, ‘Okay, this is why things are the way they are.’ There did not really need to be a reason for everything declared in religious texts; why does the world exist?—because God created it. God is everything, and we are His children. End of story.”

Shiva sighs and causes the raindrops on his lips to quiver. “Life was frightening. Life seemed so beyond the human scope of understanding. That was why humans were constantly searching for explanations; that is why they created religion.” Shiva folds his hands in his lap, lacing his cold, wet fingers tightly.

“But religion,” he continues, “religion brought about a lot of destruction, too. Humans manipulated it and abused it, as humans often tended to do with anything good and pure. Humans persecuted, slaughtered, massacred, in the names of their gods, all of that, and so much more. There was no end to the crimes humans would be willing to commit when rationalizing their motives with religious faith. And that is why the founding demons determined that no demon shall follow a religion. We do not need it, they said—all we need is one another. Faith in the individual, in the friend, in the lover, in the father, mother, sister, brother—faith in each other. We do not suffer the same circumstances as humans did, they said, we are not so weak.

“The founding demons began to discover things about their biology as time wore on, and made meticulous records of that, too. We live longer than humans, much longer—as far as we know, a demon cannot die a natural death. If undisturbed, one could live until the end of days, should that ever come. We do not succumb to disease like humans did. We are biologically superior to humans, who spent much of their history trying to triumph over death and disease. And we do not age as humans did—we possess what they called ‘eternal youth.’ Why, the founders wondered, why are we like this? Could it have been something in the human blood that they drank, that gave them an immunity to human illnesses? Something magickal, like the influx of knowledge that they seemed to have just soaked up from the human carcasses? They were not sure. Still to this day, we are not sure. Perhaps one day someone will discover the reason…” Shiva shakes his head, scattering crystalline droplets from his hair. “But I think we are all too content to wonder. Humans wondered, humans had an insatiable curiosity—and we are determined to be as inhuman as possible.”

Shiva laughs suddenly, and the sound mingles with the rhythm of the rain to create a beautiful, shimmering sound. “But there is irony in it all! We did not start out this way, this enlightened. From the onset, we—the founding demons’ posterity—made the selfsame mistakes as the humans…”

555

How long has it been since you’ve last had it cut, little one?”

The demon prince scowled slightly; he resented the demeaning title that his caretaker still used, even after so many years. As her spindly fingers combed through his too long locks, he leaned back into her sure hands and shrugged. He looked at himself in the mirror, where the eyes of his caretaker were watching him too. He wished they wouldn’t. “Just…do it,” he said quietly, not demanding in the slightest, but rather pleading.

She nodded understandingly and took up her pair of silver scissors. Then she started dividing his hair and, once that was done, commenced the process of snipping the strands and trimming them back into an acceptable state. The demon prince watched sightlessly as his dark brown locks fell in pieces to the parlor floor, defeated by the might of conformity. It hadn’t really been that long—down to his shoulders, rather than brushing his cheekbones and the nape of his neck as it used to be. But this was a special occasion—no, “special” was a major understatement. This was a monumental occasion, a solstice in the history of demonkind. He had to be presentable.

“What’s with this face, yeah?” The cold flat of his caretaker’s scissors slid along the demon prince’s white jaw and tapped it harmlessly. “You should be smiling, you blushing bride!”

The demon prince raised a cynical eyebrow at her, which elicited the appearance of a petulant pink tongue from between her lips.

He shook his head and met her gaze in the mirror. “What if he does not like me?”

“Well, you just have to go in believing that he will. How could anyone not like you, love? You’re adorable. And smart, to boot. Smart, adorable,” snip, snip, “loveable… you know a good half of the population is mourning the loss of your bachelorism.”

“Huh.” His voice was a sour note of disbelief.

“Cheer up, sweetie.” Another tap with the scissors, followed by a few snips of hair. “If he has a sane head on his shoulders, he’ll be crazy about you in no time.” She sucked her teeth a few times, frowning slightly as she worked. “Of course, he’s one of them, so you never know…”

A moment of silence. And then, “I used to be friends with one of them.”

“Did you, now?”

“Mm. And he was not all that bad. Brash, raffish, obnoxious…but overall, not a bad character.”

“Hot-blooded, they are.”

“It is in their nature.”

Snip, snip, snip. A clack, as the scissors were set aside. “Finished.”

The demon prince sat back with a sigh and observed himself in the mirror. “…If only.”

555

Castor narrows his eyes, the reminder of demonkind’s first and greatest folly a barb to his innate demonic pride. “Yeah, they told us that, back in school. A long time ago. I remember.”

“Do you, now?” Shiva seems inexplicably amused, and Castor can’t help but feel a spike of annoyance.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Well, let me lay it out for you again. We divided ourselves, a group of darker skinned demons born from the two dark-skinned founders, and a group of white demons born of the two white founders. The founding demons warned against racism in their writings, but it was not until much later that we actually started to delve into their documents. Our civilizations had grown up around their advice, passed by word of mouth, as the great legends are today. And naturally, things became warped through this hearsay manner of teaching the successive generations, and mistakes were made. The two races took their respective sides of the river, built up kingdoms—created monarchies.

“The monarchies were chosen by who was said to be the direct descendents of the founding demons—how was this decided? I was never sure. Logically speaking, we are all direct descendents of the founding demons. It never made sense to me—of course, mistakes often do not make sense. But monarchies were formed, royal lineages developed, social classes established—and with it all, the same corruptions of human society.

“As is the way of things, we eventually began to war with the neighboring country. We started to fight for land, struggle to conquer each other. This was perhaps the greatest blot on our history. Many, many died—my brother, he was killed. Better yet, he was killed by Anubis’s sister, I later learned. And my uncle killed Anubis’s sister, in retaliation or simply the heat of battle, I will never know.” Shiva nods, the statement very matter-of-fact, and Castor looks down to stare at the infinite tiny chains of ripples in the river. The elder demon sighs, tiredly reaching up to rub his eyes, as if the painful memories were physically exhausting him. “It was so endless and pointless, so much destruction—just as bad as the humans. But eventually we ‘came to our senses’—or so we thought.

“My father and Anubis’s father, the kings of their countries, agreed to end the bloodshed. This was shortly after the founding demons’ documents were uncovered from ancient archives, reread, restudied. We realized our mistake, and set about to make things right. And what did they agree to do? Something, arguably, ironically, very human. I liken it to an arranged marriage between monarchs, a matrimony forged for the sake of politics. It was common in the realm of human royalty, too young queens marrying too young foreign kings, forming a sacred pact between their countries, spinning peace from vows of false love.”

“False love?”

Shiva nods as his green gaze distances again. “Well, false on Anubis’s part, anyway. Never from the second I first saw him did I doubt that I was madly in love with him.”

666

The ceremony overseer, robed in black, raised his hands. A hush rippled over the already quiet audience—consisting mainly of the royal families of both sides—and the proceedings began.

“Today, a pact will be made, a bond forged, a treaty ratified. Today we will correct our folly, today we will make the distinction between ourselves and the humans of long ago.” The overseer cleared his throat, smoothing his boney hands down his attire, and then continued. “We were born from the pain of humankind, from their despair and their demise. Their death was our life...”

The pale demon prince stood stock-still in front of the altar, if it could be called that. He was draped in enough silvery blue silk to clothe three and a half corpulent women. The only thing he found to appreciate in it was the protection it offered from the occasional gusts that blew in through the building’s orifices. The rain seemed to be falling especially hard that day.

“From the debris of human remains and civilization, two races emerged. From the blood arose one race,…”

The clothes weren’t, of course, the only elaborations of his person. His exposed skin—namely, his hands, neck, and face—was decorated with a special reddish dye. Humans had called it henna.

“…from the tears, another…”

The dye was swirled around his hands, spiraling floral designs intertwined with meaningful sigils, spinning over his long fingers and the smooth skin of his palms, up his wrists, disappearing beneath the embroidered cuffs of his gaping sleeves. They reappeared along his neck, crawling up to his jaw like climbing ivy, where they ended, a few stray lines curving along his cheekbones. From what he’d glimpsed of the demon beside him, their garb differed greatly.

“And these two races, making that all too human error of deciding that those who are different,” the overseer paused for effect, “are an enemy, grew at odds. The one built a civilization on the east side of the river, where the sun never hesitates to shine,…”

Not surprisingly, the other demon’s outfit was made of a fine scarlet material, cinched tightly around his person and exposing a lot more of his skin than anyone in Lacrima Terra would ever dream of exposing. But this demon was from Sanguis Solum, where the sun only shut its eyes at night, and at all other times the air was broiling.

“…and the other built a civilization on the west side of the river, where the sky never hesitates to cry…”

His hair was long, dark and curly, as was characteristic of demons from the neighboring country. His skin was a warm brown, golden cuffs around his biceps and likewise adornments about his neck. The pale demon prince had been unable to see the other’s face, as he kept his focus straight ahead; they were not to look into each other’s eyes until instructed to do so.

“Each race isolated itself from the other, and hostilities grew between them. They succumbed to the primitive land lust that helped humankind to their downfall, struggled to conquer each other, mistake after mistake, death after death, demon slaying demon…an endless, pointless circuit…”

He couldn’t help but wonder who this demon was. He knew that the demon was a royal of Sanguis Solum, the youngest in a family of three sons and two daughters, but nothing more.

“We have finally realized.” The overseer’s tone shed its reminiscent air, and he seemed to transform from a wizened storyteller to an aggressive young politician, an individual with purpose and an intention to lead his people into the future. “We’ve realized that if we continue in this manner, we will meet the same fate as humankind. Are we really that weak? Are we that foolish? Are we going to learn of the mistakes of the past but not learn from them? What sort of superior species does this?”

Suddenly, the demon prince flashed on the tree shelter, but quickly pushed it from his mind. Too painful, too unimportant. That place was little more than a distant memory to him now. He’d been visiting it less and less since that day he ran all the way there, desperate for solace and the company of his foreign friend, and had found it starkly empty. Each time he’d revisited the tree shelter afterwards, it had still been empty, and to the day he hadn’t seen that demon for nigh sixty years. Eventually, the tree shelter had been destroyed, razed in the midst of some battle or other. It was a curious thing, that he still longed for those eyes and that smirk and that voice and the scent of black cherries. Never again…

“Never again. Never again will this world see such folly, such ignorance. We must prove ourselves. Humankind had that chance and threw it away, and now it is ours. Now it is our chance to prove our worth. We will do that by taking the human skeletons remaining from the apocalypse and creating the flesh and blood anew. We will do it right.”

The overseer turned his face for once on the young decorated demons before him and gave them an almost paternal smile. “Humans resolved their differences with paper. They gave each other empty promises that they thought were made meaningful by filling them in with ink. But we offer so much more. We offer the life and love of these two, strong, hearty, healthy young princes, that their bond may serve as a symbol of unity between our races. That for as long as they are together, there shall be a symbiotic peace throughout the world, for us and our posterity.

“They will be our hope…”

666

“‘They will be our hope!’ he said.” Shiva tosses his head back and laughs at the cloud. The corners of his eyes crinkle, and his pink mouth bows and parts to allow the hollow sound passage. “We are supposed to be the symbol of hope for all of demonkind, even when we ourselves feel none! It was the folly that ended all follies—though not everyone else saw the arrangement, or sees it to this day, as a folly. I do. Anubis and I, we see it as the final folly of demonkind. It was too human to not be a folly. They said that we would be different, that we would form our treaty by offering up the hearts of our most precious, the youngest princes of both countries. Anubis often calls us the ‘sacrificial lambs.’ Why us? he asks me, as if I have all of the answers.” Shiva scoffs, looking disgusted, perhaps at Anubis, perhaps at himself—Castor can’t decide which, if it’s either at all.

777

The pale demon prince held his breath as the overseer raised his arms again. His words slurred into an ancient rite and the dead language rolled mystifyingly from his mouth as he stepped towards the princes, put a hand on each of their backs, and turned them to face one another. The paler one kept his head down, hesitating, until he felt the pull of the other demon’s demanding stare. He tentatively raised his eyes, and that was when his world spiraled in on him.

You! his mind screamed, his lips parting slightly as if his thoughts could escape through them. He was dying… he was drowning and suffocating and being burned alive. And when a hand touched his, he flinched, because the touch shot a sensation at once scorching and freezing through his skin. His eyes screwed shut as a horrible sting bit at their corners, and he just wanted to run, to take up the hem of his robes and run out of the building, into the flooding streets, and find the nearest cliff to jump from. Anything to escape this feeling of being, of being cornered, of being cornered and trapped like a sniveling rabbit, of being slowly eaten from the inside out.

And then there was that touch again, that icy burning touch, against his cheek. His eyes fluttered open, and the breath that passed his lips was shuddering, frightened and shuddering. Bravely, he met the darker prince’s gaze and immediately found himself engulfed by it. Drawn to it. Sucked in like quicksand, unable to climb back out.

Those eyes… he still had yet to see another set of eyes like them. At first glance, they were black, the most exemplary onyx stones, orbs of incandescent shadow, mirrors that reflected the starless nighttime sky. Yes, at first glance, they were black. Upon closer inspection, one might discover that they weren’t really black, but rather the darkest that brown could possibly get without actually being black. The brown would oftentimes shine like dark chocolate in the right light, melted and sweet, so that the demon’s stare was intoxicating. Around his eyes, there were fringes of sable silken lashes, and around those there was traditionally a ring of atramentous kohl. The makeup made his irises seem all the more ebon, all the more mysterious. They were eyes that said, “I have a secret to tell you,” and when you drew close enough to be told, the dark-skinned demon would only laugh breathily in your ear, laugh at his own private joke. Those eyes…

The overseer’s rambling voice suddenly swam back into the paler demon prince’s consciousness, and he caught the last few words of the ritual incantation before everything stilled. The world seemed to stop. The sun stopped moving, the wind stopped blowing, the rain stopped falling—the paler demon prince was almost certain that time stopped ticking. It was all only for a heartbeat, a scant second, but he was sure that it had happened. He was sure that for the briefest moment, he had found that thing of nirvana. He had found his peace of mind. And of all the words that could be thought, in that heartbeat, that scant second, that briefest moment, a phrase from an old human novel came to him—

You may now kiss the bride.

Of course, there was no kiss.

A knife was handed to him instead. He looked dazedly at the overseer for a minute, until the instructions that had been recited to him before the ceremony came to the forefront of his thoughts. He took the knife and met the darker demon’s gaze as he held the blade to his palm, drawing it across the skin and wincing as the flesh broke. The overseer held a goblet in front of him. He hung his bleeding hand over it and let the liquid scarlet drip into the mouth of the golden cup. He saw that his companion was doing the same with another goblet held in the right hand of the overseer. The darker demon’s face was impassive.

Once the goblets were filled to the overseer’s liking, he handed them to the princes, and each took the cup filled with the other’s blood. Once the princes had laced their arms, they raised the goblets to their lips, tipped the cups back in unison, and downed the liquid inside, all without missing a beat. The paler demon prince inwardly smiled. He knew that the savor should have been metallic, coppery, bitter, but the taste that hit his tongue was that of black cherries.

777

Castor twirls his umbrella on his shoulder a little more, his face pensive. “So, what happened after the bond was made?”

“This.” Shiva takes in the sight around them with his hand, sweeping his arm in a wide half-circle. “The countries were combined, the river between them literally bridged, and no longer were they—was it—known as a country. The land, it simply…was. The monarchies declined, and anarchy was built in their places. And thus, the society of today was born. The races intermixed, interbred. Demons settled into a comfortable cycle of life, everyone found their calling and adhered to it, providing the services needed without expecting pay—only expecting the satisfaction that comes with doing what they love. Students learn for the sake of learning, and those that decide not to learn—well, they get by, I suppose. I do not think I have met a demon yet, however, who has declined their right to an education.”

Castor murmurs his agreement as he kicks his legs slightly. “So, you and Anubis—you were the princes, the ones who formed the living treaty between the—what did you call them?—the Old Countries?”

Shiva nods. “That is what I told you.”

“But, I still don’t understand why Anubis hates you. Why he wants you to die. What did you do to deserve that?”

Shiva is quiet for a while. Leaning back on his hands, he looks down the river from their vantage point on the bridge and stares into the rain-sliced air. Finally, he responds, “A very good question, indeed.”

888

The paler demon stepped into the apartment and set the box he was carrying on the floor. It was cozy, not overly extravagant but nice enough. There was a window overlooking the town along the wall with a seat running below it. He was already fond of the apartment. There was a bedroom, a kitchen area, a living room—he didn’t see what else they could possibly need.

He sensed his mate behind him, probably staring at him as he was wont to do. He knew that the stare wasn’t affectionate or desiring, but it made him blush all the same. He cursed his fair complexion as the darker demon moved to his side and glanced down at him before shouldering into the apartment. He set his own box down on the couch that was already set up perpendicular to the window. “It needs work,” he said, putting his hands on his hips and giving the room a careless appraisal.

“Yes. It is nice, though.”

“Hn.” The curly-haired demon waved his hand dismissively and then exited the apartment to retrieve another box.

888

“You see,” Shiva begins, “Anubis is bound to me, and I to him, like I said. I do not think you…understand to what extent, however. Our bond was not like any matrimonial bond ever made. When the overseer forged our bond, he incited ancient magick that has no counter, that cannot be undone. It was magick that the founding demons had recorded, dug up from the most ancient of human texts. At some point in time, humans had stopped believing in magick—did you know that? They used to believe in it, used to practice it, until the rise of certain religions that condemned those practices. Time and time again I find myself wishing, for once, that they had been right, that magick is make-believe! Magick is all too real, Anubis and I learned. I would not doubt that magick was the agent that imbrued the founding demons with all of that knowledge, which they seemingly sucked right out of the decaying human heads.”

“So what…what’d the magick do? How does it affect you two?”

“Our bond is supposed to hinge on mutual feelings of contentment, of satisfaction, even possibly of love—if not as lovers, then at least as friends. Otherwise, how are we supposed to set an example for the rest of demonkind? How are we supposed to serve as that eternal symbol of peace and unity?” Shiva looks down at his feet and points his toes a little. “Later, I learned that plans for this bond had been put into motion long before the actual bond was ever made.

“Anubis and I used to visit this…this shelter in the middle of the forest, a natural shelter made of trees. I found him there one day, in my country. It was a curious thing, that he was able to cross safely into our country and not get caught, by neither my people nor his. It was all too convenient, really. His sister caught us there one time, and, sometime after the bond’s conception, Anubis told me that she had just…let it go. She had not told anyone about it, had played the kind older sister part. Really, she had been allowing him to visit our country in hopes of kindling a friendship with me. She had seen us there, ran back to her home, reported to her parents, and together Anubis’s family had started to talk of a peace—without his knowing, of course. The bloodshed continued, but eventually, arrangements were made, the documents were uncovered—everything just happened, everything just clicked into place.”

Castor’s eyes narrow slightly with a bewildered frown. “Okay, but if that’s true, then why does he hate you? It sounds like you were pretty good with each other.”

“I thought so…” Shiva sighs as his gaze slides downwards. “I do not think Anubis recognized me like I recognized him, at the bonding ceremony. We had not seen each other for nigh sixty years at that point—but I could never forget his eyes. I suppose there was nothing about me worth remembering—and so he had no idea that I was that demonling he used to talk with in the forest, as far as I know. He hated me from the onset—I was a prison to him. He is not free to live as he pleases, he is not free to choose the mate he wants. He cannot very well head downtown to the club and bury his face in the bosom of some buxom blonde, nor make out with the cute brunet behind the bar that probably has some tattoo on his hip that drives Anubis crazy.”

“Why not?”

“The magick, the bond,” Shiva answers, stressing each word with a flare of agony in his voice. “We cannot engage in anything romantic or sexual like that outside of each other—the magick incited that day made sure of it. I suppose that the fools who made this decision figured if we did not already have feelings for each other, that they could force us to through limiting any sort of intimacy to one another.” He shakes his head and presses his palms strongly into the cold stone at his side. “It was such an ignorant folly… so erroneous, so human.” His voice had grown quiet by the end, his words almost completely drowned in the rain.

999

The apartment door banged open. The paler demon jumped and dropped his box of paints. The jars clattered and rolled across the floor, but thankfully nothing spilled. His dark-skinned mate slammed the door closed behind himself, stormed over to the couch, and sank down. The paler demon wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw a startling discoloration, like a rash or a burn, on his mate’s face. He circled the back of the couch and sat down, drawing his knees beneath himself.

“What happened?” He tentatively touched the curly-haired demon’s shoulder, jumping again when the other threw his hand out and almost knocked the paler demon back.

“Don’t touch me,” he growled, even as he put his arms around the paler demon’s shoulders and leaned into him. He was trembling.

The paler demon hesitated, and then returned the slight embrace, petting his mate’s soft black curls. “What happened?” he asked again, concern warming his voice.

“You’re what happened!” the darker demon snapped as he sat back. The tan skin around his mouth was reddened and blood dribbled from the corners of his lips. “If it weren’t for you this wouldn’t have happened!”

The blow came so quickly that the paler demon didn’t know he’d been hit until pain bloomed in his cheek moments later. His eyes widened. He held his face, which was now turned towards the floor, and forced back the tears that automatically sprang to his eyes from the sting. When next he glanced at his mate, the darker demon was staring down at his hands, a hard glare creasing his brow. His palms were reddened like his mouth, and there was a scarlet line across the right one, more blood crawling down his hand and wrist. The scar—a result of that bonding ritual from so long ago—had reopened.

“You…you tried to…” The paler demon understood, but that didn’t lessen the stirring of betrayal in his chest. It was a horrible wriggling sensation, like a worm eating through his heart, but he ignored it and swallowed the thickness in his throat. He’d known it was going to happen sooner or later, but that was no consolation. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, knowing that it was what his mate wanted to hear.

“Whatever.” The curly-haired demon bent over, unbuckled his boots, and slipped out of them. Then he rose from the couch and disappeared into the bedroom. A few minutes later the apartment was imbrued with the sound of running water.

999

A silence stretches between Shiva and Castor as they sit on the bridge, surrounded by the ever falling rain. Eventually, Castor speaks. “So…that’s why…you two are together?”

Shiva nods.

“Not because you want to be, but because…”

“It was our final royal duty as princes of our countries.” Shiva runs his fingers through his waterlogged hair. “It was the last matrimonial bond ever made, you know. Demons no longer make such bonds with their mates, not that any bond like ours had ever been made before, but—bonds in general. Bonds are far too human for our liking. Marriage, humans called it. Humans would marry their mate with the intent to be with them for life. We have no need for marriages anymore, because it brings us no real benefits. Love is a good enough bond for us—we do not need a special ceremony to prove it. We are free to love who we want, when we want, how we want…there are no legalities, not formalities. And because we live for so long, it is likely that we will not stay with one mate for life, as humans preferred to do.”

“I…still don’t understand… Why did they bond you guys like that if they thought bonding—marriage, whatever—was stupid?”

Shiva sighs. “It was just a mistake,” he says. “Before that, bonding was fairly common—our society, like I said, was much more human then. We had a government—we thought it necessary to have bonds. Otherwise, how could the monarchy be assured? How could we decide kings and queens? But now, there is no need. Our bond marked the end of bonding ceremonies altogether—it marked the end of life as we knew it then, and marked the beginning of life as we know it now.” Shiva pauses, and then adds, “There was another saying humans were fond of, and that is, ‘hindsight is twenty-twenty.’ That basically means, that it is easier to look back and realize your mistakes than to recognize them for what they are in the present. …I suppose that is because a mistake is gauged by its consequences. Well, Anubis and I, we see the consequences of the mistake of our bond—but since we are the only ones personally affected, perhaps we are the only ones who see it as such. To everyone else, it was a wonderful idea, and today—we are just a fact of life, a paragraph in the history books.”

Castor shivers slightly, rubbing his arms. “Yeah, and that paragraph really doesn’t do you justice.”

Shiva nods. “I know.”

101010

He sat on the couch, curled tightly with a book on his lap. He’d been on the same page for the past half-hour. His dark-skinned mate had left a little while ago, stomping out of the apartment in his buckled combat boots and leather pants and fishnet shirt, looking like one of the sluts who stood on the street corners outside of the clubs he loved to frequent. The paler demon sighed. Then he blinked his gaze back into focus and reread the line he’d already read at least seven times.

Later that night, after he’d crawled into bed, flicked off the lamp, set his book on his side table, and was preparing to fall asleep, he heard the front door open and close noisily as his mate entered the apartment with all of the obtrusive flare his character was inclined to exude. The paler demon knew enough by now that this manner of entry, the way he stomped a few times and made a growling noise, probably pulling at his hair, didn’t bode well for him.

He’d come to find that, by now, his predictions about his mate were never wrong. The curly-haired demon swept into the bedroom, slid down beside the other, pulled back the covers, and rolled him onto his stomach. His long fingernails scratched lines into the paler demon’s back, the marks an angry red against white skin. He tore down his mate’s pajama shorts, not taking the time to pull them completely off, and bent over his curved back.

The paler demon closed his eyes and curled his fists into the sheets, his forehead pressed into his pillow. His breath grew ragged, shimmering over his parted lips. He hated that he enjoyed every second, enjoyed being used like a doll only to be tossed aside again once it was all over. He hated that he had no control over his emotions, over his body. He hated the tears that collected behind his shut eyelids, hated the starbursts that bloomed in the blackness, hated the shoots of ecstasy, laced with currents of pain, that unfurled through his body. He hated that he felt hate towards everything except the one person who really deserved it.

It was over soon enough, and the darker demon stilled. His mate could feel the rise and fall of his chest against his back, the last few rapid beats of his heart before it began to slow again. And for a moment, everything seemed okay. He was there, pressed against the paler demon, warm and alive and just his presence was comforting and—the paler demon knew it wasn’t meant to last. His mate exhaled a frustrated sigh, as satisfied as he knew he would get, and rolled off of the bed. The paler one relaxed into the mattress and opened his eyes halfway to stare into the shadows of the room. After a few minutes, he could hear the hum of the shower from the adjoining bathroom, and as the water started to flow so did his tears.

101010

Castor shakes his head. “I mean, you guys are suffering. Why is it fair? Why is it still like this? Why hasn’t anyone done anything to change it?”

“I told you,” Shiva says calmly, “there is no way to erase it. There is no redo option, no rewind. That is just the way life is—mistakes cannot always be fixed. You just have to learn to cope with them and move on. That is what I have been doing, anyway. I try to remind myself that if it were not for our bond, society might be so much different. We might still be in the midst of war, shedding innocent blood heedlessly, suffering through revolutions and poverty and prejudice and all of the ills that brought humanity to its knees.” His voice turns slightly bitter as he continues, “I try not to think about what could have been done differently, about how it could have been someone else in my place, in Anubis’s place. I try not to feel hate for the ones who are to blame, our parents, their advisors—I try not to hate them for their ignorance and their foolishness. I try not to hate the way that pride made them blind, and I try not to hate the way that demons today think that they are so much better than the humans of the past—when their very way of life is founded on a folly so human.”

Castor glances at Shiva, something sad in his eyes—a stark contrast to the cheeriness he’d harbored at the beginning of their conversation. The weight of all that he’s being told begins to press down on him, and his shoulders sag slightly. He realizes something then that causes the sadness further saturates his blue eyes. “Eva…” he murmurs, “that’s why… That’s why you turned Eva down!”

Shiva looks away, nodding. “I did not want to hurt him, but…”

“He loves you so much.”

“I know.” Shiva closes his eyes, matted lashes dark against his pale cheeks. He covers his face with his hands. “If things were different, I might have reciprocated his feelings.” His voice cracks, falling from his lips in flakes. “I wish I could reciprocate his feelings… I really do.”

111111

His brush swept a line down the canvas, the paint a deep foresty green. The pale demon tilted his head and observed the streak for a moment before adding another, and then another, to slowly form the subject of his painting. He was appreciating the apartment’s quiet (as his mate was predictably absent) when suddenly the pseudo-peace was shattered by a loud thump from down the hall. The pale demon started slightly and glanced at the door, and then slowly set his things down. He left the apartment, stepping into the corridor and looking down it. Not too far away, there was a crumpled figure on the floor, surrounded by the contents of a box that had apparently been dropped on its side.

The pale demon hurried over to the stranger and touched the creature’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”

A groan slithered from the figure’s hidden mouth as he slowly sat up. The pale demon was met by a pair of startlingly blue eyes, set into a pretty young face framed by glossy russet ringlets. The stranger seemed startled and scampered over the floor to collect his things. The pale demon watched the stranger for a moment before moving to help him.

“O-Oh, no, th-that’s okay!” the stranger babbled, holding out a hand to stay the good Samaritan. “I’m fine, really, thank you—don’t be bothered by my clumsiness.”

“It is…really no problem.” The pale demon lifted an eyebrow as he picked up a book that had been laying open, the pages crushed, on the floor. He glanced at the cover, a small smile crooking his lips. “This is a good one,” he said and handed the paperback over.

“I…uhm, thank you…” The stranger blushed slightly as he took the book and stowed it away in his now righted box. “It is.” He fidgeted, nervously tucking a reddish curl behind his ear, and then jerkily offered his hand. “I-I’m Evadne.”

The pale demon smiled. He took Evadne’s hand and shook it gently while offering his own name. For the next few seconds, he helped Evadne gather the rest of his things, and then asked, “Would you like to come over for a drink, or something?”

Evadne smiled, hugging his box to his chest. “I…I would love to! Thank you!”

The pale demon smiled, too—it was infectious. He gestured over his shoulder at his door. “Come over when you’re finished with…” he motioned towards Evadne’s box. The boy nodded before disappearing into his apartment with another thank-you. The pale demon, still smiling to himself, shook his head. He returned to his own abode and went back to painting while he awaited the visit from their new neighbor.

111111

“Evadne…” Castor murmurs, the sadness constricting around his words now. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair that—that you have to be bound to someone for the rest of forever that hates you!—that doesn’t treat you as you…as you deserve to be treated! That’s just…it—no! It’s so wrong.”

Shiva sighs agitatedly and draws his hand over his face. “Thank you for the information, really, I had no idea! Is there anything else that you think I do not know? Any other news you would like to share, Castor?” Castor recoils slightly at Shiva’s uncharacteristic display of biting sarcasm and quiets. Shiva sighs again, this time more tired than agitated. “I know, you feel personally affected by this, right? Because of your relation to Evadne?”

“He’s my cousin, of course I do! He’s only ever...” Castor sighs too as he fishes for the right word, “smiled. He’s only ever smiled. But lately, lately he’s…well, you know.”

“Yes, I do.”

Castor leans back on his free hand, a faint scowl settled onto his face. “I never knew that… that this was why. I never thought it was this complicated. I always thought that there was a chance, y’know? Like, you’d come around eventually, see Eva’s worth, and change your mind.”

Shiva shakes his head and looks down at his toes. “I know his worth. I am all too aware of it. I wish that…”

“That you could be with him?”

Shiva spends a moment in thoughtful silence, and then says, “Yes…and no. I…It is hard to understand…”

“Try me.”

Shiva shakes his head again and wipes a rolling raindrop from his brow that had started to tickle. His expression is wistful and sad, a small frown grooved into his forehead.

121212

His white fingers smoothed across the colored paper, flattening it on the coffee table. “Fold it this way,” he said, his voice unwrinkled like the surface of a still lake or the blankets of a freshly made bed, both serene and soft.

Evadne smiled slightly as he compared his neighbor’s paper to his own. “Like this?” He dragged the corner over and made a diagonal crease.

The paler demon smiled too, his own even smaller than Evadne’s. “Exactly.”

Evadne stilled, his hands lying motionless over his paper. “Where did you learn to do this?” His voice was warm with amusement and rang faintly with the ever present timbre of his bell-like laughter.

“From an old human book. It is called origami—the art of paper folding.”

Evadne turned slightly to face his friend and leaned his elbow on the couch behind them. “Why would someone want to make an art out of paper folding?”

The other shrugged as he made another careful crease. “There were many reasons, I am sure. Humans rarely devoted their time to something they thought meaningless.”

Evadne hummed thoughtfully, watching his neighbor with that same small smile on his cupid’s bow of a mouth. As he watched, the smile faltered almost imperceptibly and the emotion in his expressive forget-me-not eyes wavered, flickering like a candle flame. Suddenly, he leaned forward, and the paler demon caught the movement in his peripheral vision a second before it was too late. He started, scrambled away, and quickly rose to his feet. “What are you doing?” he demanded, and took a moment to pride himself on his even tone.

Evadne’s eyes widened and a blush dusted his cheeks. “I…I was, I mean…” He groaned in what sounded like distress before curling in on himself and covering his face with his hands. Sitting on the floor between the table and the couch, trying to hide inside himself as he was, the paler demon couldn’t help but think the boy fragile and small. He sat down again, tentatively, and made to touch Evadne’s shoulder. “Eva…”

“I love you.”

A deathly stillness fell over the paler demon, and his hand froze, hovering a scant inch above Evadne. The boy’s voice had been muffled, and pitifully weak, but he’d heard—yes, he’d definitely heard.

Seconds ticked by, and when he received no response, Evadne lifted his head a little, his russet curls to hugging his face as he passed the paler demon a sidelong glance. “D-Did you hear me?”

The other nodded, but the rest of his motor functions seemed to be malfunctioning right then. Finally, he replied, “I…don’t know what to say.”

As Evadne sat up, some of what little boldness he’d once possessed returned. He rose onto his knees and put his hands on the paler demon’s shoulders. “Tell me that you love me, too,” he said, probably trying very hard to keep the pleading note out of his voice.

“But…I do not. I do not love you, not like that.” His muscles seemed to thaw as the words left his mouth. The paler demon shook his head, and Evadne’s expression immediately plummeted, as if his heart had just fallen from a ten-story window. The dewdrop tears welling in his eyes were enough to stir regret in the paler demon’s chest. “I…I apologize, but… I just—”

“Why?” The glassiness of Evadne’s gaze seemed suddenly sharp and angry, and it almost startled the other. “Why not? He—He doesn’t treat you right… you know he doesn’t! He doesn’t love you! So why are you with him?!” His voice was rising, riding a wave of bitterness that his friend had never known the boy to have. His fingers tightened around the paler demon’s shoulders, his hands trembling slightly. “He hurts you! He’s horrible to you! I can’t stand to see—” Evadne’s voice broke with a hiccupped sob, “I can’t stand to see you…to see you subjected to that! You deserve better!”

The paler demon shook his head. “It is not something you can understand—”

“Then explain it to me! Please!” They began to roll in tandem—the tears—crystalline rivulets sliding from Evadne’s impeccable blue eyes, first from the right, and then the left.

The paler demon looked away as he shook his head. “He has my heart. I cannot possibly give it to you—”

“But he doesn’t deserve it!”

“Eva, I can…I cannot—”

“You won’t even try! You don’t care!”

“I do.”

“You don’t!” Evadne closed his eyes to try to stave off the flow of tears. His friend closed his eyes too, if only to protect himself from the heart-rending sight of Evadne breaking down. He pulled the boy close, enveloping him in a tight hug and murmuring things in his ear, cold reassurances and diaphanous promises.

The door to the apartment opened then. In came the quiet stomp of combat boots and the jingle of chains that usually decorated a certain demon’s waist, before the door closed again with a click. The dark-skinned demon moved into the apartment and looked down at the two on the floor. He made a derisive comment about paltry human art forms and petty human weaknesses before disappearing into the bedroom.

121212

Shiva sighs yet again as he gazes out over the river. “I love Anubis. I always have, and I think that I always will. I do not know why… love, love cannot be explained in so few words.”

“But it doesn’t make sense, Sheev. Come on! You’re a smart guy, I know you are. Why would you do this, why would you torture yourself like this by…by investing your heart in something so empty?”

A pained expression flits across Shiva’s face, and he shakes his head. “I cannot say. Feelings do not always coincide with common sense… like, like feeling alone in a crowded room. How was it possible for humans to feel so alone? you asked. How is it possible to feel alone when in the presence of countless others? …How is it possible to love someone when, by all rights, you should not?” Shiva is quiet for a moment as he scratches his nails idly on the stone beneath them. Then, he says, “Some things just do not make sense. Sometimes, life is not really fair. This, humans understood startlingly well. Fate is a bitch, they said. Get over it, move on.”

Castor makes a frustrated sound. “I won’t accept that, Shiva. You can’t just, just ‘get over it’ and ‘move on’! It’s wrong, it’s wrong—wrong, wrong, wrong…”

Shiva laughs suddenly, tossing his head back. Castor passes him a bewildered frown. “You…You sound so human!” Shiva says around his laughter.

Castor narrows his eyes. “Hey, that was uncalled f—”

“Humans were always so hung up on fair and unfair, just and unjust...” Shiva’s smile is ironic, and he shakes his head again, murmuring, “Humans,” with a tone caught somewhere between reverent and amused. “Humans, humans… Sometimes demonkind does not realize how similar it is to humankind. I… I told you that demons are immune to human diseases, right?” Castor nods. “I lied, a little. There are some diseases, well, we do not call them diseases, but humans did—insanity, they called it. And you know what? I think I am afflicted with that, at least a little. It was inevitable, really, from the moment I realized how in love I was with Anubis.”

“Insanity…” Castor murmurs. The word rolls like poison off his tongue. He makes a repulsed face that Shiva laughs at him for.

“It can happen to anyone, really! The mind is quite an amazing puzzle. Why is it that we feel heartache when we suffer emotional distress, and not a headache? After all, emotions are brewed in the brain, right? The heart is not responsible for creating emotions, and yet the heart is what hurts. Have you ever wondered?”

Castor shakes his head as he observes his friend curiously.

“I have. I have wondered a great many things. Too many things, one might say. Insanity and genius oftentimes coincide, did you know?”

Another negative, more curious looks.

Shiva shrugs and waves his hand dismissively. “I am speaking nonsense now. Pay me no mind.” He snorts, covering his mouth with the same dismissive hand. “Hah! Mind! Pay me no mind…”

Castor touches Shiva’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Am I ever? What a silly question.” Shiva runs his fingers through his hair as his twisted smile falls away like melted snow. He seems to find some semblance of normalcy again, and he says in a more stable tone, “Insanity can happen to anyone…whether or not we are biologically superior to humans. We are not emotionally superior, we are not immune to heartache and agony. And anyone made to suffer that heartache and agony for as long as I have…would be crazy not to go at least slightly insane.”

131313

It was a little past midnight when the paler demon was aroused from his state of sleep. He felt it first like a dream, warm lips on the back of his neck, hot breath in his ear, a gentle hand on his hip. Even the body heat against his back seemed surreal, the solid weight behind him, the even breathing and the heartbeat that he could vaguely feel though the other’s closeness. Slowly, slowly, reality started to take shape, and the warm lips moved across the nape of his neck as the other hand that wasn’t at his waist brushed his hair aside to gain access to the skin beneath.

No no no, it’s an illusion, his mind said, it’s all a dream. Close your eyes, go back to sleep—it won’t hurt as much. But he refused, he refused to slip out of consciousness again. He was so sure this was real. The gentle touch was so alien but so familiar that his chest ached with the paradox of it all. He inwardly shook his head, too afraid that if he moved the spell would be broken, the reality shattered.

The hand at his waist coasted over his hip, slowly and smoothly, fingers sliding beneath the elastic waist of his pajama pants and mapping out the flesh beneath. The paler demon shivered slightly as goose bumps rose beneath the ghostly touch. His breath began to shorten, stolen from his lungs, his blood rushing through his body as his pulse quickened, head swimming, skin tingling, and please don’t let this end, don’t go away, don’t disappear, don’t leave me again, I love you, I love you—

He wished the mouth at his neck would bite or suck or do something to leave a mark—for once he wished for the roughness that was usually a given during their intimate interactions. He wished for evidence, for proof, proof that he would be able to see in the sunlit mirror come morning, proof that this wasn’t just another sick joke of his demented imagination. But the touches were so soft and gentle and—oh, was proof really worth the loss of this heaven? Did he want evidence badly enough that he’d forsake this contact that he’d craved since the beginning? He wanted to move, to turn into the other’s arms and bury himself in the familiar warmth and scent of black cherries, he wanted the caresses to continue, but he wouldn’t...

He wouldn’t move, wouldn’t look back, because he was afraid that like Orpheus he would look and it would all disappear—the touches would leave, the warmth would leave, the comfort would leave, sink back into the abyss of the underworld, never to be retrieved again. But it was becoming too much, the hand gliding back up his hip, along the dip of his waist, around his stomach to his chest, exuding nothing but tenderness and—dare he say?—love. The lips on the back of his neck, smooth and satin and sweet, fluttered over his jaw and ear and cheek—he could feel a few stray strands of curly hair brushing his face, and he knew, he knew that this couldn’t be a dream.

What would the harm be of turning around, turning into what he so desperately wanted and so badly deserved? With a sharp inhale, he rolled on his side and waited to face those eyes that he was so attached to—

Only to find nothing. He sat up, staring, incredulous. He tentatively reach out to touch the bed beside him and found it cold, flat, bearing no groove or dip that should have, by all rights, been there.

But no, he was alone. He drew his knees to his chest, trembling, fingers reaching up to touch his neck. His skin was cold, too.

He saw her in the dim light, and he held out his arms to clasp her; but on the instant she was gone. She had slipped back into the darkness. All he heard was one faint word,

Farewell.

131313

Castor and Shiva sit in silence for a while, Castor sparing his friend brief glances, every time with a different expression scrawled across his countenance. One was curious and bemused, another was sad and indignant, and yet another exuded anger and frustration, until finally they all settle on his face as an uncertain blend. After some indefinite span of time, he speaks, quietly, uncertainly, approaching the question like a hunter approaches a skittish deer, or maybe, rather, as a hunter approaches a grizzly bear. “Hey, Sheev, have you…like, ever considered, I mean, would you ever…kill yourself?”

“Maybe someday,” Shiva replies automatically. “Many demons kill themselves after some time, thousands of years, maybe tens of thousands, or millions, perhaps. It is natural, to want to, to grow too weary of life—”

“I mean, would you ever kill yourself over…over this thing, with Anubis?” Castor pauses, thinking, and then adds, “’Cause, I mean, he wants you to die, right? Would you ever really do it, because of that?”

This time, Shiva takes longer to respond. He glances up at the sky and squints into the distance where he can see sunlight cresting the gray clouds. Finally, he says, “No. I…do not think that I would kill myself over that.”

A little of the tension eases from Castor’s expression. He asks, “Why not? I mean, ‘s not like I want you to, or anything…but—”

“Because, I think… I think that I still retain a little bit of hope that one day, he will not hate me, that one day he will…return my feelings. Or at least, be my friend. I feel like killing myself over that would be…a horrible mistake, like my last thoughts would be, What if…? The very notion, of dying like that, it makes my insides crawl.”

Castor nods. “Anubis won’t ever kill you, will he?”

“No, of course not. Killing your own kind—he is far too proud to sink to such a human low.”

“Yeah, I figured. But I, y’know, just wanted to make sure.”

Shiva looks again to the sky, and he’s not positive, but he thinks that vague golden strip severing the gray clouds has grown a little. It could just be a trick of his overreaching imagination. “The storm is moving away…” he notes nonetheless, while the rain continues to fall around them. It will be a little while before it stops.

Castor follows his gaze and nods. “So it is… That’s good, I guess.” He spins his umbrella a little on his shoulder again, averting his eyes. “Sheev, thanks…for telling me. I can’t believe I haven’t know until now.”

“You are welcome.” Shiva shrugs. “It is just the way things are, and have been for so long—I do not think it is worth dwelling on anymore. The sky is blue, the grass is green—I am bound to Anubis, and he hates me for it.”

Castor is bothered somewhat by Shiva’s nonchalance, but lets it go. “Why don’t we go down to the café and get some cocoa or something, hm?” He stands and smoothes his free hand down the wrinkles in his pants before offering it to Shiva.

Shiva stares out at the river for a moment longer before nodding. He takes Castor’s hand and lets the demon pull him to his feet. He is completely soaked from head to toe, but he just pushes his sopping bangs out of his eyes, eyes that shine with a reminiscent green of that forest from so long ago, flecked with brown and gold. A small smile crooks his lips as he licks the rainwater from them. “That sounds good.”

Together, the friends leave the bridge and head back towards the development. Castor offers to let Shiva walk under his umbrella with him, but Shiva declines. He just wraps his arms around himself, and walks along in the shower of tears from the sky.

---

Anubis is on his path to home. It’s been raining all day, and he hastens along, huddled under his black umbrella. He hates the rain, always has. There are little to no people outside today—the demonlings are in school, the adults are at work or otherwise tucked, safe and warm, into their homes or the homey little shops around town. He envies all of them. But really, that’s nothing new.

Focused on his destination as he is, it’s a wonder that he manages to catch sight of the thing on the ground—little, white, broken, tattered. He slows to a halt—with another step the poor creature would have been crushed by his boot. He questions whether or not that would have mattered, as he observes it; the creature’s probably already dead. Nevertheless, he bends down and, upon closer inspection, recognizes the little white thing as a butterfly. He finds it beautiful, even in its moribund state.

Anubis’s previously hard expression melts away, and he sets aside his umbrella without a care for the fact that he’s now exposed to the falling rain. His tan, slender fingers gingerly ease the butterfly into his hand, careful not to tear the flimsy wings more than they probably are. But no!—he discovers that, by some miracle, there aren’t any rips yet, so perhaps the creature has a chance. It twitches as he lifts it off the ground—yes, perhaps it has a good chance. Smiling softly, sadly, he takes up his umbrella and carries on his way home.

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A/N: So, if you're here, at the end of the story, reading this note, you sincerely deserve a medal. Or a nice, warm plate of gooey chocolate chip cookies. (Mmmmmmm...) Ahem... Well, if you deem this thing worthy of a review, please drop one for me, and be as critical as you can. Don't hold back! -gives you cookies-

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