Bim

The concept of a 'night off' was yet another decidedly human idea that Bim failed to fully comprehend. The sole objective, in so far as she could tell, was that there was no objective— something her nominal equals relished at great length but confused her to no end. Upon departing the sole grave chamber in the palace and the clashing opposites of its bartering table, Bim found herself at a total loss.

After witnessing the day's orderly chaos, the sudden decent into anarchy blindsided her completely. All semblance of rank and file was absent, the division between social betters blurred beyond comprehension. Even the rigid divides of male and female that Bim had previously thought so queer were now fading as Bim absently walked the palace halls from one reveling scene to the next. The diligent palace maids were acting as equals to the men, joining them in games, partaking in the drinks and privileges otherwise denied to them. It was clear to Bim, that in the moment all were not necessarily equal, but rather that artificial social inhibitions had been eased or removed.

One of her earliest observations of humanity, the seemingly pointless segregation of the masculine from the feminine, was being blatantly thrown into question. Those inhibitions, once so strongly engraved into the minds of all, were nowhere to be found. The vigia and maids and mercs were all engaged with little regard for their earlier reservations. Bim struggled to draw parallels between what she was witnessing and any of her memories of her true self interacting with other comparable beings. She failed utterly. Her true self, the Bim that was and is and will be, could never be so open and vulnerable with others of her kind— to do so would be suicide, a poisoning of the mind and her very core.

Yet the humans had no such vulnerabilities. They could share ideas and passions and various exertions of their flesh without being corrupted by them. Everywhere she went, humans were engaged in free and open exchange. Thoughts, passions, sorrows, memories and more. They were all huddling close, trying to avoid that fundamental human condition, so desperate to avoid being alone. Such an alien thing, so human. It was so fascinating it caused a pang of longing ache to twinge inside her chest.

Of all the desperation she witness, that of the flesh was unparalleled. Those stragglers who finally returned from the day's long battle were greeted with clasped hands, comradely hugs or the waiting lips of a serving girl fulfilling her womanly duties. Bim witnessed nothing that could rival the intimacy of a kiss. It was the closest a human could come to baring their mind, body and soul to another. She couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to receive such a kiss. There were certainly enough examples on display that she felt confident in her ability to recreate the act, but she was hesitant. What if kissing was like breathing to humans? Something that came so naturally to them but was incomprehensibly alien to her. Then there was the issue of her partner…

Bim pushed such thoughts from her active mind. The palace was buzzing with humans, more arriving all the time. The very air with thick with their habitation, their desires and this overdue release they'd so evidently needed. It was almost like a smell in every room, something just on the edge of perception but so omnipresent that you only noticed it by its absence. When the skycrane returned with a clutch of armored mercenaries in tow, the palace occupants bellowed and cheered and cried out in such manic ecstasy that Bim had almost joined in without knowing why. It was only when she'd wandered from one group to the next that she'd noticed how vibrant she felt, her vessel was alight from the ambient jubilations. She felt strong. She almost felt whole again.

Bim kept moving, head buzzing and chest aching from a building pressure within. The groups actively carousing fractured into cliques, Celio's men keeping to themselves while the mercenaries did likewise, maids in all states of undress keeping the entertainment and refreshments abundant. They all seemed to be enjoying themselves—the humans of all parties—but from the outside in, Bim thought she detected an undertone of brittle desperation to the festivities. As if this was a controlled, perhaps even forced, venting of emotion that would otherwise prove catastrophic. They wanted to be more than just lonely together but it was impossible, the human body was to blunt an instrument to permit such communions. So they threw their bodies together hoping that would be enough, and for some few that she spotted, it appeared to be.

She permitted her body to mirror them, these humans she could never be. She danced with the jarring stiffness of a machine and when they laughed at her, she laughed with them filling the room with such manic sound. She served out drinks with the maids, allowed her hair to sway with the music and exposed key parts of her flesh from under her dress. When they smiled at her, she smiled back and soon enough she stopped making them recoil every time she flashed her teeth. Bim even attempted to eat and drink, which resulted in her expelling said physical anathema from her vessel in such a way that no amount of cleaning would ever salvage that bathroom. The atmosphere was charged with lights and noise, bodies and motion, the things that made human's feel alive. Her ears thrummed, her eyes replayed flashes of light even when she closed them and a heady buzz filled her vessel to bursting. The celebrations reached their zenith, all sense of reservation long since abandoned, but it didn't feel right.

Nothing could overwrite the aching in her chest and the pervasive loneliness that shrouded everything these human's did.

So she let one throw his body against her's. Why did it feel so wrong? He was repulsive, it sickened her to let him grab at her flesh, to paw at her breasts and grind his frail flesh against hers.

Why did she want this? It was the same as when Celio had tried to fondle her, all glittering jewelry adorning sweating rancid fatty flesh. Was this disgust the only thing strong enough to overcome her isolation? Would she still feel lonely when he was rutting over her like an animal or would her face hold nothing but pain and disappointment?

"Why don't we go someplace a little more private?" He whispered, breath reeking of alcohol and vomit and other women's saliva.

Was this really what she wanted?

"No." Bim whispered.

When he tried to lean in and kiss her, to change her mind with that stench-spewing hole of his, she reached up a hand to turn him away.

The crack of her knuckles against his jaw was like a thunderclap. He didn't turn, he toppled as if bowled over by a runaway car. He limply cartwheeled through the air like a thrown doll, landing in an undignified heap five-meters away. No one moved to his aid and no one got in her way when she left the room.

Would she feel as repulsed if it was Hiiro? What made him so different from all the others? Why was he the one soothing object in a coarse and abrasive existence? Treu would likely know, not that he was likely to cooperate if he did. Who else but a fellow monster could even begin to comprehend the difficulties of intermingling with such frail mortal creatures as humans for beings such as themselves? It sickened her to admit, but she had more in common with her Tormentor than she'd initially thought. Was his cruelty founded from a place of compassion? Bim doubted it, but she couldn't dismiss the idea out of hand.

Bim made her way outside, swaying drunkenly with the throbbing music and the lurching ache building inside of her chest just below the throat. The skycrane flew another pass overhead, depositing the last of the wayward warriors at the estate's recently cleared airfield. In her mind's eye, Bim could still see the gardens she'd once walked with Hiiro, now little more than a fire-swept killzone spotted with the odd fortification. She wondered if the earth beneath her sandaled feet was aching as she was? If once the coming battles had been waged and won, would new gardens be erected over the bones of the old?

"That's the last of them now." Princess idly said as the armored mercenaries tramped across the field for their armory.

"You have an irritating tendency to sneak up on me while I'm introspecting." Bim stated playfully. She'd wanted the regard to be somewhat cutting, but the heady, bubbling feeling inside was tinting everything in a certain levity.

"You're one of the only people who doesn't watch me like an owl." Princess admitted gently, her words barely audible over the rowdy celebrations taking place back inside the palace. "So really, it's your own fault."

"There's still a great sum that I don't understand about you humans." Bim admitted.

"I'm not exactly human…"

"And neither am I, yet you called me people. Why?"

Princess let out a faint dry chuckle, the noise at odds with the desolation that lay before them. Such a sound would have been better suited for a careless girl frolicking through the water gardens rather than emitting from the hardened albino woman beside Bim.

"Let's just say I've got a soft spot for the outcast and downtrodden."

"Why aren't you…" Bim struggled to narrow the breadth of her nebulous question into a single comprehensive statement. "Why are you standing beside me presently?"

"I'm guessing the same reason you're standing beside me. Because we're here."

"Why are you here?" Bim reiterated, unsure of what she was truly asking.

"Who knows? The future is a scary thing. No matter how much we try to avoid it, it just keeps coming and then one day you wake up and you're one of the old men now. Every day is a gamble and we all just keep rolling the dice hoping this won't be our last throw…" Princess rubbed at the bandages wrapping her leg. "But everyone's gotta die sometime. You know?"

A vacant, sad smile beamed into the cooling evening. Bim had never realized how white Princess's teeth were, even compared to the albino woman's ghostly skin. She suspected that Princess wasn't the type of person—human or otherwise—who smiled very often.

"… I think I understand." Bim stated at length. "Though I doubt I'm the best… person, to console you."

"I don't want to be consoled!" Princess snapped, before softening with a puff of breath. "I just wanted someone to listen. You're so quite. Not just in meatspace either, you're like a still pond hidden in tranquil hills and everything else is… a hundred neon strobe lights all going of at the same time. And that-" Princess flicked her overlarge, purple eyes back towards the palace. "That's just a mess I'm too pent up to deal with right now. Roy needs to wrap that damned meeting up, soon; otherwise I'm gonna have to pin down the first guy who can keep it up before I go insane."

Bim said nothing, but raised a questioning eyebrow all the same.

"What?" Princess countered. "Jumping a wound-up man after a fight, there's not much better in life than that. With a body like that, I bet you can get anyone you wanted."

Bim held her silence, gazing longingly out at the devastated remains of the estate's gardens.

"Hold up. Have you not? Because everyone thinks that you and Hero-"

"No."

"Do you… do you have all the bits? Down there?" Princess asked, casting her prying eyes over Bim's vessel. "Because it looks like you do."

"I am uncertain of my internals and how they would interact with… physical matter. Earlier tests were… discouraging. This vessel is only a surface-deep facsimile."

"So, all that," Princess said while motioning with a hand to Bim's hips. "That's a mystery?"

"Correct."

"Shit, and here I was envying you. If you wanted to break it in, tonight's the night to do it. When the suns come up, we're at war— and I'm not sure if we'll be on the winning side. We're probably going to lose a few more people before this is all over."

The way she'd spoke caused the aching under Bim's throat to worsen, expanding into a cutting, tearing sensation. She could liken it to nothing else but the memory she had of being shot. An internal injury, a deep pain, yet she was unable to locate a foreign cause and expel it as she had before. She could do nothing, save endure the pain as best she could. A single, sidelong glance at the pale woman standing beside her, led Bim to conclude that she wasn't alone in her suffering.

"Does death frighten you, Princess?"

"More and more every day. I think everyone gets a little more afraid of dying the longer they live… You're a Devil, or close enough, right? Is there anything after this? Not a Heaven or Hell but just a, I don't know, a something?"

"I can't say with any certainty exactly what," Bim started, but paused when she met Princess's overlarge, pleading purple eyes. The elaborate answer forming in her mind crumbled into nothingness around the simple truth at its core. "But yes, there is something beyond this life."

An inland breeze ripe with the scent of marine life rolled across the field, taking a fraction of the day's oppressive heat with it. The energy coursing throughout Bim faltered for a fleeting, half-instant and Princess flicked her abhuman eyes after a particular shadow in the night. She peered at it, discerning depths and shades any lesser equipped mortals could only speculate upon. Another gust of wind carried her target away and the pale woman puffed out an indignant breath.

"Well, if there's something then that's good enough for me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go check in on Leeroy or find a substitute boy-toy. You might want to go check in on Hero— you're not the only girl with eyes on him."

Princess walked off into the night, and Bim couldn't help dwelling on their conversation as she stared out on what were once several grand gardens. Everything about this place was so confusing, little more that fleeting instants that never stopped slipping away. In due time, everyone Bim had met so far would be as the gardens were now— little more than memories and ashen remains. This palace, these people so alike yet completely alien to her, even the world she stoop upon, all of it was fated to perish. The thought stirred something inside of her, not unlike the pain that simple existence caused her but more centralized. A preemptive, longing ache for what would inevitably come to pass, completely separate from the pain already in her chest.

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Bim permitted her body to wander of its own accord and found herself straying further from the palace. She reached the freshly-dug minefield and followed its periphery in an aimless, meandering loop until she wound up at the cliff overlooking the ocean. Bim discovered a rutting pair engaged in the throes of passion on the man's part and a conflicted expression of horrible, pained ecstasy on the half-dressed maid's. It was all these human's could do to escape their own inevitable demise. Come together, repopulate, ensure the whole survives even if the individual must die to do so; because in the end, they would always die regardless of what they did or how they railed against death.

It was the irrefutable human condition.

She made her way back inside the palace. Movement help to distract her from the pain mounting inside of her. Were these mortals doing much the same as she was? Were they just as desperate to cast off this clawing weight inside that wanted to tear them down. Perhaps, perhaps not. A crowd of Celio's men packed in around her, all but trapping her in the press of sweating, repulsive bodies. Someone jumped onto a table above the dim-lit array of silhouetted heads, a drink upraised in signal.

"To Diego Fellype-Giu! Without him and his, we'd be gunning those cats down in the streets for weeks to come. To Diego!"

"To Diego." They chorused, before striking their glasses and drinking in toast.

The display seemed inappropriate. As she understood it, death was a tragic event for humans and their peers. Yet the mood of the room was bordering on celebration, not quite jovial but a far cry different than what Bim had observed in the conference room hours earlier. The liquid churn of dozens of gulping throats was a vile ripple that filled the room and echoed in her ears.

As if by some unspoken cue, the gathered men dropped their drinks and reached for the women in their midst. A lean man's pawing hand began caressed inside Bim's thighs, working its way upwards. A flabby brute took her throat in his hand and pressed his slimy lips against her neck. Bim couldn't see who was squeezing at her breast or pulling on her hips or who was grinding what into her backside.

It had happened so fast. They were on her like a swarm of insects; latching on, gnashing their teeth, and thrusting with poised stingers. Part of her, a very small part, was curious what would happen if she allowed them to have their way. Surely between the sum of them they could displace the ache now reaching its climax inside of her. If enough of them wanted her and took her, would she still feel so alone?

Bim threw herself against one man, using him as a springboard to launch herself away from the swarming men reaching for her. A bony hand clawed into her shoulder, spinning her into a skeletal embrace.

"Where you going Babe?" He asked, wrapping his other arm around her waist.

"Do not touch me." Bim stated. She'd wanted to force some power into the words, to radiate a commanding presence that compelled him to obey, but her body failed her.

"Don't be such a fucking tease you little cunt." He hissed through a lecherous leering smile that was all predatory teeth blackened from chewing narcotics.

The gaunt man pulled her closer to him. His damp breath that reeked of alcohol and cigars assailed her neck. One hand was like iron around her wrist and the other was working its way down the backside of her dress. Once they'd reached a gap in the clothing, his bony fingers plunged in to explore what lay below.

"No." Bim uttered. She hadn't even been conscious of wanting to speak. Her vessel had acted of its own accord. She didn't want this, didn't want him. She didn't want to know what would happen next.

She pushed him away but he held firm using the momentum to spin her into his arms. She back-stepped, but his feet were always right behind her's. He drew her body closer, forcing their hips together so Bim could feel the measure of his desire. He wanted her, but she didn't want him.

"I'll take you right here, you dirty slut."

Bim tried to pull away, to break from of his agile malice, but she couldn't. She couldn't even cry out when he enveloped her lips with his own, thrusting his slimy tongue into her mouth. The hand in her clothing found what it was looking for and a single brave finger plunged inside.

Suddenly the gaunt man released her, all but throwing her away from him. Bim fell away from him to the damp floor, landing in an sprawl of torn clothes. Bim looked up to find herself in the shadow of a monster.

"Is there a problem here?" Treu asked, his voice a low menace that silenced the room.

For a long second the gaunt man looked like he was going to reach for Bim again. He glared at the towering monstrosity of a man opposite him, sizing him up. Bim was dumbfounded. No other human she'd encountered had been so impulsive, so openly brash and hostile to her Tormentor. Exactly what the gaunt man thought he'd accomplish by throwing himself at a beast twice his height and triple his mass was a mystery— a rare one that Bim had no desire to solve. In a blink, hostility bled from him, replaced by a teetering docile drunkenness.

"No." The gaunt man finally concluded, sounding suddenly drugged into stupor. "No problems here, Merc."

"Good." Treu stated to him, then to Bim. "Get up. Come with me."

He'd forced some power into the words, her body obeyed automatically. She would have followed him anyway but the sigil embedded in her spine left her little choice.

"Why-" Bim started once they were out of earshot.

"Consider yourself lucky for having your mind closed off from these depraved, mundane savages, Devil." Treu snapped in a bassy rumble. "It's your own fault for being so naive after all this time. If you could hear their thoughts, you'd want no part in what they're planning on doing to those girls."

Treu flicked one of his eyes to dismissively look at her, the other absently gazed at a couple wrapped together in a tangle of limbs on a plush couch now soaked in sweat and various other fluids.

"Unless you found your binding at my hands particularly enjoyable, heed my words, Devil. Do not go into a private room alone with any man tonight."

"Why are you warning me of this?" Bim asked, shuddering at the memories he'd beckoned to mind. Unpleasant though they were, the manic ache building in her chest was a far more pressing concern.

"You've disturbed my rest once tonight already. Should it happen again, I would be… displeased."

"Then I shall listen to your counsel, my Tormentor." Bim stated, drawing herself back to the present and away from the cursed knowledge of her past. As an afterthought, she meekly added in a whisper, "…Thank you."

"I've no need for thanks from your kind, Creature." Treu uttered in a sneer. Then he lengthened his colossal stride and disappeared.

And for the first time, Bim felt no relief that Treu's gargantuan proportions were out of sight. This small act of kindness had also been one of selfishness on his part, yet still he had saved her. The sequence of events left her conflicted. So she wandered with no goal in mind, passively observing the palace and its reveling occupants.

Treu had warned her, yet still her curiosity was not fully dissuaded. Every common room she entered had some variant of humanity desperately coming together, be that a joining of the minds or mouths or hands. She wanted to chase after her Tormentor, to throw herself upon him and demand that he explain. Not just the buzzing in her flesh or the pain in her chest, but everything! He had to know… didn't he? Or did he know and that was why he'd retired. Who else was there she could inquire from? Who else but a fellow monster could comprehend what she was feeling?

Maybe Hiiro?

Did he too understand what it meant to be so utterly and entirely alone? Bim allowed her mind to sift through her memories of time spent with him, and she thought he might. Even if he didn't, he was a balm she desperately needed. Even if he never understood what he was to her or she to him, he could at least ease the burden mere physical, singular existence imposed upon her. He was the one soft object in a coarse and unyielding reality. She might not be happy, but if she could be lonely together with him, perhaps she could at least be content.

So why was she hesitating outside of his door? Surely it wasn't Treu's warning? Hiiro was unlike any other mortal man she'd known. He was a kind and chivalrous soul, and besides, he was still diminished from the day's battle. He wouldn't take advantage of her. He wasn't like the rest of them. Was he?

The question made her feel dirty. Her eidetic memory drudging up every leering glance, every sickening caress, every single sexual advance to haunt her. Hiiro was no exception, he'd looked at her as a man would any woman, his desires plain. Those were what it meant to be human.

Bim wanted to shed her dress and burn it; to take this human woman's body and reshape it into a sexless mass that would never be coveted again. She'd done it once before- her mind spiraled into the past, not to when she'd lost control but back to the food vendor's shaded nook.

"I wish you hadn't seen me like that." She'd confessed, disgust rivaling her shame.

"I wish I hadn't either." Hiiro had said, his eyes haunted by knowledge he could never unknow. The sight of what she really was under that human guise.

Did she truly want that? Would Hiiro ever see her with anything but that distant, haunted expression if she did cast off this vessel of alluring flesh? What right did she have to inflict such duress, such horrific knowledge and dreadful comprehension unto him?

What right did she have to be standing outside his doorway now, hoping to find comfort within when she couldn't even bear the solitude of her own company? Bim turned to leave.

The door to Hiiro's room opened and was passed for her heart fluttered, but it wasn't Hiiro that emerged.

Zoe-Esther, dressed not in her workwear but instead a scant pair of provocative garments, slipped from the room and flinched upon seeing Bim. The cutting pain in Bim's chest nearly burst in that instant. The vibrant buzzing in her head swayed from flight to fight, momentarily settling on neither and both and back until Bim was paralyzed by indecision.

Was Hiiro truly no different than any other man?

"What, were you doing in there." Bim uttered, words flooded with power she couldn't contain. Frost gathered on the floor and walls, the proud portraits of great men from ages past turned accusing eyes on Zoe-Esther, and Bim felt the tides of vindictive rage swelling to full strength.

Zoe-Esther raised her head, and Bim saw tears falling from her eyes.

"I was hoping to repay his kindness, but it would seem that I'm not-" Zoe sobbingly admitted with bow and a sad smile as tears poured from her face. "Perhaps you'll be more to his liking. I'll- I'll see to it that you're not disturbed."

Bim felt the power coursing though her vessel falter, normality reasserting itself in the instant afterward. Caught up in moment as she was, Bim didn't even think to question where that power had manifested from. All of her attention was locked on the human girl messily weeping in front of her.

"Raise your head, Zoe-Esther." Bim commanded.

She did, and all Bim saw on her face was the same empty ache that she herself felt, amplified a dozen times over by rejection. Was Bim looking at her own fate if she ventured through those doors? She'd been dreading what would happen if Hiiro used her, yet she'd never considered what would happen if he didn't.

"Will that be all, Lady Bim?" Zoe asked, lips quivering but voice steely.

"…Yes, Zoe-Esther." Bim said, her voice soft and lifeless.

The sobbing maid curtsied deeply, posture immaculate. When she lifted her head, all emotion was locked away behind a mask of diligent professionalism. Were it not for the pain so clearly visible in her eyes, Bim would never have guessed that she was dying inside. Yet again, Bim had to wonder is she was truly that different from these humans surrounding her. Before she left, Zoe whispered.

"Best of luck, Lady Bim."

And Bim could not bear to watch her walk away. She fled into Hiiro's room, hoping that she wouldn't be following that poor girl's footsteps in a matter of minutes.

What was she doing here? She had no idea what came next. All she knew was that she was a little drunk, so lonely it hurt and completely terrified of the inevitable future without him in it.

She had no right to expect any comfort from him, but she drew near his bed anyway. His bedroom was warm and quite and it made the chaos dominating the palace feel so very far away. Bim drew in a breath and it smelled like the salty, honest scent of Hiiro's sun-kissed skin. But if she ventured too close, would she be burned too? Was the risk worth the possible reward?

He was laying atop sweat-soaked sheets, his discarded clothes in a mound by her ankles. The sight of him was enough to make her feel at ease, to feel as if there was some small measure of certainty in this ever-changing eternal Now. He was magnificent to behold, the perfect example of humanity in her eyes. Of course he was worth it. Hiiro and no other would always be worth any risk to her.

Bim removed her clothes and let them join his on the floor.

Why did she need him like no other? His bed uttered a single creak as she joined him, mirroring the faintest gasp of anticipation that slipped from her lips. They were so close, just centimeters apart, and she couldn't bring herself to close that final gap. It wasn't her place to take what she wanted from humanity. Bim could only receive what they offered.

His dormant body offered her plenty. The way the low light played across his taut muscles, his faded scars and all those burns. The sound of his steady breathing, of his beating heart and his body's complex internal organs churning away. The vibrant buzz of the palace was nothing compared to the pure radiance she felt from being so near him, in seconds she was completely intoxicated off his simple presence.

Then he turned, rolling unto her in his delirious sleep. His flesh was so hot Bim felt as if she could melt in his arms. He was breathing her essence in just as she was his. It was magnetic, their attraction as irrefutable as gravity or light.

Hiiro whispered sweet non-sense into her ear with a low moan, sowing his radiant heat upon her waiting soul. Her hands finally braved the crossing, mapping out the curves of his chiseled body and the history of scars written on his skin. Bim closed her eyes to focus on how he felt in her arms. It was unparalleled. He was a temple and she, a worshiper in communion to all that he was. There was nothing else in this reality that could rival the bliss she felt now.

"I am yours, and you are mine, H̸̖͇̒͂i̷͖͝i̷̮͐r̸̼̝̓ǒ̶͜ ̴͎̈́V̴̼̄̉o̸̳͂͌ḽ̸̳̄̌s̵̹̯̊h̵̞̊ḙ̴̌b̸̺̈́͊s̷̯͂o̸̞̲͋."

His heat flooded the room in response. It washed over her, pouring into her vessel. It was divine. The room was alight with sparks, like a million possibilities all centered around this one beautiful moment. Bim felt his manhood against her leg and she was rendered powerless by anticipation.

It wasn't like the others. How could she have ever compared Hiiro to the rest of those disgusting mortals? She felt the heat of him penetrate her, resonating throughout her being until she returned it amplified a hundred times over. In all this damned ephemeral Now, he was the only thing she could never live without. She needed him, needed this, more then living creatures needed food or water or even air.

Darkness retreated from a dozen spreading fires.

Hiiro sleepily blinked his eyes and tried to pull away but she held him fast. His power poured into her in time with his pounding heart and his heavily breath. She never wanted to let go. She held him as if her grasp could tear him from his doomed mortal fate; as if by the strength of her arms alone she could save him if nothing else. If she could do just that one thing, she could be content with all else she must endure.

She wanted to take their union further, to bare her mind and soul in addition to her flesh, but Hiiro was fading. His renewed strength was spent, the heat she'd been so gluttonously consuming was waning. She opened her eyes and saw Hiiro atop her, backlit by the room completely ablaze.

The flames of his passion were all-consuming. They climbed the walls and danced across the ceiling. Fire spun from the wooden columns of the canopy bed, flitting up the drapery before leaping into the air as burning streamers. Then there was Hiiro, his eyes mirroring her own as she stared up at him, hoping he'd go that little bit further…

A tidal wave of white fire-suppressant foam flooded the room, washing over them like a savage gale. Without the flames, Hiiro crumpled atop her, limp limbs spasming as their bodies pressed together. They lay there, separate but together, panting as one.

"In my light you shall burn eternally, my H̸̖͇̒͂i̷͖͝i̷̮͐r̸̼̝̓ǒ̶͜." Bim whispered between breaths, and she breathes easy in his rapidly cooling arms because she was his and he was hers…

Even if it was only for now.