𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐒

.ೃ࿐ˢᵐⁱˡᵉ. ᴵᵗ ⁱⁿᵗⁱᵐⁱᵈᵃᵗᵉˢ ᵗʰᵒˢᵉ ʷʰᵒ ʷⁱˢʰ ᵗᵒ ᵈᵉˢᵗʳᵒʸ ʸᵒᵘ.

An Ivory heel that dented the indomitable, a prudent woman of disillusioned morals and a sporadic life of spiral. All her grace wanted was glory, not from a crown or throng, but herself. The ivory lady pleaded with me if she was ludicrous for electing her selfish veins over the many razed faces she had never seen before. I let out a no, told her that I would've done the very same. If the strayed Ivory stood here with me as I remembered, I would've told her that her endless hiding would be under the very locality of dying.—A Palace of Ulric labyrinths, Elvira Crest.

࿐SÉRAPH ࿐

|Hezkeil- September 13th, 7416|

A WOMAN OF HISTORY once said that time was a lacquer used to circle the meaning of one's temporary life, a canvas of white that was volatile banking to the observer's hued outlook into the pigments of the universe. The blushed ribbons that would carve someone present, past, and future were mere visions made to make simple of the unknowns of life.

The problem was that life's unknowns were anything but simple.

Puzzling it together, reality was forever a haunting limitless, substantiveness, and multiple other things Séraph understood to be amazingly false as her young feet guided her through the dying patch of green that trembled dully over her father's garden. If reality truly was so motley, why did she feel so trapped? For Séraph, there was no past for her to clasp onto, no future that wasn't overcast, but just a singular present that made her feel so drowningly excluded.

Lulled silence wrapped her auxiliary section of the garden. Once in a while, little strange creatures popped up to make their presence know, though none stood around long enough for little Séraph to get a good view. The many unique animals her town had was one of the only reasons she enjoyed it here. Pure nature-She doubted she could get that kind of climate anywhere else. The whirling central cities of rich owned planets only had space for humans, machines and money, not hungry little creatures.

The falling sun blazed orange against the world, it's signature riddling almost every inch of exposed air. It would be a lie if Séraph told you it wasn't beautiful. The girl saw the same sun collapse below sightline every day, yet she couldn't help the buttery feeling of her heart melting every time she saw it. Some brilliance was just made to be appreciated for life.

Séraph could only watch on as far twinkles of conveyance thrusters soared across the high sky, becoming one with the reddish-yellow sky. She pondered the life that drove the machine, how different their life was compared to her short one. She hoped that one day, she'd be inside one of those passing vehicles, enabling another to wonder about her life.

Though, Séraph knew not to entirely rely on hope.

Darci told her about the sticky tricks of hope. It was never one to be relied on. It was more foe than friend. Hope forced people to forever deny filling in the chilling enigmas of the world with unpleasant speculations, although it was nothing but that.

Darci Alchemy believed in doing rather than wishing. Making your impact rather than foregoing or loitering for others to bend that hole for you. The notion of hope was nothing but giving up. To him, it was a word that wielded no real purpose when it came to the reality of civilisation; a scorched pain crammed into vacant phrases and pledges.

Actions expressed the unsayable sentiments that could perpetually change someone's life. Always pick spirited actions as your go-to, he would say, words shudder when you need them most.

But, Séraph's life was anything but ideal.

Regardless, the young Alchemy girl was still grateful because she knew somewhere out there, someone that would gaze up at the same stars as she, was suffering much more than she could ever endure. A miserable individual that was brought up on nothing more than trauma and hatred. A target of hope's corruption. Darci told her that many people in the inner cities were like that. Hallowed out shells that were so damaged, they failed to see the blossoming potential that lingered for their accepting call.

Darci hadn't decided which was worse, the hope for change, hope for happiness or the hope for love. He always said they all intertwined with one another, but, with the devil's fire, they weren't as black, grey and white as they all cried. They were poisonous at best, throwing you headlong into their fumes, just to see you choke half to death in their output. A demon hiding in the form of life shifting to tragedy just as the tips of your fingers brush along it. It won't allow you to feel all that you've fought for.

That would just take away the fun of its wicked game.

Her godfather's whispers warned her about how in the most serpentine way, hope was needed for the inception of the most passionate efforts. A remedy of harmony, Renzo would sigh with the planet's breaths. A guidance to peace. It was a taunting aid that people relied on it to the point their hope is no longer there, only a newfound reality. Artificial fantasies of desire find ways to sink into humanity's not-so-vibrant world and scar tangible, just as society's oblivion had prayed for. Sometimes those sad portions of people no longer require such intentions or such vacant promises that now only serve as damaged and late delivery—a gift that was of use to you long ago, yet you can't seem to toss it away because the prized devil knows just how to beat you in all the right places. It knows your secrets. It knows that your heart can't dismiss the many years of heartfelt, pitiful wishes.

Séraph promised herself she'd never be weakened like that. She was not going to be lured and clipped of her humanity with cruel kisses or any deceptive riches. That would only contradict the teaching of her existence. Darci's tales of decisions. Renzo's passages of worth.

Although the bittersweet estate of hope is not one to be easily deflected, it will be there, watching as you grow from the creek of its universe that you so greatly look up to. It will never be completely gone, nor does it ever want to be.

Why leave when it can sense your future of lacks?

The young girl refused to shift from her shaded spot under the dying autumn tree in the belief that the lucid images of the synthetic dream life would evaporate from her mind like a second thought. Her eyes sagged and dark waves swaddled her cheeks as she relieved, mind filling in the absent heaven of childhood without restriction.

As far as Séraph could tell, Darci was all that was currently making up her family along with the rose crest necklace that bottled her mother's shirked ashes. It was lonely on most occasions, but nonetheless, close by and under the darkness was someone else who promised to veil the Alchemy girl under their shadow of care. A friend of her mothers was all Darci would tell her when she questioned it. Sometimes she wondered if it was Renzo secretly peering through the darkness, and that his scarred face of warmth and love hadn't really left them all alone in the cruel world.

Washing away the thoughts of life never to mend, Séraph respectfully laid back, becoming a renewed victim of her mind as new thoughts bombarded her psyche. Her godfather always promised that her life would bring change to many, though she couldn't imagine it herself. Hearing the elation and gravity in the fierce man's words made the girl think...maybe she was meant for more than just this.

A muffled purr took her from the looming daydream and her eyes flickered to the tabby furred feline that curved about the ankles of her feet, round and dark eyes gazing up at her childishly.

"Don't look at me like that, Turkey," She spoke in a taunting hum, a grateful smile making way on her face. Sometimes she wished she was a cat. The only thing they had to worry about was food, sleep and annoying people. "I'm not giving you anymore treats or you'll end up looking like a Karlix." She shivered at the thought of the fat rainbow coloured creatures. How she loathed them. The last mob of the creatures destroyed the flowerbeds she and Darci had spent weeks working on.

"Understatement of the century," A new voice quipped in strain. The choking coughs gave her father away before any of his words made its way to her ears. "Bet he weighs more than both of us combined."

Séraph twirled to him, lit cigarette just grazing the pink of his lips as she held up an excusing finger to him. "You're the one that's purposely trying to fatten him up!"

Darci snickered dryly as he spoke. "Why do think he has that hideous name, blue?"

"B-Because you said it was beautiful!"

"Nope, it's because this fatty here is edible," He countered as he crouched down to poke at the hanging stomach of the oblivious cat snuggling into him.

"He's not fat!" Snapped Séraph, arms folding in defence. Her shoulders sagged a bit as an approving meow ran from the fluffy cat on the floor. At least he knows how to stick up for himself.

"Well, Missy, I beg to differ, " He asserted, ending with a wheezing cough that momentarily made Séraph's heart involuntarily clench.

"Renzo said all of those huffs and puffs will kill you." The words passed her lips like a computerized message left by the man in mention himself. Darci ignored her as he took another puff.

Séraph turned away, angrily tumbling over her words as she stubbornly muttered under her breath. Darci only watched her, a single amused brow raised as he stared at the agitated girl. All the pain his body felt at that moment was easy to ignored when he inspected her. It freaked him out about how much she resembled her mother. He wanted to call out her name, shout it for comfort. Five letter that sucked every warmth of wistful memories. The young girl's eyes glistened under the sun, twinkling like they were claimed by a bomb flash. They carried a dizzying power, infinite dimensions of blue swaying elegantly to the next eye as a wooden brown. They were a tornado of chained fire that swallowed the darkness of the universe.

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..Séraph was bleeding. She could feel it not see it, the gushing molten liquid of red was too quick to catch with the troubled pace she was going at. She was bleeding and she knew this red would be the death of her.

God forbid if they were ever to change. If such a violent spillage was to ever occur, Darci doubted that even the Gods could bring it to a stop.

Fire blanketed everything, its smoke a pillow of suffocation. 𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹.. Draci had told her to stay clear from the smoke in instances like these, but Séraph didn't care. Not until she found him. Not until she found the man that completed her family of toll. "Darci!"

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹.. 𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹.. 𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

"Perhaps I'm being held for blackmail, " he promptly added, a lopsided grin cracking his face as Séraph turned to him with a doubtful lift of her brow. "You ever take that into consideration, princess?"

Darci! The flares mocked the girl, Darci!

"Why would I? That's stupid," The little girl grumbled, dropping next to the man who perched himself on the wooden pillar of their home, elbows balanced gently on his knees as he glanced up at the endless space of lime green in their wake.

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Séraph was going the fastest she had ever moved, yet she felt the seconds of her life were slowing her, 𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹.. Slowing. And slowing. 𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹.. God help her if she was to drop dead or pass out to burn in a dump like this town. 𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

Darci propped his arm on Séraph's head, hazy mist creeping up into the peach sky as he puffed on the thinning cigarette between his fingers. "It's not stupid when you don't subject it to norms," he humoured, dismissing the glare of the young girl who was attempting to shove away his arm.

"Darci!" She couldn't breathe. 𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹.. She felt the hot coals of the smoke juggling within her lungs with every drastic inhale she took. 𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹.. "Darci!"

"Stupid count:15!" Séraph barked playfully, a slight smirk drawing on her lips as Darci gave her an inflated pout.

"Can't an old man share some knowledge, sweet pea?" Darci joked, a cough exhorting to seep as he assessed the girl's disapproving look. "Just say it," he croaked in defeat.

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

"Stupid count:16!"

Darci cracked another pearly grin, creases forming around his eyes as he raised them to meet the young girl's with a look that told her that he was holding from saying something. His eyes rented an extra glow, a rich glassy compound of sevgi's prosperous surface drizzled in specks of crystalline hazel—a tsunami of muted thoughts that could boil even the most chilling of surfaces. Guilt toppled him, a pinching discomfort bombarding him at the thought of the girl's life. Her forthcoming she would write without validity. Dark brown lashes shaded the hazel of his troubled spirit, pointed rays marking the tanned exterior of skin on his face as it did.

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹.. "Why do you look so sad, pretty?" the mumbling monster grinned into his words. Winter rattled through the summer of Ignatius' destruction. If life hadn't hurt her this bad, Séraph would have etched the sleek sky in her psyche perpetually. 𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

"Can you tell me another story?" asked Séraph as she shifted closer to the sniffing chocolate-haired man.

Darci...Darci had left her. To bleed. To pain. Her father had left her to die. 𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..But why?...

Her question bounced about the inside of the man's skull. It was a request he'd heard several times from the same candied voice but now, that impulsive cord inside him was growing eternally hazardous, towing him impatiently through his distorted thoughts. Darci felt lost sometimes. Deserted. He was an abysmal canyon pulsing with shadows of prowling emotions.

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..Why had Darci left her to rot?𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

"Another?" He smirked softly as the girl bounced her head eagerly. His eyes shimmered with a quirk. "Ever heard of Princess Harpy?"

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹.. Did she have to die as well? 𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

"A princess?" Séraph questioned with a distasteful wrinkle of her nose.

"You don't have to die," the boy muttered into the dark cave, staring down at their interjoined palms. A pact of wasted blood that was not his. The cold crimson felt warm against the ice that formed unhurriedly in her veins. 𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹.. This exposed blood draping her figure was not hers. 𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹.. But that didn't stop the pang of fear Harpy felt somewhere in her heart at the sight of it. 𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

"Harpy, the intended goddess with the crown of a princess," Darci corrected in a song. "With no path accepting of her, she created her own."

Ruffles squirmed on Séraph's face, eyes lighting gaily as she prodded him to resume.

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹.."The only thing I live for now is to die." It was the truth. Protecting her people was all she had ever dedicated her life to. It was them she saw within herself. The future she willed for herself was because of their trace. The mastery she had built over the years was because of them. Her life was theirs. And she had watched them offer it all up in a second. 𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

"It was said that she was tossed aside by all she had ever known, left to deteriorate with the doomed stars of the universe. She was the darkness—the searing beauty of it." The wind sat serenely now, seeming to be immersed in the story as well.

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..Like she was not worth anything more than that one second..𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

"Did she die like the others?" Séraph whispered, sorrow already exuding into her question.

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹.."We both know that's not the truth, Harpy," the boy laughed. Their hands were still fixed in the air, so tense, so placid. "If someone with your determination lived to die, you wouldn't be alive to tell me, now would you?"𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

Darci had told her enough stories to count up all the minutes of her life but the ones she really adored, the ones that all made her feel something, all broke off horribly.

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

There was the story of the Cosmos; children ripped from their families, forced to sweat in evil with the presumption that they brought joy into the world when in reality, it was quite the polar.

The second one that stuck out to her was the tragedy of Kek; a man's life that was engulfed with so much arrogance, he became blind from it. When the man's bubble was shattered, all beauty that once implemented sight was replaced with his destruction.

The third was the story of Malcolm; the supposed icon and birth giver of mercy. His desire for a life of correction and series charged for his creation of a now distorted world. His life of disadvantaged goods led to a new one of calamity.

The last was the story of Dream; young woman whose opinions in life rendered her an outcast. Her dreams held no hate, no prejudice, only the blossoming of equality. Her identity was peeled off her all because she knew how to love.

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

Darci disregarded her intermission. "Harpy craved to mend the morality on our shoulders, to wield it and use it draw us together. It turned out to be much harder to do when all of your tries lead to your very essence being torn away, " he cleared his throat.

"I believe the stars are rigged," the boy commented, gazing up at the rotten night sky.

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹.. "Rigged?"𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

Séraph's brow turned up as she became engrossed in the story. "The people she was determined to help saw her ways of victory as wrong, evil even—Harpy couldn't appreciate why. She judged herself as their saviour, a hero that they were too selfish to clap for. She believed them to be nothing but wrong...sinful for not endorsing what she believed was given to them by the universe."

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹.. "They're so pretty, you can't help but stare." But he wasn't staring at them, only her. "You see, that's the scheme." His eyes flickered up and there was a low cloud to them. "They put people in a trance, make you think the lightness in your chest is what you actually want to feel." 𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹.. He turned back to her. "When it's not, Harp. That lightness is what kills you."

"What did she do?"

She returned her gaze to the extant art above them as he finished, "I guess that's what makes them so appealing; a million miles away and still able to kill." 𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

"She did what any saviour did best, obliterated what she believed were the wrongs of the system."

Silence seized Séraph as she processed his words."Di...did she kill them?"

Darci twisted to face her with an infant glint in his eyes, almost as if he had the secrets of the life at the tip of his tongue."She was thought to have done that...nobody truly knows what transpired, but whatever arose collapsed in on her."

"How?"

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹.."I think it's the memories that make them so appealing, don't you think?" 𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

Darci shrugged lightly. "Every action contains aftermath. We as people merely stand back and observe to see who will fall from what," he dismissed as he let out another cough and it was clear to Séraph that her father couldn't solve Harpy's puzzle the same way the young girl couldn't decipher most of the colourful words that fell from his tongue.

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹.."The memories?"𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

"Although the presences of her actions have been driven out, the intuitions of Harpy cannot be overlooked. In her honour, she was given a piece of the people so that she could forever remain in the heart of Malcolm Alerian's humanity." Séraph shot him an incredulous expression.

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

"I think it's beautiful," Harpy whispered into the crisp air, "Seeing something long dead shine so bright..."

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

Someone who'd taken advantage of their responsibility and hurt out of spite didn't deserve such respect. "That's stupid! She tried to kill them-"

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹.."I think it's sad."𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

Darci cut her off- "Being a frightened and love deprived child tends to betray people in life," He persisted with a slight raise of his voice, taking a glance at the messy-haired girl to his side. "She saw the mistakes in her actions and was willing to die to fix them. Not a lot of people seize the option of change when given."

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹.."Why?"𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹.

Séraph had become deadly silent at his tone, turning her head down to stare at a crimson ladybird wriggling its way up her arm, its dark wings puckered out as it prepared to lift off. A pleased ring pursued the retiring insect, its spotted shape disappearing in the clouds of the sky.

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹.."Because they remind me of us."𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

A crescent-shaped moon peered down at the duo, bumpy form flaring with distant luminary sparkles. Humanity was such a substantial gadget. What could they have possibly given Princess Harpy?

"You won't understand now, blueness, but someday you'll learn to forgive me," Darci's voice quivered. He wouldn't even look at her. He couldn't. Not with those eyes starting up at him. Not with Mabel's eyes tracking him with such hurt, he couldn't bear to see Mabel hate him.

Séraph watched Darci from the corner of her eye, lips reclining insufficiently as she pondered the troublesome question. "What did they give her?"

His grip stayed locked on her small wrist as he dragged them across the burning street. "Darci! Darci, please, you're hurting me!"

Her uncertainty spiked at a wonder of the answer to her question.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled but his steady grip remained tight as his pace refused to waver, not even as they slinked across the awful piles of charred bodies.

Darci twisted to her with a diminutive smile, copper dripping moltenly to endow his shadowed cheekbones. An elegant sounding flutter drifted along with her ear, causing her to flinch away from the ticklish sensation and twirl to Darci who was now holding a snowy fresh-picked lily, petals wavering heavenly in the breeze of the dusk. His cigarette was long out of sight, seeming to have vanished like another mundane and renounced object. How long had he been holding that for?

Seeing Darci bleed used to frighten her, yet as his yells rolled against the rips of heat, and his blood oozed tepid between her teeth, Séraph felt something entirely new.

Hope.

A pinch of freedom that a part of Séraph felt culpable following.

"A piece of Malcolm Alerian's soul," he quoted, glittering stare moving between the fragile plant in his palm and the inquisitive little girl slumped beside him. Sometimes he wondered what their lives were to accomplish if he was given the choice to be truthful. The chance to live a life that was wasn't a unfair lie—a shot to dwell in a charmed life with the last of his family. He was the only person the child knew, the only person she had and he was going to leave her broken and alone in the future.

Séraph was running before she had even realised her feet were moving. She could hear Darci calling out for her, but Séraph did not stop this time. Just like everyone else in her life, Darci was gone, consumed by the fumes of desperation's treachery.

"You already said that," Séraph insisted, sighing at the ambiguous reply as she plucked the delicate flower out of his hold. "What does it mean?"

He messed up. It meant he had really screwed up.

"Bitter or sweet?" Darci spoke mystically, leaving her to marvel whether or not interrogating him was the right choice.

"Alchemy," the spiteful voice ordered from somewhere in the smoke. "Where is she?"

"Thanks, I really understood that," She huffed dryly as the family of two shared amused grins, both innocuous and unarmed in their ways.

"Watch your cheek, your blueness," Darci said mock-seriously, roughing his voice like an old man. "That's no way to speak to your elders." He pinched at her cheek, hand trembling a bit as another cough infringed.

Darci heaved in the raw oxygen, savouring the tranquillity in his lungs before his tragic destiny bolted onto him. "My daughter is none of your concern, General."

Rocking her eyes, she let the mood fall into a tranquil compressed cessation. A quiver fled the pillowed flower in her grasp, its green stem rolling in the fair prints of her fingers. "You still didn't answer my question," Séraph spoke up after a few drafted minutes, seeming to be addressing herself just as much as she was her father. "What piece of humanity did they give her?"

"Your daughter?"A cruel chuckle came from behind him. "This sparring bravery of yours, Alchemy, seems to just be an alternative for your stupidity."

"Her father's Dyson," Darci whispered to her, slightly throwing off the prying young girl. A Dyson?

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹.."Not long..." Darci gasped a pathetic laugh through the dark, ebony blood pooling within the entirety of his mouth. "Enough?" 𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

Rolling to him, Séraph watched a second flower sleep in the palm of his hand, petals alleviating and waning in short speed. As she appreciated the flowers, it hit her...there was not one soft lily sticking out of the garden. There had never been one in the interminable miles of emerald that had carried them for years. So where did he find these?

..𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹 "Not long enough...to get attached?" Darci spat out wretchedly, gazing anywhere but at Gothic Mortimer's glacial eyes of contempt and acedia. "𝘙𝘦𝘯𝘻𝘰 𝘚𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘱𝘪𝘶𝘴, you lying piece of shit." 𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

"A Dyson?" The doe-eyed youngling quizzed her father with difficulty.

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

Darci couldn't help but grin at his little girl's puzzlement. ❝Not just any dyson, blue—

—ᴍᴀʟᴄᴏʟᴍ ᴀʟᴇʀɪᴀɴ'ꜱ ᴅʏꜱᴏɴ ᴏꜰ ᴄᴀʟᴀᴍɪᴛʏ.❞

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹..

𝓓𝓻𝓲𝓹......

The mage had pledged to his dilapidated world. A covenant that he aspired would yield all his sins on the favourable side of the scale. If the ashes could cause so much destruction...could there be a chance of creating so much of the opposite? He crafted his blessing from the springs of the dark and the vapours of his stars, melted with a craft that had the mightiest of creators querying. All it took was his will to fix and gut of proficiency. Malcolm created his children of calamity who divulged crowns greater than the one carried on the head of the sordid Kathos Emperor made of the undying infernos of an upside world.—A Palace of Ulric Labyrinths, Elvira Crest.