𝐙𝐄𝐑𝐎'𝐒 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄
.ೃ࿐ ˢᵗᵉᵃˡ ᵐʸ ᵇˡₒₒ𝚍 ᵃⁿᵈ ᵐᵃᵏᵉ ᵃ ᶠˡᵒᵒᵈ.
Ash will ever be ash. It does not carry weight if it blows memos of consensus and devotion; it will eternally be the ash scraped from the bones of blazed bodies.— A Palace Of Ulric Labyrinths, Elvira Crest.
࿐SILVER࿐
|Garzabel- December 31, 7408|
THE CEREMONIAL city of Torsnne, harmony of the Garzabel planet, buzzed a pessimistic cadence of brief and ignorant euphoria as many people pushed their young evening through the coarse populace of the streets. The inner municipalities brought out an exotic spark in the opaque titanium clouds that foresaw fictitious fireworks from the neon displays of the industrious shops, the 3D pixelated billboard that flaunted the latest money-grabbing schemes which possessed eyes of accordance, and lastly, their humid air that streamed about with oscillating energy bursts that were set free via the jetting local vehicles that meandered passionately just above the soaked ground.
Some would think such beauty would not be allowed to just sit there and dampen in every dismissal of its great existence. But here was such beauty, its satchel of delicate tears evermore considered a nuisance.
The northern and central parts of the planet were a place the rich slumbered and freely doubled in fortune with pride even the veins of Mammon's essence deemed disgusting. Their skyscrapers were dazzled with fluorescent propaganda of naked women as they indiscreetly peered over the bleak mists. Even at their most loose, the poisoned jewels still strived to sprout above the remainder, monopolizing them as if they were deserving of titles such as Gods while their scripted electrical bolts and clamors of proclivities charged connections to the trashed concrete.
Miles away and far below their titanium towers of cupidity were holes of their edition of gulfing hell, booming with a fresh element of pained energy.
Armed guards shaped a chained border, separating the impoverished and wealthy as their maltreated blood protested. Their lives were in the clutches of a force that held levity appraising them, defenseless insects singeing under a magnifying glass created not to see any closer than they were but to smolder wicked from their positions afar. The soldiers held their gazes over the hoard of battered people—their people of Ma'kef. No machines were to be wasted on the outer cities like the ones employed in the inner areas, that piece of information seemed to ameliorate a few of the stationed troopers that had the first-hand brutality of the polished metal intelligence deformed into their nerves—just like their priding creators, the androids held heavy wires of hate and bigotry.
Save us, their people would scream, don't let them control us. We are just as human as them, our blood is just as sharp as theirs, our children are just as innocent and in need of love as theirs. Who was to tell them that their humanity was not a trait found in the north? Who would tell the labored souls that no matter how many voices they would use to scream, how many tears they would let stream, no matter how many bodies of their loved ones would duplicate in their dreams…they were never going to be seen as equal? The grace-wielders stripped their world of balance. They stole the underside of life's coin, broke the scale deeming what was plausible of the word human. What did we do to be punished in such a way? Our hearts break the same, our skin breaks the same, they would cry, What did we do to deserve our children dying young, our fathers battered blue and purple from bolstering, our mothers disconnected from trauma? Even at the brink of death they still catered plenty of strength to question those who they knew would never spare a glance their way, let alone a breath in their direction to answer a question they were taught was futile.
The atrophying Ma'kefs would forever amass enough strength to disobey those who forced scabs on their family's knees to appeal potent. Cowards, the workers would wail, weaklings with not an ounce of bravery. Tainted integrity just as vile as their synthetic blood. To the lamenting nuclei of the south, they were children using swords to wave away the society's hurricanes. The planet’s dark mistakes, they were dubbed, God's thriving mistakes. They stole a position that was never meant to be theirs from the beginning and they were maiming many just to hide the fact.
Thieves, people spat, Monsters.
Murderers.
Past the subdued glazed windows etched in the traditions of outdated roots, candlelight glowed thinly within the master monarchial palace of Draconian, who like the many of the other northern structures of stolen equity, took hedonism in sheathing its yells of panic that blared, languishing for vivacity as a stampede waned to set in for the steady crowd on the opposite side of the sovereign rope.
The buzzing transmitters of alerts trickled acidic as the microphones thundered a name. "Silverie Hacxa," the computerized voice demanded. "All present bodies are to bring Silverie Hacxa before the King and Queen." That diabolical pair were no king and queen, that little Silver knew. The venus-eyed child tucked gallantly in her arms mumbled sweetly, not altogether comprehending the stringency of their situation as she giggled at the jagged speed of her carer. "I repeat again: Silverie Hacxa is to be seized and brought before the King and Queen. Effective immediately."
The call coincided with the hollers and timely ricocheting of boots belonging to soldiers controlled by a man who believed leashing people was a form of respect- that stifling the goodwill on fancy sleeves of a million bills worn by an unfortunate woman not given druthers the best excerpt of his affection.
As her birth name continued to tear through the ears of all the castle inhabitants, the raven's hope held itself in stitches of resilience as she trekked her escape from the dismal fortress of verities never to blossom fitting for its lacking tender. The slaps let out by her bare feet muted themselves the nigher the frenetic voices of guards got, their distress inciting them to unleash orders at the other armored sheep with chunky guns as pruning as blades once they enlisted in the woman's eyes.
The maiden headed west of the corrupt royal home, the narrow aged windows of autonomy mocking her being as she proceeded with a new certainty of her shaving escape.
"Silver?" A tranquil whimper called for her through the shadows. A tiny child's dark head of hair poked through the cracks of the ample crested door, big yet sadly dull eyes brimmed to the top with unshed tears. "Mother and Father are looking for you and Ursae, Silver," the boy confided, his small hands not enough to completely wipe away his liquified distress.
"I know, Corvi," she told him, courage still holding to the strained voice-box she was conditioned to constantly use. "But we can't go with them, sweetie. We can't go with any of them. Tomorrow has to be just you, little Urs, and I." She caught his hands but he quickly let out of her gentle grasp.
His saddened spirit caught the trembling core of her fear-filled one. "No, Silver, Papa promised to make us happy," the boy spoke with confidence she knew was not his, but his father's. His mother's. "I want to help you. I want to help Ursae. I want to be a good Prince, so I can be a good king...like my papa. I want to make papa proud, Silver."
Silver's eyes scorched with grief. The boy she had grown and raised as her own was picking those monsters over her. Over the truth. She was losing him, they were corrupting him. She needed to get the prince and princess out before the enormity of their crowns ruined them.
"Don't be ridiculous, Corvax," she hissed, not using his nickname to scold. "Your parents don't care about you being happy. They make you cry. They make your sister cry. They make me cry. They don't love us. Why would anyone who claims to love you make you hurt so much?" Her question was more to herself than to the young prince.
Corvax stumbled back lightly as he glared her down in resilience mixed with outrage. "You're lying! You're lying just like mama said you would!!"
"Corvax, lower your voice!" His shouts twisted his sister's yawns into wails as she began to thrash in the woman's arms out of his stress. "You're scaring your sister!"
"GUARDS! Mother! FATHER! Silver's here! URSAE'S HERE! They're here! They're both-" Silver clasped her hand over his mouth, watching the teary-eyed boy in heartbreak. Why did the young Prince have to be so mindless?
It's not his fault, a voice that resembled her sister's murmured in her head, he's just a child. He holds too much warmth, he's like you when you were a child. He's your image, Silverie.
Silver placed a soft kiss on Corvax's forehead, her palm still keeping his voice mute as she whispered in knowing despair, "Why did you have to be so much like me, my love?" Why had the Gods cursed him to be like her?
Corvax faltered as his noiseless cries cut off in an instant. Why did you have to be so much like me, my love? The prince was always told he was like his father, nobody else. A comfortable blaze within him leaked at the comparison to her, but the way the statement left her lips like torn silk made it sad.
It wasn't supposed to be a compliment, only shattering sympathy.
Corvax's knuckles found the tip of his nose, rubbing at it with ode as he looked up to the maid with slippery eyes. His tick. A tick that made it easy for her to read his genuine emotions. His heart swelled culpable, hurt but not by Silver's tone, just the splitting aftermath of his behaviour.
A child with your streaking heart of passions, her older sister's muse of past churned, and his father's mind of cold decisions.
She always spoke the uniformed cues when it came to the prince. Her sister always knew how much her younger sister despised that simple parity, so the wise woman would finish with a soft: Or the contrary; fate can only decide the prince's final person.
"How about this, sweetie? I take Ursae somewhere safe and then I come back for you once you've decided."
His eyes caught her reflective broken ones as they trembled. "Promise?" he asked with a drowning quantity of faith as he held out his index finger to her.
You know you shouldn't, came the cruelest whisper, you liar.
The fingertip of her index found his soft and diminutive one. "I promise with all the blood in my body," she murmured placidly, gaining a smile from the little boy who let free from the door to cuddle into her.
"You should never make promises you know you can't keep, Silverie," a deep voice twirled notification from their left, effortlessly raising both their lungs to their throats.
Silver edged the girl in her arms and the boy by her waist away from the figure as she jumped in a defensive stance. The ferocious primes of the SOS belonged to ransack the original shades of her irises as she quickly recognized the dark-haired man that perched by the wall with an overcast expression.
A grace-wielder like him could easily kill you if he wanted, her father's voice jeered from memory, and you wouldn't be able to do anything to stop him.
The graceful...The hierarchy's grace-blessed with the flesh of humans and the burned-out embers of hell for blood.
Gothic Mortimer wore his usual stately mask of boring resolve as he inspected his brother and sister-in-law's first maid stagger for her air with puncturing eyes that embezzled her name. Silver hated his eyes—they were breathing in their own despicable zests, silver strapped spiders digging into cuticles as they glimpsed into people's doleful inceptions of secrecy.
Gothic stared indifferently as crystalline sweat beaded below Silver's cheeks and jaw with gazelle-like impulse. Beautiful just like her sister. The setting smoothed into a graced blizzard as the singular sentence spiked. Beautiful, yet so sinfully pitiful like mabel.
"What do you want?" Her bite spat venom of its own momba-like aspect as she eyed the black-headed prince who settled against the stone like he had been waiting for them with a threatening glare.
Seeing the devotion in her analysis and the not-so-covert guard the onyx-haired woman held for his niece and nephew, the older prince held up his hands in a means of opposed surrender.
"I come in peace, Silver." There was an underlying amusement and menace in his declaration. "I'm being entirely serious."
"What do you want, Mortimer?" her question came out in a mixture of a hiss and a growl, however, the man didn't seem the least bit intimidated by her.
"It really depends on the generous selections that are available on most occasions," he spoke indulgingly as he appreciated his reflection in the upright palace windows. "My brother really knows how to be a thorn on my side, Silverie, but you...you're really stabbing me," he insisted with a stare faltering on the princess who cuddled in Silver's arms who she gawked at him with innocent delight.
"Corvax, go wait for me in your room," she spoke to the boy who barely reached her midsection. Corvax bobbed his head, sparing one last look between his trusted maid and uncle before he set into a route for his room—young heart amassing enough fuel to strike down even the most vicious of fates.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Gothic didn't spare the younger prince a glance as he continued, "They're searching everywhere for you, Hecxa. Stealing the princess and attempting to delude our precious crowning prince. Do you know that Killian could have you publicly hanged for that? Limp and to be cleansed in front of a crowd of eager peasants? You've served yourself treason on a fine platter of death."
"I don't have time for this." Silver tried to take off but Gothic's soaring silhouette quickly put her back into a halt, his silver gaze blinking with something hazardous from under the blunt moonlight. Gothic wasn't going to let her leave until he got what he wanted. So what was it that he wanted?
"I know you hate them as much as I do, Silverie." His arms folded themselves behind his back and his face flickered with faux muse as his eyes laid themselves again on Princess Ursae. "I can help you get rid of the both of them. Permanently."
"I'm not blind enough to ever endorse your help, Gothic, even if there was a world where I was sightless."
"Ouch," the prince mumbled back in travesty hurt. "I could just summon the guards up. It would spare me the disgust of trying to be nice to an old friend."
"An old friend? We were never friends."
Gothic clicked the back of his tongue, turning away to the cerulean flashes of the city, "But we could've been that and much more, yes?"
Her threatening glare aroused a laugh from the man who folded his arms with a withdrawn nod of his head. "Hold your tiara, Maylus. I was only kidding," Gothic added with a devious smirk, striding away from them with a sway of his ebony robes and leaning on the wall to their right. "I just wanted to know where my brother put Zero's time."
"What?"
Silver knew what he was talking about: a sick tale with lava spooned stems. Her father used to warn her and her sister about tales like Zero Alerian's. Tales, he would tell them, mad tales like those aren't just a spur of thoughts, dears. The pain and death in stories like those were real, and just because some were long forgotten with time, it didn't make them any less a memory. The Draco King always spoke about The Dyson of Time like an artist who was defining his vision of a future piece. Zero's Time ruined him as a man. Just hearing those two words made her queasy. That name alone was enough to drain any man or woman's appetites to insanity. It didn't matter how much leverage someone believed they held under their nails; all there would be left at the end of the stars would be a flesh vessel of black or red blood, served for one of the 3 Kings' emptiness and lunacy. Which demon had Malcolm Alerian’s son trapped in his time? The better question raving in her mind: What were the Draconians planning to do if they got their hands on a demon's soul?
“Alerian’s Time, leriath. Did Killian tell you where he hid it?" Gothic spat his brother's name abrasively. Leriath. A mocking Garzabellien phrase for those without grace. A term used to tear the honor of people like her down to the fiasco his kind knew as her heritage.
Killian Draco was a master when it came to surprising. Silver wouldn't be surprised if he somehow managed to get his hands on something like Alerian’s Dyson Of Time. The King had already sacrificed more than her family's shattered soul and bruised dignity just to get a whiff of power; that man wouldn't need any vision to bring an entire world to fire and brimstone for more.
"No." Gothic didn't respond to her confession as he watched her out of either lack of finding or an attempt to break down her fabrication.
Lies, a foreign murmur ran the air, the monster can smell all the moulding stenches of your lies. Be careful, my dear child.
It's not a lie, her inner voice replied for her, not if it wasn't the king who hid it. Killian may have had her physically and mentally ruined but her secrets could never truly be perished. But myself. The whole reason that yesterday Silver stood opulently beside a century-old gilded throne next to Garzabel's King and Queen without a wink of black graced blood was solely due to her fictions and illusions.
Although Silver was all red-blooded Ma'kef, she'd spent most of her growing years in the world of the graceful—it was almost a disquieting shrink when it came to stroking the transitional cord of the air whenever one of their trancing fallout occurred. The King's grace was metallic, like a golden glazed serpent, it toyed under your tongue and into your clenched lungs whenever he wanted you to do something. The Queen's grace made people suffer as if their skin were lit candles. Theodosia's waiver tingled into the pores of your soul, charring every sad covering she let it touch. Gothic's grace left an extremely different sensation compared to the couple's. His was colder and much more vicious; it was grinding like glass barbs being dug into the tail of your brain with no mercy. Cold, so cold.
Silver hated the graceful's cursed allure. Their existence was bent on an unnatural force left to humanity as a mark of the Grand Three’s power, an affliction to prove that the wraith Kings of the ashes would be back to contend their authentic hierarchy of terrors. Their fading stories of devastation were inscribed on the stone walls of the south, messages, and drawings that heeded the warnings of the many survivors from their reigns of casualty. As children, Silver and her sister would spend endless nights awake, watching the streams of starlight as they wondered about the return of the three cruel brothers. Would they be displeased with the superiority the graced claimed for their charred blood under the family's curse? or would the Kings take pride in the vile shift their actions had left the world in?
Silver hated Zero's time because the mage's endorsed omnipotence had tattooed a lettered privilege that forever rendered many people from the south feelings worthless and anguished without endeavor. All to contain three men from one destructive bloodline.
A King of Gore who painted his kingdom's floors with the cells of innocents. A King of Insanity who wielded his innocent's screams of suffering like a rare piece of melody. A King of Deception who turned the world against his victims until not even their own severed souls would take their side. — A Palace Of Ulric labyrinths, Elvira Crest.
Do you think Zero can hear our prayers, May? her sister had asked quietly into the Winek constellation, do you think if he were still alive, he chooses to ignore our calls for him?
"What a shame," Gothic finally spoke but his words were a solemn whisper. I've always been a shame, a faithless basis of Silver chimed. All because of what life has done to me. No. No, those weren't her real thoughts. The Mortimer Prince was manipulating his harsh grace to influence her emotions. "I was hoping you'd be more useful to me, Silverie, but it seems your fragile genes have already diluted too much of you." I don't know, Silver whispered back. Mabel Hexca's only reply was an introverted hum as their identical gazes searched the starry necklace.
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࿐RHYS࿐
|West-end corridor of Draco Palace|
|A New year midnight|
THE GLIMMERS OF lightning pittered and scattered against the tinted screens of the agoraphobic castle. On this particular night, the dust of the moons formed into the new beginning of history as exhales that sounded life escaped the young boy that nuzzled into a bed that made his seem like misplaced led chipped off a pencil and left overlooked under a brine of white duvets. Why did you have to be so much like me, my love? That was all his brain accepted as his exhaustion cheated his passion of waiting for Silver. Why did you have to be so much like me, my love? She promised him. A promise of touch connected their hearts as they swore. She promised him with an uncrossed heart. She couldn't break it. Why did you have to be so much like me, my love? Silver Maylus Hecxa encouraged she was an ardent woman of her bonds. My love, the darkness of siesta called for the prince, close your eyes for me. The deceptive evil spoke in the sweet voice of summer daisies that belonged to the woman that he so adored, Close your eyes and our promise will come quicker than you could dream, my love. Corvax couldn't even put up a struggle before he found himself glued to the ambush of dark respite.
As the prince's mind lost itself in deep slumber, a blond man stood waiting a few turned corners away, lingering as a similar voice curled oxygen through his veins. You said you'd fix everything...would you still fix everything even if I was not there to ask? Rhys Morvoren was a man of tradition and that's how he had intended the magnitude of his family's name to remain. There was no such thing as fixing. No fix. If his whole being was created on the polar of mend, what had driven the turquoise-eyed royal to linger for the troublesome woman with Ma'kef blood of umpire? He used to hate Silver Hecxa for her garish stands of preconceived conflict. It would be more than strange if he saw himself tonight, breathlessly pacing in the dim corridors of the Draconian palace for a woman who pledged for not just her freedom, but also his family's. Would you? He wasn't ashamed as he answered the truth through his teeth: No. He couldn't quite puzzle the scene before him after the bitter words fled his lips of undying stature. The red-blooded maid stared up at him with sporadic eyes of pity. He was all black-blooded, yet she challenged to glare at him with weak, southern sorrow. How could someone whose identity was built on centuries of misfortune look up at him with such disgracing eyes?
Silver had begged him for five more minutes to collect the Draconian children but the steely tips of his grace told him the ticking promise of 5 hung as a 10 in the base of totality. Had the Ma'kef woman fallen back into the clutches of her ruthless King and Queen? Did she change her mind about Rhys's freedom? I'd rather let myself be locked up for eternity than leave you behind, her words of beyond cried out in offense. No—Silver Hecxa was too strong to flee from her cut tongue of miscellaneous vows. Too strong to let Killian and Theodosia have their way with her life again.
Then wherein the gods was she?
Tangerine, emerald, and azure flickered in gleams of civilization as they offered up positions of shadows to the—
A scream tore through the caving castle, startling not just the blond man but also the deafness that once inundated the palace. It was a woman's scream of horror. Rhys broke into a sprint—the closer he got, the higher the octaves of the screams quivered. His hands snatched on his grandfather's voltaic firearm that sat in the holder of his side, a dragon engraved sword dangled on his opposite hip, begging for the taste of iron. Not now, a mysticism hum warned his fierce martial bloodlust. Not tonight.
The scream seemed to bring on the attention of workers and other imperial guests who poked their heads out of their doors and in the direction of the disturbance. The heavy brands of boots rang from the other side of Rhys's path, only coming to stop as the woman's screams sketched into several other terrified cries and sobs.
The sea of people split at both ends of the crowd, exposing both the blond prince and the sharp-featured Queen of Ambrosie at the other end. Stella Scorpius shot a grim glimpse towards the prince in spoiling guilt he couldn't decipher the origin of. The usual fuzzy feeling of her grace recoiled at his presence, it crawled away and under the waves of the bodies like a fearful sacrifice. Why? The murmuring crowd further split in the shape of a catwalk, showcasing the scene as if it was Noah's terminal intention for the Morvoren monarch to witness the sight laid naked for everyone's view.
Would you still fix everything even if I was not there to ask?
There, in a pool of her own rosy humanity was Silver Hecxa. His last prospect for reign and autonomy...dead. Her eyes were wide open and empty as she stared up into the frivolity of death with crimson blood spewing out of her. Her dark hair curled around her in a halo, sable spirals washing away from her like the valuable piece of stolen art her doom had made her. Something is wrong, an esoteric whisper within the palace's crevices admitted to the prince. Look again. Look again and control her unbroken pictures of the past. Staring back at her frozen body of relinquished esprit, Rhys finally noticed the incomplete weight and warmth her arms twisted stiffly out for. When he last spoke to her, Silver had Princess Ursae fastened to the curve of her arms, holding her tightly as they set off to collect the prince. She's not here. Where was she? Where was the princess?
Garzabel's luck of demolishing tyranny was seeping ruby from her vessels and their key, the 2nd nation's future queen-to-be, was nowhere to be seen.
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࿐RENZO࿐
|??-March 2, 7410|
FAR AWAY FROM the metallic doors of the Draconian castle and under the undying blares of commercial holograms, the nerves of a group particularly rowdy people altered as they trampled through a throng of others, none of their one-sided consciouses grasping the mysterious man with a small girl tucked in the centre of his arms, both looking up at the zooming electrical automobiles that drummed in momentum with the child's sheltered rapture.
The toddler skimmed through the patterns of fluorescent glows as she took in the humming of the unusual man's pulse. His heartbeat was soft—some would say it was a light twinkle of vehemence as it pounded against the hard stone cover that encased it. A tinge of grace soothed the girl from the depth of the man's jet blood, like a net catching her at the rear of her fall, it stabilized her with a buoyant call. I got you, his cushioning power spoke, it's alright.
The odd man, face as foggy as the busy day, finally came to a stop at one of the neon hotels that towered over the suspended city traffic, whizzing electrically above the many individual heads, each one of the doors inside the hotel as identical as the next. He waited inside the lively sanctuary as its residents stumbled around, uncaring of the mess their ended weekends of parties and alcohol had made them. It seemed wrong for the curious duo to be there—like the night shattered in prime flowers, the two stood out. His cloaked head reached close to the upper ending of one of the numbered doors that darkened at his looming figure, his free hand tensing on the bronzing knob from the millions of nerves that rippled at his blazed blood. It's meant to be. It has to be.
The elevator a few doors down pinged and out came a cloaked man, an array of weapons peeking at their surroundings from under his trench coat with every stride he made. The armed man hesitated about the several stained doors in a maudlin loss as he surveyed about for the digits that were jotted down on his bare hand. After a few moments, he paused, eyes halting on the final door. He hesitated once he took in the taller man near the door that candidly stared at him with a mask of animosity, almost telepathically instructing him to proceed. His steps were brief and reluctant as he pulled himself before the lanky man with eyes so deep it made him stress dissolving to the filthy floor because of how many holes the singular glare dug into him.
"Renzo?" The newcomer murmured and a gleeful giggle broke from the child in the other man's grasp. She seems fond of you, a seductive tease caressed the bizarre man's ear. It's not always too late to change your mind and keep her.
A tragic scowl garnished the outlines of his battle-marked face. No, she likes the grace. The grace was calling to her blood.
"That is you, right?" The equipped man's question cracked a dangerous dose that could be only heard by the two as his concern washed down with the wild reception from the floor below.
The strange man raised a brow, beckoning for him to come closer as his hands slipped from the door to secure the baby. Another giggle from the child rang the hall, turning the interrogation towards the youngling.
"What is that?" The brown-headed man grumbled cautiously as he took a step back, almost as if he was fearing the child would attack him. Still as paranoid as his reflection and as dense as his knives.
"This-" The unusual man bent the child closer towards himself, "is Séraph."
"And?" A slightly transparent sneer worked the second man's mouth as the scenery lights from the lit market outside sparked against the tanned complexion of his face with a hazy lure. The drunk howls and laughter from outside came out muffled against the lean windows of the hotel corridors. "I should care because?"
"I need you to look after her, Darci."
"You need me to look after her?" Darci Alchemy repeated, not seeming to have clicked with the sincerity of the man's tone. Renzo didn't react to his incredulity, just gazing with an emptiness that could annihilate any other living person. Although the shadowy man's face exhibited nothing, it would've been yarn to say his eyes didn't contain a hazardous quantity of unraveling dilemmas.
"You need me to look after...after that?" The disbelieving scoff bounced with flickers of the apartment lights.
"That is what I said, is it not?" Renzo asserted, pushing the girl into Darci's arms. At the loss of his enchanted comfort, Séraph broke into a vociferous wail as she struggled to wiggle out of Darci's unfamiliar grip.
"What! For how long?!" Darci cried, holding the squirming child at an arm's length.
"Not long enough to get attached," Renzo admitted as he set towards the climbing elevator. Darci didn't speak for a while, only eyeing the crying child. Why was it crying?
The drone of the elevator pitched again before Renzo called out to Darci, "Oh, and Darci?" Darci's gaze drifted off the child in his clutch and towards the moon-eyed man who gave the pair a cracked smirk brandishing a frightening abundance of fulfillment. "Her full name is Séraphin Alchemy." And with that last confession, Renzo's face disappeared behind the metallic doors of the falling elevator.
Darci's eyes bulged wide with shock as he stared at the girl who ceased her battling from exhaustion. "Séraphin," he mumbled back the baby's name, stricken with awe. "Séraph." He pulled the child closer for a better look, but then her golden name sliced back through the air like a dressed frisbee.
Séraph babbled with fascination as the rumbles of Darci's deep voice clattered from within his armored chest. "What the hell do you mean Alchemy!?"