Eternal Sins

•Chapter Twenty-Two•

Strings of flesh gauged at her, slicing inside and out. Deep penetrating itch, scorching syphones of matter. It was too dark to see, the squelching of blood, guts and heated skin bursting in her ears. Spit out on the other side of creation, Izabelle lay on a white linen floor.

Dark raven hued hair sopped in fiber bits and thick strands of soaking blood that clung to her equally doused skin. She was a woman, not a baby, as all usually were when they went through such torment.

In a tossed pile of limbs, Izabelle turned her head and breathed. Filled real lungs with real pumping blood for the first time in.. hundreds of years.

Blinking through shades of red, she opens her dark eyes, the deepest shade of blue that man had yet to know.

"Lovely," Emerys stares with their black pits for eyes, cocking a red veined face. "I forgot how much I had adored her human form."

Breem huffs, looking over Izabelle's features, vaguely skimming, "ten fingers, ten toes, two eyes, mission accomplished." He holds a hand out to her and she takes it. But she had forgotten the weight of flesh, of strong full bones. Humans had trajectory, they grew with themselves. Izabelle would have to learn how to function fully grown. She had no grace period.

This unfortunate misstep caused her to tumble, the puddle at her feet not helping her either as she feel forward to the feet of her Gods.

Breem caught her, the warm and the wet seeping onto him as he took her into his arms, strapping her across his chest. "You will have to relearn your functions," he tells her sternly.

She nods, afraid to speak. Would her voice be the same flighty, whimsical one she knew? She would miss it.

"Take her to be cleaned, Breem. I will handle the afterbirth." Ilanna stood at Emerys' side, waving a hand of branch and stone.

Izabelle took in the blood cloud where she had been spit out, the chunks, the steam floating up from the red pool.

"You are confident she has no abnormality?" Breem questions, Izabelle feeling so heavy in her presence against him. Being a phantom had been so much easier, she realized that now. Maybe this had been a mistake.

"You dare question us?" Emerys raises their voice at him.

"A human woman is not your usual project. Just small seeds of them."

"She's fine," Ilanna waves him off again, more urgent this time, "be off. The poor girl is shivering."

Was she? With her head rested on Breem's chest, she could feel her body twitching against his perfect poise. Her eyes went wide, looking down at her wobbling knees in his hand.

Embarrassment, that was what washed through her as the three of them laughed. Laughed at the auspicious normalicy of flesh and blood in their world.

He left the room then, carrying her through the darkness, away from the stark light of creation.

Her eyes were once again closed, paying no mind, instead just listening to the way her heart thumped in her ears when it was silent.

He was moving her down, placing her in a warm spring. When she looked, the crystal blue water was being corrupted by her body. The red consumed it all, running from her skin, chasing new prospects. The water worked itself on her, rubbing away at her skin to free it of stain and filth.

She looked up at him, watching the red water waves reflect in his glass like eyes. The spec of her skin in view, pink and pale against the darkness of the water she had soiled.