Ouroboros II | The Wolf

6 | Bezel The Fly-Lord On The Wall

Bezel had been to Italy more times than he cared to recount. He had wandered the cobblestone streets, watching with hollow and listless eyes as the world's most overrated art came to life. He had chatted with Leonardo as he smeared oils across his canvases, gotten drinks with Michelangelo. He had been in the city of statues as most the torturous scenes down the hall had been sketched out. 

Well, of course, he had only been there to seek the thread which occasionally thrummed up inside of him. No vast ocean's worth of paint had ever blossomed with even half as much color as the simple barmaid he'd found in Florence--so none of it had mattered. Not then, and not now. 

And yet--it was art, what he watched now. A living and breathing portrait of stained whites and onyx darks. It was the Bishop, coming undone and back together. It was a better performance than Bezel had ever been able to curate. An act that ran so deep, it fooled the actor. 

Ira Rule was becoming the perfect Bishop--and Bezel Pangeran was becoming nothing. He dragged out, with strained effort, one small wisp of strength from the hallows of his bones. He stretched it between his fingers, pulling until the smoke expanded into a blanket he could slip beneath. 

Ira straightened his spine beneath his black Bishop robe. He lifted his head, holding it high at the end of his pale throat. The sound of his racing heart pittered softly down into contentment. Every loose stitch of himself, he ripped out and replaced with steel hooks. There was nothing that could come between him and his goal, nothing that could shake his conviction. 

Bezel was trying not to expel the contents of his empty stomach across the pure hall. Which, in theory, seemed quite achievable. He hadn't eaten in years--yet his body protested. His stomach rolled, his eyes fluttered shut. His head, which was never quite full, seemed dizzily empty. As if all the thoughts inside of him had been leached out and woven into the material of his magic. 

The Bishop had been swallowed whole, consumed by the perfect image of a Heimrian knight. He gripped the brass ring tightly. His cold blue eyes shifted, seeking but never quite finding Bezel in the pearl hall. 

"Are you sure about this?" The Bishop asked.

Bezel tilted his head, absorbing the question and all it's possible meanings. "I know my magic is running thin, but I can hold onto this much."

"No, I-" Ira sighed, shaking his head. "I mean if we resort to your plan, it means mine didn't work. It means I didn't secure safety for the He-Goats. Will you still help me?"

Bezel tilted his head in consideration--and then stopped, remembering Ira couldn't see him. "Just let me worry about that. Besides, I have a much more pressing question."

"Which is?" Ira asked.

"How do I look?" The Prince teased.

"Very handsome," the Bishop agreed blankly. "You should definitely stay this way--maybe like all the time." 

"I can do an hour." 

"Make it two." 

"Not fair, dar-" 

Ira Rule shoved the heavy oak doors inward. The hinges squealed, sounding very similar to pigs in slaughter. In the open doorway, Ira Rule stood out as the single target. Against the empty white hall, his robe appeared the darkest of nights. 

Bezel leaned forward on his toes, arching up over Ira's left shoulder to drink in the design of the room. The cavern had been transformed into an amphitheater. Rows and rows of seating lined the walls, high and low, but all slanting down towards the bottom of the basin where a dias had been constructed. The stage to the grand theater. A hideous chunk of pale wood, risen up from the cold marble floors to form a half-moon shaped bench. Just as with the pews leading to it, the bench was also at full capacity. A sudden hush, as coating and thick as mist, filled the cavern. All eyes, popped and wide, turned towards the Bishop lingering in the doorway.