Eternal Sins

•Chapter Twenty-Five•

Mournful. Rigid askewity. Apprehension that plagued her.

Izabelle lay in the white river, cleansing away her flesh as it ate at her like acid. There was no pain on the outside, not after a bit of time in it completely submerged. But inside she died once more, a shooting star that frayed apart in front of her own mirror.

When they returned, Breem had brought her here instantly, to rid her of the joys she got to enjoy for a day in moving time.

The innitial submersion was agony, the milky tone of the rushing water biting into every inch of her. Pink mixed into the white, chunks of her scraped off.

Once she was down to bone it was much calmer, pleasant. A building itch being scratched, satisfied, until it burned with irritation from excess.

Grand relief, her sparkling transparent soul lifting from the water. Nothing weighed her down any longer, her feather light limbs familiar in their grace. She climbed from within looking poised and proper.

Taegan stood at the edge of flittering darkness, the illuminated river farther and farther as she stepped to him in silence.

He was preoccupied with a small skeleton in his hands, animated in it's actions, wagging a bony tail as he rubbed on it's bared skull. Taegan's bag-a-bones pet, Leviathan, was resting on his large palm, entertaining the god from his ever present boredom.

Most, if not all of the gods, kept entertainment attuned to their tastes. Whether they were pets, phantoms, assistants, companions, they were all the same in retrospect. Taegan was a god that kept many around him, in miniature and realistic size, in phantom or bone nature. He loved his creations and Izabelle was used to seeing such small creatures crawling in and out of his pockets and sleeves.

Izabelle had, in fact, been the only assistant Taegan had ever taken and after she arrived, Breem requested she work for him as well. She wasn't sure of Breem's history with assistants, she only knew Taegan's because he had told her in his proposal to her when he sought her out.

It had been an argument then, the gods confused with Breem's necessity to have her, too. Taegan and Breem worked together often and so Taegan allowed it easily, seeing relief in mutual responsibility.

But Izabelle hadn't agreed to it then and no one asked her permission. She had to move forward with it, terrified of Breem. The god who looked like the demons the humans feared with all their might, that they outlined in the spaces they couldn't see through.

After many, many years, she grew more comfortable with him, less jumpy. He was commandeering but not insufferable and he usually had tasks for her, whereas Taegan usually had no use for her. A trophy representing one of his most fruitful creative spurts was all she was for Taegan. A sparkly, grand little pet held onto his tail through the deep.

Breem gave her purpose at the very least. He let her monitor ripples when he wanted a reprieve from pain and blood, which had been a secret up until their latest rescue mission.

Izabelle had been the one to find it, the puddle that glitched and faded, altered and torn. So she had to present the case.

It was the highest honor an assistant, a basic soul, had ever been allowed to bare.

"You're back!" Taegan brightened over her, Leviathan skittering from his palm and up to his shoulder to rest beside the god's neck.