The Burning Rose

8 ~ SYMPHONY

"Take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die
I don't belong,
And my beloved,
Neither do you."

~The Lakes (~TaylorSwift)

Symphony

There's something horrible about perfection. Something enraging about an illusion so perfectly satiating that one does not know how to reach beyond it. 

And maybe the very core of his love for her was saturated in the camaraderie of recognising that illusion. Of taking dip after hedonistic dip in its sweet depth while also never really allowing it to drown oneself. 

Maybe this was him taking another such dip as he leaned against one of those gold-engraved columns, as he drank in the sight of her in the dark expanse of the music hall. The royal family's private music hall, albeit, but one that only two people could possibly occupy at this hour. 

The tunes of the veena raged through the darkness of the hall; not a single candle lit as night wrapped around the granite and onyx slabs and columns, as if attempting to suck the very life out of the golden engravings and the too-still, too-dark, knee-deep water of the decorative body that wrapped around the hall.

This was indulgence on both of their fronts. The aggression in every tune that her fingers glided over was primordial seduction and he had, unlike his brothers, decided to indulge in the consuming lilt of it, getting dragged all the way to here. A deity eager to be worshipped and scorned in equal measures. A predator, a prey. 

No moon remained to cascade rays over the exposed dark skin of his torso, or the pieces of gold that clung to it. It was just her, and him, and that unmatched seduction of the rage that she wove into that tune. 

The music climbed up a rapid crescendo, almost snatching his stuttering heart right out of his body and dragging the bloody organ through dimensions no mortal should touch. He let the signature smirk steadily linger on his lips even as he stared straight into the heart of the darkness and let the melody wrap him in its snare and render his whole being prone as it coursed through him like some uncontested spell. 

Her characteristic scent threaded right underneath his skin and poisoned the blood in his very veins and just as he surrendered to it, his smirk deepening, that mystique string stretched taut and-

Broke. 

And he was free-falling, gasping for a breath he did not know how to draw. Only to be caught in the tender, sharp embrace of her voice. 

"I don't remember the Rudra Veena being classified as an instrument of musical seduction."

His chuckle came naturally, chin dipping in a show of respect she won't catch in that darkness. 

"Only because sirens were never quiet powerful enough to mould its symphony.", his voice reminded him of the heat that coursed through him - misplaced, hedonistic. 

She tutted, the sound barely-there in the sea of darkness. The only explanation behind how she placed the instrument back in its right place without having to light a single lamp, or could even use it in this dark in the first place was that she had frequented this place at this hour enough times while he was away, bringing the Sivis and Rohitakas to their knees. 

Her jewellery clinked softly in the darkness as she presumably touched her forehead to the instrument - and a heavier clink - and possibly to the floor. He counted the steps, the soft tinkering of jewellery, as she made her way to where he stood - still leaning against that pillar of granite and gold engravings that dug into his skin to leave imprints of inscriptions and patterns from the ages of the gods themselves.