Empire of Deception (Harry Styles AU)

Chapter 30

The saltwater air is chilly tonight, the moon hung up high in the heavens as it casts it's beams over the ripples of smooth ocean. The party from within the boat can be heard distinctly from out here, but I merely gaze upon the inky darkness beneath me, my arms resting on the smooth wooden railing of the vessel.

Wispy clusters of cirrus obscure a few stars from my view but for the most part the sky is clear. Thousands upon thousands of bright specks pepper the night sky and for a moment I am both bewildered and in awe of how vast this incredible universe is.

To my right a couple emerges from the hazy depths of the dining room, stumbling onto the patio—clearly drunk. My eyebrows knit in confusion as her clothes suddenly start to come off and I am oh-so-tempted to mention that the pool is at the stern of the yacht. There is nothing here but tables that aren't sanitary enough for them to... do stuff on.

I stand merely a stone throw away yet the two still go at each other and some part of me strikes this as odd. The couple seem off. I've been around drunk people and obviously spend most of my time intoxicated, but I have never attempted to rip off the girls clothes in the presence of a random stranger. And I don't think they are about to ask me to join.

I walk away quietly but I know it won't matter, the two of them are completely lost in their own world. Instead my hand follows the smooth wooden grains of the railing, all the way to the mid point of the boat. Mounted on the wall is the boat's name engraved upon an expensive block of antique wood. Teak, perhaps? My fingers glide over the lettering but this is much smoother and richer in color than teak. Marabou, I finally decide. I focus my attention on the name which is foreign to me but doesn't seem like it is derived from the Italian language. I try to think of latin roots and simple words but nothing seems to strike me as being somewhat comparable to the name before me.

"It's Greek." She approached me as softly as one would approach a ticking time bomb. I look at her and I watch as the moon struggles to illuminate her, it's efforts always destroyed by the black in which she clothes herself in. The angle in which Victoria faces me is half hidden by chiseled shadows that carve out her cheekbones and make everything about her seem more exotic. "Palírroies meaning or referring to the tide." She looks out to sea before turning towards me again. "Kai ekeíni ti stigmí , ópos eída ton trópo pou to fengári ríchnei to xórki eínai páno apó tin palírroia allázei , eída óti i dimiourgía den ítan káti na fovoúntai , allá káti na agapoún kai na agapáme," she recited, ""And in that moment, as I watched the way the moon cast it's spell over the changing tide, I saw that creation was not something to fear, but something to love and to cherish"." I was caught off guard by the mesmerizing and hypnotic sound of ancient Greek poetry rolling off her tongue with impeccable ease.

"Why Greek?" I ask, referring to the fact that we are in Italy.

"Why not Greek?" challenges Victoria. "At one point, Greece was the center of of civilization and birthplace of some of the most amazing astronomers and philosophers the world had ever seen. It is a culture rich with pride, intelligence, humility and vision."

The light of knowledge surrounds her as she stands tall, probably still thinking about how amazing Greece was. "I better get back to the party," I find myself mumbling, suddenly feeling suffocated.

"No, wait," she stops me. Her tone shifts into a lower, more submissive one yet it still held authority. She was going to speak and I was going to listen. "My grandparents were Buddhist-turned-Catholics but I grew up in the Catholic church before eventually switching when I was a little bit older to a more modern take on Christianity—the Christian church itself. Now, I don't consider myself a religious person let alone a practicing one, but I retained morals. At one point I realized that despite both churches worshipping the same God, they each portrayed him differently. In Catholicism he was someone we were supposed to be able to get to but we couldn't. We needed a priest—a mediator—to confess our sins in order to be forgiven. He was someone who was so close yet so far and I always felt distant. When we moved churches it was like this... This "God" came alive. Suddenly he lived in our hearts and we didn't need a mediator. Jesus was the mediator. We could pray casually to him as if he was our friend and someone we loved which is exactly what he was. He was this almighty power with a tender and big heart who loved us to no extent. He was forgiving, even when we committed the same sin over and over again."