Garder mon Ame

Chapter Nineteen: Consummation

Your cold hands envelop mine,
A polite smile brings me to my feet and a fierce confidence twirls me out into the limelight.
You bow;
I curtsy.
Let the dance with the devil begin.

Wary of my surroundings,
Look down; look up; look around.
You tilt my chin, and I'm staring into your eyes.
Eyes so cold they could kill;
Eyes so cold they could fill an emptiness within me.

Spin me out; spin me back in.
A dangerous dance here:
It's pure impurities.
A turn into lust; a turn away from love.
Twirl me into hate; dip me down into envy.
Slowly rise me back up into lies.

A slight lift to the left,
A slight tap twice.
Where's my virtue?
Let me control you.
Where's my honesty?
Past your eyes, I cannot see.
Where's my goodwill?
Running down my back is a rough chill.

The fire's rising, burning relentlessly.
You lift me gently, still with your eyes searing into mine.
Let me look away!
I beg; I plead.
It's too late.
I close my eyes;
It's too late.

Look to my left. Look to my right.
Fire.
There's a fire.
Everyone around is burning
-Except for us.

Heart's beating fast, blood's running cold.
What should I do?
What am I to do?
What I do best, and with a wicked smile to impress.

'Look into my eyes. Don't stop dancing. Don't stand still, and you'll be okay.'
I look into the eyes of he with the dark voice. Clever entity, sure, but no match for me.
I've been here before; I know better.

Another lift, high up above the fire.
Reaching the ground, I whisper into his ear:
'Let me go, and you shall have me as you wish.'
Stunned eyes and a plastic smile nod to me.
A hand on my lower back releases me as the other twirls me away from him.
I have won.
My deceit will save myself.
But my will turns me back into his arms, past of my magic plan.

Master manipulator.
Switch hands, lead me through the spin in this dance with the devil.
Make me think I control you;
Make me think I have the power,
But that's your power.
I'm the master manipulator;
I've learned from the best.

~Ximena Nunez

"I dub thee Wrath."

Grim made a show of it, twirling his sickle about and resting it on Ardin's shoulder. She was even told to kneel. How primal, she thought. How disgustingly happy Grim was. But why should he not have been? Ardin was pleased as well, but Grim was positively elated.

Ardin stood up and stared into Grim's blue eyes. Green and blue, so close to being equal. She took her gun into her hand and pointed it in between those eyes. "Point. Shoot. It's so easy."

Grim laughed. "Good. Because now's the time for more bloodshed. Plato said, 'Only the dead have seen the end of war,' but I say, Death is just the beginning of the war. The bigger picture, if you want to say.

"Not philosophy, but 'let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt."

"How inspiring," Ardin said. "What inspires you, Grim?"

"Crimson," he immediately replied. "Sin. You do know how much I adore sin, do you not?"

Did he really want to play this game? Now, of all times? Ardin wondered if it was just to indoctrinate, or if there was something behind the witty banter of greater minds. If it really was the latter, she did not care. Her love was stolen long ago.

Grim moved in closer. A rough hand grabbed her neck, though in an embrace or in a choke hold, she was not sure. "Are you ready to get what you want, Ardin?"

He meant vengeance. He meant so much more. What would it be like, she questioned, to be owned by a man who desired power over everything? Or was this just another one of the Devil's enigmatic games, one of paradoxes and beating hearts?

Ardin nodded.

He was cold. She was colder. The intimacy meant nothing. Or, perhaps, Ardin thought with every kiss and every article of clothing tossed aside, it was merely a dance of competency as each grasped for control. The ascendency of the antaen. A confirmation that they were both about to rise. He was rough. She swallowed the pain and moved with agony, forceful right back. He laughed at the groans that escaped. She bit at him. He did say he lived for crimson. This, this was the literal dance of Death. She had made a deal with the Devil. Grim just sealed her fate with a final thrust of the hip.

Ardin hardly bothered with the cleanup. She just threw her clothes back over her wings and said, "Is that it, then?"

"So blunt," Grim chuckled. "'When you dance with the Devil, you don't get to pick the tune.'"

"The coda is all that matters," Ardin said.

"Ah. The finish. You did not get to choose that, either." He laughed when Ardin just scowled at him.

"Can I at least choose locality?"

Grim drew out the pause before his answer by putting his clothes back on deliberately and slowly. "It depends what you have in mind."

"'There's no place like home.'" Ardin could not help but mirror Grim's smile She supposed it was slightly handsome.

"There is lore that would label Dorothy a murderer, so I would deem it appropriate." Grim picked up his terrible sickle. Ardin clutched her gun to her heart. "Shall we, dearest Wrath of mine?"

Ardin smirked. "Let's go kill some Guardians."