For the damned | ✓

31

CENTURIES AGO - PART IV

THE TIME SPENT WITH Niccolo in his temple was surprisingly fun. His complete lack of rules were such a weird thing in comparison to what she was used to and yet his bored wandering of his temple every day was something she could very much find herself in. It was a weird mix of her old habits and the new she found comfort in, Sunday arriving in no time. She stood in front of the floor to length mirror, stone snakes circling around it, and turned around to look at the back of her gown.

Having the ability to create something out of thin air had always been handy, but this was the first time she used it conscious of the fact that people were going to see her in it. With her mother she hadn't cared and with Helio it had always been easy, so comfortable that she didn't care that much for what she was in, as long as he was there. She wondered why he was so much on her mind nowadays, but then again, she didn't have much to think about.

Her gown had an off the shoulder corset the same color of the opals on her ears, the silk skirt spilling down to the floor. She was putting her hair up and then letting it fall down her shoulders again, wondering what to do with it, when Niccolo interrupted her.

"You've been doing that for a while now," he said," make a decision."

"How long have you been standing there?" she asked, before adding," and what should I choose?"

"Long enough to have seen you do that repeatedly," he said," and haven't you learned by now not to ask me anything? I give terrible advice."

He had exchanged his usual robes for a crimson and black suit, golden symbols lining his cuffs and a snake slithering around his neck. The one they tried to tattoo on his hand still was healing again, but slower now. Niccolo had told her it usually took a thousand tries of cutting it into an immortal's skin before it remained permanent. He was at two hundred now. The sight of the markings made her want to reach out to heal them, but he had told her he had to have them. They were the markings of the Augustine, he had said, and what was he without his cursed title?

"Down it is," she said, following him as they walked towards the exit of the temple.

"So," he said," are you excited about the inauguration?"

"Your tone makes me sense I shouldn't be," Delilah replied, glancing at him amusedly.

"You're correct," he sighed dramatically," you'll wish you were back here when you see all the gods. They really suck."

"Even the new Reaper candidate?" she said," I hear he's quite kind."

Niccolo turned to look at her confusedly. "Who'd you hear that from? The temple's followers usually only praise me and your mother hates him." He then decided he didn't care, shaking his head. "Either way, I suppose he's not that bad. A real buzzkill though. Every time I'm near him I just get a vision of him doing his paperwork diligently in the future."

"He has a lot of responsibility on his shoulders," she defended him.

"What does it matter?" Niccolo shrugged as they reached the end of the temple," it's not like you know the guy."

She parted her lips to correct him, but Niccolo didn't leave her much room for it, grabbing her hand and jumping down the platform in the abyss beneath. When she blinked their surroundings had vastly changed, a floor of mosaic beneath her feet and walls resembling butterfly wings around her, opals infused in the fragile structures to let the light reflect down softly. The gods were loud around them, already enjoying the party and the ambrosia which flowed so richly it had colored the floor golden in the many places it had spilled. Delilah looked down at the drink of the gods sticking to the mosaic, but all she saw were mortal souls, each of them running to find purpose in their life in their own fragmented mosaic, some of them lighting up when they connected with each other.