𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐑𝐎𝐒𝐒𝐄𝐃; ʜᴘ (𝐀𝐃𝐎𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐃)

𝟏𝟎𝟔; ᴊᴜsᴛ ᴡᴏʀᴅs

"... WHAT?" Ophiuchus chocked out. "That is impossible nobody should have been able to survive that."

"Did you forget? Her body was never retrieved. You just assumed she has been turn to ashes due to the heat of the flames." Narcissus explained, then looked Ophiuchus dead in the eyes.

"Your flames."

His eyes began switching between sterling and heliotrope, his own voice over lapping it's self. Ophiuchus and Corvus were fighting for control.

"I didn't mean to kill her!"

As soon as they said it, their throat closes up with the aggression of a boa constrictor and they slam their mouth shut as if they can catch the tail end of the confession and reel it back in before it reaches anyone's ears. They cannot. It twists around the hall like something alive, slithers up to each hero and sinks its fangs into them so that one by one they flinch and gape, heads revolving to stare at them in shocked horror.

"You didn't mean to, but in the end you did." Narcissus hummed. "The whole reason you wear gloves, refusing to see your own hands as in your eyes they will always be stained crimson with her blood."

Narcissus then walked up to them, Silas and Elias in their arms frozen in fear as Narcissus approached them.

"Don't you remember it? The sound of her screams, begging for you to stop?" Narcissus placed his hand under their chin and forced them to look up at him.

He raised his shades and rested him onto the crown of his head, allowing them to see his glassy eyes, that started into theirs.

"Oh who am I kidding? You have her screams always playing in the back of your mind as a reminder for what you've done."

He is a mastermind at this game of half-truths and white lies and the sword of Damocles.

When Narcissus aims to hurt he would never do so with his physical actions, Narcissus always aims to hurt with his barbed words and personal jabs. He spits out carefully selected phrases that cut you to the soul with each sentence, with each reminder. Narcissus wants to make his points verbally, wielding it like a knife to the heart, and he's damn good at it when he does.

Narcissus fought with words, cutting and stabbing with things intangible, designed to hurt more than any blade or spell. It made him dangerous, especially in a world where words mattered more than the truth.

"I—" Ophiuchus and Corvus were struggling to find the right words to say.

"Use your words." Narcissus held onto his jaw and applied pressure. "Eros, you are the sun, the brightest and most devastating of all stars. You should be more dignified than this."

"I've kept her safe, something you couldn't do." He told them, as their eyes continued to flicker from sterling to heliotrope.

"How pathetic. I really expected better."

This was wrong.

So, so, very wrong.

Ophiuchus Lestrange, was breaking down due to a mere few words spoken to him.

"Get yourself together." Narcissus told them as their eyes stopped flickering, and now were heterochromic, sterling on the right and heliotrope on the left.

"Who are you?" Narcissus asked.

"I- I don't know." They muttered as their body was shaking, as Narcissus let go of their face.

This was a disturbing sight.

Seeing such a powerful individual broken down by Narcissus so easily, as if it were nothing.