♱ •⋅ 1750 B.C. ⋅• ♱ •⋅ Quinn ⋅• ♱
His arms wrapped around my body and then everything seemed to be fine.
I no longer felt the blood, nor the weight of the souls that I plucked, that I hurt.
"Everything will be fine" he repeated as a melodic song and if it was Calisto who told me those things... I naturally believed.
"How can you not like it here?" I asked as I stared at that landscape, the sky, the grass that resembled a red foliage. The stars that always shone in the sky almost always cloudy.
Calisto snorted.
"I don’t know..." he said sincerely "maybe... I just can’t see the beauty of hell when I didn’t have you by my side."
A twinge struck my chest, a twinge of happiness and hope.
"Fool" I mocked wrapping my arms around his neck.
I loved that being.
He loved his color-changing eyes, loved his foolish way of thinking that the world was more beautiful outside of hell. He loved the way the rebellious waves of black hair he had struggled to unravel around his delicate face.
I loved the features of Callisto, just as I loved his sonic voice, just as I loved his poorly made drawings, his melancholy poetry.
"I’m your fool" he said with a smile, his arms around my waist, pulling me, hugging me.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
"I was just thinking that I really like you," I confessed and Calisto joked.
"I’m happy, my dear. After all, think how sad it wouldn’t be if you didn’t like it, am I right? I’d be devastated..."
I slapped his arm.
"Idiot!"
"Oh, you fucking idiot!" He said kissing my cheek, the childish smile taking hold of his lips "his idiot who will be by his side for ALL ETERNITY!"
His tone was one of veiled threat, a threat full of mockery.
"OH! HEAVENS! OH! THROUGH THE NINE HELLS! THROUGH THE CIRCLES OF DANTE! THROUGH..."
"STOP IT!" he said laughing and kissing me "his dramatic compulsive!"
"Look who’s talking!" I replied and Asmodeus' hand touched my shoulder, making me wake up. Wake up.
"Quinn?" he called me, his ruby eyes fixed on me. fixed on the being I was now.
I sighed, a long, tired sigh.
"Sorry..." I said as I cleared my throat "I... think I fell asleep while searching for..."
"It’s all right" he said interrupting me "a red letter came with a golden seal."
I blinked.
A letter?
No.
It was impossible.
It could not be...
"Oh! No! Heavens! You’re pale as a corpse! Well... theoretically you’re one, but... you know what I meant" joked and then you blew "no, your child didn’t die" and hurried to say "I just meant... an important letter came. We need to... go."
I swallowed it hard.
I felt my body tremble.
Loren wasn’t the one who died.
It was not Loren.
There was nothing wrong with my son.
"Who?" I asked and he shrugged.
"Apparently? No one who matters to you" was what came down to answering "but someone important enough that we can go to Callisto."
I raised one of my eyebrows.
"Why is that?"
"Because your child is better" that phrase hit me like an anvil, an anchor that finally made me set foot on dry land.
"What is it?"
"Loren" Asmodeus repeated "your child, okay."
How long had it been?
The question seemed so obvious on my face that the prince laughed low while answering me aloud.
"It’s been two weeks since you locked yourself down here, Quinn," he said as he pointed at the dark stone walls, lit by torches like a medieval castle.
The tables were uncomfortable, the books had the same smell of ancient scrolls and everything there seemed to crumble and certainly crumbled without the amount of magic that Asmodeus had imbued in each of those pieces.
It was the ninth prince’s underground library. The library that not even the other princes were allowed to enter and that the menso half of them - did not know of existence.
I stretched on the wooden chair where I was sitting.
"Get up" he said in a yawn "we need to go visit your child at once."
"But..."
"Did you find something?" His eyes sparkled for a measly second with something that seemed hopeful, but as fast as it came... it fell apart.
"Not... nothing very useful beyond what we know" I heard myself answer as I shook hands in fists and Asmodeus sighed with a certain disgust.
"Then stop torturing yourself. At least one of us deserves to be happy and see his child."
A sharp pain arose in my chest.
"Don’t talk like that... you’ll see your child one day."
He snitched.
"One day we’ll..."
"Asmodeus is a great..."
"No" his hand stopped in front of my face and he smiled "come on, let’s just go to the asshole you married. I may not have my daughter, I may not be able to return yet, but I will be content to see Callisto confused wondering about you."
I stared.
"You’re not gonna tell him?"
"Of course not" Asmodeus said laughing "think I’ll deliver all this fun on a platter? NO! I want him to suffer and cry before he realizes you’re back."
"Sadistic."
"Always, my dear" purred, ruby eyes shining with malice "I am sadistic, seductive, irresistible and certainly a sin in physical form."
Smile.
The moments with Asmodeus were light, calm, serene, like the moments I had with Samael during my life in heaven. They were purely chaotic and at the same time relaxing.
"It’s a shame you’re leaving," I heard myself say as he stood up and the prince laughed.
"Will you miss me?"
I blinked.
"Isn’t it obvious that I will?"
He stared at me.
"You’re really something strange, Quinn."
I nodded, my lips arching in a smile at the familiarity of that phrase.
"You’re a stranger, Quinn," Calisto repeated to me, his face so close, such a sweet smile.
I was, wasn’t I?
It was strange.
It was complex.
It was just something I wanted to be.
It was Quinn.
I sighed.
"I think so" said sliding his hand through my hair "but that must be why we get along so well. You are also strange, Prince Asmodeus."
⋅• ♱ •⋅