Truth. That was what it all came down to.

Truth, however, had never been something Mephiles was very friendly with. Just like everything and everyone else in his path, the shade bent the truth to his will. His desires were absolute, and every demand he made was sure to be met one way or another. It was a perk that came along with being a god.

And yet, Mephiles was not quite that. It was a 'truth' that always met him head on and was something he could not change, no matter how hard he tried or how forceful he was. He would never be a god, never be complete, without his other half.

Iblis.

The shade had been sitting atop an old ruin in the Soleanna Kingdom. From his perch, he could clearly see what remained of the accident that made him the way he was. To think a god had been reduced to staring so longingly at a scorch mark on the floor, weathered by age and the elements. Here was the spot where it all began, where he and his beloved Iblis had been separated.

Nobody understood Iblis like he did. How could they? Who amongst the living could say they were as close to the demigod as he? There was none, because nobody had been so worthy as Mephiles to share an existence with her in the past. While she was unbridled rage, he was voraciously cunning, both two enigmatic halves to the same divine being:

Solaris.

That name alone brought forth many emotions for more than Mephiles himself. For some it brought fear, others immense joy, and still others some form of twisted hope. Solaris was not just the god of sun, but of time and of life. Its power had been misused and misrepresented at first by those who worshiped it. Just the thought in itself was painful to acknowledge...he and his twin had been reduced to nothing but an experiment, what the humans had called 'The Solaris Project'.

Project. Hardly a title fitting for either of them, let alone the combination of the two. Even as Mephiles watched over the peaceful city of Soleanna, he could feel the sickening rise of venom in his thoughts. Of course, he'd never really been one for thoughts or feelings like that...he couldn't be assed to care enough. However, when it came to the matters of his origins...Mephiles couldn't help himself.

By now, Mephiles had touched to the ground, letting the sound of glass crunching under his feet calm his nerves that had suddenly sprung to life. He could feel her fire somewhere distant, somewhere far away and unobtainable. He could feel a pull, a longing call that seemed to die out the longer it tried to be heard, from deep within that vessel that it had been sealed in ten years ago. The glass that made the call increase in volume was the very same glass the two halves had shattered when they were forcibly split.

It was because of those humans and their little experiment that he was this way: torn, incomplete, unbalanced... Not only had they ripped him apart from where he belonged, but they had made sure to lock away his dear Iblis in a cage neither he nor she could break, inside a pure heart alit with the fire of a monarch.

Princess Elise the Third.

It was a weakness if Mephiles ever had one. How could anyone comprehend a god? None of those foolish mortals could even grasp a passing whim he may have entertained at one point or another...he was just too complex for them. Perhaps if he had cared for their existence at any point of his life, he may have took pity on them. Pity, however, was less than warranted in his opinion. So long as his other half was kept locked away...the mortals would get no pity.

He could never be completely destroyed after all...to destroy him would be to destroy time itself. That had always been Mephiles' plan in the beginning, actually. If you destroyed time, you destroyed not only the present, but the future and more importantly, the past. The past was where everything had gone wrong...Solaris was never meant to be birthed the way it was. Had Solaris not been birthed, he would not be trapped in the mortal world. Had the humans not tried to control time and tame Solaris, he and his Iblis would not have been split so carelessly.

Carelessness was what made Mephiles thrust his fist into the long-since destroyed machinery in front of him. The machinery had once caged Solaris, incubated them and breathed life when the two of them could not. To think a god could be so feeble that it needed assistance to live in any sort of tangible environment. It seemed pathetic, even to him...until he acknowledged the fact that their existence was a mistake in the first place. Their existence was fueled by nothing but a deadly ambition from a mortal known at the time as the Duke of Soleanna. When Mephiles pulled his fist from the machinery, he silently cursed his name...

The Duke was a fool to think he'd go on to help his kind after what he had done.

Mephiles held nothing from the world...all he wanted was to be together with Iblis once more. If that meant erasing time and their existence...then so be it. He'd make sure it would be done and everyone who made him suffer those ten long years without his other half would suffer now in turn.

And he'd be together with her... forever.