"It's really quite something."
The soft accented voice echoed throughout the dusty cavern, ricocheting from every forgotten artifact and stalagmite, and slicing through the small dusty streams of light that lit up the caves. The woman was tall, with a thin athletic figure, and was clad in ragged clothing. Though her white blouse and tan pants were covered in dirt and grime, the small amount of brown leather armor she wore over her shoulders and breast were in pristine condition. Her messy brown hair was piled at the top of her head with a few wispy pieces framing her face which contained a slightly upturned nose and blue eyes. She would have been quite the looker if it weren't for the mud on one cheek and the blood running from a cut in her side. Despite this she stood, fingers to lips, staring at a long forgotten painting thoughtfully that was cracking with age and covered in a layer of thick dust.
"It certainly speaks of much that had never been said."
If the woman was quite a looker then the man that spoke was a god. His beauty being far greater than anything that had ever lived, yet he too had blood pouring from various wounds, streaming down his black as night armor. Locks of dark hair framed his face and fell past his shoulders, while his black coat trailed on the ground, the way everything fell made it appear as if the Earth wanted nothing but to hold him close for all eternity. Gravity itself had fallen in love.
"This is the last one then?" The woman questioned.
"Yes." He answered. "The rest were destroyed long ago."
The painting was beautiful, a strange combination of oil and water, that held a breathtaking quality to it that was unheard of. The pale graceful hand reaching out from a black coffin. Reaching for the sun.
The woman stepped forward and grazed her fingers over the art, pulling away dust as she did, and let out a shaky breath.
"I don't know what exactly this is making me feel," she trailed her eyes over it. "It hurts, so much, and yet somewhere there is a light feeling of hope." She wiped away a tear and stepped back. "Oh god," she covered her eyes fearing the overflow of emotion that she was fighting. "D, how could they? Why . . .- I just don't understand. If they had only spoken up, if they had chosen a different way, why?"
"It was not in their nature." He responded simply. Lightly. Quietly. His dark eyes watched her trembling figure, the most fleeting of emotions flashing through them, was it curiosity?
"I see," she mumbled. "How sad, that they could not move past their greed and blood lust, to work with us. Something could have changed one day . . ." her voice was soft, filled with wonder of what could have been.
"No matter how much they denied it they too had their faults. And no matter how I fight it, one day they will once again come slithering out from the darkness, wanting never to be forgotten. And no matter how much we try, we can never coexist." D spoke, allowing the woman to see an unrealistic amount of emotion from him. She watched as his shoulders slumped, even the smallest of fractions, and he seemed to gain an oddly haggard appearance.
"Never say never, D, you exist after all." She smirked in an utterly endearing fashion that left her eyes sparkling with mischief. "I come from a time when, not long ago, men fought each other over any aspect that set them apart from one another. And the wars lasted for centuries. Religion, ethnicity, opinions even! We overcame that. And you dare to tell me that two species could never coexist? Well, challenge accepted." She turned away from him, smiling a wolfish smile, and pulled on a pair of soft leather gloves reserved for fragile artifacts.
"Elaine." D called softly.
She turned to him curiously, casually, in a manner that spoke of comfort with this man of which very few had ever known.
"Where are you from?"
"Me?" she grinned, "I'm just a girl from Florida."
D did not respond verbally, but the aura around him darkened with something Elaine would call irritation.
"I'm just a girl who grew tired of the way the world was. A girl who one day decided it was time to leave. So I left. How I did that will forever be my secret, for me to know and for you to never find out, and you'll just have to live with it." She stood from her crouched position and clapped her hands together, watching as dust plumed from her gloved fingers, and sighed. "I knew from the moment I met you that we would be tied together, not in a romantic way of course, just that I would be seeing an awful lot of your pretty little face. And you'll be seeing an awful lot of mine. I don't plan on leaving any time soon and I'm not exactly mortal anymore . . ." she trailed off and placed her hands on her hips. "Help me get this painting out, will you? I want this in the capital, for everyone to see."
D did not speak as he moved forward and lifted the painting from where it had lain for hundreds of years. Together they wrestled the piece of art out of the cavern, stepping over leaking corpses and weapons, and into the sunlight.
Elaine gasped.
As soon as the paint was bathed in the warm glow of the still rising sun it glistened with an otherworldly quality.
"This is it," she stated even as they moved towards the carriage together. "This is what will change it all, and don't you doubt it my little bat. This is made of the things that move man."
D stared at her blankly.
"Oh shut up, I'll call you whatever I like until you actually speak up and tell me not to call you it." They set the painting down and D moved away from her. She assumed in irritation.
"Hey, do you have any alcohol? I think this calls for celebration!"
D ignored her.