Disclaimer: Still not cool enough to own my own franchise
After discovering which of the many rooms lining the corridors of the Varia Headquarter's right wing was hers, Ebony promptly slipped out of Lussuria's sight to explore the whole of the hideout. While she strolled down these empty hallways, she bumped into Fran. Or, rather, she saw Fran as he bolted past her with an impressive agility for someone wearing a hat the size of his torso. Shortly after the sea foam green blob dashed on by Belphegor appeared, breathing heavily with his infamously deadly smile stretched across his face, "If you know what's good for you, you will tell me where that toad went. Got that, princess?"
Ebony shook her head slowly, sparing her older brother a pitiful glance before explaining that the illusion he had been chasing had just dissipated into the wall of the dead-end hallway they were standing in. At this news the fallen prince let out a shrieking peal of laughter before describing the hundred and one ways he could kill Fran. "Say, have you ever had frog legs? We might have some tonight."
The teenager laughed quietly, "That sounds lovely. Now can you take me outside? I'm not done exploring this place yet."
Albeit begrudgingly, Belphegor did agree to lead the young woman outdoors and in no time at all they were seated on the porch together, sitting side by side as they watched the sky warm with the sun's setting. Neither said a word as the gold hue dipped below the horizon, but as a darkness lowered over the world Bel spoke up, "Oi." When Ebony turned to him with an eyebrow raised in question he continued, voicing the only question which had been burning its place into his skull ever since they left that forest, "Why didn't you kill me?" He watched her open her mouth and raised a hand to keep her silent, "I don't buy that Fran bullshit. His hat never stopped me from murder."
She simpered, leaning back on her palms as she gazed upward at the darkening sky, "I should have." Her words were careful, calculated, and slow, "I had every right to kill you." Belphegor turned to her at that, his lips pressed into a thin line as he watched her tilt her head back with a bitter laugh, the kind of brokenhearted laugh that can send chills down someone's spine, "You destroyed me. You tore my life apart. I was a child and you forced me into adulthood before I even knew what was happening. I should have ripped you to shreds for the way you stole my childhood from me, for the way you painted my whole goddamned world in blood."
Belphegor was an absolute genius, he bore an impressive IQ despite his manic state of mind, yet even he failed to see where Ebony was going. He had asked her to explain why she had not killed him, not the opposite. Nor had he asked her to attempt to guilt him for princes do not feel remorse, princes never regret. But before he could interject, she was speaking again, "Oh, but Bel...you and I are as different as we are the same. Blood is our drug, we need it like we need food or drink. But while you bear no qualms in taking the lives of your entire family, while you can slash your knife across your mother's throat and sweep your tongue out to catch the warm spray of her blood, I can't. I could never take the life of the brother I so admired growing up." Underneath the fringe of his blonde hair, Belphegor's eyebrows furrowed together in an expression of utter confusion, admired? "I remember how I would sneak out of the castle just to go and watch you and 'Siel fight. I would steal forks and knives from the kitchen just to practice throwing in my room. I was so looking forward to finally being old enough to join the two of you out on the field. And when I looked at you, when I pressed my knife against your throat and really looked at you, I remembered it all. I remembered every moment of admiration, every moment I wished to be like you, every moment before you took everything away and you know what? I couldn't do it. I could not kill you."
Belphegor remains silent as she alters her sitting position, sitting upright without the support of her hands as she instead uses her right to wipe at her stinging eyes, chuckling at the dampness against her fingers, "I'm so fucking weak." She turns to him then, eyes bloodshot as a dangerously lopsided smile tilts at her lips, "I've dreamt of killing you for so long..." He recognizes the way her eyes darken, watches from the corner of his eye as her left hand slides down her leg to dip into her boot, he knows what's coming and the thought has adrenaline pumping through his veins long before she cries out, "Maybe I should fix that!"
The smile splitting her face in the next moment is so remarkably like his own that Bel finds himself laughing despite the cool metal arching against the skin of his vulnerable throat. She's hovering over him, keeping him pinned to the porch by her knife. Her expression was so deranged, so contradictory to the tears pooling in her singular eye. Belphegor stares up at her as his laughter fades away, his icy blue eyes visible from under the shield of his bangs. The direct contact sparks a fiery anger within her and with a hiss she pulls down the collar of his shirt with one hand and uses the other to dig the knife into his flesh, carving a sharp "P" into the juncture of his neck and shoulder. The wound was not deep enough to kill but it would certainly leave a scar and with that, she falls to his side, laughter bubbling from her throat as tears stream down her face, "I still can't do it! Dammit. I still-I still can't."
The fallen prince paid his sister's hysterics no heed, completely overwhelmed by his own manic drives. A peal of his famous laughter broke through the air, his lips pulled up into a fabulously terrifying smile as he watched his warm blood drip from his neck onto his shirt, "You've spilled my royal blood..."
Ebony laughed breathlessly, her voice breaking due to her tears, "So?"
She had left him with a physical scar, had he not at least deserved that for all he had done? For all the mental damage he had left her to grow with? But she has no time to ponder these thoughts for long as a new weight is pressing against her small frame, a cold hand pressing against her throat with an unwelcome force as another hand dragged serrated metal against the skin of her bare shoulder. His taunting laughter filled the air around them as he pressed down against her skin and spoke in the shrill voice of a mad man, "Why the favor must be returned!"
And with another laugh a sharp, crooked "P" was engraved into Ebony's pale skin, blood pooling to the surface of the wound quickly. With a grunt, she reached out and shoved Belphegor off of her before he went too far. Clutching her bleeding shoulder she spared her brother a dark glare, "That hurt, asshole."
"Would you like me to cut you again?" he asked, twirling his bloodied knife between his tapered fingers briefly before grinning and bringing the weapon to his lips, his tongue peeking past his lips to glide across its stained surface.
She sat up with a scowl and a low, "No, thank you." Her expression darkening further as Belphegor laughed once more and licked his own blood from his fingers idly. A moment of silence passed while both prince and princess quietly relished the metallic scent of iron which permeated the air between them. "Bel...can we make a pact?"
At this inquiry, he turned to her, cocking his head in curiosity, "A pact?"
She nodded, rubbing at her shoulder which continued to bleed through the thin cloth of her shirt, "Mm. I promise not to kill you and vice versa. It'll be easier to work with you here if I'm not constantly on edge with the threat of you killing me."
Bringing one knee up toward his chest, Belphegor propped his elbow on the joint and leaned his head against his arm absently, his knife still dangling between his fingertips. He contemplated her proposition quietly, eyes raking over her thin form and though he'd never dare say it out loud, he's almost certain he wouldn't have tried to kill her even if she didn't ask. Not because he couldn't but because he simply held no desire to do so. As marvelously annoying as she was, he could not find it in himself to take her life. And so, with his trademark grin, he agreed, "You've got yourself a deal, princess."
Her eyes brightened at his response and she returned his smile before attempting to stand only to be overcome with a sudden wave of nausea as the world around her tilted sharply. The ground merged with the black night sky and soon it was all she saw as she crashed to the floor, her brother's startled "Oi!" being the last thing she hears before it all becomes silent.
I accidentally rewrote this.
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