Update...if you're interested:
So, baby hasn't come yet, which is good. I'm only 30 weeks, but I've been cramping and contracting a lot this weekend. So, either he will come soon or I'll be unlucky enough to just be in pain and unable to be on my feet or in the same position for longer than ten minutes for the next two months...
Just imagine having a crampy period for two months, on top of having a watermelon strapped so tightly to your gut it squishes all your organs into a corner, making it hard to breathe or bend over or...well, a lot of things. There you go. But that should also tell you just how worth it children are. Aka, just how worth it YOU are. You are worth a very miserable year (because it doesn't vanish after you give birth). Nothing is like having kids.
Still...I'm freaking tired of this.
In another time...
The red satin ribbon clashed against her ivory skin in a sinful way. While he could not appreciate it on an aesthetic level, he could still see what he could have appreciated had he not been, well, what he was. But, sliding his finger along the glossy ribbon and occasionally the warm, softness of her skin, he could pretend. Imagination was free.
Had he this opportunity in his first estate? A woman's skin, yes. But like this? Sleeping, vulnerable, beautiful, delicate, and tenderly smooth? He had been so young. Yet that, in part, is what made him so powerful here in his final estate. Old men lived out the morning of their eternity. The young came to it fresh. Little to no time to change their minds. Yet eternity was still an eternity.
Since he was alone, since the doors and windows were closed, he closed his eyes and leaned in close to breathe in her scent.
Mortal. Earthy. Gross. A reminder that this body still digested food and oozed its waste and decay.
He pulled back, breathing deep to clear his sinuses while still trying to connect with the dead natural man that would have found this scent glorious. Back when mating and love making still had a purpose. Then he leaned in close, closer to the ribbon, and smelled again. This time he caught the very light perfume of the tailor's closet. It wasn't much more than the pine musk of a cedar chest, but combined with her mortal scent, it became something…not exactly beautiful or sweet, but heady, and full of nostalgia. A nostalgia of something he only had as a babe, when his innocence had excused him from the laws.
The too-sturdy heart in his chest throbbed heavily, pushing out a sigh.
He could work with that.
A sleeping angel, he thought to himself. This is how a man would think, wouldn't he? An angel of the hearth, full of opportunity and potential. Of growth, of…
No. Men would not be so concerned with that, unless they were of a strange strand of philosophers. Would a man even have thoughts or would one just go by feel? The heaviness from his heart to his stomach and lower, heat, urgency…what had urgency felt like again?
He took another breath of the ribbon and neck and brushed his hand across her hair, just as smooth as the satin ribbon, if not more so. His fingers did not shake. Nothing worth shaking for. He couldn't pretend that strongly.
He took stock of his body for any changes. A heat, an urge, a craving, anything.
But there was nothing.
With a tired puff of air from his nose, he drew back. He back pedaled off the bed until a sharp squeak cut him off.
A tiny tabby kitten, common in every way, looked up at him with big, accusing eyes, holding up a tiny paw which his knee had accidentally squished into the bed.
He snorted. "Ungrateful vermin."
The kitten, probably sensing its tolerated presence coming to a close, scampered back across the hills of thick bedding to hide between the bandaged wings of the very woman Meliodas had been testing with. That gave him at least a bit of satisfaction.
"That's better," and it was. She had healed the scrawny thing from the edge of death, after all. Pity she couldn't heal herself, as he had originally expected her to do to obey his order of showing her healing powers. But even as she put her glowing fingertips over her shoulder, the crippled feathers remained in place. So he had a demon fetch whatever closest dying, living thing he could find-which had ended up being this kitten. He hadn't bothered to get a full assessment of it, other than the knowledge that some more mischievous demons had gotten a hold of it. Anything to entertain.
He didn't push to his feet right away. Where was he to go besides his study? What work would there be to do for the royalty of damned souls who couldn't change and needed no sustenance to survive? In a way, it would be better to be a servant, as at least that would have given him work to do.
Work. He smiled sardonically at the thought and stood up.
A part of him that still hung back, trying to pretend life, moved him to lock the door behind him. Protect what was his, right? That's what men did.
"How's the toy?"
He looked up to meet the blank gaze of his youngest brother as he came down the hall. His red suit reminded him strongly of Elizabeth's ribbon and he wondered if the tailor had any other shade of red dye.
"You don't look too interested to know," said Meliodas.
"And you'd be right." Zeldris folded his arms, stopping before Meliodas and his bedroom door. "But it is something to ask."
And something to learn. "She sleeps too much. But her healing powers are legitimate."
This earned him the smallest of reactions of Zeldris in a raised eyebrow. Now that did interest him.
"Like unto…?"
"More or less."
"Have you brought a Saint down here on accident?"
"You felt her mortality as much as I."
"Mortals can heal too."
"But not of their own choice. They are only tools. A venue for the light to come through. It appeared as though she had full control."
Now both of Zeldris's eyebrows were up. "By her own power?"
"It appears so. That, or the Eternal God has given unprecedented favor to her and her will." Meliodas sniffed. "I don't see how saving a dying kitten would be in His plans, though."
"Well, I wouldn't expect us of all people to know the thoughts of such a being. " Zeldris stepped past, a hand to Meliodas's shoulder. "I'm going to the surface. I need some air."
Meliodas nodded, hearing the unvoiced suggestion. "I'll come too."
Zeldris continued on, this time with Meliodas at his side.
The elder demon prince stole a sidelong glance at his brother, remembering their shared dim, but unfaded past. This man here had been his actual biological brother in the previous estate, and Meliodas had long ago memorized the similarities in their appearance—the sure sign of their shared heritage. Not that family ties held out or mattered in this realm. They held no purpose. And yet, through the Demong King, here they were, brothers still, even if unsanctioned by any god or light.
For some reason, his locked bedroom door came to mind.
"What was the name of that girl of yours again? Back then," Meliodas asked.
Zeldoris stiffened. Even the dark, wild hair on his head seemed to rise.
"Why do you care?" his tone could have been a taut band, ready to snap back in his brother's face.
Meliodas had little reason to lie, and yet he hesitated.
He went with half truth.
"I was wondering if you would have clung to her still if she were here. Held to the sentiment, if not the name."
Zeldoris gave him an unreadable, but heated look.
"If I had actually had the sentiment to hold onto in the first place I wouldn't be here. " He abruptly turned his head to glared down the hall. "No. Gelda was a whore and a passing fancy to my passions. Nothing more."
"Gelda," murmured Meliodas to himself, as though Zeldris hadn't said anything else. "What would you do if you discovered you had children by her?"
Zeldris sneered. "They would be long dead and diluted with everyone else through the generations. You forget our time here, brother. Besides, they wouldn't be mine. Just a passing of genes through a misplaced rut." He shook his head. "The mutant girl is making you think things, isn't she?"
Meliodas hid his wince. "Not anything I haven't had before. Think she needs another bath."
"Humans don't need baths. They do quite fine in their own filth." Zeldris looked amused at this, which was completely true. Their Creator loved cleanliness, and yet the darkened humans seemingly abandoned by said Creator now thought water an evil and lived in disgusting squalor, which in turn delighted the demons.
"That doesn't mean I have to smell it."
Zeldris shrugged, once more returning to his default stoniness. Nothing of interest here anymore.
They walked in silence till they came to a naked platform, devoid of railings or any other sort of safety precaution. It jutted out like a black knife towards the barren land.
Black wings unfurled from their backs.
"There haven't been as many offerings lately," said Zeldris, as though he had just remembered.
"Maybe something happened to kill a bunch," said Meliodas just as flatly.
They would all die eventually, so who cared?
And yet as he took to the sky beside the red streak of his brother, his fingers remembered the feel of her hair in comparison to the satin ribbon. Why hadn't he buried his fingers in it to feel more? Why hadn't he tangled himself in it?
Because, as he had just said to himself, mortality didn't last.