VIRGIL'S TEMPTATION:
I don't even remember if he offered his name. The one named Dante.
Would you like to know the origins of his name? And no, not the one where he goes to hell and Virgil is his guide. That's an old familiar story and those who have not the good grace to know it, I pity them.
Dante. The name on the tip of my lips suggest old parchments that I've kissed and beheld in my arms, a library full of outdated hard backs, filled with silverfish that I detested. The pages torn and strewn but alas, my readers, his name lies there among the darkened pages:
Dante: Derived from the Latin Durans meaning "endure, persevere," and therefore "firm, resolute."
The most resolute demon man in the world so I must say, the one I had loved the most and dearest to my heart. His perseverance only mirrors his own life. So why would I not remember him even if I wanted? You'll see.
He left me alone without a kiss. It was the other one that I was afraid of. The one I knew named Virgil the suffering one.
Enter: Virgil the sufferer.
I awoke with a heavy heart and each day that passes, I curse the three who has managed to bring something into my sphere of protection. My flesh and blood of being a human. Cannot these demons let me go? Will I be forever haunted by the memory of his lips upon mine, taking, taking always taking? And me, as good as I appear to be now, I was so very very bad then. Why would anyone in their right mind want me to be a part of that life? In my dreams, that stone figure of a statue stood before me again and Dante was absent from my mind. Only the face gave me a look of terror, the one that I saw in the faces of fearful men and women who came my way. Did Dante give up? It t'would seem so wouldn't it when Virgil came to visit me in my sleep every night. Every dark evening when not a peep of the moon showed or glimpsed. During that entire fortnight.
In his attempt to woo me out of my slumber, like some snow white in her chaste bubble, this particular dark prince with the halo of silver hair decides to make use of his talents. No, not that! His talents in combat were one of them but in my case; combat in the mind is what he's after. Virgil the sufferer, Virgil the staff bearer as you know by now. The bad son of Eva and the notorious yet famous Sparda. Do you think that both sons could turn out good or turn out evil? What makes them so deliciously fascinating in the terms of difference and good looks?
In a fable not too long ago, Sparda said these words to his son, and it echoed in the same similar vein as the one who had published it with good intention:
My son, listen to my teaching, which is good and useful, and end the sleep which weighs heavily upon you. Depart from the forgetfulness which fills you with darkness, since if you were unable to do anything, I would not have said these things to you.
Does not anyone remember it? It was a passage by our Lord, the one up in the sky, beyond the clouds, beyond the human boundaries, the very one that creeps into our homes and our prayers. So Sparda, by repeating these words to his prodigal son says again, but in kindness,
Why do you pursue the darkness when the light is at your disposal? Why do you drink stale water, though sweet wine is available for you? Wisdom summons you, yet you desire folly. Not by your own desire do you do these things, but it is the animal nature within you that does them.
So why does young Virgil pursue the dark and the shadows that haunt mankind? Only he is able to know and that my dear friends and readers will he be able to tell you on his own. His attempt at tempting me out of my reverie and present state was what his goal is and by doing so, attempt to tantalize me with the darkness of his kind. Of his chosen path.
"Beatrice, wake up."
Simple as that. No kisses, no softness in the tone of his voice. Just to wake my little self up. He certainly was no prince charming. But what a sight to see when dost my eyes wiped away the sleep. His mouth went dry when mine own set upon his. He looked into my face and saw my slight smile. Although I lay there immobile, his look was hungry and near feral, like a predator come to take me away to his den and eat me up. Virgil the sufferer had that look on him. The kind that sweet natured girls like me should be afraid of but are drawn to like a moth to a flame. Bad boys will out!
Clouds of dark mist formed around us and I lay there in my glass darkened bubble and everywhere I touched, the flowers would dwindle and fall to the ground and gasping at this horrible sight, tears ran down my eyes. What manner of place was this that I had to be so tortured by darkness? Not realizing that the tears flowed down my cheek, Virgil in his moment of unnatural emotion, without the baldness of being so bawdy, began his tender caress. He held me there, and I dropped his fingers and placed both of my hands on his shoulders. Instinctively his arms lifted as he fell in place upon that crystal bed. His hands encompassed my slender waist and while feeling the flare of my hips, the tight muscles of my abdomen, he brought me forward.
I can surely say that this timing was perfect. Being vulnerable in my subconsciousness was something that Virgil did often attack. Virgil depicted animal nature and all the things our very nature should fall away from but in his desire, raw and willful, it is no wonder that mere humans could fall from their grace. But there was something that I feel with Virgil that I never could feel with Dante.
He was my equal.
"Why do you haunt me in my dreams, Virgil. If this is another of your ruse to take me back to you then I shall have none of it. You're no part of me anymore, you or your brother! So you can both go to hell!"
My words meant to be biting, were not, how can it be? When my eyes crystallized with fresh tears and he held me like a man in love and condemned? Taking my hair away from eyes, he candidly remarked,
"Do you want me to treat you like a Cinderella?" chuckling, then a lowered whisper that I could barely hear him, "Because I can be your Prince."
"You're no prince, my ass!" laughing, "You mean, a dark dark prince."
"Am I dark to you?" he mused aloud, sending whisper like touches on my face, tracing lines that held me mesmerized. He was the most fascinating man ever to cross my path of darkness.
So I in turn became clever with my tongue. "Not so dark in the visage of your physical masculinity but in your soul, the blackest prince of the night." Then added, "I think you rival the morning star."
"I've heard better." He teased. "Did you know they had this in the declaration of independence of 1776---A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free people?
"Well, excuse me!" my full lips curved partway. "What sort of fancy talk has people been telling you?"
"People? I don't talk to people."
"Therefore you are a tyrant!"
Then he stood up and took my hand. "Come, the night is fast fading and I must show you the way to your destiny."
"My destiny?"
He said nothing as he stepped on the darkened flowers and brown crisp leaves that covered our path.
The mention of destiny made me cringe. What was that word again anyway. It scared me. "Do you believe in Destiny, Virgil?"
"What nonsense, my lovely girl, of course."
"I would think that you're not the type to believe in destiny. But rather free will."
"Free will? You've been reading too many of the pages of that confounded black book."
"Black book? You mean the one where we put phone numbers of our dates? And possible future dates?" I teased. And I took the same steps as him not noticing that the world was whirling in a machine like atmosphere. The noise was deafening but the buildings stood as if a testament to it's time. Dark ominous clouds, the ones you see in movies like The day after tomorrow make you think that this is the end of the world. It's not. It's never the end of the world. Only the end of our existence. The world itself continues to breathe and live even when we are gone to kiss our wounds goodbye.
The jagged contours of the building, with it's pillared high funnels that emitted strong gaseous fumes stroked out like a fireplace full of dry hearty logs. At the entrance, I planted my feet and caught Virgil's arm, strong and masculine, he was built like a machine himself wasn't he? But his blood, flowed with rich blood, dark ionic and sweet. I remembered it so well. That I nearly gasped aloud and withdrew my hands as if burned.
There at the entrance to the strange sight of the architectural winged like building, fuming like a factory that would make the most jaded non environmentalist cringe. There were symbols stamped in the gates of the iron fence that barred their path to the building.
"They burn the bower afterwards, along with the symbols," his voice was raw, bereft of all pretense. "Isn't technology breathtaking?"
Afterwards.
"I don't believe in destiny or symbols, or reincarnation, Virgil."
"But you believe in free will? And your dreams." He rasped out.
"Yes." I replied with some hesitancy. "I do."
"Ah, wayward girl, I'll remind you of your past and your future."
With that, he shut my eyes from the world with the quick movement of his hands, he didn't even tell me it would not hurt because it did. He showed me something that I did not want to see.
What else is evil darkness except familiarity with forgetfulness?
I drowned into the ocean, black and blue, all darkness and wet and cold, like the raging of the sea that pours in my soul. My thoughts clung to me and I remembered something....
Beware, lest somehow you fall into the hands of sinners.
But I felt like a Cinderella, as the carriage awaited from the other side of the water, a dry land, sandy beaches and electric sky. My dreams if ever, were merged in nightmares and Virgil stood there in his azure blue, bright pale cheeks with the glint of silver tress escaping from the combed back coiffure he wore on his head. Unlike Dante, the resolute one, Virgil was impeccable.
Emerging from the sea, wet and pained, my legs felt like pin needles and I'm reminded again of the passages of Little Mermaid where she had lost her only prince to another. And all her desires were for naught. She was not to be with someone like him or of any breed but her own.
Was she suppose to commit her life for the former so that in the words of Ariel in her desperation and desire, she gets her wishes granted? But whose wishes? Certainly not hers. If so, why does it so pain these two demonic men to bring me back....and the words swirl back to the words in which the mermaid had given her life for the desire to walk, to be human.
Yes, I will," said the little demoness in a trembling voice, as she thought of the dark prince and the mortal soul.
"But think again," said the seer; "for when once your psyche and presence, your soul has become like a human being, you can no more be a demon, your powers will be gone. You will never return through the water of forgetfulness to your kind, or to your father's palace again; and if you do not win the love of the dark prince, so that he is willing to forget his father and mother for your sake, and to love you with his whole soul, and allow the mortals to join your hands that you may be man and wife, then you will never have an mortal soul. The first dusk after he marries another your heart will break, and you will become like the devils mistress once again, on the sea of Hades."
"I will do it," said the little demoness, and she became pale as death.
NO! I will not do it! I cried inside.
I will never forget. Then I cried on that beach, and Virgil in his princely garb walked slowly to me. He seemed to be struggling with himself before he uttered these words....
"Come my Cinderella. Your carriage awaits."
But it was not Virgil that I saw, it was his mother, Eva who had appeared before me, like some fairy god mother. It was a mirage that blended the two. I preferred the comely man.
"But I must be paid also," said the woman,
"With my soul?" I cried aloud, listening to my echoes and wishing that Virgil had not left me to his mother.
But I didn't hear her last words because if I did, I would have heard that my soul was already given. I didn't own one.
The ballroom appeared after I was led into the large silver pumpkin, glimmering against the sandy floor. Even in my wet attire, dripping wet, my hair was filled with seaweed and wet strings of leafs that glittered even in the darkness of the carriage. I thought that I would shiver but there was only warmth.
I looked outside the carriage, peeping out the pumpkin that flew me into the castle outside the sands, away from the beach that nearly drowned me.
Inside the castle, there were people that danced, and they reminded me of the ghosts that kept on dancing, forever cursed in their timeless world. They faded in and out like flickering lights, fluorescent blue and sometimes, if the light catches them in an odd way, it would turn a black purplish hue.
I saw my two clods of sisters, the ones who were human and my own shock overtook me. What the hell is going on? They were dressed in fancy style, and they snickered and pointed at me. I looked down and saw to my horror that I still wore the wet gown that clung to my shape, revealing for all to see.
"What the devil are you two doing in my dream" I nearly shouted out. Avoiding the stares of the dancers that twirled around me.
"We don't know." They both shrugged. "But we had to come. That white haired gorgeous guy said we had to come and see you in your little gown and dance the night away."
"No one is dancing in my dream and certainly not me!" Now if I could only wake myself up and pinch myself but Virgil cut me off. He was there beside us, taking me away from the girls and guided me to the middle of the dance floor, taking up the number as if it were easy, set me on my feet as if they possessed wings.
"Do you like what I've set up for you?"
"No." I rasped. "What game are you playing?"
"A very dangerous game, Beatrice." then laughed, showing his wide grin, white even teeth, "The only game I like to play."
I was waiting for something, something else that would wake me from this nightmare. If I couldn't pinch myself to wake then surely.....
There was beeping noise; it collided with those that chimed at the top tower. It sounded like wedding bells and its noise was so sweet to me, like Wedding March concerto. And I cried myself to wakefulness, leaving behind not my shoes but my psyche behind.
My consciousness was ebbing away and then when I thought things could not have gotten worse, the powers came slowly.
And I had destroyed the clock next to my bed with the flick of my fingers. Without moving an inch. This is how much power I could possess by thinking and destroying. The yellow glowing electric feel of me began to shiver around me, and the tears that I cried stopped. But my howls of inhuman sounds came from the depths of my lonely empty soul that I don't even own.
"But if you take away my soul," said the little demon girl, "what is left for me?"
"Your beautiful form, your graceful walk, and your expressive eyes; surely with these you can enchain a man's heart. Well, have you lost your courage?"
You will have your powers. Is that not what you want, dearest little demon girl of Mundus's creation?
It was Virgil. He kissed me in the same manner where Dante had left off, trailing light touches on my neck and reaching behind my ear.
His twin acts in the same manner and the likeness is so striking I could hardly breathe.
"Virgil. I hate you." My words seem empty as I allowed him to set me back upon the bed. Away was the glass bubble and Snow Whites Prince charming.
"That's my girl." Glittering with his Sparda inherited looks, he added,
"Because your hate is what is bringing you back to me."