Fire. The serene Boreal was doused in violent flames, cast over its sloping roofing of rubble like a blanket ablaze. The slick scent of heavy iron was doused upon the shrill winds, and the singed flesh of the innocent permeated peaceful air that was steadily drawn out by the sea of hatred. Claw marks; scarred along the snaking paths and warm buildings as if they were footprints of a beast. And there she stood, on a wide berth with icy eyes of simmering rage boring out into the writhing ocean. Lightning cracked the sky like glass, as her withering crimson orbs that stared - drunken deep in the forbidden blood - right towards the inescapable future while trapped in the past. The ghostly silence of the city she left in ruins hovered hefty on her shoulders, a knowing presence of karma tapping her side with its crooked fingers.
She brushed off its enthralling touch of promise, with a burdened limb of blackness; human in shape but poised with claws of a monster, unchained by the mental constraints once exacted upon. Embers of isolation latched onto her limbs like cuffs, and she didn't struggle in its fierce hold, before whipping around and stomping through ivory-ridden debris of a life so alien.
"Hey."
A stern voice of grit murmured from behind him, while the speaker waited patiently for him to lose grip on their past actions. Sarid shook his head free of the vision wrapping his mind, and went back to settling his gaze on the dot that steadily sank on the horizon. Feelings weighed down by the dirtied hands of innocent blood, he could do nothing but wallow as he cast his conscious into an ocean of self-blame. The half-malak had long heard the creaking of metal upon wood at her approach, but his body failed to move; locked onto the ruined city he left behind.
Velvet sighed in exasperation as she lent against the side of the bow, minute patience running thin as her finger rapped her bicep in meticulous tandem. The sea sang its song for the duo who were perched at the deck, the waters sloshing its being across the hull like a celebratory drink. Until, the sun began sinking across the hued sky with a dispersing sigh, casting a beautiful marble across the naive reflection it borrowed. Even through the somewhat comfortable atmosphere; there was an underlying tensity where both knew they had questions to ask, and so the gifted sight was undeserving. Aloof and conflicted with two sides she pulled together from the seams, Velvet made no attempt to begin; enraptured by the sickening sight nature forced to toil with her blackened heart. Soon enough, the chill of the night signalled the end of her patience, and a tch came from her mouth as she spun on her heel.
"...Why have we done this?" the half-malak began with a shaky breath - turning to face the halted ally - finding it difficult to level his azure irises at the ravenette wreathed in crimson and darkness, who soon stared back with that unreadable steely gold. It made him uneasy.
The daemon's mind flashed with the memories, recalling the destruction as Hellewas fell into a blaze of chaos and mayhem; a cacophony of screams aiming to reach the heavens as rubble crushed, smashed and trapped countless families in the hounds of fire that grew ravenous. The ones she brought to their end through the devouring of flesh were lucky, however the riddles of vermillion staining the pathways would forever mark the lives of those who remained. "You know why," she cut down with a bite in her tone, "We needed a ship." Velvet crossed her arms, while the half-malak - still indecisive in their actions - clenched his fist with anguish.
"We destroyed a town. Ruined the life of everyone who remained, and then-!" Sarid choked on his words, before slamming his fist against the railing. "We- no, I bombed the town, killing countless innocents for the sake of a distraction." The half-malak's expression clenched with upmost sorrow, his mind still in the midst of a storm of confusion. "And I don't even know how," he admitted with a despairing lift of his arms. With a cough, he peeled his sight away from the woman who faced him; settling upon the falling remnants of light that sunk below the enveloping sea.
Velvet was quiet.
Clatter!
Sarid's eyes darted to the noise, and found a strange sight. His kunai lay flat on the deck that bobbed faintly, sliding slightly along the chipped wood. "When did you...?"
"Can I have my kunai back? Please?"
Her eyes grew sharper with a daggered glare.
"...You never gave it back. Why?" His teal orbs fixed upon her as she stood as still as a statue, silent. The look she bore into him with pushed his brain into a mass of theories and thoughts. But, deep down, the swirling trust he had unconsciously built waved him away from ever thinking it.
Eventually, she could bear his look of bewilderment no longer, and sought to ruin the peace that the naive, kind-hearted ally had obtained. "You only ever did place one bomb, how would you cause any others to go off," she pronounced with a lifeless face and pushed herself forward with a meaningful step, leading him purposefully into that one sole conclusion.
His sharp features of ongoing kindness and sincerity dissipated within a second.
The air was still, but the comfort brought by the soothing hue that accented the half-malak vanished like a spark, and his heart stilled in shock. "You... placed the extra bombs?" he mouthed, colour completely drained from his face.
The daemon didn't make an jump in emotion, she simply took in his unferling anger and greeted it with a look of dispassion. "We couldn't take the risk that your distraction was enough, so I took necessary measures," she coldly explained, narrowing her eyes at the man who slowly took in this new information.
The woman traversed the winding tunnels alone, glancing ever so often at the lone blade that gently swayed in her unusually dainty grip - its flawless surface seemingly humming in the oceanic aura of the mountain - as Velvet lumbered onwards with a determined expression plastered over flickers of undoing pressure.
"Of course, it wasn't without problems," the woman stated, turning slowly and lifting the shaggy mane that trailed her back. As she pulled up her hair, the man could easily catch a sharp split running up her back; its edge slipping out just around her shoulder. The severe laceration had faded from its bright crimson, but its wound still lay apparent. "Exorcists aren't too careless with their ambushes."
Sarid still did not speak, having reigned in any sense of consideration for her wellbeing in the wake of her atrocious deed. "I faulted myself for the chaos that took over the city, the screams that I heard all around, that death. When... when all along..." His tone was rasped, expression faded from its colourful shock and surprise as he stomped forward. "It was YOU!?"
His emotion prickled with fury, and he shoved the woman away from him with a look of disgust flashing over his face.
Velvet barely stumbled back, the shifting strands in the breathy winds fluttering before her; features smothered by the night's everlasting shadow.
She glowered under the darkness, orbs a glint that matched the dying stars in the black sky. Stalking forward, her hand snatched the half-malak's shoulder in a vice grip as he winced.
Bang!
Sarid was thrown back into the very edge of the bow, crashing into the plank railings that buckled with a crack and a splinter. Even through the danger he placed himself in with such a simple action, he couldn't hold back his berating of the monster. "You did all that to 'make sure?' You've torn that city apart!"
Velvet whipped her hand to the side as he yelled. "I know. It doesn't matter," she dismissed with a snide look.
"Doesn't matter?! You've blown apart buildings! Homes! Families! Do you even get what you did!?"
"I. KNOW." Velvet snarled out with a shout, tightening her fists with a similar irritation; heat pooling at her fingertips. "You had a place in this! You came up with blowing up their flamestone. The trade would never recover. That city was as good as done anyway, what difference is taking a few people with it?"
"The difference!? I used it as a distraction, you used it to fuel your sick head!"
Velvet visibly recoiled at his comment, until her eyes flared once again with a rage like no other. She pounded forward, sending cracks throughout the boards that cried in pain as they groaned. "I am a daemon," she growled as she stopped right before the half-malak who opposed her. Gold met blue in a fierce crash as they glared at one another. "What other reason do I need? What else am I?!"
Sarid scoffed in her face, barging past her with a scowl and a controlled cough that scratched his throat. "Good question," he spat with a shake of his head. As his footsteps began to thud away and make for the bow exit, Velvet couldn't stop the urge that sprouted within her daemonic cells. It rushed over her like a wave, sending an enthralling pulse of burning energy through her veins, until she bounded forward. The half-malak could only spare a stunned glance, before she launched him into the balcony overlooking the deck. He knocked into it with a crack, wood snapping and crumbling onto the open deck, as her hand coiled against his throat in a eerily familiar hold.
Velvet leaned in uncomfortably close; her searing golden orbs peering deep into his shifting cerulean. Under her relaxed lips and behind her narrow expression, her canines bared against eachother intensely as she pressed him over the split edge. "Why do you care?" Her words were venomous and serrated, boring into his eardrums as sharp as the poised fingers that stabbed into the skin of his neck. The cloth irritated his skin like acid, limiting his oxygen as the sentence froze on his tongue. Until, he decided enough was enough.
Whoosh!
His form contorted abnormally, and a viridescent hue came over his natural shade. Before he exploded in a rush of wind, sending a sharp force bellowing against the daemon's vestments that shifted in the air. Velvet expected such a move, it was typical that the man would run from her. Perhaps he should've made that choice absolute.
However, as she turned with a stomp, and her arms laxed at her curved hips in thoughtful consideration, the human shape that balanced on the bow steadfast caused her irises to glisten in annoyance. Sarid was motionless upon the bowsprit, the lapsing of waves that rocked the shape doing nothing to disturb his mind. This was opposite ideals clashing, and he would no longer goad them in a mental conflict he could not win. Walking across this extended pole casually, he stared down the daemon that stood against his humanity. The stars that shined so bright, backed his march towards her, until he stepped down from its elevation. Equals.
"You want to know why I care so much, Velvet?" he began, voice as cold as he could muster; heart beginning his speech before the mind could fabricate it.
Her wordless stare dared him to continue, a final shard of the real man behind the sweet smile birthed upon the fire of her conviction.
His face was shadowed in the welcoming blanket in the peaceful night sky. Tensions reigned the chill air, but he could not feel more confident in his place. "People, are an uncommon thing for me," he started with a hollow sigh. "You, Rokurou... Seres.." he breathed out with slight hesitation, closing his eyes sorrowfully as he clenched her fist. "...Even Magilou, are the first people I've talked to in years. Let alone travel with." His heart weighed heavy, gaze sinking to the floor under her simmering stare. Even through his lack of trust in revealing secrets, he could feel the chance she gave him. "I felt like I had a place! Exorcists are heroes, but not in the reality I've seen at this group's side. My mind is in pieces, and I have yet to find the answers I seek." His hand confidently pressed against his chest, willing his eyes to lift up and settle on the rough being of hidden rage. "Until my journey was over, I wished to expand my world that had been contained for so long. And you, daemons, were more human than the ones I had ever known."
The daemoness stood quiet once again, the shrill cries of the sea vivid as the echoes through a cave. Wind cowered in the surroundings, shifting through the strands of opposing forces. Sarid couldn't see where her eyes lingered, scowered under the darkness of contempt. Suddenly, her voice rasped a response from the soul. "...Then, you're a fool."
She watched his features harden from the curtain of her blackened strands, and his open hand pressed to his heart clenched in agitation. "...I see..." Sarid tensed as a rush of emotion flowed over him like a howling blast of rain, "...Then maybe I was a fool, for once thinking there was any hope for you." The sentence was a whisper, but sharp and sincere. It wasn't in a blaze of uncontrolled anger, nor unfunneled confusion. It was still that kind, innocent voice, but wreathed in the smoke of betrayed anguish.
And it stung.
"You're a curse."
After that, the half-malak soundlessly stalked past her, thoughts wound in a circle to dwell on a disconcerted goal, as he left for his cabin. She gripped her left limb with painful ferocity, as the stars watched silently. The ocean howled back; the dead of night full of life right behind the pearly white or azure brine. The deadest thing that still breathed among the watchful eye of silent millions, was the lone daemon's heart, that still rumbled against her ribcage.
Laphi would have loved to see this.