The worst in us
The Devil was never hideous, some said.
Heinous, yes, hideous, no. In fact, he was pearlescent with a face as dainty as a maiden, body as toned as a bowstring and voice as lulling as a flute. He was one among angels, after all.
Jinshi knows best.
Jinshi isn't as innocent as he looks, he is a moving trap, an embodiment of temptation, of sin and he is scared it runs through his veins, seeping deep to the bones, mingling with his entire being becoming one with his very core.
His conceivement shrouded in mystery, his origins in shadows and gossip, had it not for his face; resembling the former emperor's, the gossip would have still been stirring.
But right there, in that hole, he realized that he might resemble him a tad too much to his liking in character and taste.
Jinshi wakes up in the middle of the night, covered in sweat, a flush thundering through his body, he is still in that hole with her, he is a cusp too close ..
Truth is: he is not terrified at all but worse .. he is angry, he is carnal, he is aroused.
It doesn't take time for him to recompose. While part of him laments this lapse in judgment, part could really be pegged onto the string of events leading to this climactic moment .. part of him enjoys the game, even the guttural piece of it.
'But this was more irrevocable sin than game'
The time thereafter Maomao is the same, the truth is Maomao is weirdly untarnished and apathetic towards it all. It is not consent or willingness. It is resignation in part; this cowardice thinly masked by deceptive wisdom, weakness standing vastly in contrast with status and hierarchy and almost - omnipotence she thinks .. he knows he has and her upbringing in another; Maomao is no stranger to THIS sort of violence, never was.
There is a new found distance after this, she may be as dumb as a radish when it comes to emotional cues but not this. She went too far. She knows she inflamed him .. stroke both his ire and masculinity and usually that is not a go-good together combination. It is primitive, it is destructive.
She is not entirely.. She is entirely ..guiltless in this.
Her first instinct was to kick, but part of her fears she would have almost leaned in. That scares her much.
Truth is, she doesn't know anything anymore except for one thing, she doesn't want a fate like her sisters in Verdigris or like her Mother's.
The irony about Omnipotence is that it ruins the game, or so he tells himself when he is taking the Ox bezoar to her because apparently the distance is too much, it is really mundane.
He could have her, anytime he wanted but Jinshi wasn't this. He preferred intelligence over power and maybe just maybe she is more than a toy and he is less than the devil.
And she accepts it because there is something like an invisible key struggling with the rusty lock on her heart and she misses the banter.
She knows, it is not alright. She knows this game eventually leads to nowhere, the moment her use is redundant, she will be discarded and she prefers to be discarded unbroken but a little voice in her wants it to be otherwise.
She deserves more than this, she knows but so did her mother and look what it got her. She prefers to be invisible.