𝒫𝑜𝑒𝓉 𝒫𝑜𝓃𝓎

Known to any poet or literary, nice was an archetype term, one more fitting to how Alec felt about Simon having an arm laid over his chest with his head resting delicately on the same part, alluring as the hum the ripple of waves created on the sun roasted sand yet as confusing as one to how one might discover why it did so, what kept it in its own motion.

Feeling the vibration of an awakening hum, Alec knew Simon was parting himself from the land of immense dreams, realizing he was laying across Alec, he shot up slowly.

“Sorry.” He muttered, wiping his mouth, rubbing over his eyes as they find themselves staring into the morning light which no doubt must have been harsh, but maybe it was simpler than even gazing at Alec.

“It’s no problem, I don’t mind.” Alec replied, pulling himself up, somehow felt closer to Simon than he’d been when they been spread over the mud and lake coloured flannel.

They were inches away from one another, Simon sat with one of his knees up, the other starching at his messy locs of Choclate hair, but his head was still turned to the bay window.

Both of them silently recalling the night before, when they’d sat in his embroidered cushions, smoking a neatly rolled joint, having civil conversation filled with laughter. Neither could now remember its biases, though, only its effects.

“It’s really nice here, I thought I’d be a lot colder.” Simon commented, finally turning his head back to Alec, neither had distanced themselves from one another.

“It doesn’t get cold on Milos that often, in the winter months it just rains.” Alec informed, Simon gave out a breath that underlined a laugh stuffed.

“What?” Alec wondered, Simon only smiled, his rose lips perking to their carved cheeks.

“You know lots, but to me you don’t know o anything. I suppose it’s an oxymoron.” Simon stated, they still hadn’t moved, one of them wished for the futz to last forever.

“What’s that?” Alec questioned, Simon’s hazel eyes locking into his own.

“It’s a literary term, two opposing meanings that form well, one meaning. Pretty ugly, heavenly sinner.” Simon explained, his eyes briefly flicking down to Alec’s lips well he finished speaking. Before going back to Alec’s eyes, reminding Simon of the beach they’d been on the day before, slaying demons, but afterwards, when both of the Parabati had already headed back to the Milos institute. Both Simon and Alec stayed back, to gaze upon the pure clarity in the clearness of the water.

“Peaceful wrecking.” Alec added, Simon found himself unable to say anything at all, rendered silent by the reflection of the sun into Alec’s eyes, that might be in Simon’s option more clear than the Greek water.

“Do you like it here?” Alec wondered, flashing his eyes over Simon’s tanned skin in the sun, specifically his back, the only part of him covered were his hips, his groin, in a pair of light blue and white stripped full cotton shorts.

“I find everything lovingly hateful.” Simon replied, a tinge of a smile on his face, seeing the tangling in Alec’s face, he went on, for whatever reason neither of them had spoken a certain low decimal point, not a whisper, not average volume of either of their speaking voices.

“I can’t just like something, for me it’s hate or it’s love. I’ve grown accustomed to the busy street of New York so I find myself in this knowingness that I hate the subway cars, but love the architecture. Neutral to me would be, well I don’t even think about it.” Simon shrugged.

“Do you love it, or hate it then?” Alec wondered, indicating his head to the window, more importantly what was beyond it.

“I love it, I suppose, but in my experience you do anything too long, you might end up hating it, enjoying the sting of the very hate. I love it here, but I’m so terrified that I’ll end up hating it, I already hate it.” Simon explained further, glancing back towards the bay window, streaming in bounds of pure sunlight. And when he turned back, Alec’s face was inches away from his own, leaning in lightly, as if he had all the time in the world to do so.

Eventually their lips began caressing one another’s, evenly. Until Simon strained himself back, staring into Alec’s eyes for a moment. His hand kept itself on his chest, motionless.

What game would you erase from your memory just to experience it for the first time again?

Feed your dashboard by answering my question, blogger.

The kids in question ;

Her head of warm hair stuck out to Maryse first, like it always did. It was the colour of burning flames, the appearance of thickly clotting blood. It was Michael who told Maryse that red was the most eye catching colour, it was after she had asked him how he had known Celine was- Celine. It was the same bright sun she had felt that morning, when she woke up next to Joclyean in Idris field, covered in glitter, in tiny party hats, in their clothes, in other people’s clothes, in thick runny Marajunia syrup, in staining alcohol, light powder, in glitter, in their own ruined dreams. It wasn’t like any of the circle members to exactly, party, but they did the night before, because even before being brought back, one could only assume what could happen.

Running her hand through the wet grass, she remembered they had been rained on, just the same she brought her hand to her smooth face and found black traces of mascara and dark blue, glittering golden eyeshadows. Quicker than she ever has, she woke Joclyean up, shaking her nude shoulder.

“Joclyean! Joclyean! Get up right now, you’ve got us fucking cursed!” Marsye screamed,blaming someone else and she usually would, unless she wanted to take credit.

“Huh?”Joclyean mumbled, whipping reddish brown lipstick from her lips. Paramount, it was Marsye colour.

“We’ve been here before, haven’t we?” Maryse questioned, helping Joclyean sit up by placing her long nailed hand into the small of her back, she was only covered by a light moss lace bra and by the angel did Marsye love the feel of her pale, deeply freckled skin.

“This is the day of the uprising.. why are we back here? This happened years ago..it should be 2000. Well. 1999.. hold on, do you think that’s the problem?” Joclyean asked, standing up abundantly.

“I didn’t fucking miss this.” Marsye settled, shaking her curled head. She remembered Jocylen doing it for her the night before, at her house in the city, in her dark indigo bedroom, their boys were in the next room.

Looking back, maybe she shouldn’t have left two, two year olds unattended, but they both did, I mean it was, or is the 90s. In the bedroom, Joclyen pressed in each straight piece, sometimes in between pieces she’d kiss the sides of Marsyes goosebump covered neck. The space heater was broken, after Michael had gotten into a drunk fight with Valentine, and threw him into it. What was even stranger was that after Jocylen threw them both out, they ended up going down the same street.

They began to dress silently as Maryse, Maryse. Always the thinker, the voice of an absolute logic. Joclyean, Joclyean, the recaller, an in depth record player that recalled things only a detective or a vengeful God might. Remembered it now how Maryse had been the first to ever openly defy Valentine, in front of the rest of the circle. She did it many times after that. But the first time, Joclyean recalled how quiet she was before she broke. When she looked back, after turning her to head to see the high mountains. Even in a situation as hallucinogenic as the one presented before him, Marsye was already dressed. A palatinate top with a beaded centre. Her fossil fold over boots, that Robert had bought her.

“Who cares why we’re here, we have to get back.” Maryse declared, getting up to stand close to Joclyean, Joclyean. She looked young, youthful like she always did, somehow. Even after it all.

“I have a feeling we aren’t going to get back as easy as you think.” She said this because Maryse tended to think she could get through anything, everything. This entire situation only proved it all for a fact.

The circle often used to say about her, that she was most likely to survive if the world ever ended. The humanity died off, if the food chain did. If their own greed finally collapsed on them all. If they didn’t make it thought today, and most of them didn’t.

“We’re late, aren’t we?” Marsye asked, checking Jocelyn’s gold wristwatch. 

“You’re right, the uprising. It happens soon.” Jocelyn declared, just as they had that morning, they ran to Alicante. 40 mintues, and to Joclyean sometimes they only appeared as distant blurs now. 40 mintues where did all she could think of.

Luke wasn’t a writer, he didn’t know how to work a typewriter, years later he couldn’t work a computer. He was a poet through his words. His actions. That’s why when he came strolling through, just like he had always walked on the slightly uneven streets, because maybe if he treated today like any normal one, maybe none of it would happen at all. At this point, Maryse should have uttered a farewell to Joclyen through a light kiss on her blushed cheek. Looking for Alec, who was safely tucked away in the confines of his crib in Maryses city house.

“Hey, I was worried about you two. Good thing you’re all good. Alizée!” Luke smiled, he always smiled.

“No, hold on. Where’s Valentine, and Robert?” She asked the first because besides Luke, was the main problem of the course of events. She had asked the second, because even after all these years, she still remembered that she had to learn to love Robert.

“I don’t know where Robert is but Valentines at my house.” Luke stated, neither girl said a word as they turned away from him and towards his city style house.

“Wait.” Jocelyn held Maryse arm tightly, just as they accelerated into the alleyway of Luke’s house.

“What?” Maryse asked, annoyed like she usually was.

“What are we going to do this time?” Jocylen asked.

“I think you mean, what are you going to do? I’m going to Idris Hall to get everyone out of there.” Marsye declared.

“Wait, how do you know where supposed to change things?” Jocelyn wondered, looking towards who she knew was in the house, upstairs, in Luke’s bedroom.

“Joclyen the universe doesn’t send people back in time because they’ve done the right things.” Marsye stated clearly, placing her cold hands, they were always cold. Onto Jocelyn, and just like that, they were back.

The feild was still soaking wet, so wet that as soon on Marsye got up she could eee the slick drops streaming down her body. Just as if the universe was an actuality, like the cruelty of karma, the promise of a God.

“What if we just don’t do anything?” Jocelyn pondered, as she plastered a white shirt onto her body.

“We let it play out how he wants?” Maryse asked, looking into the nearby city as if searching for their answer.

“It’s going to play out if we want it to or not.” Joclyen cringed, the lightest grass she’d manage to see in her entire life bringing her back.

“But, that’s what different this time, isn’t it? It’s that we both don’t want this to happen.” Maryse interrogated, they both knew she was the one at question.

“We know how this ends if we don’t do anything. Let’s not waste our time.” Marsye added.

“But the times repeating.” Joclyean noted, they both knew it. If neither of them planned to ever admit it, it would become a problem. They would live and die in these moments.

“So, what are we going to do? Kill Valentine? Kill Luke? Should I kill you?”

“We’re just going to have to figure it out, aren’t we?”

This time, they didn’t go running, Marsye calmly walked over to her own city house. Her parents had argued over its colour, her mother thought it would come out lighter, her father thought it would come out exactly how it did in the sample.

“Sebastian should be here, right?” Marsye trued to recall.

“Don’t hurt him Marsye, please you know I love him.” Joclyen pleaded, even in a false tense, time.

“Do you love me?” Maryse asked, peering into the distance, where her favourite mountains lay, tucked in between broccoli bushes on the trees in the forest, a flat gorgeously light grassy field.

Maryse, in this current body had not seen the entire world, but her mind has. Yet, these trees are truly her favourite, if you placed the sword in her mortal hand, she could only muster an answer why. Come up with it in that moment, she might tell you it’s because they are lined with innocent maple. That the bark keeps fires going for longer than usual barks do. Yet, none of these things would be a complete honest truth, as she would come to discover. In the light of this very sun, each leaf seemed to replicate the exact hue in Joclyens teary, red lined eyes. If Maryse was one to take harsh drugs, or well, repeatedly take harsh drugs, she only stopped herself from doing this because she was always so paranoid she’d overdose. And when she thought about this, she couldn’t pick a moment for the angel to keep her in long enough for her to pass. It’s only now she knew with all her heart she would pick this moment. Where the earth briefly and honestly replicated the exact look in the eyes of the only person she chose to hate, but could only love. But that’s not exactly important, because their city is already burning behind them.

“You know I don’t.” Joclyen answered after they awoke, wet and cold, exhausted and hungry.

Cruel conditions for girls of their age. There was times it seemed almost surreal, as Maryse and Joclyean, through each other had managed to live a somewhat normal girlhood together.

“Did you ever?” Maryse asked, it was a deeper question that what it seemingly appeared.

Did you enjoy the times I tickled you until you came? Did you find comfort in sitting in the sunlight streaming through my window as we looked through perfectly printed magazines? Spending hours around the town, going to weapon shops, clothes store, house ware stores? Did you find solace in rubbing the surface of each others skin with lavish oils? In developing outfits, in smoking, in trying to seem mature? In going through pregnancy together? In being one another for brief moments?

“I did. That’s not important now.” Joclyen mumbled, shaking her red hair.

“When?”Maryse asked, gripping Joclyean’s fore arm tightly in her pale hand.

“When you were angry. When you realized it was all injust. When you hated Valentine, when you hated Robert, even when you hated me. That’s sickeningly when I loved you the most. When you were mad at me, when you hated me and couldn’t stand to speak to me.” Jocylen declared, almost silently. Out of some short of shame she had come to this admittance.

“There’s something wrong with you.” Maryse stared, as if it weren’t obvious that there was something wrong with both of them. With the circle of raziel, the people who were in it, the people who followed its ideals.

“There’s something wrong with everyone.” Joclyen added,

“Go find Luke, make him bring Valentine to my house.” Maryse ordered, she had always been great at this. Her very presence demanded a sense of respect, of genuine order.

“What’s your plan?” Joclyean asked. She’d had a dream once that Maryse was the council, and nothing had ever made more sense to her, Maryse, in maroon council robes, ordering everyone else around.

“This isn’t real, if we mess up it won’t be real. We don’t need a plan.” Maryse stated.

It was an unknown fact to most that the clock tower in Alicante had been constructed the very same, but the thing that changed was how the clock itself presented. It used to on a 13 hour system, when the Nephlilm thought the day had 26 hours. It was Michael who had mentioned it, Micheal. Sweet, stoned, Michael. The first one in the circle to ever acknowledge these times had even existed. It was after they heard the shiny white bell ring on the 12th hour. Midnight.

“It’s not really 12.” Michael muttered, but he was never a quiet person. The whole room, the current members of the circle to this point, heard him and stared back at his open face.

“Shut up Michael.” Someone responded, which someone always responded this way to Michael.

“Marsye knows what I mean, don’t you?” That’s not what he said.

“What?” Maryse asked, it was a year before the uprising. In an abandoned house, close by the forest. She didn’t remember the day, but for whatever reason, she remembered what she was wearing.

Maybe it was because none of the clothes were her own, she was wearing a teal sweater reading Alicante on the front, that belonged to Joclyen she only took it because she threw it on that morning when she woke up in her bed, beside her. Pitch black sweatpants that belonged to Robert, she had taken these the night before when she was in his bed, at his house.

“It’s not really 12, you aren’t really here.” Michael echoed, and echoed.

It was always evident to Marsye, that second to Valentines pride, his greed came second. The entirety of his city house proved this, real zebra skin rugs, mahogany chest of drawers, cabinets. Was greed something inherited? 

“Mama.” A gentle, almost silent plea caught at her attention.

“Alexander, come here.” Maryse cooed, holding her arms out, as Michael, who had been holding the small child, held him out for her.

“He’s such a good baby.” Michael commented, pinching Alexander’s cheek lightly. He’s not meant to be here, Alexander that is. He’s meant to be tucked away at Herondale Manor with Celine.

“Maryse.” Joclyean’s voice brought her back form the memories of Celine’s pouring wrist.

The problem stood beside her, in all his glory, but it wasn’t that. Maryse thought so at the time, but greed was what captured him. Just like it was her now, greed to stay in the moments where Joclyen wasn’t really hers, where Michael sung like a train wreak in public streets, where Celine gently clung onto every word she spoke. Better than she ever had Valentines.

“Call it off.” Maryse demanded, as Alexander clung onto her sleak hair, she wondered what it was that brought about that quality in Celine.

“What, you must be joking.” Valentine laughed.

“I don’t stutter when I speak. Call it off.” Maryse demanded once more, taking a few steps back into the clean kitchen, reaching for what she knew was the longest knife. A long while ago she had mastered the trick of doing things right under people’s noses, so much so that Michael had teased that if she ever became a politician, their world might be completely saved or hopelessly doomed.

“I can go tell Hodge and Stephen.” Michael, Michael. This was what it was about Michael, people fought and he tired to stopped them, to get in between them if he had to. Birds flew into windows and Michael nursed them back to health inside of shoeboxes and empty Cabinets.

He truly, was just a hippie. Maryse remembered the first time she had ever meet someone from California, it had been Mark Blackthorn. He couldn’t have been more than 12, or 13, he was inside of the office Maryse and the head of insituie had been meeting in. Mark had been talking to his younger brother Julian about trench warfare. Upon seeing that this conversation was coming to an end, Mark said clearly “peace and love. We should all be one with nature, not nurture.” and it first reminded Maryse that a 12 year old had been more morally correct than her and second, so much of Michael, despite the fact he had never said this, that she had to resist breaking down into violent sobs, and clawing all her hair off on the wooden floors.

“I’m not calling anything off just because a women tells me to.” Valentine sneared, and Michael caught the flick from the reflection of the blade in his eyes.

In his eyes, Robert used to find some truth. Was it the clarity of them, that they were so clear they reflected even sunlight?

The knife that implanted into Valentines chest protruded through the other side of him.His body dropped to the floor before anyone had time to register this. Bleeding buckets of dark staining blood onto the ivory coloured floor, out of a thought that wasn’t needed, Maryse covered Alexander’s small beady eyes. It was even stranger that, Luke, who Marsye had seen coming up towards where Joclyen was holding the screen door, dropped dead on the path all of them had walked so much, the sound of his now useless skull cracking of pavement echoed in the clean streets of Alicante.

They were back on the wet flied, bodies sleak with wetness once more.A cursing sun beating down like a bass on their face.Had they ever had the time to dry off? Even with the ultimate power of the sun? Were the mountains keeping them trapped, and not kept safe?

“Really?” Joclyen asked first, not bothering to dress her self before making their way into the glass surrounded city. Her body, only clad in dark blue training pants, and a lace bra designed to look like a pond.

“Do you have a better idea?” Maryse sassed, looking deeply, with a the air of violence into Joclyens emerald eyes. They were always relaxing in their hue, but never their expression.

“I do, if you’re willing to hear it.” Joclyen soothed, stopping in the almost marble street.

“Never.” Maryse spat back, teasingly. Nearby, a few children jumped rope and called out a song they both knew well.

“Try getting Michael to reason with him.” Joclyean suggested, as Maryse started to walk away, she followed closely, her bare wet feet making sloppy slapping noises on the material of Alicante street.

“Try hanging yourself.” Maryse sassed, as she tended to when she was stressed, or when she simply felt like it.

“Fuck off Maryse.” Joclyean responded as she had learned throughout the years of dealing with Maryse.

“You’re such a bitch! You wanted me to-“ Maryse started.

“Ladies, ladies, I know you both want me but we’ll have to settle this a little more civilly!” Michaels voice was reminiscent of the call of a mourning dove. Charming, musical, the voice that made Maryse think of lighter days. When they were all happier, maybe, in a way.

“Michael.” Maryse and Joclyen muddled at the same time.

“Ladies!!!!” Michael exclaimed back, his big goof filled smile on his face.

He had always been smart, in the sense that he understood other people. It was a distant memory to Maryse until now, the day that Valentines father died, but what surfaced was an image of Michael, painted by the mosaic that hung in the Academy window. His eyes, even though the most colour always over lapped them, made them appeared as though they could be the last mosaic in an apocalyptic earth, remained one solid clear blue. Michael’s mother, this very day, at Wayland manor, had told Maryse to never have children. When she’d asked her why, she said that Michaels eyes were as clear as the waters in her home Island in Greece. Now, everyday she was reminded of what she so dearly missed, what she began to carve her heart out in tears because of this, Michael was well aware of this.

“You know the time is looping.” Maryse figured it out before Joclyen, as she usally did even before everyone.

“Oh, it really is? Thought I just smoked too much. Bongs are crazy be-“Michael started one of his boring and uneventful rants.

“Michael. The time is repeating.” Maryse clearfired.

“Repeating? But- but I don’t know what happens tomorrow.” Michael was known for being a cry baby. When they were all children, this is what set him apart gravely from everyone else. This is what drew him and Robert, naturally, together. If you went to hit Michael, he only went to block himself, never hit back. If you went to hit Robert, he’d hit you back.

But seeing Michaels eyes fill with tears Maryse had known where to appear, she felt a lerch in her stomach.

“It’s okay, Michael. We do.” Maryse soothed.

“So, can you tell me what’s supposed to happen? What really happens?” Michael wondered, bringing his hand to Maryse forearm. He was always affectionate, even when people wished he wasn’t, like right now, because it reminded Marsye too much of what she had already lost.

“No. Just do what we tell you to.” Maryse demanded, even if it was lost there was no need to be unruly.

“You’ve always been cruel, Marsye.” Michael commented.

“You’ve always been too soft, Michael.” Maryse replied.

“I’ll do what you say, but only because I think you’re telling the truth when you saw you two know what happens.” Michael nodded slowly.

“Okay perfect. You’ve always been an angel, Michael.” Joclyean praised.

“Slow down, take me out to dinner first.” Michael joked, he always did. Even if other people weren’t exactly laughing, most of them tired to at least not smile.

“So, we can’t kill Valentine, there’s something other than a parabtai bond linking them.” Maryse put together.

“How do you know?” Jocylen asked.

“Well, if it was Luke would have died slowly, not dropped dead in the street at the exact same time.” Maryse, the thinker.

“Maybe it’s a curse.” Michael stated, the stoned.

“Shut up, Michael.” Both women ordered.

“He might be into something, not exactly a curse, but like an interlinked vodoo doll.”

“That just sounds like the Parabati link.”

“I’ll prove it to you guys if you want and kill Michael right now.”

“What would happen after that though?”

“I’m not sure. I’m smart, but I’m not a god.”

“Robert.. he would die too.” Michael mumbled.

It wasn’t in his nature to be cruel, despite where he stood beside the rest of the circle. Throughout the entire course of events, Valentine declaring they should live among the mundane, Valentine declaring entire species should be annihilated. He was the only one out of all them, who still went, even though they all fully believed jokingly, “I don’t think any one has to die.”. The only reason he stayed in Idris so long, despite being told by his father to leave and go to stay with him in Japan many times, was because he still believed he could change things, and played it as loyalty. Keep your friends close; and enemies closer.

“Michael?” Maryse asked, calling his attention away from the clouds.

“Maryse!” Michael responded.

“How would you stop this?” Maryse asked.

“What?” Michael wondered.

“We both know you’ve been lying all this time.”

“What..”Michael tried to fein innocence to a sense.

“Michael, for once in your life just be a bit honest.”

“I’d probably just kill Luke. Valentine doesn’t have anything to live for if Luke’s dead. But if what I’ve overheard you say about them being other wise connected, this could have some issues.” Michael pointed out, he was smart when he needed to be.

“So, killing either of them is off the table, for now. So, what would you do?”

“Please, Maryse, you know I really do love you. Tell me what happens, please.” Michael was a candid for a puppy begging at the dinner table for scraps.

“Fine, Michael, don’t help. Joclyen, I think I know what to do, but you aren’t going to like it.” Maryse cleared.

“What do you want to do? Hurt myself? Hurt Sebastian? Because I won’t, even during something like this.” Jocelyn added finally.

“Just like you couldn’t before.” Maryse stated.

“Shut up! You know what, I’m going to do what I did before then!” With that, Joclyean stormed off, Maryse had seen the exact colour of burning, perishing flames many times. It wasn’t that of Joclyens hair, no matter how much anyone said so, especially Valentine.

“Michael, I’ll tell you what happens on one condition.” Maryse reasoned, Michael was one of the few in Idris at this state that could even be reasoned with in general.

“What’s that?”Michael wondered.

“You don’t tell anyone else.”Maryse stated.

“You got it, boss.” Michael winked, he knew was physically attractive, he choose not to acknowledge this.

“You die today, but not how you think.” Maryse made known.

“How, please?” Michael begged.

“A fire. Valentine sets it, to make it look like he’s dead, so he can get away.” Maryse laid out. It was really once in a lifetime you got to right a wrong at this large scale.

“Of course he does.” Michael sighed, still sounding like an angel.

“Well, what are you going to do?”Maryse wondered honestly for once.

“With the information that I’ll be dead by sundown?” Michael asked for clarification.

“Yes, Michael I-“Maryse started.

“I love you too.” Michael smiled.

“Not what I was going to say.” Maryse commented, looking briefly into Michael eyes before pointing to the ivory clock tower, just off the center of angel square.

“Stop the clock from ringing at 10. That way we might have enough time before the meeting starts to call this off.” Maryse delivered, rushing over to where she knew Valentine was, where Luke wasn’t. Just like Robert and Michael, they wouldn’t be together today.

Maybe that’s what she needed to change, so she sprinted as faster than she’d ever be trained to, into her own house off Angel square.

“Robert?” Maryse was calling throughout the house, waiting for an answer she achieved in the form of foot steps, cracking over the withstanding wood of the house she inherited.

“Maryse.” Robert was holding Alexander, in a pure cotton onesie, clutching onto his father’s suit clad shoulders, his eyes wide and full of a certain wonder you would only achieve from not being fully conscious.

“Loving you doesn’t come naturally to me, just like not loving Michael how you did was unnatural to you.” Maryse stated, watching as Robert stood frozen on the second to last step of the stairs, a gentle light from a window behind him outlining his silhouette.

Finally, well his eye brows were crunched in concentration, he handed Alexander over to Marsye, well departing the stairs and heading himself Into the living room, lighting up a hand rolled cigarette.

“We both knew this wasn’t going to work as advised, just like everything else in the entire world, it was politics Maryse, a matter of option, because everything is. Valentine started the circle with a different option that the one he’s ending with.” Robert muttered calmly, he always rolled them with Michael, and after they had become estranged, he rolled them with Maryse. Expect, he always watched her smoke one before he rolled his own.

“Will you kiss me one last time, even I know you don’t love me like you love Michael?” Maryse wondered, Robert wrapped his thick hand behind her neck and closed the distance between them, his lips kissing so passionately, Maryse didn’t need any confirming in her mind that they both thought this day would be their last.

“Don’t blame Michael.” Robert pleaded, because he was pathetic. It was polite to look upon his face with anything seemingly pitiful, because most pathetic people end up in the solitude of pills or pussy. It reminded Maryse that they both end up with a slap on the wrist after all of this, and it was clear in this moment only that their very race was pathetic. That’s why it was easy for Valentine to convince them all they needed to commit the mass murder of multiple people.

“I can’t blame Michael because he spent more of his time smoking weed than sleeping. I blame the way the shadow hunter society panned out, I blame Valentines mother for giving him the ego that he has, I’m sure even in death. I blame all of us for not having a decent sense enough of strong and free will to do anything about the circle when we were in it. I blame Luke for not killing Valentine that day in the forest.” Maryse slipped the cigarette out of Robert’s hand and into her own as she slid into the kitchen between them both.

“How can you blame Luke?” Robert wondered, watching in the open window the kids that skipped on the street, his thumb uncontrollably tapping against his thigh in the same rhythm as the song.

“Because at this point in time, a woman could say the sky is blue and there will always be a man to beat her until she says it’s red.” Maryse stated.

“So you blame Luke? He tortures Luke more than he tortures Joclyean.” Robert asked, and for the first time in decades, even in the times directly after this very one, Robert had a small stream of tears from his eyes.

“You really think that?” Maryse inquired, and Robert’s eyes were those of an antiquarian, constantly searching for old things in the eyes of new people, of new trends, of new foods, he was constantly seeking to soothe the old.

“I know that. L-Luke talks to Michael about it okay? Michael told me yesterday, that there’s times Luke has a razor to his own wrist and the only thing Valentine does he remind him how it would make him feel, because he know that Luke’s empathic.” Robert states, but Maryses mind could only focus on, what it was that made Robert so appealing to her in the first place.

“Luke’s a coward.” He was a hypocrite, to the very dictionary definition, almost hilariously so.

“Even Hitler went the cowards way.” They completed each other, painfully so, because Maryse refused to ever be the courts jester, meanwhile, Robert had a long ancestry line of this very profession.

“Luke doesn’t know anything, but to bite the hand that feeds.” That, was something not even Maryse could not make sense of, and could never see the sunset to.

“Luke’s not Hitler, more the tramp by his side, biting down on that cyanide pill.” Maryse stared, as she slipped a long bread knife into her sleeve, before heading back towards the window Robert stared out of.

“I thought she shot herself too.” Robert spoke, as Maryse brought her other hand to his shoulders.

“What you think and what’s true is always different.” She stated, taking the knife out in an instant, stabbing Robert faster than light.

“The last time I got stabbed like this.. it.. was from.. behind..” Robert groaned out honestly, plainly.

The grassy landscape of Idris felid was now haunting the both of them so painfully, they knew it could only be in vengeance. A vengeance springing from vainglorious actions they performed well being members of the circle, which they were in these current bodies of themselves.

“Can we just talk, for a moment?” Joclyean evaluated, not bothering to sit up, as Maryse was, looking down at her, their eyes catching on each others in the most semblance to reality, they now yearned to desperately grip.

“We could talk forever, Joclyean.” Maryse quipped the side of her lipstick soused mouth.

“What is it that made you tell me you loved me last night?” Joclyean wondered, partially because she hadn’t ever the time to ask before these now altered moments.

“I- I don’t know, I didn’t- I- I thought you were asleep.” Maryse uncharacteristically fiddled over her words.

“I was awake enough that I heard you.” Joclyean specified, her eyes glazed up to the columbus clouds.

“After all this time, you tell me now?” Maryse asked, her eyes remaining fixed on Joclyean’s.

“What was I meant to say, Maryse?” Jocelyn questioned.

“You were meant to tell me you loved me too.” Maryse murmured, almost underneath her breath.

“I told you every time I heard you snoring.” Joclyean was finally looking at Maryse, sadly, maybe even with an inch of anger, as the sea might look upon the shore and wish for its stability.

“I don’t snore.”

“Why did you love me, then?” Jocelyn wondered, maybe if Mayrse still did love, and if she loved her.

“I saw things in you I didn’t see in myself, you were patient, empathetic, more than most of us. That’s why Valentine took a liking to you, because you always convinced him he could be killed, and he wasn’t the victim, because you knew that wasn’t what he wanted.” Maryse reported her option, which was the truth most of the time.

“What did you see in Robert?” Joclyean had never seen anything much in anyone but Valentine and Luke.

“I thought we were talking about me and you.”

“Why bother? Shouldn’t we figure out what to do here?to get out of this all?” Jocelyn asked, readily, rapidly, Maryse didn’t utter a word, and allowed herself to be at the sense of peace one might feel before their execution, letting her eyes glazing on the vibrant mountains surrounding

“I have to kill Sebastian.” Joclyean figured, but her eyes only remained on Maryse.

“How do you know?” She asked without looking away for even a moment, missing it even if she disagreed with everything, down to the very foundation of every slick building.

“Because I was going to this morning, anyways.” Joclyean confessed.

“What was it, that made you and Robert take accountability?” She added, before Maryse had the chance to respond, even though she never would, even if they stayed in this exact spot for the rest of eternity.

“Alexander still had a life he could live.” Maryse stated, rising, finally peeling her eyes painfully away from the perfect landscape.

“Are you proud of him, now?” Joclyean asked, as Maryse held out her hand for Joclyean to take.

“I can tell he will be one of the greats, and not just because I named him after one. He’s a child and he can tell the difference between right and wrong better than a judge. He makes up for everything we’ve ever lacked.” Marsye stated proudly.

“Than you tell me, is this right, or wrong?” Joclyean wondered. The streets of Alicante had never look pure whiter than they did right now, not in any other time they’d walk this preferred path.

“We both know what he’ll grow up to be, something beyond wrong, so wrong, Lucifer shakes his head.”Maryse stated.

“How am I meant to go on with my life if this works?”

“The only that matters if it works or not, is if we go home after all this.”

“This was our home.” Joclyean stated.

“This is no one’s home, and it hasn’t been for a very long time, it’s been a house for eons.” Maryse cleared, holding the screen door open for Joclyean to open the interior one, her eyes locked on Joclyean fully.

A sound naturally similar to that of a babies cry was one of a goats bleat, and with the frequency of which Sebastian was crying, sobbing, heaving, hardly even taking breaths.

Upon his own father’s face was a look of neutrality, of punishment of the guillotine, for no matter how cruel you were, wetiher you choose to let the poor starve or you opened the door to the palace you’d be a betrayer of people, and you’d get the sharp edge of a guillotine, the swift 20 seconds of your live played like a short form video.

The only other, the one who might stand beside the accused, who might defend that Marie Antoinette never said “let them eat cake” or depending who he spoke to “she might have well have said that” the easily changeable, yet completly loyal to the crown, Luke, the one who might live through it all by simply changing his morals on what benefitted them, because life has always been a matter of survival.

The final two; we’re only Michael and Robert, both wore completely contrary expressions.

Within Michael’s soul, no matter what could happen to him, he managed to stay true to himself, and to his almost non existent morals, because he choose to never think of them, unless a moment of unknown, widely personal genius stuck, as If Michael invented the Guillotine, because no matter what, he was still a young boy who cried when he stepped on worms. Because anything with 5 or more hearts, must feel more than 5 or more humans. And everyone, must feel something, Michael would demand a serial killer be put to a swift death, and it mattered more that they were dead, than how they died.

If Robert had ever seen a soul within himself, he’d find empathy, just as he did, watching a child no more than 2 be burned to death into the flame of a wood stove, because he had always been told, been shown that owning a spirt capable of empathy was weakness, he could be punched in the face, and he’d apologize for breaking your hand. He wasn’t pathetic, exactly, yet sickeningly so, as if he was a disabled dog, you’d have to be Lucifer in order to not feel pitiful. You’d want him to be put down, lengthwise, under the blade reflecting off the sun.