#persep

–

Whatever it was that she used to take him out was removed from his temple by the time he woke up, which meant that Nymira was wise enough to maintain a healthy dose of caution. A shame, really, he’d really like to have her disarmed. A stubborn goddess was no laughing matter.

Persep stared at the ceiling for a moment, allowing his senses to piece themselves back together, all the while listening to the sounds of Nymira shuffling around in another room. Clearly, the godling was searching desperately for something.

He smiled to himself, got up to his feet, noted with disgust that he was covered in his own blood, and turned in the direction he suspected her search led her.

When is she going to learn?

He swaggered to the door to his bedroom, which was flung wide open, and watched for a moment as the mutant dug around for the key to the deadbolt recently installed at the front entrance. Smart girl.

“You are full of surprises, aren’t you dear Dreamer?”

It was clear that the sound of his voice gave her pause, she froze in place where she was patting down a pair of pants that lived in the closet. 

“No!” She shrieked, turning to toss a shoe at his head. It bounced off of the target. “No! You died!”

A cruel laugh, any anger he had was quickly dispelled by her incredulity. The fear she forced to turn into fury, gaze trained on something behind his head. “A few times now, yes.”

The anger surged behind her eyes as she shot daggers at whatever she focused on that wasn’t his face. The list of things he wouldn’t give to hear her thoughts at that moment was a short one. It was fun to see her properly furious, a double edged sword paired with the headache that it caused.

In his humor, he did not expect what happened next. She rushed him. She was a bull barrelling through him with strength so surprising that it made him wonder exactly what caste she mutated off of. And just how the hell Cylion kept her in her place for so long.

His arm shot up to pull her by the back of her shirt, in the same movement he gripped her shoulder and forced her to face him. She pulled something sharp out of her pocket, intending to do more of the same, no doubt.

Persep growled, hand already moved from her shoulder to wrap around her throat, nails digging into the soft spot under her jaw from the force. Oh how easy it would be to just snap her neck and return the favor.

Nymira thrashed in his grip showed no sign of letting up on her assault, the letter opener she ripped out of nothing flailed aimlessly for purchase. She got a slice into his right bicep, he hissed in pain at the appearance of another gash down the side of his face. Her free hand was clenched into a fist that landed blows wherever it could on his body, but adrenaline gripped him just as much as it did her and he held firm. Between her attacks and screams of fury, she got careless and gave him the eye contact he wanted.

In an instant there was calm, the glow of his chuckle voodoos danced off of her briefly horror stricken face before it went slack. No fear,  just acceptance.

Persep took a moment to get his breathing level, ran a hand through his hair, and turned to face a mirror hanging on the wall to assess the damage to his face. Nothing that would be there tomorrow, at least. Satisfied with that, he started to tease his hair back in place.

"You want to stab? This is wholly unlike you, Dreamer. The universe is all about balance, did you know? Do unto others and all of that nonsense."

He watched through the mirror while the mutant turned the letter opener toward her own throat. Annoyingly, her expression did not betray whatever she was feeling beneath the surface.

"You can't." She spoke carefully, wary of the blade that all but kissed her skin. 

A grin crept over Persep's features, slowly morphing into one that practically split his face ear to ear. He admired the point of his teeth in the mirror.

"Not permanently, no. There are fates worse than death, dear Dreamer, hadn't you heard?"

“If you could hurt me, you would have by now!”

Mirthful was a word Persep never used for himself, all that clown business being so childish and beneath him after all, but this was a special occasion. How else would he describe the laugh that bubbled up past his lips at the conviction?

She was so sure she'd figured it all out.

“Cute.” He said around the sharpness of his smile. “We really believe that, do we?”

She swallowed, resolve as tough as the steel that slowly pressed itself into her flesh until a line of blood appeared against it. Pencil thin and oil slick. Truly a beauty of a mutant, she would have made a wonderful paint for any savage that didn't know the worth of the thing.

Out of the corner of his eye Persep watched his own reflection in the mirror,  the same paper cut of a wound starting to appear on his neck just underneath where she'd attacked him earlier. A shame to see she was still mortal, but that didn't seem to wipe the smile from his face.

“I have been nothing but patient, Nymira. This is the most restraint I've shown in sweeps, even. Don't you see what your stubbornness is doing to what should by all accounts be a beautiful partnership?”

She yelled again, still closer to a battle cry than anything fear would produce.

“We should discuss this like adults.”

“Leave me alone!”

He tutted softly, the letter opener already pressing deeper into her flesh, knuckles nearly white from the way he forced her grip. His smile bordered on manic while blood started to pour from his own, impossible wound.

The last thing he saw before his head hit the floor was the blood of his God spilled out onto his carpet.

It was going to be a nightmare to get that stain out.

–

Persep woke up first, which came to him as a sort of surprise. More than that, he found that there was hardly a scar left behind from the ordeal. Unlike his last interaction with Aelium, which left him sporting a cute little x over his heart. A cherished memento.

He wondered if he would have been better off killing the godling sooner as a sort of litmus test for his troubles. That would have been a treat.

Ah, well. The past is the past.

When Nymira awoke, it was to his leering. Smiling above her from where she lay in her bed.

“I hate you.” She declared, sternly. Though he could hear the dread swimming in the background as clear as day.

“I am aware. But I think you will not test my patience again, hm?”

She glared at him.

His smile widened.

They stared at each other in the kind of silence and tension that only an impasse could build up.

––––––

“GET AWAY FROM ME!”

Persep barely ducks in time to avoid the bowl whizzing towards his head, Nymira’s aim startlingly true. She stands at rigid attention, every muscle taut as the ceramic shatters violently against the wall. Before the pieces hit the floor, she is reaching towards the rest of her dishes for something else to throw.

He waits patiently as she does, watching the spoon bounce off his shoulder and the cup soar past him entirely before she raises the tray high above her head in warning.

“I take it you didn’t like the oatmeal,” he offers, eyeing her display with amusement.

“Get out,” she bites back, arms shaking with tension. "Leave before I hurt you.”

“You think that’s how this fight goes, do you?”

“You need me alive. I do not need you.”

Though the threats are laughable, Persep squares his jaw, annoyed more at his own miscalculations than her meager rebellion. 

Evidently, the impression he had gathered of Nymira during their last stint together was not wholly accurate. Without a lifetime of lies unmasked and a world-shattering betrayal to keep her supplicated, his perfect, pliable godling has become an entirely different beast.

One that seems far more angry than she is scared.

“‘Alive’ does not mean ‘unharmed’, little goddess. Choose your battles carefully.”

The malice in his tone is enough to give her pause, until at last she relents. The tray clatters to the floor, eliciting a cool smile from Persep.

––––––

Another night ends in failure.

Standing in front of his mirror with face bare and stitches removed, Persep runs a hand through his hair and sighs. She won’t budge. Won’t give him an inch. Were it not for his current sorry state, he would be hauling his future goddess to a dissection table by now. 

He can be patient, though. Let her exhaust her options. She’ll see soon enough that her only way out is through. In the meantime, Persep doesn’t mind a challenge, and a faint shuffle in the hall suggests he’s due for another.

He exits his room to the sight of Nymira creeping towards the stairwell, a crystalline key clutched tightly in one hand. Her subconscious is shockingly consistent in its tastes, isn’t it?

Persep closes the gap in a few long strides and clamps an iron grip onto Nymira’s shoulder, ready to drag her back to her room once again. She tenses deliciously at his touch, but he’s well aware by now that her fear response is not “freeze.”

When she whirls around in an attempt to drive her key into his eye socket, he’s more than ready to catch her wayward wrist, though it takes all the will he has not to snap it in his hand-- the satisfaction isn’t worth the hassle of working through a broken bone of his own.

“Good effort,” he croons, yanking her roughly down the hall.

It comes as a pleasant surprise when his own shoulder, sore though it is, is not wrenched from its socket that morning by forces unseen.

––––––

That was the last time her attempts were even that fruitful; she hasn’t made it to the hallway since. With the chasm of her despair widened, Persep has taken to trying a more honeyed approach.

He raps lightly on the door with the back of his hand, ears pricked for sounds within. There’s enough shuffling to tell him she’s awake, but she declines to respond.

“I’m not your enemy, Nymira,” he tells her softly, voice for just a moment much closer to Aelium’s than his own. “I want what you want.”

Silence.

He envisions her glaring at the door, gaze so intense he can practically smell it burning through the wood.

“Why not leave here a god, dreamer? A real god. Why not be uplifted?”

Still no response. Persep sniffs, annoyed, and feels the hair on his arms prickle upwards. He can smell burning.

The force with which he throws the door open nearly rips it off its hinges. Nymira sits crouched by the window, holding a candle’s open flame to the curtains. Any amusement Persep had previously derived from her little escapades is forgotten in an instant.

He rushes her like a wolf upon its prey, reaching haplessly for the candle. The godling grits her teeth and reacts with equal fervor, twisting out of his grasp and winding back as if to throw the thing into her bed. 

“Stop!” Persep barks, grabbing hold of her arm with one hand to wrench the candle from her palm. She screams in response, leveraging his grip on her to kick out wildly with both legs. A strike to his knee unsteadies him, and she barrels into him shoulder-first to send them both crashing to the ground.

Again, she strikes at him with reckless abandon, grunting with each swipe as she tries to claw her way past him for the door. He arches away when she nearly hooks a finger in his stitches, then springs at her with a quick, brutal shove that knocks Nymira to her back.

The next portion of their scuffle is even less dignified, limbs striking out against each other and both of them scrabbling for purchase against the floor. Every time he thinks he’s about to have a hold on her, she seems to jerk or roll away, and Persep is left to clumsily redirect as he wrestles her for control.

When he locks down one ankle, she shrieks like she’s been maimed, writhing violently in his grasp and battering him repeatedly with her other foot.

Despite her struggles, Persep manages to keep hold, and soon enough he has both of her legs in hand. As she continues to kick and scream her protest, Persep grabs hold of her shins and drags himself on top of her, pinning her legs with his weight. The next challenge is her arms, still whipping around with the sole purpose of keeping them free. Though she knows better than to lock eyes with him, he can see them burning with a hatred hotter than the blaze she tried to start.

“ENOUGH,” Persep snaps, nails digging into her wrists as he finally manages to grapple them to the floor. Teeth bared and chest heaving, he stares through a curtain of his hair at the still-thrashing mutant beneath him. “Listen to me. Now.”

Nymira’s screams are still more fury than fear, and he slams her once against the wood. The way her skull bounces off the floor, he can already tell his headache will be splitting, but right now? He would saw his own arm off if it meant finally putting this brat in her place.

“I am through playing your games,” he hisses, venom dripping from his voice. “It’s my turn.”

Though she pants and glares daggers at him, Nymira says nothing, and Persep feels some of his composure return. 

“I will hurt your family,” he says simply, breath still evening out. “I will pin your bug brother and rip those gaudy wings from his back, one at a time.”

“No!” She growls, shaking as she strains against him.

“I will put your father down like the animal he is––”

“NO!”

“––and I will drag that void-rotted failure out to be boiled in the sun. I will put them through pain you have only dreamed of, Nymira.”

“Stop!” she cries, tears welling in her eyes.

~~~~

“She wants the doll to try dreaming?” Cylion scoffs, barely trying to hide his disdain. Little Friend glares at him from its perch atop Archie’s palm, painted eyes narrowed in defiance.

“No, not exactly,” the clown ventures, free hand scratching at his neck. “S’more like… Sendin’ him back to hers.”

I wish, Cylion thinks, fighting off the scowl that tugs at his lips.

“He comes from Nymira’s head, s’what Finala was sayin’. So he should be able to drop back in, dream logic n’ all that, yeah?”

“We don’t need him for that.”

“Right, cause you were just rarin’ to get in there yourself.”

Cylion bristles. They both know why he hasn’t visited her yet. Even beyond the risk of Persep intercepting somehow––what the defunct prophet touted as his main concern––it’s obvious what he’s really afraid of.

That Nymira wouldn’t have him.

Archie raises an eyebrow, lifting Little Friend as if in question.

Cylion sighs bitterly. 

“Fine.”

~~~~

“Someone’s cooperative today,” Persep’s voice infiltrates Nymira’s thoughts with an audible grin, condescending and smug. The godling frowns in response, retreating further into herself as she tries to grasp at something fleeting.

She knows what he’s thinking. He believes that death, temporary as it was, has shaken her.

It has, to some extent. It would do so to anyone, she imagines. But Persep believes it has broken her. That she has lost the will to fight.

She facilitated that assumption herself, actually, ghosting about the hive in a near-catatonic state and shrinking away whenever he approached. Nymira has played the part he cast her in, and she has done so diligently.

She doesn’t want him growing wise until it’s too late.

Until he gets exactly what he wished for.

~~~~

“Cylion,” the witch greets him, smiling as she swipes a hair from her face.

He nods in response, gaze flashing briefly to her own pupil-less eye. It looks natural on her.

“I’m glad you’re here. I think you’ll be a great help.”

He nods again as he sits, face tight.

Finala takes her seat opposite him, gently setting her fingertips on the table. Nymira’s doll emerges from the greying locks that cover her shoulders, traipsing down her arm to stand at attention between the two trolls.

He keeps his back to Cylion, tiny head angled back to gaze up at the woman with something he imagines must be hope or reverence. 

She guides Little Friend to lay down with a slow and delicate touch, and it glances warily at Cylion before allowing its face to take on the facsimile of sleep. Neither of them have forgotten how he chose to handle the thing when it was in his possession.

“Just try your best,” Finala instructs, fingers tracing a star-spattered sigil into the air. “Guide him to her.”

~~~~

Even Persep’s footsteps have become more confident, more arrogant. Nymira hears his passing through the haze of half-sleep, each tap roaring through her aching skull like thunder. She accomplished today something she had previously thought impossible.

A stale dream, something come and gone, found its way into her hands, plumbed from the depths of her mind and pulled into being with a process far longer than her usual. The artifact itself was nothing mystical, a pen much like those Marrie had gifted her just before her world caved in. 

But she had dreamed it four nights ago. 

Persep had been thrilled.

After testing thoroughly that the pen bore no special properties, he allowed her to keep it, a decision perhaps helped by the cautious way she held it, as if questioning whether this too could be used to end her if he so willed it.

Nymira knows she must fulfill her role to get her way. She learned that from a very young age. 

She doesn’t bother wishing that she had conjured something more conducive to escape. It’s enough that it reminds her of Marrie. Of home.

Holding the pen to her cheek, she allows herself to drift, down, down, down through a twinkling sea of stars that widens and envelops her in a shifting, yawning light. She squints in the brightness of it, raising a hand to block her eyes and finding the motion completely ineffectual. Even when she closes them, she can see only a blinding, radiant white behind her lids.

With nothing else to do, she allows it to wash over her, gazing into the flare until at last shapes begin to form within it.

She sees herself in shaky silhouette, tail fanned open at her back. The light pours from it like a window, and Nymira tentatively unfurls her own. As it opens behind her, that incandescent light begins to fade, melting slowly into a soft, pulsing glow that blankets her like a veil.

The other figure dissolves into a faint and delicate warmth, shimmering particles floating towards her to collect around her palms. In a motion all at once familiar and alien, Nymira pulls her hands apart and focuses between them, drawing from a well within her that she, too, lies within.

A wave of vertigo rips through her, and she cannot tell whether she is spinning or still. When her vision is once again steady, it lands on a familiar figure cradled in her palms. Little Friend blinks as if waking up, then turns to gaze at his creator.

~~~~

Somewhere far away, Cylion remembers to breathe.