The Eternally Cursed

Every now and then the stars align Boy and girl meet by the great design Could it be that you and me are the lucky ones?

"I almost feel like I have to ask, but if you insist—” 

A brow inched higher as she accepted the pale blue ribbon, twining thick blonde hair into a hasty braid and fastening it off at the end. Much better. Even if it did leave her feeling far more frilly and feminine than usual. 

Seifer followed his gaze; nothing but birds.

"Maybe another time, when we're alone," he purred, smiling at her with a Cheshire cat's grin. "It's a pretty color with your hair, Sei, if you don't mind me saying so."

In the street, the pigeons took flight as a dog ran through, barking. Balthier instinctively stiffened. He had never liked dogs on a good day--not since he had been a beast and they had mistaken him for one of their kind.

"Have we met?” she countered, a smirk on her lips. “I court trouble, remember?”

Settling back in her chair, she reached back, fingers bundling up her hair off of her neck, a pleased noise escaping as a rush of ice magic wafted across her neck. 

If there was one thing she missed about Balamb, it was air conditioning. 

He leaned his chin into his palm lazily, watching pigeons peck about in the street.  

"You’re doing that thing where you get all philosophical again, babe," she informed him, nudging his leg under the table with one sandaled foot. 

It was strange, she wouldn’t lie, knowing that everyone around her had abandoned the mortal coil, where she could still pass freely to and from. An outcast in this world as well as the old one. It figured. 

Seifer rolled the edge of the napkin at her place lightly between her fingers. 

"It’s… peaceful. Like I can actually just… be, y’know?"

Was it a magic that worked upon the minds of all who inhabited the realm? No--Ragnarok would have informed them. The whole point of the afterlife was to leave ones cares behind for the rest of eternity. 

Yet, Balthier seemed to have only gained more. He ran a hand through his hair absently, wondering if stress was starting to give him white hair.

Voluntary interaction with Gilgamesh was one thing. Actively hunting him down was another. 

She turned at the indicated path, and sighed in relief as the overhanging roofs offered some solace from the blazing sun. Even once she’d abandoned worn denim and faded tank tops for soft, light cotton dresses, draped and knotted in a million different ways, the kind favored by the women roaming around this particular town, the heat was still brutal.  

kinesin (a motor protein) pulling a some kind of vesicle along some kind of cytoskeletal filament

She reconsidered her opinion of the knives and made a mental note to borrow one for ambling through the streets. Gilgamesh had the most irritating habit of showing up when she’d really have preferred to be left alone.

The streets were damn near empty with the stifling midday air, and she flipped her sunglasses down onto her face. 

"It was down this street, I think," he nodded toward a side road. Ostentatiously, the place was unremarkable but for the fact that it had ice, and in such sweltering weather, it made the cafe popular.

"I know, right? —Ooh, these are nice.”

One of the daggers was scooped up, and she tested the fit in her boot. Not quite sleek enough that she could draw it at a moment’s notice, but it was nice nonetheless. Seifer flipped it back onto the mattress, and stood to follow. 

Absently, her arm slipped in along his, fingers sliding down to catch his hand. 

Her hand sneaked into his, and he gave it a little squeeze in affirmation. The heat once he passed into the hallway was crushing, and for a moment he thought he was going to pass out. 

she drifts, with the 

               snicker-snack of claws against bare grey stone, and

she cannot remember the last time that she wore shoes. battered, black ugly things they were, steel in the toes and laces shredding with every knot. 

she abandoned them somewhere near the shoreline, walking across the sea and trailing red silk like blood. sharks skimmed under her feet, nature’s beasts shying from their master,

                              and what a ferocious thing she has become. 

her wings beat slow and heavy, a wardrum heralding her arrival, and something older than firaga builds up in her bones and her blood, leaving fire and fury in her wake. 

let them kome, let them kome, let them try to kill her if they can. they didn’t succeed before, when she was mortal and made of bluster, bravado, dreams.

let them kome.

let them kome.  

                         she knows, she knows, that it is impossible to slay a witch. 

and the monster that once was seifer marie almasy parts her lips in a snarl, in a madwoman’s laugh. 

The trail was easier to follow than blood splashed on the walls of a crime scene. The magic only got heavier and heavier until it felt like he was moving through molasses. There on the sea he saw her, boots discarded and clothing replaced with red silks, hair wild like one of the war-women from the old tales. Wings--like an angel of vengeance. 

Enough of this madness.

Enough of this foolishness. 

His shoulders shook with ill restrained emotion. Hurt, rage--that the sorceress had dare descend here? Now he arrived blazing with wrath and black flame, a god with eyes like the moon, surrounded in a cloak of night.

Her fingers skimmed over the cast-off plate lightly. Heavy-duty for a conversation. 

Admittedly, she was always kinda wary of dealing with Gilgamesh, too. One never knew when he’d get it in his head to just… shank someone.