Same Blue Sky As Always

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"What a first, for you to have your opinion on matters without my overt prompting. Has the Grand Prince finally worn down on your nerves?" There's a lofty acknowledgement from the lounging man, running fingers absentmindedly over himself, tracing every curve as his mind wanders elsewhere. As it always does. Enough of him is present to speak, but the rest of him must always be thinking, planning. A sort of existence that others would find overbearingly stressful, to think and never stop, to always have a need to be steps ahead of everyone else. To make sure he knows exactly the way he needs everyone to fit into his plans; the future he builds must be picture perfect.

Mirabelle is mindful still, even with so much of him absent. He feels still the plush mattress underneath him, the sheets with a thread count too high with a price tag to match. Not that it means much when he can get such things for free; once he would have wondered if that man ever wondered what happened to his prized stock, now the people of the world are little more than insects. They scurry about their business and Mirabelle pays them no mind.; they exist to do their tasks, live their lives, and provide him with all he desires to reap and harvest. Nothing more, nothing less.

Again he mindlessly runs his fingers over himself, resting a hand over fading bruises and the lingering warmth of the man whose long left their shared bed. There is no pleasure derived from it, his mind slowly drifting from him, slowly becoming too absent to bother recalling sensation and memory but he knows for certain that at one point this body experienced such. Later he'll think upon it, later with the barest dregs of fondness, and like always it will lead him right back to this house of prayer and the man who knows words and acts of true faith.

Cornelius' weight and warmth are long gone from the bed, but the heat between his legs is enough. Even if a part of Mirabelle's mind questions why he lets it go on; his fingers dip further as a budding frustration forces his mind to leave his overly occupied thoughts. He's years beyond the point of which he'd have lovingly carved his faithful to pieces, relishing in the spilling of blood and the brutal, abrupt but planned end. That fleeting, but mind numbing excitement that Mirabelle has learned to pursue but never chase. The thought of rendering Cornelius into the soulless parts the man truly is brings no inkling of enjoyment. His fingers stop, no movement they make chases away the mood that's begun to swallow his mind, and Mirabelle opens his eyes to see that Cornelius' mouth has been moving but in a rare instance, he caught not a single word that was said.

What a frustratingly put together man; frustratingly practical. While the object of his faith - his obsession - has idled within his own bed, just as bare as he was left, the nobleman has already redressed, acting as if the world never once stopped in its such impartiality. In the moment, it makes the god in mortal flesh narrow his eyes just a hair. Mirabelle gestures with aggressive flippancy at whatever comes from his most faithfuls mouth as he rolls onto his back to stare holes into the canopy above. An inhale, an exhale, and he lets go of the feeling in an instant, looks at Cornelius through the corner of his eye and then away before sitting up and slouching over himself; turning to look at the man with a smile as he distracts himself with other thoughts. Plans.

"You were speaking of the Grand Prince and I suppose all of those that clamor for the throne." He rolls over, off the bed and saunters over to the armchair Cornelius is not quite frozen to. The mess left in Mirabelle's wake is barely minded, his state of undress even less as he leans into his faithful priest's space. "What if you were put on the throne?" It's a question sincere and a rarity at that. The thought had crossed his mind before, when the Reaper had an inkling of how deeply Cornelius' faith ran, but now. Now it was something worth entertaining. He leans in further, strands of pink draping with tactful and deliberate artistry as he crawls into the mans lap. "It would be years in the making, but I could assist in getting you there. Sit you on that opulent throne, don you in the crown and robe."

Hands rest at his hips, keep him safe and steady in a chair that does its best to seat two. Mirabelle leans in closer in response, buries his face int he crook of the mans neck, drags the dress shirts collar down enough to leave the softer skin of the fleshwarp exposed. "What do you think you would do with this place? With Taldor? It's power is greatly waned, but I think it could turn into something so much more than this husk of dying nobility." The skin his teeth sinks into gives way with no fight, a charming trait he's come to enjoy. Most when it comes lose with barely a bite, but he cannot afford to spill Cornelius' blood today, not yet.

Another bite, and another, before he leans away enough to be heard again. "I think you should mull the possibility about, I don't desire an answer soon. But for once it might be good to let that imagination of yours run. A priest of Norgorber on the throne and I right there besides you." Behind you, he means, but the look that the other can't see on his face is vaguely playful. "I could be your consort, play about the castle for you. Whisper into the ears of people you had no time for. We could bend Taldor into a shape unrecognizable."

It pains her, the way that she cannot in these fleeting, precious moments be truly by her friends side. Little more than a voice, a presence, projected through a willing familiar, from the depths of the aetherial sea does Hydaelyn- Venat, look upon the remains of one of those she held most dear. To hear their voice, to see their smile, tired and strained as it may be, warms her heart in a way she has long missed. That smile still exists elsewhere, the love that made Nyx that defined them, is what guides the world down a path of hope. but still, but ever still, there is a fondness that she has held long and dearly. Her heart, warm and trembling with eons long sorrows, flutters in her chest.

"Yes, my friend." She turns to look beyond Nyx tot he little blue marble slowly turning. Venat had seen it before in only briefest of glimpses still however the sight of it makes her breathless. A little blue star full of life, and wonder. Countless lives upon it, countless existences that toil away. Countless, countless people, once just little shards of life, all driven to live. To dream. To pursue a tomorrow that will one day be a happier place, a hopeful place, for those who come after. A world full of those who toil to build wonder, to find beauty, to exemplify it.

A world her friend left behind, in hopes that she, too, would safeguard such creatures. Such life, such small, beloved existences. Children to them both. In the corner of her eye, Venat watches Nyx too turn to stare at the world they have held in their gentle, slumbering embrace. There is a peace that overcomes them, a satisfaction long earned.

"I wish you were there to see it. To see them." She does not whisper, but state. "I have beset them with a terrible existence." She brings a hand to her chest, and the body she inhabits mimics an eon old gestures. "But even still they have walked forward. They have suffered greatly... and they have learned to hope." As we wanted, as we wished, as we both dared to dream and hope, she wants to say. But she knows that such things belong to another existence, another life. One that races now against the clock that's finally resumed its ticking count.

Venat takes a step, two, enough to stand side by side with her friend again; together they admire the world from afar, on this creation of Nyx's that she had stolen from them. Like she had stolen a great many others. It is a moment that a part of her wishes could span for a much longer time, for an eternity, two hearts at peace. She smiles with all the softness and love that never once died within her and turns that look to her eternal friend. "There is still much work to be done." She states, voice pained by the knowledge of the trials to come. "But soon, my friend, my journey will reach its end. I have hope that what we have made, those we will leave behind, will be able to walk forward. To find a new path where we could not."

The priest listens with the same front of aloofness as is desired of the Lady of Graves clergy; to listen to words like this is to listen to prayer, it is a duty most solemn. Sometimes these sorts of words are literal, the ghosts of the departed look to the living with envy and worry and love and sorrows. All things that bind them to the soil, bind them to flesh, bind them to blood. Sometimes the ghosts are creations of the minds; the grief and anger and despair that snaps open the rib cage and crawls inside to nestle around the heart. Such worries he listens to as well for they drive men to madness and to lay their hands on the deserved rest and the journey the dead face on their way to his Lady.

In his hands he thumbs his holy symbols; the comet of life and death that thrums and shimmers with a power older than the soil. In it, his Lady's blessing lay, waiting for when he needs it most. It is power and with it, it is a symbol of duty. With his in his hands, he smiles after a moment, a small and shaky thing hiding inhuman and gnarled teeth of an otherworldly beast. Yet, this woman is gentle enough, comforting enough, that he feels as if he can let the parts of his twice cursed blood show.

He works with her after all, it would do to show a sign of good faith.