Divinitas

Divinitas



063: Contract of the Inverted Crosses



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Website: http://cruelangel.net/divinitas



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“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Phoenix chocked out, regret strangling his voice. Tears threatened to spill down his dusty cheeks, hearing the foal’s pitiful cries.



His vision swam in his head, his mind spun. His free hand reached out, even as he stumbled and fell over onto the charred ground. Automatically his body curled up into a little ball, hiding the tears of regret and shame that poured down his cheek.



‘Why. Why am I crying again. Didn’t I promise myself I would never cry again? Oh gods. Why is my existence always the cause of other’s death. Why does this horrid gift cause only destruction. Has it ever helped, been used for good?’ his thoughts raged within the walls of his skull, doubt and regret battering at his sanity. ‘Gods. This is because I ran away, isn’t it. If I hadn’t defied Aether…!’



“You’re pathetic,” a cool voice said suddenly, just as a heavy blanket was thrown over Phoenix’s body as it laid curled up on the ground.



The God of Fire fumbled, fighting with the cloth and scrambling to his feet, wide-eyed. The Griffin of the Light sat perched on the back of his griffin, watching Phoenix with unreadable silver eyes.



“What? How?” Phoenix stuttered, glancing around frantically.



“We’re alone, God of Fire,” the God of Air said quietly. “The God of Water sent me, because he was concerned. You’ve been gone the whole day.” The silver haired youth slid gracefully down his Divine Beast’s back as the creature stalked forward towards the burnt carcass of mare and the terrified foal.



Phoenix’s eyes widened further, dismissing the momentarily crushing feeling of hurt the words had invoked and jumping between the griffin and its prey. His sword was up between them in an instant, barring the way.



“It is dead meat. Our Divine Beasts need to feed, just as we do. Get out of its way,” the silver haired youth ordered, glaring at Phoenix from behind his Divine Beast.



“No,” Phoenix growled, planting his feet further into the earth in defiance.



The Griffin of the Light titled his head, as if considering a situation that amused him slightly. Then, with a flick of his fingers, a powerful blast of wind knocked Phoenix out of the griffin’s path, sending him crashing into the thicket of trees and dropping his weapon on impact.



“Really… I would have thought you of all people would know not to let food go to waste. Let my griffin eat them. The mare will rot and be consumed by other scavengers even if my beast does not, and the foal is too young to survive on its own. It’ll die out here without its mother,” the God of Air said, watching as Phoenix struggled to pick himself up. “It’s really an act of mercy, when you think about it. You ought to thank me for cleaning up after you,” the deity added with a smirk.



Phoenix’s vision blurred, and his head ached and pounded like a giant’s terrible footsteps. But seeing the griffin advance, predator stalking its helpless prey, turned double by his dazed vision, the God of Fire threw himself on top of the foal, clinging to its singed coat. “You will not devour the foal!” Phoenix roared, rounding on Divine Beast of Air with a burning glare and all the commanding power he could muster in his voice. “I’ll take it back to the castle and care for it. It’s my responsibility, because it’s my fault its mother is dead. So just back off, Griffin of the Light!”



The God of Air raised an elegant silver eyebrow, ordering with a simple gesture for his griffin to stand down. “If you insist, God of Fire. But might I inquire as to how you’re going to bring the foal back to the Castle of Genesis? Will you carry it? We’re quite far away from the castle at the moment. We might be deities, but that doesn’t give us unlimited physical strength, and you are weaker than that foal at the moment. Your Divine Beast of Fire might gladly carry it, only it is doubtful if you even have the strength to contain its flames so it won’t burn the foal to death.”



Phoenix pulled the trembling foal closer, hating the smell of burnt hair but refusing to let go. “You take it then. Carry it upon your griffin’s back with you,” Phoenix shot back, turning his blood red glare on the beautiful silver youth. “Surely your other half won’t think a helpless foal a threat. Or will you refuse because you’re a mean spirited bastard who cares for nothing except yourself.”



A slight reddening to the other deity’s cheeks, accompanied by a tightening of his features gave away his embarrassment and restrained outrage. “No…” the Griffin of Light finally bit out. “My other half will allow it.”



Without waiting for a reply, the Griffin of the Light stalked forward and snatch up the little horse, remounting his Divine Beast and taking to the air, all in the blink of an eye. It took a moment before Phoenix pulled his senses together and made to follow. Only the carcass of the mare stopped him, and the truth of the God of Air’s words.



“I swear I’ll take care of your foal,” Phoenix whispered, picking up his dropped sword and summoning his phoenix to light a funeral pyre in the dense grove.



Both deity and Divine Beast stayed until only bones remained, and with another thought, the God of Fire silenced the still flickering flames before collapsing onto the back of his phoenix, letting the divine creature take him home.



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“Phoenix is back.”



Amethyst eye flashed, glittering dangerously from the darkness of his rooms. “Don’t you think I know? I can feel him no matter where he is,” Aether snapped. “Why isn’t he here?”



“Because you scared him away,” his sister answered evenly, walking into the unlit rooms, still in her nightgown, and defiantly lighting the candles next to the bed where Aether had sprawled himself.



Light bloomed to life, fragile tongues of flame that vigilantly cast their small warm glow in the darkness brought on by night. Aether glared at them, wishing they were out.



“He wouldn’t have run off so foolishly if you hadn’t freed him,” the God of Soul said darkly, propping himself up on an elbow.



“And if you had your way, he would still be down there!” Casimir countered, aqua eyes shining. “Thirty-seven days, Aether! You had him down in the Bottom Heart of Genesis for thirty-seven days! Do you even comprehend how angry and upset Phoenix might be? How would you feel if someone just locked you up, stole your life, and put you on display for thirty-seven days?”



One could feel the anger and sulkiness uncurling from Aether’s being. It almost fragranced the air. “All I want is for him is to look at me, and only me. And you conspired against me and set Phoenix free. You took what contented me away.”



“And you’re acting like a spoiled child that’s being denied everything he’s ever dreamed,” Casimir answered, staring fiercely into the her brother’s beautiful face. “But you weren’t. I only did what anyone with any sense of humanity would have done. Yes, Aether, it was inhumane, what you did to Phoenix! It’s Phoenix who’s had everything taken away from him. By you, no less! So stop it before I smack you!”



The Goddess of Song could have sworn Aether pouted at that. Her brother… the elder sibling, the supposed leader and ruler of Chikyuu, pouting and rolling around on his bed, wallowing in deluded self-pity.



“Get up,” Casimir ordered, refusing to continue feeling sorry for Aether’s predicament. She might have despaired at Aether selling half his soul, but what was done was done, and there was nothing else to do but make the most of the foolish trade. “Get up and stop moping! Phoenix is down in the kitchen, along with everyone else. Get up and go to him. Say you’re sorry for whatever you stupidly did to send him running away from you, and mean it!”



The God of Soul just continued to glare sulkily.



With a sigh of exasperation, Casimir took a hold of her brother’s ear and dragged him out behind her.



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A hush fell when Casimir all but threw Aether by his ear into the cosy little kitchen. It was barely dawn, and only a kitchen maid had been roused. The girl had quickly dropped to her knees, nearly upsetting a pot of porridge she was heating. Draco and the Griffin of the Light had also halted their conversation as Aether made his grand entrance.



But these things hardly registered to Aether. He saw, first and foremost, the flickering glow the fire cast upon his Phoenix. His Sacred Bird of Fire, curled up on the floor in front of the fireplace, exhausted and asleep, an empty bowl and his Weapon of Fire next to him. Covered in soot, clothed only in blankets… just like the first time Aether had glimpsed him.



Aether frowned. He didn’t want to see Phoenix curled up on the ground. He wanted Phoenix in his arms, clean, fiery, bright and burning to his touch. So he did as much, striding across the kitchen and lifting the sleeping youth into his arms.



“Lord Aether,” Draco called out, stopping him with a gentle touch on his arm. “Phoenix wishes to keep the foal. Genesis doesn’t have any facilities for horses. I request your authorisation to begin construction of stables and paddocks, and later to bring some fully grown livestock in.”



Phoenix murmured something unintelligible, burying his head into Aether’s chest.



“Foal?” Aether repeated distractedly.



“That, over there,” the Griffin of the Light supplied, gesturing towards the fireplace but refusing to look himself. Had the God of Soul not been so otherwise occupied, he might have noticed the slightest reddening in the Griffin of the Light’s cheeks.



Instead, Aether’s gaze merely followed the air deity’s gesture, seeing for the first time what occupied the place next to where Phoenix had been. Chimaera, talking quietly to a trembling burnt buddle of fur and smearing a thick salve over seared flesh. It needed no explanation, the sequence of possible events that had led to the current predicament.



“Do whatever needs to be done. And see that Phoenix’s weapon is restored to the Upper Heart of Genesis,” the God of Soul said after a moment, and resumed his departure from the kitchen, promptly ignoring Casimir who was mouthing a loud ‘apologise to him!’



Instead of heading towards his own rooms, Aether carried Phoenix into the suite of rooms Draco had given the boy, laying Phoenix’s sleeping form on his new bed. For the longest time, Aether merely stared, tracing with his amethyst eye the lines of Phoenix’s face, the way his hair fell over his ash smudged skin.



“I demanded of you something impossible,” Aether said quietly, face only inches apart from Phoenix’s. “To go against your Wish and your Dream. To give up your desperate will to live, and to live only for me. I want you to be mine, utterly and completely mine. But you can’t, can you, my Phoenix? I might have bought your body, and you will dance to my words… but you will never live for me, will you. You’ll never burn for me. You will always only burn selfishly for yourself. Ah, I do hate you for that. Hate you for being the flame, and I, the moth. Hopelessly attracted, warmed by your heat, but never part of it. I want to defile you for that… I want to make you scream and bleed.”



The God of Soul pressed his lips against Phoenix’s, kissing him gently, slipping his tongue between the moist lips and tasting the near burning heat.



“Wake up, Phoenix.” An order, one that Phoenix’s body could not deny.



The God of Fire’s eyes fluttered, opening to reveal dilated red orbs that squeezed shut as the first rays of sunlight poured in through the windows and struck them. “Ugh,” Phoenix murmured, putting a clumsy hand to Aether’s face and pushing him back away from his own. “Don’t steal kisses, Aether… I can taste you on my lips.” The youth frowned, sitting up abruptly. “Where’s the foal?”



“Chimaera is taking care of it,” Aether answered, moving backwards to sit on the edge of Phoenix’s bed.



“It’s all right then?”



“Yes.”



An awkward silence followed, one in which you could almost hear the turmoil of thoughts and emotions tumbling around Phoenix’s mind. Guilt, regret. Things that just should not have been there. Not when Phoenix should only see Aether, think only of him, feel only for him. Hate only him.



The God of Soul push himself up off the bed and retrieved the black wooden case he had left here on his previous visit. “I have an offer for you, Phoenix.”



“There’s nothing you can offer me, Aether, that I would want. Except my freedom. And we both know you have no intention of letting me go,” Phoenix replied after a pause as if Aether’s words took that long to process in his preoccupied mind. “So whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it,” Phoenix said bitterly, standing with the intention of turning his back on Aether and finding a much desired bath.



“You will sit there and hear me out,” the God of Soul commanded, which promptly made Phoenix sit heavily back on his bed, looking furious.



“Do not fucking order me around!” Phoenix seethed, fists clenched and body trembling with suppressed effort.



Aether ignored Phoenix’s outrage, and instead opened the black case and shoved it under Phoenix’s nose. “I want you to wear this.”



Crimson eyes dipped, tearing themselves momentarily away from Aether’s flawless face, away from the soft golden glow that peaked out from behind the veil of golden hair. An inverted cross, exquisitely detailed, made from a black metal and with a glistening ruby mounted at the intersection. Ten’s symbol, only inverted and black, hung on several entwined silver chains that would have formed a collar like band around his neck.



“For what reason?” Phoenix asked slowly, raising his eyes back up to meet Aether’s gold and violet gaze. “To force me to acknowledge what you have done to us? To make us say we denounce Heaven?” There was such resentment and bitterness in those words. “To further mark me as your property?”



“To reassure me that you are no longer the Property of Heaven,” Aether answered evenly. “And… to seal the contract I offer with it.”



Phoenix glare, distrusting. His silence was invite enough to continue.



“I admit, when I ordered this made for you, it was to mark you as mine. It still will, but I will add to it my own oath. And it is simply this:



“I will not control you with Heaven’s Gift.”



No sooner were the words said did the golden glow disappear from Aether’s veiled right eye, and Phoenix’s body jerked, suddenly his own again. Something else disappeared too… no, not disappeared, but was rather disconnected. There, but not in use… the threads of unwanted fate that bound Aether and himself so closely together into a mismatched mesh.



Phoenix swallowed, hardly daring to believe. “You won’t treat me like a doll?”



“You won’t be my puppet, no. If you wear this, and if you agree to my terms, I swear I will never control you with Heaven’s Gift. I will never command you, or demand you to submit to me and forcefully make you comply with any of the divine powers I possess. I will never take any of your waking moments from you again as I have these past thirty-seven nights and days. I will also silence the connection between us. We will be as we were before I sold half my soul for you. We will play a mortals’ game.”



“So you won’t keep tabs on me with the bond… and my body won’t go ‘mine, mine, mine’?” the God of Fire asked carefully. “What are your terms?”



“You can keep your rooms. But you will spend three hours per night in my company. In my bed. In my arms.”



Phoenix’s eyes had widened with each sentence, and by the time Aether had finished speaking, his eyes were as large and round as the moon.



“After those three hours, if you can leave, and if you wish to retire back to your own rooms, you are free to do so.”



“If?” Phoenix managed to stutter out, barely containing his disbelief.



“My offer is not to use Heaven’s Gift to control you. Meaning I won’t play god with you. But that does not bar any physical means of restraint. And trust me, my Phoenix, I will use physical means to bind you to the extreme. This offer by no means curbs any of the hate and resentment I have towards you for rejecting me. I will not make you submit by controlling your body, but I will hurt you, and I will make you scream and bleed for me.”



Phoenix’s eyes bludged. “Has anyone ever told you that your offers suck?!” he finally exploded, standing up abruptly and forgetting his nakedness, shouting into Aether’s suddenly smirking face. His hands were itching to strangle the bastard. “And my inability to hurt you? What of that?” the God of Fire growled out, a nerve in his left eye twitching.



“I said ‘as we were before I sold half my soul for you,’ Phoenix. So you will be able to hurt me again – if you can manage to. The only condition I can not change is your requirement to protect me from others. That is part of the Divine Beast of Fire’s fundamental instinct. I can not change that, and now that it is part of you, you are bound to protect me, as are the other Elemental Gods.”



“Fine,” Phoenix hissed, snatching up the inverted cross with one hand, the other going for Aether’s neck. “I accept your bloody offer!”



In a movement too quick for Phoenix to catch, Aether had twisted Phoenix’s arm around behind him, and sharp jab to the back of the knees had forced the youth into a kneeling position, panting.



“My dearest Phoenix… At least put on your pretty necklace and some clothing before you try to hurt me,” Aether rebuked with a mocking smile, leaning down to breath the words into Phoenix’s ear. “Your being so… alluring is hardly threatening.”



Gritting his teeth, the God of Fire fumbled to clasp the chain around his neck, muttering a curse underneath his breath as Aether’s finger took over and accomplished the task in an instant.



“Why?” Phoenix demanded in the silence that follow. His state of undress could wait. It wasn’t as if his ‘clothing’ was all that much different from being naked anyway. “Why do you offer me this? Unfair as it is… wouldn’t it have been simpler just to control me with Heaven’s Gift?”



Aether’s predatory smile made Phoenix’s stomach drop. “It is an effort to use it to control you… and I’d much rather a more hands on approach. I never used it once whilst I was tearing your wings off… and that was very enjoyable for both of us… don’t you agree?” Aether asked, moving to stand in front of youth. “And with this contract, I’m guaranteed three hours of torturing you every night, aren’t I? If you were me, wouldn’t you have offered the same?”



He wanted to ask ‘really?’ Was that the whole truth? The only reasons? But the word died on Phoenix’s lips before it had even formed, almost as if he were afraid of Aether’s answer. It was easier, less hurtful at least, to live with the tiny hope it might have been for another reason, and not only for those Aether had just given.



“We’re not even by far, Aether,” Phoenix growled finally, taking Aether’s offered hand and pulling himself up. “And I suggest you take up the sword or something. Because every chance I get, I am going to hurt you. You deserve no less.”



Aether grinned, pulling the smaller deity up against him and licking his tongue up Phoenix’s charcoal smudged cheek. “I will look forward to that,” he breathed, gaze darkening as Phoenix turned his head, catching Aether’s lips and kissing him. Desperate and lust filled as it had ever been, drawing Aether’s tongue into that seductive heat and biting down hard.



Phoenix smirked at Aether’s shock, taking the opportunity to duck into the adjoining bathroom. The higher deity’s surprise faded into a warm afterglow, an answering smirk gracing his lips.



This would be fine. He could be content with this.



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