Kyle watched as the red paint shimmered against copper skin. Fingers gently padded and touched over and beneath eyes. The motions so well remembered as it had been done so many times before.
Was it tens of times now? Hundreds of times?
Kyle was uncertain of the memory. The days had blended together with all the rest.
But the ceremony was familiar in its appearances as the first. Hopefully not the last.
Crimson painted fingers danced over Averna’s features. So similarly painted when his sword would plunge itself knuckle deep in the flesh of a monster. This, however, did not drip down over his calloused fingers and pool against the ground. For this concoction was much thicker to maintain over his pretty features.
“So it doesn’t come off.”
He was told.
The recipe, though not explicitly told, Kyle had a good idea what it was. For when he tasted it against Averna’s lips he could concoct most the ingredients from memory. It had been sweet, at one point.
That paint had been taken from Mahana. Made with native plants and berries that Kyle had tasted twice before. The first was such a chaste taste beneath the Sapphire Star. Where he was too scared to indulge too heavily the feast that he so willingly invited himself in. The second was much more decadent. For he had waited some years for them to ferment in order to gorge endlessly as he sat over the grave. He had been so scared the first, but with the second he made sure to savor the taste.
It was so easy to after.
Whether the paint be dry or wet. To take Averna’s face in his hand and pull away the paint from cheeks. Though harder to wash when dry, the taste was to be savored than wet. How it would dance over his tongue. Down his throat. Warming his stomach. Body. Skin. Better than any wine or drunkard’s night.
He watched as Averna dipped his fingers into the small metal tin.
It twirled round. Once. Twice. Again.
The paint coagulated against his fingers. And he brought it to his other cheek and began to paint against his skin. Hiding the scars of tears that had left trails over his body the same way rivers form.
Those ingredients were replaced with different ones.
Bitter.
Kyle had barely noticed the change until one day where he dipped his own finger into that same tin. On his own bloody fingers he watched the paint come to a slow dry. His tongue prodding the decadence only to receive such a sour taste in return. As though all the sweetness had finally turned ugly and completely replaced the often thought memory with a strangeness. But even as the taste changed, Kyle still stared at the ritual and remembered the sweet nectar over his tongue.
Perhaps it was his own hand that turned it so sour against his lips. Those same fingers wiped against the ground to cleanse the blood from hands. And Kyle watched the now tainted blades of grass waver gently against the wind. Welcoming him a memory. Would it be sweet then?
He could always bend over. Spread the grass apart. To taste Averna’s lingering touch. Hesitating, he opened his mouth to speak. But, before he could announce the request, it was Averna who spoke in his stead.
“I am ready.”
Kyle looked back to Averna. The paint now dry over his skin. Beautiful. But the taste? Uncertain.
Perhaps later he would ask in for his indulgence.
“Let’s go.”
The two picked themselves up from the ground to march on their Hunt.