Zero watched the ocean through one of the crenels atop the battlements of Veld. She stood silently, wavering with the wind as drapery does. From her perch so far into heaven she stared down at the endless sea that acted as a pathway for Elder Dragons and their long journey over the waters into the New World. Black, inky, and shimmered so wonderfully beneath the moon that was held aloft motionless in the night sky. Torchlights flickered against Zero’s lanky and tattered body as her eyes kept to the endless night that went on and on into eternity. Its cool air furled over Zero’s body into a sweet embrace, and the gentle kiss over rough and wounded skin offered a reprieve that medicines could not alleviate. A gift from nature for the undeserving.
The wind blew softly against her face as she stared over that great black basin. She squinted her eyes against the wind as fingers twitched and the whispers of death crawled over. Illness spread over her more horrible than the wounds that dressed her left body that were still fresh. And she wondered if that thing inside of her also wanted to cross over the waters to die.
Her visitor, a man whom stood less shrouded, stared out into the same basin as her. He glowed so wonderfully against the darkness they shared, so unlike her dim and blackened soul. Unlike her ghoulish figure, he stood as a monument. For he was the chosen celebrated for his accomplishments and glory, and Zero willingly disappeared into his shadows. Their relationship not a secret, but not quantifiable in this or that.
They said nothing on their way up to the walls of Veld. Even if no word was spoken the look in his eyes made it apparent what thoughts came into his mind. It had always been easy for Zero to see the words he would always say to her, even if no word was spoken. And that was obvious by the silence that entrenched the two on their way up to stare at this beautiful night sky. For he was her savior. And she was his… who?
Julius turned to stare at her with that often-seen grimace over his face. He stood at attention as a soldier does, arms to his side and body trussed up in that usual armor he wore. And Zero stared at him with nary an expression. Her usual armor put away and only thin patient garments draped her doped up body. One too many pain medicines lingered in her mind; as well as the illness and suffocating bandages that caressed the entirety of her body’s left flank.
Carefully, she leaned against the merlon with the right side— the good side of her lanky figure. Her gaze fixated on his as the silence drew overlong.
“Did papa send you here?” Zero spoke the words naturally. Her voice was hoarse from nights screaming in pain.
“I came on my own accord.” Julius replied without missing a beat. Beneath his so casual tone was distress. “I heard what happened.”
Zero was quiet as she looked through the crenel again. She tried to seem disinterested. “Which thing?”
Julius shifted his weight. “Both.”
Zero nodded her head slowly. “Of course…” In the dim light of the torch fire, she gazed down at her left hand which she lifted gently up to her eyes. Crude bandages and thin layer of fish skin clung to the heavy burns over her body. Even with all the pain medications, she could still feel the inferno against her body which rendered her flesh apart. Beneath those bandages she could see the writhing of that other thing that had cursed her. The impulse to kill burned bright in her mind like those flames that cooked her alive. She could see herself grasping Julius’s sword. Plunging it into his chest. Soaking in the blood and continuing her rampage throughout Veld. That death excited her. The impulses laughed in cruel delights, and it was only the restraints which strapped her to hospital beds that kept carnage at bay.
“What do you want?” She looked at him again as she lowered her arm. She could still recall the fire. Burning hot and raging against her body. Julius saw it too, for his gaze lingered one second too long on the bandages that bound her body into submission. Recollections of memories flitted past his eyes. Even unsaid, Zero knew the look. It was that same look that he would give her when he regaled to her stories when they sat alone. The Diva’s song resounding through the streets of Dundorma. Both their bodies hidden beneath the darkness as their lips tugged against each other’s ears in stories that were not to be spoken. As though they were starcrossed lovers whispering love letters to one another.
Could she even say she missed those days?
Julius shifted his weight again. “I wanted… to see if you were alive.” He gave her a particular stare. Zero saw how she looked in his eyes: Her pallid face so sunken and hollow from the illness that took over her body. The agonizing pain that gnawed at her bones as it peeled back her skin. But there was the most obvious thing in his reflection: the Inhuman Eye that glinted so bright in the darkness of the night.
So many would have recoiled in disgust. But he did not think of her in that manner. It was affection. Or something else.
“I guess I am.” She shrugged her shoulders, hardly wincing at the pain. “If you wanted to know that, you could have just asked Papa or the Guild.”
“It is not my place to pry in Fabius’s personal affairs.”
A smile curled over Zero’s lips. Cruel and so unusual to Julius’s memory of her. The way the smile tugged against her burnt cheeks made it seem so strange. “But… you will my own.”
He shifted his weight again.
Ever since the day she left the Guild had done their best to hide what Zero was and had become. Still so very useful to them in ways that were made clear in the Hunts that she was assigned; Suicidal and unconventional, but such a very good pup for the master. Those that knew of her whereabouts, especially now that she had been strapped down in the Veld hospital for days, was only known to those with the highest authority. It would have been so natural for someone like Julius to disguise his wants as something professional. To use his status to slip through the bars of her jail cell and do what most could not. To embrace her body between the bars of the cell and drag her to a place so far from here and indulge in what most could only dream of tasting.
Zero still wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Yet.
“As your… friend… I wanted to see you again.”
A horrid laughter echoed over the basin of the ocean and into the deep abyss. Julius only stood there, unaffected by the evil noise that spread over Veld. Maybe he was used to it. Maybe it was shock to see what had become of Zero in the year since her departure. Her body had turned hollow. A husk. Her soul that was the puppeteer had become shallow and lame. Humanity that clung to her had worn thin and frayed.
She was so completely different in appearances than the day she had left. A whole other person. Not Nicole. Not Zero. Something far worse.
“So… that’s it, huh?” Her smile was wide and uninviting. “Someone of your stature shouldn’t seek a leper out.”
Julius’s grimace deepened. “I wished to seek you out sooner.” He began in a casualness that did not betray his innermost desires. But Zero saw that glimmer beneath in his eyes. “But the Gore Magala threat took precedence over my own feelings. It was only chance that I was able to find you today. And… I am glad—”
“Glad is the last thing you should feel for me.” Zero’s words cut through the cold air. Her gaze was just as frigid as she met Julius’s eyes with her own veil of disgust. He kept a soldier’s rest as he continued his stare without a shred of fear or hatred on his pretty face. It was the so used to attitude that Zero was accustomed to, and she despised that he only stared at her with the hint of adoration so strangely marked on his face. As if nothing had changed between the two of them.
She took a step back from him, her displeasure evident and frenzy seeping from the seams of wounds. She could feel the fires in and over her body. Just as rabid animals do, it gnawed against the bars of her cage. Begging her to do the unthinkable.
“You shouldn’t have come.”
She took another step back from him. But he took a step forward.
“I heard from the others—”
“Who?” She bared her teeth towards him, fending off any hospitality he might have offered.
“Gemma.” Julius replied evenly. “No one—”
“They do not know what is good for them.”
Julius paused as he stared at Zero. His face only growing in that fondness she had often seen when they were alone together. Not a hint of ire touched his features as she stared up at him as a cornered animal does. He took another step forward, his body relaxed and welcoming. It was a foolish thing knowingly corning a rabid animal, but he offered himself to her all the same. His own mortal and clean flesh so ready to receive the plague set deep within her. He lifted his hand to reach for her. To bring her into his warm embrace as all the other times he had offered this awkward yet childish gesture. A rare indulgence for the two of them, given their solitary natures, and yet so welcomed all the same.
Even if Zero wished to throw such gentleness aside, the yearning for that embrace grew as she watched Julius’s hand greet her skin. Memory of wondrous touches came rushing back to her mind. Hidden from sight, she recalled as they shared in one another touches across skin that were both innocent and not. They would sit across from each other. Sometimes with a smile. Sometimes without. It would be beneath the din of the moonlight, so similar to tonight, that they would offer each other naked arms. Tracing fingers so gently over the soft flesh between armor carapaces. Staring at one another in affection so strange and unbecoming of them both. Shy their stares. But intense all the same.
Childish.
But when those gauntlets graced bleeding bandages it was not that wonderful memory that drew her to him, but another more sinister thing.
SHE REMEMBERED THE PYRE.
Red fur flickered against flame standing atop the backdrop of a burning village. Azure eyes peered down upon the Gore Magala’s hapless malformed body, twitching against the ground as its powder soaked deep inside skin and drove her frenzy alight in violence. His kingly maw saw fit to order her own execution as pestilence entered his domain. To raze every one of her limbs alight to cleanse the disease. It was with the eye granted by God that that she bore witness to his royal decree which bled an ancient blood from every orifice as he laid heavy against the burning forest fires which could not quell her epidemic.
Oh. But how she WRITHED against those divine flames. Its transcendence more beautiful than her slow molt into the thing of The Calamity. The frenzy mixed so sweet into her blood, shattering her nerve endings and sense of being more than any Hunt she bore witness to. For even the mixture of pestilence she so gladly drank deep would never compare to how distended her stomach became from this beautiful fire. Screams of pain became such a sweet melody to the backdrop of a roaring inferno as she indulged in the regicide of his tyranny to bring about the means of a New World Order.
It was in that touch, those sweet calloused fingers, that reminded her of the cleanse.
Loving his fire as he traced down scars strewn over arms was by comparison to the holy flame that took more than her soul. Nerves that had lusted the caress whittled to nothing for reparation of a fallen kingdom. His own azure eyes graced over her hapless body that writhed against towering fortifications as she felt her body be set alight with something more than the frenzy which dripped down her mouth and to the floor. For he took this epidemic willingly into his own accord, embracing the mark of evil into his holy tomb with open arms. And she received his Flame of Heaven which puller her soul into the most beautiful shadowbox of all.
Between seams and bandages his fingers found the spot of her skin. Felt the bloodied frenzy erupting into a beautiful cloud of pestilence that he sucked in as perfume as they pustulated from blisters. His hand crept up and over her arm in the touch so unlike those he served. For he knelt in front of this Gore Magala and dressed the wounds in his purifying touch. So different than the treatment of her kin which he would slaughter without remorse to ensure that the outer kingdoms would remain free of plague. And she was powerless to deny the ecstasy drowned in the sorrows of pain. For it was pain that made the desire. Pain of need to feel his touch once more, even if all they were had been fleeting fancies to stare across the growing chasm that separated their worlds. One of the Hunter, and the other of the always Hunted.
Her body trembled at this pleasure.
“A—Ah—!”
Zero bit her lip as pain convulsed over her body. But it was pleasure that spread so lovely over every wound inflicted upon her. Vivid the memory of the king’s flame whip against her skin. Convicted of crime beyond her control. But it was Julius who bathed her body with his hair so tender and kind. So unlike the great masses who would rather slaughter her for an evil they could not understand.
She twisted her bandage arm that Julius caressed and grasped his arm to pull him tighter against the wounds. The armor chaffed the burns, tainting his armor with Frenzy. It seeped. Piling against the walls of Veld. Dragging him closer into her pestilence. Dragging him back to her horrid gates of hell. He stared at her with a mixture of confusion and adoration. He seemed stuck between the two worlds of her’s and his. But who was he to refuse a dying woman’s wishes?
He stepped closer to her, and slowly Zero pressed her back against the bars of her jail cell as she pulled him inward to him. The frenzy in her body erupted as memory drove it to a pitch. Saliva dripped down her lips as sweat beaded down her forehead. Teostra drew over her body and she was helpless to quell the shakes as she staked out for Julius’s touch once more. She felt his hand gently run up her arm and over every bandage they applied to her. In the same way that they had once done before she had left.
“Zero?” Concern marked his face as he cornered the dog whose claws and teeth had been ceremoniously plucked. “What is wrong?”
She released his hand and stared up at him with such pleading eyes.
He paused and stared back. Stared at the sickening ooze that dripped so finely down her lips and arm. She wanted to draw him into her. Wanted his lips against her own to taste the Frenzy she never allowed him to indulge.
“You… We need to get you a doctor—”
“I have no want for those drugs.” She spat. Tremors began to wrack her body as his touch drove needles into her body to affix her to the shadowbox he had unknowingly prepared for her.
His fires were worse than those of the regal beast she was made to kill. It burned hotter than hell. “Just…” she reached for him again. Wanting to indulge in the pain. The bandaged hand skimmed over his plated armor. Touching. Feeling. Begging for more. Needing more of his royal decree.
Zero felt how he fingered the seams of the bandages. How he took another step closer to the mangled creature that drove itself to a corner.
Even if she could not say the words she wanted to say, Julius saw clearly what was in her eyes.
He continued his purification.
His other hand rested upon her hip and that brilliant fire over took her once more. Flames roared across her and she gasped in the indulgence of his cleansing fire which beautifully igniting over her body. His face was marked with concern as she burned so bright against him. She could feel the Frenzy drip down her lips. Down her neck. Over her breasts. Mixing with the thing sat deep in chest. Her body convulsed in emotions she was unsure of. Whether it be manifestations of her own illnesses, all the medications they forced her to take, or the memory of fire that she danced so sweetly in.
She welcomed having her body pinned by him with the gentle touch of needles.
And like the stories he used to tell her, he leaned in. Against her burnt and scarred ear, he pressed his lips against it. His breath was hot against the cold weather. Uncomfortable. But welcomed all the same.
He began to tell her another story: One Upon A Time.
“Come with me.”
It was water over her skin.
Chilling ice ran down her back as steam rose from her body at those cruel words. Lips so cherished with the mark of love only to be received as simply evil. Crueler was the fate that beheld her, for her corpse could not refute that which she desperately begged for upon bloodied hospital sheets. It was this offering now presented before her that the urges returned.
“Don’t… Please…” She could feel the frenzy bubbling in her mouth. “Stop.” She shook her head as he spoke to her. “You know I can’t…” The flames began to recede. And the only thing Zero could feel was the welcoming taste of death and the need to kill. She raised her spindly arms and began to push him away.
Julius only stared down at her. Not as a malformed creature. Not as a corpse. But as something more than Human. More than a friend. More than what she wanted to regard him as.
“Zero—” “I…. Won’t…” Her voice shook. This offer, this beautifully writ letter of declaration of his love unspoken, was cast away. Seemingly so easy for those that looked on at this perplexing inferno, but to the two that stood it was known that it was not so easily declined. And Julius saw it with the hint of tears that graced her features. Such a Human thing for her to pronounce to him even if no spoken declaration was made. And it was that glimmer of Humanity within her that he knew well the torments which he brought her to.
He raised his hand to her face. But as his fingers graced those scars over her cheek she snapped in reply. As a dog would often do to protect its meal.
“Do. Not. Touch. Me.”
The sudden change of heart surprised Julius. And even if she spoke the words, Zero still reached for him as though her mind could not make up whatever it was she wanted. To be Human, or to remain hollow.
Julius took a step back from her. And he stood in the usual way he would regard a colleague.
She pressed her back against the merlon. Her gaze taken back to that endless sea. Unable to swallow the fire she had set to the next bridge.
“I understand…”
Zero closed her eyes as those words crackled against the air.
He would understand better than anyone would. Or maybe he didn’t. But he was not a man to spend time arguing.
It was do or don’t.
He turned and walked away.
There were three or four steps, but as he crossed by the crenel, he stopped and turned to gaze into the same ocean that they had once looked upon fondly once before. There was that usual silence that drew over them, and in this one moment, all was as it used to be so long ago. As though nothing had happened.
It was for the best.
In the final act of love, he lifted his hand to his ear and set to the side one feathered earring atop the ledge.
Nothing more was said. Nothing more was done.
And like Zero, that day one year ago, he left without another word.
When she reopened her eyes, she stared into that beautiful black basin and wondered if she would end up like all those Elder Dragons and cross over to die in the New World. Her Inhuman Eye glimmered against the night. But it was with her Human Eye that she looked upon the world in.
It was far too late to change her mind.
And with a slow blink, she returned to gaze upon the world with her Inhuman one.
Even royalty could not burn her disease away.