Momentarily, Damia considered the option of simply avoiding the madness that was sure to ensue as soon as the chaotic grouping left, but the prospect of leaving Vincent alone to suffer under such horror quickly cemented her decision. “Where you go, I shall follow,” she trailed lightly, disliking the small touch of crimson to her cheeks, “I may not always act it, as the past incident seems to have proven, but I have sworn my loyalty to you alone.” Of course that was the reason why, no idiotic crush or irrational infatuation, or…or any other words her mind could possibly come up with for the childish feelings she had long ignored.

Had seeing her sister reawakened them-those non-existent feelings she had had in her…well in her later years, but what seemed so long ago to her. It seemed everything she had urged to die that day found itself awakening again. Maybe she would have to…have to seal them off again. It seemed unlikely, if she let them run rampant as they once had, that she would return from the fringe of madness they had once pushed her too.

She shook the thought from her mind hurriedly, brushing it off as unnecessary worry over something she was greatly blowing out of proportion. For what had died, there was no hope of life once more. Her father, her mother, her brother, her friends, her acquaintances, they could all attest to that. Instead, she drew her limitless notebook from her gowns folds, turning lazily to the indexed page for the architecture division of her own library. “Before that however, I have to ask whether you intend to follow the as of the moment un-approved drafts for the castles revision or follow the original plan as it was?” There came a certain amount of responsibility being the lore keeper, responsibility she gladly embraced and dutifully carried out, but responsibilities that often translated into her essential behavior of a secretary none the less.

+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+Just a Nap, That’s all I Ask+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+
With a half attentive ear, Desir listened to the business speak evolve in front of him, yawning his usual lazed way as he stretched out his limbs. In all the commotion and momentary excitement, he seemed to have had completely forgotten how incredibly, inhumanly tired he had truly been. “Well, do hurry up. While Erebus may have a nice, perpetually night demeanor to it, Hades decidedly does not. I’m sure it’s in the best interest of the more living species present if we manage to get there before the skies of crimson are their usual blinding self,” Desir drawled through the yawn, arching his back lightly as he spoke. The satisfying pop his spine gave and the sudden fluidness of his movements brought a soft grin to his features. There he thought he might have to have Cain soothe his aching back for him, a pity he’d miss that bonding, but nice to know he wouldn’t be hunched over until they arrived in Hades after the land of Vampires had found itself stable. Like it ever was.

Aesthetic changes had always seemed a rather important part of design for the girl, if only as her culture had always adhered faithfully to the ways of an artist. Knowledge, after all, came not only from the words and the meaning they carried, but from the physical interpretation of the world and its ways through the medium of art, literature, and the sciences. Alas, the Strigoi Viu’s vampiric “cousins” seemed not to share their love for the arts, instead focusing in on the other aspects of study their kind had as well accepted. But whatever worked for them, worked for them; she had no true right to judge.

“I’ll take it upon myself to discuss the matter with the chamberlain then,” Damia sighed lightly, shoving the notebook back into the expanses of her dress, “Lest she decide it best to draw up her own regiment for work in your absence once more. Any preferences on the matter?” With another low sigh, she drew her hand through her thick locks of course ebony hair, already dreading having to speak with the domineering woman.

“Will do,” Damia responded monotonously, trailing her way over the fallen debris’ as non-chalantly as she could seem to manage. As she walked by Desir, she quickly sent him a warning gaze, in no desire to come back after her joyous discussion with her favorite chamberlain to even more ruin and bloodshed before her. The wry grin he sent back and the obvious intent to annoy her evident in his golden irises only made her decide that, should anything happen, she would simply enter a state of near comatose. Reality just wouldn’t seem to be worth it by that point in time.

After waving Damia a deceptively lethargic goodbye, Desir swiveled his way around on the heels of his feet to face Vincent. “So, just out of curiosity, is there any particular reason a pregnant woman is unconscious against the wall back there next to a, what I presume, dead body and a, I think, male stumbling his way over here, way over there,” Desir drawled, indicating to each in turn with one outstretched index finger lazily.

“Pride?” Trepas mused lightly, drawing his fingers from his tendrils of ebony hair to his chin in thought, “I believe at one point, yes, I may have been proud of what I have done.” As any he had known in that time would attest, Trepas had been perhaps the most egotistical individual in all of Millenia in his youth, rivaling even the aged likes of Cain with his vanity. He had thought himself invincible, all powerful, a gift to the world. A bloody gift intent on murdering everyone he came across, but a gift nonetheless. Indeed, it had only been her modest ways that had cured his egotism. “It seems that pride has long left me though,” he chuckled bitterly, the first signs of emotion he recalled showing in at least a year, “For better or worse, I can’t much tell.”

Trepas was about to rise to his feet, intent on just entirely avoiding the confrontation, when he heard the boys voice begin once more, “I on the other hand cannot because I don't have a soul." With a deep, burdened sigh, he instead spoke once more, “A soul is not the key to death, it is what is meant to anchor our consciousness to the world of the living. My grandfather has lost his soul, yet he still remains, of his own will and power. His mind has left and with it nothing but chaos remains, but his being is still well alive. There is no death a soul will lead to, only the end of emotions, of compassion. I myself feel I have long lost my soul. It is only this hollow husk that keeps me still in the realm of the living, as I fear it shall always be.”

How many times had he truly sought the embrace of death? How many times had he watched as his own blood pooled around him, felt the agony of his flesh seared and burnt, heard his own cries for an end, to be given nothing in return? This body of his, it was seen as an adaptation, a means for his kinds survival, but it only seemed a tool for their demise in his eyes. Incapable of death, was it any surprise Ghouls desired to see it erupt around them? Was it any surprise they were driven mad in their agonizing millennia of life?

With that thought complete, did Trepas finally rise from his seated position, just in time to be all but attacked by a small girl’s arms around his waist. For a moment he considered pushing her away, to avoid the danger that was soon to befall her, but the very presence she seemed to have on him, the familiarity he felt with her essence, instead urged only for tears to meet his eyes. “Fayme,” he called in a hushed whisper, the empty socket for an eye he had remaining dripping with the crimson liquid it had long held back in his agony. It couldn’t be her, he had seen her corpse, felt the slick touch of her flesh, yet she resonated so strongly to him, this child, that presence. Life would be much too cruel if it wasn’t.

“Let’s start anew”

They say the world is created by the divines’ whims.
They say if these powers that be so please, it can be changed on a whim as well.
What has existed, what will exist, they can change it all.
With just one thought, with just one whim, it will change.
For the better?
For the worse?
Will it matter in this changed world?