".. regardless, the signs are confirmed in this. There were no mistakes. The child will be born from the abyss under the water of 2 snakes."
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Contessa's eyes widened ever so slightly. While most vampires become accustomed to affectating human emotions, the necessity becomes less in certain company. Zion was that kind of company. Emotions aren't exactly abundant to vampires unless you consider being bored out of your mind an emotion, because after a few centuries, that's all anything is... boredom. And it gets tiring and annoying pretending to not be all the time. So any time a vampire could let the mask slip was a welcome relief in the same way it's a comfort to empty your own bladder. Zion wasn't just the kind of company that allowed the mask to slip though, they demanded it was never worn, because if anyone understood what it was like to have to wear a mask it would be someone who changes bodies like they're bags of tea. That, in whatever died within Contessa the day she was turned, stirred the ashes and unearthed embers of feelings. That's why Contessa's eyes slightly widened. It wasn't an affectation, then they'd be wider, it was an actual almost feeling that briefly floated along her face. "Zion, I will never get over how weird it is every time you do that. I know you burn them out quick, it's just that, at least, when you're eager to see your favorite designer's fall fashion line up it's because you're waiting on it, but sometimes I feel like, with how fast you've been switching it up lately, that you're really just trying to impress me...which I would only, obviously encourage."
A look of concern briefly flashed across Zion's face. That was a look Contessa never really saw. Zion was the kind of person to get in over their head constantly, but still manage to swim their way out by an odd combination of magic and weird twists of Fate. It wasn't that Zion was only rarely concerned either, dread was an unshakable and overbearing feeling that took up residence like rot in the bodies their magick blew out. Dread because they knew where it all went. The webbing of entanglements like these was spun tighter and tighter until destiny was a cocoon around you that you could only escape through not of, and that, despite your will, it would inevitably end what you are and force you to become something else. But, with an equal and opposite force, with all the desperation and eagerness that Contessa had to feel something, Zion felt a fervor to feel nothing at all. Nothing was a moment's respite from dread. Being a student of Wisdom much longer than Contessa had even existed, Zion had learned to mute their emotions...mostly, most of the time. While they would affectate in public to obfuscate their misery and protect themselves as a magickal being with magickal abilities in a realm that not only disallowed them in the first place, but fetishized and enslaved them as a punishment for existing, in private Zion never wanted to let their true feelings out either. Having been holding back for so long those emotions built up like water behind a dam. Too fierce and intense to reason with and too miserable and crippling to swim through...at least not until they could accomplish their goals. Though they came from very different angles, Contessa and Zion thus frequently landed on the same wavelength which was nothingness. In that sense they were each other's yin to yang, both equal and opposite reactions. So, concern on Zion's face, however brief, meant they felt something to a more intense level than they were used to blocking out. "When was the last time you heard from Nyx?"
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Cerberus rolled his eyes "No, that karma alone belongs to Aquarians. The symbol itself is duplicitous. Yes it's moving water, but the ancient symbol actually was 2 serpents: one male and one female. This more accurately represents their both equal and opposite nature and their inclination to be contrary. And that is equally destiny (because they are mandated forces of change) and paradox (because of their conflicted nature). The old ones say this order of the stars was formed when the greatest blessing given by Wisdom met the greatest curse given by Life. The unstoppable force is the immovable object. Even the modern representation of the sign itself bears this irony too being represented by water (the most yin element) moving (a yang force) while being classified as an air sign (air being the opposite energetically to water). But you, you're even worse. Everything about you is a walking contradiction. You are the utmost yang trapped within the deepest yin. You're a fire burning in water. I know how you formed and how you arrived. You are the absolute chaos sent to bring order, yet you want to choose your destiny. There's just so many layered facets to just how unabashedly ironic you are. I sometimes can't tell if I love you or hate you, because you make me feel both in equal measure at the same time. You're such a fantastic disaster. I can't decide if I am blaming you for the stars and their gravity that have presided over you or passively condoning your dubious behaviours like you're here to fix me by being broken."
"Believe it or not, that's not the first time you said that, and I will say again that I still see no reason why it can't be both." Zion retorted. "Also you need to lay off the occult reading, you're strung out on magickal residue like a lonely person with a pint of ice cream desperately trying to mute the bitter taste of life by overcomsuming a sugary substitute."
"And the reading you do only has a positive effect on you because you're not alive?" Cerberus sought to point out Zion's hypocrisy.
"Slow down Sherlock, if you keep arriving at the right conclusions I won't have to keep repeating myself." Zion was sometimes mean with their sarcasm.
"I think you're lying." Cerberus frequently lost his patience when Zion was being snide.
"Wrong guesses will just get you demoted to gumshoe." Zion obfuscated.
"You dragged me along to a Dwarven city just 6 weeks ago because you wanted some kind of magickal gavel forged so you could 'pass judgment' on the pixies for their quote 'crimes against any sophisticated type of rhyming scheme' after you went on a bender of reading the "Supernal Pixienox" and 3 other compendiums, I forget their names, of classic pixie poetry." Cerberus was not afraid to bring up the past as a character witness.
"Ok 1) there was nothing classic about those poems, they were just a bunch of xenophobic figureheads that other xenophobic figure heads picked to thrust their bigoted narrative on pixie history like a projectile turd. Their only relevance to the culture is the fact that they sprayed their ignorance all over it like hot diarrhea. 2) you can't blame my justice fetish on magick when you know I've always had it." Zion smirked slightly remembering the gavel.
"Are those your closing arguments?" Cerberus felt suddenly warmer remembering the twisted truth of this. He'd fallen for Zion because of their constant striving towards fairness and equality.
"The defense rests." Zion replied.
"Good, because the court maintains that you've always been strung out." Cerberus chuckled, but then a strange sensation came over him. His eyes burned like he'd been crying. Instinctively, he moved to rub them. As he drew his hands away he noticed blood.
Zion looked back annoyed and slightly exhausted. "Fairy dust is a fairly inert thing when you're a fairy or not allergic, but to the pristinely unmagickal and the allergy laden it can cause a myriad of symptoms, especially if it's not moderated by other magickal ingredients in something like a potion. However, in your case, from the looks of the magenta glittery ripples wafting off your person like heat on desert pavement, it seems you're developing a full blown allergy to magic. Which is particularly complicated considering your curse and my inherent nature. Still that seems rather sudden and severe. It's not as if you've been spending all your time in a stuffy fae library turning a bunch of pages on dusty fae books."
Cerberus, who was more used to having the looks and expression of a wolf, suddenly felt sheepish.
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Being unbound was a unique experience few had. Liches weren't exactly common and Death was amazingly efficient. There's a certain and very specific current that pulls on a soul when it separates from the body. Death doesn't usually do a meet and greet and shake hands, nor does the impartial diety act as a guide, but when you meet Death, well it's not like you can just walk away.
Death didn't exactly ignore Zion either, but when you become a lich a sort of deal is struck, a deal only Wisdom can broker. The current and gravity will always pull at you, but you learn how to swim against it...sort of. The legality and practice of being undead is quintessentially complicated.
While many things get easier when practiced, the longer you're a lich the more difficult it becomes. Binding and unbinding your soul is certain to quickly induce insanity, which is why liches keep themselves safe in the confines of a phylactery. However, what that does to the soul is worse than a plant trying to grow when it's been sewn into a vessel too small for its roots. Souls, afterall, aren't born; they're developed and cultivated.
As Zion felt the overwhelming current about to overtake, the chirps of a particularly familiar chipmunk called to them from the shore as a trail of leaves blew around them both. This, was way worse than Zion ever thought. That level of adorable tail flicking paired with a tiny body that lurched with each sound it made as if it was too small for its own volume wasn't just dangerous, it was Lucky.