"Veench!" Fria grumbled again, biting her lip in annoyance. She raised her head and stared at the catholic glass depicting a odd, complete solar eclipse.
An eclipse with the moon glowing marvelously and darkening the sun behind it, and tried to discern what he had found so enchanting in the ordinary thing that he was gaping while staring at it. Not even bothering of his hood that had fallen back.
Suddenly losing it, Fria roared and stomped her foot, "Veench!"
"Yes, maidan?" His head lowered, and Fria saw his blank white eyes– eyes that had no pupil or iris.
"Oops!" He smiled and placed his hood back on, "Shall we leave, maidan?"
Fria frowned, "What's the sudden change in tone for?" Muttering under her breath, she nodded, "Let's go."
Under his lead, the two walked out of the only room in the building and into the spacious hall in the corner of which her family had ensconced.
As the two appeared, Enix and Mugam stood up and started to walk over with Gruis tailing behind them silently.
Enix's eyes flickered, 'What's with the lecherous face?' He felt a shudder seeing the agape mouth curling into a dreamy smile at the corners of Veench's lips.
But seeing that Fria seemed rather fine, even a bit happy, he dropped his concerns.
"I-Is everything fine, Veench?" Mugam, making Enix's observation, asked with apprehension.
"Blessings! Joyous blessings be upon you and your family, Duchess!" He started, his voice lined by the fervent craze of a fanatic, "Sun!"
His hands shot into the air, pointing at the ceiling as if recalling something marvelous, and with awe, and reverence, he continued, "Her prescene eclipsed the sun! Her bearing shinning even under the sun!" He marveled, and lowered his chin, staring at Mugam in the eyes, "Your daughter is a maiden, rejoice Duchess, rejoice! There are none like her in the world... none that I have seen or heard!"
Mugam shook, her face glowing with a heat of pride as she stared at her daughter scratching her head in bewildered while flashing Veench an odd glance before muttering into Enix's ears.
Her body suddenly trembled and she directed stern eyes toward Gruis and seeing he understood, her gaze, slightly cold, moved toward Veench.
But before her lips parted, he raised his head and smiled, "Forgive my impertinence, Duchess. My tongue slipped, my tongue is unable to put in words what I have witnessed. I shall never ridicule her miracle by limiting them in my words."
Mugam smiled, "I am humbly gratified."
"Now, shall we leave too, young'un?" Veench directed a soft smile toward Enix.
Frowning at the change of tone, and receiving a pat on the back by Fria, he nodded and mustered his courage, "Yes."
With stiff shoulders and clenched hands, the two vanished past the doors.
While Mugam squatted down, beside Fria, and asked in curiosity, "Did something miraculous occur?"
Fria stared at her like a blank sheet and shrugged, "I would like to know some things too." Mugam chuckled and patted her head, "Don't worry, at least what he said wasn't bad."
As the door gently nudged shut, Enix felt he had been teleported in another dimension.
A rich scent, as noble as a rose and as elegant as a jasmine, littered every step he took.
The floor beneath was thick, crystal clear, unstained glass.
And it mirrored the catholic glass roof inside itself, projecting the depiction of a servant kneeling before statues under a large bright sun.
With the sunlight filtering past the opaque bow windows on the three open cup-board sides of the room, only giving sufficient and mystical illumination, something reached past his flesh and embraced his soul.
Led by the Veench, the two reached the center of the spacious room, directly under the center of the catholic glass on the roof.
And with a sharp turn, whooshing Veench's dalmatic, he kneeled on the floor like a knight in front of a king and voiced in a hush, "Move forward and above the platform, stand in the circle in front of the divines, and kneel in awe and reverence of them."
As Enix stared down into the reflection of Veench, with his hood shielding his whole face, his brows locked together.
And with small, echoing, crisp steps, he started to walk toward the uplifted platform supporting tall seven statues.
As he climbed the 5 inch platform and stepped over, the magnitude of their sizes started to weigh on him, and compelled him to his knees.
But, like slapping off a fly, he brushed away the feeling, 'Kneel?'
He continued to step forward, and noticed a 1 inch portruding circle in front of them.
Alleged so perfectly that all seven of their heads' shadow joined together at it– which was embedded with colorful gems.
Every color of gem that Enix had seen or known was embedded inside, and more, all scintillating.
As he stepped atop it, and their shadows started to pressure down at him, beckoning his body down.
He paused, once again brushing off the feeling, and stared forward.
Out of the seven statues, only one looked human. The others were something different— something in between.
'To kneel before them... and finish the ceremony, huh?' His eyes squinted.
'A new world... and new gods? I guess, with the presence of magic, the people would be quite religious or whatever here.' His expression started to distort.
'But I am not from this world,' His brows sketched into a scowl, his lips puckering out.
'And even if I was... I would still do the same.' A sense of hubris enveloped him, and scorn for these but mere stones grew in him, making his chin lift high. Even with his height, he seemed to be looking down at them from above.
'I have never kneeled before another, but one,' With a laughter suppressed by the contempt inside him, his tongue rolled in his mouth before he spat down at the overlaped shadows.
"I will never kneel in front of you stones. I don't worship..." He spat, "Dirt!"
A terrible explosion boomed in Veench's consciousness.
The ceiling and window glass shattered and pierced into the ground.
A ravine pulled deep into the glass and the ground beneath it, making the seven statues and him alike fall into the maw of the abyss beneath.
The light around got swallowed and shredded by the gaping jaw of the darkness and a void stretched in front of him.
'Baneful!' Veench's eyelashes fluttered, and his unnerved, unfluttering wide eyes, making bloody veins surface, peered into the perfect glass below him.
The glass corroded by some wretched blackness, gobbling its ability to mirror.
With a trembling body, his head lifted forward, bypassing Enix, and at the catholic glass.
The statue and the servant had vanished, maybe devoured by the darkness that had creeped over, and haunted the place alongside the eclipse.
'Lunar eclipse! A wretched total lunar eclipse!' His body convulsed, the darkness reaping the colors of his cheek, and making his jaw saw together.
The bloody moon, shinning solitarily in the black abyss seemed stained by or reflecting endless blood.
It looked to have spreading lips, pulled hideously back into a harrowing grin. 'Damnation—either to be damned... or to damn! He is... accursed!'
His trilling vocals hooted aloud, his voice as if alone in some eternal and endless hell, his words as though doleful of some calamity or apocalypse ravaging the world, "Oh~ Aberrant among pariah! How pernicious!
"How malignant!"