Tyrant of the Ruined Sun

The sun had once again begun it’s dip into the horizon, dyeing the Palace grounds an astonishing reddish orange hue against it’s alabaster walls, a sight even the native people of the capital, who’d long since grown accustomed to it, would continue to admire from time to time; yet there remained one conflicted soul who could not appreciate the marvellous sight of it all, as she languidly reclined back in a chair facing a massive glass pane window.

"Hello love." I called out as I opened the door. "How was your stroll."

"You know where we were?" She asked tiredly.

"My eyes are everywhere in this city." I smilingly replied, as I came to her side and began to slowly rub her shoulders.

"Then do you also know what we were doing?" She asked again, flinching for a moment at my touch, before she then began to melt into it.

"No." And I answered honestly.

"Why not?" This time she asked with a bit of surprise, even turning slightly to face me as she did.

"I would never attach an ear to you my love." I said, pecking a kiss from the crown of her pale golden head.

"But you would an eye?" She cheekily replied, reclining further in her plush chair.

"Yes." I nodded.

"Why?" She questioned.

"...Safety." I said, with a tone of repressed darkness, as unwanted memories began to resurface.

"Safety? What possible danger could befall me here?" She asked incredulously.

"One can never be too sure." I smilingly said, banishing all the unpleasant thoughts from my mind.

A moment of silence engulfed us then, one of enjoyable stillness, until she then asked, breaking it "You said you don’t know what I went to do today, but am I right to expect that you have already guessed it?"

"...You went to find something." I said, confessing my thoughts. "Something that most likely has some form of a relation to me. Am I right?"

"Yes." She answered, her tone odd. "Are you not curious?" She then asked when she noticed I wasn’t going to say anything more.

"Should I be?" I asked.

"You would if you knew what it was I was looking for." She replied.

"Is that so?" I said laughing, before then saying "Could it by any chance be that you were hunting for a flaw of mine? A characteristic to dislike? To resent?"

She grew rigid in her chair, her once loosening shoulders tightening once more to mimic carved stone, before then beginning to ease once again under my ministrations.

"...This makes no damn sense." She muttered aggrievedly under her breath.

"What doesn’t my love?" I asked.

"This!" She nearly yelled. "All of this! Even when you seem to be able to read my mind, I can not find it hateful in the least! Or when you know I am actively trying to find fault in you that I would be able to dislike, so that I may combat my feelings with, you simply shrug it off with unflinching confidence, which is just all the more char..." She stopped herself before she could continue, suddenly realizing her unwanted candidness.

Something I could not accept, as I quickly said with a widening smile. "All the more what, my love?"

"Forget it!" She instantly bit back, demanding again and again. "Forget I ever said anything!"

"You are crueller than I, my love." I chucklingly said, brushing the side of her face with the back of my fingers and thumb, as I then cooed gently in her ear. "My dear, proud, foolish Eve. You can never hate me because you are mine and mine alone. Just as I am yours and yours alone, with even death and time unable to keep you away from me."

Her face gained a bit of colour then, as her fair cheeks grew a gentle shade of pink, and without any further thought I captured her lips in mine.

Our kiss was once again a chaste and brief one, as I began to pull back a couple of seconds later, fearing her displeasure if I push my limits too soon, yet contrary to my expectations, she did not permit my retreat this time, as she hooked her arms around my neck and forced me back to meet her waiting lips.

Yet it was the words she uttered in that fleeting window of separation that stole my breath away more than the kiss itself ever did.

"I love you." She breathlessly whispered.

And though I had heard those same words a thousand times before, it still felt like an injection of fire in my veins.

In one fluid motion I lifted her from the chair, taking her into my arms, before I then took her seat and placing her on my lap instead, with our lips never once leaving each other. It was beloved bliss, one of unspeakable euphoria so extreme that I had to fight hard against my baser instincts to merely continue kissing her without my limbs taking a life of their own and beginning to roam upon fields and hills they should not yet tread upon.

Yet it seemed that even at this moment I was not permitted to know peace by the Gods, as I inexplicably began to feel a burning on my hand. But so fantastic was this instant, that I decided to ignore it for the time being and keep my attention at the beauty before me now.

But despite my willingness to ignore it, the burning in my hand seemed to be fuelled by our passion, cooling when our lips parted for air and blazing the second they reconnect; worse still the heat was not static, but ever growing.

And yet this was not the end of the matter, as I quickly came to realize that I was not alone in feeling this pain, for Eve broke our kiss a second later with a shriek of pain upon her tongue.

My mind instantly lost all other thought, as I beheld her left ring finger wrapped in a golden band of glowing light, and as though compelled by force, my eyes left her anguished visage, and upon my own hand, where I glimpsed another ring of burning light upon my own ring finger.

And as though plucked from the fringes of my mind by an seen hands, the memory of my resurrection came back to me, along with a very specific set of words that were said to me back then.

I offer you one gift and a singular word of advice.

’That being’s gift?!’ I though in utter shock, before I was again ripped from my thoughts, by the fearful, pained wails of my Eve.

"What’s happening?!" She asked in a heart tearing voice, clutching her trembling left hand.

I rushed to hold her close, wanting to tell her that all will be well, that I am here, but before all that left my mouth was a groan of pain, as the pain on my own hand began to encroach upon my own threshold of pain.

Yet if even I could no longer ignore it, my Eve who’s never felt anything like this before was a hundred fold worse off than me, as her head suddenly lulled to the side, scarring me half to death, as I held her now limp body closer to me.

I rushed to rise and speed with her to Adam’s side, yet I felt my feet turn to led, and my hips and back chained to the seat behind me.

’Where are the guards!’ I thought in panic. ’It’s impossible they haven’t yet heard the commotion!’

But that’s when I noticed that we were encased in a kind of pinkish cocoon of light that exuded immense levels of divine power, barring our agony from reaching the senses of any outside this room.

"Abraham! Horus! Anybody!" I yelled out in pure desperation. Yet like screaming into the void, naught but silence answered me, as I continued to cradle my beloved’s increasingly pale form.

"Eve!" I called out. "My love! Can you hear me? Eve! Darling, can you..."

Yet I was forced silent again by the grimacing of my face, as this damned gift redoubled it’s efforts to torture us, now mimicking the horridness of molten metal having been dripped upon our fingers, making me feel as though it was flaying my skin, melting my muscle and now carve itself upon my very bone.

But then it’s golden light vanished, and was instead replaced by the same pinkish light surrounding us, and the once near unbearable pain began to be drawn from our flesh, like poison is drawn from a wound, and instead become replaced with a wonderous sensation, as though one was experiencing a lover’s gentle caress.

Breath returned to my lungs with this seeming conclusion, and I felt the divine light barring us from the world also dissipate like mist before the sun, along with whatever was holding me in place this entire time.

I immediately again wanted to rush to Adam’s side, but I felt my throat too parched to properly speak, so with nothing else but my beloved’s health on my mind, I decided to take her there myself before anything else.

"Darling?"

But before I could even half rise from this accursed seat, the low, pitiful and tired voice of my Eve sounded out from my arms, as she then raised her hand, in an almost hesitant curiosity, to my now elated face.

"My love!" I intended to roar out in indescribable joy, my voice coming out as little more than a raspy whisper, as I then hugged her so tight, she winced in pain.

An error I quickly corrected, as I immediately let her go at her wince of pain, but then she continued to stare at me with those unseeing eyes of hers, tracing my face again and again with her comfortably cold fingers.

"Darling?" She asked again.

"Yes love, it’s me." I quickly answered, worry once again beginning to creep it’s way through me as I continued to scrutinize her in this moment.

Her complexion had returned to normal, and her earlier pain, much like mine, had clearly gone while leaving little behind; but it had clearly done something else to her as well.

No, now that I carefully focus, the pain did not vanish while leaving little behind, I can feel an odd connection now to Eve, one I had never felt before.

"Darling?" Eve asked for the third time, still kneading my face with deliberate meticulousness.

Something was definitely not as it used to be.

"My love," I said, grabbing her hand in my own. "come, I will take you the Archpriest."

"Darling!" Yet before I could fully rise with her, she suddenly leapt upon me, throwing me back into the chair, her arms like vice grips around my neck and her eyes pouring tears, while our lips met in a ferocious kiss.

This was again so unlike the chaste and inexperienced Eve, who not a few months ago flinched at my every touch, and only shared with me a few brief moments, that I was utterly stunned.

And the longer it lasted the more shocked I became, as her every following action deviated so greatly from her usual self, and began instead to align with those of hers I only dared quietly relive in quiet dreams.

’Could it be?’ An impossible thought suddenly came to me, as I then I incredulously asked, with a smile so wide it felt as though it would split my face.

"Eve?"

"Who else?" She asked in reply, her tone dripping with a sensuality the Eve I knew in this life could never have been able to replicate.

And I knew then, that somehow my darling had returned to me, fully and wholly.