• "You're becoming slightly an irritant."His hands glided sensually over the sides of the over-stuffed chair he rested upon; his piercing eyes narrowing at his slaveboy with a menacing curiousity as well as subtle admiration. "You prance around here as if you're high and mighty-----We're better than you." Then the inglorious prince sipped his goblet of brandy.
    Seth rested the silver tray upon the edge of the wooden table. The smell of rotten meat, possibly fish for his "master" has been eating burlap sacks of fish over the past three days even though it seemed Seth has been trapped in this place for years, decades. They've worked his nails down to the cuticles; his prized big, soft hands that were so familiarly attractive to the young women back home fell in love with were pruned from hours of washing the Prince's dingy clothing. Dark, almost theatrical, circles cursed his once bright, blue eyes with the appearence of a corpse, and the overall toll of working hours without a minute's rest really began to take its virulent course upon the boy's mental state. He was lost within desolation. Bereaved thanks to isolation-------"Well? Give me my tray!"
    Oh would you shut your mouth for a few minutes!Seth glared at the lounging daemon through the corner of his dulling eyes. This man has literally sucked all life and hope from this child, a shame.
    The slave walked, no not moved, dragged his crippling living corpse of a body to the prince whom now smiled his wide, pleased smile with utmost amusement. When he smiled, the prince, his entire facial expression changes. It transforms from a profile of inhumanity and hatred of all life to something else, something that can only be explained by those who ever looked upon his long, pale face and not fell in love with its otherworldiness, its beauty. Seth saw the long, sharp nails curling into the fabric of rich loveseat. He watched with the eyes of a curious infant as the skin grew tight around Prince Asphodel's thick knuckles as he dug his fingers in deeper. "Sit the tray in my lap."
    Slowly did Seth do as his master commanded. There was a loud laughing followed by a brief, cold silence due to an inert calculation. And as Seth turned to drag his body to the large, rusty cage he rested in for moments at a time before being called to do this and answer that, the daemon prince rose from his seat, threw the tray of hot oatmeal, diced fruit, and two stinking uncooked slabs of salmon onto the floor, still laughing. Possibly still calculating.
    "You've heard it crash. Come clean it." Asphodel cackled. "Put those thin, bird legs of yours to good use so they may service me well in the future when I am king."
    Seth murmured in detestation, "You b*****d." Wind. Thick, coarse, cold wind. Wind that burned the eyes when it first hits it due to its coldness, its maliciousness. The wind of Asphodel's five-feet, four-inches thick whip cracking in the air, deafening the laughter of the slave children playing solitaire beneathe this very floor and any inkling of opposition, once vociferous and ardent in its convictions. It was like a chain reaction. Everything happened fluidly, yet in silence, perhaps instinctively. Almost fated if one wishes to conclude that. Within the midst of broiling anger and inquisitiveness, the arrays of dodging, rough breathing, and the cracking----The horrible cracking of the slavemaster's whip-----These two became interlocked. Curious about one another; their hands reaching for one another to grab a lock of ash-blonde or night-dark hair while their teeth reeled back in an almost bestial remark of dominance. But as your source, I'll include you to know that due to the chain reaction of movement it led them to it, this creature known in King Gurson's inner circle as the Libra. The meeting resulted in the thrusting of a knee into a certain mortal slave's gut which caused him to fly into the wall, choking on desperate cries as he clawed at the filthy stone walls until some member of Fate must have felt the pangs of pity, waved her wand, thus forcing him to just through.
    So he fell. And fell into darkness, an abnormal one; this type no longer reeking of the elements of desolation and madness but of wisteria. He plummeted until something caught him, something big to the point were it was doomed for Seth to become overwhelmingly intimidated. The scent of wisteria clogged his nostrils; the deeper level of darkness robbed him of sight. And as his body writhed in pulsating pain upon this fleshy foundation did the a voice raspy, childlike yet mature in its confidence say to him: "Hello sweet Seth."
    The force of the voice almost caused Seth to go into a convulsion induced by fear. Saliva dotted with perfect spheres of blood trinkled from the corner of his mouth. The creature spoke again: "You should learn to be more open to the possibilities. Don't be so hasty. The son of the lord is just a big thespian that's all. I know he's just as curious as you are."
    "Curious...," Seth's voice dragged into a rising slumber his long, dark lashes drew close to its sister. "Curious...."
    "I am the Libra. And what you rest upon are my hands; you are like a small bud rising from the ashes of a scorched forest."
    "The Libra...."
    "The Libra...." It whispered tenderly.
    And there was silence.