I-I don’t want him to be sad, or alone. She’d seen it already from him in the beginning and watching it slowly fade the longer she’d been with him had been beautiful to witness. To slowly watch Orpheus turn from worried and hesitant to warm and affectionate had stolen her.
So without her, someone who needed him to light the candles of his home so she could see, would he sit in the
dark in that cabin alone? Crying, and whining, and yearning for Reia to come back to him?
She knew... had known for a while now that Orpheus was attached to her. That he didn’t like being without her presence even for a few short hours to get her water – not because he didn’t trust her to stay, but because he didn’t like being away from her.
I don’t know if I want to live forever. She wasn’t attached to this world, didn’t have a drive to stay in it. But I don’t want him to be sad for eternity.
She could feel him quaking. She knew he was not okay, and that he wasn’t going to be okay.
I… The emotions that swirled within told her the truth, the truth she didn’t know if she wanted, but felt anyway. I want to stay with him more than anything.
For him. Because he needed her to, because he couldn’t live peacefully without her, and Reia thought she might not be able to live without him either, if she was alive.
“Orpheus,” she whispered, feeling the strength in her body slowly leaving her.
“No, Reia,” he whimpered. “I do not want to find another human.”
She tucked her head further against him.
“How do I give you my soul?”
I can live for eternity. Only if it meant she got to be with Orpheus. If I can spend it with him, I’d be happy.
In his home, surrounded by all the things he’d made, in his smell, and his embrace, with all the touches that made her melt for him. Cooking, making ornaments and protective trinkets, and clothes, and tending to the garden. Watching him roam the yard so he could make sure she was safe and protected or stoking the fireplace to make sure she was warm as he asked if she was comfortable or needed anything.
To feel pampered, cherished, admired, and beautiful. To not feel like just the only human that mattered, but the only
living creature in the world that mattered.
To be looked at by glowing orbs instead of eyes that reflected such deep emotions that his ethereal face couldn’t show. She would be content being buried within fur that tickled her face as she caressed all the protruding bones of his body, and the draping fish fins that raised when she brushed her fingers over them.
Reia wanted to be with this strange being who was so completely and utterly different to her, but had a heart that was so tender and gentle that it was more pure than any child or innocent animal.
It didn’t matter that he ate people, that others thought him a monster, not when he cared so much about her that he got upset when she pricked her finger on a sewing needle.
And yet, he’d cut her with his claw tips multiple times in the heat of the throws, was rough and naughty. He was always disappointed in himself after, but Reia wanted to show him that she adored it, that she liked the feel of them.
Reia was his. In body and in heart, all that was left was her soul.
“Your soul?” he asked, lifting his head back to stare down at her.
“H-how?”
She was feeling weaker by the second, and she was worried she’d waited too long to make this decision.
He leaned back in to hold her.
“You just have to want to give it me.”
But I do. Why don’t I... A hot feeling in her chest started to rise like it was coming from her spine.
She slipped her arms away from him to touch at her chest right between her breasts. When that heat touched her fingertips, she felt the unmistakable desire to pull away.
Something started to pull away from her. Beneath her palms, a bright light began to shine, and she cupped her hands around it when it was out of her body. Orpheus
leaned back once more to give her room as they both watched.
At first glance, she thought it was nothing but an orange-red flame, but upon closer inspection, it was actually a woman. A woman made of liquid fire, with hair that flowed up from her head like she was sinking under water.
She had the exact same body shape as Reia, and her eyes glowed with little dots of green.
Is this my soul? The spirit was on her knees. She looked at Reia and then twisted her body to look at Orpheus. She reached her arms out to him.
“No!” yelled Jabez as he stood from his throne, but neither one of them cared to pay him any attention.
“I want you to have it.”
When she started lifting her hands, giving him her soul, the spirit began to float on her knees, still reaching for him like she wanted him to take her. Even her soul wanted to go with him.
His orbs, for the first time, seemed reflective as he stared at it, the colour and shape of it mirroring in his eyes like a glare. He brought his head closer to sniff it, and her soul touched his snout as if she was hugging him.
It was sweet, until he suddenly chomped forward and ate it!
His body ruffled when he swallowed.
Of course, he ate it. Reia shouldn’t have been so surprised, and she couldn’t stop her lips from curling.
