THE GRIM BALLAD OF GAIA, tom riddle

𝗍𝗋𝖾

─── ❀ ───

     When darkness prances in the presence of its foe, it mimics itself in the like of a shattered looking glass imbued with twilight ichor —  a sublime calamity that, even in its fragmented condition, still reflects the pulchritude of an archangel. Even though it presents itself as damaged goods, beauty is within the eye of the beholder, and nothing screams beauty quite as deafening as the lullaby of an adolescent tragedy.

     Gaia Arbore was merely an admirer of abstract art.

     Her whole life, she had been the girl that found herself drifting off into the cosmos by the tendrils of her psyche, disassociating from the world that encompassed her and observing everything from the sealed eyes of an aesthete. Minutes turned to hours in which she lay glued to cotton sheets and knitted quilts, her eyelids displaying an elaborate play where actors chorused hymns of blissful reverie.

     Somedays, she would find herself sitting near the windowsill of her childhood casa, feeling the splintered wood press into her forearms as she cherished the few minutes of spilled sunrise, watching the street of Roma come to life once again.

     Every now and then, she would see a man and woman walking hand in hand, whispering sweet nothings into each others' ears until they ran away, tripping on cracked stone and cigarette-infused air. She had always wondered what it was like; to have someone to whisper sweet nothings to and visit every spot in the city until their feet caved under their adrenaline-filled bodies.

     And now here she was, walking in the same streets she had admired from afar from her bedroom window, but instead, she strode in pace with a mysterious British man who was to be her new roommate.

     Gaia would have been a liar if she claimed to have not been extremely nervous about the arrangement she had signed up for. Her top teeth continuously gnawed at the chapped skin of her soft bottom lip, tearing away dead flesh through her anxiousness.

     She felt intimidated by his presence, for he strode through the streets as if it were the red sea, influencing the bustling sidewalk traffic with each planted step of his obsidian-wrapped oxfords. In his right hand, Tom held a leather briefcase whose stitching was beginning to fray, and the material had begun to scratch to a beige.

     Turning her head away from Tom, Gaia noticed her blurry reflection in a shop window. When she took in her current appearance, a light gasp passed her torn lips that were a subtle carmine due to her chewing. Her wavy hair was disheveled on top of her head, strands reaching out towards the roseate painted sky that grew clementine clouds from the branches of stars that had just begun to peak over the paradisiacal canopy.

     Almost instantly, she began to brush at the knots, pulling downward harshly in an attempt to defrizz the jungle of her sable locks. Her hair had always been a burden in her life, for it was always too thick to manage and never stayed in place. During the summertime, Gaia's hair situation would always get worse, forcing her to pin up her hair in tight buns that yanked at her scalp until it bruised.

     "Stai bene?" A deep and rich voice questioned. Tom quirked an eyebrow at Gaia, curious as to what she was doing as they walked.

     The act of impersonating sincere concern brought bile up his throat, for even Lucifer gets sick of putting up a foreign front every once and a while. But Tom knew what he needed to say, what he had to do, so if the script said to be kind, then he would put on the best damn show Roma had ever seen.

     "Si, si. I miei capelli soon pazzi, that is all." Gaia ran one last hand through her waves, flattening it down on the outside. He cast a look at her unruly hair, nose twitching slightly at how chaotic it looked. "Anyways," she cleared her throat, "I must inform you about my current living situation."