The Keepers' Evil: The Shattered Star

Forever would be to destroy everything

Soil had flaked from Celeste's skin, flickers of mud melting into the warm water to become eroded by the oils in her soap. It had been nice, at first, to soak in the warmth that was far too hot, but it had too quickly become painfully cold. Celeste had not left the water though, she had simply watched as the bubbles popped against her skin like she was the dagger that she had been described as by her father.

There was something dangerously punishing about making her skin shiver in the water. Celeste had submerged her body, forcing it to stay utterly still as it shook and pleaded with her to let it out. It was torture, she thought, to drown herself so that only her eyes rested on the water's surface, but she almost could not stop herself.

In less than an afternoon, Selwyn Manor would be hung by the rope of the rich, drenched in expensive wines, and suffocated in pointless small talk of estates. Celeste thoroughly despised the idea of being there, of having to be someone she was not behind a pretty mask and different coloured hair, so that her true identity would not endanger those that cared for her. It was a necessary evil, to gain allies, but it came with a guilt that refused to let her to breathe.

It was your idea, she told herself as she agreed with the little voice in her mind that she had been taught to ignore for too many years, if anyone dies, the blood is on your hands.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Fear was hot, it was red, it was fire. Gabriel knew not of the cold, he knew not of ice but of flames. Familiarity was burning houses and tongues of smoke, and safety came in the form of terror. It was comfortable within his body, panic seemed to speak to him like his mother tongue, and when he couldn't find Celeste, the first words he heard in his mind were ones laced in unease.

Gabriel could not afford to let his irrationality tease the worry from him, but he had very little choice when it came to Celeste, and that was dangerous. He knew that she was in his house somewhere, that it was not her fault that the grounds were so big and he had given her free roam, but something angry inside of him panicked that she had run.

He was not sure why he needed to find her, perhaps just to look at her once more before the clock told him it was evening and he had to pretend that she was not someone else for the night, that she was simply tucked into a dreamless sleep and not beside him somewhere in the ballroom where her true identity was a death sentence.

Her bedroom was vacant when he arrived, but he stopped in the doorway to admire how the room seemed to spin with pink and purple shimmers that glared from the sun against a dream catcher that hung above the headboard of her bed. There were lavender candles that made him sleepy, and he wondered when it had become not just a guest room where Celeste slept, but her room.

Gabriel thought it strange that one's space could reflect them in such a delicate manner, even if it was not their house. He could find pieces of her in every part of the room, even in the way the windows sat ajar in the daytime because he knew that she could only sleep if the air was cold in the room around her. He could smell the passionate florals that came from her perfume, and he smiled softly at the few pieces of silver she owned and how he could tell that she did not care for them from the way they were jumbled and tangled on her nightstand.

He stared a little more intently at the strings of pearls that he had never seen before, noticing the flash of shined green beneath the disarray. He let himself acknowledge his curiosity, his fingers weaving between the laces of silver to reach what he could now see was a crest.