THE GRIM BALLAD OF GAIA, tom riddle

𝗌𝖾𝗍𝗍𝖾

─── ❀ ───

Midnight whistled cryptic blues over the sleeping city, cooing sweet lullabies to please the slumbered ears of the dreaming. Spotlights of headlight beams would come and go through the tight alleys and main streets, muffled engines huffing and clinking as the vehicles faintly drove. Street lights flickered like fluttering eyelids, draping streets in darkness one minute and pale yellow light the next.

Roma was the type of city that, even in its slumber, still breathed through ancient architecture as if it had blossomed from poppied hearth — a phoenix rising from fallen empires and historical excellency. No matter the number of catastrophes and devastations that the city went through, it always seemed to rebuild itself in the image of flawed sublimity, becoming even more vibrant and active in the end.

It was one of the many things Gaia admired about her home — sometimes, she even wondered if its rejuvenation had settled in her hands for her to hold, to consume.

However, that night on the rooftop balcony of her condominio, all she consumed was red wine, relishing in the way the bitter tang of the alcohol coated her throat in the distinct taste of fermented grapes and summer cherries. It lingered on her plump lips like the last kiss from a departing lover — the bittersweet taste of the wine a prose of everlasting ardor in the shade of burgundy ink.

Gaia didn't drink alone, though. For leaning against the stone railing was Tom Riddle himself, indulging on a bottle of authentic wine straight from the bottle, the neck gripped tightly in his hand almost as if he was choking it.

The two were gazing around at the twinkling city that mirrored the cosmic canopy above their tipsy heads. For a while, they stood silent, only the sound of downed wine, sedated breaths, and jesting breezes beating against their eardrums, stifling everything else in a congenial silence. Although no words were uttered between sips, Gaia found Tom's presence to be comforting, for even though the noises that circled them wandered through solitary, they echolocated his existence to her left, offering a sense of security that she wasn't alone, but wasn't exactly accompanied either.

She tilted her nose up towards the peppered sky, inhaling the aroma of ardent moonlight and flowering primroses that were soon combined with the taste of wine on her moral tongue; she felt at peace within her intoxication. When she drank wine, she savored each sip, swirling the liquid in its rightful glass before allowing it to take control over her.

One could say Gaia treated wine like God's treated ambrosia.

"Are you sure you don't want a glass, Tom?" The Italian woman asked, the tone of her voice strumming like a harp through the space between them that was occupied by unspoken thoughts.

"I'm sure. It tastes better straight from the bottle anyways." Tom took a swig from the bottle, tilting his head back to allow its contents to spill down his throat.

Gaia's eyes widened in shock, "Have you gone mad? Is that how you English folk drink vino?"

"Yes, it is. But if your definition of mad is drinking wine from a bottle, you're in for quite the awakening, darling."

Gaia shook her head, a verboten smile creeping across her moonlit face, dousing her complexion in luminous gaiety. Her cheeks were plumped due to the wine, for they were blotched in drunk camellia kisses, the soft contours of her face protruding through umbra shading. The divine hue of fresh olives that sat in her irises was concealed behind the whispering night sky, matching her eyes with the man who stood beside her, lost in his own musings.