Something changed after that spring morning. It was summer and the grass was the grass surrounding them as they laid the sheets up for drying in the sun. Sylvester threw some water on Nataniel's face and he ran, holding the lavenders in his arms. To Nataniel, it almost seemed that he could love something not monstrous. That he could plant white lavenders on snow. And he did.
He slipped them down everything he could touch or reach. The willowing boughs, the table vases, the windows, the bed, into his hair and Sylvester looked at him working in the gardens. They squeezed their hands into the warm earth, his golden skin brushing against the pink leaflets, fragile spring, twittering, fleeting and flying away from constantly not its light, but darkness. Dark but light, warm hands and cold skin.
Nataniel watched him breathe as they slept on their lavender beds, in a lavender fever and watched his skin turn red in the salty air of the baltic sea. The fields of green gold seemed to stretch endlessly. And as the bedsheets flowed like rivers separating two bodies, he watched his eyes. It was a gentle smile. And the joys of summer seemed eternal.
"Nataniel,"
He heard his name in the dark and opened his mystique blue eyes. It was cold, dark and dry. He saw a pair of shining blue eyes under the dark blue sea. He opened his eyes and that white face became clearer, it was Beth. He touched his face, "Beth?" And he got closer, "Beth, is that really you?"
Beth grabbed Nataniel's hand, "Make haste, no noise,"
Nataniel quietly walked out of the meadow of flowers that were beginning to wither under the cold. He left Sylvester laying on the dead flowers and the poison ivy.
Beth, bare feet, ran through the warm, summer water, distorting all the water lilies growing in it. Nataniel, clasped in his grasp, ran after him. He felt the water turn cold and slowly freeze. All the flowers began withering and the fauna froze to death, "Wait, we are murdering everything," Nataniel stopped and Beth looked back at him, "Nataniel, I said make haste,"
Nataniel stooped down to look at the dead plants and animals, "We did this..."
"Nataniel, we have to run,"
Nataniel looked up and saw how the entire forest had frozen. All the little flowers were dead and so were the little insects and animals. He looked down at his freezing hands, "We are monsters,"
"Our existence isn't a subject of the question, Nataniel," Beth moved closer to him.
"But we end everything we touch," Nataniel turned towards him. And it was at that moment that he realised how tender Sylvester had made him, how warm and life-giving, "We are cold, destructive and monstrous beings,"
"We aren't, Nataniel. We are winter bearers. We are not monsters,"
"We are," Nataniel clutched his arms and scratched them as he moved away from Beth, "I want to be tender, virile and live-giving. I want to be a god,"
"But you're not a god, Nataniel!" Beth was losing patience with him.
"Neither am I a harbinger of destruction,"
"Nature is destruction! It is destruction that brings construction and regeneration. And that is beauty. And that is us,"
"No, that is you and the rest of your kind,"
"My kind?" Beth looked like he was holding back tears. They stood worlds apart and stared at each other like they weren't each other's world...When they were.
"We are the only ones left, Nataniel. I came for you..."
"What? Where is everybody?" Nataniel asked.
"There is no everybody," Beth shook his head as his cold tears made his dry skin wet. He covered his face and fell to his knees, half-submerged in the freezing water, "He killed them all,"
Nataniel was surprised. All this time, he believed it to be a fire that took away his family. He believed it was an accident. He believed it to be fate's will or destiny's underplay to leave him forlorn and abandoned. But now, he took the narrative and swallowed it whole, who was it?
"Who? Who killed them?"
Suddenly, he felt the water around his feet grow warm and the flowers came back to life. He turned back and saw Sylvester standing at the end of the river, among the small white pebbles. They looked at each other and Nataniel watched his blue eyes glow orange like a piping fire.
Nataniel opened his eyes wide, "A demigod"
Beth grabbed Nataniel's hand and began running away from him. It felt hot and claustrophobic. The forest was soon burning. Nataniel turned back and looked at Sylvester. But he was gone and soon a burning tree fell over them, Beth smashed his hands against the boiling water, turning it to ice instantly and generating so much steam that the atmosphere turned foggy for at least a minute, and the tree landed on the frozen, steel-like river. Nataniel had never seen him do anything like that before.
Beth held Nataniel tighter as they ran through the forest when suddenly the earth burst open and from with came galloping fire, engulfing everything. He waved his hand and everything turned to ice, but the ice itself caught fire as they ran across it and finally jumped into a grassland, a burning grassland.
Where they encountered Sylvester. Nataniel looked at him, and Beth made a spear out of ice, "You have killed everyone. Leave us be, we are running for our lives,"
"Nataniel will live," He smiled at Nataniel and then looked at Beth, "But you, you must run for your death" He made a huge iron sword of steel and ran towards Beth.
Nataniel ran between them, but he jumped up and struck Beth's spear. Beth defended himself using his spear, which was so little, so plain and so small. yet, he fought with all his might. Sylvester struck him on underneath his right eye, creating a fatal wound and cracking his cheekbone. But through the heat of tears and destructive passion, beth fought with all his might. The fire around him was swallowing his whole and his resilience could not hold his body together against all the cracking bone and clattering of teeth, a mouth full of blood and teeth and Sylvester rose his majestic sword. Nataniel saw through it, something told me that this would be the last blow, something told him this would leave him as one of his kind, truly, immensely, immeasurably lonely.
"SYLVESTER! I'M YOURS!" He gave away his ownership. He sold himself but a demigod's pride took something more solid to shatter apart. As he rose into the air, his clothes turned to gold and his divine armour took reflected his bright shadow in all his glory as he trusted his strong sword towards the weak, ice spear, sliced it from its middle and passed right through the body of the Beth. Then, bringing his other hand on the sword, he held it with both his hands and shoved the sword into the air, higher as it sliced through Beth's organs and pierced out of his collarbone. Beth slowly fell onto the fire, which began burning him gently. Nataniel watched with his eyes and mouth wide open.
Sylvester turned towards him, "Of course, you are mine, Nataniel," He smiled through Beth's blood shining like a bright red gloss over his face, garnishing his happiness at finally having him won. Nataniel ran towards the alive corpse of Beth, dismembered and gory, he held him into his arms, "Beth! Beth!"
Beth's blue eyes began losing their glow as they turned towards Nataniel's face. With great strength and greater will, he reached his hand towards him and Nataniel grabbed it and pressed it over his wet face, cold with tears yet warm with love, "Why must you come to me, miserable and obscure as I am? Look at the miserable end I brought to your existence, all this mortal misery and tactile feeling!" Nataniel sobbed as he pressed his forehead on Beth's forehead and felt how his skin was beginning to sag away from his bones.
"I came for you..." He heard his cry softly into his ears, "Because you are my brother. And I love you," Nataniel moved away and looked into his remarkable blue eyes, dull, desirous yet dying. Beth pressed his hand over Nataniel's face one last time, "You are my best friend," He whispered and his skin peeled off into a beautiful purple hue. Peaceful death covered him as purple veins covered his face entirely and his hair and lips turned white. And as he slowly fell apart from Nataniel's arms, he turned down slow and as his skin touched the unholy ground, it turned into soothing snow. Pure, pristine and holy. So holy that it grew flowers, beautiful, bountiful...lavenders.
Nataniel hugged the snow, hugged the lavenders and kissed them as he cried, "Beth, I love you too," He turned towards Sylvester, "I was wrong...You were fire all along." Slyvester moved closer to him and touched his face, "Nataniel,"
"You touch me and it burns! I am burning! And it hurts! You hurt!"
"I have fallen in love with you," Sylvester looked down at Nataniel and he looked bewildered, "And it dishevels my pride and distastes my senses me to say it, but," He moved his hands across Nataniel's black, soft hair, "I need to have you," He moved his lips towards Nataniel and licked them with his blood-stained tongue.
"So love me and worship me. I have fallen for you like Satan from his throne. You have stained me with your innocence so immaculately, that now I thirst for yours. So love me more,
Yes, love me.
Kiss me. Hug me.
Spoil me like a god.
Hold me. Eat me.
Love me more.
And I shall burn you into my fire of divinity and passion, and make a god out of you,"
The fire raged higher as he kissed Nataniel. His tongue was hot and Nataniel's mouth was cold. He grabbed his hair and pushed his face closer to him while Beth's blood was still fresh on his face. Nataniel's eyes were half-open as he looked at the blood sinking down his face,
'You think because you are divine and I, impure, you get to dig into my bruises and fill them up with love? No! I must unlove him right here! Right now, I must fall out of love. Unlove him, heart! Unlove! Unlove! UNLOVE!'
He chanted and soon his eyes turned so bright, so blue that it left a huge wave of ice, freezing the entire grassland, it was almost as if hell broke loose. An icy hell with spears raining from the sky and killing anything alive, running or crawling. All the withered lavenders froze in their incompleteness, all the flower beds, the castle gates froze and got clasped together for eternity, and the Baltic sea began freezing. Sylvester's heart froze and fell on the cold ice, as hard as his heart. Nataniel looked down at his freezing eyes, his skin began turning white from golden, "You love me," Nataniel said, "Then feel my love and accept it," He smiled.
"Burn it now, burn me into your fire of divinity and passion, and make a god out of me. I dare you, master," But all the veins in Sylvester's body began turning to ice, he reached out to Nataniel, struggling just like Beth, running out of breath as his lungs froze and his blood got clogged with snowflakes and lavenders, "Monster...You are just like them."
"They weren't monsters," Nataniel held his hands as they curled inwards, and pressed his lips upon them, "But I am," He bit his fingers off and he screamed, "So love me now.
Kiss me. Hug me.
Spoil me like a god.
And I'll hold you. Eat you.
Love you more."
Sylvester's golden hair froze to white and Nataniel broke his frozen limbs into smaller pieces, "Yes, you are my master, Sylvester. Yes, I am yours, Sylvester."
And you,
You are mine to have.
And mine to break.
Because love,
Love is violence.
"Beth, I ate him,"
-To be continued
Beth's Death
Dear Ms Lady Demigod