[Flashback: The Exemplar Family's Celebration Palace in the High-End Orbits - Before the Festival of Serenus]
"You came to my party." The familiar voice, coated in a soft arrogance, made me turn. She stood there, stealing the breath of the entire hall. Aurelia.
She was wearing a dark gold dress, hugging the curves of her body as if it were poured onto her. A fabric shining under the crystal chandeliers making her look like a goddess who had just descended from a mythical sky.
Her liquid gold hair cascaded over her bare shoulder, and her eyes, carrying the sovereignty of the world, looked at me with fatal confidence. She was so perfect she could awaken the worst instincts of possession in any man's heart. (How can something so rotten inside... look with such divine perfection?)
I thought, holding back my desire to kneel before this tyrannical beauty. I smiled, and drew an aristocratic bow. "Who am I to refuse the invitation of the most beautiful woman in the world?" She laughed, her voice ringing like silver bells. She tapped my shoulder lightly with her fan.
"Stop flirting with me at my party, Vanitas. Eyes are watching us." Then, she took a step closer. Her voice dropped to a whisper saturated with promises: "Stay for the party until the end... I have a gift for you." My smile widened. "I wonder... what is this beautiful gift?"
...
[Flashback: Aurelia's Palace in the High-End Orbits - After the Festival of Serenus]
The cold night air slapped our faces harshly, unsettling the extended silence over the wide marble balcony.
The chirping of crickets drifted intermittently from the lower palace gardens, mingling with the whistle of the dry wind playing with the edges of our clothes.
I drew a deep breath from my cigarette, its ember glowing in the dark, then exhaled the gray smoke to twist and dissipate toward the moon's disk. Beside me, Aurelia was leaning with her bare forearms against the cold railing, smoking with unusual absentmindedness, her golden eyes drowning in the dark horizon as if searching for something no longer there.
She said quietly, without turning toward me, her voice coming out faintly between the clouds of smoke: "Why did you ask for my hand, Vanitas?"
I paused for a moment. I moved the cigarette between my index finger and thumb, and looked at the side of her sculpted face in the gloom: "And why did you accept?"
Our gazes met for a single second; a cold, piercing look, where each party tested the solidity of the other's mask. Her lower lip slid into a pale, lifeless smile, then she returned her sight to the extended void, lowering her head slightly: "Vanitas... don't you think we rushed into this marriage?"
My hand stopped in the air. "Why are you asking now?"
She slowly relaxed her burdened shoulders, and sighed: "Just... I feel that the world is passing by at a tremendous speed, faster than I can catch up. As if we are jumping toward an abyss we can see clearly."
I scrutinized her delicate fingers trembling slightly around the cigarette, and said in a dry tone: "Are you afraid of the end of your old life? Absolute pleasure... the high that has no ceiling?"
She didn't answer.
Silence draped between us again, unbroken except for the howl of the winter wind between the marble columns and the tapping of flying tobacco ash. The stillness wrapped her posture like a statue of ice.
And suddenly... that fleeting fragility was erased. Her features hardened, and the cruel daughter of Aurum returned, the woman who allows no weakness to touch her pride.
She raised her hand, and with a violent, calculated motion, crushed her burning cigarette on the edge of the marble railing, grinding the ember until it completely extinguished under her fingers.
"Your cigarette is disgusting." She said it sharply as she turned her back to me, her heel steps clicking on the floor petulantly: "I'm going to sleep."
And before her hand touched the metal handle of the transparent glass door, she froze in place. She didn't turn toward me, but her voice came out heavy, saturated with a bitterness unsuited for her age:
"Vanitas... you are not who you think you are."
She pushed the door, entered, then closed it behind her with a decisive slam that cut off the howl of the wind.
I remained alone on the balcony. I took a final, long drag from my cigarette, then threw the butt into the void, and raised my head staring at the frozen blue moon's disk in the heart of the sky.
(Are you sure... that you are not talking about yourself, Aurelia?)
...
[Present: The Cabin's Courtyard in the Mountains of Silence]
I was sitting on the snow, petting Yatagarasu's feathers. The mythical entity had shrunk its size to become a small, cute crow, hopping between my hands and cawing softly, enjoying the play.
I sighed. I looked at the open sky. The sun was beginning to rise, spreading threads of pure gold upon the white clouds. A breathtaking sight, its warm colors resembling the gold of the heavens... resembling the threads of her hair.
Mugen stood a short distance away, watching me in silence. "Who is Aurelia?" The question fell from Mugen's mouth like a rock that shattered the glass of my calm. My entire body stiffened. My eyes widened, and my hand stopped petting the little Yatagarasu. I looked at Mugen. (Was... was I talking in my sleep?) He didn't answer. The silence confirmed my panic.
And with this question, the dam broke. The past swept over me like a black flood, dragging me forcibly back to that cursed room, to that red silk bed.
(The past swallows the present) She was naked beneath me, crying. "I love you, Vanitas... I truly love you." I looked into her tear-drowned eyes, and thought about what I couldn't say. (And I adore you... I don't just love you). "I know I made mistakes... I was young.. I was a whore.." (And I forgive you.
I forgive you with every remnant of a soul I possess). She buried her face in my neck, sobbing. (How I wish I couldn't hear the sound of your tears that are made of gold). "But I fell in love with you... You are different... Please believe me.. I want to be yours alone." (How I wish I could believe you...
but is your love for me as true as my love for you?) I wiped the gold streaming down her face, and uttered what I wished for: "I believe you..." Then I whispered in her ear what I call her in my sick mind: "...
my love." She smiled through her tears. A smile like a bright sun that illuminated the void in my chest. (And I know... it is the last time I will see her smiling). My hands slid to her neck. The body moved with absolute coldness, a coldness I wished I didn't possess.
"You like rough play? Show me what you have..." Vanitas's fingers began to tighten. Vanitas did not care about anything other than his interest. (I care about you... I want your embrace... I want to protect you). Vanitas did not love, and will not protect anyone but himself. His body was executing the command mechanically. "Vanitas... this... is too strong..." Vanitas is cold.
He didn't care about her choking words, and tightened his hands more around her neck. (My hands... please... be weaker!) Aurelia looked into my eyes before she died. Aurelia saw a cold monster.
She tried to defend herself from the monster before her, the one who wouldn't stop staring with his dead eyes. Her fingernails scratched Vanitas's hands in a desperate attempt to survive. (Aurelia... look into my eyes and say you forgive me... please). The gazes met in the last moment. She looked into my eyes... and understood.
She was no longer looking at the monster choking her, but she saw in my eyes the husband she loves. Her scratches stopped trying to tear the monster, and seemed as if she was trying to protect me from what I was about to do...
protect me from myself. Aurelia did not and would not love a monster. She loves me. Then her body convulsed one last time, and she died. Aurelia died, the only woman who loved me unconditionally, until her death.
(Return to the Present) A faint caw from the little Yatagarasu slapped my consciousness, pulling me back to the freezing reality.
I was panting softly. My fingernails were buried in the little crow's feathers until I almost hurt him. Mugen was still watching me, looking at me with his empty black eyes, waiting for the answer to his question.
"Who is Aurelia?" I looked into Mugen's dead eyes. I gathered all the wreckage of my soul, and locked the doors of my heart with padlocks of ice.
I smiled a mocking, crooked smile, and said with a voice that didn't carry a single atom of regret: "She is a whore... I was just entertaining myself with her in my free time."