The Aesthetic Boon

Night in the library feels different than anywhere else. Outside, the village sleeps under a blanket of mist and tired prayers. Here, silence doesn’t mean rest. It means waiting. The books creak as if they’re breathing, the shelves lean like ribs, and the air tastes faintly of dust and ink, sharp as bitten fingernails.

I sit hunched over the diary, its pages stitched back together with golden thread that still glimmers faintly in the candlelight. The scars make the words crooked, but they’re mine. I should feel comfort in that, even if comfort these days is hard to come by.

I rub at my temples. My head’s been a hive since the last time a God dropped by to pass judgment, and I’ve learned better than to think I’m done being examined. They always come when the walls are thinnest, when I’m too tired to hold the edges of myself in place.

The first sign is the light. It doesn’t come from the candles or the moon, but from the books themselves. Their spines shine as if freshly polished, covers catching glimmers that shouldn’t exist in this dimness. The whole room brightens, as though the air itself were lacquered. The shadows reorganize, perfect angles and soft curves, not a single harsh line left behind.

That’s when I know I’m no longer alone.

He steps - no, glides - into being at the far end of the table, as if the library itself had been waiting for the right moment to unveil him. A figure so radiant it makes the candlelight look cheap. Not man, not woman, but something in between, or beyond. Youth carved into androgynous perfection, hair the color of molten gold framing his angelic face, tunic hanging over his toned shoulders, skin so flawless it could shame marble, eyes wide with delight at everything they see.

Everything, except me.

The admiration in his expression twists the moment his gaze lands on me. The golden glow dims, like a painting developing a crack in the varnish. His lips part, not in awe but in disappointment.

“Oh dear.” His voice is honey wrapped around glass: sweet, sharp, cutting. “All this ink on your fingers, that exhausted face… You look like a draft someone forgot to edit. How terribly unfashionable.”

I stare back at him, dead-eyed. My whole body aches, and all I can think is: great. Another god with Opinions.

“Honestly, Beauty, how do you all keep coming in Failure’s domain as if it was your own playground? Give a woman some warning at least!”

He ignores me, of course. They always do. Instead, Beauty drifts across the library like it’s a museum curated solely for his amusement. Every movement is deliberate, a dance designed to be watched, even though I’m the only audience. He trails pale fingers across the spines of books, sighing as if their worn leather bindings are tragic accidents, then brightening as he passes a gilded edge or an illuminated manuscript.

“This.” He coos at a shelf of neatly stacked tomes that I organized. “Is divine. Order. Harmony. Pages aligned like soldiers.” He spins on his heel, golden hair catching the glow of his own aura. His eyes land on another shelf, one sagging under the weight of loose, half-burned journals. My journals. He wrinkles his nose as if smelling something foul. “And this… Abomination. Smudged ink, dog-eared corners, broken spines. How do you even live with yourself?”

I prop my chin on one hand, too tired to summon righteous indignation.

“Sorry I didn’t roll out of bed as a Renaissance painting.” I say flatly.

He gasps like I’ve insulted his entire bloodline.

“Renaissance? Please. You don’t even qualify as modernist irony. You’re unfinished, darling. A sketch scribbled in the margins.” He drags a finger along the cover of the diary lying open on the table between us. When he lifts it, the tip of his finger glimmers with flecks of golden ink. “You stumble, you smudge, you bleed all over the page. Honestly, it’s hideous.”

The words bite harder than I want them to. Maybe because they’re true. My handwriting looks like it’s been dragged through a storm, my body is one long bruise of exhaustion, and the only reason I’m still standing is sheer, mean stubbornness. He sees all of it, every crack.

I force a laugh, though it comes out thin.

“Yeah, well. Hideous still gets the job done.”

He tilts his head, studying me the way someone might study a wilted flower. Not out of pity. Out of morbid fascination.

“Perfection should inspire. It should lift hearts and ignite wonder. You, Aya…” His lips curl in disdain. “You drag everything down into the mud with you. A reminder of failure, written in every line of your face. How… Unbeautiful.”

I meet his gaze, eyes dry, throat sore.

“Guess it’s a good thing I’m not here to decorate your gallery.”

He doesn’t stop circling me, orbiting like some golden comet too vain to burn out. His disdain lingers, but then… He smiles. Not cruelly this time. Almost like he’s caught a rare butterfly in a jar.

“And yet…” He murmurs, twirling one of my ruined journals between his fingers. “Isn’t that exactly why you matter?”

I blink.

“Excuse me?”

“Even ugliness has its place.” His tone shifts, no longer dismissive but reverent. He gestures broadly at the shelves - the sagging, the mismatched, the stained. “Without scars, beauty has no contrast. Without imperfection, brilliance means nothing. A flawless statue is impressive, yes. But it is the chipped marble, the broken column, the tattered canvas that makes us ache. That gives meaning to beauty in the first place.”

He drops the journal back onto the table, leaning closer. His golden eyes glitter like sunlight through stained glass. “Think of Dada. An entire movement dedicated to chaos, nonsense, ugliness. They shattered form and sneered at elegance… And yet, they expanded beauty’s reach. They proved that without disruption, art, beauty, becomes a cage. Do you see?”

My throat tightens. I think of Dalylah, her rage, her desperate hunger for perfection. Of my own words to her: You are who you are because you failed. And kept going.

And suddenly, I see the symmetry.

She isn’t ugly in spite of the cracks; she’s human because of them. Same as me. Same as every broken, battered, too-stubborn-to-quit soul I’ve met since waking up here.

I laugh, dry and hoarse, but there’s no venom in it. “So what, you’re saying I’m a dadaist work of art? A mess that forces people to look twice?”

Beauty’s grin widens, radiant, and they clap.

“Finally, she understands! You are not beautiful despite your flaws, Aya. You are beautiful because of them.”

The words land like a blade turned gentle. I want to scoff, to shrug it off, to hide the sting of sudden warmth creeping up my chest and cheeks. But instead I press my palm to the diary, to the smudges and tears and frantic scratches that refuse to disappear.

Ugly. Broken. Incomplete.

And that’s, I’ve been learning, is the whole point.

The God of Beauty leans back against a shelf, casual as starlight, twirling a loose lock of golden hair between two fingers. Their voice softens, not less theatrical, but with a strange kind of weight behind it, like the pause before a brush stroke that will change the whole painting.

“So, little ink-stained creature.” They say, almost fond now. “Let me reward your resilience. Choose one memory. Just one. I will let it remain, no matter how much you write. A keepsake, untouched by loss.”

The words strike me harder than any spell or creature Roderick has thrown. One memory. One. It feels like being offered a parachute when I’ve already jumped. The air is rushing, the ground is rushing faster, and someone finally hands me a cord.

My first instinct is panic. How do you choose a single thread when your whole life is unraveling? My mind flickers through scraps: laughter in classrooms, rain on glass, the warmth of hot chocolate on a frozen morning. The first page I ever filled in this diary, trembling and desperate. Yuki’s hand steadying mine when I almost collapsed. Dalylah’s glare softening - just once. So many fragments, each one demanding to be the one I save.

My throat feels tight. “Just one?” I whisper.

“Just one,” Beauty repeats, almost gently. “A relic against oblivion.”

I close my eyes. I don’t want to. I don’t want to look into the black space where memories vanish, where names and faces have already blurred into static. But I force myself, because I can’t afford to waste this. If this is my only lock box, then it needs to hold everything that proves I was once real. That built me as me.

And then I see it.

A birthday. Mine. I don’t remember how old I was, sixteen? Seventeen? The number doesn’t matter. What matters is the kitchen light spilling across a cake, the waxy smoke of candles rising in lazy curls. My mother’s voice - sharp sometimes, tired often, but that night warm as honey, just like when she sang to me as a kid - singing off-key with my father. My dad, with that ridiculous smile and boisterous attitude, cutting slices too uneven to pass for civilized. My best friend beside me, laughing so hard soda spilled from her nose. And him. My first love, awkward, half-hiding behind a crooked grin, pretending not to blush when our shoulders touched.

It hits me all at once. Their faces. Their names. The exact pitch of their voices. The way my friend used to steal the frosting roses off my slice because she hated cake but loved sugar. The way my dad always said “make a wish” like he believed wishes had weight. The way my mom smelled of laundry soap and cinnamon that night. The way my heart stuttered when my crush pressed a paper flower into my hand, folded badly, but mine.

I choke on a breath. The memory is so vivid it feels like stepping back into it. And I realize, I don’t just want this. I need this. Because this one night isn’t just about me. It’s about them. About my people. My proof that they existed, that I wasn’t some stray thought spat out by this world. If I lose everything else, at least let me keep them safe here, with me.

“I know…” I murmur, voice breaking. “I know which one.”

Beauty tilts their head, eyes bright as stained glass.

“Show me.”

My hand shakes as I instinctively fill my fingertips with magic. It doesn’t flow this time - it glows, faint and golden, like a candle stub clinging to life. I raise them towards Beauty, trembling, and when they touch it, the image pours out. The birthday table spreads across time and space, imperfect but alive: faces, laughter, crumbs of cake, crooked paper flower. My gold magic sketches the scene, shaky but determined, as though I’m tattooing the truth into existence itself.

The glow deepens, then pulls inward, condensing into a single bean, and floating into my Pen that is resting at the table. When I lift it, the weight is different. Heavier. Not with burden, but with permanence. This one memory will not fade. Ever.

I clutch it to my chest. For the first time in what feels like forever, I don’t feel like I’m dissolving. There is an anchor inside me now, albeit small. Not borrowed, not promised, but chosen. A single unbreakable truth: I was loved. I belonged. Once, in a kitchen filled with off-key singing and frosting roses, I was whole.

Beauty watches me, smiling in that infuriating, radiant way.

“There.” They say softly. “Now you carry not just the ink of survival, but the shape of beauty itself. This is my apology.”

Tears slip down my face before I can stop them. I laugh through it, raw and shaking.

“You know, you’re still obnoxious.”

They bow, as if I’d complimented them, and chuckle.

“Naturally.”

I look down at the feather again, still glowing faintly, and whisper to myself, to my parents, to my friend, to him.

“I won’t forget you. Not this time. Not ever.”