[S] The Celestial Cycle, Birth of twin-worlds.

"You, Agreste, are a gift to me from my sibling. You are a gift to me from the sun. You are the remnant of my fading memories of the world I have created." I had spoken once to the grey-irised man of quietude.

Often there was a blinding silence in the air as I spoke of such things.

"How cursed could we children be, to be chained to worlds that are not our own?"

Within the Celestial Cycle, where Demons lived in their simple peace, worlds were born by the hands of Nobility. It could be said then, that the denizens of those worlds were made in our image - of both social structure, and greed alike.

To have been born a Prince, sibling to a Princess, and son of a Queen, were three titles I held closest to my heart. Although, I had never been the genre of person to take things too seriously, so ‘Birther of a world’ was a title I did not regard too well.

Still, in the eyes of my onlookers, they chose to shout the name ‘Demon of Portraiture’.

I thought it was funny, and annoying in parallel, to have sat before thousands of people for months on end as I meticulously painted a landscape of emerald and sapphire shades. I would have found it too dull to bear, had I not been placed beside my sister, who chose to create well a world of black and red design, with fantastical mechanical embellishments upon its surface.

So too, beside me did they call her the ‘Demon of Clockwork’.

“Why do the ‘gears’ tick so loudly, Castellia?” I asked of her with curious eyes.

“They turn in unison, linked together as ‘helping hands’ to in turn create a much bigger, brighter force of power.” Castellia smiled as she turned towards me.

But she too, had questions of her own.

“If you included constantly-shifting plates within your world, they would collide and crack against each other, creating fantastical new landscapes constantly, yes?” She smiled softly. “For your world, which only has one majour landmass, wouldn’t this make it so much more interesting?”

So I bent to her genius, and included her idea within my portrait.

I had asked my mother once, why the sky was a constant blue within the Celestial cycle. She seemingly had no answer, for in an instant, she made up fantastical tales of two creatures of illumination within a stark-black skyline.

So, I turned towards my sister, and offered up the idea of the worlds twinship, sharing these two creatures within their skies.

“The sun and the moon…?” She spoke with widened eyes. “As mother used to tell us stories of…? I suppose that could be quiet wonderful, couldn’t it?”

Under the moon, or under the sun, my sister’s silver hair was parallel to mine in all regards; a bright-gold like the wealth of a prince. Yet, despite the disposition of my aesthetic, to the crowd I became ‘Prince of the Moon’, and her the ‘Princess of the Sun’.

I was told once before that Nobility simply couldn’t survive without the help of the genius of the council of Demons within the sky - the Nirayana.

It was my mother, the Queen of the Demons, Astella, who had told me such a thing.

Although, as I gazed upon her fettered body, lying in a pool of silver blood glimmering underneath the bright-blue sky, I knew well that she had been wrong.

It was because of the Nirayana that the nobility couldn’t survive.

As I faced the bright-haired man who held a grin of greed upon his expression, I couldn’t abandon the still calm within my heart, so I spoke simply and softly.

“Your poison seeps farther than it should, Benedict of the Scorpion.” I had spoken simply.

“My dearest Prince, I wonder what you mean?” He smiled in return. “Was it not you who had killed your own mother…? Perhaps… in unison with your sibling, the Princess?”

I had held a widened expression upon my face, even as I stood before the council, and the judgement of the Celestial Cycle’s court. It was all falsity. It was all a trick played upon me as if I was the martyr of crimes not my own.

And in turn, for me and my sister, who were not allowed to speak our last words to each other, the worlds we had created as a spectacle for our people became our prisons.

Although, in a final act of spite against us, the worlds we had spent so much time getting to know did not become our places of respite.

Castellia was sent to the world of my own Portraiture, Earth. In turn, I was sent to the genius of her Clockwork, Crelle.

In a world not of my own design, I couldn’t feel my unmoveable calm wash over me. In actuality, I felt my heart seize up with an inconsolable rage. For a moment I had forgotten the passion that my sibling had poured into her piece of art, and I struck its sky with the brightness of a permanent sun, and burnt away the face of its emerald beauty. The glimmering sapphire oceans she had created in parallel with mine became black with soot, and the sky filled with an inconsiderable amount of steam that turned a bright-red haze against the light.

In that moment, I had felt the bottled-up tension of my grief, my anger, and my sadness all at once. It was the moment where I had felt the pain of being unlike myself, when for so long I had pretended to be someone above it all.

So, amidst my spite, I cried for the longest time. I could feel the weather shift around me, although minutely under the heat of the sun. Obvious seasons passed me by, and still I could not stop the tears that fell against my cheeks.

It was only when a woman with stark-white hair, and eyes as red as ruby approached me in my quiet sobs of silence that I felt respite. She knelt down close, and outstretched her arms so that I could fall within them.

We failed to talk for a time, but still I told her of my name, my place, and my deeds that had razed her world.

And still, she held me close.

“You would comfort me still, knowing who I am…?” I asked of her with a hoarse tone of voice.

“It does not matter who you are right now.” She smiled in return as she held me close. “In this moment, you are but a man who needs a smile.”

“What is your name, saviour of my own heart…?” I spoke simply, distracting myself away from tearfall.

And in turn, she spoke a name I would have never forgotten.

“Aria’h Strousse.”