el baile
After the Release and subsequent Concussion, María awoke suddenly in a small, dusty, cobwebbed room, with an old brick wall closing out the back and a rustic blue door with a bronze, curved handle perching at the very front. Sighing happily, she opened the door - and stepped outside.
Coal-black heel echoing on the marble matted floor, María slowly made her way through the cavernous ballroom, a pale pink glass of champagne clinking in her hand. Constellations sparkled on the ceiling, little stars burning above. A ball hosted by the Star Children was never not extravagant, if not obnoxiously so, but all the inhabitants of the candy-laced Aether agreed that they threw the best parties in the place. Aquarius and Cancer often were the hosts, but the others lingered around, either putting on a show of their own or lurking in some dark corner. The one she was awaiting was the former, the most theatrical of them all.
Some drunk Star stumbled over to her - most likely one of the Geminis or possibly Aries - and took her hand, spinning her in a circle. She accepted this strange dance. “The ball tonight is quite lovely,” she commented, slyly studying their face to search for any resemblance. That was always a fun game of hers.
“Of course it is,” they replied, their blond, mulleted hair spilling across their face, grinning drunkenly.
Sighing softly like some lovesick damsel - another one of her games - María said sweetly, “Of course, it could be much better. . .”
The man leaned closer, his breath smelling sickeningly of damp liquor. “I have a nice bedroom upstairs if you’d like to have a little fun, sweetie.”
She coughed, considering stabbing someone to lighten the mood. “I apologize, but I’m taken. . .”
“All the best ones are, dearie,” he said, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek. “You sure about the alone time?”
She leaned away, flashing him one of her cold smiles. “Please, I mustn’t.” And with that, she turned away sharply, smiling to herself and whipping him in the face with her pinned-up hair in the back of her head.
Absent-mindedly pushing one silk sleeve up her exposed shoulder, she made her way over to a section of the room that seemed fire-lit. A whole new room seemed to open up as a colorful wave of scarves and crimson fire. She whipped a lemon-colored scarf off of a hat stand and draped it over her head, tucking it in at the back.
At the back of the section, she found exactly who she was looking for. Twirling around, handing out burning, rainbow flowers to random, pretty girls in the audience. She snuck up behind them and used her scarf to pull them back, kissing them on the ear.
“Hi,” María whispered. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Leo leaned back, their soft, wavy orange hair spilling over her shoulder. “Hi, love.” They dropped backwards off the platform into her arms. She caught them and swung them around, taking their hand and pulling them close to her.
María kissed them on the cheek. “May I have this dance?” A new song began to swell from the ballroom beyond.
“Why, of course,” they replied, one hand pulling her waist in. She put her head on their shoulder and they led each other slowly out to the ballroom. Over Leo’s shoulder, she saw the same Star that had attempted to accost her earlier sauntering over.
“Ay, so it’s you, is it,” he said, eyeing María but addressing her partner. “And if it is?” she replied in their place, twirling around as to speak directly to him. Leo allowed her to take the lead, holding her right hand with the other arm around her waist.
“If you’re going to speak about me, speak to me, por favor,” she said, smiling and taking a step forward, her eyes glinting with something like danger. “I didn’t come all this way for such an unpleasant welcome.
She knew that he could see the knife in her right hand glinting behind the layers of smooth dress silk just as well as she knew that he, even being a professional assassin, could not match her in either skill or wit. A breeze from nowhere brushed past her, and the icy orange flower she kept perched behind her ear fluttered delicately.
“Continue?” she asked sweetly, though it was less a request than a thinly veiled command. He stepped back to match the amount she had forward, a slight wisp of fear hidden behind his playful, confident exterior. Without saying much else, he spun around on his black-booted heel and stalked away. María giggled when she saw that the back of his horribly-styled blonde hair was singed. Sure enough, when she reached back for Leo’s hand, the fingertips were warm with the remainder of a flame.
She pulled them around her, leaning in next to their ear as they whispered. “Let’s go have some fun.”
In the two realms of the Dead, which are unimaginably vast, lives pour in from every universe to exist. In each universe, a version of one mortal exists. However, there are those who, by great chance, are the only one of themself to exist in any universe. They are called Singularities, and they have the power of Gods. Potential and knowledge from every version who might have existed is concentrated into the one, and so they contain strange powers within them. Those few Singularities who could control their great powers were called Witches.
This is a story of two such Witches.
