To her, it’s a utopia.
He had intended it more a prison, at least before.
This world is so still that you can hear the wind combing through the eyelets of the leaves. They are the only living beings here, at least today. The last time he had come he’d brought Atlantia, kept her for a time simply because he could. She had remained willingly, but it’s amazing what he could get others to do when they believed he was omnipotent. She was a beautiful companion, a pretty prize with striking features and wings that looked as though they were crafted from glass, but eventually he had even grown tired of her.
Now, he draws ripples in the water with his chin pretending not to notice Lepis smile, but her reaction is exactly what he’s hoped for and he’s been awaiting it with bated breath. She says her name is Lepis, and it means nothing to him. He could know her in an instant, read the entire history of her life in fractions of seconds - but where was the fun in that? He eyes her scars a second time and wonders if she’ll volunteer the story now.
But she only asks about him.
He doesn’t like to use his name if he can help it. It reminds him of them, of all the tragedy of their love that spilled over onto everyone else; dirtied them, ruined them like an oil spill - touching every single piece. Because he was not only built in their image (the perfect alchemy of their destruction), he was named for it, too. He lifts his head up from the water which drips dutifully from his chin.
For a moment the only sound that exists in this world is the sound of that water dripping back into the glassy lake while Elektrum determines how he can best evade the question.
“A god,” he drawls, and while his answer itself is delivered flippantly it isn’t out of the realm of possibility for his ego to think it. Because isn’t that right? He’s seen the stars, and existed in all the spaces between them. He’s known every edge of every plane of every world, and nothing was off limits. He made worlds out of nothing and the carbon on his breath, after all.
“Isn’t it obvious?” he asks her then, the ends of his lips pulling into a crooked smile.
“Or are you not impressed? Should I take you back to the meadow?”
ELEKTRUM
how time twines around your neck,
@Lepis