"How can you even stand watching what's going on out there anymore?" he asked as his companion stared into the surface of her silver rimmed mirror.
"Because you won't stop this," she retorted, her vibrant brown eyes flickering to him for an instant as she looked over her perfect appearance. "Even though you know how."
Her constant response. He didn't know why he expected any difference after years of arguing.
"I can't do that," he stated firmly, violet eyes staring into the distance. "And I never will."
She motioned for him to come sit by her side on the cold stone perch. He glanced at her for a moment before walking over and joining her. Her head fell to rest on his shoulder the moment he made himself comfortable. Had he not known better, he'd think she was once again warming to him after so long.
"Aren't you tired of seeing the world die?" she sighed softly
He scoffed, bitter nausea roiling within him. A sick joke if he'd ever heard one. The world wasn't dying. It was rotting, festering, decaying-- anything but actually dying.
The urge to push her away way strong, but he held back. "How can I be when you won't let it?"
"That's not in my realm of control," she stated with a shrug.
"No, but you can allow the flesh to lose sentience. Allow them to rest. Then--"
The golden figure groaned in boredom, the argument one she heard a thousand times. "Then, the failed experiment will simply go on and on. I just want to do something new."
A petulant teenager. A spoiled brat who was throwing a tantrum so she could get her way. Eons old, and she still couldn't think beyond what she wanted. Unable to grasp that life could constantly renew itself if given the chance.
"Don't you miss it? The simplicity of it all? When it was just us watching the way the primates would grind and pound away at each other until you were so worked up--"
He felt her turn and press herself to his side, her delicate fingers sliding along his chest and down his stomach. He grasped her wrist before it dipped too low. She hadn't bothered trying to seduce him in centuries. In all her glory, she was no longer so appealing as the beauty he found in what she was now trying to end.
Tired of her games, he stood and took her mirror, letting the view shift to one of his own choosing. He could see the crowd dancing in front of a stage on which a brunette with brilliant red highlights seemed to be screaming out in an attempt to expel the rage and frustration that was clear in her eyes.
"Pity it doesn't get sound. I'd rather like to hear the caterwauling without having to surround myself with them," his companion stated, peering over his shoulder. Despite her warm appearance, her breath was the cool breeze at the back of his neck. "It might make you change your mind, if her expression is speaking the truth."
"Nothing will make me change my mind towards your desires," he stated.
"Do you really love them that much? More than peace? More than renewed existence? More than freedom?" she inquired, her hand guiding his down so that the vision in the mirror was out of his site. "More than you love me?"
She circled him slowly and stared into his cold, violet gaze. "I can give you anything you want. Find a human, and I'll let you keep her. I'll let you have her over and over again in a way that only we can."
"Do you think me so debased?" he spat.
"What about the one you stayed with for years?" she asked as her face and body shimmered a rich ivory. Her features aged ever so slightly and her hair shortened. Her gold eyes shifted to a dark brown and took on a hollow sunken look as though she'd spent too many nights awake partying harder than her body could take. The pallor her flesh developed was only worsened by the bottled blonde, platinum turned brass, that framed the top half of her face. "I could give you her."
The empty, coffee colored eyes flickered down to her mirror, still clutched tightly in his hand. "Or I could give you..."
She stretched and nuzzled his throat, the diminutive frame she'd adopted a foot shorter than his own. He felt a ripple of power erupt from her. What face would she take this time?
Her lips were on his before he could see the renewed face she bore, but he could feel that she'd grown taller, if only a couple of inches. The memories he had associated with the blonde flooded him as she fed into the memories he already carried. Sensual nights that left marks on both the body and the souls of the pair. Heated oil and melting ice. Leather and silk. Screams and whimpers. Promises and broken vows.
"I could give you her, or version 2.0," she said as she pulled her lips from his to stare up at him with lavender eyes and choppy, shoulder length, electric pink hair that looked faded from wash.
He looked into the face of the girl she mimicked and choked back a gasp as he pushed her away with every ounce of strength he had. She faded away with a snide giggle leaving him with only her precious mirror and the scene of the music show playing silently.
Though she was gone, her voice lingered. "Whatever you desire..."
A part of him, drowning in dread, wondered if she had put two and two together yet. She had to. As life incarnate, she was no fool, despite how vapid she acted. The energies made it so she had to know who was behind the face she had taunted him with. His own daughter's visage.
He'd tried to stay out of his child's life just as he'd promised her mother, but how severe had his failure been? She had been cursed by her birth, but had he inflicted twice the suffering unknowingly by lingering too close?
Cordelia looked happy enough in the scene on the glass, but even the most severe pain can be camouflaged by a good enough act.
The half human young woman's appearance was one so distinctly different yet similar to the woman who bore her. Where his presence in her mother's life had drained her, left her a target, this girl fought to survive the darkness his blood brought. The abuse. The sadness. The loneliness.
The strain was clear in her eyes, as was the way her smile dropped when no one watched her. Where some her age showed the tale tell signs of laugh lines, she missed those delicate lines.
As her father, he'd wanted nothing more than to console her in the times she'd felt the burden that came from being born of his seed. The way that the natural order of things had rejected her existence and fought to end it.
He'd wanted to be the father she deserved instead of leaving her stuck with someone who considered her a target of vicious mockery and bone snapping blows.
Instead, he'd been absent and forced to watch from the sidelines by a need to keep her safe from his former partner. Had it really been worth it? He told himself each day she lived that it was, even if he didn't totally believe it himself.