Chapter Text
"Ah shit…"
The Prince steps out to survey the damage, the evening breeze tousling his bleach-blond locks. It's his breeze because he controls the sky. It knows he is pretty and handsome, so it always works in his favor. He bends at the waist to look closer, and the horizon dips. It's planted on his shoulders like a maiden. This is why he is always so tired, he must carry it everywhere he goes.
"Ohhhh, you poor thing, please tell me you're okay…"
His beloved is wounded. His tears bead and sparkle on his dark cheek, flowing down and catching the setting sun. He reaches out to caress that wounded body, that bruised form in red. His touch is tender. It's part of his body, it's his own separated rib, but no less his own true love. Blood of his blood, flesh of his flesh.
His eyes meet those of that other thing he keeps. His tears are mirrored, but there's a great deal more shaking and ragged breathing from that shadow that is nestled in the seat. He plants a hand on the hood, heaving a sigh.
"...Not totaled, I guess. You'd think they'd have lit these streets properly by now. There's still sunlight out. I mean, it basically jumped out in front of me, I had no time to brake… He hit the curb about five seconds before that. You didn't see it either, did you?" She did because she does not try to go out without her glasses, especially not at dusk.
Another sigh and a shake of his head. "Well, there's no helping it…"
Then he looks at her. He blinks, as if offended.
"Hey, c'mon, quit making those noises. You've had your pill already. Just settle down, we'll head home and I can call insurance in the morning, tell them it was a–"
"Hey what the fuck–!"
Headlights, horn, screeching, crooked presence in the driveway. She sees the color leave his face. She did this. She bites the inside of her cheek until she tastes blood. Before he can turn on his heels and get back in–
"Where the fuck do you think you're going, man?!"
His adversary is shorter by almost a foot, older too. The sun catches his bald head like a knight's shining helmet.
"I– h-hey, take it easy, take it easy!" Those great, rough hands splay open, palms exposed. The shrug of his shoulders threatens to spill the sky.
"No, you– how the fuck did you do that?! You see what you did to my tree?!"
"It's– n-now, look, it'll grow back, plants are very resilient–"
The Knight snarls. Small as he may be, he is possessed of a great power, for the Prince is growing smaller by the second.
"My grandmother planted that tree you piece of shit!"
He takes the Prince by the shoulders, pushing him into the trunk of his wounded tree.
"L-look, I'm sorry! I'm sorry, okay?! It was a mistake, it was an honest mistake–"
"Hopping my fucking curb?! You know how long we've lived in this house?!"
"I-I have money, okay, I can– I can make it right, I can pay you–"
"You wanna take a wild guess how long my family's lived in this house, fucking piece of shit foreigner?!"
He's so small now, he's turning gray. Of course this Knight is possessed of a great power. She sent him here. She sees her body snapped and bent against the hood, her own face turning gray. Against her bent, broken back, Prince Dios slumps and crumples too. His eyes are wide, his hands shake, his jaw opens with such a yawn as to engulf the sun, and a cry shakes Heaven and Earth to their very fundament–
"❀ANTHY!❀"
Hera Anthea, she of Argos, cow-eyed goddess of the hymn, rises from her repose and descends to intercede.
A girl stands there. She's in her school uniform still, can't be more than 14. Might be younger than that, even, she's real small and skinny. Something's wrong with her. Her hair is greasy even though it's put up, the frame of her glasses is a little bent and makes them sit crooked on her face, her dark knees are covered in bruises. Her eyes are glassy. Her stringy legs shake. She looks like someone's demented old grandmother stuffed into a child's body.
She's put herself between them, as if her weak little bones could shield the bastard from his own comeuppance. She must be his daughter, or some neglected niece. Her dark, watery eyes struggle to meet his, her body trembling. She opens her mouth, and some air comes out, almost like gagging. She closes it, then opens it again. Is she trying to talk? Something must be wrong with her brain.
…He's better than this. It's not worth it.
"Just go. Get out of here before I call the cops."
The big foreigner has nothing else to say for himself and climbs back into that car. The girl takes too long to follow.
Everything hurts. She can hear the little cries from inside her book bag. She can't let him out yet, he might fall out onto the road. He's going to fart a whole bunch, and then it won't be able to get out because the bag is zipped shut, and he'll breathe in all the yucky fart smell and probably pass out from how bad it is until they get home. She knows he's scared, and it hurts, she knows both their tummies hurt so much.
The Prince is calming down, wounded as his pride may be. He seems to be improving now that they've rounded the corner, his shoulders are high enough to cradle the pink and purple clouds.
"...People in this neighborhood are pretty crazy, huh?"
His boy friends would know something funny to say back. Speech comes so quick and easy for them, jokes and barbs and banter. It's not for lack of fluency that she cannot. She's spoken just like Mother even before they moved here to Mother's old childhood home. Even in Father's English and Hindi, she struggles.
"...I–..." And it's time to struggle now. No one waits patiently like her brother does, watches in quiet until the words come tumbling forth.
"...I–I, I put… I… p-put a… a curse, on him…"
His smile glows like the round, red sun. He knows this, and he surely knows that all the rest of this happened because of her. He knows and he forgives. He always forgives.
A big, rough hand rests on her crown as the other steers into their driveway.
"Good girl, Angie." Akio says, granting absolution to the witch once more.
She should die tonight. She should be split open and bent and warped and crushed until her body cannot be recognized. She will see to it that she imagines this until sleep claims her, so that it may one day come to pass and Akio and the Knight and the car and the tree and everything in this world may be rid of her curse.
As they park, she unzips the bag. As expected, Chu-Chu has gassed himself half to death. Angie Himemiya takes the little monkey against her bosom and strokes his dingy fur as her wobbly legs march her back into her tomb.