Calling Day: Conversion with Azucena Osuna
“Do not touch me.” Azucena said coolly, pulling her arm away.
“That’s a first.” Orpheus spat, gladly removing his hand and holding her gaze with a sharp glare.
Masked by a fiery anger and a sudden urge to make her feel the pain he had known, the twinge of longing still held Orpheus firmly in place.
Part of him wanted nothing more than to taste her lips once again, to force himself to feel the gentleness of a woman’s touch, to drive the inescapable memory of Finch’s lips from his mind.
Yet, another part, whose clenched fists threatened to rise against her every word, resented and despised the beautiful girl that stood before him now. As if a fallen angel had tricked his heart into venturing where it should have never wandered, he felt trapped, betrayed, sinful even. As if the heavens themselves had conspired against his heart.
“I knew the whole time. I am sorry.” At her words, Orpheus moved from her and pressed his palms into the wall of his bedchamber, his arms extended in front of him, his head lowered, his back turned from her.
Then something strange.
Orpheus’ shoulders began to shake, his chest heaving against the bent over position he held himself in.
Yet, he was not crying.
He was laughing.
A sound foreign to him, as he had not laughed so deeply in some time, it rang against the walls of the room, echoing through the hollow instruments that sat behind Azucena.
It was absurd to him how unfortunate each relationship had become. How each love he shared fell into twisted despair. Truly, as if the world were punishing him, testing him, seeing how far it could crack him until he broke. His life had been filled with lies and deception at each turn, and despite them, Orpheus would smile. It was an instinct. A coping skill. The only way to keep himself from fully breaking down: pretend he was fine.
He turned to face her, a twisted smile on his lips, his once dark eyes now hauntingly alight with something new.
The forced composure and feigned happiness tearing at his chest with the pressure of keeping it all together. Truly, what was one more crack?
“But I did care about you, Lang…Please do not be upset.” Azucena pleaded, likely understanding the rage that brewed just beneath his forced smile.
If Orpheus had been less beaten and exhausted, he might have exploded with the full force of his anger, yet he did not. There was a subtle feeling of excitement that overcame him now as he looked to her. Her eyes held a sort of fear and understanding of the shift in their dynamic.
He held the power now.
He was in control.
And in this game of betrayals and revenge, of lies and half-truths, it was his turn to play.
“Upset?” Orpheus said shockingly soft, still chuckling as he spoke. “Why would I be upset?” His voice was erratic, slowly building in the true panic and anger that he was holding in.
“I have loved many people in my lifetime, Lilith. Do you know what has become of them all?” Orpheus slowly inched closer to Azucena now, his fingers stretching at his side.
“Nothing.” He laughed again, his eyes wide and fixated on her. “They have died. They have turned from me. They have forgotten. Why would I have expected anything less from you? A girl who wandered in and out of my life with so little care for the cold winds she brought with her. Yet, the chill of icy winds does little when your world is already cold. A world that has turned my love into distaste. Turned my lovers into strangers. Turned my trust into pain time and time again. You are no different it seems. I accepted that the moment you left me in that bar.” Orpheus stood over her again, his hand slowly moving to trace the curve of Azucena’s face so gently he was barely touching her at all.
“Yet, I loved you…” He whispered, his eyes tracing the outline of the face he had nearly forgotten over time. “You were my greatest escape. My Blue oasis in a dying heat. My remedy for everything that bruised and ached and tore. And I trusted you with every honest word that fell from my lips.” Orpheus moved his hand to trace Azucenas lips just as softly, a brush so brief it could send shivers down the spine.
“And that was my mistake.” He growled. Suddenly, Orpheus’ eyes darkened again, his hand moving from her lips to her throat in such a swift motion, she did not even have time to scream as Orpheus pushed her back into the wall, holding her still. His eyes held hers, the pull still calling from behind the fear that struck her now. His heart longed to hear it again, to play in harmony with the siren song her eyes swam with. To drown.
“A mistake I will not make again…” His voice was dark and rough, his eyes filled with hate and something more.
“After today…” Orpheus breathed, his anger and longing giving way to pure desperation as his lips met hers with such a force it drove him hungry for more. His hand remained fixed around her throat but loosened slightly as he kissed her, his thumb grazing her jawline as his lips moved in sync with hers.
And suddenly it was gone.
The desire.
The burning, clawing depth of desperate yearning that so often restrained him.
The kind that his father so disapproved of.
The one he wanted most of all.
The memory of Finch’s lips on his.
The memory of the warmth that moved him.
The memory of his brother. Those eyes.
Wiped away in a brief moment of peace within her touch again.
It was just enough.
Orpheus suddenly dropped Azucena, pulled away from her in a horrified realization of his behavior. He turned from her, half out of anger, half out of shame, running his hands through his hair as he tried to force his mind from creating the parallel that lingered behind each reflective glass.
Orpheus turned to her, still as wild as before, however, the twisted smile and laugh had been replaced by the same cold and empty glare he had met her with at the door.
The rollercoaster of emotions sent Orpheus turning every possible outcome and situation over in his head a hundred times, longing for some truth or real escape to pull him from this torment.
Yet, despite his longing, the realization of her deception remained as crystal clear as her eyes. Aurelia was the target of their love affair, she was the origin of this plot. And no matter what Orpheus himself might feel, there was nothing in the world that would come before Aurelia Ellis. Not even someone he loved as deeply as he did Azucena. He would protect Aurelia to the ends of the earth. He would tear down any threat that positioned itself between them, and now, the one between them, was Azucena. If she spoke a word of their encounter. If Aurelia found out of their affair, his second chance with her love would be as ill-fated as their first had been. Despite his selfish reasonings, he knew it would also pain Aurelia to learn of any truths. He would not allow it. He could not allow Azucena’s lies and mistakes to be made into a weapon again. Their love story ended here.
“You have ruined this love for me, Lilith. You have taken what was ours and tainted it a shade of black that I cannot undo. Do not take another from me.” Orpheus moved back to her, keeping his hands at his sides now. His cold eyes becoming fixed again on hers, yet the pull seemed somehow softer now, quieted, at the understanding of what he needed to do.
“I will not let you ruin another love for me. I cannot. You will not speak of this. You will erase me from your mind if you must. But, if you so much as whisper my name to Aurelia you will lose far more than my love. Do you understand me? I will not let you hurt her. I will not let you pull her from me again. She deserves better than you and I, and I shall not be the one to derive her of happiness. She will love. You, as a dear friend. Me, as a suitor. You will not show at my door again. You will not write me. You and I will become a faded story on old sheets over old wine that we do not get to drink. We shall live happily apart…” Orpheus felt his chest tighten at the last utterance, a subtle lie that tinged his lips with the same poison she spewed from her mouth countless times before. It pained him.
“And we shall end as the strangers we began as.” Orpheus fought the tears that were beginning to build, refusing to cry now.
“You know…” He whispered, lifting his hand to touch her again but letting it fall instead. “The most tragic part of our story…If you had told me the truth from the beginning…I would have loved you the same. There would be little difference in Azucena, Lilith, nor Blue, and each name would be whispered as lovingly as the last. I would have held you through the darkest of times, as you had done for me. I would have given you every piece of me, never resting until the whole of my empty chest was filled with you. I would have written you melodies to put the songbirds to shame. I would have married you…happily, willingly. Yet, you sought betrayal and deception where there needed none. You chose your past over what could have been. A vengeance of dead romance despite the new one you had found. A mistake I am all too familiar with as a recipient of many tragedies…One I will not allow again. Not with you. I think you should leave, Li-“ Orpheus stopped himself, pulling his eyes from her to the wooden floorboard under his feet. “Lady Osuna.” He breathed softly, gesturing to the door.
“I trust your discretion in this matter as your reputation and relationships are as at risk as my own. For all you have taken, grant me this peace. Grant me the opportunity for a true love, and let my name die on your tongue as it had before. Forget my image. Forget my face. Go forth now and live as you please. Allow me the grace to do the same with the woman who no longer deserves the revenge you forged. Let this plot die with us. Let this love dissipate. I cannot bear the weight of it any longer. Please…go.” Orpheus kept his head low, finally feeling the warm tears fall down his cheeks.
mentioned:
Azucena (@raviola)
Finch (@Caticorn)
Aurelia (@benitz786)