#178 Septua Sanguis/The Eight Temptations: Desire Ch.14

Desire stains and dyes a human. Which one?! Live Book Reading.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Septu Sanguis Chapter 14 Desire Desire trails a finger across the smooth glass vials. Their disordered state makes the shelf look as dangerous as their crimson names. Blaze, volcano, empire. Most vials cluster near the front while farther back is a lone soloist. Fiery rage, it reads, and scribbled beneath are the words not with combustion. Desire's voice suddenly clips the air. Ha! You humans have it so good. All my spectacular longings infused into your lives. Lucky little brats. Each one of my hues has more vibrations than your imaginations, yet you can't see it. You haven't even seen or learned that a shimmer tastes and a shine sounds. That's the reason I tried doubles. And what a disaster that was. Desire tilts her head, studying two crimson vials, identical in color, or so it seems, but not for desire. She sees a stark contrast. The vials not only have different labels, they have distinct frequencies, vibrations which influence the air surrounding them in dynamic ways. Color goes beyond pigment. It's not a satin finish or a matte opalescence. It's an energetic signature. It sends passions into play, and it's the mark of desire in motion. Desire animates life, she motivates it. Otherwise humans would stand in the weaving room as lumps of dreary threads, with no impulse, no thirst. Thirst desire clips again. Oh the pleasure. So dry in the mouth it burns sweet in the mind. Like I say, nothing quenches thirst except the glaze of eternity. And isn't that the truth, Chica? Don't worry, you'll see soon enough. Thirst is truly a desperate desire. Oh, how I wish to experience it as fully as you. But then I'd have to be you, a silly trodden down creature. I swear you humans would have way more fun if destiny didn't weave you into such tight asses. Although a tight ass is ripe, but that's not my meaning here. Desire's tone is suddenly austere and snobbish. I weave with care while you stain with chaos. My sister complains, only complains. She calls me a haphazard fool, but don't mind her rubbish. She can only make things. I make them matter. Just look at Harvard. They chose one of my best hues, and now call it their own so arrogant of them. Harvard Crimson, they named it, and now they wear matching sweatshirts and drool across the campus like royalty. They don't even know what color they're wearing. Desire moves toward the end of the shelf. She pauses to consider a hue. Pigeon's blood, but moves on without touching the vial. That one isn't right. I don't need another human choking on high colored power. The popes do enough of that. All those rubies from Moguk shoved into crowns. Popes thrive on glorifying martyrdom, but not you. What you need is devotion. A devotion so powerful it defies the very moment you're living in. No whims or hankerings. Forget those. Any stain can do that. You need something that will keep you focused on the long arrow. Listen up, Chica, the target directs the arrow, so keep your arrows long and a vial catches desire's eye. The Zante, the label reads, and tucked beneath is a scribbled note. A tone of rare resolve it reads. But those words are scratched out, and written below is unstoppable devotion. Desire rereads the scrap a few times and then turns it over. On the opposite side is a note she doesn't remember Ardency hidden within devotion. Desire lifts the vial off the shelf and begins to twirl it between her stained fingers. It spins like a carousel on water, buoyant, seamless, colorful. This stain, or whichever she chooses, will be desire's final touch upon the human, so it must be worth the risk. Her sister is sure to notice a triple stain. A triple stain. Eons went by and desire crafted only singles, one layer of multicolored stains. But desire outgrew that monogamy. It did not fulfill her, and she has in fact never been fulfilled. Ever. Never satisfied, never satiated, always empty, full of burning, gnawing, passionate holes, including the black hole her mother left inside her. It doesn't matter how many cauldrons desire stews to make dyes, or how many vats she distills and dives. It doesn't make a difference if she blends her hues as fine blush upon peaches or precise starlight upon water. The inevitable lack, the something missing, the intense, never ending desire never ends. What once was luminosity is now the norm, and to make her situation worse, the humans can't see all her colors. They are blind, witless dullards, mistaking sky for celestial and silver for lightning. Not the same, desire says with alacrity, then vaults the zonte into the air and catches it between the fingers on her opposite hand, spinning it across her knuckles. The crimson color streaks the surrounding air with blues and violets, flashes of lime and ruby. Gads, Chica, I wish you could have seen it. That second layer was truly a disaster, seeped straight through the first, even though I set the first layer with my breath, as I always do. But it didn't matter. All the colors in the second layer started blending and combining with all the colors in the first. I did what I could to coordinate the two. A drop, a drizzle, a sprinkle, a whirl, and honestly, in the end, it was quite stunning. Green swirling into gold, regals heightening to magnificence and vivid hues radiating in every direction. So gorgeous. Too bad their lives weren't. But you'll learn all about them, Chica. History likes to retell tales, especially those with the grandest folly. Caesar, Zenobia, Alcibiades, he was the worst. It's a shame they poisoned Socrates. But how was I to know a second layer of colors would only compound the first? I wanted to broaden them, create complexity, but no, just fixated humans with no immunity to the lowest passions. Those doubles didn't have a single original behavior, just doubled down on the norm. I can't say I cared either way, single or double until my sister noticed. She was furious, all knotted up. Her spidery lair nearly strangled her, and boy did she scold me. I will not weave another human until you cease with your lunacy. Durati's sister. Desire stops spinning the zonte and pulls the stopper. A sharp scent streaks the air. Not with ambition nor zeal, nor even fervor. This one is thin, a blade cutting through the superficial, which is exactly what desire needs. The doubled humans prematurely crushed their own lives because they were hyperfocused on the superficial. Desire considers the vial in her hand. She almost replaces the stopper, but then steps closer to the weaving, speaking softly, secretly. It's been a long time since I stained a double, and I've thought about it really hard. Here's the first thing. My breath didn't set the colors because that only happens when you leave for your human dimensions. I figured this out because the coppers don't oxidize to greens until you leave. Which means as long as you're with me, Chica, you are raw, ready, and accepting. But this might only be true of two, because three is altogether different. Three is special, it's the number of completion. So I think it will complete the process. I start with the first two, which brings me to my second point. Second, once you enter the human realm, you flip inside out and outside in. So the first layer is exposed to the world, which means that the third layer is the deepest, a deepest desire, more powerful than the others. Which brings me to my third and final point. Third. Well, there needs to be a third, Chica, because three is special. Like I said, it's like magic. So let's just say it's time. I've waited long enough and thought about it plenty. It's time to act. That's the only way I'll know what a triple stain does. I mean, you might be so obsessive that you tinder into ash, poof, gone like smoke, and die even quicker than the doubles, which of course my sister will notice, all those damn threads. But maybe you won't, because I'm not stupid. If anyone can do this, I can. I'm the only one who knows the difference between canary assurance and lemon certitude. I'm not a fool. I'm ingenuity. And so what if I splatter colors? I'm not impatient. It's a messy job. And I'm gonna make you famous. Like those famous stars. What do they call it? Rodeo drive? That'll be you. Desire scampers and darts around the human form as she speaks and nearly drenches the entire weaving with Sante. But she stops. She wipes her hand across her cheek. It leaves a multicolored smear behind, and she studies the shade she has already stained into the weaving. What she sees is a fantastic puzzle of dyes. Poised, not proud, disciplined, but not strict. Wild, not tumultuous, remorseful, not regretful, ambitious, not success driven, solace, not peace. This one isn't Rodeo Drive. And desire nearly let her passions run away with her plans again. Desire steps back. She moves slowly around the glazed enamels, the glistening tones, the iridescent, speckled, swirled, thick and dappled colors. This one is balanced in both physical look and mental proportions. This is what I mean, desire says. Just look at you. Gorgeous. And I did it. All of it. I'm way smarter than destiny. It's not like weaving is math. I can tell a warp thread from a death thread. And ancestral threads look nothing like Nisty. But you do have a lot of nisty threads. For a moment, desire questions whether her sister is up to something. Or perhaps she and her sister are in this together. Both of them yearning for a similar thing. But that can't be. They are nothing alike. Two sisters couldn't be more different. Nope, I'm not like her, not tied up with strings, bound to time. My dyes run straight through time and fill up space. Hell's I bleed into every dimension. Plus, I take risks. I'm creative. I'm not afraid to try something new and exciting. Like you, you're my first chica, my first triple. And just look how gorgeous you are. Mighty of mind, indestructible spirit, powerful body, you're one of my best and favorites. I know I'm not supposed to have favorites, but I do. And you are now one of them. I just hope my damnable sister doesn't notice, which is why I've given you a bit of shadow. Just enough so you can hide when you really need to. I'd give you more, but there's not much to go around, so Chica, be careful. Destiny will be looking for you. Desire raises the vial of Zante over the lustrous form and releases one drop onto the forehead. Crimson bleeds down the face and around the head, flowing onto the neck and nipping over the collarbones. The colors beneath do not absorb, they do not merge, they do not acquiesce. They remain what they are, which is the outcome desire hope for. So she drops two more onto the colorful form. These three drops of Zante, this third layer remains all its own. A truth alone, undeniable and pure. It reminds Desire of the first eight. They were undeniably pure and remain so, but this isn't them. This weaving is refined, reflected, like a sunset upon deep waters. Zante glistening over the shoulders, flirting with the chest, roaming over the breasts, caressing the nipples, grasping for the cusp beneath, dripping down vertebrae, curling across ribs, tightening around the waist, tasting the hips, triangulating down the tailbone, plunging to the pubis, shimmering, rapacious, kneading the thighs, massaging ankles and feet as the toes curl, the lips part, the back arches, the ecstasy awakens the moment orgasms a moan, a sigh, a gloss of breathlessness. She is alive.