Pretty as the Vine

Setekh stood frozen in that intoxicating moment, the weight of Sericea’s words piercing him as effectively as a blade. She spoke with a voice that mirrored his own, each question laced with ambition. For a fleeting heartbeat, he felt an unfamiliar sensation stir in the depths of his chest—a pang that was both thrilling and foreboding. So, so much like her mother—and yet so much more.

Her boldness wrapped around him like a snare, binding him to her words. The cadence of her voice, the glint of challenge in her eyes—he realized, with a pulse of growing obsession, that she had taken his lessons, his warnings, and was wielding them back at him with a precision that left him breathless. It was unlike anything he’d experienced before. A grin, sharp and wolfish, broke across his face as she echoed his philosophy back to him, turning the very essence of his being into a question of her own making.

“My dear,” he said, his voice deepening, the purr almost lost in the storm of emotions roiling inside him. His gaze softened, not with tenderness but with a dark, reverent admiration. “There are sacrifices, yes. To feed this beast is to bleed willingly, to sever pieces of oneself, to ingrain yourself into another until what remains is stronger, eternal.”

He reached out, tracing the space where she had stood moments before, feeling the ghost of her presence there. The Ivory God hummed in thought, before the words dripped from his lips in silken warmth. “And you—” his voice caught, only to grow more resolute, more heady, “you have begun to understand this, haven’t you? After all, it is with love that I have taken you under my wing.” Twist and bind, let her break, let her soul be yours to take!

Setekh's eyes, molten and hungry, absorbed Sericea’s steady voice as if drinking from a wellspring. Every word she spoke was a spark that lit a fire in him, one that he could never let die. His smile curved indulgently, carrying a shadow of something wicked. He let the silence hang, crackling with unsaid truths. Truths she was too young to bear. “You speak with a mind far beyond your years… So perhaps you can understand me in a way none ever have,” he murmured, tracing the defiance that shaped her expression with his blazing gaze. “And that, Sericea, is why I shall tell you the truth.” Trust and fall, hear the plea—be bound by fate, never free!

“Love, as most know it, is fleeting—a wisp in the wind, vulnerable to decay and doubt. It lies. It abandons. It leaves deep wounds that may never heal. But my love transcends those limits of mere meager emotion. It becomes perfect, unlike any other. It becomes my strength, and in turn I empower my beloved ones in return.” He stepped forward, closing the distance she had created, using his presence as a chain to bind her to her place—disallowing her to retreat again. “The way I shape love is to make it unyielding, to carve it into a monument that stands long after flesh has withered and time has dulled the world to gray.” His voice dipped lower, rich and insistent. Beckoning her understanding, urging her to see what he knew to be true. “Yes, it leaves its mark, yes, it bleeds into all I touch. But it also ensures that what I love cannot be forgotten, cannot be lost. It lives as I live, I live as it lives, through each sacrifice, each act of dominance, each flame of need stoked. And it will continue on.” Step by step, claim her grace, leave no part without a trace!

Setekh leaned closer, the warmth of his breath licking against her fur as he spoke, eyes locked onto hers with an intensity that meant a choice, a path or a deadend. “Do I carve those I cherish into something unrecognizable? Perhaps. But only because what is shaped becomes enduring. The original love, as you ask—” he tilted his head, eyes narrowing slightly, “—becomes more. It is not just a reflection of my desire; it is my desire, it is my will, immortalized and flawless.” Clay and blood, life and death, a symphony spun from your every breath!

His voice shifted, turning softer, the sharp edge of insanity glistening beneath each word. He watched her every move, knowing she had become the center of his thoughts, the pulse that drove him. “And to own this hunger, Sericea, is to understand that sacrifice is not loss—it is transformation. What remains is not diminished, but perfected, bound forever by the power that shaped it. But perfect nonetheless. Indomitable.”
He drew back to gauge her reaction, the slight shift in his posture a signal of the coiled energy still tethered to his being. Of action barely contained as he continued speaking. “So tell me, my sweet flame,” he whispered, each word like a brand, “What is your choice? Will you bear it? Will you understand that to be loved and wield such love is to know it is eternal, inescapable, a force that molds as it consumes?” Rise and claim, fall and break, no escape!!

The smolder in his eyes deepened, revealing the truth that even he could not deny. This was no longer about mere teaching; it was about binding her spirit to his, to ensure that his perfect, endless love would never be alone. And in return, she would be a work of art under his chisel and mallet.