Outside the café it is cold and wet, rain clearing the streets of refuse and people in equal measure. Inside, it is warm with the heat of cooking and the surprisingly few bodies who have taken shelter here. At a table sitting against the interior of one window, they sit together and sip at mugs of steaming tea. The heat of the liquid threatens to burn their lips but is more than welcome on such a day. Their fingertips touch and their bodies are warmed with a different kind of heat. But one just as dangerous.
She rests her mug on the table and looks at him, focuses on him, saying, “We are in the long time of us now. Can you feel it?” He nods, a slight smile playing around his lips. She takes another drink and glances at the window where condensation has coated the glass, reducing the world outside to nothing more than a shadow-play. Her eyes move back to his and he, noting the permission there, speaks.
“I will give to you treasures. Such treasures of which only emperors can dream. Pearls of wisdom will adorn your neck, strung on chains of dawn-light. Blades as soft as flesh, that can be folded away like silk yet, when drawn, have the strength of iron. And the wounds they bring not pain, but pleasure. You will bleed ecstasy.
And above these, above all these, I shall give you my words. And with them, I shall shape dreams for you as rich as life itself. With a thought, birth heroes and bury villains. Heaven will fall and the world will shatter. I will bring our race low, scatter it like dust across the universe and, on the edge of its destruction, remake it divine.
All this I will give to you. Myself and no more.”
She nods, smiles, and takes his hand. They rise and leave the warmth of the café for the chill outside, disappearing into the condensation haze that is the world beyond.