A collection of humanoid figures sat in a room with no doors, floating or sitting around a pool of water while idly chatting with one another. None seemed too superior or different to any others physically, and all were taking the occasional glance down at the reflection playing on the surface of the water.

"Senra you have a caller," a woman called out, entering the room through a wall while dressed in a black suit.

Rai looked up from the pool and smiled genuinely at the radiant figure that had just walked in, receiving a wave and smile in response. Ever since they'd been assigned to this world, Rai had always had a soft spot in his heart for Ceris. Mature, calming, reserved, gorgeous, just childish enough when it came to her pets that it was endearing, but above all, logical.

"I thought I might soon! Is it the Celestial girl?" one of the figures responded from the other side of the pool, setting her legs on the ground excitedly and moving for the same section of wall, a dark blue robe with swirls of teal and light blue billowing behind her as she moved.

'Completely unlike that beast,' he thought, watching as Senra drifted away from the table.

"It is," Ceris responded, the only one here wearing a robe colored not white.

She was dressed in a black suit, showing she had the duty of answering the calls today. Every one of their kind had to accept this role, varying between days of the world they observed, and Rai's had been about an Elerian week ago.

"Excellent. She's been driving me nuts," Senra declared.

"Don't do anything against our rules, Sen," another voice from the circle called out.

Rai glanced over and saw his older brother cautioning restraint to the beast yet again. Senra had a tendency to take things too far, dancing to her whims, and Geril had been especially concerned about this caller whenever he'd spoken to Rai about it.

Geril wasn't actually his brother, but Rai thought of him as one. They'd spent so many rotations of this planet together; he ought to be at this point. Same with everyone else in the room, but Geril was the only one Rai trusted so fully. He was as good as they came, genuinely concerned about everyone else rather than just his own power and ambitions, never one to betray or worry about.

"I won't Geril. But I damn well should. You know she'd benefit from it," Senra stated.

"Yeah, right. She's just going to screw something new up for my follower again like when they were younger. Just let her die and the problem will be solved," Rai cut in.

"Oh, shut up, Rai. Go bitch somewhere else like you usually do. At least until that boy decides to actually take up your mantle and you get that pole out of your ass," Senra yelled back, turning around.

"Your girl would be nothing without him, and you know it! Also, fuc-"

"GUYS!" Geril interjected, causing Rai to glare at him.

"What?! He's been a little bitch ever since that hidden civilization of his got completely razed by the Hellials!"

"Yeah well, at least I haven't always been just a bitch."

"Senra! Call!" Geril yelled, pointing toward the wall.

Senra's eyes seemed to squint as a giant blue hand floated above her with its middle finger extended, locked onto Rai. She spun and once again headed for the wall where Ceris waited, watching on with a neutral expression.

"God, I hate her," Rai growled out.

"Their expression is gods, Rai," Geril corrected him. "I don't know why your follower only uses the singular when he knows there are multiple of us."

"Yes, well, Gods I hate her then."

"I don't understand why," Geril said back. "After everything that happened, you and Ceris are back on good terms. If you can forgive that, why can't you and Senra get along?"

Rai rolled his eyes. Two completely different circumstances.

He had resented Ceris for a time after the Hellials had razed his empire to the ground, but just like he'd been doing, she was only trying to help their situation in her own way by giving her followers a direction. They were an unfortunate by-product of the Celestials; Rai was able to see that much after taking a few years to calm down. Unfortunate that it had caused the collapse of his civilization, but it was also true that he was becoming too attached to his people for his own good.

At the time, she'd been confused with his accusations, vehemently opposing to having anything to do with the death of his civilization. She'd had no idea how the Hellials had found their location, or why they'd chosen that island of all places to make their home, but whatever the cause it had happened. Eventually, she accepted responsibility and apologized in front of the group during a discussion.

How could he not forgive her after such a display, even while still not understanding just how her people had found Rai's island. Her fault or not, he was already running low on anger when she apologized, and the last act had completely doused his flames.

Visually ascertaining that Ceris had left the room after Senra, Rai responded.

"Ceris is compassionate and purpose driven. She has aspirations and goals, a woman with a plan and a passion for something. Senra just plays with her followers as if they were toys for her own amusement, never doing anything for the sake of leaving this world sooner. She is as irritating as she is childish, and if water were not so plentiful on this world, she would be weak. I do not understand how you put up with her."

Geril stared at him for some time but then shrugged and said no more. They'd had this conversation too many times already, and Rai could see that Geril did not want to have it yet again.

After another few seconds, Rai stood up and moved for a wall, his dark grey hair matching the robe that flowed behind him.

"Rai," Geril called after him, "please wear the correct color robe during our meetings. If you'd like, wear a cloak like Senra did next-"

"I'll wear your white, brother. But not that horrible crap she flaunts," Rai responded, moving through the wall as if it were not a real construct.

'Bright.'

As Alexa's mind and eyes slowly adapted to her new reality, vertigo assailed her mind as she saw nothing but the color white in all directions. She wasn't in a pool any longer, but an endless expanse which only held herself, dressed how she was a few moments ago and the only thing of color in this place. When she attempted to look around, she quickly hit the ground on her hands and knees, body unable to understand up from down. She began to feel anxious as she stared down at an endless expanse of nothing, wondering what was going on.

She remembered kissing Damien, being dropped into the pool and initiating the commune. She had willed the method to be by drowning and lost her consciousness to be brought here and now...

She closed her eyes to better focus, a minute passed, and her mind finally reached a disgruntling conclusion.

'Ahhhhh. I failed.'

With that thought, anxiety gave way to immense sadness as she immediately began to think of her family. Not of her house on Hylyu, but of her home in Carlon.

Tears flowed over her cheeks as she realized what a fool she'd been within moments. The shock of realizing time was not something she had in spades and that she'd not be seeing any of them ever again made clear almost instantly where her heart lay. Immortal longevity or not, death was something by everybody's side at all times in this world; who was to say any Celestial would outlive a Human? Emily, Garrett, Vanessa, Jasper, Kastra... Damien. If she hadn't been an idiot, she could have lived happier in her last few years, maybe even forgoing schooling altogether. She'd have chosen hi-

'Wait, tears?'

Alexa looked down at the whiteness below her and saw her tears suspended on a clear surface, just about a foot below where her head was hanging and on the same plane as her hands and knees.

"NO! Finish that thought! Finish that train of thought!" a voice yelled out above her.

Looking up with a jump, the figure of a woman floated before her eyes. Her body was a pure, reflective silver in color and her eyes were a snow-white with no pupil. She wore a robe of dark blue covered in swirls of a plethora of other hues of blues, from teals to purples.

She seemed very unhappy.

"You're damn right, I am! Ah, I mean I guess that confirms it for me in a way, but still! It took a fucking near-death experience for you to realize it? You are ridiculously stubborn!" the lady shouted at her.

"Who... who are you?" Alexa asked, wiping at her eyes as confusion began to overwrite the fear and sadness gripping her heart.

She lifted her body and sat back on her heels, making eye contact with the woman.

"Oh sweetheart, that doesn't matter," the woman said, coming to sit on the air in front of where Alexa was, resting her hand on Alexa's shoulder. "What matters is that if you ruin this for me, if I do decide to send you back later, I will most likely find a way to kill you for it. This romance is everything to me right now."

Alexa shuddered as the woman's voice dropped an octave. Her expression had changed from one of mild irritation to one that promised death, staring into Alexa's eyes coldly.

"We gods have a lot of idle time up here, Alexa. We become invested in our subject's lives, and I believe you've been a fool recently. Live a little more true to yourself, would you? I'm pulling my hair out watching."

'Gods?'

"Uhm-"

"Enough of that though!" the lady said, interrupting Alexa as cheer replaced every negative emotion she'd been emanating. "Time to see if you get to live. Alexa, I like you, and you're emotionally distressed, so I'll give you two tries here rather than the one I usually give people. If your answer is interesting enough, you won't become just memories for the mother," she finished with a smile, driving a hand directly into Alexa's chest without any change in demeanor.

Alexa gasped and choked as she felt a vice clamp around her heart, but couldn't find her voice to scream. She glanced down at the bloodless, grim scene of a wrist entering her body through her clothes, then looked back up to the woman to see her face had changed to one of complete neutrality.

"What drives you?" the goddess demanded, grabbing Alexa's jaw with her other hand and locking their eyes together.

Alexa felt the pressure ease up as the eyes staring back at her began to reflect the life she'd lived up to this point and found her mind somehow accepting of the situation she was just thrust in, calming her initial fear immensely. The visions before her were played from her own first-person point of view, a mirror showing how she'd lived life, the experiences she'd had in Hylyu passing by as rapid blips one after another.

"Protecting tho-"

The vice on her heart clamped down once again, harder this time as her mind began to spin and stars showed up in her vision. Weakness wracked her body, and she fell forward a second time, hands catching her before her face slammed into where her tears had dropped earlier.

The Deity stayed floating directly in front of her as if the ground didn't exist, moving down to maintain constant eye-contact with her as she'd fallen.

"Not even close. Try again," the woman replied unimpressed.

Alexa felt her control over her limbs continue to weaken as her eyes remained locked on the goddesses. Visions of her life in the Tearen house began to pass by as she finally saw the first moment she'd met the boy and their family. Regardless of how fast the years sped by, she felt as though every scene shown was immensely detailed, almost as if living through it herself.

Finally, they landed upon the moment before she'd been sent into the pool, and Alexa closed her eyes as the slide show came to an end.

"Fear," she whispered as more tears began to fall from her eyes.

The pressure disappeared.

"Gooooood answer, darling. Indeed, you are so caught up in your worries of being left behind by the boy and losing the family that loves you that you'd risk your own life here to hold onto them, yet you believe you'd actually choose to leave them and suffer for it. You're an idiot. He'd never leave you behind, let alone allow someone take you from him against your will. He is so similar to Rai it's infuriating that you adore him, to be honest," the goddess finished, mumbling the last part and pausing momentarily.

"Though I was hoping your answer would be love, personally, but it's just as well that it wasn't. I would have let you die if it was. Much too boring for what you've put me through," she continued while smiling.

Alexa stared into the goddesses eyes that had shifted back to white while considering her words. The years she'd seen now, objectively, were almost like night and day once she'd turned seven. Excitement, happiness, love, experiences... color entered her world the moment she'd found her family. She'd believed her life on Hylyu to be so majestic and otherworldly when living there, but seeing the reality in front of her, it was a bland, rich, tasteless existence up on that island of magic.

She chuckled.

"You're right. It's pathetic. I've been pathetic," she said.

"It is a little embarrassing, isn't it? You, running around, pretending to be a martyr when the correct answer is right in front of you. I look forward to how you will fix it!" the Deity said with glee, removing her hand and floating away from Alexa in a giant arc until she returned to the location in the endless white void Alexa had first seen her.

"So, I'll live then?" Alexa asked.

"Yep. You pass. Congratulations! I'll send you back with quite a bit more than what you have," the god responded with a smile.

"I'll fix it the moment I return, I swear."

"Ah, sorry, but that's not how this works," the goddess said, smiling cruelly at her. "I'll be taking your memories of everything that happened here, and you'll never actually understand all of what I gave you."

Alexa's eyes widened as anxiety gripped her chest.

"What? Why?"

"It's the rules, darling. Now then-"

"No!" Alexa interrupted fervently. "Please. Leave me with something from this. Not the knowledge of you and the conversation, just my memori-"

"No can do!" the blue goddess interrupted cheerfully as Alexa found her voice cut off suddenly. "Not gonna happen. Rules are rules. Plus, it wouldn't be interesting to watch you suddenly love him unconditionally from now on. The chase is important! I wonder how long you'll both be able to keep up this charade... and how long you can keep him from knowing about your intentions. Maybe he'll make you understand if he finds out? Figure it out for yourself. I suggest another near-death experience," the woman said with a smile. "As I said though, don't screw this up for me or I may just go on a rampage."

Alexa opened her mouth to respond but found her words still silenced. Anxiety gripped her like no other as she glanced downward, away from the Deity. She knew how stubborn she could be. She knew where her mind had been set. She just had to hold on to the hope that he would convince her? That she'd figure it out in the next two years or it would all be over? Rely on his pushover, goodnatured attitude to solve things for her?

'No.'

Looking back up, she gestured with her hands to her mouth and received a nod from the goddess.

"You're a lot different than I expected you'd be," Alexa said as she felt foreign information begin to flow into her mind, once again permitted to speak.

"Well, yeah. You all think we are raw magic, after all."

Alexa nodded, then paused, mind racing.

"Why don't you let us remember you?"

"It is more interesting this way. If you knew we existed, you'd try to find ways to get more from us. Sentients are too greedy," the goddess shrugged.

That made sense to Alexa. If the world knew the gods had feelings, characters, personalities... they'd profile them. They'd figure them out; then they'd try to manipulate them however they could to get an edge. Drag them into wars...

Thinking they were mindless representations of an element was best for everyone's safety.

"Well, dear. Time to go. We won't meet again most likely, so say goodbye to this moment."

"Wait!" Alexa called out, still grasping at straws to stay here as long as possible. "What's your name?"

"Tsk tsk tsk. That won't work doll, but I appreciate you trying to get on my good side. My name is Senra, though."

With that, the Deity disappeared from her location. Alexa looked right, then nearly screamed as she turned back to her left and saw the goddess a foot away. With lightning-quick movements, the high being thrust a palm into her side, launching her sideways with extreme force yet not crumpling her ribs somehow.

Alexa's world entered a state of vertigo again as right became down and she began falling faster and faster, drawn through the white expanse. Then, the memories started going.

'NO!'

Alexa felt as each one was stripped away, torn from her mind as a feeling of loss pervaded her but not understanding what it was she'd lost, starting with the memories of her arrival and the goddess. Afterward, the viewing of her life from her older, current mindset started drifting away.

Alexa tried to hold onto each memory, becoming frightened and unsure of what was happening as knowledge of the situation disappeared, but each kept slipping out of her grasp without a trace of her effort meaning anything. A headache flared up, pulsing more painfully with each and every attempt to fight off the memory loss.

"That's it, fight little one!" a voice she'd never heard called out, spurring her on as she continued failing and falling.

Quick as her mind was, she stopped trying to hold onto specifics and instead aimed for vague things, like her realizations, emotions, and understandings. Those memories stayed for longer and were easier to grip, but, alas, despite her best effort, all was torn away from her grasp.

Finally, last of all, she felt her thoughts on the loves of her life begin peeling away. She could almost see how every conclusion she'd come to was shredded and incinerated before her very eyes.

'No! Focus! Just one. I just need one!' she screamed in her mind, completely unsure what she was fighting for at this point, simply latching onto her drive to fight.

As the memories continued to trickle out, she focused on the feeling of loss. Of losing her family. Not a memory, not a realization nor a conclusion, just the raw emotion that was hitting her like a truck. It was all that was left from this strange world, and she struggled to hold onto it with everything she had.

Her headache exponentially increased in pain, spreading out to her limbs and lungs while stopping her ability to breathe as her muscles contracted. Her teeth clenched in her mouth, feeling like they'd crack against each other from the pressure as her brain felt like it was splitting, a burning hot sword sliding through it.

Nausea hit as unconsciousness threatened her, causing her fear. If she weren't conscious to fight, it would all be gone when she awoke.

Bringing her right hand to her left arm, she shakily opened it and allowed it to clench once again when she'd moved it onto her bicep, drawing blood with her nails as a new pain entered her body to keep awake. A pained scream shouted out from behind her clenched teeth as tears streamed down along her nose then broke off to float upward into the endless white, droplets of red leaping free from her left arm and going with them.

Pieces of the final bit continued to break off and disappear. Small and playful, a pillar of knowledge, cold reassurance, neverending warmth and love... each fracture of it, gone forever, until all she had was two remaining, almost intertwining with her own being.

The two felt like one, barely indistinguishable as they continued to slowly slip away from her. She focused on the pact and every other thing she could think of to help, fighting with everything she had, until the pain became too much to bear and her grasp on the mental rope released and she fell faster. Just before the last bit moved beyond her fingertips and out of her mind, her back felt like it contacted something soft as the white sky was instantly replaced by a blue one, rippling lightly just above her eyes. The pain subsided an instant later, and her consciousness followed.

"Oooooops," Senra said, coming through a wall into the room Ceris was seated.

"You didn't," Ceris stated from behind a desk, eyebrows raised.

"Accident, accident. She fought so hard and I was just not paying enough attention, so something slipped," she said with a smirk, walking toward the desk and resting her elbows on it.

"I'm supposed to report you," Ceris declared with a glare.

Senra smiled at her as she rolled her eyes.

"As if, Ceris. Let me know when it's my turn to man this boring station," she said, turning left and moving her right fist toward the woman.

She felt a light bump just as she began walking away, quickly leaving the proximity of the desk and disappearing into a nearby wall only to once again enter the room with the pool of water. The many Deities in the room, adorning green, black, yellow, and few other color combinations of cloaks, all turned to look in her direction.

"That took extra long," Rai, one of the two without a cloak, said while glaring at her.

"Oh, bite me," she replied, flipping off the bastard again.

She was quite fond of this method to show distaste and was glad the world had invented it on this rotation.

"He's right, Senra. Why did it take so long?" Geril asked.

Senra rotated her body upside down into the empty space above her and floated slowly to the pool, smiling playfully at him while winking.

"I messed up! Had a conversation with the girl and liked her. She was pleasant, fight me about it."

"...Is that truly all you did?" he asked after a moment of hesitation.

"I might have also given her two chances."

"How you determine your followers is no concern, you know what I mean," Geril continued seriously.

"Fine, fine. Maybe I gave her a bit more than usual..." she trailed off.

Geril looked down and sighed.

"Your next two callers die then. No buts."

"Fine by me, she's the one I like anyway," she declared with a grin, settling into a free seat and kicking her legs up on the bar circling the pool.

Senra glanced down into the water and smiled as her girl was pulled from a much more lavishly decorated house pool.

"Now, how will you figure this out?" she mumbled, grinning deviously.

Damien let go.

God, he didn't want to, but he did. It was what she wanted, no matter how much the moment was escalating. Pulling him into her, opening her mouth wider... letting her emotions run rampant. Driving him even more crazy as he felt her dig her nails into his arm...

That feeling of excitement disappeared when her nails left with more than a bit of his skin, though. He watched her fall before taking a few steps through the sky and landing back on the ground next to Kastra.

"That... I want to try it," Kastra said, leaning into him and lacing the fingers of her right hand with his.

"Without the nails please," he said as he felt blood start to trickle down his right bicep.

"Maybe," she replied with a smile.

"Well 'maybe' when Alexa is done," he responded, nudging her in the side slightly.

He thought about healing his arm, but let it be. He was more than a little worried that she wouldn't be coming back to them, regardless of how confident she was, and a scar to remember her by would be nice. Hard every time he saw it for a while, no doubt, but a wonderful memory for when he got older.

"Why not def-" she started, question interrupted as a loud ringing sound entered their ears.

He opened his mouth to comment on the noise when his eyes caught sight of a strange phenomenon happening in the pool. A ripple, spreading outward from where Alexa had contacted the water, crawled out slowly and cleared the surface of disruption. When it reached the walls of the pool, a visible blue wave of something continued onward and upward from that point on, extending out in all directions.

"Is that-" he started, words interrupted as the wave rolled across their bodies and the sound of Alexa's voice asking for the commune vibrated across their skin.

Not so loud as to be deafening, yet not so quiet as to allow a conversation to go on, her voice echoed around them and receded in volume the further the wave rippled past them outward, like a front of noise.

He followed it outward with his eyes as it continued further and further into the distance, stopping at the fence bordering their property. It seemed the school respected the student's privacy enough to allow them to commune without everyone finding out about it. He wondered how far it would have gone if not for the barrier.

He turned back around to look at the pool of water again and waited alongside Kastra for their Celestial to come back to them.

More than a few minutes passed, and Damien began to get restless.

"Uhm... how long does this usually take?" he asked Kastra.

"I have no idea," she replied indifferently. "I thought you knew."

Damien realized their mistake then. Neither of them was actually sure how communing worked. They knew about it in a general sense but didn't know specifics, like how long it would take, when to assume it had failed, what to do when it finished... nothing. It was obvious he wouldn't know, but he'd mistakenly assumed Kastra would, apparently.

"Do Fae not commune?" he asked.

"The gods and we have an understanding. We don't commune," she confirmed with a shake of her head.

"Well... I... how will we know if she succeeds?" he asked.

"She'll probably come back out?"

"Well, I know that I meant... well when... I guess nevermind," he said, trailing off.

When would they know if she failed was what he wanted to ask, but couldn't bring himself to. He didn't want to know.

"I heard they always come back disoriented, though. Never happy or sad, just confused," Kastra eventually said.

Damien nodded. At least that was something to look forward to.

He sat down on the pavement outside their house cross-legged as Kastra joined him, resting her butt in his lap and setting her head underneath his chin while her wings flattened against his chest. She had decided that Alexa's size was perfect and always seemed to take her height whenever she wasn't the size of a pixie. He rested his arms around her waist as he settled his back against their house, in for the wait while doing his best to control the anxiety he felt so as not to upset Kastra.

Surprisingly, she was the first to fail in that endeavor. Two hours in, nervousness began to flow through from her end, an indication of just how much this level headed Fae of his loved Alexa.

He strengthened the hold he had on her waist.

"It'll be ok, hun," he said, putting as much warmth into his words as he could.

He felt her nod as a bit of her anxiety faded, but ultimately, the feeling remained. She'd gone from being the least invested and caring of them all to probably the most, wearing her heart on her sleeve in stressful moments like this more than both he and Alexa. Usually, her feelings weren't intense enough to bleed through, but when they were, it hardly showed on her expression yet hit like a truck in the pact.

She tightened her grip on his arms as time dragged on. It steadily became nighttime, and the temperature dropped below freezing. They began taking turns warming the area with mana, nervous wrecks as they sat holding onto each other. What made it ten times worse was the fact that they'd felt nothing from her end of the pact since she'd gone in, a void where something always was.

Finally, after almost four hours of waiting, immense sadness and loss bled through from Alexa's end of the pact. Kastra bolted up from his lap the moment they'd felt it and disappeared into the pool. By the time he'd even stood up, she had Alexa out and at the edge of the water where the girl laid against her body, crying and holding onto the Fae's shoulders while water dripped from every bit of her, including the inside of her ears and mouth. Despited the waterfall her many orifices had become, the girl's body seemed to not care that she should be choking on it, treating the water like air as she inhaled and cried out.

"Shhh. It's ok. It's ok, Lexi," Kastra soothed as Damien approached.

"What's wrong?" he asked, attempting to take her out of Kastra's arms to carry her.

Alexa wouldn't let go though. She held onto Kastra with a vice grip and didn't seem to be able to hear them, so Kastra increased in size to make it easier to hold onto her.

"I don't know. She was crying like this when I found her under the water. The commune went through, she's breathing the liquid in without a problem," Kastra answered as they moved inside.

They walked through the house until finding the living area with a fireplace, whereupon Kastra sat on the couch with Alexa and he began building a fire using logs set in a holster by the hearth. After setting up a teepee of wood, he lit it quickly with his mana and moved over to the couch. Alexa had stopped crying but was still shaking and sobbing, so he sat on Kastra's left and began running his hands along Alexa's wings and through her hair.

"Has she said anything?" he asked.

Alexa seemed to react at his voice and gripped his hand from her head with her right hand, holding it tightly against her side.

Kastra shook her head.

"Nothing yet."

Damien watched on, eventually trying once again to pull Alexa into his lap. Kastra lifted her slightly and scooted her over to him, this time successfully transferring the blubbering mess of a girl. She wrapped her right arm around his back and squeezed him a tighter than usual while wrapping her legs around his waist.

Her left hand remained attached to Kastra's, still unwilling to let the Fae go. Her head rested on his right shoulder in between Kastra's and his faces.

"Lexi, hey. Tell me what's going on, hun," Damien tried. "Alexa, we are here it's ok. What did you see?"

No response came from her as half an hour passed. Damien continued massaging her wings and holding her waist while Kastra leaned against them both, dozing off with her face close to Alexa's. The fire began to dim, running out of fuel as the night continued to deepen over the city.

"You were both dead," Alexa eventually whispered without prompting.

Damien and Kastra both were startled by her speaking and looked over to her. Her face was stilled pressed into his shoulder, causing what she'd said to be muffled.

"We aren't dead though," Damien explained, doing his best to soothe her but not succeeding.

"I know. But it felt like it. It was so real," she said quietly.

"What do you mean, Lexi?" Kastra asked.

Damien assisted Kastra's attempt by continuing to comfort the girl with head and wing scratches.

"Just... that's all I knew when I came back. The only emotion that was present in my mind and body. That you were gone, and I was bleeding from my arm," she said.

Kastra nodded. Damien rubbed his cheek against her hair and checked her body, confirming it was uninjured.

"That must have been a horrible feeling. I'm sorry. We are right here though, Lexi, and not going anywhere," Kastra declared.

"It is horrible," Alexa sobbed out, nodding.

"Was. If we weren't here I couldn't do this," Kastra said, reaching up with her right hand and tilting Alexa's chin toward her, planting her lips on the Celestials.

Damien blushed as he watched on, the kiss lasting longer than a couple of seconds as he wondered if he should look away.

"That does feel different," Kastra said after pulling away.

Alexa nodded to her with a slight smile then looked up at Damien and kissed him in the same manner. He tightened his hold on her as she did the same, pulling closer to one another.

She pulled away just before he lost himself in her.

"It feels nicer," she declared, nuzzling back into his chest as Kastra scooted even closer.

Damien lifted his right arm and wrapped it around Kastra's waist, pulling her into them further while red in the face. He kept his mind calm while chanting his mantra as he did his best to ignore his body's reaction to what the situation had just turned into. They were both ignorant of his dilemma, he noticed, and now was not the time for that.

'Pure. Thoughts.'