A white snow

“I can’t believe how I really got into this!” Pandora muttered to herself as she strode in fastened steps on the other way around the place she really should’ve been.

“If you want a detailed explanation, lady Pandora. The way the ritual first started was by lady’s account, by your own bl—”

“Just!” The white girl interrupted. “Er… sorry for interrupting but don’t explain, or rather, don’t explain yet. I need to think by myself now.”

Pandora didn’t know how to treat the person that was following after her, he was supposed to be her contractor now, according to what he stated before. But still, reality was not in the grasp of her mind. Demons were rare, as if they were a kind of mythological creature for the citizens of Crescentia. Even for the sacred religion of the Devil and its’ believers, unless not demonstrated by a Star Chosen, they would never be witnesses of a demon in the entirety of their lives, maybe. They simply chose to not dwell within the human realm or something, who could understand the mind of sacred creatures such as one of the Devil’s messengers.

That is why she was in a haze. How was she supposed to treat a demon? A stranger demon that appeared in front of her declaring he was her contractor for life. Should’ve treated him her own way of dealing with people was risking her life to the Devil’s wrath, so she resorted to the respectful speech, or what she could amend as respectful at least for her.

With her breath running out for ramming for the same path two times that same morning, she finally reached the main road which was in the way to her shared apartment.

Here the road spread to the sides, it was wide enough to fit at least ten persons from side to side. The flow of people was growing exponentially, as the Star and its’ surrounding lights on the far away ceiling turned on at the time of six on clock turning away the vast darkness that surrounded the city telling the night was over. Usually at the hit of seven hours the street wouldn’t be as filled as it was now, but it was a festivity occurring—a one in fifty years or so festivity— it was a must for every single human soul in Crescentia to be part of this event, so the current of people that was circulating the main road was opposite to Pandora’s current route.

Getting nervous by her height difference between a normal adult woman and her, Pandora dodged and hit some of the shoulders of the people getting in the way to the destiny she had to arrive before Theus’ ritual, the apartment she shared with her lifetime companion, Lux. After reaching adulthood and leaving the orphanage, both decided to keep living together as the could not live without each other’s presence.

Gradually the sea of people was getting denser and denser, but she could feel the presence of her now silent companion right behind her. Pandora was panting, not being able to see further away from the heads of every person, but the demon, Nocte was keeping her pace not soling a single breath from what seemed his calm state. And maybe she could test if he really was a supernatural being and see if his strength was different from that of a human male.

Pandora started to run.

Between rapid apologies given to some unknown and known faces she rushed through the torsos that were before her, she didn’t have to see the street for her to know where her home was, just by gazing at the old street tiles underneath she could figure out where she was going and at what longitude their department would be.

Now arriving at the house where their apartment was located, she quickly went past the main door and jumped upstairs. The rusty metal of the spiraled stars heavily creaked and echoed with her stomping, Pandora didn’t take the time to see behind if Nocte was still following her or keeping up with the way she was going, if she had lost him maybe she could get rid of the impending soul stealing contract she was being threatened into or make the terrible mistake of facing the consequences Nocte mentioned.

The familiar bronze color of her rusty door came to sight.

Nocte was standing there.

With his hands tucked in the pockets of his dark night suit, he stood with his back laid on the door.

“How?!” Pandora almost screeched with her hands on her knees and panting for more breath to fill her lungs.

“Running from me it’s not enough to get the contract canceled, lady Pandora.”

“By not enough do you mean…”

“If you’re wondering if it can be canceled, yes in a way it is possible.”

“Then—”

“Of course, willingly bequeathing your soul for me to deliver.”

With the sole comment of throwing her life away to end the imminent life lasting seal between Nocte and her, Pandora shut her mouth. She didn’t want to give away her own soul just yet, she would’ve preferred signing the mysterious contract with the demon. Even with the same ending bestowing upon her, it was better it being later than sooner.

“Let me go get my stamp then.” Surrendered to her attempt to escape from this destiny, she said drained from her energy to think and run.

Nocte moved from his spot in front of the old looking door. Waving a hand as a gentleman would do, he showed her the way to her own apartment and opened the door. Without wanting to consider how he was able to unlock it, already knowing he was a demon, he could have all kind of tricks under that refined-looking sleeve.

With a new determination to get finished with this task so she could hurry back to Theus’ ceremony, she lifted her chin up and strode through the door into her cramped home.

The place was a small mess, but Pandora clearly knew her way around. Lux and Pandora didn’t really have the time nor the determination to organize the way they lived in, with all clothes over the couch—or what used to be part of the couch now buried deep—and all kind of utensils laying from the cornered kitchen up to their bunk beds. You could see now laying on the entrance’s floor what where Lux’s painting brushes and some of what looked like a massacre of various tones of reddish pigments splattered not far from there. Lux surely had been working on a commission from a client not long ago, though there were no traces of the canvas, the bearer of the massacre’s consequences.

Not minding much the working utensils as she did the same with her own stuff. Pandora hopped over and continue her approach to the shelf where her singing stamp should be laying, she didn’t know if Nocte had entered the apartment with her or preferred to keep waiting just outside the door after seeing the natural disaster she lived in, either way she didn’t hear anything from him neither his footsteps.

Quickly opening one of the shelf’s drawers, she rumbled in the messy and scrambled place. Finally, she pulled out a cylindrical beautifully flower and almost life induced seal holder, not needing of a second glance she immediately knew this was her stamp. Each Crescentia citizen that reached the majority of age had their own identification, being a seal that contained the owner’s name, each stamp holder had its own design, being hers that which assembled a vertical flower field carved sculpture.

When a Star Chosen first went through the process of contracting a demon, the deal between human and demon was made with blood of both, the human being the user of Crescentia’s stamp while the demon recurred to its’ own not documented methods. At least now Pandora would be able to satiate that curiosity.

Pandora turned her back and the demonic gentleman was already clearing up their dinner table moving aside somethings so there could be space for what she guessed was she sheet she was singing with him. As if reading her mind, Nocte pulled his hand up and between shadow magic that started gleaming out of his hand, a parchment unrolled from his raised hand. All she could perceive from him was experienced and swift professionalism as he stretched the piece of fabric and delicately placed it on the table.

Slowly she wandered closer the table and to him, so she could read what was being displayed for her to seal.

The script was in a language unknown to Pandora. She would’ve guessed for the Devil’s creatures to use an ancient writing such as what humans used in the old era, like Latin.

She diverted her focus to Nocte.

“What does it say?” She asked him.

“Human, Pandora, acknowledges the tying between human soul and demon by the blood vow. As a pledge at the end of the mortal life, bestowing of her human soul. In exchange of a lifetime service in which demon, Nocte, must grant his services, handing part of his demonic power and serving to the human as a guardian until the contract is fulfilled.” Not tearing his focus from the parchment, he calmly added. “This pact cannot be broken by any human or demonic force, not even by the demon’s death itself, if not until the mortal life runs out of source.”

Pandora didn’t know if the last part he read was actually read or not, it sounded like a warning shot at her or at any possible enemy that might be out there, human or not.

Not even by the demon’s death.

What could have he meant. She hadn’t heard of any story of a demon’s death or of them being capable of dying even. Something inside her reassured that curiosity was dangerous and that she shouldn’t concern herself with inaccurate happenings. How could her monotonous routine put on danger an immortal creature such as Nocte. Maybe this should have been something to really think about on the future, a faraway future, maybe something she would repent on, but Pandora always thought on the now.

And the now made her ask the most important question.

“Why me?”

“What do you mean, lady Pandora?” He said gently, as she could just break from a drift on his tone.

“I’m not a Star Chosen, what do you mean by what do you mean?” Suddenly she was on the verge of breaking apart to tears. The sudden reality crashing on her conscience. After all, not for a moment did she stop to wonder what had started the ritual between her and Nocte or why she should give away her soul if she had been born as a normal human being.

Her albino lashes clashed down to hide the imminent cowardly tears that were about to burst.

Suddenly, Nocte’s knuckles carefully brushed her undereye. Taking her by surprised, Pandora flinched, but did not move from the spot she was standing on, she didn’t know when Nocte removed the white glove from his right hand, he was considerate enough to want to graze her with direct skinship. She didn’t dislike the feeling of his skin against hers’.

“Did you sometime notice you’re as white as the farthest north snow, my lady?”

“Snow?” Pandora knew what snow was, though she hadn’t ever seen it. Before Crescentia was an underground almost-independent city, humans used to live outside, above the earth. Furthest to the Devil, they shouldn’t have had the same favor the Devil gave to Crescentia now and that’s why by the end of the old times, they perished. Or that’s what the great religion says. Outside of being a term for what used to fall from the earthless sky, like the rain, water. Snow was the frozen state of water, she didn’t understand the actual comparison with her and that or what it had to do with the now.

Nocte nodded.

“You’re white, very much I would say. Outside, in a place very far from the equator where the temperatures are cold, a cold that prickles and burns your skin, there’s snow. Snow that lasts year-long and covers every trace of Earth with the whiteness of an eternal winter.” His face was held on to hers’.

She could sense a bit of warmth in that stare of his, even while he was talking about freezing places.

“The snow is white?”

“Just like you.”

“I still don’t understand what has to do with this current situation.”

“My name is the translation from the human language Latin, night. Surely you know what night tends to represent, lady Pandora. Darkness, lack of life, the dark color of black, maybe even misfortune. The total opposite of what white is. Of what you are.” His knuckles were still softly brushing her soft white skin, Nocte pulled his hand down to his side.

“In the close future, I would like to give you a detailed explanation. But for now, this would’ve to suffice.”

The lack of information frustrated Pandora. How could she sign a lifetime contract with a demon that spoke in between metaphors? How could she even trust him? He could have been fabricating all this opposites stuff because he could also not understand what had gotten him into this situation.

“And by close future I mean when we have the enough time, I’m aware that by seven you must be in the main plaza, am I right?”

Gasping, Pandora quickly turned to the table ticking clock and saw the ten-minute mark for seven in the morning.

“I need to be there in ten minutes!” Her eyes averting from the clock onto the dark gaze of Nocte. “Let’s get done with this, will you really explain later?”

“As much as necessary.”

“How do I do it?”

Nocte reached for her hand with his gloved hand. Not touching it yet, he waited for permission.

“Would you allow me?”