It was dark. It was dark, but it wasn't really dark, it was more like twilight, honestly, and if he squinted very hard he could see her features in the dimness- yes, dimness. It was dim. It was a dim and drizzly night, utterly miserable and utterly delightful and he wished he could see her more clearly.

Then, suddenly, he could.

"Do you know what your face reminds me of?" No preamble. He didn't need one- never had, never would. The world knew his name, would know his coming, would fear his coming. He would simply be, and would revel in the screams. "The Aztecs, or the Incas, or some people in Mexico or someplace like that. They believed that deformed and mutated things were beautiful. In Europe, they'd have gotten out the crosses and started exorcising the babies, but in Mexico they called the neighbors and threw a party, because the new baby only had one eye, or three toes, or six fingers, or it's skull was extra flat on one side. Blessed by the gods. To them, symmetry was ugly."

She looked a little annoyed in the newfound light of his eyes; it was still dim, but she glowed when he closed his eyes. He continued, moving closer, slowly. "To this society, to the modern world, symmetry is the ultimate goal. The one thing not even nature can get right- the perfect sphere, the equilateral triangle, the leaf from the tree of knowledge- they don't exist, but everyone knows they're perfect, like reflections in a mirror, only better. But you- all of us, really- we don't have that symmetry." He reached out a hand, though it was more like a claw in this light even though he knew it was just a hand, and she knew it was just a hand, he reached out and touched her face, tracing the lines of scarlet and black and firey saffron there. He smiled, like a child, which he wasn't though she sometimes treated him like one even though it infuriated him. Colors. She had colors. Of them all, she got colors. Lucky.

"Your mark covers most of your face, but mine, and Lucius' and the riders, ours are small. Your face is asymmetrical, like the Aztec gods. No symmetry. Blessed. Cursed." He was stroking her face, fascinated, like a child with a toy. So many colors, and all that red, like blood and fire..."Beautiful."

She frowned and swatted his hand away. "Never touch me again, Nero." There was no threat in her voice, no fear. Just quiet steel.

He snarled and grabbed her throat in a claw that bore only a passing resemblance to a hand- and found himself trying to wrap his fingers around the neck of a dragon, scarlet coils writhing all aroud in fury. He stood completely still, looking up into golden eyes that burned with a rage he could only barely contemplate. Contemplation was not necessary for control, though.

"I am your master, Serpent. Do not attempt to hold me in your thrall." Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, blood and gold and fury, and she was his to control...but never to own, and never to keep. He could lie to himself as much as he wanted, but she would never truly be his. He couldn't help but notice, though, that now she was perfect, a mirror image of herself, nature's abomination, utter symmetry.

"Master you may be, but never forget that I am the source of your power, Nero. You will not touch me again." She released him from her thrall, and then it was just the two of them, Dragon and Deceiver, in the drizzling rain. She gave him a glare over her shoulder and disappeared into the drizzle.

"Not without my permission, anyway..."

She'd forgotten that his ears were just as keen as hers. "Anything you say, beautiful serpent." Nero stood out in the lovely drizzle a while longer, delighting in the unpredictably falling raindrops the same way he delighted in the sight of his Dragoness' face. Completely and utterly asymmetrical.

Beautiful.
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Ah, Project: Apocalypse, I knew you well, once...That's Nero, acting slightly insane, and Belinda (formerly Reiko, but I threw all my equal opportunity affirmative action mulit-cultural ideas out the window five seconds ago for the sake of a niftier name...*sweatdrop*) being herself. She's the only sane one in the entire group, aside from Cas, and maybe Therese. But they're Riders, and not quite in the same category...Mrr. Been thinking about extremes and such lately, then symmetry...P:A is just as symmetrical as all my other stories; I think, once I manage something that isn't quite so perfectly balanced, I'll feel able to call myself a writer. Until then...I'll do this. Something to pass the time, you know?