The china cup clinked something celestial and a trickle of caramel brown spilled delicately down the side, beading against the small saucer. A lithe finger lifted one of the iced biscuits elegantly from a stand matching their pattern.

Aphrodite bit gingerly, holding her free hand below her mouth to catch any falling crumbs. She dipped the other half of her biscuit in to the cup of tea and raised it to her lips before it could crumble. She hummed her content and that singular sound, as beautiful as any of the hairs across her body and the teeth behind her lips, might have made songbirds weep. The goddess of love was beautiful.

She sat primly in a fine seat of arched gold and rose cushioning; 'sat', like all verbs in the English language, was a crude word that could never do the motion justice. Had Aphrodite rested upon a rough stool, she would have shamed the grandest of emperors.

And across from her, with all the graces of a god but none so immaculate as hers, was-

"Anubis dear," Aphrodite sighed. "Do you ever wonder at our ones?"

The jackal headed god set down a cream-topped butterscotch cupcake and confessed, "Yes, when I am alone...and when I should be doing other things but get distracted...and when I feel my Damian." He touched his breast. "You know he's my blessed...sits in my heart and I in his." The god thought fondly of his blessed one. "He lives a life of struggle and joy and often moral uncertainty, but..."

Aphrodite reached to the space in the table where his hands lay, soft and godly and between a plate of pastel coloured macaroons and a cupcake stand, and she touched her hand gently over his.

"- but love before all else." She finished.

"Oh my Ricardo has moved on with his life, after all of these years. Dear cupids, sometimes I wonder if he would forget me... but he stays in contact with Earths magical ones and that tethers him." Aphrodite stared tragically, beautifully, in to the cloudy nothingness that spread around them.

Then she looked up at Anubis and his eyes were soft with memory.

Aphrodite folded her hands over her abdomen and crossed her legs, reclining with expert practice. She was a renaissance painting in the flesh.

"Don't you know Anubis, I do anything for love. It is my purpose. Goddess of beauty, yes- but love? Oh Anubis love is all I exist for." His eyes were her muse and she began her composition. "We find common lovers in man's world. A sprinkle of the lower cupids' dust. Oh but Anubis there are some marked in the Stars. Predetermined. My dear, how I have drawn ancestors ever closer by the generation that my lovers might meet centuries ahead!" Aphrodite lifted her cup by its lithe handle and touched it to her lip but didn't drink. "Your Damian...Raven of Azarath...I've painted their picture for so long it is strange to see it in reality. But I wouldn't have it any other way..."

"They say each soul is split of two, ever searching for their other half." Anubis said.

Aphrodite sipped, then placed down the cup.

"And it's true." She smiled. "And for our Damian and Raven, we have them united once more, as they were in the beginning of all things. Oh I feel their love Anubis, as I have felt that of the lovers of old and it is strong. Strong in their embraces and strong in their words and strong in the legacy that they leave upon the earth."

Anubis tapped a macaroon absently on his plate and said, "In all these years they've fought with magic, and with swords, and with all their united strength. I've seen how they've loved those not of their own blood and called them their children. And they've made pure the bloody remnants of their ancestors- Nandra Parabat stands an island of peace and learning." He lay a hand over his heart to reach out to Damian's warmth. "I am proud to have been a part of something so beautiful as that."

"And so," Aphrodite lifted her cup over the table and Anubis followed suit, "let us rejoice that the grow ever the more beautiful, till they meet the sunset of their times and enter our dawn."

And they clinked their cups a hearty toast to love, to a pain most wonderful.

The End.

A.N:

Oh my darlings, what do I say now.
Thank you for coming on this journey with me. I cannot thank you all enough. For those of you who've just hopped on this train, for those who've been there since before even this book, I love you to the moon and back.

You've all seen my development as a writer, and been with me through my development as a person every single week. I cannot bless you all enough my darlings for all that you've done for me. Through the brightest days and blackest nights I've had this space to escape to and...we have had some wonderful times.

I hope that I have brought you all as much joy as you have brought me, and that I can continue to give you all something to look forward to in your week! From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

As far as my next work is concerned...

I am writing another Damirae book after this!
I'll be taking a break from writing for the first week in aaaaages and after that you should get your first chapter!!!

I haven't got a name, and I haven't got much to tell you other than...

It's not set in the DCAMU

It's going to be ✨very✨ magical

And we will be seeing a lot more of folks like 🔥LUCIFER🔥

So you can look forward to that in a few weeks!!!

Thank you :)

-Bats

P.S- Mwah!