Ratella woke up the following day, his fight had expended more of his energy than he initially thought. However, something was off about his position on the couch; he felt heavier than before. A pressing weight wiggling around his chest. His wings now had a hard, cold material pressing against them.
This unexpected change startled him from his rest as the weight dug into his ribs, causing his eyes to shoot open, grumbling at the flash of pain.
He tilted his head upwards within his feathery cocoon, seeing a giant mess of pink hair resting on his chest, her breathing serene and relaxing to the mind. Her wings were perfectly aligned with his, providing no discomfort apart from the change in temperature on his wings, which were colder than normal.
Having her sleeping on top of him was surprisingly comfortable.
"Liliana?" asked Ratella, rubbing her arm until she woke up. He sat there for a while until she finally opened her eyes.
"What?" grumbled Liliana, as if he had walked over to her bed and violently shaken her until she woke.
"Why are you using me as a bed?"
"Because you and those wings are comfy. You didn't protest when I was trying to break your defences, so I thought it was fine."
Liliana reared her head out of the mess pink surrounding his body, her face still marked by black soot. Despite this, she still looked radiant to his eyes, her beauty unblemished by her condition.
His cheeks began to turn scarlet before spreading to his whole face, his face breaking out into a sweat at the beautiful lying on his chest.
He couldn't deny her beauty, but her smell was another matter.
"You stink. Why didn't you wash before barging into my feather cocoon? You smell like ash and fire."
"I couldn't be bothered. We stayed up for ages experimenting with everlasting life. I kept blowing myself up, though," said Liliana, her bottom lip moving upwards and her cheeks puffing out, obviously pouting at being called stinky.
Ratella began to laugh at her words. He expected her to be awful at science, but didn't say anything to not hurt her feelings. Seems his opinion was correct.
"Well, if you want to be a scientist, you need to get up and start experimenting. Scientists operate on less than eight hours of sleep, so you have to be exhausted to master science. I'll let you go first, have a shower."
None of what he said was true; it was pure speculation at Mammon's permanent eye bags despite his many centuries of imprisonment. His words also had a heavy dousing of teasing.
"That's definitely not true, but I'll happily take the shower offer," said Liliana, sticking her tongue out as he removed her from his cocoon, prying his wings open.
Ratella got up after his refusal to open his wings, being another tease to the girl, giving her her own treatment back in full. He hadn't noticed before watching Liliana walk to the shower, but she never wore anything apart from the feathery dress mimicking her potoo.
He stood outside the door to the shower, looking for more conversation with her and awaiting his own shower. His state wasn't any better than hers if he was being truthful with himself.
"Why do you only wear that feathery dress?"
"Because it's special to me and it's made of my own feathers from my bird form and the feathers that once stuck themselves to my wings."
"You once had feathers on your wings, I wouldn't have guessed to be honest. Although I'm sure that if they had their original feathers, they would have been beautiful to look at. Far more than my own."
Liliana let out a small yelp from the shower at his compliment, not expecting such flattering words to escape his mouth from his previous annoyed expression.
"What are you, some kind of pervert? Stop listening to my shower," spat out Liliana, not wanting to further embarrass herself in the face of his lovely words.
Her reprimand didn't anger Ratella; he knew he was nothing of the sort, and her reaction was just a response to his teasing. His favourite pastime was teasing Liliana, hoping to provoke a reaction from the girl. From her behaviour, it was also her favourite pastime.
He chuckled in the face of her words, walking off to the side, sitting against the couch, waiting patiently for Liliana to finish her shower.
She eventually exited the shower, a towel wrapped around her hair and the same dress they had just been speaking about firmly secured to her body. Her face was still scarlet.
"I'm not a pervert, by the way, you are more perverted than I am. But I wouldn't be opposed to you continuing to use me as a bed if it allows you to get some proper sleep."
Ratella stuck his tongue out at Liliana as he walked into the shower. She didn't respond to his words, only nodding her head slightly in approval of his offer.
He thoroughly washed himself in the shower, taking no more than fifteen minutes. All traces of the stink loomed around his body, now removed.
Liliana was waiting outside the bathroom, seeking to further their conversation or just to throw another tease his way. He rubbed his hair with a towel, sitting on the couch next to Liliana, spreading out and stretching after a long rest.
"What you said was true about my wings being beautiful?"
"Of course it was true, but I really don't mind their current state. They are beautiful in their own way, a terrifying and mysterious aspect of beauty."
"Your wings are quite beautiful as well; they make for the perfect bed. No wonder Sloth fell asleep at the first touch."
"Thank you, don't doubt your beauty again. That's my only request to you," said Ratella, causing Liliana's to glow scarlet once again.
"You know, Mammon says he might be able to restore their former beauty using your words. If I can work hard enough, I'm sure they'll return, and you'll be the first person I know, okay?"
"Okay, I'll work hard to grow stronger as well. I'd like to go to the arena before Orion wakes to practice a new technique using Mammon's hint yesterday."
The two went their separate ways for a moment, each with a different mission. Their little pact was to work hard to fulfill their wish. One for the renewal of beauty and the other for power to rival the Gods of the Isles of Elpis.
Liliana would work tirelessly over the past months, her efforts exploding many times in her face, but her desire to recreate her feathers was the driving force behind her continued work with the help of Mammon. Who was mainly doing all the research while Liliana blew herself up. If she weren't a Devil with considerable power and fortitude, she would have been killed by now by her recklessness with chemicals of everlasting life.
The principle of life can twist into death at the smallest mistake when mixing the chemicals. Despite this, Mammon let her continue wanting her to learn from her mistakes, and the mistakes were always good sources of information for his studies.
Ratella had begun fighting for his life every day against Orion; there were no such things as sparring with Orion. It was either to the death or no fight at all. Whether he was exhausted or not, it mattered not to Orion; he never lowered his guard or his strength. They would fight until Orion could no longer take it and was on the verge of berserking from Ratella's strikes. As he continued to refine his new technique and overall swordsmanship over the past months, their fights would grow shorter with each breakthrough.
The new technique he had been developing was a section of Echoes of Reverie using the spell upon his own mind to improve his cognition and perception.
With spell's enhancements, he could keep up with Orion and think thousands of times in a single second, but its effects were dire on the mind after it wears off. Inducing severe headaches and often passing out after pushing himself too far.
For this reason, its use had to be limited if he didn't wish for death.