Broken Curses & Love Requited

Broken Curses & Love Requited
Thaddeus glared as he rose up, his eyes still on Tariq as he moved to the left of Yama. “Your highness.” 

“This fighting is meaningless. Yes, Tariq abandoned his duty. Your punishment was just but now, it is bordering on cruel.” Yama stated, putting a hand up as Thaddeus opened his mouth. “Undo. The. Curse.” 

Thaddeus scowled, moving his palm in a semi-circle a circle of light made of many different threads appearing before him. He plucked a silvery-lavender thread and snapped it out of the circle the thread disappearing in his open palm. “Done.” 

Tariq straightened his eyes wide. “Done?” 

Yama observed him cooly. “Done. Your bonnie lass will be back to her normal self. I’ll even let Agni take you to her.” 

“What’s the price.” Tariq asked his jaw tightening. He prepared for Yama to chain him back in service, or even to be thrown in one of the other pits of damnation. He was prepared for anything except the words Yama said next. 

“You’ve paid it.” 

Tariq searched his eyes in shock. “I’ve paid it?” 

“You and your lass have spent one hundred years forced to never touch without pain, and suffering. Many a man or demon.” Thaddeus stated glancing at Yama, “Would have left her, but you never did. You don’t have an abandonment issue; you are loyal to a fault.” 

“Your time as a Naga is over. It was only a temporary sentence.” Yama murmured; his eyes glanced at Agni who smirked back at him. “As it stands, it would seem you will have work that will no doubt be servicing our realm for years to come.” 

Tariq frowned opening his mouth, to ask, when he suddenly found himself outside of Yama’s realm. He turned sharply, as the sun beat down of his scarred skin, his new bruises starting to form on his tawny skin. He stood behind the hut that Astraea had called home for so long. He entered the curtained door, looking around the mess of a Witches’ hut before he found the scarf that Astraea has hid behind for so many years.

He took a deep breath and walked through another doorway, leading into her personal quarters. Her bedroom no longer looked dark and dusty. Her green walls seemed to shimmer with a sudden vibrance, the plants that had once looked dead hanging on her ceiling was once more vibrant, the smells of Lavender, verbena, holly, and cinnamon in the air. He walked past her violet covered bed, still slightly undone as it always was, to the open-air bath, different colored candles lit around the granite that made her bath, purple flowers swimming on the water. Tariq felt his breath catch as she rose up from the water, her hair no longer silver but the dark violet color he had so loved, her silvery eyes met his, as her smile transformed her face. The crescent moons that had lined her forehead finally gone as if they had never been. 

She raised her arms to him. “My love.” 

Tariq bent down allowing her touch as his head bent down to her neck breathing in her lovely scent and proving to them both that the curse was done as their skin touched. He sat on his knees facing her, before he smiled himself, his hands caressing her cheek, and neck in the way he never could before. “My love. My wife.” He murmured leaning over the bath to lay his lips on hers, at first softly, then deeper as Astraea bit lightly down on his bottom lip. She pulled off his shirt, as he yanked off his pants, the water sloshing past the rim as he joined her in the water, his muscles clenching as he leaned over her, before she jumped on top of him straddling his hips and throwing him down on the other side of the bath, her hand moving to the back of his head before it could touch the granite as she ground down on him, his breath catching as he grabbed her hips, straightening her before they both sunk into each other tears forming in their eyes, down their cheeks as they finally had each other in the way they had before the curse. 

Far away from their lovemaking Yama scorched Thaddeus’s arm. Removing his emblem as a punisher. “So, this is to be my fate.” Thaddeus murmured. 

“You gave the curse your sister once had onto another innocent soul. Punishing is not a gig that is made to last forever.” Yama murmured. 

Thaddeus’s eyes burned with the thought of his sister. “Perhaps I was overly harsh.” He murmured. 

“Perhaps your time here is done.” Agni murmured. 

“Where do I go next, back to the hell realm that banished me? Or that mortal place they think I still reside.” Thaddeus asked. 

Agni glanced at Yama who nodded before he left them both. “Your sister was your greatest love. You still love her as you should, but she didn’t leave the mortal plain completely. Her soul still resides in the locket you once gave her, along with what remains of your family’s magic. Along with your niece.” 
Thaddeus’s head snapped up in shock. “My niece?” he asked. 

“She is as stubborn as her Mother, her power the act of Nature’s rage. She will need you, in fact you both will need each other in the future.” Agni murmured, touching Thaddeus’s chin, a suit of dark black covering him, leather loafers on his feet. The scars that he’d bled from Tariq’s blades healing as if they’d never been there. 
“Do you know where to start?” she asked. 

Thaddeus smiled. “No doubt in the last place either of us should find the other.” 

Agni smiled as he disappeared, from one blink to the next. She walked away from the wreckage of their fight, back to where she was needed.