Everything seems so strange, out of place, lost, and cold. There's an unknown vacancy, not blissful, but wretched and defiling. It is a delusional aspect that is overcoming, taking over, torturing me. The 12 plagues condemning my soul...

            These thoughts slammed into the mind of Delilah Rousseau, of Daniel's Queen of the South. There were moments of endless pain, endless suffering, and then there were moments when it was short. It had happened so quickly...so effortlessly... Though being distracted by Augustus' part of the ceremony...it seemed too perfect. When her pager had sounded, she was infuriated, vile, angry, so angry that a seething hatred spread throughout her, though she had no choice but to go. Very few had access to her pagers. So when Romulisk attacked her into his shimmer, no less a sign that he was too cowardly to fight before the others, she'd been unprepared...

            What happened after being taken via bubble, she would hope to never recall. At first...the pain was nothing. It was sufferable. Moments later though... Everything hit undoubtedly at once. The first of the 13 plagues slammed into her body, devouring her inner body. Her flesh was on fire, being eaten inside out. There was internally, a feeling penetrating her mind, jabbing into it, ripping her mind apart piece by piece. Then there was the flaming damnable feeling rippling through her body, starting at her fingers and edging along her skin. Even for awhile...she felt her heart beating. However, this pain was far worse...she was dead. She had died, but moments later she was alive again, perfectly fine.  

            However, Delilah's 'fine' aspect would quickly grow to haunt her as a pain far worse penetrated her body and gave her a cause to scream. She could only keep her mental barriers up for so long before they'd come crashing down. She only had so much strength before her armor would fade away. When getting close enough, she'd spit in Rom's face, causing him to hiss and curl in distress. These moments, the moments she felt nothing...lasted mere seconds. Slamming into her even worse, was another round of maggots eating her insides, burying themselves within her flesh and suckling her skin and bone, blood and ligaments. They'd internally eat her, gnaw at her brain. Then this too...would stop. At these stopping moments...she'd hum a lullaby...one she'd sing for Elexia, one that had been sung to her...

A la nanita nana, nanita ella, nanita ella
Mi Nina tiene sueno bendito sea, bendito sea
A la nanita nana, nanita ella, nanita ella
Mi Nina tiene sueno bendito sea, bendito sea
Fuentecita que corre clara y sonora
Ruisenor que en la selva cantando llora
Calla mientras la cuna se balansea
A la nanita nana, nanita ella

            Again and again Delilah would come close to death, repetitive steps taken. Each time, each of the 12 plagues was far worse than the last. It was to the point she was clawing her own skin, scratching, causing herself to bleed. Once her armor went down, she was exposed before Romulus and completely at his mercy. Her eyes were red, crimson, bloody red... There were tears ripping from them, streaming. Black blood poured from her eyes mixed with the silver within it. She was shaking, convulsing, falling surrender to the endless torture that corrupted her mind. It was shattering her, breaking her, rendering her completely useless. Had she thought Augustus' blood magics burned her, she had been mistaken. The pain now was uncomparable to anything. There were times she didn't even think she was living, times she thought she was in hell...

            Her eyes would shut, body curling into itself. The blood would pour on the ground beneath her, pool out onto it. Everything that hit her, striking at once, would bring another scream, another peel of agony trembling from her body. Had she known this would happen, she would've at least struck a hand against Nelly, but she couldn't. She wouldn't. Her orders were to protect the purple demoness at all costs. She had even given the woman Romulus' old engagement ring. Mentally, she was screaming for Augustus, mentally she was doing everything she could to reach him, to let him know she was at least...alive. Yet she certainly didn't feel that way.

            However, there were barriers, restrictions, keeping her from reaching the one she desperately needed. And that's what tore her apart the most. The pain, she could live through...she could live with that, and suffer it happily so. If it had meant she was was with him. But instead, she was cut off from that one thing keeping her sane. And she couldn't handle that, couldn't fathom it. It was on the last plague that a blood curdling scream erupted from her lips, a cry as the last of her sanity ripped from her. Strung out across time, thinking herself dead, finding herself unable to even see her captor, unable to listen to his voice without it shaking her existence and wishing herself dead. 

            Delilah...Delilah...come home, come home. Come back to me my beloved, and return to our home... Back to our family, I am here, come back to me my darling, I am your protection, my love do not fear...

Come vorrei stare qui con te 
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Sempre così 
Solo con te...Augustus