“Well,” Celeste started, looking down at Marin with an awkward grimace.“It depends.”
“On what?!” Blake demanded.“Celeste, thisis not the time to be cagey.”
Marin frowned at Celeste.“I really think you should cut to the chase.”
“Okay so.”Celeste glanced off to the side, looking repentant for the first time that night.“There are three requirements in total.The first is to fulfill their dying wish; the second is to return them to the place where they died.And the third is.Uh.”
Celeste hesitated, glancing between Marin and Blake.
“The third?”Marin prompted.
Celeste closed their eyes and cleared their throat.“Blake has to prove he’s worthy of your love.”
“Well damn,” Marin marveled.“That’s kind of a lot.”
“Worthy of his—?!”Blake sputtered, his face reaching nuclear temperatures.“How do you evenmeasurethat?!And you still haven’t told us what will happen if I can’t meet the requirements!”
“Well.”Celeste was now glancing all around the pool, appearing like they wanted to look at anything other than Marin or Blake.They cleared their throat.“He’ll… kind of.Die.Again.”
Blake stared at them, expression blank.
“Die?”he echoed, voice hoarse.
“Yeah, he’ll die!”Celeste heaved an exasperated sigh, liketheywere the one suddenly caught up in a life-or-death situation.“If you don’t fulfill the three requirements, then he’ll die!”
Blake stared.
“What do you mean by ‘again’?”Marin asked, filling the pregnant silence.He was still acting bizarrely calm given the gravity of the position he had found himself in.
As much as Blake wanted to explain, or even to comfort Marin, he found himself unable to move, still attempting to process the word “die”.
Celeste made a great show of flapping their arms while they struggled to elaborate, as if it would help the situation at hand.
“You know, like ‘The Little Mermaid’?The Hans Christian Andersen queer-coded original version—not that animated Disney shit.When she can’t get the prince to fall in love with her, instead of becoming the Sea Witch’s slave, the mermaid kind of, well…” they cleared their throat.“Dies and turns into bubbles?”
“Great.That’s—” Blake covered his face with his hands.Nowhecouldn’t look at Marin.“That’s really goddamn perfect.Thanks Celeste.”
Despite his struggle, Blake turned his attention back onto Marin.Biting his lip, he crouched back down into the pool, kneeling beside him in the water.“A-are you okay?That… that must be a lot to digest.”
“I’m fine,” Marin insisted, shooting Blake a brief smile that was almost chilling in its serenity.“I’m more interested in what this one meant by die ‘again’.”
Celeste began to explain: “You’re a pygmalion.To put it bluntly, that means that you were a living person who died and was trapped in this figurehead and—and don’tlook at me like thatBlake!”They huffed, returning Blake’s glare with one of their own.“I didn’t write the rules of the universe.”
“No, you justtricked me intoputting this person’s life at stake,” Blake retorted, gesturing at Marin.“Where did you evengetthis four-day rule?”
“Ugh, read this,” Celeste was already fiddling with their phone, corralling it into Blake’s hands.“It’ll probably enlighten you both.”
On the screen was a blurry picture of a vase, a calligraphy inscription emblazoned into the porcelain.It took a few attempts to discern the poem, but he was eventually able to read out loud:
“Read this verse
And read it well
It speaks of the curse
Of the pygmalion spell
Awaken her with but a kiss
