Her skin softly prickled at the almost unexpectedly delicate touch of her metal fingers as they brushed across the faintly flushed heat of her cheek… she felt a slight tremble take up in her body at being so close to her… and an almost reverent appreciation for the fineness of her caress, she had long stopped thinking of her as a mere weapon of war, to her she seemed to resonate with a purity, a clarity that she knew was forever out of her grasp but took solace by her presence.<br/><br/>She watched her closely and delicately accepted the storage device and for a moment held it to her eyes and felt a little moistness within them… perhaps she was taken once more with the irrational shadows of a purely rational act.  In the vagaries of her life before she had heard the phrase often softly spoken by lovers ensconced… and even within the tempest of the stream, emotions other that pain would filter through…<br/><em>…I give you my heart…</em>a phrase that briefly flared across her soothed mind…<br/><br/>Corrine felt herself wince as she spoke further …<em> destroyed….</em>the thought of it now was unpalatable, in spite of the knowledge that new ‘host’ body could be found easily enough and that everything she was could be downloaded and reintegrated into her, the very thought of Elohim being destroyed was almost too much for her. She silently worded a promise to herself and looked up to her … “You have my promise that I will keep you safe…”<br/><br/>She turned as she slowly returned to the alter… she reached out and touched her fingers against the silent rock, at peace from the blood sacrifice… her eyes flickered closed as she reached her out with her mind, feeling the age old silicates shift and reform at her will… a portion of the rock phased out of line with the rest and she reached inside the hidden chamber that it had revealed… pulling from it a small sturdy chest.  Her fingers embraced the aged wood with a degree of sadness and she felt the pain wash over her as she pulled it free and stood up, placing the box on top of the alter.  Corrine’s mind reached out and disengaged the lock… the lid flicked open and her fingers gently brushed the object within… with a flicker of a tear in her eye she placed the storage unit next to it and flipped the lid back down… she turned to Elohim and smiled softly…”Your ‘heart’ with be safe… next to mine…” she returned the box into the hidden recess of the alter and felt the rock reform as she withdrew her fingers…<br/><br/>She pulled herself to her full height and slipped the dark weapon back into its sheath and fastened the jacket across her bloodied pale breasts before returning to Elohim, her eyes were drawn by the faint smear of her own blood from where there bodies has pressed together, Corrine bought her own finger to the cool refined crafting of her breast and repeated the actions the doll had shortly before… her finger trailed across the line of crimson, pooling a little at her fingertip as she bought if from her soft body and bought it too her lips… Corrine’s eye’s never once left Elohim’s as her tongue glided across her bloodied digit and drew in her own blood, its metallic tang flooding her as its scent had earlier… she smiled as she withdrew her finger from her lips, the soft flicker of the candle light dancing across them both in a mosaic of fire and shadows… “A blood bond before the tides of war…”<br/>