Post by 𝘨𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘶𝘯 on Oct 10, 2016 13:05:19 GMT -5
angel wings
The darkest set was the oldest.
Acquiring the set of brown, speckled wings had been but an accident. At least, if murder could be considered simple chance. He’d just been hoping for a good meal, and she’d been available. She’d been perfect.
Naberius reminisced over that first night more often than any other since. He’d wandered cobbled streets, lit only by the cold light given off by the street lights that lined them. He’d been confused. So, so confused. He remembered the way he’d slouched as he tumbled from side to side, the way he tripped over his own feet. He sneered at the memory. A mindless drunk, the onlookers would have thought. Just someone who decided that getting wasted on a Tuesday sounded like a good idea. Little did they know who he was. What he was.
The moon had been new, so new that the tiny sliver of silver in the sky was drowned out by city lights. And the streets were quiet. It was almost midnight, so anyone with a good head on their shoulders was in their bed already, snoring the night away. The few who remained outside kept to themselves, so the street was covered in a blanket of silence. It seemed almost dead.
In his foggy state, he’d almost missed her, despite the quality of death that everything around her held. If she’d been human, he would have never noticed her. But, as luck would have it, she wasn’t. Instead of walking past her as if she was no more than a ghost, his stomach had given a growl like that from an angered beast. He was starving, he’d realised, nothing but an empty husk and his body was demanding something to fill him again.
What he didn’t remember was following her. Even after years of trying, he’d never been able to reach a conclusion as to which exact streets he’d walked down to corner the woman. From the moment she’d intruded on his limited attention, she’d been all he could see. Her hair and her inhuman glow and her wings.
Naberius reached back to touch his own, coal black wings. They were the wings of a raven. Hers had been the wings of a thrush.
He remembered two things from that night. He knew how he’d felt. So confused, beyond anything, for he didn’t know anything. Not his name, not where he came from, not if he were even alive or just a ghost, wandering streets he should know but didn’t. He remembered the way his vision swam when he moved, and how he couldn’t stop swaying. And he remembered that nausea, pressing down on him from all directions. He hated knowing how weak he’d been.
But he relished in recalling how easily he’d overpowered the young girl who’d first woken him from his trance. Even in his mindlessness, it had taken only seconds. Seconds to get her down onto the ground, and then moments before she was bleeding golden ichor onto the pavement below her.
He’d eaten like the dog he was. Tearing into flesh and drinking ichor as if his life depended on it. It had. In the end, he’d been left with nothing but a set of wings. Dark brown and massive, spread out beneath him on the ground. They were beautiful, Naberius had thought.
Before he’d had a home, he’d had those angel wings. And now that he did, they were first among many.
He’d never stumbled across an angel since that first day. It was no accident, but he didn’t care. If he was here on earth to be the devil’s hunt dog, so be it. He enjoyed it far too much to bother with why,
Naberius sighed, drawing his hand along the feathers. He continued down the wall, strolling lazily. It was covered in wings and stories. With each new pair he touched, something sprung to the front of his mind. Sometimes it wasn’t much, maybe a name or a set of golden eyes with pupils blown wide in fear. Other times it was an entire hunt.
The wings got lighter and lighter in hue as he walked. He could pinpoint at exactly which set he’d decided to stop wasting his time on angels that meant nothing to anyone and moved on to those with purer wings. He knew everything about his spoils. He knew who’s ichor stained them, he knew the body that had once worn them. He could tell you the date they’d been retrieved, and at what price.
But more than anything, he knew that they were spoils of a war he’d been forced to become a part of. But he also knew that he was no soldier. He had no commander, no general or army.
He was nothing but a demon, drinking heaven’s blood and keeping wings that had seen paradise as trophies.