Chapter Text
he’s new to his job. he’s new to this world of black and white. yet he does not remember a world full of grays. of blues and yellows and reds and greens and oranges and purples. there is no warmth in his new world. justice is cold, and above all, unyielding.
blood may be warm as it leaves the body, but not for long. after a while, it became sticky. and then hard. atticus knows. atticus knows because he holds his victims as they take their last breath. every single time. every time, it hurts to carry them to their final resting place. it hurts to separate their tacky blood from his chest, his wings, his pants. it hurts.
maybe, long ago, atticus wished to fly. to be free. unbound by mortal laws of gravity and the wishes of others. if he still had a sense of humor, he’d see the irony. now he cannot see anything at all.
sometimes, he sees children playing at kings and knights. he sees paper rings acting as crowns and sticks they wield as swords. he has his own crown of sorts now. although his horns, permanently attached, hurt when they erupted from his head. the crown is heavy weight to bear indeed.
there was a girl once. she was young. atticus is ageless, twenty and thousand at the same time. this girl had gone against the natural order. her death was painless. atticus knows she had to die. he knows he knows he knows he knows he knows. he knows, and yet, somewhere thousands of miles away, a bell rings.