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starbird doomed fic...
soft wind blowing gently through his forever tamed hair. weaving through every bristle of each feather endowed upon his wings. was this a breeze, or just another illusion of this realm?
Atari feared he would never know.
roaming endlessly through the white, almost luminescent plane. fog was a constant here. he could never see too far ahead of him. not that he needed to--he did nothing but wander, trying not to descend into the constant puddle that seemed to stretch the vast, neverending ground of this world.
Atari was doomed to forever be astray amongst his own hellscape. he was the starboy, after all.
arcus was his so called mentor's name. the god of the stars, exiled to the same realm Atari now traversed for what he could only imagine was days, if not months, or even years. he was never sure. he had no way to tell how long he had been trapped here just as Arcus once was.
the story of arcus' descent to madness seemed to haunt Atari in every step he took. surely even a monster like him was better than even arcus, yes? the most renowned sinner of all of eskas, fabled to kill his prey just to find amusement out of watching it decay into fractured bones? surely Atari had not found himself stooping that low?
but Atari had come to terms, whether he wanted to or not, that he had. he was just as unfathomably heartless as all those who had come before him. if it was not his own mind torturing him, it was the souls, hundreds of thousands, that he had damned to suffering that may just be worse than his own. souls captured in the machinery, forever bound to be shredded and remolded until the end of the time.
but Atari did not pity them. he was unsure if he even felt any sense of remorse.
he only authorized such experimentation on civilians for the better of innovation. he had only stained his mangled hands with blood for the sake of good. or thats what he tried to tell himself. but when one is granted until the dusk of time to contemplate their own sins, its eventually just a given that one day, you will inevitably face the truth.
Atari was not a good man. nobody knew if he was even ever a man at all, rather than some mutated beast born of the hellfire of a world beyond the one he remembered oh so clearly.
if he was a good man, he would be able to erase the pure, unadulterated sin that stained what little of a soul he had left. the chains, or whatever sensation of them branding into every inch of his flesh he felt, were just proof of such. even if he were ever able to flee this damned, unmerciful expanse, be freed of the chains that weighed him until he dragged, the scars they leave would never heal. even if the feathers on his wings refreshed after hundreds of years, not a single original left, the same painful black score marks across them would be there, always and forever.
a constant reminder that Atari had done this to himself. he bathed in sin and let it sink in until it finally came to swallow him whole and rip him away from any sense of love, ever again.
he thought of love often. how could he not? he had all the time in the world to rethink every little decision he had ever done wrong. like how in the final moments, where he was pathetically trying to cradle crow's head to his chest, even as blood slicked his armor, he did not say anything.
he did not apologize for the stone cold heart of his. he did not thank him for the undying love he seemed to constantly profess to Atari.
and worst of all?
Atari had never told crow he loved him.
even now, he wasn't entirely sure if the words were true. he was well aware that he could not harbor such feelings--any capability of it was wiped out, ripped out of his soul and forged in heat to grant him the 'gift' of flightless wings. but something of crow, the way he would always be there to ensure his safety, wellbeing, health, all in a way that nobody else dared to care about... it made Atari care too. and for the first time, he cared about someone other than himself and his own selfish goals.
crow was the one bind, the one tie that could drag him back out of his own megalomanic headspaces, pull him back from the edge and restore some sense to him. and Atari never got the chance to finally confess his appreciation for all crow had ever done for him. for how crow had loved him.
the chains seemed to burn a bit hotter, constrict his ribs a little more when he thought about crow. the pain, however, was a very much welcome one. pain was the only sensation he could necessarily feel in this realm that seemed to actually wake him up from his hazy daydreams of a world where he would ever get the chance to see crow again.
in a world of such agony, pain was atari's sole friend. it was the reason he snagged his claws against his skin until the wounds glowed a soft white and returned to being free of any evidence he even attempted to mutilate himself again. it was the reason he would finally allow himself to scratch the itch after years of crow softly soothing him into stopping.
atari's mind had often become a whirlwind, a jumbled, stirred up mess consisting purely of overanalyzation of the past, small things about crow, and pain. all had become a constant in this bleak realm. he couldn't stand the repetition.
day after day, if he could even distinguish the concept of time anymore, he wandered. a lost soul forever.
doomed to think for eternity of the one kindred soul who could even consider loving him, chained too far to ever reunite.