Chapter Text
One from a theist rejected by heaven
One from a broken boy-king
One from a puppet pirouetted by Pain
Sometimes the soul sheds some of its layers. A sheaf of glittering light dimming and falling away with the whisper of beating wings and a soft exhale. Simply and slowly becoming nothing but the Past. Leaving behind a little bit more emptiness; an emptiness ready to be filled with the heavy things like corruption or sorrow. A quiet nostalgia of a time that was, or a future that might have been. A dove falling to the ground with red pluming from its breast. Blood trickling and soaked up by the greedy earth and the roots of plants and gradually separated into nothing; and the corpse decaying and turning to grey dust that peppers the ground and sweeps into the wind. Until nothing and no-one remembers the dove—the pretty little broken thing on the ground with its remorse-choked grief and silent pleading. The softness of the soul fades, replaced with twisting scars and rough calluses, thickening day by day until they forget that gentleness and innocence. Those layers of dove-feathers staining russet-red with blood-stained knives.