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Battler's wings had always been breathtaking: ever since he was young, he had gone around showing off crimson feathers with splashes of gold, laughing as he flapped them. They were too small to take him anywhere, but he was boastful regardless. He even told his childhood crush that he would take her in his arms and carry her, his wings powerful enough to lift them both. She had nodded: her own wings were frail little appendages, the dark brown feathers dull and easy to look over. She'd bought his boasting easily.
Most people would look at his wings - huge, vibrant things that could take up half a room if fully extended - and talk about how Battler had so much potential, or, if it was family, how much he'd grown. If they didn't speak of it, their eyes would still linger over his wings. He could tell when it was more desire than curiosity, especially when their fingers would twitch with aborted attempts to touch. An accidental brush was fair, but people would often make it more than that. It was… probably meant to be flattering. Battler hated it. He wanted to be looked at, yes, but… not like that.
Every human had wings, but not everyone's wings were the same. Some humans had small wings incapable of flight, while others had wings they could take to the skies with. Some had feathers that shone, and others had dull colors. The rules were the same for everyone: not to touch, not to stare. Wings were personal, and sensitive besides that. No one should be judged based on appearances, either. …So of course, everyone was.
People with strong or beautiful wings were admirable. People with ‘merely’ beautiful wings were trophies. And people with neither… were forgettable, disposable. Made less important by such a meaningless part of their birth. It was frustrating in a way Battler didn't know how to give a name to. And yet, when people would make such comments, Battler would bite the inside of his cheek. He would swallow his words, his wings properly folded up. Even then, with their large size and distinct color, no one would ever think he was a target of their cruelty.
He was so used to being judged based on his wings that it was the third thing he noticed about Beatrice: she didn't even glance at his wings
The second thing he noticed was that Beatrice was beautiful: she had blue eyes with more shine than any jewel, red lips pressed into a cruel smirk, and a proud boastfulness to her posture. Her blonde hair with a few strands kept loose was tempting: he wanted to tuck them into her bun, to feel the softness of the locks. Much of her figure was hidden by her dress, but she did have sizable breasts that he glanced over. And, of course, there was the rich, amused cackling, a portent of a lovely voice and a haughty owner of it. She was alluring to him, her very appearance seizing his heart without warning. Some deep part of him was telling him to embrace her, to love her, to fall to his knees in supplication.
The first thing he noticed was that Beatrice had no wings. She wasn't human, he had known that - but no wings…
Battler had heard of humans who had been born with wings that were different: wings that were so small that they could be hidden underneath clothing, wing-slits sewn or zipped up completely. However, Beatrice’s backless dress allowed no room for doubt. There were no hidden wings, nor were there scars from wings cut away. She was a witch; witches, he would come to learn, did not have wings. Witches needed only magic and a broomstick to fly.
And yet, when he embraced her at the end, as he promised to kill her, as his hand traced over the smooth expanse of her back, a taboo - she trembled slightly. As though, even though Beatrice was a witch… there was something sickening about that place, where her wings should have been, if she had been human.
Wings weren’t easily made sensitive, but they were still body parts not given to casual touch; they were for family and lovers and perhaps close friends. Battler had told Beatrice that he would make her clean his wings every day for the rest of her stupid, eternal witch life. …Maybe even a wingless witch had understood the latent desire in that declaration, which even he hadn't understood.
He had dared to trail his hand along her back when she had become a doll; it had made her lips twitch, as if yearning to speak, and nothing more. Virgilia would sadly shake her head.
“That child wishes to have wings, Battler-kun,” she told him quietly, once. It wasn't spoken with red, but he had understood it to be truth, stained as it was by the sorrow in her voice and eyes.
He had frowned, thoughtful. “Witches don't need wings though, right?”
Even Lambdadelta and Bernkastel lacked wings, which furniture like the Stakes and Erika possessed. Witches were so far above humans that they didn't need such indications of the ability for flight, or the possession of power.
“...They don't.” Virgilia’s own back was bereft of wings.
However, when Battler had understood everything, becoming a sorcerer himself, he did not shed his wings. Amongst witches, it was not that they did not have wings: it was that they were discarded and hidden and cut away. Witches were born from cages and locked rooms and logic errors and eternal hells. Witches, who had escaped those places, had lost the ability to fly. They had lost a desire to wear their hearts as wings, and thus did so no longer.
However, Battler had not lost his desire to soar and to show himself honestly. He had not become a witch like that, but one with a kinder heart. And yet, knowing the truth of witches’ wings, when he tried to revive Beatrice, he already knew that she was not the one he had known and loved. That ‘chick’ Beatrice had small wings with bright blue feathers that matched the color of her sky-blue and innocent eyes. He tried in vain to pretend that perhaps it was mistaken, that it was truly her - but there was no pretending once she had awoken.
Battler was reminded every time he saw her that the Beatrice he knew was long gone, never to return, because of him. Perhaps, if things worked as he wished, a miracle would occur and she could return. A miracle beyond the red, delving into the impossible golden truth.
The piece that formed at a moment's thought was a wingless, sneering Beatrice who laughed at him.
“Did you think she could be me, Battler? Did you dare to think that I might show you my wings, the shameful secret of a witch?” She cackled until her throat went hoarse and silence reigned.
Battler could only shake his head. There was no point speaking with an empty piece that spoke only his thoughts. It was nothing more than a mocking mimicry of his fierce debates with her. …He knew what her human vessel's wings looked like. And that child's wings were nothing like that…
He held steadfast to his wish no matter how Erika taunted him, no matter the humiliation of the logic error. He held steadfast, even as he sat in the tub, holding that small knife. If he just cut off his wings, sliced off his flesh piece by piece… he could escape. And yet, he remembered the image of that witch. She had believed herself to be imprisoned and flightless, but she had not backed down. Until the end, she had faced it with dignity. And then, when she had finally given up, he had finally reached the truth. If Beatrice did someday come for him… he did not wish for her to weep over what little would remain of him. He would not cut off his wings; he would not surrender his hopes of freedom.
When he rushed back, freed by Kanon, the first thing he saw was not Erika on the defensive, or even Beatrice's triumphant smirk. It was… one golden wing, which stretched out across the cathedral… attached to that frail back.
The Beatrice he had revived was no longer a witch that had given up on freedom and flight and her own heart. She was a witch with a wing that would take her wherever she desired.
Together, they pulled the trigger to end the sixth game. Together, they held the final game for Ange. Together, they sunk into the ocean, alongside that cat box filled with such a small, precious story.
Red and gold wings brushed against each other. He didn't need to carry her anywhere so that she could take flight, as he had once promised. Instead, better than all his dreams, they flew together, beyond the gameboard, and behind the curtains. To the horizon of a story that only they could share, and only their wings could reach.