Chapter Text
After the ritual concluded Vindicta felt empty. Not numb, more worn out and emotionally tired. She rarely killed those who are not a part of the Friends of Humanity, but she had been required to during the event. It wasn’t hard. Just different. She had to focus her rage against Hawthorne and his descendants at people who were not that. She needed a second to recalibrate her vengeful mind. She was sitting on the edge of an apartment building rooftop staring down at the world below. The lip of the building was made of concrete and had been shaped into an ornate pattern that bit into Vindicta’s spectral palms. She was kicking her blue feet back and forth absently feeling the wind. Her crow stood on her shoulder nestled into her neck and hair. Wallflower’s Revenge rested next to her. It wasn't forgotten, only set aside so she could step out of her anger for a moment. She wanted to think and analyze her actions during the ritual. It had been mere minutes since its conclusion and people had already begun to filter back into the streets she had just been fighting in. The ones she saw were mostly from the building she sat atop. The sky was still dark as it had been during the fighting, though she could see just the hint of the coming dawn on the far horizon. New York was always beautiful at this hour, where there were not enough people about for the noise of the city to overwhelm her, but the urban sounds still were there. She had grown up in such an isolated place, so far from civilization, that the novelty of being in a big city was still fresh in her mind. Even though she had been here for years. She was in love with the city, as much as she hated to admit she felt anything other than vengeance.
“You're blue! That's my favorite color.” Vindicta stood abruptly. Grabbing her rifle she searched for the source of the voice.
“Hello? Show yourself!” She called as she stepped into a more defensive stance moving towards the center of the building with careful footsteps. She had her gun loaded and at the ready.
“I’m down here!” The small voice called. Something brushed past the hem of her dress.
She jumped back firing a shot into the concrete lip of the building's roof where the sensation had come from. She was still a little nervous from the number of times she had been jumped by the opposing force during the ritual. The shot was clean going through the square of fabric that had landed on the apartment building.
“NO!!!! MY PILLOW!!!!!!” A small black creature hung off the edge of the apartment building staring at the throw pillow that lay on the roof where Vindicta had just been sitting. “How could you!” The creature looked like it might cry as it scrambled over to the ruined cushion, “Now there's a hole in my pillow.” It glared at Vindicta accusingly. She had seen the being before, during the ritual that had just completed. It had stolen so many souls from the Sinner's Sacrifices Vindicta had started to believe that was its only purpose in life. The Patrons had even awarded it a crest to denote that it was the participant who collected the most souls in the ritual. The creature displayed it proudly on its little button down shirt. Vindicta had gotten the crest for most kills. She opted not to wear hers. The crow on Vindicta’s shoulder shifted its weight from one claw to the other glancing between the two beings with confusion.
“What are you?” Vindicta’s voice came out drawn slow with surprise and questions.
“I dunno, what are you?” The creature replied. It’s voice was similar to a chirping bird, and came out sounding happy.
The small being had seemingly forgotten its pillow for the moment, though the small puffballs of fuzz that followed it did not. One came over to Vindicta squeaking with as much wrath as its tiny body could muster. Vindicta ignored it and focused on answering the creature's reply.
“I was a victim of John Hawthorn’s vile crusade against witches. Now I hunt his descendants so that atrocity will never have the chance to happen again.” It was her standard reply whenever people wanted an explanation of who she was.
“Oh… So you're a witch?” The tassel at the top of the small creature’s hat bounced as it flapped its small wing-like arms excitedly. “Can you cast spells! Or fly on a broom!” The bird-things already wide eyes grew even wider. Vidicta started to worry that there might be too much eyes and not enough brains.
“No, I am not a witch, witches are people, they have the ability to care. I have nothing.” She said while glancing diagonally down at the fuzzball still running around her feet. She tried to keep the bitterness of the truth out of her words. It still seeped in like a bloodstain on white linen.
“Well that’s not true, you have a really pretty bow!” The creature looked up at her, and opened its beak in a way that implied a smile. Vindicta laughed with chilled humor. Her bow was part of what she had been wearing when she was hung. She found it hard to call any of her clothes her things.
“You act like a child.”
“Well that's cause imma kid.”
“I just watched you kill a man with your pillow no more than 15 minutes ago.”
“He’s just sleeping.”
Vindicta opted not to explain the difference between death and sleeping to the apparent child. How had she interacted with her younger siblings before her unfounded execution? She couldn't quite remember any more. Her happy memories had been part of her that she had to excise to make more room for her revenge filled quest.
“Well, I must be off, the Friends of Humanity are not going to kill themselves.” A blatant attempt to extricate herself from a situation she did not want to deal with.
“My mom said killing people is bad.”
Vindicta was about to leap into the air to fly to a different roof but she paused at the comment. She spent a moment thinking. Finally she said, “Killing good people is bad, but exceptions must be made for bad people.”
“How do you tell the difference?”
Vindicta paused again. She had never had to consider if the people she killed were good or bad. They were the Friends of Humanity. The Friends of Humanity were bad, so everyone who worked for them was bad, “I suppose if they work for a bad cause they are bad. It is the duty of good people to kill them.”
“What about my kinda mom?”
“Wh-What?”
“Well is she bad or good?”
“Does she work for a bad cause?”
“She works for the ohh see ess see.”
“Do you mean the OSIC?”
“Yeah! She works for those people.”
“Then she–” Vindicta’s voice stopped in her throat, she couldn't tell this kid that its mother was bad, just because she worked for the OSIC. Sure Vindicta didn’t trust the government, but a child deserves to have the ability to trust their parents. “She’s… She is likely a very complex woman.” That would suffice for now.