Cera
_{I'm an angel with a shotgun, fighting till the war's won, and I don't care if heaven won't take me back}

The world was still.

Oh...

so...

still.

Long legs pace the earth weakly, restlessly. Knees quake, tremble like an earthquake has seized them and dances within and upon the ligaments that keep an athletic frame standing strong. But strong it is no longer, instead drooped and dragging like a broken-winged sparrow instead of the proud golden eagle he had once been. Toe tips drag in the crimson sand, still thick with clumps of vegetation that duplicates with every tripled stride leading out of the desert he knows as home. Safety. Comfort. It is no longer any of those things. Midas had disappeared, and when Cera had returned what did he hear upon the wind? Midas, the Sultan, had returned. Something bitter and evil twisted in the youth's soul, remembering a face of black; instead of soft with love, it had been hard with anger and hatred. Golden eyes were flinty and sharp instead of viscous and wise. Better than his memory has ever served him by the Gods he remembers! He remembers the way crimson had stained the pale snow of his father-not-father's coat, how he had been the one to put it there! His own body is sore, aching, crying at him because he is a damned child. Cursed blot upon the existence of the blessed angels of the desert. Who knows his name, aside from his title as son of the revered General? His own people saw more of his father than Cera did.

The sun is just peaking, a few hours before the midway mark, and it scalds his skin though he knows he is not burning. Sandy patches have paled into near nothingness with the fervent rays of tallsun, fading him into an angelic buttermilk. As he ages and grows, his downy caramel feathers shed, and in their place luminescent silver and ivory grow in place. He is growing up. Somehow, this wasn't what he had been expecting. Upon his spine, a crimson companion peers with worried forest eyes at her brother, her son, her lover and prince. He is her all, as she is his. There is no category to define their relationship, no boundary unable to be overcome by the trust and love that solidifies their minds into a singular being. Today, she cannot peer into the depths of his mind. It is a sealed fortress, a tempest in a teapot, and she fears that when the delicate china breaks, his mind will go with it.

Dead. Midas' duplicate was no more, slain, and by whom? Why, the youth who loved and idolized that very warrior. In those last few moments, blood bubbling from the doppel's throat as he choked on his own tainted life in a world he did not belong, Cera had seen only gratitude. In those moments he had seen not the evil being that had imitated his father's soul, but the loving patron who had taken him beneath wing years ago. Fine jaw worked itself into a tighter lock, emerald eyes haunted and shadowed. Ivory wings hung low, the tips digging parallel trenches to the ones already being created by his dragging hooves.

How could the sun turn him so perfectly white, a color of purity, when his skin was burned and seared with the incriminating evidence of his evil deed? Not all belonged to the seasoned warrior who lay dead in the shadowed forest that, in a sick act of karma, had once nearly taken his own life as a child. The demonic, misplaced soul had been skilled. Had he not been sickened, Cera doubted he could have come out triumphant. Matching the scar upon his breast, he had fresh wounds upon his bodice, the most brutal being a sick gaping hole upon the arch of his neck where vengeful teeth had clamped in and come away with more than intended. A wicked scrape spiderwebbed along his right flank, and his left hind leg was drenched in his own blackening blood, freshened with new crimson with every limping step. Down the length of it, an open wound lay, but he would not allow Ilaria to utilize her godly gifts to heal him. These were only a partial punishment, and he would take their agony, because damn it he deserved it. He had murdered a sick and dying soul, no matter how tainted, and for that he deserved to burn slowly in Helovia's Heart for the rest of eternity, like some sick pyro-romanticized version of Prometheus.

The blood of another is thick, congealed and heavy upon his skin, restricting a wide range of motion as it hardens beneath the sun faster than normal. Black and crimson and blue, he is a fallen angel, and likely looks like hell itself. Would the wrong-dimension Midas be proud? Was he no longer the weak, scrawny youth that he had degraded so thoroughly upon their first meeting? He certainly felt broken enough to feel changed.

It is not far past the wall, and he can walk no longer. Cera's leg had long gone numb, but the wound upon his flank was not worked as much as a leg, and still throbbed and dribbled blood with every step. A bitter laugh escaped the young killer's lips, emeralds dead in his skull, mane and tail matted with blood; now wasn't that some sort of sick, twisted version of Hansel and Gretel? His blood would be the bread crumbs, but nobody wanted what lay at the end of the trail. Cera saw that now. He was not worthy of being the son of Midas, what had ever made him think he was? He was no son of a God. He was no shockingly beautiful, forever gifted daughter of two rulers. He was no Chief or Chieftess, no Sultan, nothing more but a mere pupil. He was nothing. A failure, a disappointment, a burden.

Throat clogged with emotion, choking, and when he coughs it only wracks his small body. Small; small like his existence, his importance, his usefulness. He can walk no further. Instead he stands, refusing to grant himself the reprieve that would come from crumpling to the sand. Cera did not deserve such a comfort. Ilaria feared climbing from his spine to the earth below, not wanting to aggravate or worsen his wounds, not wanting him to feel abandoned by the only beloved he had left.

Thin, bird-like chest shook with soundless sobs, crown hung and body quaked with hurt, hurt, hurt. Everything hurt, but it would never be enough to atone for his sins. A few tears slipped free, scalding his face, and he lifted his head to the heavens and screamed his agony to the skies. It rolled across the empty expanse like the sound of a wounded and dying animal, shrieking and hysterical, pained and hopeless. He did not do so to call his brethren to him, did not deserve their presence, nor did he believe enough knew him to even care or know how to treat him in a time like this.

Impossibly, unwarranted, he thought of Gaucho and Onni. Were they all he truly had left?

He was just a broken doll, unwanted, disgusting, with a tarnished and cracked porcelain face that was forever outshone by those who had whispered sick lies and promises of love into his innocent ears. He would never be good enough.