Doors had lead her here, to nothing. Stairways had carried her to nowhere. Where does one go when the lights go out? When the world goes quiet? When the soul convulses and rages and screams to be let out of the sorry prison of skin and bone that holds it. When the spirit demands to be let loose and find it's own place, to find it's own freedom hidden somewhere beneath the rocks and fronds of a forest.

The edge of the world had pressed in on her, squeezing the breath from her lungs and pinning those beautiful wings to her sides. Breezes had felt less like the caress of the wind and more like the unwelcome touch of an unwanted lover. The land had turned from nurturing mother to demanding suitor; it had chased her from the borders, leaves rustling their whispers as she fled from penetrating stares and knowing smirks.

They had left her tainted and they knew it.

And now they would find her here, a waterlogged angel with broken halo floating about her in a rust red pool of remorse and fear. Cherubic and pink, she ripped the invisible stains from her skin, knowing that no matter how hard she scrubbed or beat or sobbed, there would be no relief from the tint of dishonor mottling her heart. She could taste the dishonesty on her own breath each time her lungs had pushed the air from her chest; the lie that she told herself continuously, endlessly, relentlessly, that she was worth something here. That she was worth anything here.

The pale, winged woman had resigned herself to a fate in this pool. A shroud of loneliness and a mantle of undeserved shame, she would pray to her deaf gods and she would whip her own back and she would beg for dominion at the feet of oblivion.  

Then maybe, just maybe there would be a place for her at the table of existence. Maybe she wouldn't have to beg for the scraps anymore, maybe maybe maybe something could come of this.

But now, beneath the blanket of stars and the cries of night raptors, the stain could not be removed and the tears could not cease their flow. She choked on the hands that wrapped around her throat, she sobbed over the sound of her own sputtering heart, she struggled as her hair floated around her in a bastardization of purity. The water reached to the base of her neck, lapping at her skin and weighing down her wings with its cool reassurance.

The flowers at the base of her tail had floated across the pool and the petals in her mane were wilted and bloodstained - just as she.

Just as she would always be.

A low moan laced with agony accented the tears spilling from pupilless eyes, a high keen filled with mourning pierced the night air;

There was nothing left there was nothing left there was nothing left -

of that once-hopeful heart
of that sweet smile
of that sunshine melody in her veins

There was nothing left of her.

Ashes to ashes, dust to ex-whores.