It's like a butterfly, she thinks, as she cradles its broken remnants against her heart.

It could be because it’s fragile. Maybe it’s because it, too, is a beautiful thing to watch flutter around free in the sky. There isn’t a care in the world that bothers it.

She’s not sure, not really, but maybe —just maybe, she thinks— it’s because it is all too easily killed. It is all too easily crushed in the uncaring hands of another.

(Why did this happen?)

She’s not quite sure what makes her draw the comparison between the two. There’s no reason for that to be the first thought that jumps her thoughts in a desperate bid to grasp onto her attention in an attempt to not let her forget it. But that’s exactly the thought that's there.

She gazes down at her empty hands; there's nothing she can do now, she supposes. She’s taken care of the important things, and she’s waited too long as it is.

So she goes.

She goes to the gardens. The public ones that on the other side of town, yes, which turns it into quite a long walk, but she goes, and all the while the sharp shards in her chest cause drops of liquid glass to well up in her eyes. They threaten to fall down her cheeks. She keeps her head up high and ignores the vibrant sting as the edges bite into her skin.

(It shouldn’t have been like this—)

Her feet lead her to the phlox and marigolds, and the brilliant colors are almost too bright for her tired eyes. She follows along old, stone paths next to where the heliotrope sits beneath the warmth of the dying sun. She passes by the roses and the aster and the hollyhocks; the lady bells all in a row.

It’s only when she reaches the sunflowers that she stops. It’s only when she stares in silence at the golden-yellow tones of the petals that she sinks to her knees and weeps.

No, that’s not right.

She doesn’t weep—she wails.

She wails and she sobs and her entire body shakes under the weight of her agony, because there is no way she can hold herself still while her heart is being crushed and torn like the wings of her imaginary butterfly. The fragments of her soul are laid out in front of her on the damp soil, and there is no way for her to sweep them back up. No way to piece them back together. Her lamentations are loud and painful and nearly deafening. Somehow, there is no-one else to hear her strangled cries and distraught words.

(Why did it have to end like this?)

(I trusted you—)

(I believed in you—)

(So why did you do this to me?)

(You said it would be alright—)

(Why did you tell me all of those lies?)

(I thought—)

(—I thought—)

(—I thought this wouldn’t happen.)

(I thought you wouldn’t let it happen.)

When she is finished, she is left sitting on cold cobblestone with nothing but the sound of the breeze rustling the flowers and her own occasional sniffle. What courage she had been holding onto earlier —what strength she’d been clinging to— is all gone.

So she sits, and she stares at the sunflowers, and wonders how she let it all happen.

She wonders how she had trusted them so much.

She wonders how she had let herself believe for even a single second that things would be fine. That luck would be on their side. That this exact event would never come to pass.

She wonders why she had placed so much faith on those men and women who had sworn to do their best to help, despite there being nothing they could do.

Eventually, she stands up and finds her balance. She rubs away the smears of mascara that are now staining her cheeks, she straightens her ponytail.

It takes her longer than it should have to return home, but when she does make it she doesn’t go inside. Not yet. Instead, she just stares at the dark wood of the door, which she decides is much too heavy to try and open.

Why? Because it will be too dark inside, she knows. Too empty.

There won’t be any more noise—any more light. What happiness she had is gone. There is only darkness and regret and more painful reminders waiting for her inside the place that used to hold so much joy, and now—

Oh.

It’s as she’s staring at her door that she remembers why she thought of faith as a butterfly.

It was a myth —she’s sure it was a greek one— where a girl opened a box full of all spirits. They were awful, cruel spirits that would soon plague the world with every pain known to man. The girl had managed to close it only after all of them had escaped.

All except one, that is.

When she peeked inside, the girl had seen that it was hope, who had taken the form of a butterfly. And so humanity held onto hope, and her own mind had associated butterflies with all forms of belief and faith and everything else that was so very, very fragile and beautiful.

Still, it’s only as her hand is wrapping itself around the metal doorknob that she finally realizes why hope was in that box in the first place.

(They...they really are the cruelest things of all, aren’t they?)

(Hope.)

(Faith.)

(The thought that maybe things will be better, if only we wait until tomorrow.)

(They only make things worse.)

She goes inside.

She hangs her coat, takes off her shoes.

And she wanders the small expanse of her apartment, lost.

...

It’s much too small now.

...

(I had faith in you—)

(But you lied when you told me—)

(That she wouldn’t die.)

...

...

...

She can’t bring herself to enter the empty nursery.

The first time I saw it, I couldn’t believe it even qualified as a human. It looked as though someone had taken a skeleton and simply poured wax over it, and I couldn’t help but sneer at it in disgust. The ones I had seen back at the academy looked more...competent, might be the word. But this one? It would not have reached my knees, its eyes were hideously large and gleamed strangely in the scorching sunlight, while its skin was burnt and peeling like a snake’s. Just looking at it made me feel uneasy, which was never an encouraging sign.

“Are you waiting for permission?” Zelvarok scowled. I could hear their wings flapping irritatedly behind me. “Curse it already—do you want to prove yourself, or not?”

“Of course I do”, I told them, not tearing my eyes from the pitiful excuse for a child. “But are you sure I should curse this one? It looks as though it’s been on the rough end of more than a few curses already.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s already been cursed,” Zelvarok spat, their frustration palpable in the way their magic churned the air angrily. “Now get on with it before one of the Dark Ones finds us. The longer we stay in the day—”

“—the more at risk we are, I know.”

I couldn’t help but glare at them for half a second while I retrieved my periapt and dangled it from my pale, bony hand. The child was staring up at us, obviously unable to understand our words, and its gaze caught on the shining red stone as it swayed back and forth hypnotically. I took the equivalent of a deep breath as I willed my magic to gather and focus itself.

“Finisi-iVaecorRr,” I growled, and in less than half a second a soft wave of white light cascaded over the sickly child. It stumbled backwards, falling to the ground as its stick-thin legs gave out. A weak cry fell from its chapped lips —the last sound it would ever make— as it clutched at its chest.

By the time a minute had passed, the child was dead, no longer anything but a corpse that now littered the desert floor. I couldn’t help but frown at the sight.

Its limbs were twisted, face even more so, and its gaze was now blank and unseeing. It looked, well, wrong. It had looked wrong before, too, don’t get me wrong, but this was even worse than that. At least when it had been alive the child’s eyes had possessed that odd gleam of...something. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I liked it better when it looked like that.

This, though? Now it was just dead.

“What spell was that?” scoffed Zelvarok, raising an eyebrow while their tail swatted the ground skeptically. “The Heart-Stopper Curse? I hadn’t realized rehabilitation actually reverted you back to your fledgling years—what happened to your sense of flare? Your passion for torture? You’re no fun anymore.”

I blinked at him slowly, unsure how to take that. It was the first time they —or anyone else, for that matter— had mentioned my rehabilitation.

“Not that it matters, of course,” they continued without pause. “I’ll get you back up to standard in no time. Mark my words.”

A grimace spread across my features, and I withheld the urge to roll my eyes.

“Will we be returning tonight, or are we staying out until the Dark Ones catch us?” I asked, mostly just over the whole ordeal. I didn’t want to look at the dead human any longer.

“Oh—I suppose there is one more thing we need to do,” Zelvarok mused.

“Would it be too much to ask what it is?”

“Obviously.”

They grinned, teeth threatening, as their spiked tail wrapped around my arm. They launched into the air with a force that would have severed my hand from my body if I weren’t one of the most durable creatures in the cosmos. I was dragged, however, quite far into the air before I managed to regain control of my own flight patterns.

I couldn’t help myself—I hissed. What right did they think they had, yanking me about as though I were a petty, flightless imp? Just because I didn’t have wings didn’t mean I couldn’t fly!

Given Zelvarok’s cackling, they were obviously already familiar with that little fact.

...I hated not remembering anything prior to the rehabilitation. It made things difficult in so many ways. My enemies might know all my secrets, while I’m left not even knowing my own secrets—or my enemies.

By the time we landed, my arm was sore, and several of the barbs on Zelvarok’s tail had been bent or even broken by my stone-like skin. I yanked my wrist out of their grip, rubbing the pain away, and my scowl deepened even as my eyes scanned the new surroundings.

“...Why are we in a human settlement?” I asked, both confused and wary. There were bright lights flashing everywhere, and I had to blink multiple times to clear the dizziness from my vision. How odd. “I thought we weren’t allowed in these districts.”

“Since when did you ever care about the rules?” Zelvarok teased as they slinked around a corner and into a back alleyway; I followed close behind. “Oh, wait—I know! You got caught!”

They seemed positively giddy at that reminder, as though they couldn’t quite believe it, and I wondered for the nth time just what I had been like before the rehabilitation. There weren’t many rules us Light Ones were forced to follow, but if Zelvarok’s reactions were anything to go by, I must have broken every single one twice over, if not more.

My eyes caught on the slumped-over figure that was propped up against the wall.

It was another human —what else would it be?— and while it was nowhere near the level of deficiency the child had been, this one wasn’t much better. Its bright red hair was wet, tangled, and matted with dirt, and the intricate outfit it had been wearing was now torn to shreds. The whole picture was complete with a colorful spattering of blood that had been sprayed across the walls when the human’s throat had been cut. It was still dripping, trickling, down its front to the ground. Somehow, it was still less bloody than I thought it would be.

“Oh, yes, look at her—this will be fun.” Zelvarok rubbed their hands together eagerly, forked tongue wetting their lips. “Aren’t you excited?”

Frankly, I didn’t see what the big deal was, and I told them so much.

“What use do I have for a corpse?” I asked them, already exhausted with their behavior. “If it’s already dead, there’s no point in us being here.”

Another cackle erupted out of Zelvarok’s throat, high-pitched and more than a little amused. They continued to laugh until it got to the point where they were hunched over; I was half-convinced they were about to choke on their own spit.

“You’re—you’re fucking hilarious, do, do you know that?” They shrieked, grin quite literally splitting their face in two. “Of fucking course we don’t care about the woman! We care about the guy who murdered her! You really are out of it, aren’t you?”

“Why would we go after someone like that?” I asked cooly, playing dumb as I idly allowed a flame of magic to dance across my fingertips. “I thought vigilantism was frowned upon by the Light Ones alongside the Dark. It’s one of the few things the Elders of both sides agree on.”

“Since when did that ever stop you?” Zelvarok asked, the humor fading from their eyes while they gawked at me oddly. After a moment, they blinked and shook their head. “Nah—forget it. If you don’t want to do this we can go back. Just promise not to tell anyone.”

I glanced back at the corpse. It —she?— looked very much like the child’s corpse had earlier, with how her limbs had been thrown akimbo and expression was filled with pain. Her eyes were the exact same as the child’s had been. Different shapes, yes, and green instead of brown, but that blank stare was the same. I couldn’t help but wonder if she had looked better while she was alive. I wouldn’t be surprised.

“I’m not particularly interested, no,” I said dully. “I don’t think I’m want to be killing anything as of this moment.”

Zelkarov’s brows pinched together in what could only be described as worry.

“That’s...that’s...wow. The Elders really fucked you up, didn’t they?” Their hand ran through their feathered hair, claws making an audible sound as they scraped against their scalp. “You used to be a bloody genocidal megalomaniac hellbent —hah, hellbent— on ruling the world as ‘Supreme Overlord’ or some shit. And now you’re not even a fan of good-ol-fashioned murder? Damn. I guess anything’s possible, what with the world we live in, but this is really pushing it...”

I decided to allow them to continue their muttering for short time as they attempted to process this apparent change to their world-view, but after a good ten minutes of their rambling on how we should just overthrow the whole system or something, my patience was wearing thin. Good and evil, I hated how easy it was for some of the demons’ brains to short-circuit. It made everything so much harder.

“Hey—Zelvarok,” I had to fire off a thin bolt of energy at them to get their attention. Idiot. “You should go back to the Elders and let them know I’ve completed my re-orientation. There’s no point in either of us standing around here. Technically, it’s not sunset yet, and we’re not supposed to be in this populated of an area.”

“Where are you going to go?” They frowned, momentarily snapped out of their mental breakdown.

“Back to my lair,” I deadpanned, as though it were obvious. “You’re rather tiresome to be around, you know.”

Instead of making some supposedly-witty comeback like they tended to do, they only grumbled, nodded, and proceeded to ready their seraphed wings for flight.

“Right...I’ll see you around, then.”

They then launched their body into the air, speeding up into the sky so fast they looked to be nothing but a blur of grey light. In no time at all, I was alone in an alley with nothing but a battered corpse for company.

A soft grin fell upon my facial features.

Foolish, foolish demon, leaving me alone. The taste of murder could not be forgotten so easily. Yes, the results of death was none-too-appealing to me at the moment, but the desire to hunt —the urge to stalk my quarry and rend it to pieces— was almost overwhelming.

My prey’s scent was all over this crime scene. Not all of the blood belonged to the victim, after all. I carefully traced the fading trail. Droplets of blood were splattered all over the sidewalk, and smears of red had been wiped against the wall. I partially wondered if I should continue to chase something whose level of intellect was on par with a rabbit, but I brushed the thought aside. It mattered not. I was here for...justice, I think the term was.

Very quickly, I found myself inside a large complex of dwellings that had been stacked haphazardly atop each other in a poor facsimile of an apartment building. I had been wary of entering the area, but there seemed to be no form of security whatsoever. It was laughable, really, what had humans thinking they were safe.

Stopping in front of a wooden door that was completely identical to each of the other doors, I readied myself. I had yet to truly face any form of combat yet, not since before my ‘rehabilitation’, but this shouldn’t be too problematic.

I didn’t bother knocking, and instead broke the lock on the door with nothing but a slight twist of my wrist. I pushed the door open.

...The sight that met my eyes was not one that I was expecting.

What I had been expecting, I couldn’t say, but I had not thought I would see anyone besides my prey. There had been no signs of anyone else having been at the murder scene. But here, inside the shabby apartment, there was yet another small child.

It was much healthier than the first one I had come across, with wide, green eyes identical to the dead woman’s. But they, too, held that strange gleam within them that the first child had owned prior to death.

It looked to be in distress, if the tear tracks and smears of blood were any indication. It was curled up into itself in the fetal position, trembling, its hands covered the top of his head as though that could somehow protect it.

Deciding to ignore the child, as it was of no concern to me, I set about to see if I might find any clues as to the whereabouts of the murderer.

’Are—are you a policeman?” The child asked after a moment of silence. “Are you looking for the bad man?”

“No, I am not a police officer,” I said bluntly, causing the child to flinch. “I am a demon. And yes, I am looking for this ‘bad man’. Did you see where he went?”

The child looked at me dubiously, which was more than I thought it capable of, to be perfectly honest.

“What will you do if I tell you?” It asked. “You...you’re not going to help him, are you?”

I couldn’t restrain a sneer.

“Of course not! Foolish child. I plan to put him down like the dog he is. Now—where is he?”

Without saying a word, the child pointed towards the open window; a soft breeze was flowing through it, causing the curtains to sway gently. I stalked over to it even as the child gave another quiet sob, and I looked down.

There, on the ground level several stories below, was yet another bloodied corpse.

I couldn’t help but let out growl. How dare he jump! Couldn’t he have waited two minutes until I had arrived? I shook my head slowly as I turned back to the child, who had yet to move from its protective position.

‘It appears you have nothing to fear any longer,’ I stated, rather disappointed. The hunt had finished before it even began, and nothing had been gained. “He is already dead. Whether it was suicide or accident, I am uncertain, but I suggest you take your leave.”

The child didn’t move, though the stream of tears had been renewed.

“Well? What are you waiting for?” I asked, and resisted the urge to throw a fireball at it.

“...he,” the child seemed lost as it looked for words. “H-he hurt my mother—he said, he said that he killed her. Is it—is that true?”

I glared down at it. I wasn’t in the mood for this. In fact, the only reason I was still here and the child was still alive was...well, I didn’t know. Maybe it had something to do with that first dead human I’d seen today.

“Yes.” I grit out. “She’s dead. She’s not coming back—understand?”

The child let out another heavy sob, its whole body jerking with the movement.

My eye twitched. Could it stop crying already? I really didn’t like it when it did that.

“Well, I have places to be, so if you’ll excuse me—”

I turned away from the child, no longer wishing to look at, but within seconds a heavy weight was crashing into my legs.

“D-don’t g-go!” The child wailed, tears staining my dark tunic. “D-don’t leave, please! Or—or, a-at least t-take me w-with you!”

I grimaced down at it. The child’s mop of black hair was obscuring its face, and its hands were clutching my legs with a desperate sort of energy.

“And what, exactly, would I do with you?“ I asked it.

Finally, it raised its head. Its green eyes shone vibrantly in the dark room, likely due to the tears. It gave me a hopeful, pleading look.

“I’ll, I could...” It looked unsure. “I’ll help you with your...demon-y stuff?”

“Oh?”

“Y-yeah,” it started to look more confident. “I c-could help with that! I’m, I’m a quick learner, I-I swear!”

I sighed.

Why was I even considering this? Was it that first dead child, and how awful it had looked earlier, just lying there? Was it this second child’s dead mother, and how those green eyes had looked so blank in comparison to this child’s wide, alert gaze?

Had my rehabilitation failed this much?

The kid continued to look up at me, unflinching in its hope, while I gave the request a second of thought.

It...would be useful to have someone who could act as bait, not to mention that plenty of the Dark Ones picked up strays from time to time; the fact that I was not an angel, but a Light One —a demon— didn’t matter much to me. This ‘rehabilitation’ nonsense obviously hadn’t done anything to curb whatever rebellious streak I’d had, and part of me liked the idea of just giving a large and loud ‘fuck you’ to the Elders by adopting some random human stray.

Yes. That sounded fun. I glared down at the child.

“Tell me, child—what’s your name?”

“H-henry,” it trembled. “It’s Henry.”

I nodded, and I grasped its wrist tightly. I could hear the faint sound of approaching sirens, and the Dark Ones were undoubtedly going to want to investigate this. It was time to leave.

“Well, Henry,” I said grimly. “I hope you don’t mind flying.”

A small smile lit up on Henry’s face.

In less than a minute, we were gone.