Title: Perceptions of Death

Summary: Catty was the creator and the destroyer. The beginning and the end. And it was a gradual process to accept this fate about herself.

Disclaimer: Never owned. Never will. But I love Catty. Oh, yes. How I love my God. XD

The servus only remembered the first time he had seen her, remembered seeing an emotion sketched into her face he wasn't sure he had ever felt before. The drugs made him forget emotions easily, and he couldn't quite place the one she wore, the way her eyes shifted constantly around her new surroundings, the way she clutched the other one's hand a little more tightly as they moved forward. She was dirty. Her clothes were torn. Dark smears covered her body.

Adamantis simply wouldn't tolerate such filth.

He remembered that she seemed strong and beautiful despite this, and he admired that feeling he got when gazing at her. Awe. His mouth open. Black, flat eyes wide. Something within him stirred at the mere sight of her.

He remembered that when she came back, when she decided to stand beside her father, that he could still see everything she had come to offer him before in her simple glance and mere smile.

The boy, the one who had no name, no future, no existence, had found something in the girl called Catty. Hope. Hope to live. Hope to dream. Hope to be.

–

She was not what they wanted to be around. She claimed to be one of them now, claimed to be loyal to her father, but the Follower didn't think she could be trusted. She was still new, still awkward, like an infant deer, stumbling forward on legs never used before. Couldn't Adamantis see his daughter for what she was? She could give that tiny, menacing smile all she wanted, the corners of her mouth curling up like a feline's, her dark eyes even darker as she stared everyone down. She was not one of them.

What did some bitch goddess know of the ways of Nefandus? What made her, Atertra, traitor to her own soul, believe she had any right carrying herself around like some motherfucking princess?

She was shit. Lower. Pathetic.

And the Follower felt something in him rip as he watched her pull her shoulders back, tilt her chin up, elongate her fucking elegant neck. Proud little bitch goddess. Who was she fooling? She hadn't given up her hope yet, hadn't forsaken her mother moon, hadn't switched sides at all. He ran his hand over his shaved head, growling at himself for his own failure.

Fuck, just being around her made him long for something he could never have back, and that was how he knew she was never going to be one of them.

–

Catty was dim. A bright light, shaded, hidden.

And yet, still beautiful. Ethereal. Something was growing within that made her look prouder, more fierce, terrifying. How many months had she been secured away, the princess locked in the tower of Nefandus, awaiting the prince to rescue her.

No. No. That wasn't what she was. If she had been a princess, clearly she had shed herself of that burdening shell, evolved, became more.

A soldier. A warrior. Resolved, resigned. Wearing a mask. The mask of obedience while her heart, her soul screamed for anarchy. Walls, boxes, things she couldn't stand but had adapted to.

For the sake of the world.

She kept her face blank, but her eyes spoke in long speeches that the best orators of the world would have felt proud of. Because, yes, he too was like her. A soldier. A warrior. Resolved, resigned. His was to be a sacrifice to her, his goddess. The slaughter of the not-so-innocent to a warrior goddess far greater than any of them had ever met.

"Devour them," she said, her eyes never leaving his. He nodded. Yes. He was her sacrifice to the world, like the other three beside him, like the one before him, like she would be herself.

–

On her chest, the emblem mocked her. Mocked and jeered, and she was revolted with herself. Revolted because... She had deserved it. She had earned this spot. Oh, how she hated how distracting it was. Her fingers traced the pattern. It had worn into her flesh now.

She had done something worthy of praise, of advancement and acknowledgment. It sickened her. It brought her up.

She was a mess of shattered perfection. She was breaking.

The Prince hated that he could feel these things rolling off her in waves, enveloping him in her internal battle. He grabbed her shoulders, shook her a few times. She allowed it. She allowed his hands on her body, allowed him to take force. Her head rolled, back and forth, back and forth.

She was breaking. Only on the surface, only where it counted. He was there, the Prince, to remind her. Remind the goddess that it was not a ploy to fall head first into it. Don't fall, Catty. Never fall.

They had to rely on each other. They only had each other. Deceivers. Treacherous.

They should have been branded as the Infidi. Betraying the ones they loved in order to save them. Was it a proper excuse? Catty eventually accepted it. He still had a problem with it. What did that say about the two of them?

Remember Vanessa.

Remember Serena.

Remember what we are here to do.

He had to be the one to remind her what they were needed to do.

She was cracking, she was falling, she was believing her own lies.

But he could still feel her. That bright light. Shining. Blinding. Tucked away in a dormant corner. She was the only one.

She was the only one. She was the Heir.

He just had to keep reminding her until that smile came back, and his world stopped tilting in the heart crushing fear growing in his chest every time she would forget how to grin in the first place.

–

"My power is uncompromising and direct. I am the Destroyer."

She never broke contact. She never once winced at the hellish screams swirling in her head, in her ears. All she felt was the power, gripping on to her, holding her down and supporting her. Invisible hands and fingers, and she easily recognized each one. Zoe. Maggie. Chris. Tianna. They were here with her. They would support her when she thought she was breaking.

"I am the absolute force of the divine."

The Atrox split. No room for second guessing. No room for tears. No room for good-byes. Not now, not here. Catty stepped forward. This was what only she could do, and she had to do it.

She wasn't alone. They went with her. They held her hands and stroked her hair and whispered encouragingly in her heart.

They surrounded her. More joined. Past goddesses who had given their lives for this moment. She didn't smile. Not on the surface.

Only once was her attention diverted from her task.

Vanessa. Her Vanessa. Sister. Comrade. Goddess.

The first person apart from her mom that she had loved with everything that she could give.

Her eyes fixed to Vanessa, who was shivering. Afraid. She carried Catty's fear, her love, her joy. She wanted to tell her friend, her love, that this would a heavy burden for such a straight-laced girl. You have to live for me, Vanessa. Live your life, carry my spirit within you. I know you can do it. You've always been much stronger than me...

"Leave the shadow. I don't want you to get hurt, but I can't stop for you, either."

It was the kindest warning of what was to come that Catty could possibly give. She was the only one meant to do this. Vanessa needed to leave. She couldn't look at the blond anymore. She stared at the mass of evil before her instead.

There was no room for tears.

This was Catty's sacrifice, and Vanessa's pleading fell on deaf ears. The Scroll had already told her, long ago, when she destroyed Chris and began the path. She would die so that hope would live. It was a worthy death, she had come to realize. Everything she had done since then until this moment, it had been done for Vanessa, for Kendra, for Serena and Jimena, for Stanton. For hope. For the world. For that goddamn pesky thing called Destiny, which they had proven time and again that they could change.

Her aura was bright. She was the moon.

"Dingirmah!" The light shimmered around her, like the body glitter she used to apply with care whenever they went out to the club. She would miss that. Dancing. Laughing. Just being a teenager. She was 16, but she felt so much older. Too old.

The air was heavy, the shadows pulsated around her, the dark was beginning to crash, the moans were becoming too much, but they were there for her. They helped lift her arms into the air as her she tilted her head back. "Nimena!"

The word had barely fell from her lips, the crash had yet to come as it hit against the Atrox before she spoke the forbidden name. The Creator of All. The name was spoken without fear. She had nothing to fear anymore. Death was never the end. The being she was up against rushed against her, squeezing, crushing, attempting to destroy her before she destroyed it. Even in the shadows' embrace, her light shone on. She continued to speak the words of destruction, continued her prayers.

She was no longer Catty. No longer Atertra. Cincta, Infida, dea.

She closed her eyes one last time.