She had wings sown into her back.

A pity, she couldn't use them.

His spit was on her arm, her eyes swore fire. She promised not to die.

She told him to believe.

And then she was gone.

A spiral of white, endlessly unfolding, the years ripped right out of his chest. The sides of his eyes caught feathers, but the focus was her face, pointed down towards the wind. A spiral of purple, his eyes widened, his heart relaxed. She was summoning. She would live - indeed, he should be rather proud of her. It was ingenious - but his smirk did not return, Valefor ripped on past.

But not fast enough.

Leather and skin and feather folded in, but the white spiral - the white line raced past. He asked his heart to stop. The infinity came undone. She slammed against the ground, and straight after fell her aeon, a flare of pyreflies and dust squirming free into the air.

He stared.

Her guardians had already fled when they saw her summoning, he vaguely heard Kinoc fire a shot in the distance. Mika touched his shoulder, but nothing registered.

The line of white blurred in and out, but it was gone and all he had were feathers and a veil.

A blackbird's song was the only sound in the red void. His eyes widened, whites to clash with the heat of the sun. Bevelle was spinning. He begged for comfort, begged for anything - but Valefor (holy) was dead in him and so was all but one seed and when he pushed that one open he felt the tangled chains and groaning anguish and screaming, screaming anger so quickly that he withdrew as though he had his hand above the stove.

He almost jumped, but the seed was opened and pain seared through him as the chains yanked him back.

"I must go." As though words had significance now - everything holy had just been stripped from the world. Everything holy was snapped bones and feathers on the concrete and a stain as red as Bevelle. Everything that had fallen out of place beyond his grasp was now shattered, forever.

How could she be so stupid.

"First your mother, and now your bride?" Mika, ever the rationalist, ever one to not allow sentimentals. He knew how much one corpse had warped his dear friend's mind, and he was not prepared to let another drip her fresh blood all over it.

"Allow me to do this," he said with clingfilm eyes and a smile so fake he loathed himself, "because she is my bride."

There was a pause, and then he let go of his arm. Seymour stood on his perch, for a while, the sun so brilliant, the perfect day so perfectly ruined.

Death.

Is.

A.

Sweet.

Slumber.

He thinks.

All.

The.

Pains.

Of.

Life.

Are.

Gently.

Swept.

Away.

Her death was anything but gentle.

This was not how she was supposed to slip out of the void. This was not how her life was meant to be strangled, choked, bled out of her. It was meant to be instant, but it was meant to be glorious.

Now it meant nothing.

A small crowd has gathered. He doesn't hear what they have to say.

Her corpse is his, her guardians don't know that, yet. Really, she should have belonged to them. After all, this was her gift to them - her life, for the sake of theirs.

A mistake. She had meant to trump him. She should have won.

She'd lost.

He picked up what remained of her. Felt her bones shuffle and sag beneath the skin. Her head was like a melon. Her body like an island - chunks bruised with blood, land masses cut apart and torn. But such sights of death barely disturbed him, any more. Mi'ihen had shown worse.

But he carried her rags, he heard some people sob. Her feathers trailed behind him, such delicate, little things.

Her eyes were gone - half her mouth remained.

How fitting, she'd lost her brain.

"Yuna."

He sings. A blackbird says her name.

"Come back to me."

She will not be sent.

"Come back for me."

She does not.