For the longest time, Cecil had deemed himself as unshakeable and someone who never worried. At most, he wallowed over his own pulchritude, or maybe someone annoying he had crossed paths with when out and about.

But now he was left thinking that he had been shaken off the ground entirely. Not a bloe, a hurricane; not a shake, an earthquake.

They crossed the mark off on his arm, that fateful 'Z' with the weight of a legacy upon it, his initial to show his family in heaven, his blood and his blessing. They butchered his wings and twisted him every which way. They stripped the youngest son of Zephyrine naked and threw him onto earth in the zenith of its winter. The only covering he had for his dignity was a rag hung on the branch of a tree he had stumbled across and subsequently sat beneath.

Once he was the gold draped ravenettte darling of young nobles, a singer and a fighter who could write poems rich with love and read stories thick with plot. Now he was nothing.

That light in his eyes that made him look young was gone, and he looked older. Not a kid. His eyes were ringed with red, nose bloody, lips dry. His hair wasn't in a ponytail anymore, but loose to do whatever. To get tangled, especially.

He had lost any flit of lust for life. Young angels always had such life in them, so playful and excited to just be; that was gone. He was not even a hundred years old, in angel terms that was a teenager.

"Leave me to rot. I couldn't decay if I tried."

His head lolls back against the person who'd picked him up from his curled up state, unmoving. It was the first words he said. Up to this point he catatonic except for glances.

Right now they were brushing out his hair, now long since matted with blood and dirt. The more they cleaned, the lighter in weight it became, each strand thin and yet so many of them were there it was silky. Cecil had yet to acknowledge this person as a saviour. He'd always left that to the father, and look where that got him.

He couldn't bear to look at his wings. He took so much pride in them as an angel. He adorned then with piercings and gold, and silks, but now— They had been stained a deep, raven black. And he doubted they were functional. What was left was short nubs with feathers spiking every which was and sticky with his blood.

"I feel nothing right now. I wouldn't even be mad."

He laughs. But it sounds more like a cough or a sob: an odd cracking sound that seems suited to be a dying man's last, rattling breath.

"That's so fucking pathetic."