Fate

44: Clean Canvas

Astraea's POV

Heavenly bodies make the devil a little uncomfortable. Maybe that is why he can barely look into my eyes anymore. In recent times, I have faced him, eyes as hard as they will allow, even if I can barely open them. Emotionless. Though, it's not like I have to put on a mask. Not much resonates inside my head these days. In terms of my body, it is only heavenly in the way I might as well be dead and gone in whatever place comes after such a thing. Although I suppose I really look like something from hell. My limbs are stone, I can't move them ninety eight percent of the time, never mind feel them. My skin is no longer the pale and slight pink shade it once was; now almost every patch bare of cuts and scabs is a dinghy purple-brown. Some of the bruises have entered the yellow phase, in which they begin to heal, helping me to regain little strength. But I know soon after the off-putting purple blobs disappear, it is only a matter of time before they return. Whether it be an angry guard or Niko himself,  they always come back.

Heaven smiles above me. 

Or maybe it is mocking me.

I have shed my once untouched canvas skin and the bloody remnants of my former self is all that remains. 

I am all that we have left, I am all that they let exist. Is it possible to call this existence? Is my breathing capable of the word 'living'? If this is life, let me be rid of it. Those damned fairy tales were lies. Mother told me to live among those that exceed humanity is a blessing. A blessing that we mortals have not been granted with. But we must live with the life we were given because it is our gift to breathe the same air as those superior to us. 

From birth, I have been raised to believe and understand that those with ichor for blood, those with powers beyond anyone are, and will forever be superior to me and my people. Father never mentioned them, called them 'beasts' and 'scum of the land, sea and sky'. 

Childhood held tales of the ethereal beings, the pale faces with icicles for teeth and rubies for eyes, drinking the blood of the earth. The keepers of the land, sea and sky, caring both for their environment and for their people. The darkness, men and women made from the silky black veil of shade. Embers from the very fire, living and breathing, moving and thriving. Blood full of magic, tuned into the soil and released into the atmosphere. And people with the soul of wolves, running free and wild.

Then, after the tale was told and our excited little voices begged for more, we were reminded with such ferocity we never asked again.

"Oh, Mother! Can't we ever be as beautiful as a vampiress, or as poweful as a witch?" 

Our tiny hands were slapped away from her, slapped away from her books and her forever stern voice scolded us.

"You must never wish to be someone you are not! You will never be blessed with a bite, nor were you blessed from birth. Never think you were given anything other than humanity."

Her internalized hatred for her own kind must have rubbed off on me after the war, I have always cursed myself for my one true weakness, despite my efforts to gain such strength. I suppose all that training was for nothing, I doubt I could lift a cutlery knife, never mind a dagger.

                                                         ✯¸.•'*¨'*•✿ ✿•*'¨*'•.¸✯

My stomach whines crudely at me. Seventeen guard visits ago, I was too weak to lift my head to receive the food he had brought for me. The man thought I was faking my fragility, he assumed my unwillingness was an attempt at death. He wasn't my usual guard, he didn't know how often I was beaten, he didn't know how often I was too absorbed by unconsciousness to eat.