vox angelus {intro/halloween}

[vvykkyd]

Wykkyd fell asleep in the warehouse they’d taken over—Seemore, Billy, and he, driven together again despite how time had driven them apart. It seemed not even the universe approved, because Wykkyd woke up in a sunlit room, feeling poorly-rested and strange. When he stood and faced the ornate mirror propped in the corner, he figured it out.

He now had wings. Six of them, hinging neatly on his back; the top pair were the smallest, barely as long as his arms when he stretched them up above his head. The lowermost pair, if he had to guess, were about the same length as his legs. It was the pair sitting between his shoulders that presented a problem—the biggest problem. They were large, each one equal to his height, and when he folded them up against his back the very ends brushed the ground.

The top pair he folded down over his shoulders. The bottom pair sat comfortably around his hips. The biggest pair, however, were clearly fitted for someone taller than he, and so they stayed as folded as they could be and hitched higher than was comfortable.

His skin used to be gray. Like ash, or slate, or the sky before dawn, or infinite other gray things, but it was white now and without even the courtesy of trying to be human about it; like marble, without the grace of being dull. And his horns! He was proud of them! His horns used to be small, but straight, just growing into the arcs and twists he would have as an adult. They were different now, as the rest of him, growing in a circular path and meeting in the middle-- twining around each other, the pristine color of bones left to bleach in the sun.

Maybe this unwanted gift had given him back his voice? He spoke; the most horrific sound he had ever heard came out, like white noise, or radio static, or something this new body could make but his nature could not comprehend.

He couldn’t teleport either. That was the most jarring, most unpleasant part of all this; like losing a sense, no matter how situational that sense was. He beat his wings against the still air, managing to send papers flying and nearly tearing the curtains from their hinges. All the way stretched out, the largest pair made the room feel cramped and uncomfortable, and when he held them close, his entire body felt too hot and unpleasant.

There really was no way to win this, was there?

Wykkyd tossed his head and hissed, a stream of that same horrid white noise, and stalked out of the room. It was hard to stalk when he had such huge eyesores attached to his back, catching on doorways and brushing against walls. He liked to think that he managed, somehow.

He found himself on the grounds, the slightest breeze ruffling his feathers (his feathers!) and so he decided to put them to the test; they’re awful, but they might not be useless. He spread them all out, tried a few experimental flaps, and gave himself a head start before he launched into the air and fell back to the ground shortly after.

O-kay. There was some definite airtime there.

Anyone who comes to the grounds will see a small figure trying and failing to fly; clumsy, like a bird with a broken wing.