======Trixie====== =====Ascension===== She sits on the ivory balustrade of a beautiful empty tower and watches the people bustling, panicking, weeping and laughing in confusion below. So far below. There was a time when she climbed a similar balustrade, when she uttered the phrase: //a mockingbird's song is just as fair//, perched on the balcony like a bird herself. The air is fresh and cool. This is a good night. She smiles - a little too wide, showing too many teeth, all too sharp - and makes a Wish. //Greatest desire for that which is most dear, mastery over death for your life.// She sheds her skin alongside the silken gown that is not hers. She drops her skeleton, dead weight like copper, silver, gold. She forgets her name amongst the names of all who loved or wronged her. She closes her glowing, inhuman eyes for one last time - she no longer needs them. \\ \\ \\ Death spreads its wings as it dives into the first midnight of the pristine city, already having a mark. "Mother." It croaks in a voice that almost feels borrowed and embraces the monster a girl once created. "Time to go home." =====The Apocalypse===== Scholars have different theories as to when exactly the "Avian Death" became the most prevalent symbol for Death. Some trail it back to prehistoric times and some traditions of sky burial, but those works, while impressive in details and scope, do not explain its current dominance in the cultural sphere. From careful analysis of artworks, I have come to the conclusion that the Midsummer Apocalypse was the catalyst to the Avian Death's triumph over other symbols of Death. While there are allusions to death as birdlike or carrions prior, it was after the Apocalypse that it became overwhelmingly salient. If you look to the works of the years immediately following the Apocalypse, you can almost always find a bird in the corner, waiting to steal the soul of the doomed, or a feathered shadow casting over the face of the deceased. Art that depicts the Apocalypse itself also follows this. You can hardly find any painting or sculpture portraying the great catastrophes that does not also contain a subtle nod to the Winged Death. Why is this? We have found no concrete evidence. However, from interviewing those that lost loved ones or came close to death themselves during the Apocalypse, we find curious similarities in their accounts. Other than the disaters themselves, they almost always hint at something else. A trick of the light, a hallucination due to blood loss, a fear-induced frenzy... whatever they call it, they would whisper about the tall shadow and its dark wings, its sharp beak and empty sockets... As the Avian Death became popularised, its myth also grew to be more fleshed out. Poets and authors write of the Death who is a thief, the pickpocketer who steals souls from the mortal world, only to toss it into the grand river of time, the winged ferryman always just out of sight, the mockingbird that sings with borrowed voices, the cold passionless hand of Fate that cheated everything just to become the dealer. What truth could there be to the visions of artists? What interest could this be to serious academics? We can already hear the questioning voices, but we implore you to be more patient and read to the end... - Extract from //Anthropology in a New World// =====The Triumvirates of Death===== "//Don't put them back.//" The avian Death creaks. "What? Oh, the souls?" The barista lets out a comforting chuckle. "Don't worry, my friend, I'm no dealing in that anymore. I don't think my Wish allows for that kind of thing anymore." He winks conspiratorially. Death nods, snapping its beak in curt satisfaction. "I know you have a busy schedule..." He trails off, actually a little uncertain of this statement. Time doesn't really pass //here//, so how busy one's schedule is is quite subjective. "But you know, you can always take a break with us." The avian humanoid turns to him with the empty sockets and somehow conveys the impression of narrowing its eyes. "You keep delaying the passage." "Well... that's what I do." He smiles nicely and innocently. "What are the conditions of your Wish, Death?" The barista speaks again, but the tone is different, and they know that he is being //spoken through//. Death explains how it can only exist in moments of death and near death, which means its appearance in the physical world is always sharp and spectual, but it //can// technically linger here indefinitely, given that there is nowhere closer to death than //here//. The voice chuckles: "When I made the Wish, I never expected it to create so many loopholes..." "And you probably didn't expect this loophole for yours, did you?" The barista grins, pointing to himself. Death holds the cup between its claws and dips its beak in the warm liquid. It doesn't mind being here a little longer before the next job comes. =====Eternity===== Nothing really changes at the threshold, but generations and eras have passed on earth. There had been times of prosperity and times of war. People became increasingly creative in how they avoid death and even more creative in how they cause it. Cultures thrive and die. Fashion in clothing and the fashions of death are constantly innovated. Death does not care. Death has no eyes. There may come a day when even the world must die. Death waits for its greatest steal.