bleached bones of sin

[daemon_angelus]

| warning for slightly macabre descriptions

ashes to ashes, dust to dust

He was a being with no name. He could be anything, stars, and stripes, and blue, and gold, summer or the sky -- he could be anything, but he could not be everything.

Everything had a master. Even he.


Boundless, and immortal, not living, not dead. Their existence was at once in the past, present and future. At any one point, they transcended time itself. Because even Time had a master.

His master.


When they had to stay put, they existed in a realm dark and grey, where time flowed forever and never at all. His master's citadel was made of onyx grey, large and looming skeletons forever bowed in servitude to him. They kneeled, great spines of the citadel, hollowed heads tilted down, even the smaller ones at the very top. He'd flew up before, it took him a very, very long time, even with his great, bat-like wings, and he'd seen the skeleton at the apex of the citadel, its gaze and form frozen forever in deference. No one was above his master.

His master was so so curious, with eyes like acid and lightning and alchemy, they usually seemed green but not quite, they shone like opals, every colour in their depths. They whispered unknowable knowledge, half-closed and unguarded, dreamy and scrutinising all at once. He didn't need to be on his guard. He was master of all.

Today, now, this moment, he walks to his master, seated on a single throne of charcoal grey, modeled like those of medieval kings. He no longer glances at the giant skeleton behind the throne, dwarfing it, but still bowing, still kneeling, a guardian, a servant, always, eternal. Like he.

"Alfred..."

Ears twitching, he smiles, like a child in front of their favourite person, spreads his wings, dark velvet night, and with two beats he is kneeling before his master. The air grows heavy, with unknown promises and secrets, it is like approaching a black hole. He, Alfred, has grown used to it, or he was never really bothered by it, this funny gravity that surrounded his master, that comforted and frightened you, familiar and yet so so scary. It made you sleepy when you didn't want to go to sleep.

He slides the tips of black claws across creamy pale skin, up his master's thighs, pass a sharp hip bone, rests his hand on a torso with no heartbeat. Alfred smiles again, his master stays expressionless, emotionless, green eyes gleaming only because that was just the way they were. He likes to think his master thinks him special, but he really doesn't know. No one ever does.

A small intake of breath, not that he needs it, and his master shifts, the tiniest of movements. Alfred cocks his head slightly, thin black horns curled tightly into themselves like auger shells following the gesture stiffly as golden wheat hair slid to fall across his shoulders. He studies his master's delicate face, angular and sharp, unlike the horns on his blond head, curved and strong like a moutain goat's, in the colour of midnight. The distance between him and his master shrinks with a pale hand stretching across the void, ghosting along his cheek. Alfred cannot help the chill he feels in his very bones, it always flared when his master touched him.

"We have someone new." His master's voice is old, but timeless, ageless, infinite.

Alfred smiles like a thousand daggers in the night.


The air is thin, every gasp is almost futile, there is nothing going into his lungs, nothing sustaining him, sustaining his life.

He is dying.

His father speaks to him in hushed and desperate whispers, fearfully hoping, dread bleeding into his words of prayer. Even the elegance of their native language cannot mask the despair eating into every syllable.

He is dying.


"Who are you?"

He stands in a void, inky black but he is weightless. He stands, but there is nothing he is standing on. What sorcery was this?

"I go by many names, all except one." Alfred smiles, warm and pleasant and dangerous. "What would you like me to be today?"

"What are you talking about?" He feels like shouting, screaming, running, but he can't. The bizarre space is both terrifying and arresting. He cannot leave. He is dying.

"Mm," the man with black wings and black claws and fangs like a demon's (he is a demon, Matthew surmises) seems to ponder for awhile, while Matthew stands there awe-struck and paralysed with fear, before the man, demon, smiles again, and Matthew has never felt so horrified, "I am Freedom."

"Freedom?"

"You don't like it?" The demon-being tilts his head, and suddenly Matthew is very aware of the other's horns, and Matthew shakes his head quickly, desperately, fearfully, oh dear merciful god in heaven, what if he angered this-this thing -

"Haha," a deep chuckle, almost a growl, and Matthew thinks he really is going to die now when the demon pins him with eyes like ice, fangs shining like blades, even in the inky black void -

"What are you afraid of, Matthew Bonnefoy?" Alfred takes a step, a gracious predator, his expression relaxed and enticing, voice smooth and even and tempting. "Are you afraid of me? This being you do not recognise, cannot grasp, cannot fathom..."

Matthew tries to move, with every ounce of willpower he tries to move his legs, to get away, to run, but he can't.

"Nobody escapes. Nothing. There is an end for everything, even me." He is close now, close to a beating heart, and a warm body, a scared, dying one, but warm and human nonetheless.

"B-but you are... Free..." Matthew stutters quietly, to this being who makes no sense (but it is not nonsense, Matthew knows, in a dark corner of his frail human heart), perhaps one is given blind courage when one knows he is about to die.

The being materialises behind him, and Matthew almost screams, but his throat is dry and he no longer has the strength to open his mouth, his entire body is tense yet relaxed and flaccid - dying was a release from your physical shell, some preached - and the demon almost, almost, rests its chin on Matthew's shoulder - and suddenly, Matthew sees another man, thing, before him.

The other being has wings and horns and claws like this Freedom, but his eyes and skin and built were different. He was expressionless, he stood motionless, like existing was enough, he did not need to do anything. He chilled Matthew to his very core, all-consuming, a familiar yet terrifying cold seizing his already weakly beating heart -

"Even I have a master," Alfred whispers, dark and soft and seductive. Matthew eyes fall close, almost, the voice, the void, he is tired and they lure him to sleep, eternal rest - who, he breathes, with his last breath, the last he sees before it all falls to darkness is the other being with green, unknowable eyes -

"Death."


ashes to ashes, dust to dust

| inspired by the anti the infinite holic usuk/hetalia video
this is me combining sweet devil and anti the ∞ holic basically