Fowlhunter [GL]

The Princess of Beasts crumpled to an undignified heap on the ground. Ennanis stared as blood pooled from the back of her punctured skull, dyeing ghostly locks of hair black.

Then a voice called out, “Commander Zoleil! There you are.”

It was Brigadier Rodwyn. In the intensity of their conversation, combined with how silently he had moved, neither of them had noticed his approach. Lowering his throwing arm, the angel brigadier exhaled in relief, approaching Ennanis.

“So this is where you’ve been all this time,” he said. “This far down? No wonder my communication charm couldn’t track you until I got closer.”

“What do you mean, the charm couldn’t track me?” Ennanis had been further down in the foothills, but it wasn’t all that far from the first peak; seeing as Rodwyn was of Brigadier rank, it should’ve been well within his range.

“Oh. Soleki works differently at night,” Brigadier Rodwyn clarified. “Maybe it’s the lack of the sun, or Lunaki interfering with the signal, but the range of communication charms becomes severely limited. You can try it. Even the Wardens’ charms don’t really work. Without our post-mortem reports, they’d be clueless about whatever happens on Mount Casca at night…”

His voice trailed off as his footsteps brought him closer—close enough to see the Beast he had just harpooned. A woman sprawled across the dirt; blood-muddied ebony skirts, torn red and green feathers. A glittering beaked mask. His slitted eyes grew wider and wider.

“No way,” he breathed. “No noxing way. No way in Prometheus’ high sun. You were fighting the Cockatrice? The Princess of Beasts? Alone??”

Ennanis stood very still. She didn't answer the other angel; she didn't quite seem to have heard him at all. Her eyes hadn't moved from the Cockatrice's dead body.

“Why didn't you call the rest of the Division? You're lucky to still be alive. You know, she's an expert at killing angels. She leaves no mercy for any.” Ennanis was still standing rod-stiff. He held her by her shoulders and gently steered her away from the scene. “Still feeling shocked? I know… it's a lot to go up against.”

As they walked, he shook his head, murmuring to himself. “Still, you did a good job distracting her, enough so I could get the drop on her. I can't believe I just killed the Cockatrice. She's mortal, right? Like any of the other Beasts.” He hummed pensively. “The fabled Cockatrice can finally drown in hell where she belongs. Good riddance.”

Ennanis was silent, the only sound from her the heavy crunch of gravel under her boots.

“Why so quiet?” Rodwyn peered at her. “I know you always are, but jeez… say something, will you? It’s creepy down here. If you said something it would be a lot more comforting.” He wrapped his wings around himself, shivering. He frowned. “Come to think of it, I saw you talking to the Cockatrice earlier. What could you have possibly been talking about?”

“...I thought I could talk some sense into her,” Ennanis finally spoke.

Brigadier Rodwyn gave her an incredulous look. “What made you think you could do that? It’s not like you knew the Cockatrice personally.” Then his face began to change. “Unless… you did know her.”

He glanced at Ennanis. The angel commander’s face was normally an impenetrable mask. But now, he saw the sorrow writ in it, clear as crystal. Her jaw trembled, as if she was, in fact… about to cry.

The Brigadier Rodwyn stared at the sight. Slowly, as he put two and two together, his complexion drained completely.

“It was you,” he realised in horror. “The reason why she was behind bars and now isn’t. The reason why someone as highly-ranked as you could’ve been so suddenly demoted to greybelt. Why you sought her out alone. You were the one who…”

“...Freed the Cockatrice,” Ennanis finished, almost dryly.

Brigadier Rodwyn whirled on her. Though he was shorter than her, he grabbed ahold of her collar and yanked it forward.

“How could you have let such a dangerous prisoner talk you into releasing her?” His anger cut hot through the night air. “Did you not have a single shred of thought for what it would mean for Mount Casca? For the entirety of the undercloud? Can you even begin to comprehend how many angels have died because of you?”

Ennanis said nothing to defend herself. She merely stared at him blankly.

“How dare you,” his voice trembled. “How dare you do such a thing, and still look at me like that. Do you have no heart? Do have no soul under your skin? How can you not shed a single tear for your fallen comrades, but look as though you’re about to weep over the death of a mass murderer?”

“Maybe it is so,” Ennanis murmured. “Maybe I have no heart.”

“What is it that you even see in her?” Rodwyn’s voice dripped with revulsion. “Is it because of those… tastes of yours? Were you bewitched by her? Seduced?” He dropped his hand from her collar, as if unable to bear being in contact with her for any longer. “Were all those lives lost because you couldn’t keep it up your skirt-”

A resounding CRACK.

Brigadier Rodwyn’s head thrust forward at an odd angle. His trachea dangled in two halves.

The Cockatrice stood behind them like a long shadow, arms raised, hands gripping the rock that she had smashed into the angel brigadier’s head. She kicked over his corpse and squatted over it. Ennanis watched as she ripped off both his gold braces, seized his limp wrists, and crushed them to shards in her gloved fists. All without a second of hesitation.

Bits of bone and flesh fell from her fingertips as she stood up.

“Sorry about the mess,” the Beast clicked her tongue. “Men are just so crude sometimes.”

Ennanis stared back at her in a mute question.

“What?” the Cockatrice simply scoffed. “Did you really think I’d go down that easily?” She turned her back to her, walking ahead. Ennanis glanced back to see the javelin lying in the pool of blood some metres back where the Cockatrice had been lying moments before, as if she had just pulled it out of her skull and flung it aside.

Ennanis looked forward again; but the Cockatrice’s long flaxen waves obscured where the wound might’ve been.

“......”

Stepping gingerly over the body of Brigadier Rodwyn, Ennanis followed the Cockatrice. They walked in silence. Both were apparently too tired to continue fighting.

The woman was sniffing the air, apparently following some scent. Her rooster’s tail swished behind her with every step. When Ennanis finally managed to quieten the thoughts racing within her mind and focus on the present, she began to smell it too. At first, there had only been the metallic whiff that wafted from the back of the Cockatrice’s head. But soon, the stench grew more and more intense, thicker and heavier. A miasma of gunpowder, smoke, rusted metal… wet fur.

When they came upon the source of the stench, they were at the first peak.

All across the dark mountainface, Beasts and angels lay in bloodied, groaning heaps. Any of those uninjured had long fled the scene. The sounds of the fight continuing echoed from further above, possibly up at the second peak.

Ennanis Zoleil was quiet.

For once, so was the Cockatrice.

Eventually, Ennanis plucked up her courage and strode forward. She squatted down next to one of the angels. This one was an azure-ribboned lieutenant, sprawled out unmoving on the ground. They had clearly been felled by a spear to the chest. However, the strange thing about the corpse was how… thin they were. Their blue vest and shorts sagged from their form, which was nearly skin-and-bone, as if they had been starved for days. Instead of being slitted, their eyes were dilated, wide and glassy. Most of the angels lying here looked that way.

“What happened to them?” Ennanis asked.

“Withering. It’s what happens to an angel when they run out of Soleki at night,” the Cockatrice answered. When Ennanis began to unwrap some of her medical supplies, she said, “Don’t bother. You can’t heal it, and it’s irreversible. The most you can do for them is put them out of their misery.”

The lieutenant in Ennanis’ arms groaned. They squinted those glassy eyes of theirs at Ennanis, then pawed at her without strength. Numbly, Ennanis continued to clean their wounds with cotton and solution, unrolling gauze and taping down bandages.

The Cockatrice stared at her, then sighed. She knelt next to Ennanis, seized the lieutenant’s arms, and unclicked both their braces. With her boot, she nudged the naked wrists in the angel commander’s direction.

“There,” she said dryly. “Now finish the job.”

Ennanis’ hands shook. The bandages fell from her fingers, and she simply stared as they soaked up the blood, far too much of it, shrivelling up into wet clumps.

The Cockatrice sighed again. “Well. So much for being helpful.” She turned away. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have my own things to take care of.”

The Princess of Beasts herself stalked between the lines, checking the carcasses of the magical animal hybrids. She bent down and picked up the white paw of a pixiu, watching its blood-damp fur bristle in the whistling wind. Beneath her mask, her eyes were unreadable.

“Fucking idiots,” the Cockatrice could be heard muttering, a grit to her teeth. “I told them not to rush into the attack by themselves.”

Ennanis lingered by the fallen angels, silent as a ghost.

Raising her head, the Cockatrice was the first to speak again.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” she said. “We have a war to fight.”

“If the war will continue whether we fight or not,” Ennanis countered. “Can’t we just walk away from it all? You and I?”

The angel commander and the beast princess stood across from each other on the mountainface, separated by a sea of bodies.

“You may think it an option, but this isn’t something I can just turn my back on,” the Cockatrice replied. Her eyelids lowered. “And please. Whatever feelings you may’ve held for Chime, discard them. I am not that girl you keep looking for.”

She raised her voice over the night wind.

“Don’t forget who I am, and don’t forget who you are,” she called. “You’re the Golden Rose. Go be a hero and fight for your kingdom valiantly on the battlefield. I am the villain—your enemy—so quit trying to convince me I could be anything else. Turn away now,” dark eyes flashed beneath a mask, “or I will make you.”

“Over my dead body,” Ennanis answered, ever immovable.

“Oh,” the Cockatrice hissed. “Most certainly.”

Then she turned and left, a shadow into the darkness it came from.