Chapter Text
Raven makes a home for herself among another man’s bones.
He is dead. He breathes, and bleeds, but he is dead. He was dead from the moment he was born. He was dead from the moment they chose him. From the moment she chose him. His name is SUBJECT #267, but she calls him Mikhail.
Together, they are a weapon. She is a creature from the beginning of the universe, and when she was born, Creation looked down and gave her teeth. Creation did not give her love, but she found that herself. She dug through soil and earth and blood, and she built herself out of soft clay and sharp iron around a core of blood. She gave herself a body, and she gave herself a purpose.
She is something incomprehensible. Before there was an empire and apple cores, there was her. The kingdoms of gods rose and fell, and she only watched. She waited. She was accompanied by Creation’s servants, but she was different from them, and they knew it. They were a whisper in the ears of madmen. She was made of stardust and smoke and clay, and she walked the world through shadows.
Occasionally, she ventured down. A soft smile and the glimmer of rubies. She danced with kings and farmers alike. She danced with people. When winter came, she brought hope. She brought food. They never asked where she came from, where the sustenance she brought was grown. They were smarter than that.
Once, she presented a gift to people of the ocean. She did not make it, of course- one of her peers, younger and not yet wise to Pandora’s curse, built it from sapphires and rock. She gave the people of the ocean a gift of survival, and watched as it tore them apart.
So she ran. She ran, and she hid.
But when the cries of children reached her ears, she gave in. She followed the sound.
When she was born, Creation gave her teeth. When she died, they took away everything else.
They stripped away her heart. They took away her smile and hope and memories of dancing, and they fashioned her into a weapon, and they gave her a friend.
That was their first mistake.
His name was Mikhail, and he was scared. Barely old enough to hold a gun, let alone carry the future of a nation on his back. He was scared, and yet he gave her a home. He had a grandmother. A sister, thousands of years ago. That, she thought, was familiar.
She was his sword. She was nothing without him, not really. They ripped away her old purpose and gave her a new one, and it was to protect him. They gave her a mission, and she completed it.
When he died- properly, this time, she died with him.
She followed him through the depths of Hell, hiding. Waiting. Watching. He stood among gods and men, and he did what he had always been told to do. Mikhail fought. He stole a name, and he fought. In a land of death and blood and screams, he found a home, and he found love.
Her name was Ilektrikíkardiá, but she called herself Cookie. She wasn’t from the beginning of the universe, but she was still old. There was something there, in her smile. Electricity danced around her fingers, and rubies spun around her head. They danced, Cookie and Mikhail and her, even if they didn’t know she was there. She hid, folding herself into his cloak, wrapping herself around his bones, and waited.
You see, when a creature is bound to a person, it generally stays hidden. Waiting, yes, but hidden. If the life of the creature’s host is threatened, then the creature emerges. A weapon.
His life wasn’t exactly threatened, but the fear and adrenaline was the same, and she caught a flash of mud and barbed wire as she screamed.
Mikhail hid. He ran, and he hid in her head, in their cloak, in the shadows. She walked the fields of hell, a shield and a sword. A blade.
His sister found her. Of course she did. Her name from a thousand years ago was Sophrosyne, but she, too, had stolen a new name. She stood as Mikhail’s opposite, yin and yang, black and white, life and death. Eternally opposed. And yet, they were kin. And yet, she cared.
“Are you the creature inside Death?” She asks.
”YES.” She tells her, a thousand voices and one, dancing. She was something else, something more, and she stood in a small wooden room.
”Oh.” Sophrosyne says, stilted. Her tail twitches, but she takes a deep breath and forges on. “What’s your name? It’s not very polite for me to call you ‘the creature.’”
She casts her memory back to sterilised halls and bloodied hands. “TEST-267 IS MY OFFICIAL NAME.”
“But what do you want to be called?” Mikhail’s sister presses.
“I NEVER REALLY THOUGHT ABOUT THAT.” She admits. It’s true. She has taken on many fake names and masks, cloaks of innocence and songs. She has been a poet, a peasant, a king, a god. She has been everything, and she has been nothing at all. But a name… she does not have that. A weapon does not need a name, after all. She built herself a body, and she built herself a heart, but she did not give herself a name.
Sophrosyne leans back, clearly putting effort into keeping her feathers smooth and un-puffed. It’s not working, but she’s trying. She hums thoughtfully.
A thought strikes her like a lightning bolt, and she tilts Mikhail’s head, staring at her with Mikhail’s eyes. “WOULD YOU LIKE TO GIVE ME A NAME?”
Mikhail’s sister takes a step back, wide-eyed, before nodding, schooling her expression into something more determined. There’s a softness to her that reminds her of tough winters, a kindness in her eyes so unlike anything in the laboratories where she died. “Do you want to be associated with Death?” Sophrosyne asks, using the name he stole.
“YES.” She answers firmly, immediately. He is all she has left in this world. She pokes him, questioningly, but he does not respond, retreating further into their cloak. He is still hiding.
“Let me think…” Sophrosyne looks up at the ceiling, tapping one claw against the table, before looking back at her.
“How about Raven?”