He sits alone in the corner of his room, naked and unadorned except for a blanket about his waist. Even his hair is down, loosed from the holds of the fine silk scarf that kept it away from his quiet marble face. The leathery emerald wings at his back do not shroud him tonight; they are unfurled in their own display of defiance. He is facing the wall, and before him sits a double- edged dagger, finely sharpened to cut through most anything. Tonight the matter of choice will be flesh and bone.
His glass-green eyes are shut, brow furrowed in resistance to the voices only he hears. He does not want to do this - he never does - but the act keeps the voices at bay, if only for a short while.
Despite the late spring warmth, his room is cold. Even the many candles defy logic; there is no illumination.
It takes little motion to lift the dagger. He knows this ritual so well that he needs not open his eyes. He dares not open his eyes - he knows and remembers every face that will be watching him.
His free hand hesitates before reaching out for his right wing. Slowly it closes around the porcelain ridge of bone where the pinion meets his shoulder. He can feel the sting of his own firm grip for a moment before circulation is lost and nerves no longer send their warning signals. He raises the dagger, touches it to its prepared target for only a second, then swiftly passes it through as if the dagger was merely cutting air.
He drops the severed wing to the floor. It trembles faintly, then goes limp, lifeless. What little blood it held now fills the spaces between the floorboards, leaving a stain that will serve as a reminder for many decades, even after this night becomes one of hundreds like it.
He repeats the process with his left wing quickly, less ritualistic. He leans forward; his long hair piles onto the floor and mingles with the growing pool of blood. He finds himself smiling, laughing in euphoric dementia. The slithering sensation of dark red trails careening down his back feels like the liberating touch of a goddess come to rescue him from his torture. For a moment, he is free, if only in his mind.
He wraps the disconnected wings in the blanket from around his waist. Crimson blots seep through the thick cloth, making it sticky. If only mother were still alive, he thought. I'd send her this little package. Just so she could know what the son she never cared for turned out to be.
He lays the bundle by the door to be disposed of in the morning. The smell will become heady and pungent by then, but that perfume will surely shock him back into reality and remind him of his masochistic ritual.
The gashes left on his back are beginning to form thick scabs that would surely scar, if the flesh he removed did not grow back. But it would, and it would hurt worse than ever before. But he doesn't think about that now.
He lays himself on the bed which he has not been able to sleep in until tonight. Though he must lay on his side, it is refreshing to not have to sleep sitting up in a corner.
And for the first time in months, he has a beautiful dream of hope, without the pain of memory.