A/N: Good god this is a long chapter and I am not kidding. So it's 13k words and please only read it when you have the time to finish the whole thing in one shot. It's okay because I'll wait for you to finish and am looking forward to what you think. I combined the previous half chapter with this one so this entire chapter is Vaughny-poo.

__________________________

Evaughn Alekseyev did not always have hair the shade between black and white; shades on the spectrum between the two extremes. Grey.

He was once a boy with short, dark hair the colour of ebony, born on a day of ice and snow, so pale that one could have mistaken him for the princess whose name he did not know. His mother had never been a fan of tales about witches and fairies; princes and princesses. Evaughn was a boy of liquorice—brittle and hard, left in the dark and where they thought he would best belong but one part of him begged to differ.

His gaze, the shade of a sky about to thunder and rain, stared at cosy flames lazing over a pile of logs. Crackling and spitting.

The boy sat by the fire, lights down low and a record spinning atop his mother's gramophone, thinking about the letter he would be writing about three weeks from now. The tips of his fingers, warmed by the touch of hot cocoa in his hands, were red and pale where the October breeze had stung while he was out fetching logs from the grounds in the east wing.

He's making a list

He's checking it twice;

The eight-year-old understood that it was, perhaps, two months too early for such music to be playing as he sat by the fire and rocked himself to oblivion, the scent of hot cocoa almost the colour of his hair. Warm.

Gonna find out who's naughty or nice

Santa Claus—

"Isn't real," scowled another as he entered the living room, dropping his book bag by an arm chair before sauntering over to the kitchen and yanking open the refrigerator. Shoes on. "Stop listening to nursery rhymes, kid."

Evaughn turned, the blanket over his legs falling onto the carpet. "Vaughn? You're back early! How was class? A-and you're wearing shoes in the house. You shouldn't do that."

His brother snorted, straightening up with the carton of milk that Evaughn had used to make his cup of hot cocoa. "Yeah. So?"

"Maybe you should take them off," said the younger of the two, finding that he couldn't quite hear the music above the noise. "Or. You know. You might leave dirt all over the floor."

"So that you can have it easy," the second-year student laughed, rolling his eyes. "Riight. Gotta let you slack off, huh."

Evaughn scrambled upright, standing. "That's not—"

His brother kicked off his shoes, one by one and with all the force he could muster, leaving a fair mark on the wall opposite the refrigerator. "Happy?" The words travelled up the room that was empty and lacking in warmth despite the crackling of flames. He could hear his brother's Avian nesting in the balcony, re-arranging the sticks and branches of her bed.

"Get that record in the trash," said Vaughn as he crossed the living to retrieve the book bag he'd thrown aside. "I need to study. And stop listening to that shit or I'll let mother know you've been touching his things."

The hooded vulture disappeared upstairs like a storm of clouds, leaving behind remnants of darkness and rain and Evaughn watched him go. He watched him go.

He knows when you've been bad or good

So be good, for goodness sake.

He dragged his heavy heart towards the gramophone and lifted its stylus off the slow-turning record, moving it to the side where it often hung alone before stowing the record away. Then, he covered it all in a dark, velvet cloth where no light could seek, and no eye could see.

*

He would know when it was his mother at the door. Vultures were not known for having anything close to decent hearing but Evaughn would know. It was the feeling of the floor and of the air—he could tell when she was coming; nearing the door, walking down that long corridor outside after the turn on the fifth floor of the predator halls.

Not so much the sound of her heels and the way in which she walked to produce the characteristic click he could otherwise hear walking alongside her, should he be. Walking alongside her.

He could tell from the way the floor seemed to move or speak, whispering in short, stunted breaths that were, in fact, something akin to vibrations he felt from sitting on the cold laminate floor. The pattern in which it sang its secrets was distinct to Evaughn and that was how he always knew when to stand by the door and wait for the sound of keys cranking it open.

"Good evening, mother." He came down the entranceway towards Verity, hands reaching for the bags of groceries she'd ordered from the catalogue they had at the post. "How are you today?"

"All good, Evaughn. Much better than yesterday, at the very least," she smiled, the corners of her eyes forming wrinkles. "Is your brother home? Dinner will be ready in just a bit."

The fledgling nodded, escorting his mother to the kitchen after turning on the raw bulb that flickered every now and then. "He's home early today. I'll help you with preparing the ingredients first. Then I'll go up and get Vaughn."

"I wouldn't have thought otherwise," laughed the mother with eyes that had aged with what it had seen. Only thirty-three. "He must be in a good mood today. Celebratory, so to speak." She brought out frozen pieces of chicken sealed in Styrofoam packages and clingwrap, breast, thigh and leg separated into different portions each.

Evaughn kept the words he wanted to say inside. After all, he'd known best what would happen should he be saying things that his mother did not like. Especially when it came to things about his brother.

"What is he celebrating?"

"His promotion, of course," a pot was filled with water to a mark that was really a dent, indicating that it was three-quarters full. "Secretary of the IAI. Innovators and inventors—the school's research team. You'll know how important they are when your time comes. Well your brother gave a speech in front of the school this morning at the election rally. Floored everyone, you see. Got himself voted in! Not one would have thought he was a vulture."

The boy noticed his mother having a hard time lighting the stove while he was taking the onions apart. Placing the knife aside, he crouched and looked under the stove where the gas was. "Is the gas off again?"

"Everyone loved him. And the applause! Oh you should have seen it, dear." She tried to light it for the fourth time and it worked, sparking a low, stuttering flame that was blue.

Evaughn paused; a hole in his heart before slowly drifting back, returning to his onions. He found this part of Vaughn rather unsurprising to say the least. The fact that his brother was able to order him about at home and express his thoughts and beliefs so strongly, and so clearly, felt to him a likely translation into the ability to rise up the ranks.

The fifteen-year-old had always been one to be in control, authoring a life of his own and perhaps even, the lives of others. Indeed, one would never have thought he was a scavenger until they'd seen Lux, his Avian.

He was like the tree that never moved despite the wind, rooted in his opinions and unmoving; coupled with the gift of expressing himself in a manner so well. Worlds apart from the fledgling who remained in his snow globe of hot chocolate and dreams and letters to Santa.

"He could very well become the youngest vulture to ever qualify as a Heart! Who knows. Season's in three months—deceptively long, yes, but in time. That would teach Kirill a lesson..."

You better watch out

He skinned the potatoes next and chopped them up into cubes which his brother preferred and his mother had told him to do from the start of it all. Just how long ago exactly, Evaughn could not remember. Deep down, he felt something rise.

You better not cry

"Where was I, in my second year... attending additional classes of course, yes. Just an ordinary student but your brother, class president and secretary! So many people looking up to him. Many friends too, I suppose... and faring so well with the majority—especially today, at the rally.

"Oh, he's surpassed me in every aspect." Her laugh was genuine. Free. Proud. "The chances of him becoming a member of the youth council... well, at the rate he is progressing, I don't see why not."

Better not pout

Inside, the boy was welling up. In him stirred a pride that very much negated the other green-eyed monster that resided in his cage, spreading its wings and wrapping around the scales of the green. Caressing it in red. Petals—blooming and shy.

I'm telling you why

They often found themselves curved towards the light, bending to where his brother was, standing at the top of the pedestal, perhaps even at the end of the tunnel where all his goals and ideals and dreams seemed to meet. At the very end.

In truth, Evaughn was very much proud to be the brother of someone who had the qualities he so admired and longed to possess. The respect his red flower harboured for the light was overwhelming and immense. It always seemed to be looking at its back.

*

That night, he'd written the twenty-second chapter of his book inspired by the events of Hamlet and Macbeth, transformed his characters into fully-fledged representations of humanity in words of symbols and motifs, coloured by themes on the entire spectrum of literature.

Evaughn had gone without school for almost four years and the very lack of stimulation had kept his mind restless and solemn; bored without distraction and a bored human was known to be more frightening than any other sort of human.

Boredom—short of being considered an emotion and yet, more than just an objective fact independent of the mind. While one could explain or identify their source of joy or grief, why they were happy or how they'd come to feel sadness, boredom was the very absence of a source. There was nothing to explain when one was bored. While joy was the blossoming of a flower and grief the falling of rain, boredom was a big fat rock. Unmoving.

The family of vultures had moved to the island when Verity had finally received an offer (a place) in Flight School. It wasn't easy for a thirty-year-old to return to the path of her dreams once she'd derailed and fallen far off the map but it was under the circumstances of her first son, who would be accepted into the school two years after her entry.

And while they did, indeed, have a place to stay and a bed to sleep on and food to eat, Evaughn was himself left to face a big fat rock for four whole years, fending for himself in books that he'd read and reread almost seven times. And as time ebbed away at the creature in his cage, he had reached a plateau in his growth whereby there was none.

He was stuck.

The fledgling himself did not have a mind of greatness, imagination or the beyond. Evaughn was a master of what was already there. In his world, words written in ink were familiar and within his realm of understanding, but it was those that were not—those that have yet to be written and those that have yet to appear. Those were beyond his mind.

A leap of faith made him write the book. An inspiration of ones that had already been written, he had to admit it was, but it was a first step. At the very least.

Chapter twenty-two had to be shown and approved by someone else and Evaughn decided that it had to be his brother. A book had no purpose not being read for it was written for a reason and that reason had to do with the touching of a human heart and the moving of a human mind. A book is always written for a reason.

Without reason, the book was not a book. It was an idea; a concept; a mere figment in the mind of one that had not chosen to write it down in ink and choose the very words to be used. A spectator was necessary.

"Vaughn?" He knocked on his brother's door. "Vaughn, are you in there?" He waited.

Something was happening behind that door and the boy couldn't quite hear what it was. Semblances of crumbling, smashing, a series of thuds and clinks and slams and then it was silence.

The door opened. "What?" His brother was a tower to the boy, looking down with a jaw that was harsh and fixed, eyes hard with impatience. The gap was big enough for Evaughn to tell that his brother had not been studying. "I'm busy."

"O-oh. Sorry... I didn't mean to disturb you. I was just wondering if you'd like to read my next chapter. It's been nine chapters since you last read, but. And, um, since you've been studying so much I just thought you might like a short break."

Vaughn had paused, staring down at his fledgling brother with big, round eyes that were likely to become small like his own with age and responsibilities. Children. So free of everything he was not.

"I stopped reading because your characters were boring. Not because I was busy, stupid."

Better watch out

"They were so predictable and idealistic. Like the fairy tales you read," he laughed, eyes still and unmoving. "Told you not to read stuff like that. Mother needs to throw all of that shit out one day, you know. She hates it."

Better not cry

The fledgling gazed up at his brother, the same stirring of the Wind—the semblance of what seemed to him like a tornado within—rising in his chest. He felt as though he was about to be swept away. Small and insignificant like a broom in the cupboard that no one remembered where they'd kept.

"Read the encyclopaedia or something," muttered the hooded vulture, shoving past his brother and disappearing down the stairs that led toward their basement. There, he saw it again.

The back of the light.

"Darling?" He turned around to see his mother by the door of her bedroom, an old nightcap in her hands and looking quite as though she'd been woken up by their voices. "Were you bothering your brother again?"

Evaughn dared not shake his head and defend himself. Better not pout.

"What did I tell you about bothering Vaughn while he's studying?" Verity sighed, closing the distance and shaking her head as she did, growing in size as his perspective of her became distorted by the distance. She was so much taller than he was.

"Go back to your room, dear." She turned her younger son around by the shoulders and led him to the door of his room. "It's getting late and the council recruitment's tomorrow so mother has to prepare herself, you know. She has to sleep early."

He looked over his shoulder and down at the stairs that his brother had descended leaving him behind. The door to the basement blinked in the darkness, out of light's reach and far from the public eye, hidden in the shadows of something Evaughn knew not what.

I'm telling you why

*

Boredom was the monster that was bound to creep into his cage and nestle there, paying the other creature within some well-deserved company after the longest time of doing nothing. The end of November brought about a chilly breeze that was sometimes hot on the island, the turn of its tide so abrupt that one would have thought it was a twist in time; a distortion of reality that they had somehow achieved and therefore jumped between summer and winter, winter and summer.

The boy had listened to every Christmas song there was and read his book of the day—The Picture of Dorian Gray—only to make himself the very same peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch before lying on the couch and waiting for sleep to come.

It did not.

What did, however, was the calling of something in the darkness that was perhaps the dark itself. He'd heard it coming from the basement like the whisper of the wind, a chill rising up every step from the basement to where he was and the draw of its eyes that he could somehow see; hands that he could somehow feel.

Something was in there.

He'd known from the very start, the beginning of the semester when his brother had, for no reason, only after Verity had gone to bed headed down to the basement where he would stay until the heart of the night Evaughn knew not when.

He sat up, gazing down the empty space past the creaky stairs and the brittle banister into the darkness. Beyond that, the door.

Standing, he watched the shadows to see if it would move as though it was all part of the plan and part of the scare like it was in every movie brave enough to deem themselves 'horror'. It was a feat to call oneself 'horror'. It meant that it had to scare and should it not serve its purpose—scare—disappointment was due.

Evaughn was standing in front of the door before he knew it. He hadn't imagined it to be this rusty or this seemingly unused. Perhaps it was his brother's way of convincing their mother of the things he did not do.

He reached for the lever latch, the handle of the door, but alas. It was locked.

It was only after the deed had been done that the severity of it all began to sink in his head. That he had tried to invade the privacy of his elder brother without so much a word of permission of either of his family members and risked himself being found out. That he had done so out of boredom or even worse—curiosity, shocked him further.

The boy eight years of age was old enough to understand the gravity of his mistake and where the error lied. He'd given in to the temptation of breaking a rule that was there. Elder brothers were meant to be respected, mother's words meant to be heard and obeyed.

In that instance, Evaughn was glad that the door was locked. Closed doors prevented him from going beyond where his duties lie and from wandering. Wandering off the trodden path.

Anxious, he turned to head back up the stairs just in case his brother had, by any chance, the intention of returning home early again but the door

creaked

open.

The fledgling had spun around in fright, startled but the sound only to see that it was not darkness beyond the door but a very, very warm light. It looked to him like a fireplace before a carpet on a snowy winter evening, beside a window where he could see the frost forming on the glass.

By skies—he was like a moth drawn to the flame. The sight swallowed him completely, something that only darkness could have done but he soon realized light could too. Feet could not stop; hands would not remain still and eyes could not blink.

Inside, was a cage. And in that cage, was a beautiful black vulture.

The creature appeared to be sleeping. Head bowed; eyes closed; chest rising and falling in a subtle movement that he'd almost missed, mesmerized by everything else. A bird in a cage was one of the very last things Evaughn had expected his brother to stow away in the basement of their home, hidden in the dark and away from the light.

It was standing, the cage was. Golden bars rising up to meet above the vulture's head, blocking out the skies above and a chain, short but thick, attached to a cuff on its feet.

Bags of gold; a secret library of forbidden books or even an entire collection of dolls wouldn't have surprised him as much as the creature in the cage did. One would, very naturally, start by questioning how his brother had come to attain such a beautiful thing and why he would, since he did, already, have an Avian to look at and appreciate. What was it doing here? A lonely, shrunken creature supposedly social in its behaviour and heavily relied on interaction.

He let the creature sleep and turned his attention towards the desk beside the cage. A clutter of papers, magnified versions of diagrams on top of four cutting mats put together, paper knives and pencils strewn all across the table. Those were the details that he'd put together to reaffirm his brother's presence down here over the past two, three dozen nights.

And yet another surprise awaited his discovery as he sat on the swivel chair before the desk only to stand again, turning to look at the very thing he'd sat on. It was a pistol.

He stumbled back and knocked into the cage by accident, startled by the presence of a weapon within such close proximity that had the power to take a life. Sitting on a gun—something Evaughn had never imagined himself to do in his entire lifetime and here he was, staring at the intricate bronze designs over what looked like a wooden back and a sleek, silver barrel that was unusually... long.

There was something written in Russian, his father's tongue, on the long end of the pistol and it was effortless for him to read. He picked it up, feeling its weight on his hand and how it seemed to carry the burden of stealing a life, turning it over to read the rest of the inscription.

The true test of strength

Is when one wakes from the fall.

The boy was holding a pistol and that itself had his fingers trembling in fright. He put it down at once, returning it to its original position and the sound, to him, was awfully loud and disturbing. He was certain: there was no reason for his brother to possess a weapon so deadly that his mother did not know about. Did she?

She had no way of knowing. Not if his brother had specifically warned the rest of them not to bother him in the evenings after dinner when it was time for him to study, no. It had been the case for years and years and Verity would never enter where he was without permission or an otherwise emergency. Plus, the door had been locked.

Locked. How does a locked door open one's self? He gripped the edge of the desk to steady himself, scanning the papers spread before his eyes for a purpose, a clue, a reason for his invitation as every event in a book, a word in a paragraph, served a purpose.

To further the climb; to develop a story about to be written.

Can't say I haven't been waiting, said the voice in the dark, the voice of the whispers and callings he'd been hearing from upstairs. The fledgling raised his gaze, staring at the wall that appeared to have spoken aloud.

"I'm sorry—you were waiting?"

What does it look like I'm doing? The voice possessed little feeling and lacked familiar features for gender identification. Swimming? For a moment there, it really seemed to him as though he was speaking to a wall.

"There is no swimming pool here, so no, I suppose not." Evaughn looked around, wringing his hands in a nervous disposition. "Would you, um. Would you like to swim? As far as I know, we're surrounded by air space here on the island. If you'd like, I could bring you to the indoor swimming pool near the north wing. It's accessible only to predators, though. Only if you want to, that is.

"Where are you, by the way?" He asked soon after, having gone around the cramped basement in circles. "I don't quite know where to look."

I see you use your voice more than the rest of your senses, observed the one he was speaking to. The ambiguity of its existence could be capitalized upon to tease its owner. I am the creature in your cage.

"Cage?" The boy blinked. "Well, I. I don't have a cage, sir. Ma'am. Whichever applies."

Everyone has a cage, Evaughn. What differs is whether or not they can see it.

"I should not like to have a cage, sir or ma'am. Cages don't mean very well," he continued to search, looking under the desk and in the drawers; up at the corners where the walls and the ceiling met and the corners down below. "Please tell me where to look. I've read in books that it's not polite to look elsewhere when someone is talking."

You are the kind of person who doesn't look back at the places you've once looked, aren't you.

The fledgling paused, then took the hint at once and reversed his gaze from the corners to the drawers back under the desk and the pipes and then to the chair and the papers and the desk and the gun and then, to the bird in the cage.

Its eyes were open.

"I see you now. Y-you. You tricked me—you said you were the creature in my cage and I didn't quite understand what you meant, so it didn't cross my mind then to, well, look back at your cage again since I assumed you were, well, asleep. And, but... but it you're speaking to me like this, then! Then," his eyes were wide and open and beginning to see for the very first time. "This must be our Link.

"You are my Avian," he breathed. Quiet.

The vulture did not say another word. It merely stared back at him, through the windows that were his eyes and at the clouds that were grey. Nothing seemed to be happening.

"But why are you here? Why are you locked up?" Evaughn closed the distance between him and the standing cage, tip-toeing to peer into its golden interior and to get a closer look at the gate that was locked. "Where's the key? How do I free you?"

The primary question of importance crossed his mind then, but his fear of voicing it led to the swallowing of words. The question of who. The source, criminal, perpetrator, mastermind, the power, the author—the one who kept his cage locked up high. He did not dare ask for a name.

Someone in this world thinks that it is not yet your time. They have your key.

"How can I get it?" His voice was lowered to a whisper. "Do they want you dead?"

Not really, it said. Death is sometimes not an ideal way of suffering, Evaughn. Perhaps you have yet to understand such a complex matter.

They shared a moment of silence that the boy never quite knew he needed when the rest of his life was, already, pervaded by the absence of sound in an empty space. He reached out to touch the bird only to realize that the gaps between the bars of the cage were far too small to fit his entire hand.

"But aren't you lonely down here?" He wriggled a finger in the cage, stretching it to the best of his efforts but to no avail. "Does my brother talk to you?"

You are forgetting that he cannot hear me, the vulture reminded her Winged. Without an established Link between the two of you, one cannot hear the other.

"True, true," the fledgling nodded, and was about to ask for more when his Avian added, unexpectedly so, that loneliness was no stranger to her.

Aren't you lonely? Up there. There was no laughter in her voice or any form of emotion that deviated from extreme indifference. Down here and up there—those things don't seem to matter very much to loneliness, Evaughn. One is lonely independent of where they are at.

At once, the boy was in awe. "Are you really my Avian?" He had to blink and look again. "You are very intelligent. I on the other hand, um. I'm not."

It is not so much about your current intelligence than it is about your capacity for it, it said, staring back at him with an unblinking eye. You have the capacity for thought and I am representative of that. Early-arrival of Avians aren't welcome by those of the common mind and so here I am and here you are. Both locked up. Prevented from seeing each other.

Evaughn could feel his mind scrambling for words to say, walls to defend himself against the shower of arrows that seemed to be raining down on his parade. "Prevented? They wouldn't do that. They would never. Mother wouldn't do that. Vaughn isn't very nice to me but he's still my brother, isn't he? He wouldn't. He wouldn't do that. He would never. There's no reason to. He's so much better off and doing so well, so much better than me."

Up to you, the vulture appeared to reveal a hint of emotion just then. A cross between amusement and frustration. I've told you what I know.

The boy heard the fitting of a key into its lock in the distance and jumped at once, whipping around and knowing that it was time to go. Would the door lock itself? Would his brother know he'd come down here? Who should he trust?

"I have to go. I might see you again, maybe—for now, well. Goodbye," he'd thought to finish his sentence there but the lack of substance in his farewell stopped him in his tracks. "Wait. I don't know your name."

Nox.

He frowned at once and had to ask again despite the urgency of time. "Nocks? As in, socks?"

It is the word for night in Latin. Night or the dark.

He very much wished to stay and listen to the vulture all day but someone was taking off their shoes at the entrance—his mother, then—and there was not enough time for another word. Yet, he could not help but think his Avian's name so very fitting and fitting as in, lonely. It was a very lonely name.

You never know, Evaughn. He could hear as he shut the door and left the vulture behind, taking the stairs in twos. Some things need the dark to shine.

________________________

He was supposed to send his brother the packed lunch that the latter had forgotten to take with him to school that day on a dull Wednesday morning, sliding invisibly into his class and handing it to the second-year student before, once again, disappearing into an invisible puff of air. That was the task his mother had entrusted him to do.

Ten minutes before lunch period, Evaughn was making his way down to the building where predator classes were held amidst the December chill, frost breathing down his naked neck and snaking past his jacket that was unzipped—the lunch bag hidden right underneath the cotton to protect it from the cold. He hadn't been able to confirm the exact location of his brother's classroom and that was where the additional five to ten minutes leeway came in; so that he wouldn't be late.

Though the task had, indeed, ruined his daily schedule of lunch with Nox his only companion and finally getting around to writing that letter to Santa in addition to the next chapter of his book which was about two thousand one hundred and thirty-three words to its completion, he had agreed to do it. After all, the boy was never one to refuse his mother.

Vaughn's diet had always been slightly different from the rest of his peers even when he dined at the great hall in the evenings on special occasions or island-wide celebrations. His mother had submitted to the school's kitchen a diet plan for Anaemia and Vaughn was to follow it as strictly as possible for his daily nutrition intake.

His task was of high priority. Great importance.

That much, the eight-year-old understood and yet, he, of course, could not help but be fazed by the vast expanse of the island and the places he'd yet to see. Uncertainty and the unknown were very naturally feared and while he was brave enough to seek the place his brother would most definitely be at, the rest of Flight School remained quite in the dark.

"Hello darling. Are you looking for something?" A young lady, not dressed in the school's mandated uniform, had spotted him flitting about the grounds to look for clues that came in the form of signs. Alas, there were far too many blocks in the predator's wing and following one sign often led to another that would lead him back.

"Um, no. Not really," said the boy in response. "I'm okay." He hid the lunchbox further into his jacket.

"Are you sure?" Asked the lady who he felt likely to be a professor in the school. "You're very young. Do you live here with your mother or father?"

"I'm okay, ma'am. I'm not lost," he repeated, slightly anxious now. "I've just got somewhere to go very quickly. I won't cause any trouble."

"Alright dear. If that is what you wish," the professor nodded, fishing through the papers in her arms to produce a card that said 'On an errand for Miss Tenner', complete with a smiley face at the back. "If anyone asks where you're going, you can show them this card. Don't stay here for long, okay? The predator's wing isn't what prey like us would call the best place to be." She smiled and waved, heading in the opposite direction.

Evaughn watched her go, quite unsure of what, exactly, to think. She'd thought he was prey. Nevertheless, he kept the card tucked in the pocket of his jacket and continued on his journey, following the complicated signs and climbing several flights of stairs to arrive at the homeroom floor of second years.

There were seven in total. 'A' to 'G'. His brother was in 'C'—quite the feat indeed for a scavenger, as his mother had said so herself. The boy was inclined to believe this the truth.

By the time he'd arrived at the front door of the class he was supposed to be at, the lunch bell had sounded approximately five minutes ago. More than half the class were not in their seats and some were lounging about, kicking their legs up on tables and doodling on the blackboard; some leaving permanent scratches on it with razor-sharp talons.

"Um. Excuse me," he began out of nowhere, standing in the doorway and waiting for someone to notice him. No one did. "Hi. Hello? I'm looking for Vaughn Alekseyev."

At once, all eyes turned to him. Someone stood—his chair dragging across the floor to produce a disturbing screech. "Why?"

"I. Well, I don't exactly have to see him. I just need to put something at his seat. Or on his table. Under it is fine too, really. It's nothing much," the fledgling tried so hard to be invisible, retreating into himself in an unconscious instance. "Is he around?"

The students present in the class exchanged a series of looks that were, to Evaughn, unreadable. "No. He's gone out," said someone else, turning to him with a raise of his brow. "We'll hand over whatever it is you have."

"Oh no," he shook his head, quite appalled at the way in which nothing was going as planned. "That's quite alright. I wouldn't want to bother any of you. I just have to put this at where he's seated." Insistence. That's all he had to do. Easy.

A raven leaning on the teacher's desk laughed. "His seat is not here."

Evaughn did a double take, turning around and craning his neck upwards to give the classroom's plague a quick check. It was correct. "O-oh. Do you mean he's switched classes? To another homeroom? Or maybe he's um... he's taken his seat somewhere else?"

The sheer absurdity of his own suggestions was distinct even to himself. Why and how was his brother to move his desk and his chair to another room entirely for who-knows-what sort of purpose? It was ridiculous. He was spouting a pool of nonsense and the students in his brother's class seemed to notice as well.

They burst into an awful, horrendous sound. The sound of laughter. "What the—" "Boy, are you okay? Did you run into a wall on the way here?" "Are you his prey or something?" "Some messed up taste that guy's got to have, then."

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong and the gears that were once moving smoothly in his mind cranked to a sudden stop as though someone had stuck their finger into the gaps and crushed bones were preventing it from moving.

"I'm not his prey. I'm his... well, I'm on an errand," he produced the card, hoping that it could, by some miracle, save him from this frightening predicament. "I'm supposed to send him something, so. By all means. I have to do it."

It seemed to work. The flock of predators stopped laughing at once, stepping over to take a closer look at the card.

"Ohh. Tenner, huh?" Looks. Exchanged. "Why didn't you say so earlier, kid? He's probably somewhere down the corridor. To the right where the stairs are. Near the lab rooms."

Skies, finally. He couldn't have been able to withstand another second of suffocating conversation, made purposefully vague and ambiguous for entertainment. While he would have appreciated it if they'd cleared up what they meant by his brother's seat not being 'here', the sheer repel of the company he had at the moment resulted in nothing but the desire to leave and so led to the appreciation of them pointing him in a concrete direction, away from the classroom.

Bowing to express a quick thanks, the fledgling hurried off towards the end of the corridor, turning right and heading down the hallway of laboratories in decisive steps; sure that he was, at the very least, closer to completing his task.

It was in the middle of the hallway—nearing the front door of the second laboratory—when he began to hear voices coming from inside the room. He'd very naturally, at the beginning, dismissed it as a couple of students fooling around with equipment inside during the break but a single word made him stop in his tracks.

The word hadn't been very loud. Neither had it been a word so absurd that anyone would have paid any attention to its utterance. It was just a word. "... scavengers."

He willed himself not to unconsciously involve various forms of personal regard toward the person who'd said it or the conversation taking place inside the lab. Quiet as a feather, he ducked below the louvre windows and shuffled across, doing his best to remain unnoticed by the group inside.

The exchange was increasingly aggressive with every step he took, as though each had their way of raising the tension in the room and making their voices somehow louder for his eavesdropping benefit. Yet, it wasn't as though he could, by some dark magic, forget or ignore everything that passed through his ears.

What was heard would remain as it is. Heard.

With it came a form of responsibility; a burden for the listener to bear and the fact that Evaughn could not afford to take the next step proved it all. Among the voices was one that he would recognize even in an afternoon lunch crowd at the most frequented food hall. A voice he both feared and adored.

"That's not the way you should be speaking to your class president," his brother's voice was sharp and firm and yet, below it all was the fragile tremble of a leaf in the wind. "What is it now."

A series of hoots and laughter ensued to mock. The fledgling could hear the dragging of wooden stools across the floor and the vague clinking of what he assumed were test tubes or conical flasks.

"Talking big with that promotion now, huh. If only it could change your status in the pyramid too."

"Stop it."

They didn't. And Evaughn was hearing them breathe and laugh and say things that he'd never imagined would be said to someone like his brother. "Why? You're the fucker who's got his own votes rigged. No one's dumb enough to give the son of a bitch some secretarial position. We got you in."

"You agreed to it—"

"And why do you think we did? Because we're motherfucking saints?"

Again, they laughed and the clinking of glass was louder now, as though growing with the tension in the room and feeding off the sound of fear in the vulture's cage.

"Look here, scavenger." He heard the jerking of fabric and the brief sound of it being torn apart. "We don't give a shit about playing nice with someone like you 'cuz there's just nothing in it for us. You think they were clapping for you? The son of a thirty-three-year-old, studying just two years above you like a loser?

"She had you when she was eighteen! That's fucking sick."

He heard it all, frightened that they were speaking about his mother in such a way and to his very own brother who had to face them, head on, terrified and alone. The lunchbox in his arms felt cold and empty all of a sudden, as though it had lost all its heat to the fledgling who could not stop the erratic beat of his heart. For once, he wanted so much to hear his brother snap and lash out with his usual wit and sarcasm—the Vaughn that he knew and despised and loathed and loved and adored. That Vaughn seemed absent at present.

"Are all scavengers like that? Like you and your mother, Verity. Stupid little shits who claim all the credit and think they're fit to be predators, high up the pyramid like what you're trying to do now?"

Why was he letting them say all this? He could not understand why his brother—the disrespectful, selfish prick who often disregarded his younger brother's interests and hobbies—was allowing himself to be verbally and physically abused by the people, he knew not how many, inside there and how long this had been going on for. Today was most definitely not the first.

"No they aren't." There. The furious, charged voice was to the boy a soothing balm of relief. His brother was back. "Not all scavengers are like that." Now, there was no one to stop him and he would, like every other hero of a tale, triumph over the—

"It's just our family of losers."

"You think I chose to be Verity's son? You think I had a fucking choice in her womb like I was provided a range and so foolishly chose hers? Like I wanted to be a scavenger?" His brother wasn't shouting but it was, in Evaughn's ears, the loudest scream he'd ever heard.

It hurt to hear.

"You hate my mother? Good. Because I hate her too," he breathed. Inside, he was burning the flames of hell. "If given a choice, I would never want to be a scavenger. I would never want to be some fucking bird that feeds off the carcasses of the dead. Someone waiting for death only never to act on it themselves because that's the mark of a loser.

"A big, fat loser."

The boy couldn't seem to hear the response to his brother's words or, as he would have considered on every other circumstance, a soliloquy that provided the audience a glimpse into the heart of the protagonist in which he, the smaller, younger vulture, was the audience. There was a ringing in his ears that could not be explained and a tremble within. He'd sat, crouched in the same position for the longest time, waiting for it to disappear and for him to regain his consciousness or to wake for the dream that was beginning to seem like the worst of his fears. A nightmare.

Something was happening inside and people were talking and laughing and grunting and doing things he did not understand and had yet to grasp at the age of eight but at the very least, he got to answering the question about his brother's seat.

The leg of a homeroom desk jutted out from the front door where he was crouched, appearing after a crash and a scuffle happening inside the lab. He could, from where he was, see its ugly sides and surface, scratched and vandalized by ink and foul, dirty words, varnished with a sheen of some awful translucent liquid that was between grey and white.

It was his brother's seat.

_________________________

Christmas was approaching and there was nothing but the cold, winter storm that might have indicated this; the arrival of an aged, heavy man with a big white beard and a big, unlikely belly with his big red bag and an excuse for trespassing, choosing to enter by the chimney and nothing else to place presents under a tree.

He'd always thought the chimney was key. Without the chimney, there would be no presents and no presents—no Santa. And was Santa not an existence solely dependent on presents under a tree for how else was one to know of Santa's existence if not for presents and socks stuffed with candy canes?

If so, do those without a chimney in their home know of Santa's existence? Already, he could think of electric heaters and stoves; bonfires and candles; those who did not have a home and those who did but could not afford basic heating; those without a chimney. Would the big-bellied man ring upon their bell and wait upon their doorstep to leave the presents there? And, should there be no door and no bell, reveal himself to the child?

He put down his pen and laid the letter aside, wondering how long it would take to row a boat up north.

*

They were to have chicken soup for dinner on the night before Christmas—the one night in the year they would sit together at the table meant for four and avoid looking at the empty chair. The day before Christmas was not known as Christmas Eve but as the day they were three. One absent entity could do nothing to the three others present but strike in their hearts a forgotten bell of arrival that chimed no more on the morning of an Eve almost five years ago and leave a chair empty.

That was all it could do.

"Tell your brother we're having his favourite for dinner. He'll come down right away," said the mother who gave the soup a final stir and then, a sip to taste. Her boy nodded like a doll and padded upstairs to his brother's room where secrets were kept; there, and his brother's cage. Secrets kept.

The fledgling had got himself out of bed an additional hour early on his birthday without any reason. He'd gotten round to convincing himself over the years, of the many things he had to do on the day before Christmas. Things like putting up the tree and laying out the socks and ensuring his collection of songs were where they had to be and hot cocoa was available at every call for more.

He had, very naturally, completed the tasks he'd set out to do by afternoon—albeit not at the standard he would have preferred for them to be completed at. The tree was done rather poorly; with the plastic star slanted to the right despite multiple attempts to straighten it standing on a wooden stool and a severe lack of ornaments leading to a tree that was strangely bare. The boy had draped his scarf around it just in case it was cold.

"Vaughn?" He knocked. "Dinner's ready. It's chicken soup."

He could accept the silence behind the door; something he'd learned to do over the years and now, with the knowledge of what his brother had to put up with during the day, outside, against the Wind. Yet, even Evaughn had to admit that it was rare for his brother not to respond to the temptation of chicken soup despite the extent to which he loathed responding to him. Curious, he knocked again. Called, again.

The absence of an answer caught the attention of his mother's Avian, who'd flown up to perch on the banister opposite his brother's room—watching.

"Is everything alright?" Verity's voice travelled up the empty space and past the stairs. It must have told his mother.

"I think he might be asleep," he called back down the stairs, peering past the railings while his mother set the table. "Should I go inside?"

"Well we can't start without him," his mother pointed out and he nodded, turning back to the door and knocking once more before cranking the handle and swinging inwards. The room was completely dark.

A strange abyss seemed to reside in it in place of his brother; nestling within the space and claiming it as its own whilst devouring every other beating instrument apart from the creature that was himself. The scent of a room unaired, stale and hot, drowned him underneath its waves as he reached for the light, dispelling the dark. And with the dark dispelled, nothing remained. Not the abyss; not the nestling creature; not the beating instrument and not his brother.

"He's not here," the fledgling breathed, then, repeated the words to his mother downstairs. Her expression was vague from what he could see upstairs but the frown upon her brow was evident regardless.

The creeping of the thought into his mind made the boy notice the absence of his brother's Avian, her nest seemingly cold and untouched.

"He's not home?" She said to no one in particular before beginning to call out the name of her son, repeatedly and in a voice increasingly loud and urgent—up and down the stairs, in every room and hallway. Not as though there were more than three in the first place.

The bathroom checked and every closet opened, no stone had been left unturned except the door to the basement. Not even the stairs into darkness dared to volunteer its aid and the door beyond remained silent in its assessment, rattling the bars of his cage and the one that stood next to him, breathing hard and afraid.

"Perhaps I'll give the school a call. He might have council duties that are... well, we'll see," he heard a slight tremble in his mother's voice. The semblance of a waver in her eyes that, on purpose, avoided the descending darkness that was beginning to call.

All of a sudden, the rattling of his cage was no longer inside. Something was banging on the door to the basement—a loud, thunderous beat that shook the floor.

Verity turned to the boy, eyes wide and a skeletal finger on lips. The raw light bulb above flickered and shivered at every strike, frightened by the uncharacteristic sound bouncing off the walls and travelling upwards. Up, to the ceiling.

"Mother," he could barely hear himself. "Something's in the basement."

Soon, the rattling grew into a monstrous thumping against metal bars that seemed to house a creature on a rampage; one that struggled against its restraints, attempting to break free. A prisoner, crazed, thundering against the lock a fist, balled and pounding and amidst it all, an odd creaking. The bending of bars.

"It's in the sink," Verity reached down to grab his arm, tugging him towards the kitchen and away from the stairs. "My knife. Bring it here. Bring two—"

BANG.

They stopped in their tracks, each turning to the door in the darkness without moving a muscle. A moment so frightening in its pause that the abyss seemed to creep into the edges of their eyes before ebbing away in the silence. A silence so quiet that it felt, to him, deafening in its wake; waiting to be found by the very next sound.

"Stay here," his mother closed in on the door, descending the stairs that creaked at her every step—shadows taking her into its arms.

Afraid that he'd lose her to the dark, Evaughn followed; a distance behind but not far enough so that she remained within his field of vision that was increasingly dull, pulsing with a single colour: red. His mother laid her hand on the lever latch, the handle of the door, pausing first before cranking it with all the strength she could muster. It was locked.

Paling, she wiped her hands on the back of her dress, turning to head back up the stairs. "I'll go get the key. I told you to stay up there."

The boy could do nothing but nod, watching as she disappeared into the light while he remained down below. He soon realized that he, too, should be going back up and that he wasn't supposed to be down here in the first place but then there was the bird—his Avian—and his brother and the mysterious pistol he never got to telling his mother or whisper about its existence and the banging and the cage and something that was wrong. Very, very wrong.

He felt it in the air and the darkness that he would soon come to acknowledge as nothing but a closest friend. A friend that he was so ultimately afraid of. His only friend.

It was then that he heard it for the second time—the click of a lock. Open.

The creaking.

Not of a door, he realized, but of a

Cage

bars bent

Creature

Escaped

Gone.

The light at the end of the room illuminated a figure slumped in a chair which he felt the need to turn and compel the end of the story like the author of all, it did not surprise. His brother's eyes were closed, and it was the most peaceful sight of him he'd ever seen. The serenity of sleep written all over his brows and his windows closed; yet, he breathed. He appeared to be in a vegetative state—something that he need not speak to confirm and could tell from a single glance.

The standing cage that was once beside the desk had been moved to where the door was, as though he had been expecting a visitor and he'd let someone else do the honours of greeting his guest. Alas, the bird inside the cage was asleep and the bird was his own. Vaughn's hooded vulture had taken the place of his brother's and his brother's... gone. Away. He knew not where it went.

He'd stepped on something by the chair while he'd turned towards the door and it was the gun. The one that had the words engraved upon its skin; the one that weighed the weight of souls, in the hand of death so pale and unthinking, pulled the trigger. He picked it up with trembling fingers, placing it on the desk and on the desk was a note.

A note in his brother's hand. Every letter curved with familiarity that was now still and cold.

We all fall.

How was it that locked doors could open and cages could break and people could sleep and never wake;

that humans could leave and humans could fall and humans could break,

questions the world could never answer

and never will.

So what made his mother think he could? An eight-year-old boy without an anchor in the world floating by? What was he to say to her when she shook his shoulders and screamed and cried, calling the name of his brother that sounded so much like his own but recount the number of seeds he'd sown?

There were many.

For all intents and purposes, Evaughn felt complicit in his brother's attempt—that he never got to talking to Verity or Vaughn about what he saw and that he had assumed, with his brother's personality which he'd discovered then, was perhaps, fabricated all along, that he would be able to stand up against whatever it was that was bringing him down.

He learnt that standing up was a chore. That sometimes, it was easier to be on the ground than stand up only to face a monster larger, greater, stronger in every aspect of one's self. The pyramid was an unworthy foe; unworthy only because it would stand victorious in every situation and every circumstance. One person was no match for an entity so large and beyond oneself.

One against the world

—a foolish mistake; an unmerited path to choose.

Should everyone else fall and never rise, the world would be easy for all. No one person would have to suffer taking the repeated blows of the world on behalf of the rest of the Fallen. No one would be standing by the end of it all and it was, perhaps, for the best. Then, the monster would have no one left to go up against; no foolish creature to defeat and then, the monster would no longer hurt.

He made it his mission, then, to have everyone fall so that they would never again be hurt. But deep down, his true desire behind it all was to seek out the possibility—that which his brother had hoped was himself—of an existence.

The existence of one human being who would defy all this; defy all that he thought was fearfully true and stand, repeatedly, despite the slings and arrows and blood and bones and take it all for those who have fallen. The existence of one to prove him wrong. To prove his brother right.

He sought out to find that person who would keep the monster company.

______________________

They came to forget about Christmas, the memory replaced in their hearts—the meaning of it all. The tree, the presents; the snow, the fire; the songs, the silence, the hush of the land. None of those held the same primary significance that they used to hold, tales of love and magic by the warmth of a flame. Gone were the days of letters to Santa and 'Silent Night's over the gramophone; of naughty and hot chocolate and nice.

Days became just that. Days.

They held no significance running by, passing over his eyes like the clouds above that drifted slow. For the world to attribute sentiment and special value to something as boring and mundane, creating things like anniversaries and birthdays and celebrated occasions and holidays. Holidays. What were they?

In remembrance, things like Christmas were important enough to be printed on calendars which then allowed one to fill those empty squares with other forms of sentiment; marking out the ones they lay in eager wait that turned what was originally mundane—a day—into something more. The world wished to remember.

And as much as they did, wish to remember, why was it that the world seemed to him equally eager to forget? The day he came to be and the day he so adored and loved and marked out on every calendar to lay in eager wait for its arrival was what he came to know as the day he died.

It was the day everyone wished to remember Vaughn Alekseyev and forget Evaughn. The latter would disappear and fade into the abyss like a wandering spirit without a goal. That day, he died.

Alone alone alone without a name without a creature to call his own where was he to hide and use many others to mask that which was his. His, stolen, along with the host of his brother, a shell remained waiting for another, washed up upon the quiet shore, lapping against the bed that was dry. The gun was heavy and with every shot, grew in its weight. How did a pistol so small shake his arms and tremble his fingers and take and take and take like a Thief—a stealer of the bird, a killer of the creature, a hand; reaching past the bars of a cage

Left behind

A feather

A flower

An empty cage.

He tried to fill it with something. Many other things. Things that belonged to his brother and the future that he could have lived to see, incite the changes he could have made. It was a legacy he had to fulfil and a whole new person he had to be for there was no place for mistakes and hot chocolate—only a thirst for victory.

To prove the worth of a scavenger, there were things a scavenger had to do. But while he could do so much and win and remain the victor of consecutive seasons, the replacement, too, adopted a loneliness that the original host once harboured within. He often wondered what it all equated to. One plus one equals two but loneliness and loneliness? What did it mean?

Where

was he going?

____________________

Dear Santa,

I've been good this year. All I want for Christmas, is—

____________________

Vaughn was tired and being alone with someone dead did not help his cause. The silencer in the heart of his palm lay hot with stolen things and it whispered, loudly, in his head. He lowered it, gunpoint facing the earth beneath his feet.

The night was obscured with a dark, thick cloud that hovered above; concealing the scattered lights and the moon that was full—silent in its wane. It did not come as a surprise to the vulture that he began to feel the solitude that weighed upon him all of a sudden. Taking his agency to a place that was nowhere. He felt, for all intents and purposes, subject to the external world around him.

There was nothing quite like being alone.

No pressure to speak; no pressure to listen, to understand, to connect. Humans were obsessed with connection. But was Vaughn not a human as well?

He laughed; for he, too, had desired companionship. So desperate and so naïve was he in his early days—so foolish! Vaughn was glad that those days of his were over.

So glad.

The vulture surveyed the empty being that he was sure would no longer wake. After all, this was different from the first time he had pulled the trigger on the sparrow for this time, Vaughn had pulled it at the exact moment. The right one.

His darkest point.

Where was Iolani Tori to go but down? He would fall, surely.

Satisfied with the still being that lay upon the forest floor just like the creature in his heart, Vaughn turned to leave the scene, recalling then the gate number that he was informed moments before. It was time to go.

A brief stirring of the forest stopped him. It sounded to him almost like a calling, of the darkness or of the night, perhaps so, but he did not know. It didn't matter to Vaughn. What mattered was that he had heard it, and the creature within had so quietly responded.

Upon turning, the vulture realized that the path ahead was far too dark to be seen and there was little to make out of nothing; for there were no stars and there was no moon and there was no light.

There was nothing before.

He turned again.

And nothing behind.

As much as it seemed that Vaughn himself had been in the path of his weapon for at least once in his life, the curious reality—was that it never happened. It took him little thought to then come to the conclusion that, perhaps, the world itself was a thief. It was a pistol, and he was its constant target.

That the world; or the society he lived in,

was very much a criminal as it was a predator

And that it killed

And swallowed

And ate

The human within.

The possibility was not invalid and in fact, appeared to Vaughn as a sad and cruel joke that summed up his stupid life. He felt quite alone, in that moment; unsure whether his mother would send someone to come and get him for his vision was far from decent in the night. He wondered if she knew he was tired. Or that he had, to his very end, fulfilled his promise.

Vaughn always fulfilled his promises. But it was the bitter truth that the people he loved—often went back on theirs.

If no one should keep their promises;

What was the purpose of keeping his?

Where was that the big-bellied, white-bearded man that Christmas had promised?

The socks by the fireplace?

The presents by the tree?

Harm was inevitable. Doing good was destroying oneself in a world that was already out to destroy so why should he not follow suit? Being the villain was easy. No—not easy, but easier, in the very least, as compared to being the foolish hero who stood for nothing.

And it was at this precise point that Vaughn soon realized that no one was going to come for him. Nobody at all, but himself. Alone in the dark; a little lost. And admittedly, a little scared. It was his little secret, really.

Vaughn was afraid of the dark.

How ironic it would be then, that he was the darkness. He was the darkness in Io's life and perhaps many others—the many other Jokers he had hunted and harmed and stolen from. The black vulture who was, for all intents and purposes, the darkness in the dark in which he was so afraid.

His weapon began to call, whispering once more of the things that it could do, the pain that it could relieve and Vaughn was, really, full of pain and grief. He, already consumed, thought that this little change would do nothing to the world so wide.

He brought the gun to his head and closed his eyes.

__________________________

Company.

In the darkness, someone to listen to and a beat to hear; of wings in a cage that everyone else seemed to harbour within where he, down in the basement would not feel alone and where he, against the Wind and the light of the blinding sun could stand in the middle of a land that was no longer empty and barren. An argument; in darkness by the stairs, listening to Christmas songs on repeat and even in the middle of a forest under an eclipse, careful words and harmless banter, but, with meaning. A rubber duckling; a book; a pot of porridge, burnt—he desired the empty chairs beside him, filled, and the ones across, present.

Evaughn Alekseyev desired many things that stemmed from his longing for one. And as much as it seemed to others who have their chairs filled and their Christmas songs heard or the ability to make cups of hot chocolate without relying on an instant mix, easy, this remained nothing more than a distant dream for a vulture so quiet in his darkness.

And as terrifyingly human and fearfully weak as it sounded,

Evaughn did not want to be alone.

___________________________

Io saw the person before him breaking apart and it resembled the unraveling of yarn that would never be able to be put back the same; ever again.

"But Vaughn,' he breathed. "That's exactly it.

I can't. I can't leave you alone."

__________________________

Iolani Tori could not resist the urge to pop out of the dressing room for a breather and now that he could brave the chill of the night with the company of a cloak so skilfully put together by Luka Sullivan, he found the prospect of doing so all the more inviting. And so he did.

It was only upon laying out the premises of his claim and supporting it with justification that was reasonably sound by the standards of Lord Alfred who stood by his door that the boy was allowed ten minutes of private freedom (after five hours of prepping for his coronation).

"We're heading to the post for snacks," he announced by the doorframe, waving to catch Pipa's attention, wide sleeves making waves of midnight as he did. The canary was having her done by Jing in a braided updo and both turned to him with wide eyes.

"I want mango juice!" "What if someone sees you?" They turned to each other, exchanging a look.

"Luka's coming with me," Io reassured and as though he had been waiting for his cue, the eagle emerged from the other side of the doorframe. "He'll like. Um. Block me from everyone else. Anyway, we're going by the back door and I'm hiding somewhere else while Luka's in the post getting the, uh, loot," he laughed, turning to Pipa. "Mango juice. Any more orders?"

He glanced at his fellow Eye, as though knowing she would speak.

"There's... a new product they added to the catalogue quite recently," Jing cleared her throat. "Chilli crisps."

"Sounds like a tummy ache for people like me," Io looked down at his tummy that was flat from hours of inactivity, giving it a pat of consolation. "I remember Vaughn raving about that snack though, so I think you might like it too." It wasn't long before Lord Alfred tapped the boy on his shoulder and made a snippy remark about the time and so the pair had to leave. Io, in his coronation robes that swept the floor and Luka, the Knight's uniform.

"Do you think Mr. Dragon will recognize me?" The smaller of the two piped as they headed down the corridor at a slower pace than usual. It wasn't easy to walk in robes that were heavy and twice one's size trailing at the back. "Lord Falrir, I mean. He's going to be there later, isn't he? We've only met once so I'm not all that surprised if he doesn't remember who I am though."

Luka's gaze remained fixed on the flagged stone floor for any sign of crevices or uneven footing which he could then warn Io about. "You're not very easy to forget."

"O-oh," blinked the moon phoenix, averting his gaze and feeling rather shy all of a sudden. "That's very nice of you to say. But would it objectively speaking or just a personal—"

They had turned the corner after crossing a bridge that connected the main building to the second floor of the predator's halls when Io spotted a familiar figure at the bottom of the stairs; disappearing through a door to the right of the lobby.

"Io?"

Luka followed his gaze, tensing as Victoria made for the floor below to scout ahead. His companion gave his eyes a rub, shaking his head.

"Oh. It's nothing. I just need some air," he pretended to hide a yawn. "So... mango juice, chilli crisps and chocolate-coated sunflower seeds." Holding up a 'three', Io ticked them off his fingers for Luka to see. "Where should I wait for you?"

The eagle surveyed their surroundings, scanning past the stairs and the large open space down below. "Someone might see you down there. Staying here is better," he referred to the second floor, calling for Victoria to return and instructing her to take his place. "I'll be fast."

"Take your time," Io waved, sleeves flopping around. Lyra on his shoulder "I won't be standing out here in the corridor. The balcony seems a little safer." He pointed at the door to their right. Luka nodded as soon as Victoria returned, turning back only once to ensure that his companion was safe.

Io found himself drawing towards the balustrade as soon as the former could no longer be seen, leaning on the handrail to catch a glimpse of what was down below—what he already knew he would see.

"What are you doing down there?"

His heightened view, wider and of a vast expanse rivalling that of a creature furthest from the earth and closest to the sky, had spotted a lone vulture out on the patio facing a forest dark, breathing in the chill of the night. He turned.

"Thinking of the many ways you might trip over those silly robes of yours and end up embarrassing the entire Avian race with a flat nose," Vaughn quipped on instinct raising his gaze to meet the other's. "Or some lonely thinking, if you will."

The moon phoenix laughed, rolling his eyes at the drama-laced words that Vaughn never seemed not to have stored away in his music box of a mind. "I never knew you could be so concerned about someone having a flat nose. Does that consist of lonely thinking?"

It made the vulture snort, the edges of his lips turning upwards as his Avian stared at Victoria and Lyra, perched on the banister by each side of Iolani Tori.

"Is it lonely down there?" He called from above, watching as his companion frowned from afar. The kind of frown that was up for an argument.

"Poorly crafted question. Isn't it lonelier way up than it is way down?" The vulture fired back. Like Luka, he wore a similar uniform that consisted of the same black vest, crimson tie, half-cape draped around his shoulders and complete with the same gold epaulette. "Logically speaking, it is easier to fall than to fly and since falling is easier, then wouldn't there reasonably be more people down below than there are up above?"

It sent the moon phoenix into a bout of mirth—the sound of laughter escaping in wisps and rising up into the breathless night. "Who are you talking about?"

Victoria squawked, her version of a snort, before using the rounded part of her beak to boop Lyra's tail in the direction of the door. It's almost time.

This did not go unnoticed by the vulture. "Obviously, you don't have the luxury of time, Iolani Tori. Someone is waiting for—"

"Come on, Vaughn," Io called from above. "It's time to go."

____________________________

The heart of the night neared its close and the day of Christmas was approaching. Odile and Odette were having a friendly competition over the number of turns they could do within a minute, while several others watched, half cheering and in awe. A couple were finishing up what was left of the dinner spread and some were conversing near the electric heater with a cup of hot chocolate. Vaughn was an unexpected fan of it, since a very young age.

He and Iolani were standing by the stairs, watching the room—listening to Christmas music. A comment or two would surface, every now and then. The silence between them was unusually soothing.

They were on the topic of dictionaries. Somehow, they'd arrived at that. Definitions were the very thing that made language so arbitrary and subjective, furthered by perspective and interpretation.

"I'd like your opinion Vaughn," said Io as he looked up at the vulture.

"What does it mean to be alone?"

This was, perhaps, the easiest question that Vaughn had ever encountered in his conversations with his archenemy, written to be the very person he would detest and at the same time, aspire to become.

"Simply, it is the—" He stopped.

There was something in the way of his words. Something preventing him from going on. Loneliness had been, to Vaughn, a known existence. The only friend amidst his darkness, one that ironically provided company for the longest time of his life. Vaughn knew loneliness as much as loneliness knew him and they were, for all intents and purposes, the very best of friends.

And yet for some strange and unusual reason, somewhere along the way,

He had forgotten what it was like to be alone.

___________________

Dear Santa,

I've been good this year. All I want for Christmas, is—

_______________________

A/N: Hello Star! So I haven't been able to write for some time and I don't think I really came clear with the reason, possibly leading to certain misunderstandings about myself as a writer and maybe as a person ;v;

You can tell that this chapter is not something slipshod since, should I ever write something of that nature, it would not be made of 13,102 words and be filled with every possible emotion humanly possible. After reading to this point, I'm sure you know me decently well.

I did not stop writing because of the lack of reads, or the fact that whatever I put in this series will never be truly recognized by anyone—I know that well enough. This series is far beyond the comprehension of many minds and that is okay! That is completely fine. There is nothing wrong with that.

Honestly speaking, there are quite a lot of people reading this series. It still surprises me. It's just: the numbers don't quite add up.

A hundred reads (I appreciate it so much, honestly, even though my other series hit three thousand in a couple of hours) garner three votes and six comments, five of which are by the same person. It's very cute.

I'll be dropping in-line comments in this chapter explaining or highlighting some stuff which you can think about/interpret, just in case you feel left out.

*

I apologize that a huge chunk of the latter half of this chapter is basically a copy-paste of 1. The second last chapter of the first book and 2. A chapter from the second book. Here we are, in the third—it all comes down to this point. Later on in this book (should I ever finish it), we will again delve deeper into the layers that Evaughn Alekseyev is stacked upon as the character closest to human in this series.

I admit that while several characters in this series exhibit 'humanly' traits from time to time, they never seem real enough for some readers. This is especially for our main character (or not so main), Io. Io is not human. Clearly, he isn't. So many parts of him allude to something beyond comprehension and I wouldn't say that someone like Luka doesn't exist but his personality is rare.

While Vaughn's speech patterns and androgynous style does put him as a rare breed in the human race (hehe), it is agreed amongst most readers—what I gathered from comments which I always read, at least—that his heart is what we see raw in ourselves. He is the most relatable, closest character to many hearts and I am honestly not surprised.

Every word from the first book about Vaughn was meant to come together somewhere near the end. When I first started out, I didn't know when to do it; all I knew was that this boy was going to grow. Very slowly. Grow on you.

What Io said to him in the first book is no one-off incident unrelated to every subsequent feeling and emotion and thought perhaps even prior to the event. Every word I choose when it comes to him whether it be in the first or second book or now on—those are no tiny things picked up on instinct but crafted. Carefully.

Unlike Io, Vaughn's loneliness has a solution. This chapter is a very brief show (what?? 13k words?? BrIeF?) of his progress towards one and how he has, in some way, achieved it. I hope it melds together what we have so far on the plate, since I'm doing my best to prepare what is to come.

While Luka is the astronaut to Io, the moon; Vaughn is, quite literally, the night ('Nox' is Night in Latin). While he doesn't share the same admiration and fascination that an astronaut would hold towards the moon, his existence is all the more necessary for that which the moon is appreciated for—for being the light in the darkness. This chapter delves deeper into what Io has been saying since the first book: that everyone should thank their villains. What it means to have a necessary darkness, that which Vaughn represents to Io. It's a very different relationship from Luka and Io but nuanced in a way that makes him as important as the former.

This chapter also foreshadows something huge that I've been looking forward to revealing near the end! Which I really hope you'll stay around for. :') Again, how is it that I've planned this entire thing five years ago??? I don't know. Ugh.

I didn't even get to touch on Jae-min or Cameron this time... good god. Also, I'm just crossing my fingers and hoping you haven't forgotten all the characters just yet. I'm so sorry for taking so long.

I missed you very much.

-Cuppie.