In the end, Wodahs has to sit and stare at this oh so familiar man. This is not his brother. This is not his brother. This is a devil. He looks into two very dark, very quiet eyes and thinks how warm they used to be. After all, they've probably saved his life several times now. Kcalb gives him this glare that isn't angry, and Wodahs' stomach drops several feet. It's the look of guilt, he thinks. The look the executioner gives before he kills. And he asks himself how he knows that look so well, why he feels as of its burned into him.
Haven't you already seen? You're giving that look right now.
But this is his job, his duty, not some run of the mill ambush attack on a village. He wonders if Kcalb knows he's standing on a thousand corpses. A thousand graves. If the weight of his sin was enough to crush his spine, enough to let him crumble. Maybe he'll see what he did wrong. Maybe theres a chance. Maybe they can still have peace. Maybe. He takes one look into his Kcalb's eyes, but he does not see Kcalb. He sees a monster, and he knows that it is too late. This is not his brother. This is not his brother. This is a thing in his brother's skin.
And his wings quiver with? With what? Anxiousness. Fear. Excitement.
you deserved it in the end, brother.
He wonders if he's fallen as low as the demons, to feel so happy to destroy his only relative.
Was he always like this?
"I,"
He wants to say something. anything. but he feels as if his throat is gone and all he does is murmur brother before driving the blade into his chest. It's weird, actually, because it makes no sound at all. Theres no scream or the crunch of bones or anything, really. His body provides no give- no resistance- and the blade goes right through the devils heart, all slick with blood. Kcalb lets out a sigh of relief, and for a second, Wodahs feels weak. for a second he feels all the bones in his body break and all of his muscles give in. He can't breathe and all he can do is stare at this person he used to know.
(but what's done is done.)
"Consider this your natural retribution," he says all in one quick, rehearsed sentence. He sees him just lying there, covered in his own blood and it feels as if he's been frozen. The angel's skin feels stingingly cold and his breaths come out as trembles.
And what a terrible head angel he was, couldn't even save his own flesh and blood.
"I'm sorry."
But how sorry can you be to take your own brothers life.
There's something so strange about the way the sky shines tonight, stars upon stars in a dusty galxy and it feels as if they're the only ones in the world.
(they're not, of course. as pleasant as that idea seems, theres still a war to look after.)