A Legend is Made
Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen,
Tod und Verzweiflung flammet um mich her!
Hell's vengeance boils in my heart;
Death and despair blaze around me!
- Mozart, The Magic Flute, Queen of the Night: "Der Holle Rache kocht in minim herzen"
When he first sees his Lady in Red, it is nighttime and the stars are covered by smoke.
He remembers thinking of the smoke; That it was produced by the endless factories humans are building in every town, every city-They are worked in darkness and dust by men with haunted eyes and their children. Their ribs can be played on like a cruel xylophone, they are so thin and hungry. (The children deserve pity, but they will not get it.)
He's seen enough of them to know, the girls especially with their long hair getting trapped in the cog works of a machine and being killed. He's reaped enough of their souls.
It's a hard life to be a reaper, something he only admits to himself once in a great while. Ordinarily he avoids all of it- He concentrates on the color red, the latest style of clothes, what new eyelashes he can use to emphasize his gorgeous eyes. His eyes will stay the same, even behind glasses. (They are the same eyes that stare out of every creature that has seen death. They will call it a Thousand Yard Stare.)
But though he is thinking of progress and change and death, he begins to realize that something about this night is different. A smokey wind is blowing through the rooftops, and London hums through his feet, calling to him. ALegendIsHere, it whispers through the whisk of his leather shoes, through the whistle of air through his chainsaw. LoreHasBeenBorn. LoreThatLivesOnAfterEverythingTurnsToDust. ThisStreet. Here. Look, Grell Sutcliffe. London whispers, to him.
And Grell looked down.
And called out.
In a cheap, tawdry leather affair of a coat and covered in a prostitute's remains, (all that was left of her,) there was a woman wearing a sensible bun and glasses kneeling on the ground. She was Lore now for better or for worse, Lore for Grell and Lore for London, and sometimes Lore and Love can be one and the same thing.
The Death God was captivated by her. In the night, under a smokey sky with no stars she blazed with red, a monstrous flower on the cobblestone pavement. Her hair was beginning to fall out of it's tight bun, and a little fleck of blood was lit up by her lip. Her hands were covered in what used to be part of a human being, and in her right hand there was a cold knife made of iron.
With the knife in her hand, she becomes something different. Something half-human, half-shadow-lore.
They will call her Jack the Ripper.