kill the child {Larceny}

[Arrows]

They've tried thrice to steal my soul, once myself leaving anointed by a decree from Death. Twice too tender of boyish tethers have been severed in sacrificial servitude. Through names at Reapings to the vultures of Death they've tried to take back what once they had captive. Yet innocence has proven allured to the sways of my shadows. Fate has found a game in their obsessive longing for my anguish, a twin tasted once but now desired for a solo serving. Oh how softness turns to blood and I am the one left standing alone on an island in a sea of scarlet.

Who shall shield this son of sin next?

Who shall I watch wither in my place?

Who shall cruelty call to the throne of the Prince of the Perished?

Its certainty is almost as cemented into the constellations of Orion's origin as the belt from which he was wrought. Its next iteration is nearly as sewn into existence as the songs that Severus sang into the embrace of Silence. I can feel the next set of the White Serpent's teeth beginning to bare as another voice comes calling from another crowd of strangers. I can practically fall beneath the hooves of helplessness as my voice again means nothing against their's. Who's son shall I share a lily with next?

How compliant I have been in my cold complacency.

They stole sweetness from my lips and I did nothing.

They stole genius from my district and I did nothing.

They killed the child and let loose the demon and I've done nothing.

Although emotions still do not stir in the creases of my mind, my silent submission ends tonight. I leave a lily for my lost lover, white like the hair of his head. I leave a lily for the saved reborn as savior, red and bright like his bravery. I leave my growing garden of dead boys no longer a child in their game of chase, but as a near man with flames in my hands and a hood over my head. Is death watching, waiting to see how one of his children treats the world that stole them from him?

I've killed brutal beasts of darker days. I've driven steel into skin in search of a crown. But this is beyond the tributary of thievery which knows my name as prodigy. This is beyond the battles of boys and girls. My other half knows not of where my feet now turn, for she is still too busy with the monsters of her mind. Yet she can rest certain that my intentions shall not incinerate innocence like those that hunger for me from their city of glass.

They gave me life, so I shall give them the hell they let me see.

I know the boundaries well, I've been watching for weeks. A moment comes over me, I've reached the pinnacle point: the point of no return. I can still turn back now, crawl in cowardice back into complacency. I can be like Annie, our Victor, the same one who hasn't said a word to the boy from her world they've called twice since her ascension. But they have already declared the war, I'm merely answering their call.

I cross into the new.

A mask draws on beneath my hood.

The PeaceKeeper shift change begins, my window opens. A train tumbles into the depot ready to acquire what will go on to the city of serpents and glass. I activate the devices in my hands, they fly over the fence line and coat the scene in smoke. Sirens sound, search lights ignite, but the shift change has given my shadowed self all the time I need to send the burning bottles over next. Explosions engulf the scene of smoke screens and fires devour the cargo. The sound of sprinting steps draws towards my direction as the final piece of my response to the President pins itself to the fence as a single scrap of paper, the fires acting as its poetic backdrop.

Keep Trying. I'll be waiting. 

The steps sound closer, I start sprinting. If they're going to try to kill me, might as well give them a reason.