CHAPiTRE QUATRE- Atonement

She stayed there, on her knees and staring at the impassive sky, for a long time. Hot tears slowly ran down her face, staining her white skin and dripping down her throat. Someone roughly grabbed her upper arm and jerked it up. “You don’t deserve it, but I’m sorry” Bleeding Angel said angrily. Aimi tried to mop up her face and clear her tear filled eyes as Bleeding Angel told her to hurry and get up. She got up as quickly as she could; off-balance from the other girl’s hostility and her own exhaustion and emotional cataclysm. She noticed her wings and held back a strangled gasp. They were… gone. Just exposed, bloody bone with bits of flesh and blackened feathers remained. The broken, bleeding angel spun around and snarled softly, “I am tired, sore, and sick of your attitude. My patience is next to zero right now so shut up and listen well, girl.” Aimi nodded fearfully, tears still rolling down her face.

Bleeding Angel took a breath before starting, “You’ve been really, really stupid and immature, you know that? You can’t handle anything on your own. You’re weak; you can hardly stand on your own two feet. Stand up, be a woman about it. Fight for your happiness because nobody else will. You cry and sit there and talk about suicide and it scares people. People worry about you every single day. One day, they’ll stop caring and forget about you. They will discard you, abandon you, and drop your whiny bitch ass like a bad habit.” Aimi tried to back away, afraid of the angel’s violent outburst. Bleeding Angel was having none of it; she grabbed a fistful of Aimi’s shirt and held her. “I swear to whatever Almighty is listening, if you try to run away again I will kick you. I think I should kick you right now, you need a good one, but I won’t. I’m giving you one more chance…” she shoved Aimi away, “If you run away from your problems or try to ignore them like a f*cking coward again… you’ll be sorry.” She walked away, visibly tense and incensed.

...I am outside
And I've been waiting for the sun
With my wide eyes
I've seen worlds that don't belong
My mouth is dry with words I cannot verbalize
Tell me why we live like this

Keep me safe inside
Your arms like towers
Tower over me...

Aimi wiped the tears from her face, forcing herself to hold them in until later when it was safe to cry. As much as it hurt to hear… she had been right. She looked from the shade of the trees to the girls in the clearing. They looked like her. They were her. Facets of her personality, broken into separate beings and then exaggerated a bit.

...Yeah
Cause we are broken
What must we do to restore
Our innocence
And oh, the promise we adored
Give us life again cause we just wanna be whole...

Panda was fiddling with a thick leather collar with a heart-shaped lock on it. She’d forever be chained down by love. She didn’t have her own volition anymore. She was sweet and naïve and trusting. She was open and loving and stood up for people. Full of bright innocence, she was the embodiment of all of Aimi’s best qualities and her loyalty to her only love. The tiny crane sat on one of her velvety ears placidly. Aimi smiled softly at it. Its family was being turned to ice… again.

...Lock the doors
Cause I like to capture this voice
it came to me tonight
So everyone will have a choice
And under red lights
I'll show myself it wasn't forged
We're at war
We live like this

Keep me safe inside
Your arms like towers
Tower over me...

Ice Queen was the slight exaggeration of one of her worst qualities. In fact, it was less of a facet of her personality and more of a defense mechanism. Whenever Aimi was sad or distressed, she sometimes hid behind a façade of indifference and coldness. She masked her hurt with an icy front to ward people off. It worked well enough… with certain people. Her closest friends could see right through her. The Ice Queen was cold, yes. She never showed or conveyed emotion… except in her eyes. She could see the pain locked behind those steel colored eyes. She was holding a few cranes in her lap and was freezing and unfreezing them… emotion flickered in her unguarded eyes like a candle in the night. She had a heart, it was just hidden. She was just trying to protect it.

...Cause we are broken
What must we do to restore
Our innocence
And oh, the promise we adored
Give us life again cause we just wanna be whole...

Cat… she was moody and irritable and nervous and spastic. Aimi noticed her neck and shoulders were always tense and slowly massaged her own neck, feeling its chronic tension brought on by years and years of stress… and bad posture. Cat was slouched over a daisy, pulling off petals, the picture of teenage angst… plus cat ears and a tail.

...Tower over me...

Angel… was just Angel. Pure and quiet and loyal. Submissive, like Panda, but with her own will. She longed for freedom, to fly as far as she could, but knew that realistically it wasn’t a good idea. She, too, was held down by love. Except it was a gentle love. The love of friends and family that tied her to this Earth and gave her the will to live rather than the chains of an unrequited love.

...Tower over me

And I'll take the truth at any cost...

Bleeding Angel was all of Aimi’s hurt and anger and resentment and doubt and hatred (of self and others) rolled into one person. She couldn’t fly; she was cut up and scarred. Broken. Full of fire and wishing for all of the pain to go away.

...Cause we are broken
What must we do to restore
Our innocence...

She needed to atone for all she’d done to them. She had to take care of her victims… people she’d never meant to hurt.

...And oh, the promise we adored
Give us life again cause we just wanna be whole...

Aimi knew that before she took care of anyone else… she had some serious damage control to do for herself first.