Birds of a Feather: Nevermore

WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Steel Komodo's major plot. Only click this if you're really sure you want to know about the cartoonishly evil jerks you're going to fight this year. Otherwise, steer clear!

We clear? Now gimme five.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, 

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore— 

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, 

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door— 

Only this and nothing more.”

She'd read it a thousand times before. All the classics, actually - Poe Verne, Wells, Adams... Anything that was held in high-esteem, she knew it back to front. And she was well aware of the cliche of reading this, with the Codename she had picked for herself and the strange theming of her outfit. But in dour moods like this, she could think of little else to read in the comfort of the armchair, stationed by the roaring coal fire in her office. Oh, yes, she'd put some thought into her evening reading space.

It was the right sort of an evening for it, as well. Cloudy and muggy, with a faint hint of a storm brewing in the distance. Every now and then, a faint peal of thunder sounded, growling like an impatient dog and making her shuffle deeper into the comfort of the battered furniture. Privately, she wished the clouds would pass over, bringing their rain and lightning, to complete the dour mood that hung about the room like a poisonous gas. But then again, she knew it might not even happen - the weather was one of those fickle things that could never be predicted for sure.

Despair, however, was more quantifiable.

Another crack of thunder. This time, she ignored it - she was getting to the good part. 

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;

But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,

And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”

This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—

Merely this and nothing more.

The man was right to despair. Of course he should. Did he really think that his love would last forever, that it would stand as firm and unyielding as... well, that was a poor metaphor. Nothing did. The Romans thought their city would last, that their empire would continue into a glorious utopian future, and yet all that remained of them were some ruins and a few helmets in museums. Same with the Egyptian,s the Greeks, the Normans... they all believed they would stand the test of time, and yet time had found them wanting and cast them aside. This man, and his broken heart, were no different.

She briefly lifted her head from the page, to rest her eyes from the strain of reading. For the briefest of moments, she settled it upon the fire and the orange glow that illuminated the antique carpet and the old-fashioned Victorian stone-work. Fake, of course, but no more out of place than the comic-book facade the rest of her colleagues wore. It almost amused her, the way some of them literally wore costumes that could have come from a rejected superhero book, and pranced around committing cliche'd atrocities for whatever cause they claimed to stand for. Hey, life is short, so why not have fun?

Another boom, closer this time. And as the pattering of heavy rain, like thousands of tiny hammers, began, she dipped her head once more.

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer

Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.

“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee

Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;

Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

But what was the point? How could they be so... happy, so cheerful about it all? Did they not care that everything they worked for meant nothing, in the end? That soon they would die, and the things they all worked for would inevitably burn in the final, flaming gasp of a dying sun? How could they know that their work was ultimately futile, yet keep those plastic grin on their faces? It baffled her as much as it intrigued her, repulsed her and set her stomach afire with hateful bile as much as it drew her in. The only exception was that cretin Ivan - either he knew, and accepted it, or was too dumb to care.

It must have been blissful, to be so ignorant.

This time, the crack was accompanied by a flash. Lightning.

For the briefest of moments, a picture came to her mind. Of two smiling faces, looking out from a sepia murk... and then she bit her lip and shook her head. Mother and Father, the one point of stability in her lives, meant nothing anymore. The same disease that ate away at the village she came from had claimed her too, and everywhere she had gone since then had suffered the same fate - fire, or bandits, or disease. And she had stood on the roof of that damp-rotted building in bare feet, looking across the far-off skyscrapers through the tears, and asked "Why?". All of mankind's achievements, her own life... it seemed so inevitably doomed and pointless that she almost took that fatal step.

But Godfather and her... other had spoken to her. Spoken of the cancer that spread through the world - the cancer of greed and fear, and short-sighted selfishness. And it was as if she had stood before the Rosetta Stone, and all the languages of the world had unraveled themselves and poured into her head. The world wasn't just going to die, it was already on the way - it's lungs were being torn up, it's heart was being pulled out and it was choking on the waste that it's own children were pouring out into it's air. Everyone was doomed anyway - it would simply come a lot sooner than later. "Like an old, wheezy grandad on life support," Godfather had claimed - blunt to a fault.

So... why not simply pull the plug?

A buzzer sounded, making her look up. Ah, 7:00 pm. The chicken ought to be done by now. With some reluctance, she set the book aside and hauled herself from the chair, the long sleeves of her robe rustling with the movements and clawed boot-tips scraping the carpet beneath her feet. And as she padded from the office down to the dining room, her lips automatically began to murmur the last stanza, hidden behind the black mask from the view of all who would look upon her as she made her entrance.

It was more than apt.

"And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,

And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor..."

"Shall be lifted..."

NEVERMORE
Lady of Sorrow of the Magpies
Identity: Delia Poe.