#personificationofpeace

[badwolfproductions]

fanart

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happy (early) easter this is literally a year old

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FANFIC: not with a bang, but with a whimper - Part 4

Summary: Irene unintentionally begins to get caught up with birdmen affairs. To everyone's surprise, it doesn't end well.

A/N: This is like, the third version of this chapter.

I would like to believe that the last chapter was the final flashback sequence. It was mostly exposition, anyway. Also, it’s not much of a story if all the main character did was sulk in the present day, even if said character was a toddler.

There was something up in the sky. It sort of looked like birds, but a little different. She squinted up at the figures, trying to identify them.

"Bird people," she muttered to herself. Of course they were bird people, she berated herself in her head. All the nice birds died.

They continued to circle around the premises, and she wasn’t sure why. Birds did that if they found food, didn’t they?— she thought. Maybe they found food.

She looked ahead to see what exactly they were circling over.

There was a small fort with bird people in armour surrounding it, looking steely eyed in the distance. A single flag depicting Heaven’s insignia resided on top of the fort’s edges.

It had occured to her that the angels outside were guarding the fort.

One of the flying angels seemed to stop, merely flying in place, before it was nearing where she was—

Out of instinct, Irene ran from it. More angels, both groundboubd and up above noticed the spectacle and folowed suit. It didn’t take long for them to catch up and circle her, to say the least.

The girl’s breathing had gone ragged, both from running and out of fear. Her eyes darted around from armoured angel to armoured angel, mind drawing a blank.

"What business do you have here?" a bird man with off-white wings asked her. Another bird man with cool gray wings stared at her.

"Uh—," Irene stammered.

"We do not have time for this!" another angel said.

"I was just trying to find papa—"

Unfortunately, the weapons, nor the bearers showed any compassion for her reason.

"Take it in," one of them said. An angel with sandy white wings and dark wingtips reached out to grab her. "We shouldn’t even be this far anyway.

“LEAVE ME ALONE!" she shrieked madly.

Of course, those words fell on deaf ears as she was whisked off, not unlike a hawk catching its prey.

Irene attemted to wriggle out of the cold grip of the angel while she proceeded to scream her possibly non-existent lungs out.

"Be quiet, or so help me I will drop you," the angel uttered through gritted teeth.

The threat didn’t really help much. It had done the exact opposite effect, seeing as Irene was wailing and bawling now.

However, the angel was somewhat true to her word. She dropped the poor girl. Off to a prison cell, that is. And rather unceremoniously at that.

After that, Irene hadn’t moved an inch in her surroundings.

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FANFIC: not with a bang, but with a whimper - Part 3

Summary: In which the owner of that bellow from long, long ago is revealed.

A/N: Better late than never, I suppose. Like, seven months late. This is just all flashback, man.

Irene ran.

Not because of the fact that she had almost been in the middle of some not-so-friendly fire and stabbing and bludgeons, not because of the beasts that could've gobbled her up, but rather a mutilated Newta body lying on the ground. She wasn't sure how she knew it was a Newta, but she knew regardless.

Finally reaching her destination, she crawled under one of the many rubble formations that could've been used as shelter and started to cry. It served as a reminder that this world— the only one she knew for such a small while— was crumbling.

It also reminded her that she was weak. Irene was as surprised as anyone that she had survived this far.

After a long while, her sobbing subsided and thought briefly that a hug would've been nice at this point. However, the only way she could ever get one was in her dreams if she ever slept. Those moments were few and far between, however.

Dream hugs could never replace real hugs, though.

There wasn't really a lot to do when the remains of civilization were being torn apart in a catastrophic war, besides staying alive for as long as you can, of course.

But Irene managed. She made friends and family out of pieces of rock and debris big enough, living vicariously through her pretend games. Sometimes the pieces broke, but they were immediately replaced by a new piece lying around

"Irene, I'm hungry… what'ssss for lunch?" she said in a raspy voice while holding a flat piece of orange plastic, bobbing it up and down almost to signify it was talking. "I'm asssssss flat assssss a board!"

"You're always hungry, Gutney," this time, the voice was deep (or as deep as a toddler's voice can go) and was assigned to a piece of brick that was painted white on one side.

"Am not," the piece of plastic retorted.

"Are too."

"Am not."

This went on for quite a while. Sometimes Irene messed up on the voices on occasion but she never noticed.

Eventually, the girl intervened. "Unca, papa, please don't fight!" she said in her normal voice. Both plastic and brick 'turned' to her.

"I've made a super special lunch for the both of you!" Irene set aside her surrogate unca and papa to put some smaller debris and sand into a pile before picking both of them up again.

"It's cake!" she said.

"Thank you Irene!" the piece of plastic said, before being put down onto the cake.

"Thank you!" the brick parroted. She heard a rumble in the distance, and Irene dropped the brick into the pretend cake.

"Sorry, papa," she mumbled, before going outside to investigate.

In the distance, she saw a creature of unimaginable horror— no, perhaps the description should be more specific. To her, all participants of the war were a creature of unimaginable horror so this says nothing.

The creature was a walking pile of sludge and shadow. Even from a distance, she could see that it had piercing red eyes. Its head was raised up, sniffing for prey. She gulped, wishing that the dirt and grime would have disguised her scent.

However, that wish was for naught, for the beast spotted her and it ran towards her with an all too familiar unearthly bellow. The thing that destroyed her unca's house and ate him, she was sure of it.

The girl instinctively ran into the rubble she currently occupied, not even thinking of the fact that she was cornered until it was too late.

The beast was far too large to enter by the tiny entrance, so instead it put one of its front paws in it as an attempt to catch the creature it saw.

She huddled at the furthest corner of her little house-burrow, clutching her pretend-papa and unca to her chest and silently hoped that this was just an extremely realistic nightmare.

Thiswasworsethanthesnakemuchmuchworse--!

Then she saw a light through the cracks in the rubble and the creature howled in pain. The paw retreated and she heard it ran off, claws scraping against sand and debris.

Then it was quiet, and Irene noticed how fast her little heart was beating. She ventured nearer and nearer to the entrance to see who had saved her from being devoured again.

It was a man she recognized, alright. Perhaps not as tall and with less rings around him, but she recognized the face from a party that seemed like it happened a billion years ago.

"Unca Hummy?" she ventured.

She expected that he would leave, that he would correct her like papa did and she couldn't help but feel silly after saying his name, but...

The Virtue looked confused for a moment, wondering where the sound, that name that was subtly nagging him, was coming from.

"Down here," Irene said, finally getting out.

He had to kneel down to see eye to eye where it had come from. Perhaps it was a threat, he thought as he brought the spear closer to him. Then that thought dissipated and the spear dropped from his hand as soon as he had a good look at her.

"Pace-- Irene?" Humilitas said in a way that seemed like he was straining.

"Unca Hummy!" she said joyously as she hugged him. "You remember."

The Virtue couldn't help but instinctively hold onto the spear when she got closer, but stopped himself from doing something that he would regret later. He managed a simple 'yes', before he untangled himself from her arms.

It took a few seconds to collect her thoughts. "How come you can remember? Why can't papa remember? Do you know where my unca is?"

The Virtue took a moment to process the barrage of questions, as well as fight his urges to go off after the abomination-- no... He rubbed his fingers against his temple.

"It is taking a lot of my strength to remember," he began slowly. "Because if we remember, we will not fight."

"Isn't that a good thing?" the child asked, still concerned by the pain he was in. "Remembering to not fight."

"Not to the angels. Not to the Devil," he replied. "As for Temperantia-- I mean, your father... he is too engrossed in the role."

The Virtue stood up. His time to talk was ending and it felt like his mind was being torn apart into pieces that can never be repaired. "And Gul-- your uncle..." Humilitas pointed to the direction where the creature ran off. "He will try to devour you again with no hesitation."

It took a moment or two to put the pieces together on what that thing was. "No... No, you're lying. No!..."

Humilitas walked off to where the thing once called unca went, the world to him becoming more and more quiet as he tuned her out.

"Unca wouldn't hurt me! He wouldn't! That thing was-- that thing ate him! Tell me the truth!!"

But no matter how much she screamed and cried, Humilitas did not turn back. Irene knew the words she said would not become true if she just merely said so but really what could she do?

Like her former-papa said, she had no place here.

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maybe its vegetarian cookies

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time for a little game of hide n seek

[apersonificationoftemperance]

it's papa's day papa! Happy papa's day! 

I-Irene! Thank you!

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irene would prolly think a colorful bird will come out of that colorful egg and attempt to raise it as its child