Light in the Veins, Memories in the Brain

It stains.

It’s quite the odd thing, really. Her bout of malevolence does not bring her claws the way it did Velvet, does not alter her skin the way it did Dyle, does not heightens her senses the way it did Rokurou. It does not scar, it does not grow, it does not show in any outward ways.

Then again, she did not become a Daemon either.

What she is exactly, she doesn’t know. She can’t be a Therion; Innominat is gone, his two remaining mouths locked in an endless Ouroboros. She can’t be a Malakhim; she’s not dead yet, not reincarnated yet. 

But she doesn’t think she fully qualifies as human either. Humans, after all, do not bleed light.

It doesn’t affect her all that much, mind you. After- everything, the common people has lost its sight. Daemons and Malakhim alike have become invisible to them. The only people to take notice of Eleanor’s condition are the occasional remaining exorcist, and at this point no one can afford to antagonize one of the few competent fighters from the Abbey. When Eleanor gets hurt and a terrible glow seeps from her wounds, they stare, they snarl, they turn away in disgust- but none raise their blades against her.

“You're not a human, are you ?” Her Malak partner asks her once, a couple years of partnership down the line.

What is she, indeed? She thinks of Magilou, Magilou who is so infinitely old, Magilou is her pointed ears. She thinks of Rokurou, the man who sought his brother’s death at all costs as a human and recognized him as a fellow swordsman as a demon. She thinks of Eizen, the Malak who brings misfortune wherever he goes, whose vessel is a ship, a coin, an entire crew. What is she, indeed? What are any of them?

Birds fly because they want to. A bird who does not fly is no bird at all. Following that same logic: Anything that chooses to fly can be a bird. Anything that chooses to be can be a bird.

“I’m a person.” A person who laughs, and cries, and makes mistakes, and lives with them- scars on the chest and light in the veins and memories in the brain. A person whose actions stain body and soul alike, yet who lives, who lives, who lives. “I’m a person. Nothing more, and nothing less.”