{1}
Iron bars closing with the rusted gold image of some creature with six heads and nine wings, a robe the color of sapphires-only from being made of them- and only one eye; always closed. Yet it never stops watching.

Stepping on rain dripped cobbles Solace
doesn’t -think she- exist. Her small hands,
pale with the braking of her once strong bones
wrap around the staff of Arch.

She doesn’t realize it’s not the end
but rather the once more. And she knows that this
will just begin again when she opens that door.
So she doesn’t open it. But rather, walks away.

{2}
Thunder, or so it seems, follows her steps as Solace staggers by. Behind the eye of the creature opens slightly, the faces moving side to side; masks yet unworn. Wings rise into the sky and the clouds swirl together.

Ice pellets hit the fence that locks Virtue
from the rest. She sees Solace run away, tear stricken and afraid.
Looking down at skin like the coco beans she use to eat
she sighs and cries with the hail.

In her hands lays a crumpled paper. She raises it to the sky,
throwing it over the fourth beast face
into the nest of a widow Mourning Dove
who’s children peck at it hungrily for she goes on unmoving.

{3}
With the falling frail body of a new hatchling, Virtue turns away. The skies grow dark, dawn seems to be coming on the horizon and the stars light the cold corpse before dimming in the clouds heaven painted grey.

Laughing mockingly, Anarchy swings from the
branches behind the nest, landing on a flat faced stone.
His burnt red flesh matches the wilted leaves crushed and moist on the melted white ground.
Staring at the twitching corpse, coal eyes mourned silently.

Reaching down with long arms and dark
scars that look like the faces of the statue staring from across the world
he gathers the bird in his palms and holds it as if in prayer.
A lying laugh escapes his false carved lips.

{4}
Glaring down sickened by the act of Anarchy, the masks turn and become a mimicry of sadness. Marked with the chiseled words –Creation is…-something seems amiss. Cracked wings show the high Arch’s destruction.

Hearing the call of laugher, Havoc
rushes to the scene. He sees with a gleam
upon his Asiatic tone and beady eyes
that follow all that has been created.

When he falls upon the laugher’s source, he grins
wicked and remorseful all the same as
he reaches out to a dear friend and
grabs him by the arm, dropping the bird and pulling him along.

{5}
Therefore, Havoc did raise Anarchy, and together they found Virtue in her tears. Running together, hand in hand, Virtue trapped between, until they found the hiding Solace hovering over lost pieces of paper.

Each took a corner of the parchment as the
statue watched and crumbled softly to the moistened grass
the stones turning to dust as radiance boiled over like
sunlight. The paper lit up in the colors like their skin.

Each folded a corner, one hand at a time,
until they created something wonderful and quiet.
The statue fell to piece and the once seen beast rose alive
smiting down the four conspirators, the creation fell in shambles.

Yet there it lay, somehow still made
alive in their irradiations
the Paper Crane