A butterfly limps onto Gemini’s guitar, wings squashed and deformed. She watches it struggle, flitting and flopping in vain before coming to rest before Pestilence’s gaze. El Mariachi Muerte follows her gaze.
“I see the product of such stunted growth. A deformed butterfly that will never fly.”
Gemini looks closer, noticing the butterfly’s wings were once formed correctly, but are squashed, torn and ripped beyond repair.
“This particular butterfly is stunted in a different way. For even when it is formed correctly, its delicate wings are still vital to its survival.”
She reaches forward, touching the butterfly and forcibly spreading its broken wings.
“This butterfly once flew beautifully as a majestic creature. But it has become stunted, its wings broken.”
She pulls at the wings, ripping them clean off the body of the butterfly itself. Pestilence watches as the butterfly flops about, squirming feebly.
“If one cuts the wings of even the most beautiful butterfly, it will not survive. No matter how hard it squirms.”
El Mariachi Muerte smiles.
“I see, mi amiga.”
He takes the ripped and torn wing of the butterfly and holds it up to the light.
“This butterfly too is like the Uprising, Narcissa Balenciaga in particular.”
Gemini turns to him.
“Tell me how.”
“Narcissa is this stunted butterfly.” Death begins.
“Once upon a time, she flew majestically at the highest levels of Arcadia. A creature of beauty that all of Arcadia would look towards with envy. At Zeus’s side, she had everything she could ever dream or want. But she needed more.”
Muerte crushes the broken wing between his fingertips, crumbling it to dust.
“She damaged her wings with an ill-fated choice. An affair that led to her fall from grace. She tore her wings when she broke her marriage. Zeus saw to clip her mangled wings, cutting them so that she could fly no more.”
“Ever since, she’s been trying to fly. Narcissa Balenciaga struggled, wings broken, to limp her way back into the limelight. She took her fight to the one man she held responsible for cutting her wings, but inevitably the damage had already been done.”
“Like a poor broken butterfly, struggling against nature to survive, Narcissa’s fate has already been sealed. You see, no matter how hard the broken butterfly tries, it will never reach its potential again.”
Gemini smiles, nodding.
“For it needed those wings to fly.”
Muerte strums his guitar, a song flowing out from within.
♫ ‘Take these broken wings
And learn to fly again
Learn to live so free’ ♫
“This Uprising is her feeble attempt to fly once more, to repair the damage by building herself a set of new wings. But what is damaged cannot be repaired, and much like this poor butterfly, she only squirms and delays the inevitable.”
El Mariachi Muerte picks up what remains of the squirming butterfly, crushing it between his fingers.
“Death comes to all in time. This week, a broken butterfly will be put out of her misery at the hands of Apokalysis.”