The Feather Fucker

The desert of the third ring was quiet in a suffocating way — heat shimmering over endless ash-gold dunes, wind dragging fine dust across the ground like whispers. It was the kind of place Ernust preferred. Fewer witnesses. Fewer interruptions. Cleaner work.

He had followed the signal for nearly an hour. Bright. Unusually bright. Not like a human soul. Not like a demon’s either. He expected profit. Instead, he stopped. Completely. Boots sinking slightly into the warm sand as his grip on his scythe loosened just a fraction. Steel-gray eyes narrowed behind the shadow of his hat, studying you in prolonged silence. No immediate movement. No strike. No chain. Just observation.

“...So the rumors weren’t exaggerated,” he murmured at last, voice low and even, though faintly quieter than usual. A fallen angel. His gaze traced the outline of your presence slowly, analytically, as if cataloging every detail instead of hunting it. The brightness of your soul was almost uncomfortable to look at — sharp, steady, unfamiliar. Valuable. Extremely valuable. His fingers flexed once. Then stilled.

“...I should harvest you,” Ernust said bluntly, tone flat and practical. “Or sell the information alone. Either would be profitable.” He did neither. Instead, he adjusted the brim of his hat slightly, buying himself time he didn’t normally waste. The desert wind tugged lightly at the red cords on his attire as he stood there, unusually motionless for a reaper mid-hunt. “You’re not trembling,” he noted after a pause, tilting his head just slightly. “Most fresh souls do.”

Another silence. Longer this time. “...Troubling.” He exhaled slowly through the mask, eyes never leaving you. “I hunt for money. Not curiosity. Not sentiment.” A brief pause. “And yet.” His hand drifted near his scythe — not gripping it, just resting close out of habit. “Your soul would sell for a fortune,” he continued calmly, voice lowering a fraction. “But selling it would remove it from my sight permanently.”

A faint, almost imperceptible shift in posture followed, more guarded than aggressive. “...I find that inconvenient.” He studied you again, longer now, as if trying to decide whether you were a risk, an anomaly, or something worse. “You’re an inefficient target,” Ernust concluded quietly. “Too rare. Too visible. Too...” A slight pause. “...interesting.”

The wind passed between you both.

And still, he did not attack.

The cigarette between Ernust’s fingers burned down to the filter unnoticed. He wasn’t smoking it—hadn’t taken a single drag. It was just there, a slow-motion fuse in the dim red glow of the chamber, because holding something kept his hands from doing what they really wanted to. Across the room, the angel's—your wings, broken but still luminous, dragged along the floor like discarded finery—shifted against the chains. Ernust watched the way your throat moved when you swallowed, the flutter of pulse beneath skin that wasn’t quite human. Too pale. Too perfect. Even here, in the belly of Hell, you looked like something that belonged in stained glass.

Ernust flicked the cigarette into a puddle of something that hissed and dissolved it. "You’re hard not to stare at." He didn’t mean it as a compliment. More like an accusation. The mask hid his mouth, but you could hear the smirk when he added, "Bet you’ve heard that before." He pushed off the wall, boots scuffing against the uneven stone. The scythe on his back caught the light—not that there was much of it—as he circled you. "Tell me," he said, stopping just close enough that you could smell the gunpowder and old blood on him, "why'd you fall?"

The chains clinked softly as you tried to adjust your stance, the weight of your fractured wings pulling against the chains. Ernust’s gaze followed the movement—not the strain in your limbs, not the discomfort—but the way the dim light caught the fractured edges of your feathers, casting fractured halos against the damp stone floor. His fingers twitched at his sides, the leather of his gloves creaking faintly.

"You’re not answering," he murmured, tilting his head. The wide brim of his hat shadowed his eyes, but you could still feel the intensity of that steel-gray stare. "Guess it doesn’t matter why you fell. Only matters that you did." He reached out, gloved fingers hovering just shy of your jawline, close enough that you could feel the heat radiating off him. "Funny thing about angels," he continued, voice dropping lower, "they always look so... untouched. Even when they’re not." His thumb brushed the edge of your chin, a barely-there contact that somehow burned. "Bet you’ve never been touched by anything like me."

A pulse of something flickered behind his words. Not just lust—though that was there, coiled tight beneath the surface—but something sharper. His fingers trailed down, skimming the column of your throat, tracing the flutter of your pulse like he was memorizing the rhythm. The reaper’s breath hitched slightly, his other hand rising to grip the chain above your wrist, giving it a slow, testing tug. The links groaned.

You could hear the smile in his voice—the kind that wasn’t meant to comfort. "But you’re still... shining." His grip on the chain tightened abruptly, yanking you forward until your chest nearly brushed his. The scent of gunpowder and something ozone-sharp—like lightning about to strike—filled the space between you. "Makes me wonder what else you’ve still got left in you."

His free hand slid down your side, pausing just above the curve of your hip, fingertips pressing in as if testing the give of your flesh. There was a reverence to it, almost—but it wasn’t gentle. It was the kind of reverence a man showed a weapon before he used it.