Vultures- Prelude

People had always reminded her of vultures.
         They were ebony cast souls that tore apart their victims with an air of malice dripping from vicious talons. They fed on the corpses of the departed, ripping sinew from bone. Beaks were dipped in blood and every might of dignity that the dead possessed were strewn across Death's land. Veins were severed and entrails devoured, a testament to what memory held upon the dead. Vultures ravaged the body and soul. They used their vivacious cunning to ruin and steal from the week. With black faceted jewels across their skin, they paraded around the feast; their feast of flesh and bone, where only the sick of heart cannot call home.
         She despised vultures.
         Now she stood before them all, forcefully memorized eulogy spewing from unbidden lips. She spoke of fiery sunrises that chased away the dark, twilight of ancient jewels, and the light of the moon, a god to end a veil of darkness. She whispered the dreams of the romantic, the songs of the dead. She weaved an illusion of pristine ocean sparkling like diamond, and a rainforest sheltering the stricken from harm- on deaf ears.
         The vultures glared at her.
         It was a lie dressed in silk, to abandon a world for a time, to abandon a world of terror and plight. Evil had razed life to the ground, and plundered sanity plan after plan. The apocalypse had come, a mass of fire and searing rage that left only vultures and herself.
         Those who were not vultures, those who did not mutilate with silver claws, were oblivious to the supernatural panic around them.
         Words faltered on her tongue and silence constricted her ear drums. Harsh, glowering scavenger eyes watched her tremble for a moment, illusions of veins slit open and hemorrhaging into greedy mouths. Just as swiftly as it had come the image dissipated leaving a foul aftermath in her mind. She continued her senseless oration, breathing impregnable beauty at each verse.
         A school full of vultures surrounded her, a vast force of the Cabal's initiates, waiting on the perfect chance to slay the god-ling. But she stayed to protect those who could not protect themselves.
         A grimace found her face, and held her in its grasp. She had been borne into a grim life, but she felt no pity for herself. She felt only pity for those she could not save, devoured by the vultures... There were only four in this room, vile specters that stalked life in the very corridors they intended to destroy. Fear reverberated in her bones for a moment, her voice quavering in the intensity. Four was not many, but it was enough. How could she possibly save anyone?
         Her eulogy came to a close, leaving blank stares and hollow applause from an audience of human vultures that she kept safe. Never mind that she was the only force between themselves and a cruel death.
         She silently fell back to her seat at the far end of the classroom. Applause evaporated as another student was called up to the stand. It was Christian boy, oblivious to her existence. He wasn't a vulture by supernatural reasons, only by human choice. Despite how devout in his faith he remained, he still possessed those irrepressible qualities. He was still a predator to seize the weak of society.
         He began to chant a rather dull impression of the eulogy she had just finished reciting. Her mind passed through oblivion, searching for dreams to occupy her mind. Left vulnerable, the vultures would tear into her consciousness and illustrate the fate they had planned for the little god-ling. The vultures were cruel, but the human race was a reflection of the same abuse. Love was built on rage and hate, and everything nature had created in her majesty had been swallowed by urban development; a darker tragedy than even Shakespeare could create.
         She felt terribly alone and hollow to the core of her bone. There was no one to share her troubles with, no one beyond the heavens and earth and hell. Humans would succumb to madness, the faerie people to a similar fate. The gods were her father's people. A tremulous sigh threatened to break, but she held back the chaos swelling inside her body. Forever alone she had been damned, while blessed with the grace of a god. However much the world needed her, loneliness was a terrible price to pay.
         Her eyes found the window where New York City stood like an arrogant child. Skyscrapers in their terrible magnificence touched the heavens and wrought the definition of beauty in concrete and steel. The city was an architectural dream of the modern world, and it was inhabited by human vultures.
         She laughed silently at the irony of the world's dissension into madness, after millennia of accomplishing impossible feats. After so much time and effort the human world would fade into a gossamer veil of blood. Forged in blood, to die in blood. It was almost poetic... almost.
         The boy's oration came to an abrupt halt. Droning applause followed his swift return to his seat. He slouched slightly and his face held a pained expression. She had always enjoyed watching people.
         Suddenly he turned to face her, and his eyes held her for longer than comfort. She did not dare look away, but how had he known she was watching him? Exhibiting weakness when the vultures were certainly spying would bring nothing but tiresome work. She held his gaze until he looked away, a flash of crimson staining his cheeks. Perhaps she was not as invisible. But society barred them from ever speaking. He knew that as well as she. She must forget the words and the friends she could have made in this time. She must forget to be human.
         Another student rose to the front, a vulture, and her voice became the whisper of angels. Her perfection weaved the deepest emotion sin the pits of men, her face the essence of beauty. They were entranced inside her spell, minds almost completely incapacitated within the words of her eulogy. She could bend them to her will, and they would kill for her if the desire was strong.
         Panic immediately filtered through her veins at the thought of an attack. She opened herself to the magic and let it fill her senses, surroundings becoming dull within the florescent light. Let them attack her. She would smite them all to hell.
         Tension bled through the classroom walls until the female vulture's procession concluded quite swiftly, her magic's weaves fading in the cool air. Men were blinking rapidly and tenderly rubbing temples through out the room. In the aftermath of the spell, she realized foolishly of her mistake. The vulture grinned broadly at her, success at the hoax.
         She bit her tongue furiously to hold back her rage, boiling like a desert tempest.
         How she hated vultures.
         Humanity was idiotic! They were going to be destroyed by fools with powerful magic. Here she was, flowing with the potency of a god, trapped in the urban wastes of America while the world fell apart. A perfect ending to the tragedy of life.
         Humanity was voracious an deceitful. The thought, drenched in spite caught her off guard. She hadn't realized how much she hated them. They tore apart their own and even the innocent, then asked for pity. They survived in rapture, reeled in ecstasy, ravenous beaks dipped in smoking blood. Humanity was the perfect, infallible image of black-winged scavengers.
         People had always reminded her of vultures.