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She dwelled among the treetops and stared for miles.
From far away her wings looked all a blaze.
She's hungry again tonight.
She shall feast upon spirits.
He sat in his rail carriage, a rough cigar betwixt his lips.
The bootleg brandy swirled in his cut crystal glass.
Green felt lined his walnut desktop.
As his train cut a swathe to the east, he smiled.
Legend stated she was born on the surface of the sun.
Others tell she was a ghost from the dead colony of Mars.
With her shock of red hair and the flare of her wings, she was flying fire.
People feared her, as they feared him.
Commoners cleared a path when he walked on the wooden sidewalks.
Patrons vacated the bar when he walked in with his tall hat and tailcoat.
He made his fortune in Europe.
They called his nation Poland; his servants called him Sir.
She became a warped flame in a dust dry world.
Her footfalls cast plumes of sand into the air.
Her legend travelled from the ice waste, to the lifeless sands of the south.
She was unearthly, they figured her from beyond the stars: Celestina.
He invested his fortune in railways; "for it was the way kings travelled".
His ideas were too grand for this nation and they detest him.
He wanted California and Chicago connected.
Bones lined his rail tracks; new workers replaced old on the spot.
She followed the new metal imprints on her landscape.
Her fine, generous wings beat slowly as she flew above a new smoke.
Some metal monster had crossed her terrain and she was going to slay it.
The keeper would feel ruin too.
Splinters of glass sprayed across the forehead of a Chinaman.
He had dispensed justice swiftly and often before.
If he felt a greasy immigrant hand slide around his watch he was quick to wound it.
His Spanish servants dragged the Chinaman away.
She saw her iron prey at the horizon, east of the mountain.
It spewed a white smoke into the sky; it slid along steel veins.
Feathers of red fell to the earth like ashes of her as she sped.
Her eyes glint as the great tail comes into sight.
He heard the thump as his chandelier tinkled like ivory.
He grabbed his gilt pistol and a servant took his glass.
He'd heard legend of a beast, and his bullets were finest silver.
They called the creature "Lady of Mars".
He climbed his ladder onto the roof of his carriage.
He shot the intruder in the back and watched his body fall.
He could see bones crack, and hear muscles tear.
Another worthless drifter had tried to kill him: what a waste of bullets.
Her arms wrapped quietly around him, resting kisses on him.
He had changed her life; she had never felt this way before.
She heard the hollow dripping of water deep in the cave, pooling vigilantly.
She held her son close, it was all for him.
Alone he sat.
Rocking back and forth, he drank wine; which he opened himself.
He didn't want his drink untidied or stolen.
Cigar smoke drifted north, his thoughts drifted south.
He was drunk when he saw him, slumped in a chair, bottle in hand.
This evil man, who had watched so many die.
Who had killed so many, and laid curses at the feet of thousands.
This man was to die tonight, his spirit taken and imbibed.
Darkness... and then faint light as his eyes parted.
There was a figure crouching, cornered in the dusty moonlight.
He rubbed his eyes and saw the red wings, the red hair and he was paralyzed.
All his anger gone and all his thoughts removed.
She surveyed, measured and investigated his form.
He was so very pale, weak and even insignificant.
He had worked, stolen, controlled, cheated, planned and clawed his way to the top.
And now he lay weak and helpless, no one to so his bidding.
The pain came on so strong he could taste it; it rolled down his tongue and splashed on his shirt.
She was barely even touching him; she just laid a palm on his chest.
All he could think of was his mother and how he never visited her.
Ever.
Her fingertips shook as the power of an evil soul saturated her.
She saw the evil he had done, and knew it was lovely he was dead.
Her little boy slept warm in the cave and a dead man sat in a chair.
She saw smoke in the distanced.
The servants loaded the train and they sold his luggage.
The homeless, the hungry and the tired boarded the train.
They would be taken east; they would be fed and clothed.
Their master was no more and the train was theirs.
A slim outline stood by the entrance, with wings all ablaze.
It's skin soft and it's arms warm, the figure was a mother.
His mother saw her son, his small wings spreading from beneath his blanket.
He said his first words.
