It's quite funny, really, quite quite funny. Poor boy, poor boy, he thinks at himself as the Symphony fades out of hearing in a way he's fairly certain it isn't supposed to.

In one hand, he holds a feather he tore out as his wings started to change, because he needed to keep something, something, goddamn it, something, and in his other hand he holds a letter. To anyone else, it's a blank piece of paper. To him, it seals his fate, or perhaps his Destiny; he's not sure which, and a difference has not yet been discovered.

And he laughs until tears stream down his face, laughs as he jams the feather's quill through the paper over and over.

"You old bastard," he laughs. "You old bastard. You old fucking bastard, I did what you said, but because I did it, I won't remember why. You fucking son of a whore bastard."

Eventually, even that feather breaks, and he doubles over, screaming with laughter until his face is lined, until his throat is hoarse, until he grows far far bitterer than he'd ever imagined.

Sometimes he'll take out a paper with holes in it and start laughing again. Most of the time, all it takes is looking at the holes in himself.