Innocent No Longer

Innocent no more

She was innocent once, playing with feathers on the floor of the Devil's lair.

 
   That was before he started teaching her his trade. It started with simple things. This is where this kind of person goes. Over there is that kind of person. That's where they get judged. This is where they enter. She became interested in the job, watching curiously and rarely playing with her fallen feathers anymore.
 
   Eventually she even helped with a judgment, earning a praise and the Devil's hand ruffling her folded wings. As time went on she helped more and more, as her wings slowly turned from their pure white into the deepest black. They crumpled together, becoming deformed and useless.

    Devastated, she often cried in a corner, fingering her old feathers. The Devil found her once, and offered her a trade, her wings for a cloak. She agreed, and with a snap of his fingers it was done. The reminder gone, she found it easier to deal with the loss, and liked hiding in her cloak, as black as the wings it was traded for.

     Once, she overheard a conversation between the Devil and Death, about Death being too busy to collect the souls of the dead and lead them to Hell to be judged. She volunteered for the job, since she didn’t do anything anyway. They both agreed, and after a hasty tutorial she started her new job.

     Hiding in her cloak, she lead the dead to their judgment, and knowing a few things about them, she was able to help make the judgements more fair. This continued for some time, but some souls began to resist, wanting to stick around, or just being rude.
 
   Not knowing what to do, she went to the only person she could think of. The Devil. He proposed a weapon, a silent threat to make them behave. She experimented with weapons of all shapes and sizes.
 
   Eventually, a scythe was chosen. This worked well, and the legends spread. That is how the Grim Reaper came to be.

Now she is something feared by all.