She uncapped the top of the lipstick bottle that was currently on top of her vanity. Blush, rosy pink, the makeup seemed to sparkle alluringly from beneath that glimmering gold container. She carefully applied it before setting it back in its rightful place among her vast collection. Next, she rose to snatch a container of shimmering midnight-blue eye shadow, gently smoothing it onto her eyelid. Blush, mascara, lip liner, and a dozen other products followed, resulting in a flawlessly made-up face that only an immortal could create after spending so many centuries in front of the mirror. Some magic sparks flowed from her fingertips and made circles around her as they raced up to create an intricate hairstyle of beautiful waves and swirls. At last, she was ready.

   She despised her job. It didn’t suit her at all, and she was always late for it. Someone with her personality and superior taste in all things shouldn’t have to deal with mere mortals, she thought condescendingly to herself. Her wings vibrated, knocking her out of her thoughts while at the same time letting her know that she had received a call. Probably from her boss. Who did they think they were, anyway? She sure didn’t know. She’d never even met them. Her job interview hadn’t exactly been regular, and she couldn’t even remember when it had happened. So long ago… She was lost in thought when a loud voice echoed in her head, reminding her that she was no regular employee. Albeit she had much in common with hating her job as much as she did. However, perhaps she should be grateful. Her occupation was definitely one plenty of humans would kill to have. Just not the selfish ones. However, that is what she was. Selfish to the umpteenth degree.

   She sighed and picked up the telepathic message, rubbing irritably at the delicate tissue that stretched out from her back. Like any one of her mythical kind, her wings were her pride and joy, and she did not like them being ruffled. She frowned as the voice drilled into her brain. “You’re late. Be here as soon as this call is over, or you’re fired. And I’m sure you don’t want that. You have to pay for your disgustingly vain habits somehow. This christening is from an important family, and you’re being an embarrassment to this establishment. You don’t want your wings stripped, do you?”

   She paled, face turning the color of the death that stripped wings meant for one such as her. But her pride forced her to keep her mouth shut. However, when she arrived, she realized she could take it no longer. There they all were, everyone in their white and gold attire, a sickeningly sweet baby girl between them. Horrifying. So disgusted was she, that able to deal with it she no longer was. She decided that instead of being fired, she was going to quit.

   As she started to walk away, she could feel eyes burning stares in the back of her head. Soon she could feel an actual burning as well. All too late, she began to realize what was happening. Her wings were being torn off. She could feel it, a combined concoction of burning fire and freezing ice and empty blackness edging their way through the now ragged edges of her most glorious feature towards her heart. It ate its way through her, and suddenly everything stopped. As she felt her vision starting to disintegrate, she saw, out of the corner of her eye, a tube of lipstick fall from the sky…

   Maybe, she realized, she was too vain, just like everyone said. Because as she could feel everything that had come to matter most to her; her beauty, her wings, her immortality, were suddenly gone, she suddenly wished she had someone beside her. A single salty tear ran down her cheek as the darkness of oblivion shone and she sank into nothingness. It was strange. She could feel a weight rising from her shoulders, making her feel light and insubstantial as air. Almost… as if she had her wings again.