1Paper wings fluttered in that bright room, gentle and white and so painfully ethereal. The new master couldn't stand to look at it, couldn't stand to remember her bright green eyes and the white costume with purple tints that she'd used to disguise her perfect face.
Butterflies, however, were symbols of eternity, of life after death, and he refused to let the pain bury her memory.
Ironically, it could be said that the day Hawkmoth was born, a part of the man behind that mask died. That he had to kill another bit of himself every time he made an akuma. That the only reason he kept on living was because that was the drawback of the Butterfly Miraculous. Not immortality per say, but endurance.
Nooroo had known his master from before - before Hawkmoth, before their Pieridae had said goodbye - he knew his master wasn't a bad man, wasn't evil.
But it was a slippery road and love was strong enough to heal, to hurt, to change. Love made fools of everyone.
And Hawkmoth was a lover above all.
The little god was not surprised when he was asked about the Miraculous. Was not surprised that the mistress had once told his new master the stories. Was not surprised that she'd left him her prized possession, the Book of Legends and Secrets.
Nor was he surprised when his new master shattered in that first meeting, in the minutes after putting on the butterfly brooch. Tears had sliced down high cheeks and jagged barriers, tapping the study's marble floor as the man shuddered. Breaking, breaking, broken.
The desperation though, that had been unexpected. The sheer magnitude enough to make Nooroo wary and even frightened when the newly dubbed Hawkmoth stood tall in his wife's abandoned lair, laughing and eager as he gave in to his pain.
"She's gone!" The kwami wanted to say. "There's no changing that!" But you did not challenge insanity, not when your miraculous wielder was gripping it like a lifeline.
The master was good though, his love genuine. But dead men couldn't love and the man behind the mask, the husband of his mistress, his dear Pieridae, died a little more every time a butterfly was painted purple. The madness was very real, very close to all consuming.
Everyday, Nooroo thanked his lucky stars for the boy. For the angel that tempered the illness. For the son keeping his father, maybe not anchored, but aware of reality. The man who married his mistress was still there, still hanging on, still alive and not evil because he loved his son.
When the glass on the window was blown apart, when that red figure and her shadow with too familiar eyes swung in with the rain… Nooroo wished he hadn't recognised his mistress' smirk, her mint green eyes, her sun-gold hair when the lightning flashed. Nooroo wished and he wished - and a small part of him was relieved because this meant he could change, Chat Noir could help.
Hawkmoth could be saved.
But Nooroo was a god, and he didn't know that men weren't something you could fix. That, no matter how much those beautiful eyes soothed his new master's splintered soul, they weren't enough. For all his wisdom, Nooroo had forgotten that butterfly wings didn't mend.
That a broken wing killed the butterfly each and every time.