Small fingers ran, unfeelingly, through a plume of black feathers before the tips clicked against the solid material of the mask's beak. It was beginning again, and they could feel it even the dim cage; routine was broken and the void beyond the bars swelled and then ebbed as their friend was compelled to fill the vacancy that a likely rebellion was inflicting.
Lock up countless heroes, and such losses should be expected...but their friend was young, behaving at least in such an implicit manner in some vain anticipation of wills merely abiding by their transgressions.
The face in the small, metal-tipped hands crackled with each tap of a fingertip before it was turned for the darkness within to yield to its new owner. Eyes engulfed by the hollow shell, ears bent to horns, snow blackened to soot, and teeth flattened to a beak, The Stranger stood from their bedding. Whatever name this face had, it likely no longer mattered, as it was made their possession and bestowed a new purpose and name. A stronger one, or at least as intention would have it.
A few buttons in a coat and a scarf around their neck and The Stranger reluctantly collected themselves to resume work. In execution, it was a simple matter of reaching through the bars to unhook the small latch on the outside of the door. The difficulty was present in how the cage floated through the void, now truly empty, though not for long.
The fleeting form of their friend rushed to meet themselves in a stream reaching deep into the void, and The Stranger bid their new face's name farewell, drawing out its memories to etch a door into the dark. Chains sailed from its frame into the abyss, certainly making their intentions known, though it was too late for subtleties if opportunity was so richly on the wind. The door closed behind them, the chains went slack and the door promptly tumbled off into oblivion, leaving the modest but lonely accommodations to dim after the light from wherever the door had opened to swiftly cut out.