Fallen Angel

[peterpan]

"Chores and menial tasks?" I fingered the ring in one ear, pretending to consider it. "why how sweet of you to offer." Then my gaze wandered over her angelic form splayed out before me. "But no... My cleaning staff are legion. I think I would prefer you clinging to my chest as though your soul depends on it. I know a part of you would too."

Holding her arms down to the soft satin, I bent forwards to kiss her stomach where it touched her ribs, then kissed my way up to one breast (the one I had put spying marks upon) to take the hardening nipple in my mouth.

Releasing her arms I moved a hand to capture and carress her other breast. They were so beautiful, in sight and touch and taste. Ariana could do no more than grasp my smooth head.

Walking my lips up to where her swanlike neck flowed into well defined shoulders, I bit her gently. Then we were face to face.

"Look at me, Ariana." Her ensorcelled eyes had to obey. "You are a treasure without price. You are mine. No I will not use you for chores and menial tasks. No I will not stop. Not until you have begged me for more and begged me for more, and I have sated you completely. Then I shall rest within you. Once you are free."

The loop of tattered silk I had hooked over her head, I now hooked over mine forming a sling that ran under her arms and wings, binding her to me. Cradling her as if she were fragile as an infant, I rose back to my knees.

Supporting her bottom in my hands, I held her so the head of my phallus rubbed along her slit, questing with a serpentine intelligence. No more strange to an angel than the flicking of a small tongue.

Suspended as her ankles were, her legs wrapped around me, Ariana could do little to push away from the gentle touches. With her arms she could fight not to slip, with her wings she could rise briefly.

Slowly I reduced my support of her. Eventually she would tire. The first stroke would be hers.

Gazing up into her face I commanded. "Look at me Ariana. With your ensorcelled lips, describe to me your first time, through the gate of heaven." And thusly I began to question her.

 

[Marigold]

Again, I warred with panic. I held myself aloft by bracing myself upon his shoulders, my wings fluttering nervously behind me. The movement was not enough to take flight, by it helped to keep me from slipping and kicked up a small whirlwind in the process.

His appendage pressed at the opening of my body, and if I let myself fall...I shivered a bit, some of his veiled references making a bit more sense. Was that what he sought? The thought was a strange one to me. Having some part of him tucked inside of me seemed incredibly intimate in some way. Surely it should have repulsed me, horrified me, but instead a little curious thrill skittered along my spine. What would it be like?

Still, I fought both the curiosity and letting myself be impaled in that way. I steadied myself and got a firmer grip on his shoulders. The position was more than a bit awkward.

"Look at me Ariana. With your ensorcelled lips, describe to me your first time, through the gate of heaven."

I looked at him, of course. As if I could do anything else. It was frustrating, to have no control of such things as where my gaze rested and what I spoke. My mouth was answering before my brain caught up with it.

"What do you mean? The first time I left Heaven? I told you about it already. It was when I fought my first battle." My arms were beginning to ache with the strain of pushing myself upwards. "I remember being horrified. Heaven is so clean, so perfect. My first glimpse of Earth, the ruins of Tokyo was a shock. I'd never seen anything that was not punctuated with a perfectly straight line or a mathmatically calculated arch. The twisted metal and broken glass made me dizzy, all twisted and crazed. The air was dirty. It smelled like smoke and old chemicals. Heaven's not like that."

My hands started to slip on his smooth shoulders, and I lowered a bit. The tip of him slipped inside me, just a few inches, and pressed painfully against some sort of barrier. My eyes widened in shock, still glued to his. I wanted to ask him if this was a thing that had been done before or if he had made it up to torture me further, but I managed to hold my tongue. Excepting the small amount of pain, it felt oddly nice, as if some unfinished part of me were being completed. Still, I tried to disengage myself, but to no avail. My arms were shaking with the strain and refused to regain any lost ground. I tried to appeal to his sense of reason once again.

"Obsidian," I began, my voice squeaky with nervousness and discomfort, "Shouldn't you let me go now?"

 

[peterpan]

Once she had taken to using her arms and wings to support herself, my hands were free to explore her body, stroking her bottom and back and thighs. Always I was ready to catch her, to crush her to my chest if her body should slip faster than she could swallow me within herself. I would not let her fall until her body desired it, betrayed her for it.

My touch was very light, as she told me of Heaven and Tokyo, but shied away from describing the gate itself.

Finally she slipped, just a few inches but almost too far. I felt the penetration through the spying marks I had made upon her, felt her flesh stretch to encompass me from two viewpoints. I felt the pain of her virginal barrier. Almost too far. Not yet.

"Obsidian! Shouldn't you let me go now?"

I heard the nervousness in her tone. In her eyes I could see her fear. Fear of the unknown. Heaven had taught her nothing of the natural use of her body. Nothing at all. Perhaps she thought she would be ruptured and die. I would have to talk to her as one would talk to a child.

"Look at me Ariana. This is how a human male expresses his love of his woman.." Yes, or his ownership, or his hatred of all women but I did not tell her that. "This is how he begins a child within her. His child. Her child." That at least was the case between humans. Between Demon and angel I did not know.

"The pain you feel is natural for your first time. It will get worse but then be quickly forgotten. I will strive to help you through it. I will feel it with you."

She was tired enough. A mere singing in her limbs was enough, for now. I assured my touches upon her would prolong the moment that she pondered upon her remaining virginity. I would push my hands up her waist, grasping firmly as her flesh slipped through my fingers. I would encircle each buttock and squeeze it, fingers brushing softly along her crack.

"Look at me Ariana. Tell me about the gate itself. If the outside world was so ugly, tell me of the second time you passed through it, when it brought you home. Was it majestic? Is it really a gate or literally the mouth of the storm that sometimes seems to carry angels from place to place. Did you feel fulfilled passing through it. What caught your attention most."

Between each breath I would kiss her. I began slowly to grind my hips, withdrawing the head then letting it seek back into her, till it butted her barrier gently. Let her use the sensations to understand how she was made. Let it also distract her from what her tongue was saying.

"Tell me everything you felt."

---

OOC: Or not. I mean if you are really thinking of trains and tunnels you would probably blurt that out

 

[Marigold]

I was trapped, and his hands were magical, coaxing forth those strange fluttery feelings again. My arms began to tremble with more than the effort of holding my weight. For the first time, I found myself actually welcoming his touch, arching into his carresses a bit, despite my resolutions to hold myself impassive. The voice of reason howled, but it was too weak now to gain my attention. Obsidian offered me a bit of comfort, a bit of balance in a world gone awry. I found that I was no longer strong enough to turn the offer away.

"Look at me Ariana. This is how a human male expresses his love of his woman. This is how he begins a child within her. His child. Her child."

So he hadn't come up with it himself. This actually made me feel a bit better. I didn't understand how what we were doing could start a child, but I was in no state to ask questions. His fingers were tracing over my rear, and the heat in my loins was growing stronger with each heartbeat. He said the pain was normal. Had he asked, I would have said it was nothing.

Again he asked about the gate, but the gate itself this time, wanting to know what it looked like, where it was maybe. I did not want to think about gates. It was all I could do to think at all, for he had begun to move within me, creating the most wonderful friction I'd ever felt and never imagined. I began to return the little kisses he bestowed between his murmured words.

My words reflected my distration. "I don't know. It's a gate, a hundred ells high, with guards and gold and such. Built to intimidate, I suppose. It is set in the great wall that encircles all the cities. As you pass through it, you see a stone arch opposite it, and that is the portal. The gate takes you out of Heaven, but the Portal takes you to whever you are to go. I don't know how it works. Magic, or machinery. It's all just about the same anyway."

My arms slipped around his neck and my eyes bored into his, as if I might recieve answers or absolution there. I felt there must be more to what we were doing than what was being done. I found with some surprise that I was hungry for more.

 

[peterpan]

Her affection starved body pressed into mine. Still I kept teasing her with what might be.

Ariana's eyes bore into mine, demanding answers not in words. The delicate ring of black I had added to her irises only made her gaze more peicing, more beautiful. The strokes I had laid on her lids left her stare hawklike. There was an almost predatory nature to the lust I baited in her.

I tasted her lips and her lips responded.

Her wings were not beating now. Instead of cooling us with breeze they blanketed us in warm darkness. Hers. Trapping the heat.

Strands of hair had fallen across her face. Her stare was not diminished, but intensified by the veil. The eyes of a predator through grass. Was this the nature of the beast hidden deep within her DNA? What was her God afraid of?

Then my vision of her inverted, and she was just a lost child once more, bound with chastity and guilt. All but the eyes, the windows to her soul.

All the time I kept up the slow rythm. Never enough to sate the growing curiosity her body felt at my touch.

I do not know if she was aware of the instant her body began to move against mine, seeking to defeat this cruel gentleness.

The cruelty was just beginning. I would have her fight harder.

I whispered small questions to her, stealing small secrets from her ensorcelled lips. The smaller the answers the more they told me. When she did not answer my movements would slow, as if time slowed waiting for her and I would look into her eyes questioningly. Thus did I encourage her to answer my innocent questions freely.

I brought Ariana to the state where she would accept any pain so long as the curiosity of her body was sated. At the instant her passivity turned to open struggle to take more than I had offered her, I was whispering in her ear:

"Tell me, as you returned to heaven for the first time, what words did your leader speak before the gate?"

 

[Marigold]

Need burned in me, a desperate, hungry need that knew no limitations. I didn’t know what I needed, only that the need was there. At first, when Obsidian had begun to question me, I’d hesitated, trying to gauge if the answer had any strategic value to him or no. I learned quickly that hesitation on my part caused hesitation on his, and that I could not bear. The rhythmic intrusions into my body had me hooked, as if on some horridly addictive drug. My ruthlessly buried passions had control of me now, and they seemed to be making up for lost time. Or perhaps it was since I’d never been allowed to exercise them; I’d never learned to properly control them either. In any event, soon the answers sprung from my lips unthinking. I had no real idea what I was saying, could not have told what had been asked or what I had answered thirty seconds after they’d passed. I tried to press myself closer to him, to his warmth, to the rewards he dangled just out of my reach. He merely pulled away just enough to prevent any sort of gratification. I whimpered in protest.

"Tell me, as you returned to heaven for the first time, what words did your leader speak before the gate?"

I answered without thought. “Omega.”

Oh, why does good sense only return when it is too late? It was as if someone had poured a bucket of ice water over my head. I realized instantly what I had done, the sin I had committed. How many of the people I’d fought beside over the decades would die because of my weakness? I sobbed in horror and ducked out of the remains of the dress that bound us, pushing away from him as far as my bound ankles would allow. That loop was not so easily disengaged as the other.

“Oh, no. No, no. Let me go, you must. Let me free. You have what you wanted. Oh, Father, what have I done?”

The words tumbled from my lips as the others had, gasped through ragged sobs. I had betrayed God, and shamed myself beyond recompense. Now I only wanted to hide in a dark corner somewhere and wait for death to come. I did not deserve light. I deserved to be shunned from all I had known forever. It had not even taken him a day to break me.

I pulled on the sheets, trying to pull my ankles from the coil that bound them. I succeeded only in shredding the sheets. This struck me as odd, even in my mania, and I looked to my nails, noticing for the first time the line of black imbedded in their tips.

Suddenly calm descended. How ironic, that he should have unwittingly provided me with both the means of my punishment, and the instrument of my escape. My eyes locked with his for an instant that seemed to last a thousand years. Then I executed the sentence I’d assigned myself. I drew the diamond-edged nails across my throat, leaving four half-inch deep gashes across it. I saw his eyes widen imperceptibly as blood poured over my breasts and stomach. Then there was only darkness.

 

[peterpan]

OOC



IC:_________

For a thousand years I stared.

"No." I whispered.

Then her slow motion fall impacted on the torn satin. Her eyes stared unseeing. Already her pumping heart had created a pool around her.

The coil went loose around her ankles and her legs dropped limply to the bed, shamelessly akimbo now that she was dead.

"No. I will not let you."

Ripping the vial of Demon ink from the chain around my neck, I shattered it, the source of all my power, so that its contents fell into the spreading pool. Faster than her blood poured out, her blood turned black. The great poison flew up the trails across her breast and belly, entering her through the fatal wounds in her throat. It stopped her heart.

There my Ariana lay, trapped at the moment of her release, like the women in the hall of Conquests.

Time did not matter now. It was far to late for time. With just the ink remaining on my brush I set to work on the wounds at her throat, stitching her torn skin with the most delicate spiderlike threads of script. As I dried each illustrative stitch, the wound healed without the slightest imperfection of proud flesh; without, either, the slightest evidence I was stitching together more than a nerveless rag doll.

I tried to make my work beautiful. Four thin tattoos encirling her neck, but the greater composition was hers.

Still she lay. I bayed the snakes descend, to lift her as she lay, and clean the last drop of blood from her with their tongues. They did so in silence, and regret.

She was set down, still as she lay, on fresh bedding brought by my little servants. With clean strips of the old, I bound her limbs to the four posts, bound her fingers and toes so that she could not injure even her palm, or slash one toe with another.

At last I commanded her heart to beat once more, her blood to flow, the tide of her breath to return.

I commanded her eyes to look at me, as I entered her. I began to move inside her with long slow strokes. The barrier of her virginity had already broken, of note to no one.

"I will tell no one," I whispered to her as I carressed a cool breast. "From the instant you were mine I never intended to share you with any other. I care no more for the cruelty of Demons than the cruelty of Heaven. I wished only to free you from your slavery, as my first lover freed me from mine."

Her eyes followed mine, but I did not know if she heard. My own eyes were strangely hot. I kissed her.

"Please come back to me. Please forgive me."

 

[Marigold]

I do not know if I truly succeeded in dying. I just know that it seemed a moment from fainting until I drew a gasping breath, and Obsidian was inside of me, moving as I'd wanted him to before. I stared at him numbly. I was alive. I'd failed to punish myself for the awful sin I'd commited. I'd failed in this too, as I'd failed at everything my whole life.

"I will tell no one. From the instant you were mine I never intended to share you with any other. I care no more for the cruelty of Demons than the cruelty of Heaven. I wished only to free you from your slavery, as my first lover freed me from mine."

He kissed me then, and still I could not react, paralyzed by shame and self-contempt, by grief at my own shortcomings. Could he not understand what I'd done? I'd betrayed everything that had ever mattered to me.

"Please come back to me. Please forgive me." He moved in and out of me, slowly, hypnotically. I do not know why, but I kissed his cheek, an oddly innocent gesture, considering the intimacy our bodies were sharing. He seemed truly upset by what I'd done. I felt a fresh wave of guilt. I'd not considered that I might hurt him.

My voice, when I found it, was a hoarse whisper. "When an Angel is formed, the moment she opens her eyes, the first thing she sees is God's face. It's a moment you never forget. I felt...such love. There He is, smiling down at you as if you were the most beautiful thing He'd ever made. I wept. I don't know if everyone does, but I did. I don't have words to put to what I felt. I would have died for Him, and thanked Him for letting me do Him the service. I think that instant is what fuels us, the Angels.
It never dwindles, never becomes just a shadowy half-memory. You can recall it at any time and it's as if you were experiencing it anew. I betrayed that moment, Obsidian. I took the pride I saw on His face and defiled it. I let Him down. It's as if I tainted the one pure thing I could call my own. I don't deserve your kindness, there's nothing to forgive you for. I am the one who has failed."

The tears came then, and I would have clung to him as he'd said before, if I could have moved. Instead, I lie there, his member inside me, sobbing raggedly into his shoulder.

 

[peterpan]

I listened to every word of her heartbreaking confession, unable to speak.

I moved an arm beneath her to cradle her head at my shoulder as she cried. The hand at her breast now explored her side and waist. As I pondered my answer, I maintained the slow motion of my hips, thrusting myself into her with steady gentle strokes and enjoying her tight grasp of me.

Eventually I began to speak.

"Ariana, look into my eyes and see the truth in them. The Angel you spoke of.. did not fail to die. She lay cold with her heart unbeating for a very long time, growing cooler. I want you to treat her memories respectfully, for she was braver than any other Angel, but you do not have to pretend to be her."

"It is I that brought this Ariana, that I hold possessively to myself, to new life. It is I that repaired her, that transformed her blood to Demon blood, and caused her heart to beat. Your blood is now mixed with black Ariana, and owes nothing to the distant God that other Ariana gave her life shamefully to."

"You are my creation, my newborn Ariana. My very last creation, for I used the last of my Demon Ink upon you. If you cannot see it in my face, then reach out with your Demon senses and watch yourself through my eyes. Know the pride I have in you. Experience the lust I feel for you. See yourself as I see you and take joy in it."

"I made you well Ariana. Your eyes will pierce even demon darkness. You will outfly any angel, and I fear this skill will serve you well. Only an Angel's sword can unmake you, though you can be hurt. But remember you are always mine. I will see what you see. Feel what you feel. And if you ever stray from me, I will drive you frenzied with the memory of the gentle stroking of a Demon brush, until you return to me."

It had been a mistake to let her wrists free before. That mistake had almost cost everything. I still did not trust her not to hurt herself, or her jealous God not to have left one final trap in her subconcious.

"But now, relax your limbs. Take comfort in your powerlessness. No action or decision or jugdement is required of you. You may speak if your throat feels urge to speak. Do not bother to instruct me on what you do and do not deserve. I will only laugh. I have taken the responsibility from you. Your limbs may feel the need to be free, but if they were free you might feel bound to take actions you do not truely wish to take."

"Once you have learnt respect for what is mine, and promised to love it, and care for it as you did not when it was yours... then you will be free even before your limbs are untied. You are mine Ariana. I desire you to honour that which is mine."

I smiled gently to show there was no rebuke, as I stroked away a whisp of hair that had somehow found its way across her face. Then, saying no more, I covered her fully with my body, imprisoning her chest and tiny waist in the cage of my arms and began to push into her a little harder, a little faster. My mouth took hers.

 

[Marigold]

It was a Moment. Not like the first, when I had been so overwhelmed with slavish devotion that I thought I thought my heart would burst and there was no way to survive it. That Moment had been almost painful in its clarity. I wondered, for the first time, if those perceptions had truly been my own, or had been aided by some outside force. This Moment was gentler, more profound somehow. A slight shift of philosophy, the foundations for something I did not know but was beginning to taste took root in the back of my mind.

Obsidian was here, and it seemed as if he planned to be here in the future. He wouldn’t retreat into his palace, never to be seen again. Really, wasn’t that always what I’d secretly wished God to be; someone accessible, someone to whom I could go to if I needed the help? Prayer was well and good, but it did not take the place of a voice, a hand to hold to.

I stared into Obsidian’s eyes, trying to discern if I was right or just thinking wishful thoughts. I could scarcely imagine what having someone like that would be like. I’d always been expected to handle any doubts or untoward feelings internally, to fall in line with no real instruction as to how to do it.

The only answers his eyes gave are the one he told me I’d find there. Pride, and the thing called lust. He wanted me. The thought was a shock. He actually wanted me here. Not because he wanted the information stored in my head, but because he simply wanted me.

I trembled, feeling the return of the feelings I’d felt before. I had a name for them now. Lust. I parted my lips for him, and learned what a kiss could be, raised my hips to meet his, and felt a jolt that shot through every nerve in my body.

He fascinated me, of a sudden. Not only his body, but also his mastery of it, his thoughts, his motivations. Why did he want me? If it wasn’t about the war, what purpose would it serve? Thoughts swirled and dissipated as sensation took over. I reciprocated what he was doing to me as much as my bonds would allow. For now, I’d take his admonitions to heart. I would feel. I would not worry or do. I would leave the future to take care of itself. I did not know it then, but already he had given me a gift beyond price. One that, in its way, outweighed anything God had ever done for me.

 

[peterpan]

I felt Ariana's choice as a physical thing. A tension left her body that had been with her throughout. Throughout her life I suspected.

This left only the tensions I was building in her, that were building in me. I treasured every shudder in her limbs, every quiver of her lips because I knew they were mine. I was giving these sensations to her. She couldn't know the gift she gave me. Every shudder, every quiver made me so powerful. Power I had needed but never truely tasted in all my seven hundred years. The simple power of giving another pleasure. Not to a master whom demanded it or a worshipper that bowed their head for it, but an equal that gazed shamelessly into your face as she recieved it. Naked in her desire.

I would teach Ariana this power. Power she already possessed. First I would show her what pleasure meant, so she would have reference by which to appreciate it.

I felt Ariana's limbs straining against her bonds. I knew she only wished to encircle me and I wanted this so much. But I was afraid. I did not yet know what would cure this fear.

Surely the Demon ink that transformed her blood would save her if she tried to cut herself again. She would leave only a beaded line of droplets on skin that healed an inch behind her fingernails. Or I could freeze her heart once more and spend a hundred years deriving a cure for any punishment she ingeniously discovered for herself. This was my fear: her ingenuity; that once more I would be too slow, to slow witted, that in a moments inattention I would fail the trust she now placed in me.

A part of me insisted this was irrational, but that advice had failed me before. Again with the perfection of Demon memory I saw her fall replayed. The splash of her once-red blood.

A solution came to me. A simple solution. I would inflict on her such pleasure that her fear of death would be renewed. She would be unable to consider death, for though death itself was nothing, to lose the possibility of such pleasure again was everything. I would hold just her precious gate alone at the point of release until she was scorched forever with this small madness. She would be bound forever to me as once she was bound to her god.

Then I looked into her eyes and saw what I might lose. This madness left me.

"I will not bind your heart to me. I am not a god. I will take your body, but I will only take the love you give me freely."

With a finger I stopped her lips. "Do not speak any binding words to me. Wait until you are stronger. In the moment of love you may say anything you wish and know it is not a promise. Nor is it lies. Just poetry."

Still I was afraid. I could not risk a moment's inattention. This first time I would hold my own needs back so that I would not waver a moment from watching over my angel. Truely this was pleasure enough. It was better anyway, that she knew the nature of pleasure before I took it in her.

With all my senses intent upon her, including my demon senses that were laid upon her body and now coursed through it, I plunged into her more firmly, finding her natural pace and timing each stroke lovingly to meet the movements of her hips and in her loins. All the time I marvelled at the emotions playing across her face, the tracing of her breasts on my chest and the tingle of air every short moment her stomach was not pressed to mine. The slap of heat that replaced it. Deepest of all was the slippery warmth as her flesh enveloped me hungrily and relinquished me reluctantly. Was this the most profound, or the expression in her face in response to each discovery? I had no need to decide, for both were mine.

 

[Marigold]

It is almost as if there was no me. Somehow, I’d slipped away from what I had thought of as Ariana. There was no sword in my hand, no foe before me. I had defined myself by my Work, allowed myself to be nothing but a warrior. The wonder I found at what replaced it was infinite. In the place of the warrior was now this creature drowning in sensation, being swept away by the pleasure suffusing her entire being. It was as if what Obsidian had said was true. The Hand of God’s wrath had died before, and left in her place the me that was now.

I would be lying if I said the thought disturbed me. Duty dictated that it should, that even now I should be fighting my fate and trying to restore my honor. The truth was, honor was a cold companion, and duty offered little comfort when the universe seemed too big for one such as myself. I was tired. Not so much physically as spiritually. I’d been tired before we’d ever marched out on this latest campaign, heartsick and frustrated. I’d never been like the Others, had never fit into the mold allotted me. I felt now, in this demon’s embrace, as if I’d finally found the niche that fit who I’d always been deep down. Acceptance is no small thing. Someone looking into your soul, seeing the truth and finding it to their liking despite the faults. I would not have to wear a mask for this man, whom I would have slain without a second thought but the day before. Fate is an odd master. I wished I could hold him.

The pace of our coupling quickened, bringing the song of our bodies to a crescendo. I hovered on the edge of some unknowable precipice, dangling outside of time and fear and worry. Breathing became a moot point, something neither needed nor achievable. I felt him inside of me, sliding out and in, each stroke incrementally faster, firmer than the one before. The movements became almost violent, the force of his sheathing himself in me slightly painful, but somehow the pain translated itself as more pleasure. My entire body began to tremble. A warmth started low in my belly, exquisite and beyond any physical sensation I’d ever experienced.

“Obsidian, something’s hap…”

The rest of what I was to say was lost in a wordless wail as the warmth exploded into a heat that raced through my veins, incinerating everything in its path, even thought. Especially thought. I felt the walls that enclosed his member contract even further, grasping him in a viselike embrace. I could not have moved my locked and shaking limbs to save my life, could not have reacted to anything but him and this state he’d discovered in me. My back arched, my hips left the surface beneath me and pressed into his, taking his length more deeply than any time proceeding. Just when I thought I could take no more, when the pleasure was becoming overstimulation, the feeling began to recede, but slowly, lowering me back gently into his embrace from the stratosphere.

I lie still, trying to regain both breath and scattered wits, my gaze going to his, shock and wonder writ upon my features.

 

[peterpan]

For a long while I just held her, basking in the afterglow of her sensations.

My own I had held back. Almost this did to me the damage I had considered doing her. No. Nothing near. But I saw with great clarity the depth of the crime I had almost perpetrated upon her.

These thoughts I drowned in the warmth of her body. Myself thinking only of the moment. She had washed away a great portion of my fear with her joy.

Now she looked up into my eyes with shock and wonder, making me the hero. Perhaps she thought the magic was in me instead of her.

Finally I let out a long breath, pushing my own tensions down.

"So. That is how it is for woman."

Rising to hands and knees I withdrew from within her, removed myself from her touch. My eyes slid over her spreadeagled form still twisting exhaustedly in her bondage, The bound fingers and toes, the contrast of her wings thrown up above her head to the black satin they lay upon. She must surely wish to stretch them.

I ran a hand along her helpless side. Not to seduce her but now just in wonder.

"Ariana, I wish to unbind you, but I am afraid."

"Before I release you I wish to bind you with a promise. I will not trick this promise from you, and there is no trap hidden within it."

"I am, at least in part, your shaper now. Amongst Demons it is considered that if you return a person to life, you become responsible for that life. Any sin they then commit becomes your sin. Most especially this is true in the case where they chose to take their own life, and you take this right away from them."

"I wish you to consider that any guilt or shame you feel for any future act is in fact mine. Your hatred should be for me, not yourself."

"My fear is of being alone. Of being alive while you are dead."

"Construct for me a promise that removes my fear, that you would see me dead before you seek your own life once more. Choose your promise carefully. For other than this promise you will be a free woman.."

I considered a moment longer.

"..within my home."

I would not let the Demons have her. Nor the Angels.

 

[Marigold]

Bliss. I scarcely knew the feeling, had to cast about in my mind to find a word that fit it. His body covered mine now, holding me as if not wanting to relinquish the moment. I was happy, yes, contented and peaceful for the moment, but the pinnacles and valleys I’d been tossed back and forth between were taking their toll. I ached for quiet, for a few moments in which we could just be still together.

I felt somehow that a resolution of sorts had been reached, though, and hoped that future dealings between the two of us would bring more comfort than pain. I no longer saw him as my captor. He was as much a prisoner of his origins as I was of mine, really, and not the monster I’d taken him to be. No, not a monster at all. He pulled away from me and it hurt. He was right, I realized. I somehow had come to belong to him. The thought was a great comfort and a vow at once. I’d not hurt him again, if it could be helped. His hand returned to wander along my ribs, my hip. I realized too that I’d come to feel nervous if he was not in physical contact with me, even if it were just a hand resting upon my side.

"Ariana, I wish to unbind you, but I am afraid."

Afraid? How could he be afraid of anything? I frowned, puzzled at that. For my point of view, he had nothing to fear. I listened to his words, trying to glean meaning from them.

"My fear is of being alone. Of being alive while you are dead."

My heart broke a little. He wanted me to promise not to hurt myself. No one else had ever particularly cared, beyond having my place in the ranks filled. I chewed my lip, thought my words over carefully.

“I can promise not to try to destroy myself again. I think perhaps you want me to put it in such a way that you can believe it. That is understandable, given what I’ve just put you through. What I did before, I did because I thought I had just brought about the end, that there was nothing to me beyond being a warrior, a servant of God. I thought that in betraying Him, I’d destroyed my purpose for being. I think perhaps I was wrong before. I don’t know what is to become of me, what is to become of us, but I feel like my feet have been set on a path, somehow. I find that I want to see where it leads. Before today my future was set in stone. I knew what I would be doing a year from now, a thousand years from now. It was all the same, one endless shade of grey stretching into infinity. Now the possibilities are limitless, and some are painful. Some are more wonderful than I think I can grasp at the moment, but for once they are all a mystery. It feels like this is almost preordained, that some power, be it God or something else put us together for a reason. I want to find out why. I want to know you. I want to know why you’re doing this, why you care for me. I want to know why you would destroy the source of your power to save me when I’d given away my most useful information. I want to know why you look at me the way you do. I want to take away your fear of being alone. I want to live, Obsidian. I want to live. Not because I’ve been told I should, but because you’ve given me something to live for.”

I’d looked to him the entire time I’d spoken, trying to impress my earnestness upon him with my eyes. It wasn’t even so much so he’d set me free, though that would be nice. I wanted to reassure him, didn’t want him to worry any longer. I wanted to take some of the sadness I sensed in him and make the pain go away. I didn’t know how to go about it, but I wanted it more than my life.

 

[peterpan]

"I too would like to know the intentions of the powers. All my life I have lived with the understanding that they served the demonswar. Now I know they make playthings of Demons and angels both."

"I look on you the way I do because I forsee a time when you are my only possession. When heaven and hell are against us. For the first time in centuries, I look forwards with fierce joy."

With a touch to her face I add. "But that day is not yet. All is quiet in the Demon city, and seven miles above that, stars twinkle in a sky without the hint of storm."

While I spoke I took the ribbons that bound each limb to each post between thumb and finger, tearing them easily. All that remained of them was straggly cuffs around her wrists and ankles. Scooping her up in my arms, I rose and set her on her feet on the soft satin.

"Now close your eyes," I commanded her gently, as I held her to my chest and stroked her back. "There is something I would enjoy greatly for you to do for me."

"Reach out with your mind and find my eyes. You will find them easily, because I have commanded you and because they are upon you."

The first thing Ariana would see was her upturned face, eyes closed.

Changes had been wrought on Ariana. Her nakedness. The script I had layed upon her. And her blood transformed by demon ink. Some were permanent. Some ongoing. I knew that as an angel she had possessed no vanity, yet she had been raised to hate and fear what these changes represented. I would not have her discover these symptoms of her metamophose as she had discovered the blackening, the hardening of her nails. I wished her to see her self first through my eyes, my emotion.

Although I had no urge to teach her vanity, I wished her to enjoy her own beauty. I considered the knowledge could give her a simple pleasure, a little power and therefore confidence, a knowledge of the coin others would place on her with their eyes, a little wisdom that might serve her well outside her sheltered life as a soldier.

Stepping back from her but still touching her with fingertips, I began caressing her with my eyes.

She stood framed in the three mirrors. I watched her there too. She would shiver slightly as my eyes flicked from one view of her to another.

"I want you to dance for me. It does not matter if you do not know how. Mime any action that you have enjoyed. Find what pleases my eyes. It will become a dance."

 

[Marigold]

It is an odd sensation to see the world through another’s eyes. Odder still to see yourself. The scripts upon me changed my appearance. Before, there had been a sort of pale uniformity to my features, no one trait standing out more than another. Now the lines about my neck drew attention to its length, the lines on my closed lids made them seem more dramatic. The script encircling my breast drew one’s eyes to that feature as well. I found the changes fitting. I was not the same as I had been. My appearance should reflect the fact.

"I want you to dance for me. It does not matter if you do not know how. Mime any action that you have enjoyed. Find what pleases my eyes. It will become a dance."

I felt a touch of panic. I’d never danced in my life. Some of the Angels did, but the warriors were generally too busy training. Besides, there was no music. I chewed my lip, considering. I didn’t want to disappoint him, either by inaction or inadequacy. The vision borrowed from him lent me a measure of insight into what he found pleasing, though. Perhaps I could use that. Drawing a nervous breath, and feeling a bit silly, I began, keeping my eyes closed so as to observe myself as he did.

Flight was the first thing that came to mind. There is a grace to the activity, and a joy that made it the obvious choice. However, it did not work as well when merely being mimed on the ground. One cannot work in two dimensions what belongs to three. My mind worked as I moved, turned to what had just transpired between Obsidian and I. I remembered the feel of his body moving against mine, and elements of that worked their way in as well. My hips writhed, my head tossed as if in the throes of the pleasure that had gripped me. Seen through his eyes, this worked better. The arcs of flight and the flutters of intimacy condensed into a series of symbolic movements. I felt his appreciation. I felt his arousal.

Thus encouraged, I lost myself in the movement, the stretch and bend and rhythm of it. I danced for my demon. I danced for myself. I danced for the two of us combined, a unit somehow greater than the sum of its parts.

 

[peterpan]

My Angel danced for me.

At first when her wings arched up as if to make a powerful stroke I though she was about to take flight. Instead she used each beat of her wings to make her steps as light as a ballerina on the difficult softness of the bed she danced upon.

She mimed flight. Not just the action but the joy of it. There was bliss on her face as she bent forwards and arched her back, arms and wings outstretched in a glide and somehow I knew the day was sunny in her mind, and she stretched to catch as much heat as she could on her wings and arms and back, and her upturned face with the blissfully closed eyes.

The dance was at once exquisitely athletic, and heartbreakingly innocent. Ariana could almost have been a human girl of six, smothering her six year old woes for a moment in the dream that she could fly, imitating the cry of an eagle or the growl of an ornithoptor engine as she flew around the tent-poles and refuse of her encampment.

New elements crept into her dance. Instead of an imaginary sun, she began to sun herself under the warmth of my gaze, twisting under my eyes to accentuate what ever curve captured my attention, her body whiplashing as my eyes slid over her but never losing the rhythm of my beating heart.

Her dance pulled me closer. Her dance was captivating.

Although still combined with the sybolism of flight, the meaning of her new movements were clear. Arms raised above her head she ground her thighs together, rolled her hips and tossed her head, mouth slightly open as if in the throes of sexual pleasure. An interpretation, in fact, of the only sexual experience she had yet known.

These then, in all her life were her two most defining joys? The movements were erotic, even lurid. Her face was as innocent as a child's, dancing heedless of any eyes in a warm sunshower.

Perhaps this was how Eve had danced for the serpent, before god and man betrayed her both.

Was this Eve, returned to the only one that never spurned her?

Now her dance extrapolated passed her helpless pleasure. Her arms were untied. her dance defined another presence that she could hold, and held her back. Mesmerised in her charm my fingers moved to trace her hips and waist as she danced.

She pressed against my hands and soon she was sliding against me in my grasp. I began to harden. I bent my legs slightly, to each side of hers, so that my stiffening member passed harmlessly between her thighs as still Ariana writhed against me.

I tried to encompass her breast with my hot mouth, scraping my teeth over her. Defeated, I sunk further till I kissed her stomach and stroked her legs and waist. I kissed the delicate area where pelvis flowed into thigh and then kissed the bare symbols on black skin that I had painted upon her, gripping her buttocks in both hands, though for now her thighs were pressed together tightly.

I stroked the backs of her legs to weaken them, and entice them to buckle also so that she would join me on the soft satin.

 

[Marigold]

I became lost somewhere in my own mind after a time. It was a welcome relief. No demons or angels or duties or betrayals existed in the world I created. Only me, and thoughts of Obsidian, my imaginings that his hands were sliding over me once again, his body pressed to mine. When I felt him touch me in reality, I thought for a moment that I was dreaming this too, but then the warmth impressed itself on my mind. He was real. Perhaps more real than anything I had ever known. It had become so easy to lose myself in him. The world might very well have ceased to exist outside our pool of light. Part of me wished it had. Things were simple when he touched me. Wonderful. Dizzying. I knew that would not be the case when the world intruded upon us again, and I resented it. I wanted him to myself, wanted this time to last a lifetime. And so I danced for him, and in some small way suspended time itself.

He drew close to me, his hands wandering idly. Then he was lower, his mouth at my breast, my stomach, and then lower still. His breath slid between my legs like a caress. I opened my eyes, watched his lips brush me there. My knees grew watery, and his hands kneaded my rear. Standing became problematic. I stopped dancing, at least with my body, and knelt before him on the sating, our bodies touching from the knee up. I slid my hands around his neck, pulling his lips down to mine. I kissed him, hoping I was doing it right, that I didn’t seem clumsy to him, inept. It was joy, to be able to hold him in return, to show him what I felt for him with my hands, my mouth. Our tongues danced now, feverish and hungry. I wondered now that I had been sorry, worried, fretful. How could this be wrong? How could it be an end, when it was so obviously only just starting?

 

[peterpan]

A little tentatively at first, Ariana began to kiss me. I smiled down at her and she kissed me harder.

Her arms around my neck, my angel explored my lips with hers, sought to learn the taste of me with her tongue. My own tongue sought to ensnare hers in its coils.

My hands eased up and down her sides, from her waist and the curve of her bottom to her shoulders almost to her elbows at my neck. I explored the exquisite muscles of her back, the strangely natural join of each powerful wing. I kneaded that as I kneaded her shoulders. Her hair swished against my arms and chest.

I ran my fingers down her spine, tracing the cleavage of her bottom then spreading over her thighs. Rising more firmly to capture her rounded flesh I pulled Ariana tightly to me. My erect member was captured in her thighs. I held her close because I liked the feel of it, but also to hold her exuberance against me to a level I could contain without magic.

Then holding her waist to mine I twisted my torso around, pulling her with me. With a hand to steady myself I began to lay her down, to one side so that her legs would not be trapped. As she arched back beneath me I began to kiss her neck and collar and the gentle slope where the muscle of one arm flowed into her breast. My angel's nipple was prominant, and flushed under by breath; startlingly dark. I took it into my mouth to bat it with my tongue.

 

[Marigold]

His tongue flicked at my nipple, and I wondered at the answering ache it started low in my belly, at the juncture of my thighs. The sensation was akin to the feeling I got when I swooped down from a great height, freefalling for any great length, my stomach doing the same sort of tickly flips. This intimacy of our bodies was like flying in more ways than one. I soared, I plummeted, all at the command of his hands and mouth.

I wanted to make him feel the same way, to learn to do to him what he did to me. It was agonizing to pull away, but my curiosity and my determination were no small motivators. He looked at me quizzically. Perhaps he thought I was about to fight him again. I smiled a little, the expression a bit alien to me, but I wanted to reassure him.

“Teach me what to do, Obsidian. I want to know how to…do this.” If my blood were still red, I would have blushed, so I was grateful for the change. I already felt inept enough. I ached to touch him, to explore him, but I had no idea where to start, how to start. I thought of the words he’d told me were written on his own chest, how wonderful I felt when he touched me there, and ran my fingertips over his flat nipple. It hardened a bit, not like mine, bit similarly. Perhaps males were not so terribly different. Pushing him back a bit, I lowered my head to lick him there, just a light brush of my tongue, hoping I wasn’t doing it incorrectly. Then I looked back into his eyes, whispering, “Like this?”

 

[peterpan]

"Yes," I returned, and for a moment could think of no other words as she traced my nipple with her sharp dark tongue.

Slowly, so as not to break the spell she began upon me, I lay down on my back. Her hair fell upon my chest. I pushed a little back over her shoulder so I could watch her intent face.

"Look at me Ariana," I did not mean it as a command but her eyes jerked fearfully to mine and for a moment she froze, mouth a little open so her tongue could still reach me. I stored for all eternity that sweet image in my stone memory.

I thought back to her fury when my golem soldiers first held her struggling to the dusty ground. Would she show such intensity for me?

One hand I reached over my chest to stroke her face, and the nearer arm I moved around her to caress her side.

"Use your lips and hands also."

 

[Marigold]

My lips and hands. I nodded mentally and set about the task as I would a battle plan, planning a step-by-step course of action with a sort of grim determination. Instead of just licking at his chest, I sucked at it, trailing my fingers over his abdomen while I did so. I kissed his nipple as I’d kissed his mouth earlier, licking and sucking gently, slowly. I did to him as I would have him do to me. The Golden Rule was a versatile one indeed. A look of concentration upon my face, my lips traveled to the other as yet untended one, lavishing the same attention the first had received. I felt his breathing quicken just a bit. Goal one had been satisfied. I allowed myself to taste more of him, his shoulder, his neck, his strong jawline. My lips teased and my tongue taunted, at least I hoped that’s what they were doing. My hands charted paths of their own, learning the texture of his skin, the landscape of stomach and rib and chest. Each curve, each bulge, each dip and hollow were more fascinating than the last. I wanted to know all of them, wanted no square centimeter to be left undiscovered.

He lay watching me. I looked up to him, but could not tell if he were pleased or not. I said urgently, “More. Show me exactly what to do. I want to do it just right.” Half measures were intolerable and failure simply not an option. It had always been that way for me, and the challenge of his body was no different.

 

[peterpan]

I watched her bemusedly, struggling to pay Ariana's industrious attempts the respect they deserved. Yes, I was aroused, but it was difficult to watch her and not laugh.

"Very good soldier." I nodded my approval to my angel. "Efficent and by the numbers. However, I think I know what might improve your technique."

At a gesture, a troop of little servants scurried forwards, stopping a foot away to watch Ariana intently with their beady eyes.

They bore between them the silver platter with the grapes and wine.

One scuttled forwards bringing the chilled bottle in it's oversized rodent paws. It clambered on my hand and I held the hand before Ariana. My little servant held the uncorked bottle up to Ariana.

"Human men often trade with Demons for this. They feel it improves the judgement of women with respect to matters sexual. Whatever affect it takes, I cannot say I have experienced for Demons are immune. I know it operates quickly and fades gracefully. With it's powers, you will gain confidence in your inate skills. Pleasure will flow from your fingers and every loving word you speak will be magic."

"Drink of this. Demons have improved the grape it comes from much, still, I suspect you must drink deeply."

 

[Marigold]

I sat back on my heels as the little creatures scurried forward. Being undressed in front of them embarrassed me, and I huddled up, knees to chest, and wrapped myself in my wings. Being naked with Obsidian was one thing, this quite another. He was the exception to the rule, but that did not mean the rule did not exist. They one holding the bottle was held before me, its expression earnest and eager. The corner of my mouth quirked upwards. They really were sweet, in a rodentish sort of way.

As Obsidian told me of the potion’s purpose, I took the bottle from the little fellow gently. It seemed a bit too easy, just to drink something and have all the answers I wanted flow into my head as easily as the liquid flowed into my stomach. I frowned at the bottle as the small servants took their leave. This would work? Surely not, but I’d humor him. He’d given up his main source of power to save me. I owed the demon much, wanted to repay him in some small measure. I raised the bottle to my lips, drinking deeply.

I’d never eaten anything with taste before. Manna is completely neutral, odorless and tasteless, almost textureless. Angels are not expected to enjoy their sustenance, merely maintain the upkeep of their bodies as they do their swords, dutifully and diligently. Given this, the strong taste of the stuff assaulted my senses with a vengeance, causing me to cough and gag. My face twisted horribly, and it was some time before I could settle myself again. However, we are also perseverant creatures, and it would take more than this awful stuff to keep me from my goals. I drank more. And then more. The taste was somewhat tolerable after a few more tries, but far from pleasant.

Presently, a heat began to suffuse my being. Not the hungry, passive warmth of arousal, but a focused, burning sensation. It was almost like aggression. My eyes went to Obsidian’s face, and I set the bottle on the floor next to the slab. I moved toward him then, stalking him, predatory in my approach, crawling on my hands and knees as if mimicking some great cat on the prowl, my wings unfurled behind me like banners. He lay on his back and watched me wordlessly as I resumed exploring him with my mouth, less concerned with technique this time. I wanted to devour him and cared little about his opinion on the matter.

My lips brushed over his rippled stomach, tongue darting out to taste at irregular intervals, ever lower, around his navel, to the ridge of bone at his hip, then down to his thigh. My hair slid over his hard member, and he twitched a bit. My smile was feral as my attention settled upon it. Settling myself lazily between his legs, I began to lick at it, my tongue running along the script slowly, lightly. My own lust began to awaken, the ache and moisture gathering between my legs. He felt, tasted wonderful. I continued my explorations.

 

[peterpan]

I smiled at the wines first taste on virgin lips.

The wine took her with a ferocity I had not predicted. With human women it relaxed inhibitions, yes, but it relaxed the whole body also. And in the quantities she drank I half expected her dreaming uninhibitedly nightlong on my chest.

Perhaps this was the immunity of her transformed Demon blood, nullifying the effect on her body and therefore unshackling the action of the drug on her mind.

Or, perhaps the inhibitions of an angels mind masked the thalmus of a much less civilized species than men had evolved from. Was this God's shame? That to recreate the body of an angel with tools of science, tools based on evolution twisted around a surgeon's knife, resulted in a creature ruled by a hindbrain far from the angelic.

It would explain why God did not allow angels to explore their inner feelings, if their inner feelings where less godly even than evolution had produced in man. The secret minds of angels must be kept secret even from themselves.

Also I feared that Ariana was the exception. Ariana's dance had revealed no joy in killing, but behind the benevolent masks of battle angels I had witnessed slaying, I had always imagined the scent of glee. I feared the Demon plan to free the angels. Perhaps the world was safer while their true natures remained in the shackles of religious fanatisim.

I must discuss it with Ariana, in a little while, not now.

Her hair slid over my hard member and a spasm of pleasure made me twitch. My angel's smile was feral as she exploited this weakness I had shown. She traced her tongue along it's length, exploring the sensitive helmet's rim. It took magic not to shoot my blackness upon her hair but nothing could dull the sensation for me.

My fingers combed her head but Ariana barely seemed to notice, so fixated was she. Finally I could bear no more. Knotting my fingers in her hair I commanded her eyes to mine.

"Enough. You have done enough. Join me on my chest and speak to me of your intentions."