Fallen Angel

[Marigold]

For a moment, I considered ignoring his command. I was interested in what I was doing. A bit of equilibrium returned and I did as he bid, crawling up to rest on his chest with a bit of a pout. Petulance was another of my many faults. I sprawled atop him and traced the lines of script on his arm and chest with my fingers. The need to act still burned inside me, and lying still was a difficult thing. I brought his palm to my lips and kissed the tiny writing there.

He smiled indulgently. “Ariana? I asked you a question, if you’ll remember.”

“Question?” I released his hand reluctantly to look to him once again. “Oh, yes. My intentions. I intend to learn to drive you as mad as you drive me.” My lips went to the spot where his shoulder met his neck and nibbled a bit. He sighed.

“That’s not what I meant, Ariana.”

I murmured against his skin, “Then what did you mean?”

 

[peterpan]

OOC: No, that was it
IC_____________

Although I knew it would not aid Ariana's focus, I could not help myself from tracing her sides with my fingernails, and her thighs where they straddled my waist. It made her shiver and grip my warmth more tightly between her knees. I slid my fingers up.

"Look into my eyes Ariana." She lifted her chin from the crook of my neck and stared into my eyes intently. Her mind nevertheless was elsewhere and soon her lips were kissing mine. I did not restrain her, for a while.

What bestiary had gone into her creation I wondered, as I bathed in her stare and traced the fine structure of her skull and jaw with my fingers.

"You are becoming free, Ariana. The first free angel. A thing that terrorfied your previous keeper, so much that he bound all angels never to look upon themselves, or to look inwards to where an angel's soul must surely reside."

One hand I slid down to round a buttock but the other still restrained her face an inch from mine so that I could speak.

"Now I am asking you, now that you are becoming free and your motivations are no longer god given, but raw angelic drives, in all the world and with all the world beneath your wings what is it you feel driven to achieve?"

As Ariana quickly opened her mouth to speak I arrested her lips with a finger. "..after this."

As she reconsidered her answer, I slid my hands down to grip her hips. Even if her words begged for Ragnarok I could wait no longer.

 

[Marigold]

He took my hips in my hands and entered me. Finally, I thought. Finally. I did not want to talk of the future. I did not want to think of goals that involved anything outside this pool of light that was our universe. Some how I knew that when I left its magical boundaries, the guilt would come, the worry. The knowledge that the pleasure I found in his arms was fleeting and would be affected by the powers that be in one way or another. Heaven would have me no longer, and I would never serve the legions of Hell. When this was past, I would have to wonder what was to become of me. Here, I belonged, with him pressing deep inside of me, until he reached the limits of my body’s depths. I realized now that I’d never really felt at home amongst those I had called my brethren, and knew just as surely I’d never be able to embrace the evils and chaos of those we’d battled. Obsidian was my home, my harbor, my cause. The rest of the universe would always be an imperfect fit, too tight and very uncomfortable.

I growled, low and impatient, and began to move against him. For now, I concentrated on the way my inner walls closed on him as he moved within me. For now, I concentrated on making them squeeze even tighter, as that seemed to elicit a positive response in him. For now, I loved him with my physical being, loved him as I’d never known I could love another being. Now was my eternity, and the future my death.

 

[peterpan]

It had gone too far for any answer she might have uttered to have made any difference. It took all my effort not to drive myself up into her and let free this unbearable singing pleasure.

Instead my hands on her were gentle, almost taunting; letting her own movements brush my fingers against her. Playfully my stroking fingers confounded her building rhythm with helpless shivers, so that she must concentrate all the harder on the goal she felt just out of reach.

When my teasings drove her upright, the better to hammer me down, My hands flowed to envelop her firm breasts, squeezing and pulling the erect nipples as the round flesh slapped against my palms.

I felt the suspense grow in her alongside her tension. What if she broke before I, failing in a thunderous cataclysm of extacy? She would have to be more cunning.

Sweat beaded on my angel's face and breast and thighs. Her skin sparkled in the light. Even the beat of her wings could not cool her. Wetness ran down my shaft when it was not deep within her. I smiled up at her mildly as my hands explored her innocently, threatening her control.

"Beautiful, my angel, almost you have me. Just a little faster. Grip a little firmer."

In fact I lied. Only magic suspended the instant now. When the moment came, I would open my mind to her so that she might enjoy the joke as she also was consumed. First I would find her limits, and look upon the face of an angel unmasked.

If this was the only dish she wished to serve me, I would not allow her to serve herself cold.

 

[Marigold]

I wanted him to feel what I had felt, wanted him to want me as much as I wanted him. I did not know why I felt this way, only that the thought of him lying there, cool and passive whilst I was burning with need was heartbreaking. I felt the pleasure from before coiling in me, ready to be unleashed, but I wanted him in the same state before I’d let myself be overtaken.

I concentrated on tightening myself more on his shaft, until the grip was almost too tight to allow him ease of passage as he thrust into me. Working these muscles was foreign to me, not a motion I’d ever practiced, but instinct took over where experience was lacking. I found a rhythm, easing the walls as he entered, squeezing him as he left. Each stroke ended only as he came to the end of the moist tunnel he’d discovered in me, the tip of him brushing the barrier repeatedly. The fire was stoked with each repetition, until I trembled and sobbed and writhed helplessly atop him. His fingers pulled at my nipples, pinching and twisting them, eliciting a wonderful slight pain that left me mindless. The slick fluid my body produced to welcome him wept from inside me, covering us both.

He gasped, a sharp hissing intake of breath, and I was lost. The deliberate grip and release of my inner walls was taken out of my hands as the climax shuddered through me. They clenched of their own accord and in their own rhythm as we pounded into each other almost violently. The grip was firmer than anything I could have manufactured by design. I took his hands from my breasts and held them in a death lock, needing the anchor, willing him to come flying with me, no to let me go alone. I never wanted to be alone again.

 

[peterpan]

As the tremors of Ariana's climax overtook her, and my blackness began to flow, I stopped time once more. In this state, free of any metabolic existance, I looked upon my angel's face. Her hair flung wild was frozen also, each strand a spine of infinite strength that would rend any metal that brushed against it, if it movement even had definition in this state. It did not.

Her face was taut under the pull of the various emotions acting upon it. Pleasure had control, and behind that a little bit of pain that she also welcomed. But these were of the body. Disappointment. Failure. Fear. Loneliness. They crowded behind.

Nothing to justify the cruelty of my trick. But I had to see. Now I saw, I saw how unjustified it had been. I would make it up to Ariana.

I opened my mind to her, so that on her next breath she would know. It would be almost as if she had always known, My memories would simply be hers.

A few seconds earlier:

"Beautiful, my angel, almost you have me. Just a little faster. Grip a little firmer."

In fact I lied. Her conquest of my body and my heart was complete. Only magic suspended the instant now as Ariana writhed and gasped on my cruel barb, the sight of her alone more beautiful than I could bear. Her grip on me was also cruel, and nothing could stop the sensations she inspired. Still I held back, one instant more. I had to know her face. The face of an angel freed.

But my body had already decided it would have her. The painfully sweet sensation in my loins that she had nurtured, fed and watered suddenly overpowered me. I gasped involentarily, then my blackness welled.

Ariana's grip intensified, and her knuckles whitened around mine. She arched as if electified and
[A moment of introspection]
her hair was flying around us. My hot blackness pumped into her as if I had opened an artery direct from my heart. I pulled upon her hands in an instinctive need to be yet deeper inside her.
"Ariana!" I cried, my heart and mind still opened to her. I felt a sensation like flying, or falling, as for a moment our thoughts and dreams mingled.

 

[Marigold]

Two things filled me at once. First, a new wetness between my legs, one that was not my own. The hot fluid filled me and spilled down my legs, and onto him. I looked to his face and knew he was feeling what I was. I’d succeeded.

Second, his soul spilled into mine, for lack of a better term. For an instant we were one mind and for a terrifying millisecond of that instant I could not discern which memories belonged to which body. Things sorted themselves out and Obsidian’s life lie before me like an open book. No, that would be too distant a description for what I saw. I had his memories, as if I had lived them myself, and he had mine. It didn’t seem quite an equal trade, as my memories, aside from the overwhelming experience of looking upon God’s face and the shuddering ecstasy of the last few hours, were all monotonous. I trained, I ate, I fought, I bathed. There was little variation on the theme.

Obsidian’s life had not been monotonous. I remembered the first touch of his porcelain angel, the battles from his side of things, demonic politics (I was surprised at this), and the capture of an Angel. I gained a new vocabulary, names for things we’d been doing and names for things I had no firsthand knowledge of. I realized with a start that I had been very sheltered in my existence. The flavor of the new things in my head was that of common knowledge. It was all unheard of and unimagined to me. I saw cruelties that surpassed violence. I thought I had been hard because my life had been about bloodshed. I realized how foolish this was.

I saw, also, myself through his eyes. This was the greatest shock of all. He was affected by me, more than he let on. He saw me as being beautiful, brave. It was hard to reconcile his image of me with mine. He didn’t see the frustrated, angry, sullen child I did when I looked at myself. Well, he did now that his mind had access to mine, but that wasn’t his opinion of me. To him, I was something sought after for a lifetime, prepared and planned for meticulously. My newfound knowledge of his memories sifted and settled on his first reaction to me. Disappointment. I thought perhaps this was the appropriate one. Of all the angels to obtain, I wasn’t the one you would choose from a list, but I was the only one with the weaknesses to make me obtainable. How ironic it all was.

As my orgasm slid from me (Orgasm. I rolled the new word around my brain like one would a new word on the tongue. I didn’t like it. Too cold and clinical for what the experience actually was.), I collapsed forward upon his chest, trembling from the physical and mental aftershocks. I was feeling somewhat overwhelmed again. Having two lifetimes stored in my head instead of just one took some getting used to, as if I was trying to fit both feet into one boot. Already the immediacy of his was fading to the level of a story I’d been told in detail. That was a bit easier to handle. I raised my head to kiss his lips, just a soft brush of mine over his.

“You’ve given up so much for me, Obsidian. Your ink. Oh, dear, the other demons won’t be happy, will they?” I felt responsible for this. I’d brought it about with my foolishness. He was vulnerable to them now. He had a weakness to be exploited. I said with a certain fierceness, “I won’t let them harm you,” and then lapsed into silence, for there was nothing more to say.

 

[peterpan]

My mind opened, a warm dark pool, and headstrong Ariana tumbled in.

I had engulfed her before I had time to reconsider, seeped into every surface greedily. For a hundred years I lived inside Ariana, as Ariana. Only with great willpower did I leave a little of her secrets intact, or erase a few unkind details after I learnt them. Demon memory is perfect. Nothing she showed me would fade unless I chose it to. I liked her secrets. I liked her confessions.

As she glided over the crystaline landscape of my memory, I played across her wings gentle as a warm current in the night air, swirling and seeping into every fibre. Where each feather punctured the skin, and nerves clustered, I found the memory of flight. Every wingbeat a reflection of a single wingbeat, seen through many filters. Serenely soaring in sun and in moonlight, the triumphant beat of escape (thwarted) and the final flutters of extacy.

In her hands I felt her sword, with the scornful motto branded upon it as if it were her own skin. Pride comes before a fall. I felt it's weight as she flung it, yet her fingers were always too dutiful to let it go and let it be ended as she swung it through abomination after hellspawn abomination till only she remained.

In her eyes I saw ranks of angels, all perfect as she knew she was not, wishing they would see her but also afraid. She wouldn't measure up. They didn't want her. Even the fell beasts had not wanted her enough to find a way through her sword. Even Obsidian's first thoughts. Disappointment. Her mind clung to that. Perhaps she needed the familiarity of it.

Her lips on mine surprised me. I had almost forgotten my own body, or was it something else? She lay upon my chest. trembling still. like warmth lapping around me, just as she still welcomed me deep inside her. She encompassed me. It was so relaxing. For the first time in my life I felt a drowsiness. As if I must sleep soon. Demons were never gifted with sleep.

Ariana had understood about the ink. "I won’t let them harm you," she said fiercely. Her intensity shook her body where it lay against me. Her muscles tensed around me.

I laughed gently, then for a while I just lay there, stroking her back.

"I am still strong, Ariana. And six hundred years older and wilier than you. I am not easily harmed. Rest now. You have had a long day but you are safe now. I will always be here. Right here."

Then I also had no more to say, but what my fingers said as they caressed her gently, as my arms held her to me. Still a corner of her mind fretted. I touched her mind gently to soothe her fears away, and let her sleep guiltlessly.

Long after dawn a ray of sun angled from far above would wake her in my arms. I had planned it carefully.

I watched her sleeping face awhile. I was also tired. There was a heaviness in my limbs that I had never felt before.

"Strange. Demons don't..."

My lips were dead. I could not speak. An insidious malignancy, now revealed, strived openly to unbind me. The battle was already won. A trap, I realise with my last thoughts. My Demon makers had not been as naive as I had imagined.

I did not die. Through a mechanisim I had no chance to contemplate, the clockwork assassin more reliable than time failed to unbind me completely. But I would be trapped forever in this stone prison of my body. I would watch my Angel thirst and die in the cage of my arms, with my eyes that would never close again. With my last strength before I was reverted to inanimate rock, I strained to lift my arms from Ariana. It was already too late. My fingers straighted, the arms raised perhaps an inch but then they were frozen. Not enough.

I exerted all my will to this one last goal. My left arm broke near the shoulder and fell heavily to the bed. Pain quickly vanished as the catamorphosis completed. Relief flooded through me as I watched my Angel's face. She would not wake in a cage.

Still under my slight mindspell, Ariana slept on. Her face was free of all concerns as I had intended it. For the first time in her life she felt she could allow herself to look forward to a new day with joy and wonder at the surprises it might bring.

 

[Marigold]

I slept. My dreams were peaceful, untroubled. Even in my sleep, I felt safe, protected, accepted. I know not how long I floated in this blissful haze, but a light, brighter than the sourceless dim glow than had encompassed us awakened me. It shone on my closed eyelids, tingeing the black behind them red. I murmured sleepily and moved my cheek against the cool surface of Obsidian’s chest.

The first hint of unease wound its way through my sleep-fogged brain. Something wasn’t right. I opened my eyes slowly. The room was brighter now. Day had dawned somewhere far above. I shifted a bit, and my back encountered something a few inches above it. Something as unmoving as stone. My eyes went to Obsidian’s face. His eyes stared lifelessly back into mine. The stone restraint at my back was his arm, frozen in mid-motion, and in the next instant I saw the other, lying on the bed next to us, broken off clean as if by my sword. I heard someone screaming dimly, as if from far away. It took me a moment to realize it was me.

I rolled off of him, and the screaming faded into pleading. Obsidian? What’s wrong? Please, please, answer me. Please. I sobbed and begged him to return to me, then commanded him. I insulted, I cajoled, I made promises to him and God and the powers of Hell that I could never fulfill, but nothing worked. No one heard my prayers but the mournful little creatures that stared at us in misery. My voice ground to a halt.

Think, Ariana. Think. I looked to the scuttling little servants. “You, bring me something to wear. The rest of you, gather some of the golems and move Obsidian to the library.” I looked to him sadly. “Make him…comfortable.” Our mingling of memories had left me with a working knowledge of the palace I was in. The small creatures rushed to do my bidding. I had been half afraid they would refuse, but they seemed grateful for the direction. A black silk gown was brought to me shortly. The design was a simple sheath with thin straps to hold it aloft at my shoulders. Again, the back was mostly cut away so it did not interfere with my wings. As soon as I had slipped it over my head I left Obsidian’s servants to move him. I could not bear to look into his dead, dead eyes. I went to his library, a cavernous room that held a collection that had been accumulated over centuries. There was no place on earth left that stored so much information, and even Heaven did not boast such a place. Angels considered knowledge that did not come directly from the Father’s lips expendable. I looked over the endless shelves of books surrounding me. It was a hope against hope, but maybe the answer to bringing my love back was ferreted here amongst the ancient tomes.

I paused for a moment, wondering at my mental phrasing. Could I truly have come to love a being I’d been formed to hate in such a short time? Yes. The answer was simply yes, and I looked no further at it than that. Some things were simple, if you let them be.

Obsidian was carried in and set up on a sort of dais. Maybe even an altar. His broken arm was set against him, making it less obvious that it was disembodied. His body was covered with a black sheet to hide his nakedness from prying eyes. When he was settled, I leaned in closer to him and whispered in his ear, “When I bring you back, we shall have to speak about your propensity for the color black, Love. It’s a trifle predictable.” I did not know if he could hear me, but it made me feel better to speak to him. I kissed his cheek and turned to the books.

Days passed, perhaps weeks. I waded through the information stored in this place every waking hour. It did not help that most of the books were in Demonscript, and some in human languages, neither of which I knew how to read. He did have a few books in Angelscript, but as they were treatises on the glories of obedience to God, they offered little help. I drafted a scholarly servant of Obsidian’s, a gargoyle named Cyril to help me decipher books he thought might be of use. The small servants tried to keep me fed, but I found I had little taste for food. I was too upset, and too unaccustomed to things that had taste. When I slept, I slept on the floor beside Obsidian. In the end, all our studying was for naught. We found many things that might be the cause of Obsidian’s state, but could not narrow it down conclusively. We found even less on what might bring him back.

I sat in a chair by him one night, after I had dismissed Cyril. I’d fallen into the habit of talking to him as if he could hear me, telling him what we’d found that day, trying to make it sound as if I could return him to normal the very next day. I do not know if I were trying to convince him or myself. Tonight, despair was settling in. I did not speak at all, merely rested my hands on his cold cheeks. Silent tears coursed down my cheeks. When they fell to the sheets below, they were black as ink.

 

[peterpan]

I spent that first night of my imprisonment pondering on what might free me, as I looked into the face of my sleeping angel. The clue I needed was likely to lie in what had prevented the clockwork assassin from reducing me to unthinking dust.

I was not given that clue till Ariana finally awoke. Her horror was painful, made worse because I could not chose not to watch.

Ariana tried to instruct my creatures.

"You, bring me something to wear. The rest of you, gather some of the golems and move Obsidian to the library. Make him comfortable."

Poor Ariana that will not work, I wished to say, but she proved me wrong. Her words caused a rush of activity. It should not have worked, definitely should not have. My servants were near mindless things without me to guide them. They would not obey an angel, a human, or any Demon but I.

I pondered this as Golems carried me to what would be my home for some time. Golems followed her too? I could only surmise that somehow she had taken on my identity and power. By what mechanisim? Was it related to the mingling of our minds? Almost that could explain the issue of identity, but what about the power?

The library was vast, and my dais just a small corner of it.

Ariana set about consuming my seven centuries of knowledge, wishing to stumble across a name for my condition and therefore a cure. Another impossibility given her total ingnorance with respect to demonscript and it's deliberately obfuscated grammer. It was a language designed to be unlearnable and only inherited. Yet she made terrorfying progress, claiming the aid of a mysterious scholar named Cyril. This character at least I knew must be purely imaginary. Yet still she learnt, and every evening she brought me the results of her research: unnerving experiments she might be just about to perform on me that would probably cause me to detonate, or bring me to a life so virilent that all other life would be jepardised. Each time she would end sorrowfully that some minor component of knowledge was missing, but for me to keep my hopes up because she was sure she would discover it tomorrow.

It was during one of these evenings that she let slip that Cyril was a Gargoyle. Poor Ariana. Gargoyles cannot speak, let alone read. Ariana needed company. She needed structure. So much so, it appeared, that her mind had invented it for her. I had to find a way to return to her.

But how? I could not even access Ariana's senses to see what she truely did each day.. Her grip on her senses had become stronger, or more obviously my grip had become weaker. Otherwise I could have spoken to her simply by usurping her ensorcelled lips. While she slept most deeply, deeper even than dreams, I learnt I could make her to speak, but then there was no one to hear. As she stirred she unknowingly wrested control back from me. It was most frustrating!

As frustrating as knowing that if I only had a little Demon ink left, and I could move, I could reverse this curse easily.

---

Hope! I had found a new pair of eyes. In the farthest corner of my kingdom my mind had chanced upon a Demon asp, that by chance was sensitive enough to my particular voice that I could enter it even in my weakened state. Immediately I had a plan. If I could inspire the asp to bite Ariana's lip, then her lips would become paralysed to her, but not to me. I would be able to speak through them and she would be concious to hear!

Slithering up through the halls and passages of my domain, I noticed how much activity went on even while she slept. Golems worked ceaselessly stoking the great furnaces, Little servants scurried over the massive machines of past experiments now reanimated, oiling and monitoring. It must drain her to keep them moving this way. I could see no purpose in their frantic activity. Ariana was not even there to absorb the results. More signs of her madness. I hastened my slithering progress.

Ariana lay asleep on the floor beside my still form. Strange that other snakes had not joined her there. It would be easy to reach her and bite her lip before she knew I approached. Without speach, how could I ask her permission?

I had almost reached her when a stone hand grasped me, and I found myself face to face with one of my own gargoyles, a stunted example I had set to guarding the door to the library, wearing of all things spectacles, and a robe. I writhed to be free but the gargoyles grasp was firm.

"A snake," said the gargoyle. "Nasty things. I hate hate hate them." It's face twisted in an exact mirror of Ariana's reaction to her first taste of Demon wine.

"What is it Cyril?" Ariana called tiredly. Then she saw what the gargoyle she had named Cyril was holding. "Oh. A snake. Nasty things. I.. don't think I will ever like them. Put it out will you?"

"As Madam requires," Cyril replied in a deep, respectful tone unlike it's earlier voice. But Gargoyles can't speak! The protest came out as no more than a veminent hiss, as Cyril retreated with my asp form, humming an angelic marching song.

Wearily Ariana pulled up a chair to account for her day to me. She had almost missed her dayly talk, for the first time.

But this day she had nothing to say, despair and exhaustion had finally overwealmed her. She layed her hands on my cheeks and cried.

Black tears rolled down her face. I watched them each print a neat trail of Demonscript across her cheeks. Spells I did not recognise. The tears were purest Demon ink.

 

[Marigold]

I sat for a long time, just holding to his face and letting the tears roll down my cheeks silently. Finally, I pushed words through my despair, the words coming in fits and starts along with my tears.

“Obsidian. Obsidian? I don’t even know if you can hear me. Can you? I’ve not found one single thing to help you, I don’t even know why this has happened to you. Are you even in there? Perhaps you are dead and I’m fooling myself, but I can’t give up on you. I need you. Oh, Heavens, please, please, if you can hear me, I need to know.”

Of course, there was no answer. I allowed myself to think about the possibility of not being able to fix him for the first time. Cyril had been looking at me with more and more skepticism as I had presented theory after theory. I could tell he thought I was clutching at false hopes. Was I?

“What do I do without you, Obsidian? You’ve shown me a life beyond being a warrior, but I don’t know how to live it. You took me from what I knew and made it so I could never go back, and then you left me. Did I do something wrong? Did I cause this somehow?”

My hands trembled and I removed them from him, clutching them in my lap. I didn’t think he had left by choice, but what if what we had shared had triggered it somehow? The guilt, the grief was almost paralyzing. I’d exhausted my ideas. I was out of books to pour over, out of information. Cyril had said that Demon Ink might be the answer, but the last of it was gone. I drew a deep breath. All that was left was in the hands of the other demon lords, and they guarded the stuff with every resource they had available to them. What did I have that would possibly convince one of them to give me just a bit?

It dawned on me with the force of a hurricane. Information. Obsidian may have had no real interest in Heaven’s secrets, but I’d be willing to bet that wasn’t the case for the rest of them. Oh, Father. Could I do it? Could I willingly go make a deal with a Devil, even to bring Obsidian back? I looked to his still, cold form. I had to. Be it the damnation of my soul, even if I could never look myself in the face again, I simply had to try. I knew I’d be out of my element, that demons were far more skilled at trickery than I, but I still had the information on my side, and I had nothing left to lose. I smiled a bit sadly and leaned closer to Obsidian’s ear.

“I’ve finally found my price, Love,” I whispered in his ear, “I’m going to be gone for a while, I think. I’m taking Cyril with me. It might be another goose chase, but I’m hoping not. I’ll tell the servants to take good care of you whilst I’m gone.”

I kissed his cheek and had a sinking feeling I wouldn’t be back, but I had to try. I had to. I went off to find Cyril and have the servants pack for me. I would leave on the morrow, and until then, I slept fitfully by my lover’s side.

 

[peterpan]

Demon Ink. Her tears were demon ink.

Ink that needed no brush to inspire shape from it. It wrote its own purpose as it flowed.

The rigid structures of my knowledge could not support the evidence of my own eyes. My eyes were powerless not to see. As each symbol dried they fluttered away, moths that evaporated like smoke into ever finer threads.

What had transmuted my Angel to this, this Anomaly? The transformation of her angelic blood? Her infusion with pleasure or the fusion of our minds? All, I suspected, and more. Prophesy is a dangerous substance. Ignoring the lessons of history, Demons had poluted the rivers of history with it for a thousand years.

To what purpose? The forging of Ariana was but half a purpose. How was she to be wealded?

Ariana spoke once more.

"I’ve finally found my price, Love, I’m going to be gone for a while, I think. I’m taking Cyril with me. It might be another goose chase, but I’m hoping not. I’ll tell the servants to take good care of you whilst I’m gone."

From the deepest, quietest, most enshadowed corner of my mind, I imagined a hiss that stuttered like laughter.

---

Cyril the gargoyle scholar had dropped my asp body from a high window. Fortune or kindness saw it land on something soft, if rather disgusting. This might foil a normal asp. I was rather more determined.

Ariana was too well guarded, even if by figments of her own tortured subconcious. I did not think I could reach her. But I had to reach her before she surrendered herself to Demons, for that was what I realised she planned to do.

Instead of returning to the library, I slithered up the spiral iron stairs of the atrium to a much higher room, a study where I found what I sought. A purest white dove held frozen in an ensorcelled birdcage. It had been confiscated from a spy of Heaven, whose innocence had spared her own life and seen bird and girl safely to me, after the Demons' experiments had been concluded.

It took time and engineering in my weak asp body, but an hour before dawn I saw the homing bird set free, bearing a simple message to heaven. The bars in the atrium ceiling that had held Ariana were no barrier to it's tiny form. I just wish they had sent their human spys to probable torture and death with a faster method of comunicating their findings back.

Then I made my way to hide in Ariana's bag, already packed by my (or perhaps more truly her) servants.

The message was a single character, the last in the angelic alphabet. I am the beginning and the ending. The Alpha, and the Omega. They would understand. They would come.

 

[Marigold]

Morning came, as it always does, and I rose with a heavy heart. I did not want to do this, but one look at Obsidian lying there like some toppled monument was enough to decide me. I gathered Cyril, two tiny imps, and my one small bag. I didn’t pack much, just a change of clothing. What else would I need? I’d decided to arrange for the meeting to occur on neutral ground. I would go to Earth and send a message to the demon lords by way of the imps.

I left Obsidian’s palace for the first time since my arrival. The sunlight was a dim memory, but I was fine. Even if it had been the pitch of night, I would have been able to find my way now. The cloak of darkness was nothing to my new eyes. Hell is a frightening realm, even if things are still and peaceful. The very air has a menacing quality, the architecture of its cities dark and oppressive. I don’t know if that is a quality designed purposely by its builders of if it just goes along with the complete separation from the Father, but it is an effective motif nonetheless. I shivered in trepidation as the golems guarding the gate opened it to let me pass. I was wearing a long cloak, dark grey in color, that covered my entire body and concealed my face in its shadows. I did not want to be stopped and questioned. Cyril was dressed similarly, and we blended in fairly well with the few servants scuttling along the streets on errands for their masters. Leaving the realm would be something more of a challenge, but my traces of Obsidian’s memory had given the knowledge of a little-used and lightly-guarded portal to a remote area of Earth. The gate was seldom used and would have a smaller contingent of hellspawn soldiers to deal with, even though it might seem more curious and be better-noted than if I choose one of the busier gates.

We arrived after what seemed an eternity of walking. My heart pounded as we approached the stone arch that marked the portal. Of course, the arch was unnecessary, but people seemed to feel these gates should be made to resemble their more mundane counterparts as closely as possible. This particular arch was made of somber granite and two burly, troll-like figures flanked either side of it. I’d seen their like before, had slain more than a few, but didn’t know what they were called. I strode toward them with what I desperately hoped looked like confidence. Cyril trailed behind like a faithful pet. One of them strode forward with a hostile expression on his face, and I tensed. If only I had my sword.

“Who goes there?” the beast grunted, his words spoken with a slur, as if he hadn’t the brainpower to form them correctly. Stupid these beasts might be, but I knew they had the strength to snap me in two without breaking a sweat. I felt powerless unarmed, but my voice rang with a confidence I did not feel.

“I am a servant of the Demon Lord Obsidian. I have orders to pass through this gate.”

When I spoke, and odd change come over the creature. His expression changed, the not-so-subtle threat implied in his actions sliding away as if it had never been.

“Why, of course, Mistress. Do pass through. Didn’t mean to hold you,” he mumbled apologetically. His twin that had been posted on the other side actually bowed and they backed away to let me pass. I stared in shock for but a split second. I wasn’t about to question my good fortune. Cyril spoke the word that activated the gate’s magic, a demon word that was all but unpronounceable to me, and we stepped through.

I blinked as we arrived on the other side, in a clearing surrounded by tall pines on all sides. The sunlight wasn’t bright, filtered as it was through the trees, but I’d grown used to dimness and had to take a moment to readjust.

“Why were those beasts so friendly, Cyril? I expected more of a challenge to my passing.”

“I really have no idea, Mistress,” he said in a mild tone. I sighed and shrugged it off. I had more important things to think about now. I’d picked this location in part because there were no humans living within several days’ travel. I did not want my actions to affect innocents, should the worst come to pass. I’d read that there was a maze of caves nearby, and I planned to set up a camp of sorts there and invite the one or two Lords I’d selected to do my negotiations with there. I’d chosen them because they were primarily political creatures with a reputed supply of demon ink. I hoped to appeal to their greed for power over the other demons.

Cyril, the imps, and I found the caves with no trouble and set about settling in. They were sometimes used as a retreat for demons that wished to study or experiment in solitude, and there were a few leftover furnishings scattered about the cavern I’d chosen. I first gave the imps the letters I’d already written and sent them off to deliver them, then worked with Cyril to arrange a sitting room of sorts, so the conversation could be carried out in something approaching a civilized manner. I was about to sell out my entire way of life before I’d known Obsidian. I pushed the unpleasant thought away and sent Cyril to gather firewood. When he was gone, I turned to prepare myself for the arrival of the demons, opening my pack to draw out my dress.

I gasped as I felt fangs sink into my wrist. I drew forth my hand to find an asp attached to it and tried to scream, but my mouth wouldn’t move. I tried to shake the thing off in a panic, but it held fast.

“Ariana…Ariana…be still…it’s me, Obsidian.”

I froze. The voice was my own, but I was not speaking those words.
“Calm yourself. I’ve taken control of the asp so I could reach you. Listen to me, my Angel, for we have little time.”

I nodded, my heart pounding. He lived! He was alive! I felt him inside me somehow, leaving no doubt that it was some cruel trick.

“You don’t need to ask the other Demon lords for ink to help me, Ariana. You have the power within you. Literally. I didn’t know it would happen, but somehow the demon ink I used to save you has taken root in your body. It flows in your very veins, Angel, and that is all I need to be reanimated. You must return to me quickly. Do you understand?”

I nodded again, eagerly, and the asp released my arm, merely an asp again. I felt the weariness of Obsidian’s presence as he slid from my mind, and I almost wept at the absence. I’d waited so long to be with him again, and the contact hadn’t been enough by half, but soon we’d be reunited at last.

Cyril and the imps burst in at once, and before I could gather my wits, all began jabbering at me at once, the imps chirping in panic and Cyril babbling senselessly. I managed to get them to slow down and speak one at a time, telling the imps to go first. It took some patience to decipher their high-pitched language, and Cyril stood by impatiently.

The imps told me that they had delivered my messages to the proper recipients, but the letters had not given rise to the desired response. The treacherous Lords had instead mounted impromptu armies, intending to take me by force. Even now they were on the march towards us.

“Mistress!,” Cyril burst in whilst I stood reeling in horror, “I saw an army of angels from the ridge. We have not one, but two armies approaching!”

Pride goeth before the fall. I’d acted rashly, and would have to pay the consequences. What to do?, I thought furiously. My eyes settled on some bottles we’d discovered in out efforts to make the cave livable. Stoppered bottles, that had been used in magical experiments. My spine stiffened in resolve. If I couldn’t save myself, I’d at least buy time for Obsidian. I took three of the vials, and opened them, then sliced my wrist with a nail. It was by no means a mortal wound, but the black blood flowed from my vein into each of them in turn, until each held enough to be useful. I gave one of the bottles to Cyril and each of the two imps, ordering them to return and save Obsidian at any price.
I watched them go sadly, then settled in to wait to be found. I wondered if I was the first being to be hunted by both the armies of Heaven and Hell. I certainly had a talent for attracting trouble.

 

[peterpan]

I wish I had possessed the strength to tell Ariana more, but I had not expected her to be so far from me. My strength was exhausted. I could not even contact my asp's eyes to see what passed. All I could do was stare into the darkness, and wonder if I would still be staring into darkness a thousand years from now, wondering what had befallen my Ariana.

Time passed slowly. It seemed a thousand years before I heard scurrying of little feet.

Two little servants appeared. They were dirt streaked and one had an injured foot and was riding the back of the other, adding a half to it's height. The imp on top held what seemed to be a spiny thrashing insect at arms-length.

I was able to examine the insect closely, because the injured imp was intent on encouraging the unwilling creature into my mouth.

The insect had once been a stoppered vial. The black stuff in it's clear bloated abdomin must be Ariana's blood-ink. First the liquid script had clearly overcome the treated cork, despite its waxy coating that should have made it impervious to nanite magic. The cork had transformed into delicate limbs, palps and mandibles, and a mosquito-like face. For a period of it's transformation it must of appeared somewhat like a hermit crab that had adopted a vial.

Having failed to express it's structure sufficiently through the cork, the ink had turned on the glass of the vial, also supposedly impervious, and it's lip had narrowed, and limbs like blown glass swollen with the tiniest beads of blackness had sprouted. There were the buds of wings that were apparently abandoned for lack of material, or perhaps awaiting the need of them.

"Wait," came the voice of the gargoyle Cyril. His voice was different once again. More articulate, even in that single word. The being that strode into the light was no longer mere carved rock.

Ariana must have given him a stoppered vial also. Perhaps it had broken in his once-clumsy stone fingers. His left hand was the most transformed, looking as subtle as human although still granite-gray. His face was expressive, the movements of his brow no longer the sliding of plates. Although his form was still bent, powerful, much about him suggested a very old, very wize, very compassionate and fatherly caracature. I wondered if this was a strange reflection of Ariana's memory of the face of God, stretched over this odd stone frame.

"Wait," Cyril repeated. and the imp desisted. "First we must reattach Obsidian's arm, or he will reanimate with a great injury."

"Come here, little one," Cyril added, and the insect scuttled obediently into his hand to become a brush.

As the strange old man began proficiently to reknit my arm to my shoulder, I began to see that Cyril had become somewhat more than a figment of Ariana's wishes.

"Yes, that is true," Cyril said to me. "I know more about Ariana than she knows about herself. I know what she is for. I know it with such clarity and satisfaction that, it is almost as if I intended it, all these thousand years."

"Do not ask my your purpose or hers. You may as well ask a stone wall. The stone wall you were originally carved from."

"No one ever listened to my first words, Obsidian. Noone gave me tongue to speak them. None until Ariana asked the gargoyles if any could help her, and I found myself suddenly with tongue, speaking words she put there."

" 'I will bring you to the answers you seek', my raw new tongue uttered. So I shall, though she does not yet know the questions, so she shall."

Cyril encouraged a single drop of blood ink into my mouth. Warmth began to spread through me. My lips returned to life first.

"I command you to tell me what you know."

Cyril only smiled. "I am the master of this house now. You forfeited your right to it when you betrayed the demons for Ariana, as you know. Already they plan to smash it down to capture you. Instead they will find a new demon lord in residence. One they have no argument with, but one willing to argue most veminently on any subject they advance within striking distance of his walls."

The once-golem's face softened. "Here. A present for you. For Ariana." An imp scurried forwards bearing what seemed to be thin silver chain necklace, bearing black pearls set in platinum cages, each hung on their own tiny chain.

"You will recognise the stones. They are the women from the hall of conquests, reverted to the state they were originally transported to you; pinch-bottle universes, these perfect spheres merely the interface with ours. Near indestructable in this form. Interesting trinkets that I have no interest in."

Cyril hung the necklace around my still-frozen hand. "Good bye, Obsidian." He left me to complete my reanimation alone.

---
Cyril had already as much as warned me that he would not leave the demon lords with any illusion that I was still at home. No demon lord of any standing would allow another to search his home and learn his secrets.

I was only mildly surprised to find a disguise and weapons waiting for me. I was not surprised at all when the disguise disintergrated dramatically as I approached the portal to Ariana, and I had to slay a few to escape through it.

From the asp, I knew the cave where Ariana hid, but I did not recognise the body-strewn battlefield I had stepped into. As I looked around in horror, only luck let me glimpse the angel's blade as it dove for my chest.

I threw myself down and rolled, and the blade found another target, a low-grade demon left to guard the portal, that nevertheless could have inflicted a vicious wound on my back if the angel had not slain it for me. For a moment I wondered if the angel had saved me deliberately, but then I realised that I had not yet comunicated terms or even my identity. The angels were here just on the strength of a dove bearing the password to the gates of heaven in black ink. Who knew what they knew or thought they knew.

Somehow I had to cross this battlefield unscathed and find Ariana. Was she still hiding in the caves, or had she been discovered by one side or the other?

Or slain?

 

[Marigold]

The angels found me first. I’d heard both sides, moments before, joining in the predictable battle that occurred whenever demon met angel. It struck me how tedious it all was. The fighting had become the pointless bickering of siblings, one side never gaining ground over the other. My eyes went to the mouth of the cave and three Angels strode through as if they owned the place. I recognized them, though I only knew one of them personally. Erich and Alsebet were commanders of other units, while Ibrihim had commanded mine. I’d never been close to him, however, being too far beneath him on the chain of command and too troublesome to gain his favor. I saw his eyes widen momentarily at the change in my appearance, but then his face settled into the impassively calm mask of the others. A mask I myself wore to mirror their own.

I stood regally, waiting for them to speak first. Ibrihim broke the uncomfortable silence first, saying, “Then it is true. You have repudiated our ways, the ways of God.” His eyes were sad, and yet a bit superior, as if he had known it all along.

I shrugged. “You will believe what you believe, Sir, as you have always done. Nothing I will say at this point will change the conclusions you’ve drawn.”

His eyes narrowed. “As I have always done? Is that a criticism of my methods, Fallen?”

“Not at all, Sir. Merely an observation. If your beliefs have always been the correct and accurate ones, how could it be criticism?”

He looked for just a moment as if he would strike me, but Alsebet stepped forward, perhaps sensing that intervention was needed. She pinned me with her icy blue glare, something that would have had me quivering with shame, before. “What have you told the Hellspawn, Fallen? What secrets have you given away? What damage has your black tongue done us?”

“The Hellspawn as a whole, I’ve told nothing, but the one who took me in the first place knows everything I do.” I said it simply, without apology. This enraged the two of them further.

“You admit it, then. You’ve betrayed the law of Heaven, defiled the Father’s trust, and you stand there as peaceful as a lamb. You are an abomination!” Ibrihim spat viciously, taking a threatening step towards me.

Erich spoke then, quietly, and in his eyes I read true regret, true sympathy for me. He thought I was wrong, yes, and perhaps even the abomination Ibrihim had named me, but there was no malice in his demeanor. “Brother, Sister,” he began, “God’s law will deal with the fallen one, but it is not our place to sit in judgment. Ours is to carry out the sentence God has placed upon her head. Do not let hatred for what our enemies have made of one of our own poison your hearts, lest you become the very thing you seek to eliminate.”

Erich’s quiet speech drew the other two up by their collars. They stood, chastised, hanging their heads. I marveled at them. I’d been just like them not two months earlier. I’d changed more than I’d realized. I didn’t feel I’d abandoned God’s ways, I’d just chosen not to live them the way I’d been taught. Law is empty and meaningless without compassion at its base. I’d found that compassion. I’d found love. To me, that was more holy than anything that Heaven had ever offered me. I did not try to explain this to my former superiors, however. You cannot make stone bend.

“What is the sentence God has decreed for me?” Best to find out and have it over with.

Erich looked me directly in the eye. “Death.” I respected him for not flinching away from it. I was willing to bet Ibrihim and Alsebet would have.

I nodded to him, understanding that it was beyond his control, understanding that, from their point of view, it was a necessary thing. Understanding was one thing, acceptance quite another. If they killed me here, now, I’d never see Obsidian again. I’d break my promise and leave him alone. There were only three of them. Surely I could find my way out of this? I sighed hopelessly. They had swords, I didn’t. They were all much older, much more powerful than I. Could the ink that flowed through my veins be used somehow?

The demons choose that moment to discover our hiding place, perhaps fifteen or so bursting in noisily. The trio of Angelic commanders drew their swords and the battle was on. Most of the demons would be easily dispatched, as they were mere underlings, but the two demon lords I’d invited were amongst them. Much tougher prey, that. I took the opportunity to slip away whilst all eyes were off me, darting past them and out into the cool air. I didn’t have my cloak, but I hardly felt the cold. I ran. I ran past slaughtered demons and dead angels, sparing no time to glance at any of them. One corpse is very like another, no matter what side it had been on in life. If I could just make the cover of the trees, I could perhaps find a place to hide. I’d worry about the rest later.

Then I saw him. He narrowly missed a demon’s claws, saved only by the fact that an angel took the beast down first. I tried to call out, to run forward, but I was frozen in place. He looked like home to me. Time hung frozen in the chill air. He was moving. He was alive again. A tear of simple gratitude snaked its way down my cheek.

I finally got myself together enough to take a step toward him, and was jerked short by an arm going about my throat.

“I’m sorry, Fallen, but your sentence has not yet been carried out,” Erich said quietly. There was no malice in his tone, but that was a hollow comfort. I felt his cold blade slide against my throat.

 

[peterpan]

OOC: This is sort of a finish up post as discussed. I think I will take a break from roleplay for a while.

IC:________________
The battlefield was suddenly still. Only flutters of movement where the angels hacked with flaming swords at frozen statues. But even they slowed in puzzlement, and turned to see where all the statues stared.

I turned also.

There was Ariana. Drifting featherlike to the ground. Discarded by an Archangel; her executioner. Her black blood seeped into the ground, and stained the Angel's sword. Any other wound would have healed instantly, But an angel's blade does not merely cut, it unmakes. What it unmade, demon magic could not touch. I could not touch Ariana even with my mind. Her blood did not hear me.

Too late, I charged. The distance was too far even if the deed was not already done. Dreamlike, the distance seemed to stretch further as I ran.

My legs grew weak. Or was the very ground shaking?

The Archangel, Erich was his name, paid me no attention. He merely frowned with puzzlement upon the black stained blade, tried to wipe it clean on his sash. The stain would not come off his blade or his hands. Had it been on his hands before? He looked at his fingers.

Erich had bearly time to convulse. Like vines strangling a tree, lines of demonscript ensnared him. From the hand, and from the ground. The ground was definitely shaking now. Rocks thrust up, raising the murderer as if on a pedestal. All else were knocked to the ground.

Before the script enveloped him completely, Erich seemed to burst into flame, bright as magnesium burning, that shone through the cracks in his demon ink cage. The being that stood over us was both blacker than black and too bright to look at. It had something of the form of an angel.

All the gargoyles and golems bowed. I wondered why the angels did not attack, and saw that demonscript entangled their legs. The blinding angel of darkness surveyed his kingdom, the angels. Finally his eyes fell on me. He, it, smiled.

"After one thousand years of nothingness, I am." It said.

"Who are you?" asked I.

The rocks that the being stood upon were still in motion. Their final configuration emerging. A throne! The being sat, still higher than anyone. "You do not recognise the king of all demons? You do not recognise.. Lucifer?"

Lucifer? But Lucifer was a myth of humans, from before the fall of man, and the demon war.

It smiled, as if it shared my thoughts. "Yes, a myth from a time when Angels and Demons were myth also. I came first, but was imprisoned. The purpose of all history was my freedom. There is the answer to the question of poor dead Ariana. Her purpose was to be a vessel for the fusion of many secrets that God had scattered.The last of these was combined when the living demon ink of her blood wetted an angel's blade."

No. This could not be true. Lucifer was a myth. But the mocking tone in his voice was real enough. I raised my hammer to smite him.. and found my blood frozen.

Lucifer laughed. "Oh she was useful enough. She will be cremated honourably. See? they are already building a pire."

My mind was reeling. Had it been seconds or hours since Ariana had fallen? The dead wood was already assembled, gathered from shattered trees upon the battlefield, and gargoyles bore her body towards it. It all had the sureal quality of a nightmare. Surely it had only been seconds ago that Ariana had died. My mind had not yet had time to accept it but already she was being taken away from me.

"Ariana is gone, Obsidian. You owe her former comrades nothing. It was an angel blade that slew her.. Complete Ariana's destiny. Have your revenge upon them. Tell me the password to heaven's gate."

Yes, I wanted my revenge upon angelkind. Yet I found myself unwilling to speak. Was it because Lucifer also bore responsibility? perhaps more than angelkind? No, I found. The angels were not less responsible because of it. I would enjoy avenging Ariana on them, and still have opurtunity to seek further revenge. Perhaps the act would inspire Lucifer to trust me. Still I did not speak.

"Speak now, or join her on the pire, Obsidian. It's heat will crack you too, eventually."

Understanding flooded over me. Ariana would not have wished it. This one last thing I could do for her. Lucifer's threat (for I had forgotten my mind's insistance that there was no such being) only made the choice easier.

They took me to the pire, to lay down beside my beloved, to understand that she was truely dead. I pushed back those few strands that always found their way across her face. I could not bring myself to look upon the savage gashes made by the angel's blade upon her throat. It was more than I could bear to see the stillness in her, and know it was not demon magic but just the way of things for mortals.

Could this really have been all that was intended? This was the secret that Cyril had kept? I did not imagine him so cruel.
The flames rose and enveloped us. It was peaceful, almost. The flames would have to grow much hotter before they ignited demon flesh. I would chose not to feel. Ariana had no choice or need of choice anymore. Her clothes burnt away but her skin for the moment was untouched. When the flames were hot enough she would burn for a moment like Lucifer, and that would be that.

Her wings blackened and much of her hair burnt away, leaving the black splinters of stubble that had transformed over the past days to demon nature. I brushed the ash away. "Do not worry, my angelhawk," I whispered gently. "Hair is a simple thing. Easy to shape."

Guarded now from prying eyes by the flames, I traced the line of demonscript about one breast. She was still so perfect, apart from the deep gashes around her throat. I thought back to the short time I had been with her. The many days I had watched her while she sought a cure for my affliction, all the demon's of my home bent to her will without her even knowing. Such power! I thought of the first time she felt pleasure. The wonder with which she had gazed at me, as if the magic were in me instead of her.

That thought took me helplessly to the moment she chose to take her own life, slitting her own throat with four razor sharp fingernails. Even then i had not understood the moment to be so omminice. She had chosen to end her life in a manner, and in that manner it had later came to pass.

Why four cuts, I found myself wondering, wondering why I wondered for the answer seemed so obvious. Four fingernails, four gashes.

Why four gashes now! An angel's blade would inflict one pure cut.

My fingers rushed to touch Ariana's throat. It was untouched. The four gashes where perfectly knitted once more. By my demonscript stitching! There had never been one pure cut laid by an angel's blade. An angel's blade had never cut her. Nothing but an angel's blade could kill her.. therefore..

"Ariana! You are not dead! You only think you are! Everything that has happened since you fell is your own imagining!"

I kissed her savagely. My hand cupped her slit possessively. As I had once promised, if she ever strayed from me, I would bring her back with the memory of the hundred gentle strokes of a demon brush.

Her magic resisted mine. She did not believe me. I could not simply recall the memory from the spying marks I had layed upon her. I began to kiss her there, to lay a hundred new strokes upon her with my hard tongue.

She could not hide her hard breathing now, from myself or herself. Still she clung stubbornly to the certainty of her own death, until sudden pleasure overwealmed her and made her cry out.

For a while she lay there, wreathed in the comfortable flames like blankets. Finally Ariana spoke dreamily.

"What is this place. Is it damnation? It's nice."

Laughing, I pondered our predicament.

"I think it is called 'out of the frying pan'".

---FIN!

OOC: Phew!