Archive of Our Own

Everything that made up your old life is sitting before you in the smoldering embers of a funeral pyre, the desire to exist snuffing out just as steadily within you as the life of the flames, your soul feeling like it was some dank, cavernous hollow where a heart used to sit before it had been wrenched out, thrown to the earth, and trampled repeatedly.

You have lost more than you can ever possibly grieve.

You have lost every place you have called home, lost every friend, family member and lover, and the rebellion you led has made no significant changes on this region—as fleeting in its life as the remnants of the fire that sits in front of you where the body of your once nearest and dearest rested, now all that remained crude piles of ash with solids here and there. You are not sure what was the worse: seeing your other half beaten to death while suffering blows yourself as you desperately sought out his body to steal away to safety when so many others you cared about were left to their fates, or the feeling of his breaths becoming less and less frequent as you lurched out of your once beloved city with injuries that should have prevented you from ever escaping the minister’s soldiers yet somehow you had made it, only to be given the gut-sinking sensation of the person on your back to take his last breath.

Or was sitting here alone in the odd serenity of the wilderness as you stare wide-eyed with horror at what remained of what you considered to be your soulmate somehow even worse than that? Distracting yourself simply does not work. There were no happy things to think fondly of. You try to think of the good times but instead think of smoke and fire. You think of finding Dorothea, one of your lovers, suffocated from the smoke of her brothel that had been set ablaze and the relief you had felt upon locating her in all the rubble only to then realize she was trapped underneath it and the way her body was bent looked fatal.

You held onto hope as you carried her out of that burning building just as you did when carrying Melanthios out of your city.

In both cases it was for nothing.

You built funeral pyres for them both and now there was no one left willing to build one for you.

You did not deserve one. You ought to bleed out in the wilderness and be picked apart by animals. You ought to be further humiliated for all the suffering you have brought on others. When the fire has completely died you beg for his forgiveness and lay on your side by the ashes. You grab a handful of it and close your eyes. It was nothing short of a miracle that you were able to carry him in the state you were in. There is not a single part of you that isn’t heavily bruised or verging on breaking. The bottom half of you is soaked with blood from the tips of spears catching your side.

You will bleed out soon enough.

...But the pain lessens.

You can breathe lighter.

Death feels like a whisper in your ear instead of a shout and as the minutes pass its threat seems to dissipate entirely. You are not in any pain—not physical. You check yourself all over. There was still blood on you so the injuries you dealt with had been real, not some hallucination caused by a strike to your head. The blood remains but the injuries do not.

You sit there dumbstruck for several minutes.

Your loved ones were waiting for you on the other side. You are not going to make them wait any longer when you damned them all in the first place. There is a spearhead laying on the grass with enough wood from the pole attached you could grip it firmly even with all the blood covering it. It must have been lodged into you and fell out as you settled down to die. You skip steadying your breath and plunge the spearhead into the side of your neck. You gurgle as blood sprays out and you convulse like a caterpillar shedding its cocoon after hitting the ground. You are forced to stare up at the canopy as you die instead of the pile of ash. Just another thing you must apologize for. You hope that he interprets your blood touching his ash like a hand reaching out for his.

You should feel heavy.

Cold.

But despite all the blood leaving you, you find you are able to think. In a few minutes time you can even move again. You reach for your throat and find that the gash is...gone. As if healed.

Something is wrong.

You are going insane, that must be it. You are currently experiencing the throes of death and this is all some sort of...delusion. It is frightening beyond measure that you cannot be sure. You have always heard how death is quick but it just seems to drag on and on, never taking, no matter how many times you mortally wound yourself. You are surrounded by a shallow lake of your own blood. The sun shining down on you feels mocking. Breaking down into something ugly and hysterical, you cry out and voice your endless heartbreak. You damn everything: God and his followers, your fellow man, life and nature itself, every part of you wishing that the world in its entirety burns in recompense for what was stolen from you.

There is a flapping of wings loud enough that it garners your attention. A breeze grazes your cheek as footsteps gently trod the grass over to you. Blue feathers are shed with each step.

...Was this the disembodied form of someone you knew?

Is it Melanthios’ ghost?

You roll over onto your stomach and crawl towards the indentations of feet on the grass.

“Reveal yourself to me.” You beg, bloodied fingers groping out clumsily then finding purchase when they bump against something solid, although not flesh. It felt cold and distinctively plated. It clangs at the slightest movement.

The sunlight grows brighter until it is blinding and you are forced to clench your eyes shut with a hiss. Behind the bloodied partition of your fingers you feel the light diminish and slowly lower your hand.

Standing before you is no lover.

Not even an acquaintance.

While different from how you have heard them described from scripture, there is no denying the thing standing in front of you as anything other than divine. It is humanoid in shape, wearing white and gold armor that was as bulky as it was pompous, with blue wings easily the width and height of nearly two full grown men. The places where it is not armored reveals dark, silky skin that has gold markings like veins running along it here and there. This...angel, you suppose it is called, is tall and has a robust body that you cannot tell the sex of. Perhaps it was entirely sexless. It makes no difference what they are in that respect—only that they are divine.

Your first instinct is to do it harm.

To kill it just to spite its father. You pick up the spearhead and try to jab the tip through one of the gaps of its leg armor but all it takes is the angel taking a step back to avoid the attack. The ease in which they dodged it infuriates you. You throw the spearhead at the angel and it bounces off their breastplate with a tinny noise before plopping uselessly onto the grass. You pick up rocks, clumps of grass, even cupping handfuls of your own blood to throw at it.

“Have you settled down at last?” The angel asks when your exhaustion wins out and you run out of things to hurl their way. Their voice is masculine, soft, and has a sort of echo to it. It is difficult to parse the finer details when every syllable uttered from their mouthless face had been so ripe with condescension it had been dripping with it.

You spit a wad of bloody saliva onto the angel’s armored feet.

“You may lash out in whatever petty means you have at your disposal. I am only tasked with relaying to you the message given to me by my Father: ‘Repent for all you have done and give yourself to me, humble and contrite, and you will know peace.’ I am sure you have noticed already, but you have been stripped of the right of a natural death. You will only pass on when the Lord deems you worthy of it. That is to be your punishment.”

“I have no want of peace.” You declare.

“And what about your soul? Do you lack the fear of spending eternity in Hell?”

“Ha!” You cackle, “What is there to fear? This is Hell. I have lost everything and yet I remain. I cannot die. And here now is one of my enemies children, come to mock me. It was not enough that your followers spilled so much blood in your Father’s name. Now he has sent his child to blackmail me into accepting his disgusting, twisted form of love.”

“There is much more you can suffer still if you continue to speak ill of Him.” They warn.

“Do angels typically threaten others? Do you enjoy the idea of hurting someone that cannot be killed? Why not indulge yourself like your mortal brethren?” You challenge with a crazed expression as you begin dragging yourself up their legs, “Gut me like a fish. Have me torn limb from limb. Flay my skin and pick my innards. None of that will compare to the pain of what has already been lost.”

Your display unsettles the angel enough they back away from you, wings drooping.

“I will not torture you.” They say with horror.

You laugh, no longer merely entertaining insanity and fully embracing it like an old friend. You laugh and you laugh and the ugly sound scares the birds out of the nearby trees.

“What do you call this other than torture?” You feel you have to ask, “I want nothing more than to die and God prevents that. He wants you to wear me down until I am no longer myself. He wants me to be docile and as spineless and in need of being led like you angels. Sheep bleating eagerly on what to destroy next. Divinity is a joke—humanity the punchline.”

“Stop speaking.” The angel demands, voice growing shrill with their upset, “Stop that terrible laughter.”

“Or else what? You’ll kill me?” And you only laugh harder now.

The angel leaves without a word.

You stay out there in the wilderness for days, struck immobile from grief next to the dwindling pile of ash you have been holding hands with it, the dampness from your hands making the ash turn into a sort of mud that clings to your skin. It almost feels like someone is holding your hand. You have learned by now that no amount of physical force will kill you. You have tried bleeding out, falling from great heights, and even goading wild animals into tearing you apart, but nothing works. You can feel the pain of everything and can feel every wound knit itself back together eventually.

You try starving yourself.

You’ve suffered hunger pains before so it is nothing new as far as sensations went but you wish it didn’t take so long. In the meantime, as you rot away, you tear off a piece of your chiton and gather some of Melanthios’ ashes into it. You chew off a lock of your own hair to tie off the end. The wind can carry off the rest of him but you will be taking this part for yourself. It wasn’t enough to just have memories of him. You wish you thought to do the same with the others you knew.

Life is miserable as you starve into a perpetual state of undeath.

You have become too weak to move. Too weak to stay awake for more than a rare handful of hours before passing out once more. A few birds mistaking you as a corpse because of your filth and stillness peck at you a few times but once they hear you cough they fly off. Your stomach feels like a bubbling pot of acid. Your throat is some foul union of glass and rocks. You are soaked in days old filth and blood.

But you have him.

You keep the pouch tucked to your cheek and rub your face against it. You even speak to it, although your voice is too ragged from dehydration to produce a sound. The wind has picked up the rest of your companions ashes and the plot next to you feels empty now. A few birds try to steal away the pouch so you hide it between your clasped hands.

It is on the precipice of death, but unable to toe over the line, that you find yourself visited again by the angel.

“You can hold your breath, bite off your tongue, and do whatever else, and I assure you, it will not kill you. God has made certain of that.” The angel explains with a long suffering sigh, as if they had much better things to be doing then staring at some filthy sinner, “I wonder if it is a punishment of my own to be the one that must check up on your progress on the road to redemption.”

“I wish I could rip off your wings and force feed them to you feather by feather.” You rasp against the soil.

“...I see that the weeks you have spent in this pitiful state has done nothing to make you see the error of your ways.” The angel remarks, “That will not do. You are as stubborn as you are wicked. Well, one way or another, I will see to it that you repent.” And noticing something, the angel falls quiet, “Perhaps when you truly have nothing left you will begin to see things differently.”

The angel kneels before you and snatches the pouch from you.

You watch the angel disappear into thin air and can do nothing about it. It feels like you are being torn apart. You cannot even begin to fathom the insult of what has just happened to you. You scream and cry but no matter how much noise you make the angel does not return. You thought you knew misery and hatred but what overwhelms you now is something that feels too big to be contained for one body.

The emotion is strong enough it forces you off the ground. It inspires you to drag yourself to a river, drink from it, and gather enough strength to forage for something hardier. Little by little you regain your strength. You do not need much.

Just enough to make a very long walk.

If you cannot join your loved ones in the afterlife or be granted death at all, then you will make this newfound immortality divinity’s punishment.

They’ll wish that they would have simply killed you in the wake of what will transpire now. The absolute fools.

You once hot-footed out of your beloved city with the hopes of carrying your companion to safety. Now you stagger into it raving mad, frightening all those that lay eyes on you because you look like a corpse unearthed from fresh soil with all the blood and filth all over you and the grief that has ruined your features. You walk with dead, dull eyes, tears flowing from them endlessly, your hair like a greasy curtain.

People mistake you as a beggar stricken with some kind of madness.

They give you a wide breadth as you pass and many citizens whisper to the guards fearfully. You are a strange, bewildering sight, but have proven harmless thus far. None recognize you. There are none left to, after all. No one stops a supposed beggar from creeping up the steps of a temple to ask for shelter. No one shoos you away when you ask to take a seat in the shade of their great temple and perhaps have a few sips of water.

This is no random temple you walked to.

You burned down the most affluent temple weeks ago and have set your sights on its sibling. While a holy woman leaves to bring you water you slink off into a storage room and find where they keep all the oil. You soak every fabric with it and make a spark. Flames are lapping at the walls before you have even fully left. You disappear into the crowds and set out for another temple. You have a third set aflame and with a twist of luck you find the man that works as this group’s leader of this region. You find him in his place of work and lunge at him across the table with a dagger in hand. He is old and out of shape and takes the fall hard.

Recognition flashes in his eyes.

He knows you to be the one that publicly fought against his doctrine and in knowing that, he knows that you are here for him with only one thing planned.

“I take my eyes off you for a short moment and you defile three temples.” Someone bellows furiously, voice cracking with how potent their anger is.

You turn to look over your shoulder and find the angel.

“I apologize for the poor performance. The next time I will double my numbers.”

“There will be no next time.”

“Yes.” You agree, “Not if your God grants me death now. But he won’t. And you have taken what little I had left so there is nothing holding me back now.” Noticing that the minister’s fear bright eyes do not land on the angel, you realize something, “Can’t you see one of your master’s children? No? Well, I can. God protects me from death and lets me see his children. What does he give you, his devout?”

“That is enough.” The angel commands.

“Enough speaking, yes.” You nod and prepare to slash the dagger across the man’s throat.

“Wait! Spare him.” The angel pleads, “If you do, I will return the ashes I took.”

“...Very well. But you must return the ashes first as a sign of trust.” You say calmly.

The angel has powers beyond your comprehension. You have seen them fly, teleport, and move with shocking speeds, but with a sharp object so close to the man’s throat even the smallest mistake could lead to his death so the angel refrains from pulling anything clever.

The pouch is deposited into your awaiting hand.

You bring it to your lips and kiss it.

“Welcome home.” You tell Melanthios before slitting the minister’s throat anyway, showering yourself and the angel in his blood.

The minister grows limp. You stand to your feet just as the angel falls to their knees. You make use of the angel’s shock and open up the pouch and empty it out quickly into your mouth. You choke down on ash but you get it all down. This way, Mel will always live inside of you and he cannot be stolen from you.

There is nothing to be held over your head as a bargaining chip now.

“I have failed. I will be punished for this.” The angel laments quietly.

You ignore them and go about the grisly task of relieving the minister’s head from his shoulders. The handle of the knife is slippery with so much blood but determination and enthusiasm for the job makes it go by smoothly. Drenched in blood and carrying the head of their leader by thin wisps of hair, you exit the temple and present it proudly.

“This is the fate that awaits all of you sheep.” You announce to the confusion of hundreds, “There will be nowhere for you to escape. Not Heaven. Not Hell. I will make God himself weep at the suffering I inflict on his creations. All of you—cursed.” You toss the head into the crowd and people scream, flinching away as the head rolls down the steps. Guards rush at you and run you through with spears but all it does is momentarily stun you. You dig your hands into the wounds and smear your blood across their faces. “This is for Melanthios. This is for Dorothea. For Helen, Ambrosia, Zoe—everyone!”

You walk with a spear still buried in your gut. The chaos of before pales in comparison to the pandemonium that breaks out upon the citizens seeing you somehow still moving and talking despite taking mortal wounds repeatedly. You are like some manifestation of vengeance. You slit your own throat and laugh gurgling laughs while grabbing at all the men and women of faith to wipe your blood across their faces. They fear you have marked them for death.

This unnatural display will snuff out the faith of many and if not, it will shake the foundations of it significantly.

At some point the angel gathers themselves and exits the temple in a gale, their form only visible to you so when you feel hands reach under your armpits and lift you up into the air, you make it look like some great miracle is happening all by yourself and it further sells the act of you being this city’s harbinger.

The angel does not take you back to the wilderness.

They take you somewhere far away from the city and civilization in general. You are carried to a cliff and once set down you find that you are still laughing. Maybe you never stopped. The angel’s armor is bright red and it is not because of the blood you spilled. The color of their wings has changed as well. From a dreamy sort of blue to a sour yellow.

You are stripped out of your ragged chiton. Your hair is cut. A pair of golden chains is produced and once secured around your wrists and ankles, the chains are embedded deep into the cliff’s surface. The angel is rough with you all throughout this and it only serves in delighting you.

“For all that is holy and sacred, I command you to stop laughing.” The angel orders in a quivering voice as they grip your jaw between their armored hand hard enough to bruise.

You look them right in the face and laugh the loudest you ever have, blood and spittle flecking their helmet.

“You truly are a wicked thing.” The angel sneers as they produce something else out of thin air: a golden needle and matching thread, “How could one of my Father’s creations devolve into such a state?”

‘If I am a monster it is because you all made me into one’, you think bitterly.

The angel begins sewing your mouth shut even as you continue laughing, which makes the needle stab you in the cheek and gums mistakenly. The pinprick of the needle sliding through and the burning of the thread as it forces itself through the holes barely registers in your mind.

“You will stay here, disgraced and at last made quiet, for however long my Father deems appropriate.”

The angel may have stopped your laughing but only the noise of it. Your shoulders still bounce up and down. Your eyes still crease in the corners. And there was no denying the way both edges of your mouth inched upward in a semblance of a smile.

Weeks pass.

Months.

You spend all of your time thinking of the past. You replay conversations you had. Wake up to the imagined smell of your mother making you something to eat and pass out in the delirium that she is stroking your hair. You cannot talk or sing but you can hum. You make up new songs to stave off the ever encroaching madness. You used to be terrified of thunder and lightning but now you welcome it, as the gray clouds reminds you of Melanthios. The rain washes your filthy, sunburned body and gives you something to drink but there is nothing to be done about your hunger or the way your body has been rendered obsolete from being chained up.

You have completely lost feeling in your arms and legs.

The skin around your wrists is scarred over repeatedly from when you had first struggled to break free. After countless rounds of scabbing and infections you would fail to die from, you simply gave up and accepted your fate.

It is an exceedingly hot day when the angel decides to make an appearance after an entire season. The only relief today has been the sweetness carried on the wind—the smell reminding you so terribly of the oil Dorothea used.

“Sinner.” The angel greets brusquely as they appear before you, floating midair with their arms crossed and wings flared out. For a long while all they do is stare at you and the state you have been reduced to. “God has asked me to check up on you. Tell me, between the starvation, dehydration, exposure to the elements, the loss of feeling in your limbs and utter solitude, have you at last seen the error of your ways? Are you remorseful?” And they uncross their arms as they realize something, even laughing a little jovially, “Ah, but you cannot speak, can you? My Father did not ask me to remove the thread from your lips so you will have to express yourself in a different way. Blink three times in quick succession if you are remorseful.”

You do not have the strength to lift your head and truly look them in the face to give an answer. You have just enough to get one of your twitching, nearly useless hands to move: tucking the thumb between your index and middle finger in a well-known gesture of insult.

It shocks the angel so much their arms drop to their sides.

“Even now you remain obstinate. You are a lost cause. A source of evil that should be uprooted and cleansed with fire. Yet my Father has decided you will live and that I will be the one to overseer your redemption. Angels are meant to shepherd humans onto the righteous path but you, and you alone, fill me with such hate that I would gladly kill you myself for all of the trouble you have caused.”

Do they hear themselves? They are confirming that angels are no better than humans—just as flawed, just as prone to violence. If everything is made in God’s image then this is evidence that he, too, is flawed.

You ignore the angel and go back to humming the song you have been working on.

How unbothered you are truly infuriates them.

In a blink the angel is standing right in front of you and has one of their armored hands curled around your throat tight enough to silence your noise. There is nothing you can do about this. You just stare up at the angel through the hair that falls into your face with an expectant look.

“You are making me do this. It is not my fault. I am better than this.” The angel confesses to you in a furious whisper, the hand on your throat shaking now as the fingers squeeze tighter and tighter. Even as your vision swims and the pressure in your head builds up, you do not take your eyes off them.

You even manage to smile despite how much pain it causes you.

It shakes the angel to the core. They tear away from you, nearly falling backwards off the cliff, but manages to correct their footing and ends up toppling to their knees. The blue of their wings and halo has been drained of color like dye washed from a garment. The angel stares at their shaking hands before clutching the sides of their helm in a bout of misery.

“Am I the one being tested? Am I meant to continue failing, to be punished, yet still continue onward unflinching? Why me? What have I done that I must prove myself to my Father?” The angel despairs, and only calms slightly because they find a way to shirk off their guilt onto something else, “...If Lucifer had not tempted Eve we angels would never have to deal with mortals such as you. Yes. It is his fault. Why else would humans disobey and rebel against God if not for the devil’s influence? Does the devil whisper to you, sinner? Does he promise you paradise when all you will be given is Hell?”

Do they ever shut up? Truly, listening to this angel delude and pity themselves is worse than any pain they have inflicted on you. They spend so long harping on about their woes that the birds that usually visit you return. Your voice is even more hoarse than usual because you had been choked but you will yourself to hum to thank your only companions.

The birds coo and rub against your face.

The angel lowers their hands and slowly looks up at you. They are rendered mute from the shock of seeing animals flock to you—you, who was nothing but skin and bone, flesh filthy and burnt, your cut hair an uneven, greasy veil. Were you such an abominable creature to the angel that they thought even the animals would avoid you? Or are they shocked you still have it in you to make music at all despite everything?

The angel is so disturbed they simply leave.

Life goes on.

Years pass.

The angel visits you occasionally but only to have one-sided confessionals where they admit to all the awful things they have done. The angel laments about just kings they were made to kill, the endless rebellions that sprout up and become harder and harder to dismantle, their secret, ashamed grievances on the creation of Hell and how their brother Lucifer was cast out. You never react to any of these things. Even when the angel cuts the threads from your lips you simply stare at them afterwards.

They wanted you to be silent.

They became violent in that effort.

And now they wanted you to talk?

The next time the angel visits they are hysterical in their grief. As soon as they appear before you they drop to the ground and crawl over to you, stopping when they are doubled over with their hands clutching your feet.

“My Father is missing.” The angel cries, “He left without a word to any of us and it has been years now since we heard his voice or felt his light. Heaven is in chaos. None of us know how to proceed. How can it be that things have progressed this way? Why would he do such a thing? Is this another test?”

Out of everything they have said it is the reveal that God is missing that stirs emotion within you. It is not triumph or relief. It is fear. God was the one that cursed you to be immortal and if he has disappeared then you are left with no hope of ever dying.

“Tell me what to make sense of all this. Tell me what I should do.” The angel begs, now resting their helmet against your feet, ignorant to your own despair.

Without their God this angel turns to anyone to receive orders from.

It is truly pathetic.

When their blubbering turns into soft hiccuping, you expect the angel to leave like always but instead they rise unsteadily to their feet and draw one of the massive swords from their hips. The tip of the blue blade makes a calculated strike to the chains around your wrists and ankles and you fall, not onto the ground, but into the angel’s arms. The touch sickens you but you can do nothing about it. The angel flies off from the cliff and carries you towards the coast. It has been so long since you have seen the sea.

...Just how long has it been?

The angel spots a small cottage all by itself on a beach. It looks abandoned. The stone and mortar of the walls is aged from the sea and algae creeps up the corners. The front door is falling apart, the wood rotten from moisture and chipping away like the shed skin of a reptile. It is a one room home with a fireplace, a ruined bed, and some smashed pottery. Spiderwebs and dust veil every surface. A few crabs skitter from beneath the bed.

There is nowhere for you to sit that is clean so the angel lays you down on the sand just outside of the cottage and disappears back inside and starts making a racket. In the corner of your eye you see them bringing things out—the broken door and shards of clay, the ruined linens. You hear their wings flapping rapidly for about a minute. The sand and dust that gets swept up makes you choke and the exact second you do, the flapping stops.

You are moved a little further away and the angel goes right back to it.

You watch the sun set while obsessing over the fact that you will remain immortal even in the face of your newfound freedom. Every time that you think that all hope has been lost you somehow dig up even more to lose.

You barely even register the angel picking you up and bringing you to the ocean. Or that they have removed their armor and the black skirt they wore so they can kneel in the shallows with you laid across their lap. They intend on washing you but the state of your body proves too much for them. They break down in tears at the evidence of all that you have suffered. You were scrawny. Scarred. Covered in years worth of human waste and sweat. Your hair has grown out down to your ankles.

Your hair is tended to first. It would be easier to cut it short and so you wonder why the angel takes the time to spread it out into sections and finger comb it instead. The tips of your hair are worked on first then the angel’s fingers steadily inch higher and higher until you can feel their short fingernails scratching at your scalp. You suffer a new kind of humiliation. You thought this angel to be sexless. Their voice was masculine so you perhaps expected masculine parts but they have breasts that lack nipples and between their thighs is the same parts you have, although hairless.

This angel was beautiful despite all the misery and suffering they were capable of causing.

It makes you hate her even more.

Her body gives you no choice but to reflect on the ruined state of your own. Would your lovers be able to find any beauty in you? Would Dorothea and Mel?

It takes an hour for the angel to wash your hair and the entire time you tear into your bottom lip and use the pain to stop yourself from bursting into tears. You taste blood when the angel moves on to your body. You cannot sit upright without support so you are leaned against the angel’s front and sat on their lap from time to time as they scrub at you. After the ordeal is finished you are carried to the cottage and set down in front of the fireplace, which had been lit at some point. You air dry quickly enough and the angel, now only in their skirt, dresses you in a chiton they procured. As they style it you notice a few things while internally fighting with your dwindling sanity

A pitcher of water and a bowl of fruit has been prepared and set on the floor. The bed has been dressed with new linens and animal furs. The home as a whole looked tidied save for the entrance. If you laid down on your side you could see right outside to the water.

The back of your neck is cupped and you are given water to drink.

Your lips part before you can will your body to protest. You drink greedily and it shames you. When you spill all over yourself the angel wipes the water off your chin you flinch hard, expecting to be harmed in some way and that makes both of you pause for different reasons. After a long moment of nothing happening the angel goes back to helping you drink and makes sure to pour the water in a slower trickle. The touch is so tender you wish you were being hurt instead. The hands touching you carefully now are the same ones that choked you.

The irony is not lost on you.

It makes you laugh, in fact.

Just the one—a miserable laugh that was more like a cough than a true expression of mirth. The angel mistakes it as you choking again and sets the pitcher aside to sit you upright and pat your back. Eating is far more difficult then drinking. The angel feeds you a bushel of grapes one by one. It is laborious. Your jaw is weak and the muscles locked from how long it had been shut. You become exhausted at a faster rate than you can chew.

You are not forced to eat anything else. You are laid down in bed and tucked under the animal furs while the angel quietly stands over you, hands curling loosely into fists as they consider something.

“...Mortal,” The angel begins cautiously, “What will you do now that you have been freed?”

You were trying not to think about that.

You have an eternity ahead of you and each second of it wandering this earth alone terrified you in an unspeakable way. You cannot return to your old city. You cannot live your old life. You are not the same person anymore and no one you cared for remains. But you cannot start a new life either. You were barely even human most days, rambling to yourself and screaming in bouts of misery, hearing voices that you wished were real but never turn out to be. However long you were chained to that rock made it so you forgot every aspect of being a human with wants and needs and now you have been mercilessly dumped back into the song and dance now that you have become a stranger to the tune.

The angel interprets your silence as refusal to answer.

“You owe me no answers.” They speak for you, nodding in understanding, “This place could serve as a new home for you. It is far away enough from the cities that no one will harm you. It will take your body time to recover its strength and so it is only right that I assist you with that until you are able to stand on your own. I will visit daily to tend to you, but there will be times that I am away. I ask that you call upon me during those times. My name is Gabriel—pray to me and I will arrive at once.”

Gabriel.

So you have a name to attach to this angel at last.

You do not offer your own name. She does not deserve it even if you did feel like speaking. You lay there, unmoving besides your chest rising and falling. Your continued staring unnerves her. Her wings flap a few times and she shifts her weight from foot to foot. Seeing as how she will receive no response, Gabriel offers a curt nod and leaves. You hear her gathering her armaments from the sand then hear the high-pitched droning noise of her teleporting.

For the first time in ages you fall asleep instead of passing out from exhaustion. It may not look very different from each other but it is. You feel the exact moment your body grows heavy and your breathing evens out. You imagine Dorothea curling around you, the scent of almonds wafting up your nose, and you pretend that the softness of the bed is her chest instead, your own heartbeat hers instead.

The problem with torture is that once it stops there is always the lingering dread it will return.

When you wake up hours later you panic because you are on your back instead of upright like you have become used to. Your arms and legs are freed but you cannot move them. It takes you a long while to remember that the muscles are too weak to move just yet. Your limbs will be of use to you someday again but not this day. You crane your face to the right and find that the sun is setting. You have slept the entire day. Not that it mattered. You were not a person with obligations. You were not a person at all.

Just some...human shaped wound that constantly leaked its blood and sorrow behind it in a trail.

You are starting to process the horribleness of everything. It hits you hard and it hits all at once. You missed everyone so much. Would they even recognize you as the thing you are now? You used to be sweet. Now you are bitter, violent and half crazed. You have killed so many. None that you regret but the act of killing still weighs heavily on your heart. You never dreamed of leading a rebellion. It had simply happened.

You were a farmer but your real calling was as a musician. You sang out against the injustices you saw and your words struck a chord with others until you had amassed a following of over two hundred.

Now all that remained of your rebellion was you.

...What have you accomplished in doing all this?

The religion you rebelled against remains and you doubt that the angels are going to reveal to mortals that God has fled. Would it even matter if humans were told that? Blind faith was a sickness that many seemed happy enough to embrace. No matter how you look at everything your suffering has been for nothing. You made no lasting changes on this region. You and everyone, everything, remain a slave to the wants of divinity.

Was there such a thing as true freedom?

If there is you will never know it, trapped as you are to this mortal coil.

A shadow cuts across the doorway.

“Forgive me for my lateness.” Gabriel tells you politely as they step inside with a woven basket hanging off the crook of an arm. “I have brought you more food. Allow me a moment to collect some water.”

They leave and return in a flash then go about the same ordeal as yesterday, although in a different order. They feed you first, then bathe you. They even help you through the mortifying process of relieving yourself. If you did not already want to kill this angel the indignity of all of this would convince you, without a doubt. They must see you as some rabid animal in need of help.

You wish you had the energy to snarl like one.

You are forced into a schedule: wake up, wait for the angel to arrive, have them take care of you, and then go to bed either haunted by your memories or filled with dread at the future. This goes on for some time. At least two weeks you think. One morning you wake up and find that your body is not fighting against you at every step. It was still putting up a fight but a manageable one. You are able to sit up in bed. You can even walk, although you have little energy. You can make it as far as the beach before becoming winded.

You sit on the shore and watch the water.

“Oh? Has your body recovered at last?” Gabriel says in greeting after teleporting about a yard behind you. They walk over, mindful of kicking up sand at your back, and stop to stand at your side. “You must be relieved. This area is bountiful with fruits and animals. You will have no difficulty gathering food but I insist on continuing to provide for you as your body will still need more time adjusting. Is there anything else that you may need?”

“Kill me.” You say, the first words you have uttered with purpose since having your mouth sewn shut.

The angel looks away, halo dimming.

“...It is out of my power to grant that. You know this.” Gabriel replies ashamedly.

“How long was I imprisoned?” You demand instead.

The angel has a hard time addressing that particular question. They are silent for so long you wonder whether or not you asked the question out loud or if it had been in your head.

“...Seventy five years.”

Seventy five ?

You had been chained to a cliff for an entire human’s lifespan?

You let out a bark of laughter. Then another and another, tears blinding your vision as you fall onto your back and cup a hand over your eyes.

“Surely there must be something you desire other than that.” Gabriel reasons with you, wanting so desperately to move on from this topic.

“What should I desire in your opinion? Food and water? Trinkets?” You stand up to accuse hotly, “Those are things a person wants and I am no longer a person. Heaven has made certain of that. You made certain of that.”

Gabriel kneels before you like a dog being scolded for a mess.

“There are no words to express how sorry—” They begin to say but you have none of it.

“Shut up!” You fume, “I will never forgive you. You humiliated me and took joy in my suffering. Why should I care that you regret it now?”

“I would do anything to make amends.”

“You would do anything to absolve yourself of your guilt.” You correct.

“Please...there must be something I can do.” Gabriel begs, “Even if you only wish to voice your contempt for me. Even if you want to strike me. I will bare it all. I would even become your servant. Anything.”

“Grovel at someone else’s feet.” You dismiss nastily and leave the angel all by their lonesome.

To your unending annoyance the angel still visits daily, although they are mindful not to enter the cottage or speak. They leave a basket of goods at your doorway. The pile of firewood never diminishes and even though you have not tidied the cottage it still looks clean. Every time you take a walk in the surrounding area and accidentally run into Gabriel they perk up as if expecting to at last receive an order.

You never spare them more than a single glance before continuing onward.

One evening after returning from a walk you see the angel seated behind the cottage with a small fire going and while they do not turn towards you as you walk past, you still see their wings twitch expectantly.

You lose what little patience you had left and rush over to them. It does not even feel like you are the one controlling your body. Your heart is beating so loudly it thuds in your ears. Before Gabriel can speak, probably to offer their services to you, you press both hands to their breastplate and push. Even if you were not weak from muscle atrophy your strength would never be enough to genuinely cause harm to a being such a them. Yet the angel goes down all the same. They let you push them down onto their back. They let you dig your fingers into the gaps of their armor and undo the leather straps and buckles keeping everything in place. You tear the main piece of their armor off like a crab’s shell and expose the angel’s soft, black skin.

You take one of their swords. It should be impossible for you to lift such a burdensome thing but through sheer spite you manage to drag it over, lift it by the hilt, and hold it with shaking hands over their bosom, the tip of the blade pointed at their heart.

Each breath makes their breast kiss the blade.

“Yes. This is exactly what I deserve.” Gabriel tells you approvingly, arms spread out at her sides as if expecting an embrace instead of a stab to the heart.

You refuse to give her a quick, easy death.

Or death at all.

Why should she have what you couldn’t?

You refrain from sinking the sword into her heart and instead carve her up like an animal, leaving deep lacerations all over her chest and stomach. No matter how much of her blood is spilled the angel does not fight against you. Or even react past shaky exhalations.

“Maim me. Break me. Spill my blood as recompense.” She whispers like a lover’s secret.

It makes you sick.

...What would your loved ones think of you doing this? If anyone you knew was still alive they would be repulsed. ‘Either kill them or let them be’, you imagine Dorothea scolding you. To kill out of vengeance was one thing. An understandable, human thing. To carve up this angel like this with no true intention of ending their life was barbaric.

The problem is not that Gabriel is undeserving of your wrath.

They deserve so much of it.

But this is beneath you.

You refuse to kill this angel and you do not have the stomach to punish them physically like you had once hoped. Self-hatred blindsides you and couples with the nausea burrowing in your gut. You crawl off Gabriel to vomit on the sand. Their blood all over you inspires even more retching. You hate them and you hate what you have become.

You break down in an ugly fashion. You are screaming with how hard you cry; throat raw and body shaking as you curl up on the sand next to your own mess. If you cannot die you wish you could just know a semblance of peace but everything is awful and it is awful constantly, every single moment of your existence tinged with grief and a fury that has changed you fundamentally as a person.

“There is no reason to despair on my behalf.” Gabriel assures through a subdued hiss of pain, “I am not worthy of it. The wounds have already healed. Do you see? I can take more.”

Succumbing to a whirlwind of emotions, you grab one of their swords and since Gabriel thinks you intend to hurt them again, they make no move to stop you and by the time they realize what you actually plan on doing, it is too late.

You plunge yourself on top of the sword and gravity eases you down the blade. It pierces your heart and you can only let out the shallowest of gasps. The pain is so acute your thoughts slow to a halt. You remain alive no matter how much blood pours out of you. The wound will not heal as long as the sword remains.

You are not even allowed the respite of mind-numbing pain.

Gabriel lifts you into their arms and pulls the blade out slowly and it is like all your strength runs out along with your blood. You become limp in their arms. Eyes lolled to the back of your head as your body heals itself. Your senses slowly return to you. You find yourself in bed naked. Gabriel is seated on the floor in front of the fireplace. Your chiton is held between their hands. The blood has been scrubbed off but not entirely. It looks more like wine had been spilled on it rather than blood. The angel is concentrated on sewing up the hole in the front. They do not notice that you have woken up or that you were staring at them.

Tears pour down your cheeks ceaselessly.

You don’t want to be like this anymore.

Bitter, angry and always tiptoeing around complete madness. But you are unsure if there is any crawling out of this pit. You do not think you have the strength. Your soul feels heavy. Your heart feels like a rotten clump filled with worms. Your body feels like a stranger.

You ruminate for however long. Long enough that the angel disappeared at some point and when you next take note of them, you find Gabriel sitting beside you on the edge of the bed with a bowl of fruit on their lap. They grip a peach with both hands and tug until the ripe flesh splits evenly in half, the juices spilling down the pit and trailing down their wrists. One half is held just in front of your face.

Your stomach growls but you make no move to eat, even as some of the nectar starts dribbling on you.

It is not like you will die from starvation, no matter how much you’d like to anyways.

“Please eat.” Gabriel asks you gently, “Even just a few bites.”

You refuse.

They could pry open your mouth and shove food inside. They could pinch your nose shut until you were forced to part your lips for a breath. Gabriel pleads with you softly, using the crook of a finger to smear the peach’s nectar against your lips in hopes that it entices you. It does. Even as you continue to cry you open your mouth and accept what they offer.

“Thank you.” They tell you graciously.

You become bedridden in your grief for many days. You do not allow the angel to care for you beyond bringing things and reminding you to eat at least once a day.

They return inside the cottage after gathering firewood and stop dead in their tracks when they see you upright in bed going through the laborious endeavor of braiding your ankle length hair. You have to squint at them when you turn to look because the cottage still lacks a door and at this time of day a stubborn ray of sunlight always cuts across the threshold and paints a line of the bed in gold.

“Beautiful.” Gabriel says in a captivated manner then startles badly a second later, “This morning is beautiful.” And when you give them a strange look they feel the need to keep talking, “Would you like me to carry you somewhere so that you may bask in the sun?”

“I will make the walk myself.” You say and finished with your hair you toss the braid over one shoulder and shuffle out of bed.

You walk away from the beach and into the lush foliage skirting it. Gabriel trails behind you a good distance, not quite your shadow, more like an animal eagerly waiting for scraps. Or perhaps a new owner. You find where the sun is the strongest and lay down on the grass to enjoy it. You close your eyes and try to think of only the warmth shining down on you and the pleasant feeling of the breeze caressing your face.

Tentative footsteps sound off.

The angel is nearby but does not want to encroach upon this quiet moment. Even without making a sound animals flock to you. Songbirds dance around your head, taking a few hairs from your braid to use in their nests, and here and there bees buzz along, momentarily curious about your existence but ultimately moving onto the flowers nearby. Something heavy rests its head on your stomach and lets out a big sigh as if relieved.

You crack open an eye and see that a young deer has curled up beside you. You offer your hand for it to sniff and its wet nose tickles you. You stroke its fur and begin to hum absentmindedly. You vowed to never again sing or play any instruments after losing those closest to you but you always make a compromise for the animals that were kind enough to spend time with you.

You wake up from an impromptu nap to find a cloud has blocked out the sun.

...No, it hasn’t.

You blink a few times and realize that Gabriel has stretched out one of their wings over you.

“I did not want your skin to burn.” They explain without you needing to ask.

“How kind of you to spare me a few minutes of sunlight when you left me to rot on a cliff under it for decades.” You scoff.

Gabriel says nothing to that.

How badly it gutted them is only evident by the sloping of their shoulders and the whitening of their wings. Your sudden foul mood upsets the deer and it lets out a whine. Struck with guilt at disturbing its rest, you shush it and brush your fingers through its fur.

The angel lifts their helm as if hearing something.

“I am being summoned back to Heaven.” Gabriel tells you as they stand to their feet, “It seems urgent. Something must have happened.”

You say nothing as you wait for them to leave already.

“...I am unsure when I will be able to return.”

“A tragedy.”

“Do you...have everything that you need? Will you be fine in my absence?”

“Your absence would be a blessing. And I was fine all by myself for many, many, many years, as you recall.”

“I see.” They say miserably, still not having learned that attempting to extend any kindness towards you will only gift them a cruel slap of reality. “I know I do not deserve to ask but...may I know your name?”

“People have names.”

“You are a person.”

“Am I?” You challenge. “After everything I have gone through do you still truly believe that?”

“I do.” Gabriel tells you steadfastly.

This is no meek assurance to get on your good side. They genuinely believe in what they say and you are not sure how to feel about that.

“Calliope.” You tell them.

You are shocked that it does not feel as great of a loss as you anticipated to reveal this to them. Even more shocked when the angel bends at the knee with their helm lowered respectfully.

“Calliope,” Gabriel begins as they lift their helm, “I swear to you that I will find my Father and I will ask that He release you from your curse.”

Struck speechless, all you can do is stare wide-eyed with your mouth aloft.

Something like hope flutters in your chest.

“Please be safe until I next return.” Gabriel says in farewell before teleporting.

You remain seated on the grass watching the gold specks of divinity in the wake of their leave for quite a while.

One night as you are sleeping you startle awake upon hearing a sort of shriek, or whistle, one that starts off high-pitched and pierces your eardrums so much that your teeth ache, followed by a roar then a tumultuous crash, the entirety of the surrounding area seeming to tremble with the sudden impact of whatever had landed.

Soon enough smoke, acrid and thick with the stench of burning sap, wafts into the cottage. But there is something else tinging the foul smell. Something meatier. It turns your stomach. You have long since forgotten fear but smoke always makes your heart lock up and your palms sweat at the memories they drag kicking and screaming to the surface. Smoke and fire have always been a warden, death, their heartless master, one that refused to give you audience no matter what you offered it.

You venture outside and see the smoke rising from the mainland well away from the beach.

With the same calm one would show while taking a stroll through a well populated safe haven, you traverse through the dark woods. You tiptoe past smoldering trees with an arm crooked over your face to shield you from the oppressive smoke. You wander into a clearing and see an enormous crater at the center, so deep that from where you stand it looks like a pitch black chasm.

It seems a star has fallen. The novelty of such a magnificent occurrence like this draws you over like a moth to a flame, uncaring of your bare feet burning repeatedly as you walk across scorched earth. Each step makes a hiss as the skin on the soles of your feet burns then heals, the process repeating over and over until you are standing at the cradle of the fallen star.

But there is no star.

No treasure to marvel at from the Heavens, although something from Heaven was unmistakably there, laying in a broken heap.

Face down and naked is an angel. Their clothes have been reduced to cinders and their shapely form is covered in burns. Once pretty feathered wings have become charred to the point of ruination, not a single feather left. All that remains is the frame of the wings, the skin so thin in some places you can see bone. Littered like a broken shell around them is ruined armor that you would have to be blind not to recognize even in its current state.

The armor is shattered and covered in soot. Some of the larger shards are lodged into their body and the smell of burning divine blood joins the bouquet of ash and ruined flesh. The smell was almost worse than the smoke. It was like a large animal had been roasted without having first been cleaned and properly prepared.

You can see Gabriel’s chest rising and falling.

They are not dead but they are a breath away from it. They must be in agony. The force of impact failed to snuff out their life but the smoke and their steady blood loss seems eager to finish the job. It is not out of care that you run back towards the cottage and fetch a wooden bucket. It is not kindness when you gather water at a river in the woods. It certainly isn’t worry coursing through you as you dump the water across the angel. Gabriel barely reacts even as a cloud of steam rises off their body.

The earth around them is still unfathomably hot but you can make your way down inside the crater even if your feet got stuck as skin melts and becomes momentarily grafted with nature. You are able to roll them onto their side and take a closer look at their many injuries. Most pressing of all are the bits of armor stuck in them.

You need to act fast.

You grip the largest piece of metal and tug with all of your strength. You do not care that the heat causes it to sear the deep cut it etches into your palm. You wrestle your hands over the wound and press your weight against it to stop it from gushing out. As you wait you stare at Gabriel’s helm, which remains somehow perfectly intact, although changed. Their helm is red like a fresh wound and the gold laurels affixed to the sides have elongated into a pair of sharp horns.

The light of their halo is nonexistent. Or perhaps they simply do not posses one any longer.

Their legs and feet have changed drastically. Their lower half is still humanoid but its shaped like how you imagine an upright goat would look, and while they do not have hooves, they do have clawed feet like a gargoyle.

...The devil had been cast out of Heaven for tempting Eve and starting a rebellion.

What has this angel done to be disgraced the same way?

With the bleeding stopped you wriggle your way under Gabriel and sloppily position them onto your back. They are taller and weigh more than you but not by much. With clenched teeth and trembling legs, you crawl your way out of the crater. Sweat falls into your eyes and blinds you. The smoke and exertion almost makes you faint several times but you are stubborn. If you are anything it is that.

You refuse to let this angel die.

It takes hours and countless breaks but you manage to carry Gabriel back to the cottage. You stagger across the threshold and towards the bed, take a seat, and lay down on your side so the angel rests on their side instead of their back. You have no knowledge of how to treat wounds other than cleaning them and applying pressure to stop bleeding but before you can fret about that you notice that some of Gabriel’s burns are already healing. They heal the same way you do. You had completely forgotten about this aspect.

Having something in common with them makes you feel odd.

You distract yourself by going back to the river and fetching water. You are not sure if angels needed sustenance of any kind. If they do not end up drinking it you will simply use it to wash them. You grab the wooden stick you sharpened into a spear to catch some fish. Its night so you cannot see the shadows of the fish but you easily lure them over to you by scattering some berries you picked. As soon as you see a ripple at the surface of the water you plunge the spear.

You return with four gutted and cleaned fish on your spear and a bucket of fresh water.

You lean the spear against the fireplace and remind yourself to flip it every once in a while. You grab the clay pitcher, dunk it into the bucket and fill it up to the brim, then approach the bed. You tip the pitcher and watch closely as the water trickles across Gabriel’s helm. It gets absorbed. You even see them swallow. You cup your hand against their helm and pour the water into that, making a sort of well that is slowly drained.

Was there a face under that helmet?

Or was the helmet their face?

When the fish is ready you let it cool then pick around the bones until you have a small pile of tender flesh in your palm. You pinch some of it and press it to Gabriel’s helm. It just rubs there uselessly and spreads grease. You try sneaking your fingers underneath the helmet but its closed off where it touches their neck so it is either a permanent fixture or it truly is their head. You sit on the floor in front of the fireplace while you eat. Hours pass and their condition improves steadily except for their wings.

They looked worse in fact.

Brittle and black.

Maybe there was something superficial preventing them from healing. You soak a cloth and carefully crawl over Gabriel to sit behind them on your knees. You cautiously touch one of their wings with the tip of a finger and your mouth falls open with horror when it disintegrates onto your lap into a pile of black crumbles. Their other wing twitches out of habit and the same thing happens. The empty sockets left behind on their shoulder blades looks like gouged eyes and the blood spilling out it was like tears.

You do not trust yourself to touch them further after that.

You do not sleep that night.

You stay vigilant and watch over the angel. Each time you give them a drink of water you take note of any changes. The last time you did you noticed a bump over their tailbone. Now that you are looking at it again you see blood on the sheets. Moving it away you see that something has sprung forth from the open wound—a tail. One that is black and leathery. The tip is shaped like an arrowhead.

Their back begins to swell at an alarming rate soon after.

You boil some water and press a steaming cloth to their angry skin, changing the position every few seconds, but the longer time passes the more in pain they seem to be. The murmurs of discomfort have devolved into gut-wrenching whimpering. You hear a squelching sound that makes the hair on your body stand on end. You nervously examine their back again and see that two sharp points are peeking out of their skin.

You wrestle Gabriel onto your back and bring them to the sea. With some careful maneuvering you sit down in the water and settle them to lay atop you. They are submerged deep enough in the water that only their helmet remains above the surface. The prominent chin of their helm digs into your stomach uncomfortably but you pay it no mind.

Your eyes are glued to the things breaching their back.

Gabriel wakes up with a gasp. They try to shakily push off you but you cup the back of their helm and keep them from moving.

“W-What is happening to me…? What is this awful feeling?” They whimper as they cling to you like a child.

You have no answers for them.

As they are struggling to process everything you hear another squelching sound and Gabriel cries out, arms shaking with how tightly they hold onto you. The things sticking out of their back suddenly burst out and unfurl in a gory mess. The angel shouts so loud their voice gives out. Then they sob uncontrollably. They even cry for their father to help them. But he has abandoned them and they have been cast out.

The only one to witness their suffering is you.

You hum and begin to rock them in your arms as their...wings finish sprouting from their back. Just like their tail these wings were black and leathery much like a bats. They are thin enough that you can see through them when the sun hits them. They look impressive even with all the viscera hanging off them. There is no denying that with all these new changes that Gabriel is now devilish in nature.

When the pain becomes manageable you feel Gabriel squirm out of your arms so she can see herself in the water’s reflection.

She lets out a brokenhearted little gasp.

“My halo! My wings!” She despairs, hands raised to touch her helm and the horns that now sit there but losing the courage so her hands just fall into the water with a splash, “All goodness has been stripped of me. I cannot stand to see the creature that I have become. I cannot bare to live a life shunned by the Light.”

She wraps her arms around herself and folds inward as if trying to shrink into something small enough that could be carried off by a breeze. You try to lead her out of the water but she fights against you.

“Why did you save me?” Gabriel cries, “Why couldn’t you have just let me die?”

You bend at the knee and grip her chin with your hand to force her to look at you.

“I will not walk this earth for eternity by my lonesome. You will be with me every step of the way. I will drag you along with me kicking and screaming if I must.” You tell her in a tight voice with wild eyes.

She is quiet at your words.

Stunned into total silence as she gazes at you.

You rise to your feet and offer a hand down.

“Come along, Gabriel.” You say.

She hesitates, still shaking like a leaf as she cries her heart out in the water. But eventually she does move. She slips her hand into yours and shakily stands. She’s off-balanced because of her new wings and her emotions so it is no surprise at all as you lead her over to the cottage that one of her knees buckles and forces you to curl an arm around her waist and pull her to you tightly.

Not a word is said between the two of you for many days.

You have Gabriel take the bed as she finishes becoming accustomed to her new body. She mostly sleeps. When she is awake she simply curls up and cries, so you have made a habit of bringing her along on the walks you take each morning and night. She had to get used to the new gait she must walk with because of her clawed feet anyways. She has no care about her naked form being on display because you are the only one that has been granted permission to see her, no other mortal able casually lay their eyes upon breasts and an ass that still counts as divine in your opinion even if Heaven deems it unworthy.

You were not chaste—not in the slightest, but Gabriel strikes you as a chaste woman so even if she temporarily has no care about her modesty you still get to work on making her a peplos out of one of the spare linens. She has understandably never worn human garments before and so you are made to show her how to put it on.

“Do all the women of this region wear this?” She asks, her voice a little scratchy from disuse, as you wrap the girdle around her waist.

“Yes.” You answer around the metal pin hanging from your mouth.

“Then why aren’t you?”

You let your eyes flit to her helm and with your attention on her you take the pin from your mouth and set it in place near her shoulder.

“I never felt wholly attached to womanhood. Or manhood.” You explain.

It is perhaps the first bit of information you have ever freely offered to her. She hums and says nothing more on the subject. You have her turn around so you can make a little hole for her tail, otherwise it would lift up the back of the garment and expose her. It’s slightly challenging wrangling her tail into the hole. Frustrated, you grab the damn thing and feed the arrowhead tip through the hole. Gabriel yelps and jumps about a foot in the air.

You release her tail at once.

“Did that hurt?.” You say.

“I—It’s okay! It merely took me by surprise.” She hastily explains.

When you are not forcing her to do things Gabriel tends to sleep a lot. You are not sure if it is her body still recovering from its changes or if angels just tend to sleep a lot. You are more than used to sleeping on the floor by now but you are still adjusting to all the new noises that come with sharing a living space with someone. Gabriel tends to snore in her sleep. Her clawed feet tear up the linens. Here and there her wings flap or her tail knocks into something, usually the wall the bed is pressed against.

Sometimes you just watch her sleep and you are not sure why.

“It is not right that I’ve made you sleep on the ground.” Gabriel makes known after waking up from a nap and noticing you seated in front of the fireplace while going through the motions of eating, the hunger present, but your desire to eat nonexistent as it has been for a while now. “Now that I am stable I should return your bed to you.”

“Keep it.” You dismiss with a wave.

“We could share it.”

You lower the peach from your mouth and turn to give her a look.

“Absolutely not.” You say at once.

You do not expect her gaze to lower to her lap. Or for her tail to become limp where it lays across the ground.

“...Is it because I look like this?” She asks quietly.

She looks the very definition of insecure now.

There is nothing you cannot stand less than someone looking so miserable—least of all a woman. Something about it just inspires you into action. Without you even truly making the decision you go over to Gabriel to stand over her.

“I am trying to be polite.” You explain, “And I am not one for politeness but I must be because you have completely neglected the glaring fact that I do not want to share a bed with you because it would mean both of us are naked and pressed against one another.”

“We are both women.”

“Yes, and I have bed many, many women.” You make clear.

The point you were trying to make finally dawns on her.

“Oh.” Is all she says.

She doesn’t say anything else all night. She must be ruminating about how much she walked around naked before you gave her something to wear. Had she thought you had been looking at her like a fellow sister this entire time? Not that you have been allowing yourself to stare. Gabriel has always been beautiful and glorious but it was obscured by your hatred for them and their own blinding pompousness.

Now in this quiet, shared recovery you are able to see them as something other than their Father’s weapon.

Even in a peplos made from sheets she looks jaw-dropping in her grace. She has been disgraced but still walks with her back straight and her helm held high. The new way she walks because of her clawed feet strikes you as the same gait shared by a predator cat slinking behind its prey. She has such powerful legs. Perhaps the thickest pair of thighs you have ever seen. Her tits are round and perky; perfect fruit for each of your hands. What steals your attention the most is her backside. Gabriel, without a shadow of a doubt, has the fattest ass your eyes have ever been blessed to see. .

It jiggled when she took the smallest of steps, for star’s sake.

“You must be getting tired of fruit and whatever else we manage to forage nearby.” Gabriel startles you from your thoughts by saying. She is standing in front of the fireplace with her her hands on her hips. She sighs before next speaking. “I am ignorant when it comes to cooking because angels have no need of such things. Even in the...state I am currently the need to eat remains obsolete. But if you are to maintain your health then we must vary your diet.”

“I eat fish.” You point out instead of starting an argument about her feeling the need to take care of you, which comes off as fussy instead of as oppressive like it used to.

“Hmm..surely catching and cooking fish will not prove insurmountable to one such as I. I have seen you do it quite a few times now so it should prove simple enough. Very well, then. I will take care of your meal for this evening.” She remarks and without any of your input she teleports.

It was refreshing to see her busy, at the very least.

Gabriel returns shortly after and presents to you a handful of fish that were so mangled and poorly scaled that it looked like a family of cat’s had gotten to it before she did. At your stunned blinking she begins to preen.

“I doubted myself as well but it seems that there was very little to worry about.” She brags as she clumsily shoves each of the fish onto the stick you used for roasting. She places the meat too close to the fire and forgets to flip it over.

The fish char way more than anyone’s liking and smoke fills up the cottage.

“It seems I have failed…” She announces pointlessly as she fans out the smoke with her wings as you cough up a lung. “Well, I suppose I could catch some more and try again.”

She does but the results are practically the same.

“Damnable fish. I will not be bested.” Gabriel curses with her tail whipping moodily.

You snort loudly and she jumps.

“You failed to make dinner but have succeeded in providing the entertainment that should accompany it.” You say with a hint of a smile, just the smallest quirking of the corner of your mouth.

“A-At least I am of some use to you.” She stammers, suddenly looking away from you as she worries her tail between her hands.

“I will teach you how to do it properly.” You offer.

“...You will? Why?”

“Because wasting food irks me and without instruction you will squander the lives of many fish.” You explain curtly, “Go catch some more and bring them to me alive. We will make dinner together.”

When she returns the two of you sit outside on the beach. You show her the most efficient way to kill a fish without making it suffer unnecessary pain, the proper way to remove the scales and the innards without puncturing any of the organs and making a mess.

“It would be better with salt or a drizzle of seasoned oil but the fire alone will make it decent.” You explain as the fish are set in front of the fire to roast.

“What do the people of this region typically eat?” Gabriel inquires as she moves to sit closely to you on her folded knees.

You force yourself to stare at the cooking fish instead of focusing on how pretty her skin looks with the firelight dancing against it.

“Mostly fish, given we are so close to the sea and have so many rivers. Meat from cattle is saved for special occasions. Like anyone else we enjoy fruits and greens. Wheat and lentils.” You tell her, speaking in a neutral, detached way.

“I see. And what meals do you prefer? I will do my best to replicate them.” She eagerly offers.

You immediately think of the fish stew your mother would make and the memory of it hits you square in the gut and leaves you watery-eyed and reeling.

You sort of freeze in place.

“Calliope?” Gabriel calls out, growing concerned, and you do not hear them calling until they have moved in front of you and blocked the fireplace you had begun staring at intensely. “Is something wrong? Have I upset you?”

You just stare at her.

Then you suck in a breath and feel yourself shake all over like a dog leaving a pond.

“I sincerely doubt that you can cook the things I enjoyed but it will be humorous seeing you try, so I will tell you.” You rely on years of performing to get yourself to speak in the face of your thoughts buzzing around your skull like a swarm of flies on a hot day.

You proceed to lie and tell her all sorts of complicated recipes that needed well sought out ingredients—things that only royalty had access to.

Gabriel seems very confused on all the things you describe but she remains painfully earnest in her want to do this.

You almost feel bad for lying but speaking the truth felt a lot worse.

“What is taking so long?” You huff while stepping out of the cottage and rounding the side to make it towards the back where Gabriel was supposed to be chopping firewood—a chore they insisted upon taking for themselves despite all your dismissals—but when you find her she is kneeling on the ground breathing hard, her wings trembling.

“Forgive me…” She forces herself to speak despite the great effort it takes her, “The pain is more acute today than usual. I will have this task finished shortly.”

“Pain? What are you talking about?” You demand.

“My fall from grace had lasting effects beyond the change in my appearance. Or perhaps what I am dealing with now is because of those changes. There is a constant pain that ravages my body. I can tolerate it most times but now it is...almost unbearable. However, I will make no excuses for myself. Please, be patient and grant me some more time to finish my work.”

“Can you still teleport?” You ask.

“Yes...I think I can manage. But why?” She replies.

“Go to bed and rest. I will chop the wood.”

“I will be fine after catching my breath!” She has the nerve to protest.

“Gabriel.” You say firmly in warning and she quiets, “Do not argue with me and do not make me repeat myself.”

She caves immediately.

She can handle all manner of things except you potentially becoming upset with her. With a nod, she obediently teleports off. You take care of the firewood in no time at all. You haul everything inside and almost drop the axe on your foot when you take note of how Gabriel is curled up on their front in a sort of ball, her helm buried against the pillow she’s clutching. Her wings flutter sporadically as she is overwhelmed with pain.

She had been whimpering but stops the noise once she hears you arrive. She tucks the pain somewhere down deep as to not inconvenience you with it.

“I will make up for this failure of mine.” She promises desperately in the shaky cadence of an animal trying to avoid being put down for a bad leg.

“Enough of that.” You tut as you take a seat on the bed next to her. She mumbles an apology and hides her helmet again. “Where does it hurt?”

“...Everywhere.” Gabriel confesses, “My bones, my muscles—all of it aches but there is a sharp pain in my back where my wings grew in.”

You think she only gives you an honest answer because she has already irritated you once and is nervous about testing your patience.

“Would being touched make it worse?”

“I am not sure.”

“Then we’ll just have to see.” You hum.

You have her straighten out and reach towards her front to unpin her peplos and remove the girdles. You avert your eyes as you lower her peplos towards her waist and only return them once she is laying back down. You cannot help but take a few seconds to admire how sculpted the muscles of her back is.

“Tell me if this hurts.” You say as you set your hands flat between her shoulder blades where both wings sprout out of. You do nothing but rub the area shallowly for a moment, allowing her to get used to someone touching her in a vulnerable spot. You can feel how tense she is. The muscles are like rocks with how stiff they are.

You dig some of your fingers in and start kneading.

Her shaking becomes a little more pronounced but she makes no outward sign of this causing her additional pain.

...Until she whimpers and grips some of the sheets.

“I told you to tell me—” You begin.

“It hurts but in a relieving way.” She tells you in between her harsh breaths. “Please keep going.”

You swallow hard at that.

It has been nearly a hundred years since you heard a pretty woman telling you ‘please’ in bed and it effects you just as potently as it did back then. But as strong as this desire is, you have always been stronger, and find that you can snuff out your wants with the ease one would pinching out a flame. Your hands do not linger as they tend to her. They remain efficient and polite even as they inch lower and lower to her shapely hips.

“Your hands are deceptively strong for how delicate they look. You have just as many callouses as myself.” Gabriel remarks when her breathing has evened out somewhat.

“I worked on a farm.” Slips out of you without your permission and you scowl, although she cannot see it.

“Ah. No wonder you had no trouble chopping wood. Did you enjoy being a farmer?”

“My true calling was elsewhere, but yes, I suppose I enjoyed it. That is as much as I will address in regard to my former life.”

“I am sorry.”

You hum.

“...I myself enjoy gardening immensely.” Gabriel continues about a minute later, your sudden change in mood not enough to dissuade them.

“What did you grow?” You encourage, a verbal olive branch so to speak.

“Flowers of all kinds. I am well versed in flower language and often use their meanings as inspiration for poetry.” She explains with pride.

...The love of nature and poetry was something you both had in common. The more you think about things the more that you find you have in common with this woman and you are not quite sure how to feel about that.

“I see.” You say, either keeping those similarities secret out of spite or something far more pitiful.

“Your callouses are in very specific spots instead of centralized to your palms like I expected them to be from farm work. You have one on each fingertip.” Gabriel points out.

“It’s from plucking the strings of my lyre. I was a musician.” You say then freeze up.

Why on earth were you telling her these things? Were you so desperate for camaraderie that you would reveal any and everything about yourself? Even the things that you spent most of the day trying not to think on?

“But, surely you already knew that part, given it was my music that powered my rebellion.” You continue, relying on the hurt of an old wound to power you through this conversation, “And we both know how that rebellion ended.”

“...I was only told of the power of your voice. I never had the pleasure of hearing your music.”

“None will ever have that pleasure again.” You declare hotly, “I will never sing again. Just as I will never touch any instrument or tend to a farm.”

“But you enjoy these things.” Gabriel insists.

“I do not need to explain why it hurts to even just think about those things, do I?”

“...No. Of course not. I understand.” She amends, “I will not ask about those things again. Forgive me. But should you ever change your mind I would be more than happy to acquire the things you would need.”

“I will keep that in mind.” You say and nothing else for the remainder of the night.

Most nights that you cannot sleep you spend watching Gabriel sleep or sitting on the beach staring at the waves roll in.

This night, you go for a walk.

Not along the shoreline. You wander into the woods and end up at the crater where Gabriel had landed without really thinking about it. You even end up sitting on the circumference of it, legs dangling as you sit in almost complete darkness save for what moonlight slips through the canopy. There are predators out this late, you know, but you have no fear of being attacked, not out thinking you were skillful enough to dodge the attack of any, but because you simply do not care if you are. You imagine being torn apart by some wild cat and the poor thing becoming confused when you keep breathing no matter how much it tears into you.

You’re imagining it all so vividly that when you hear a growl you mistake it as fantasy until you hear it again.

You look around for eyes glowing in the dark but find none. There are no footsteps in the grass either. No branches breaking under the weight of something significant. Seeing as how you have yet to be mauled, you stand up and look around in the dark, following whatever traces of moonlight you are spared that night.

The growling seems to be sourced elsewhere.

It had been so loud that you were able to hear it from where you were seated. You push past a myriad of trees and come upon an area with a lot of shrubbery. Directly north of you is a cave, one that the foreboding entrance of is half covered with a blanket of ivy, beckoning you inside like a prostitute of dubious origins.

A heartbreaking scene lays before you: strewn about in different places, all dead, is a family of jackals, all in varying shades of ruination. Three wolves of impressive size form a huddle around the carcasses and hearing you approach grabs their attention. Their muzzles wrinkle as they growl at you but their aggression falls flat as you notice something now that you couldn’t with them blocking it previously—tucked behind the corpse of the largest jackal, the mother, is a pup, still alive, and so young that the eyes are still blue, but the ears have stood up, so they must be just about done with milk.

You know how things will play out.

The wolves will posture themselves aggressively until you leave so they can tear into the last jackal left. Then the three of them will wander off to whatever patch of grass they called home and go to sleep with full bellies. You could make a run for it now and you know that the wolves will leave you alone. Why would they abandon one last kill and so many carcasses to be divested of its meat?

But you do not leave.

You keep your eyes on the wolves and slowly lower to the ground to pick up a hefty rock with jagged edges. It fits snugly in your palm. It is not much but it will do. You pick up another rock, one much smaller, and throw it full force at one of the wolves, the rock pelting it in the ribs and making it snap viciously. You keep throwing rocks until the wolves completely turn their backs on the pup. When you see them all lower to the ground in ready of an attack you take a deep breath and brace for what awaits you.

With a sharp bark the leader of the pack lunges at you and forces you to the ground on your back so hard it both winds you and makes you sees stars. Before you can even sit up on your elbows, one of the other wolves snaps its teeth around your left leg and begins to tear into it, meat being ripped from bone with the ease of ripe fruit being plucked from a tree. Your body is so soft and weak. It is perfect for a meal but you do not make yourself an easy one. You remain as stubborn as you always have and even as teeth begin to rip into your neck, you still find it within yourself to raise your arm, steady your grip, and send down the rock on the leader’s head.

It crashes against the side of their head with the jagged side pointed towards it. Something almost breaks but refuses until you give another strike. A part of the leader’s skull has broken around the eye socket and the gash you created blinds them. It only makes them more vicious. They rip out your throat and that stops you for a little bit but only that. As soon as your body allows you to, you are back to your struggling once more.

You thought that the short while you have been living a domestic life would make you a stranger to pain but no, you greet it like an old friend, choking on your bloodied laughter as you are repeatedly gored to no avail while you keep sneaking in hits. The leader on top of you dies with its teeth still clamped around your throat. The other wolves whimper when they see it go still and quiet. You pry the damn things maw open and free yourself and roll out from under it, staggering to your feet with the bloodied rock.

You have the full intention of smashing the brains out of the other two wolves but the loss of their leader has been too great to remain here. You allow the wolves to snatch up a carcass for themselves but howl at them in a crazed manner when they dare to approach the jackal to try sneaking off with it. Unable to understand the kind of threat that you represent, the wolves run off with their kills into the night.

You turn your head to the side and cough a few times to get rid of the blood and...other bits that gathered in your throat.

You turn your attention to the jackal pup.

Just having your eyes on it makes it shake so hard it falls over a few times. It even urinates out of fear. You lower to the ground and lay on your belly. You keep your face towards the pup but act like you are interested with other things instead of it. You start to hum a little tune. The pup whimpers as it paces in a circle and sniffs its dead family. It may not understand yet but its instincts are filling in the gaps. It knows staying here by itself is not viable. But it just saw you fighting those wolves. To it, you could be an even bigger threat. So you make sure to remain still and predictable. You keep humming. And eventually the jackal tiptoes over to you.

It sniffs your hair. Then your hands. You turn to look at it directly and it startles. You keep humming, unbothered, and allow it to process everything at its leisure. When it sniffs your hand again you open it. It’s wet nose tickles your palm. You crook a finger and pet it gently. It nips you a bit in retaliation, not sure what to make of a creature your size touching it, but once it gets used to the feeling it becomes eager for it, now rubbing against your finger.

“There, there, little one.” You coo at it, “Come along with me.”

To your surprise it lets you scoop it up and hold it to your chest. It snuffles at your neck excitedly, senses wild from the stench of the wolves and the spilling of your blood. Whatever remains of your injuries heals on the walk back to the cottage.

You approach the front and stop.

Gabriel is standing under the doorway sloppily dressed as if seconds away from making the decision to go out and find you. She sees the blood all over you. Sees the tears in your chiton and the frightened animal clinging to you.

She leads you inside with a hand on your lower back. You focus on that touch to the point of obsession. Her hand is warm. You can feel its warmth through the fabric. She starts boiling some water while you strip out of your ruined chiton and lay down on the floor naked on your side. Gabriel hands you a steaming cloth and you give yourself a wipe down then clean all the blood and dirt off the pup, who squirms and makes a fuss at being cleaned, but does not bite you, surprisingly enough.

Now that you have light to see with, and the pup is clean, you see that it is a soft yellow color. Almost like wheat. You give a glance behind and find that it’s a girl.

“I told you in the past that in times of need you may pray to me.” Gabriel tells you as you hand feed the pup some dried fish, “Why did you refuse?”

“It slipped my mind.”

You can tell she does not like that answer at all from how her tail begins whipping.

“Please,” She says with much restraint, “In the future if you are in danger do not hesitate to call upon me. Even if I am sleeping. I am more than aware that you will heal but I still do not like seeing you this way.”

You could be mean.

You could mock her and point out that she used to find great pleasure in seeing you bloodied but you don’t. You could lie to yourself and say that it is because the night has been long and you are exhausted.

You do not do that either.

You spare her from harsh words because you do not want to see her harmed by them.

It is simple enough reason yet it leaves you at odds with yourself.

The pup is getting tired now that she’s had something to eat so you start getting yourself comfortable on the floor like usual until Gabriel speaks up again.

“I will take the floor. Your body must be exhausted.” She insists.

“I told you already that it’s fine.”

“Calliope.” She pleads as she takes one of your hands to hold between both of hers. Even with the scars and callouses her skin remains remarkably soft. You get the terrible urge to squeeze her hands. Maybe bring it to your face to press kisses along the ridge of her knuckles. “Please.”

The red of her helm was like the glimmering surface of a ruby under the light of the fire. The gold of her horns, cross and chin twinkle like treasure. Even without a face you can tell she is staring at you with worry. Its in the way she holds your hands and how her wings have drooped.

“We’ll share the bed just for tonight.” You finally say.

She delights at this small win and even does you the favor of picking you up and carrying you to bed, although she makes sure to at least offer an apology afterwards, even if halfhearted. She slips off her peplos and lays beside you curled on her side. Gabriel knows you enjoy women but expresses zero apprehension upon sharing close quarters with you. Resting next to one another seems to brighten her spirits. Was she happy that you seemed to be warming up to her? Or was she happy to have someone occupying the bed with her because that was what she was accustomed to? Did she share a bed with her countless siblings?

You dislike ruining her good mood but now that it is on your mind for the hundredth time you figure you might as well attempt asking.

“Why were you cast out?” You ask Gabriel.

Her attention remains on you but it is eons before she finds it within herself to speak. She may only speak because it is you that is asking.

“...In my Father’s absence a group known as the Council was formed to lead Heaven in His stead. It was meant to be a short-term solution for those of us that became lost without leadership. But it was a mistake. The angels chosen twisted our Father’s words to fit their own means and to garner power. Heaven became less a paradise and more a battleground. The highest ranking angels, including myself, were bid to go to Hell and snuff out the lives of any sinners that strayed from their punishments or dared go against divinity.

“It all seemed wrong.” She continues breathlessly, her mind alive with the memories leading up to her fall, “Instead of offering guidance and comfort the Council only gifted us orders. Orders to kill. To subjugate. I was personally tasked with ending two separate rebellions: one by a former tyrant, one by the judge of Hell. But when I met with the judge he spoke with me cordially. He pleaded not for his own life to be spared but for his people. I met with the tyrant and informed him he would lose and he grinned at me. He told me he did not care. He would fight anyways.

“I refused to kill either of them or ruin the safe havens they made. I returned to Heaven and the blood I spilled was of my siblings. I slayed the Council. Every single one of them. I left them bleeding out like animals across the gilded floors of my Father’s kingdom. In the aftermath I tried to make the rest of my siblings see reason. But they would not listen. They did not have the heart or the strength to kill me and so I was cast out instead. Now I am disgraced.” She finishes with a bitter, incredulous laugh, “Thousands of years of devotion sullied. There were times that my armor weighed my spirit down. It is funny how even with it ruined, I still feel its weight. Or perhaps it is the weight of every awful thing I have done. I wonder if the weight will ever lessen—if it lessening will only mean I will make the same mistakes again.”

“Is disgrace so terrible when the cost of glory is so vile?” You ask, “You spared countless sinners further suffering. You spared the rest of your family from being misguided by those with cruel intentions. None have thanked you for this, I am sure, but that does not detract from the good you have done. And if it does, then I will gladly thank you on the behalf of us sinners.”

You reach over and take her hand in yours.

You bring it to your face and press your forehead to the knuckles.

“Thank you.” You tell her sincerely, and when your eyes flit up the last thing you see are her shoulders shaking before she pulls you over and hugs you tightly. She’s crying but you do not have the mind to comfort her. You are too in shock from this casual touch of hers.

You forgot what it felt like to be held in another’s arms. You knew she was soft and warm but you gain an entirely new understanding as you are held. You, the old you, wouldn’t bat an eyelash at something as small and commonplace as a hug but the person you are now is ill-equipped for such a tender gesture and your eyes end up stinging with tears. You do not make your misery known. You mute any sound that would give you away.

Let this be a moment of reprieve for her.

Peace would never be awarded to you, after all.

You wake up at dawn one morning to the sound of Gabriel’s soft laughter.

You roll over in bed and see her on the floor with the pup, Honey Cake, on her lap as she feeds them bits of fish, the ticklish feeling of them nipping at her fingers the source of her good mood. It’s a pretty laugh. The way the sunlight pours into the cottage and shines against her back makes her look radiant in a way that you could not appreciate back when she actually was divine. It felt superficial then. It suits her now.

“I did not mean to wake you. I have finally taught Honey Cake to relieve herself in the sand outside instead of on the floor so I decided to give her a little extra for breakfast.” Gabriel sheepishly explains as you sit up in bed.

Hearing you awake, Honey forgets about the fish and trots over to you and clamors at your feet until you pick her up and let her kiss you all over.

“Good girl.” You praise.

“I did my best.” Gabriel responds a little shyly.

You were about to press a kiss on top of Honey’s head but you end up setting her down, slack-jawed and eyebrows drawn to your forehead.

“...I meant Honey.” You belatedly correct and maybe it is because you had let some time linger that the reveal hits Gabriel even harder.

You watch Gabriel freeze up. Even her tail stops moving. Without a word, and very, very quickly, she stands to her feet and leaves.

Honestly, you’re surprised she didn’t just teleport.

You put your clothes on and set Honey on the ground to trail behind you like she prefers doing. You step outside of the cottage, fail to see Gabriel sitting on the beach, but you hear the flapping of wings so you turn around and find her hiding atop the roof.

“Get down from there.” You say with a sigh, “I can promise from experience that you will not die from humiliation.”

She ignores you and hides herself away behind her wings.

“I was going to show you how to cook something today but I suppose I’ll let you be.” You hum and spin on heel to pretend like you are going on one of your walks.

“...Wait.” She calls out not a second later.

You do not let her see the way that your lips curl.

You spend all morning gathering things with her in the woods and on the beach. She has grown sick of cooking things on sticks and mentioned wanting to use dishes and seasonings so you told her to loot the kitchen of any palace she came across and whichever one she did had many things that now sat nicely in this shared home of yours. Home. For the entire time you have lived in it you have been referring to this cottage as simply a place to stay—your dwelling for the evening—yet now you have taken to thinking of it as home and all it took was her.

These are dangerous things you are beginning to consider.

Dangerous things you were beginning to feel.

She makes it hard. When you turn towards her you always find her already looking. She never used to shy away from being caught staring but she does now as it happens again. She even makes a little ‘ahem’ and pretends to clear her throat, like she had simply been struck by a whim to look at you that moment instead of trying to do it for as long as physically allowed.

This devil is far sweeter than you knew her to be as an angel.

Has what she gone through made her this way? Or has she always been sweet and had simply learned to bury it somewhere deep in order to be able to follow the commands of her father? Her father, whom you scarcely hear her mention outside of her reminding you that although she is banished from Heaven, her search for him and the cure to your immortality remains ongoing. Her father, whom she no longer cries out to in her sleep when she has nightmares, and instead calls for you in her fright, which…

You have failed to make peace with just yet.

Try as you might.

“I said to ‘add two parts water to one part flour’. You are adding equal measures of both.” You point out to Gabriel just as she finishes dumping in some flour, which has no reason looking as nice as it does powdered against her dark skin.

“But it looks too watery!” She argues.

“The nerve.” You huff, “Learn the basics of cooking before trying to alter the recipe.”

She does not like that one bit.

“I am sure it would be fine either way…” She grumbles.

You clap your hands to rid them of flour and turn your sights on her. She is only a few inches taller than you but when she sees you stalking over to her she backs away like you are some great threat. You corner her against a wall and she yelps, a mixture of nervous and scandalized. When she looks down at you she cannot take the expression on your face so she quickly turns away.

“Who is the one being taught? And you will look at me when I am speaking to you.” You admonish as you take her chin and guide her helm back over to you.

Gabriel’s breathing is all off and her tail is swishing behind her furiously. It only occurs to you now just how tempting she looks pressed against a wall while short of breath.

“Are you done arguing with me?” You challenge, your eyes fighting to remain on her helm instead of dropping down to her chest.

“I was not arguing—”

“Gabriel.”

She quiets.

“...I will do as you say when it comes to cooking.” She relents.

“Good girl.” You praise and she lets out a breathy little moan that startles both of you, and before she can teleport somewhere, or worse, begin groveling at your feet for forgiveness, you take a step closer until you’re chest to chest, one hand cupping her hip while the other finds her tail and begins to curl the length of it around a finger, earning a shiver. “What a tempting devil you are. Has this been your plan the entire time? To seduce me?”

“W-What? Of course not…” She mumbles.

“Are you sure?” You hum, gripping the tip of her tail now so you can rub your thumb against the arrowhead in repeated circles. It has her knees shaking. “What else was your goal in tidying the house? Cooking for me? Fussing over me like I have never lived a day as an adult. You don’t just want to be a ‘good girl’. You want to be a good wife don’t you? You want to be my wife.”

She becomes so embarrassed she can no longer speak.

She hides behind her wings. But it does nothing to hide how effected she is by your words. You can see a generous damp spot between her legs. Your mouth waters.

“If you keep hiding from me I’m going to be upset with you.” You tell her and that is a sin she cannot bare to have on her hands so her wings drop at once to reveal her flustered, trembling form. “Do you like when I threaten you? Have you been getting wet every time we argue?”

“No…”

You push up her garment and drag two fingers between her thighs to see for yourself. No wonder you could see a stain—she was soaking through the fabric. Just that briefest of touches makes her hips buck and a tortured sound leave her. You remind yourself that although she is a devil she is as virginal as they come and that anything you do with her, it will be her first. She is a woman above all else, and so you treat her like you would any other woman.

You bring your hand from between her legs and give your fingers a lick.

“I can’t t-take you doing these things…I feel like my heart is going to give out.” She stutters.

“Poor thing.” You say before hefting her up by her thighs and pressing her flat against the wall. She squawks in surprise but that quickly turns into a throaty moan as you begin kissing her neck. You can feel her pulse against your lips. It plays in an unsteady rhythm. You want to eat that sweet, nervous heart of hers. You want to keep it all for yourself so no one else can steal it from you. “Have you been dreaming of us doing this? I hear you say my name in your sleep. Only sometimes do you sound frightened. The other times…”

“Calli.” She squirms, so, so embarrassed.

“I think it’s cute.”

“I’m not cute…”

“There you go arguing with me again. I thought you wanted to be my good little wife?” You point out and give her neck a bite. She responds to it well; her legs tightening like a vise around you and her hands burying in your thick hair to give her something to hold onto. You release with a wet pop and give the spot some love, peppering it with kisses in between rubbing your nose against the silky soft skin.

You do not bother with taking your time. It is not like you planned on taking her fully this very second anyways. The two of you just needed to release some of the tension that has been building up. Yes, that was why you were thinking about her so much lately—sexual frustration. Not something as daunting as love.

Never that.

You tear the girdle from around her waist and pull down the front of her peplos so her breasts spill out. You put your mouth to good use. There is so much soft, warm skin within grasp and you grasp it all, taking greedy handfuls of her ass while you ravaged her tits with affection. It is a shame you cannot see all the love bites you are leaving behind but hearing her noisily react is more than worth it. She is a very vocal. Loud, in fact.

You find it endlessly charming.

Her tits are without nipples but the entire expanse of her chest appears to be sensitive. She seems to derive the most pleasure out of when you suckle at the golden embellishments that adorn her body. She has some around her breasts, on her stomach, and even bracketing her folds like a crown.

With some struggling you carry her to bed and lay her flat on her back with you kneeling between her legs. You throw one of her legs over your shoulders and stare up at her hungrily as you kiss up and down the inner curve. She starts lowering a hand to hide herself but when she locks gazes with you she becomes conflicted. She wants to close herself off. But she wants to give herself to you and be good. You are curious to see which of the two wins out. You keep kissing her thigh, nibbling here and there, and you see the exact moment she accepts everything and her body relaxes.

“Tell me to stop.” You demand of her.

If anything she opens up for you more now. She bares herself to you almost entirely save for the strip of her stomach that is still covered from where her peplos bunched up on both ends. You wrap your arms around her thighs and lower your face to her. Before you have even made contact she becomes excited and squirts at you. You make an entirely bestial sound in satisfaction as you lap it up off your bottom lip. It must be a trick of some kind, you think, but no, when you drag your tongue against her and get a good taste you discover that while she mostly tastes the same as anyone else you have had, there is undeniably a note of sweetness.

You have missed the feeling of someone squirming against you. The throaty, tortured sounds she lets out as you taste her is nothing short of music to your ears. It has barely been a minute when you feel her body suddenly spasm as she finishes with a splatter. She sounded like she was on the verge of tears. Every word she tries to get out is garbled. Language fails her and so her body expresses how much she enjoys being naked and at your mercy.

It is too much too soon, you know this as you dive back in and get another taste of her, but you simply cannot stop yourself. You are starving for this and even with your tongue buried inside of her and her legs clenched around your head you still fight to give her more. She does not even realize how she is bouncing to fuck herself down on your tongue.

You really do make her cry when you give the pearl hidden in her folds a gentle suck.

She all but screams in her pleasure.

Her gorgeous body cannot handle so much in so little time. Even after she has quieted her thighs remain shaky. She was wet before but now she is drenched. When you move from between her legs a sticky strand keeps you tethered to her. You snap the bond with a flick of your tongue.

You lay down on the bed next to her and fan her with a sheet.

“Feeling dizzy?” You casually ask.

Your heart flips when she suddenly leans over and cups your face with both hands before leaning forward.

You know what she is trying to do and do not let her get far.

“...Why?” She asks in the face of your rejection.

“I need to clean up.” You lie while pointing at your shiny face.

She seems disappointed but makes no protest as you get up and begin cleaning.

You had been tiptoeing towards slumber but the tell-tale rumble of an oncoming storm has you fully alert.

“Calli? Where are you going?” Gabriel asks sleepily when she feels you pull away from where she had her tail curled around your leg. Honey Cake is awake now too and is sniffing around like you are getting ready to take her for a walk.

“Can’t you hear them calling for me?” You say to her, and upon her wordless staring you grow impatient and throw all thoughts of her and pup aside, much more concerned about the increasing racket outside as the storm continues to approach.

Without even bothering to get dressed you exit the cottage and make a beeline towards the tree that partially hangs over it. You climb up it and make your way to the rooftop. You stand with your feet far apart and your arms spread wide. Just as you close your eyes the rain suddenly and violently falls down all around you.

“There you are.” You laugh, soaked to the bone in a matter of seconds, “I have missed you dearly.”

Gabriel comes outside a moment later.

“It is dangerous to remain out here.” She tells you in between shushing Honey, who is more than likely wanting to go outside with the rest of you, but you pay both of their wants very little mind at the moment, far more concerned with the fact the storm is getting louder by the second.

A crack of lightning turns everything stark white for a fleeting second.

“Yes! Yes, dearest, I am here. I am listening.” You encourage brightly, half mad with the comfort this gives you.

Lightning strikes a nearby tree with a deafening sound and you burn with envy.

“Here! I am here! Please, hold me!” You clamor towards the dark, rumbling skies.

“Calliope!” Gabriel calls out with deep concern.

“Bring me some metal! Please! He is so close but he cannot find me.”

“...I will not. You are unwell.”

“I am unwell without him. Don’t you understand that? Bring me something—anything. I know you can. Why are you keeping me from him? I should have expected this…After all you tried to take him from me as well. Of course you would deny me this, too!”

Another tree is struck by lightning.

This one was a lot closer than the first.

“Please.” You beg with open arms.

You are denied the opportunity.

Gabriel is suddenly next to you. She hefts you into her arms and floats down to the cottage. You scream and fight against her. You curse her very existence over and over and when that doesn’t get you anywhere you just start sobbing uncontrollably.

She sits in front of the fireplace and holds you tight enough you cannot escape. She makes no complaint when you claw and bite at her in your attempts.

“It’s not fair!” You wail against her, “They’re all gone and I’m...here. I will always be here. Someone, anyone...please. Just kill me already.”

You cry for so hard and for so long that your voice gives out.

You are silent for days afterwards. Everything is left to Gabriel to take care of. The home, Honey, themselves, and now you. It has been a while since you have truly lost sense of yourself and it takes a lot of effort for things to feel real again.

Especially yourself.

But like every other time when you are in the deepest pits of your despair, you find that not all is lost.

Not even yourself.

From the depths you find just enough light to crawl your way out. Days have passed, you are vaguely aware, but the exact amount eludes you. You blink back into focus and are not at all surprised to find yourself in bed. Honey is curled up next to you. You must have looked like some monster to her while you raved like a lunatic. Imagining her whimpering under the bed weighs you down with guilt. You do not wake her from her sleep to pick her up so you simply pet her fur a few times before getting out of bed.

Awake from your delirium, you venture out of the cottage and look around for Gabriel.

You see her sitting by her lonesome on the beach.

You join her side.

Her helm remains pointed forward. She is lost in thought and does not seem to have noticed your arrival.

“Gabriel.” You call out for a third time and only now does she hear it.

“Forgive me.” She returns in greeting, “I meant to check up on you earlier. How are you feeling? Is there anything that you need?”

“I need to give you an apology.”

“There is no need—”

“Let me speak. Please.” You interrupt in retaliation, “You were trying to protect me. I could not see it in my grief. I spoke to you cruelly and you still cared for me afterwards. So allow me to tell you sorry and... thank you for bringing me back inside.”

She digests that for a time.

“...Was it Death you were speaking with?” She asks at some point.

“Not entirely.” You try to explain, finding it a messy endeavor yourself, “I was begging for Death to grant me my final rest—I always am to some degree—but storms like that...they make me think of only one person. I was wishing to communicate with someone who may as well be the other half of my soul. The man whose ashes I once carried and now live within me. I do not know when this obsession with storms began. I used to be frightened of them, if you could believe it. But they remind me so much of him that I had no choice but to learn to love them. He was a gloomy person. Always brooding and frowning. I would call him my ‘rain cloud’. The way he would light up when he saw me was so much like a flash of lightning. The way he would laugh, the thunder. And the rain, so sweet and warm against my skin, his touch. I would kill a hundred men just to feel his touch in true for another second. He would be ashamed of this broken person I have become.”

“He would love you all the same. I have no doubt of that.” Gabriel replies as she lays a hand over yours.

You are a cruel, heartless bastard.

You take your hand from hers and she is gracious enough not to make a comment about it but you know it hurts her.

“I will get started on making you something to eat.” She tells you as she leaves for the cottage.

You can easily imagine her stealing a moment for herself in private to cry.

...You cannot say you don’t do the same.

For many nights now you lay in bed unable to sleep, your spirit and your heart at war with your mind and you cannot say conclusively which of the three was succeeding, as each one of them takes a turn dragging you around through the mud.

Honey is curled up on your chest fast asleep. Gabriel is awake but pretends not to be. You can tell she isn’t sleeping because she isn’t snoring. And also because of how far away she is on the bed. She is clingy in her sleep and usually has no reservations about tangling her limbs with yours. But she cannot act so carefree while awake. You reject every advance of hers that does not lead to sex and even then the sex is one-sided, with you giving her all the pleasure she could ever want, but never the opportunity to return the favor. You have kept every sexual act shallow, not wanting to steal the honor of penetrating her for the first time when you could not even address half the things you thought about her. At least in that regard you had some dignity but you would be better off not fucking her in general if you were going to play hot and cold with her.

You wonder if she is unable to sleep because of the same reason as you. You wonder if your thoughts are of one another and just how often that is the case. You think of her so much even when you have her within reach.

It would be easier if she truly was some devil intent on charming you.

It would be kinder for all if such feelings were only sexual in nature. But you want her and you want her bad. It festers within you. Grows bigger and more voracious by the day.

You feel her flinch hard in bed suddenly but do not address it because you were also supposed to be pretending to be asleep. You think it is just the very human feeling of her body tricking her into thinking it was falling but no, you feel her crawl out of bed and when she has her back turned to you, you crack open an eye and see her quickly dressing.

She leaves not long after.

So do you.

You follow right behind her after dressing and tuck Honey in your bosom with a hand secured under her so she doesn’t fall through and hit the ground. The critters of the night help quiet some of the noise you make as you trail her. You stay far away enough that there is time to tuck yourself behind a tree if she decides to suddenly turn around. She never once checks. Either you are doing a very good job following her or wherever she is going is vital enough that it distracts all her other senses in her want of going to it.

Gabriel ends up at the crater. If she were just here to mourn her former self she would not have left home with such urgency. Something moves from behind a tree and makes itself known.

“Brother…” Gabriel greets as someone steps out of the shadows.

An angel cloaked in white robes and silver armor uncrosses his arms and approaches her quickly.

“Sister.” The angel says in return as he holds her tightly, “...I cannot express how relieved I am that you answered my prayers after all this time. I have no right to pray to you, nor to call you sister after I, and all the others cast you out of Heaven, but...I have missed you. I have worried for you. I have been awake at night frightened by the idea of never again hearing your voice. We have already lost Lucifer and now our Father. I do not know what I would do if I truly lost you.”

“Oh, Michael, I have missed you as well.” Gabriel sniffles. “I have missed everyone so much. Please tell Raphael that...I am sorry to have put them and everyone else through this. But it had to be done. If by no one else, then by me.”

“But why? Why did you rebel?” He asks.

“The same reason as our brother.” Gabriel says. “Lucifer was right. Hell was a mistake. Sinners should not suffer an eternity of torment for the mistakes made in their mortal lives. If God’s plan involves every one of us being unquestioning tools then I will remove myself from his plan. No matter the cost. Even my own Light.”

“God?” Michael repeats with striking disbelief, “Why aren’t you referring to him as ‘Father’?”

“...He is no father of mine. Not any longer.” She tells him.

“You are speaking cruel, false words out of the pain you have experienced, surely!” He reasons with her as he gives her a little shake as if that will knock the sense into her.

“I have had a lot of time to think. If you asked me the same question again in a century, my answer would remain the same.”

“…”

Gabriel raises a hand and sets it over her brother’s.

“You may tell the siblings I was closest with that I am alive but do not tell them of my location. Or of the woman’s continued existence. She does not need to be burdened any further by Heaven. The same goes for those in Hell. I forbid you, or any other angel from stepping foot into Hell. Should Heaven try to punish them I will fight alongside them.”

“I—I cannot accept this.”

“You can.” She encourages, “You are capable of doing more than what God assigned you.” And in a much quieter voice, one that you have to strain your ears to even make out, you hear her add: “And if and when I find Lucifer, you will be the first I alert. I know you have mourned him more than anyone else.”

It shakes her brother to the core.

For the remainder of the time that the two of them hug one another it looks more like she is keeping him from falling.

“May I ask something?” Michael says.

“Of course, brother.”

“...If it were possible for your form to be restored and for you to return to Heaven, would you wish for that?” He asks.

“No.” Gabriel answers with zero hesitation, “My place is here on Earth with her. I am hers and hers alone to command.”

“It is forbidden for angels to have relationships with humans in such a way.”

“Then it is a relief that I am no longer an angel.”

Michael says nothing to that and just holds her for a long while.

“I will keep your whereabouts secret. If I mention having found you and fail to provide a location it will raise suspicion and I cannot guarantee your peace or hers should that happen.”

“Thank you. It is deeply appreciated.”

“I love you, Gabriel. Please never forget that.”

“I love you, too.”

She watches her brother’s form dissolve into golden light. As she stands there processing everything you quickly take your leave. Back at the cottage you set Honey back down on the bed and take a seat on the floor with your head in your hands. You remain in that position until you hear footsteps.

“Oh. What are you doing awake so late?” Gabriel asks as she lingers in the doorway.

Her voice is tight.

She must have been crying during the walk back.

You do not respond in a timely manner. In fact, you do not respond at all, and this leads her to walk over and sit beside you. You feel her lean over. Then you feel her gently but firmly lowering your hands from your face.

“Calli…” She says sadly when she sees the tears streaming down your face. “What is wrong?”

“Did you mean that? Earlier?” You begin and given you have provided no context, she looks at you with complete confusion until you explain a little more, “That you were mine.”

Gabriel gasps and scoots away from you, her chest rising and falling rapidly.

So she had meant it.

“Please do not be upset with me. I spoke with no consideration of how you would react.” She tries to explain but becomes panicked when she sees you begin to cry even harder now. She reaches out to brush your tears away but you move away from it. Her hand clenches into a fist. One that she sets down on her thigh and begins to tremble. “...Why do you always turn away from me?”

You do not answer.

She does not allow that. Gabriel crawls over to you and pushes you onto your back. She looms over you with her hands planted flat on either side of your head.

“Do you harbor hatred for me still?” She continues with growing distress. “Calliope. Please tell me!”

“I do not hate you even though I should.” You throw at her like mud, the words easing out like a sordid secret better left buried and forgotten, “It would be easier if I was completely out of my mind. It would be easier if I was numb to every emotion once again. But instead I…” And you choke on the words, feeling small and so certain that something malevolent was listening closely to strike at the perfect opportunity, “I am burdened with so many feelings. My thoughts are filled with you despite my best efforts. I was never this confused and out of depth when it came to love before. Now the very concept of love terrifies me.” You confess with a shaky, mildly hysterical laugh, “If I tell you how I feel it will be no declaration of love. Nor one of devotion. It will be a curse—the same curse I have damned so many others with.”

Just the thought of losing her makes you feel like you are being torn apart.

She reaches out to cup your face and while you shy away from it like usual, she does not, and commits to the gesture confidently. The feeling of her warm palm makes you suck in a shaky breath. You never let her touch you outside of what was deemed ‘necessary’. It has always been a sham. You would love nothing more than to be touched by her and the need you have of that is what frightens you above all else. You want her so badly but you have not learned how to take losing gracefully. If you lose her you will make it the entire world’s problem. Life has taught you that you have to be twice as vicious just to keep what is yours.

Gabriel brushes away your tears. Tucks some hair behind an ear and traces the shell with the pad of her thumb. Such small touches, yet they have you almost fainting from how unevenly you are breathing. It feels so good it hurts.

“Tell me to stop.” She whispers to you as she lowers.

But you don’t.

Gabriel’s helm hovers in front of your face. She is breathing just as hard as you. You can feel her breath puffing out of the holes on her helm. You could pull her down already. You could surge up and do everything yourself. You instead wait patiently and allow her to do things at her own leisure. She may still be holding onto the fear that you will reject her like you have every other instance outside of coupling.

She kisses you in a way that does not at all express that she is a warrior. It is a soft, delicate thing. The brush of metal against your lips is odd but not unwelcome. The metal is completely smooth save for the decorations. There was not a single scratch or chip. She is different from how she once was but remains a level of pristine that would never mark her as anything other than formerly divine in nature. Even now she remains noisy, making an overeager ‘mmmph!’ as you kiss back. She has no proper face or lips but you adapt as well as you always have and drown her in closed mouth kisses until dozens of kissy marks are visible under the light of the fireplace.

Just kissing has Gabriel’s arms shaking. She is so precious it makes you a little stupid. A little greedy. You become bolder and curl a hand around one of her horns so you can tug her closer to you. You know after many nights of fooling around just how sensitive they are. You toy with the elongated metal as you lap your tongue at the cross placed at the center of her helm. You are not sure which action makes her hips shake but enjoy the sight regardless.

“I will never leave you. If I should never find God and your immortality remains intact then I will spend my days here with you on Earth until the last star goes out. And if I am so lucky to be able to grant you a peaceful death I will join your soul in Hell. There is no force in existence that could steal me away from you.”

“Do you swear?” You demand.

It sounded a lot more like begging.

“I swear to you on all that I am that I will remain by your side. What must I do to prove my sincerity?”

“Kiss me.”

And she does.

“Again.” You say and this time there really is no question on whether or not you begged. You beg for kisses repeatedly. You beg for her to touch you. Everywhere. Anywhere.

Her hands are big and warm and they cradle your scarred body like it is something worthwhile. You arch into her touch with a moan when she grabs both of your tits and starts rolling in slow circles, not to massage, but to watch how the fat ripples between her fingertips. But her hands do not linger in one place for long. Not long at all, in fact. She seems to have trouble deciding where she wants to give you attention. One moment she is slotting a thigh between yours to give you something nice and solid to grind against. Another has her caressing the thick scarring of each of your wrists. She brings them to her helm and knocks against your wrists gently in a kiss.

You gasp when one of your legs is tossed over her shoulder and you are pulled flush to her, one dripping set of lips kissing the other. She rocks her hips against you with obvious inexperience but it does not matter the slightest. Everything is unbelievably slick and hot. You stare at every muscle in her beautiful, powerful body flex as she fucks you. Even something like her abs bouncing seems magnificent.

“Am I performing adequately? I want to be good for you…” Gabriel pants.

“So good.” You slur, face hot and sweat dripping down your brows as her body rolls against yours like the meeting of a tide, “I’m never letting you go. No one gets to claim you. Not Heaven and certainly not your father.”

“Calliii…” She mewls, hips shaking, “I’ll be anything you ask me to be. Just share this life with me.”

“I only need you to be one thing and that is mine.”

You gyrate your hips in tandem with hers and the union becomes perfect, the pleasure coiling in your belly becoming taut until it releases with a string of curses, your eyes left open because you refuse to ever miss how prettily Gabriel falls apart when she finishes. She always finishes generously too, shouting your name as her body trembles. You become soaked as she dampens everything with her juices.

“This physical vessel is too limiting.” You hear Gabriel mutter with frustration before she backs away from you a little. “Close your eyes and keep them closed until I give permission otherwise.”

Startled, you nod and shut your eyes.

You hear a sliding sound. Then a soft thud. The fireplace snuffs out suddenly as something...gaseous fills the place. It was thinner then smoke. Thicker than vapor. An odd mixture of corporeal and not. It spreads across you like some veil. Everywhere it touches fluctuates between warm and cool. In a way it almost felt like you were submerged in a bath. The hairs on your body stand on end.

“Is this your true form?” You ask.

“It is. Seeing it would prove too much for your human faculties so you are not allowed to witness it. I hope that you do not find the experience terribly off-putting.”

Some of that vapor fills your mouth. It does not ease down your throat. It curls inside and drags against the fleshy walls of your cheeks. Explores the crevices of your teeth. Something wet and flexible joins your tongue. You move along with it and enjoy a sloppy kiss.

“Not off-putting in the slightest.” You break from the kiss to tell her. “But I am curious. Can you describe to me what you look like?”

“I am...vast. I fill this room because it is the maximum space allowed. If given more space I would unfurl even more. I have countless eyes, mouths, wings and hands. My form is nebulous but there is distinction here and there. I vary in color. Currently I am blue and pink.” She explains.

You imagine a sort of cloud. One colored like the sunrise. That is as much as you can do from the description you were given but the more she touches you the more you can develop an idea of what form she takes. She was not exaggerating in the slightest about her excess limbs. You try to count how many are currently touching you but lose track very quickly. Hands stroke your hair. A mouth kisses you on the lips while a myriad of others suck at you.

You have frequented brothels and joined orgies but still feel that she alone is giving you more attention than a dozen people combined.

“I want to be inside you.” Gabriel whimpers as something nudges against your folds. “Please, please, please. I want my soul to touch yours.”

You spread your thighs for her.

You thought you were familiar with all things carnal but this is something else entirely. The feeling of her spreading you apart as she eases inside is nothing short of sublime. It is not entirely unlike being penetrated with a cock. But it is not exactly like it, either. There is the wonderful sensation of being filled but it is accompanied by this sort of...throbbing. Like the beating of a heart. But amplified. You expect to feel resistance when she stuffs you full but even then she just...continues inward. She fills your womb, fills your belly, and spreads out through you. You think you can feel her touching your lungs.

Still thrusting inside and tasting you with her many, many mouths, you feel Gabriel curl around your heart. She holds it so gently in her hands.

“Our souls are touching.” She tells you with shaky pride. “You have such a beautiful soul, Calliope. It is bright and warm.”

You are on the verge of tears with how intense everything is: Her love for you. Her devotion. These new, foreign touches. You never knew one could partly lose their mind in a good way. Your thoughts slow down to a halt and all you can focus on are these mind-melting sensations.

“I love you.” She whispers as she fucks you into frantic, crying mess. “I will share each sunrise and sunset with you. I will hold you through the dark of the night. Have no fear of ever being alone again.”

You should have known out of everything it would be her soft words that sends you over the edge. In the wake of this earth-shattering orgasm that tears through you, you are left tongue-tied and as shaky as a newborn fawn. Warmth spreads inside of you in waves and when Gabriel begins to ease every part of herself from within and outside of you, you are left feeling terribly cold and empty.

Gabriel senses that and once her helmet is back on she moves over closer to the fireplace and lays you on top of her.

“You scared me!” You tell Gabriel with a laugh from where you are seated beneath a tree with Honey Cake on your lap, “What are you doing sneaking around? Just how long have you been there, you devil?”

Gabriel steps out from behind the tree she had been hiding behind.

“Forgive me. I never heard you sing before. It was beautiful.” She tells you sheepishly as she approaches. “What made you feel like singing, if I may ask?”

“I was thinking of you and I guess I just started singing without even really thinking about it.” You admit less confidently than you typically would, even playing with your hair to give yourself a distraction.

As far as distractions go it is very brief.

Gabriel teleports over to stand on her knees in front of you. You are a little taken aback by her wordless crowding of you but you make no protest. She cups your face and leans in closely, seeming to find some difficulty with keeping her breaths even.

“You sang because of me?” She tentatively asks.

...You suppose that you did, yes. It hadn’t been planned. It simply...came out. When you first lost those closest to you, you made a vow to never sing or touch any instrument again. Yet here you were now singing without even realizing. Something about her just makes you want to sing again. It is a betrayal to your lost loves but you do not have the heart to deny your wife any aspect of yourself.

Even the parts that still hurt.

“I sing for you and you alone.” You tell her with a smile.