Chapter Text
The presence envelops Kushiel when he has retreated from the public eye. He’s toiled, he’s punished, he’s guided. More than anything he requires rest. A tool that is overworked breaks. A mind is much the same.
In Hell, one can never be truly alone, of course.
good angel
The statement floods his mind. It is all he can think. Hell’s weight rests fully on his shoulders and he can scarcely move for it.
“I am a servant of the Lord,” he says simply. “I was created to punish sinners and that is simply the work I do.”
your work pleases me
He is glad for that. Hell was made for torment. And Kushiel, in turn, was made for it. While he finds no joy in delivering torture, pleasing Hell brings him fulfilment. It is his purpose, after all.
And Hell is aware of that
A GOOD ANGEL DESERVES A REWARD
A shiver runs down Kushiel’s spine. He draws his wings closer, not that it helps. He isn’t cold. He knows what is coming, they’ve danced this dance before.
name your price, angel
“I have punished many sinners since we last spoke. I revelled in delivering pain in thy name,” his voice breaks into a whisper halfway through. “I am not free of sin, for I have indulged in violence.” He thinks of sharp branches and roots enveloping his skin. Another shiver runs through him. Kushiel knows what he is asking for when he says: “I would like to atone.”
He wants punishment. That is the violence against self. He would cleanse himself of sin by committing another.
With a baited breath he waits. While it is guided by whims and short-term desires, Hell isn’t careless. Its desire to reward him for good service is genuine, or so the Seraph assumes. Rewarding desired behaviour is the easiest way to ensure its repetition.
YOU WANT ANOTHER STAY IN THE FOREST OF SUICIDES
one time is not enough for you
selfish angel
YOUR SIN IS GREED
The tug on him is unmistakable. Kushiel is a Seraph, his pact with Hell is what binds them both. This place cannot do with him as it desires; if it wants to warp him to a different layer or even a different room, he has to consent to it.
But he has asked for atonement. He submits.
The walls, the sparse greenery, all of it is gone. No longer can he sense anything; he finds himself in a barren wasteland. The sun which he assumes overhead is merciless. Within moments, sweat pearls on his body. His boots and helmet and the one gauntlet he wears grow painfully hot against his skin.
KNEEL SINNER
Kushiel lands on the golden sand. It too, is metal, conducting more heat to his body. He takes a knee.
you are no knight. you are a sinner
ATONE FOR YOUR CRIMES
KNEEL BEFORE ME
The sand is more loose than the angel expects. It buries his shins and coats his thighs. It burns on his buttocks. Even though he knows Hell is everywhere around him, he gazes upwards. He is the picture of repentance.
He waits.
The skin of his body sizzles where the sun touches it. His wings feel like every feather of light is burning.
He waits.
Finally he wets his lips – already parched and cracking, and he dares to speak first: “I await your punishment. Please.”
I AM NOT YOURS TO COMMAND, ANGEL!
I DO NOT EXIST TO FIX YOUR STUPID FAILINGS. YOU WERE MADE FOR ME, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND.
The Seraph flinches under the weight of those words. He knows. He knows. He didn’t mean to impose. He didn’t want to displease Hell. He– It asked for what a reward he would like to receive. He has only done as he was asked.
Tears well in his eyes, boiling out as soon as they are formed, leaving his empty eyesockets burning.
you are mine. my angel. my tool. my instrument of torment.
“Yes. Yes, I am yours,” he rasps. It still keeps him. It still wants him. In spite of his failings and shortcomings, of having his own will and wretched desires and dreams, Hell still wants him. He would be nothing without it. He was made for it.
PRAY
Kushiel clasps his hands together immediately.
how do you mean to pray without an icon?
He stammers: “I don’t– I haven’t–”
Somewhere in front of him a small object lands into the sand with a heavy metallic thud. Hell is merciful, after a fashion. It has provided for him, always.
Whatever the icon might be, it is too small for the holy echo to pick it up. Even if it wasn’t, the metallic sand makes everything fuzzy. Kushiel has to rely on the distorted memory of the impact and his hands.
He leans forward, fingers and palms making full contact with the rough hot surface. He finds sand and only more sand. Worthless grains of gold slip between his digits and leave his palms burning. Nothing.
Perhaps it is further away?
He crawls forward on all four, blindly searching, not knowing for what exactly. He feels the Hell watching him, the weight of its being on his back.
Dizziness creeps into his head – the helmet does very little to protect him from the sun and it traps all the heat in. He throws it away over his left before it begins to threaten to suffocate him. Blood droops on the sand, thick and sizzling upon contact.
His legs are in agony. His thighs are cramping, the skin on his knees is badly burnt and blistering. From knees down he feels spreading numbness, nerves too fried as they are trapped beneath the greaves.
Still, he finds nothing, again and again his palms meet only loose sand. He has to drag his weight forward, legs refusing to respond. Perhaps if the heat didn’t boil away any sense of clarity Kushiel would be able to say how much time has passed.
He knows that the first time his right pinky hits a solid object, his heart leaps with joy. He has succeeded! He is allowed his prayer! He–
It’s his helmet.
He sobs.
“No. No, please,” he begs, not even sure for what.
He is uselessly going in circles.
He spends a considerably long while even more uselessly motionless, weeping in shame and weakness. There is no use in trying to hide that. The Punisher of the eternally damned weeps openly with his face turned towards the sky, tears and blood pouring out of his empty eye sockets in equal measure.
When he finally gets a hold of himself, he continues his search.
The sand is covered in dried blood and strips of black skin that has slough off his body, burnt and dry, the scales shattering into sharp shards upon touch. What remains of the Seraph’s body, quaking in agony and exhaustion, kneels in the midst of this waste.
He is victorious.
A small cross of gold and bone glistens in his dark hands. The miniature representation of the Tree of Life, the ever-giving source of blood.
Kushiel kisses it, reverently. It welds his lips together.
He clutches the cross to his chest where it burns its way through the skin and lodges firmly in the sternum, the bone finally cold enough to stop its progress.
Covering it with his palms, Kushiel gasps and hisses until he can finally find his breath properly. His head is swimming, the relief washing over him is only temporary because he realises that this is still not over.
What was he meant to do again?
pray, my angel. earn forgiveness for your sins.
He has to tear his burnt lips open and speak through bubbles of blood: “My Father–”
I AM HELL. I AM THE VERY ABSENCE OF GOD. HE WILL NOT HEAR YOU HERE.
If not to Father, to whom is he meant to direct his prayer? Heaven couldn’t be further away…
pray to me
But that is– That is the only way forward. There is nobody else here but Hell. Not even any other angel. Just the two of them, Kushiel and all of Hell, its cruel gaze on him, always.
Words spill from his mouth without thinking: “Oh Hell in all thy glory, grant this sinner his absolution. Allow my crimes to be paid, flay me free of my failures. Let my hands find purpose in serving thy will. Grant me a repentance that is just. For all eternity I am the extension of thee, thy tool of damnation, a servant of punishment forged by Him for thee, and ‘tis only a faithful service in thy name that I desire.”
Had he a rosary, he would count how many times he’s said this prayer, but he has nothing to keep track of it. With each repetition his head clears a bit of the feelings of failure and in adequacy. If the words were not true the first time he had said them, they surely are true now, when he has lost count.
He is grateful. He hasn’t prayed in a long time. It is such a relief that he is finally able to. That he knows someone is listening.
Kushiel no longer feels the burning gold nor his shedding skin nor the blood and sweat boiling off his face. He is deaf to it, blind to it. His mind swims in the ecstasy of peace, of release from the trappings of a fallible body.
The verses that came to his mind unbidden keep on repeating, lines blurring together. Then words. Then letters. Then breaths.
your work pleases me
For a brief moment Kushiel remains nearly perfectly still, satisfied in the knowledge that his purpose is fulfilled. He wants to express how grateful he is for this. But his lungs fail him.
The last tether that has been connecting Kushiel’s body to his mind snaps. With a last shuddering gasp the body slumps forward. The mind, empty of anything coherent, quietly lips into the oblivion which is, compared to the golden desert of Greed, freezingly cold.
When Kushiel comes to, he finds himself laying in soft grass. Lustrous, velvet-soft, verdantly green. It tickles his sides and his chest.
He sits up, aware of distant aches as his angelic body regenerates itself back to its perfect form after a nearly complete destruction. Cool wind rustles his feathers and it feels pleasant on his face for a while before the gust swirls at an impossible angle upwards.
He finds his helmet by his side and the bone-gold cross beside it. It has dislodged from his chest, apparently. Kushiel tears a cord from his belt and ties the holy icon to his lift wrist, the bare one – he shall not lose this again. Then he puts the helmet on.
For a split second both pairs of his wings protest; too soon to take flight, the pain the movement gives him makes him wince.
Still, with two beats he takes to the air, and then shoots across Fraud.
Back to work.