Today’s story is inspired by Fallen Angel IV by Luis Royo.
The waters were cold. Between the rain and the wind her dress had become soaked, the fur on her wings was drenched, and every joint was starting to ache from her shivering. She desperately wanted to be away from this pit of despair and the aura of dread and loneliness her task projected didn’t help. She swallowed and forced herself forward.
The cold bog was the thing’s hiding place; an ancient lair she had pulled it kicking and screaming millennia ago. She used her scythe to test the mud in front of her as she moved. The bog was warmer back then but the world had grown cold over the years. When she was last here it was heat and sweat and hot pits of springs boiling up from the core that had kept her warry of a direct flight to him. Now the cold and frozen heart of the realm stayed her hand. The power coursing through her world be a flare to the fallen one. She did not believe he’d fight her, but she knew if he fled finding him again would be a challenge.
She needed his heart. Atonement for her sins could not be done alone. The guardian had said she would need three sinful hearts purified to pass through heaven’s gates. She had already taken the heart of another, a lesser angel who had been in line with the rebellion. That one had given her the female mortal form she had now, taking her away from the sexless thing she believed angels need be. The new one was also of that host, and she found they were the easiest to hunt. She had been there when the rebellion had happened, and had used the symbolic weapon of her host against them. The memory made the cold of this place worse as she desperately wanted to hold that flaming blade once more.
Her scythe sank deeper into the bog not touching mud until a foot or two beneath her current depth. A cautious step or two and she was certain she had found the entrance. Her body objected as she stepped deeper into the cold water, but she ignored its mortal needs. The cold couldn’t kill her. Drowning couldn’t kill her. Both could hurt.
The water in her lungs burned, and the body screamed for air but she continued to move slowly under the dark waters. The lair of the fallen was close, and she was starting to see lights ahead. The water warmed as she neared his resting space, and as the top of her head peeked over the surface, she felt intense heat in the air. There were two sources of light in the small chamber, a large brazier with logs and coals filling the bottom of it, and a humanoid figure curled into the fetal position with his hair and wings ablaze. The brazier’s flames had died down but the heat and coals still glowed heat, heating the spit above it. She knew the flesh on that rod at once, and now understood this fallen’s sin. Man’s flesh is for beast alone, as punishment from the divine. The grace would never allow this wretched thing to feast upon mortal flesh.
She pulled herself slowly from the water with her dress clinging to her skin. By the time her slow approached had cleared her mud caked feet from the entrance, the heat had dried the top of her dress and her wings were dry and starting to sweat. The fallen had taken on the look of a young man, cherub like in face and form. Like the first fallen she had slain, he was bound by mortal flesh, and possessed a gender of humanity. He clutched himself as he slept and this act of mortal need angered her. She raised her scythe. Droplets streaked along the blade as pockets of water were freed, and several of the cold beads splattered his face. His eyes snapped open and she swept down. Had he been a greater member of the host he may have had time to move, but as only a lesser fallen her blade swept through his neck as smoothly as it swept through the air. The fire of his hair and fur extinguished as the smell of divine blood filled the hollow.
An angel’s blood should bring life, but the fallen’s blood only darkened the earth. Where it touched the plants of the space withered and died. The remains of the carcass of the fallen’s human victim became rot and vile waste almost immediately. She leaned down and shoved her hand into the fallen’s torso. The blood clawed at her skin but she ignored the pain that her body screamed at her. Her hand found the heart and pulled it out. It was beating with thick black blood streaking down her arm and staining her dress.
She ate it, and even though it tried to resist her by becoming foul and putrid in taste, she was able to absorb it. Like the first she had eaten, the heart changed her. The angel became larger, bulkier, but still with feminine features. The hearts within them seemed to each take up rights on selecting the angel’s form, and they became no longer female but not quite male either. Despite the duality, the angel felt stronger, fuller. Its power had grown at they consumed, and a new hunger was filling them. The flesh of man taken readily from the spit did not fill their desire. Yes, they needed three hearts purified to seek heaven’s gate. But what if they had more?
Ah misinterpretation. How fun you are. I was reading a post from a friend who was discussing a character’s misuse of a wish in their story. Wishes, at least in gameplay mechanics tend to be very dangerous for players to take on. This mostly happens because dungeon masters/game masters are cruel evil beings who like to toy with our players, but they also happen because it serves as a barrier to getting the end goal. It’s reflected in our story today on how the angelic figure takes a literal approach to the charge of “three sinful hearts purified to pass through heaven’s gates” thinking they need to take within themselves three purified hearts to the gate. Except this has had the opposite effect than what the angel wants. They no longer accept their task may be over now, and suddenly seek more power. The three hearts in their chest now beat darker black ichor.