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love-and-monsters · 1 year ago

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The Fallen Angel

GN human X nonbinary angel (uses they/its pronouns), 15,020 words.

(Apologies for how long I've been away, a lot has been happening. But here is the story at long last! At very long last. I have written, unfortunately, a fucking novella. Please let me know what you think, I put my heart into this bitch.)

There is an angel trapped in the basement of the church. You are determined to free it.

There was an angel trapped in the basement of the church. You could hear it singing when you cleaned the great brass candles and the stained glass windows. It sang during the services, too, but the song just reverberated behind the choir or the preaching, too subtle to be truly noticed. It was only in the afternoons, when the sunlight sent a colored glow across the floor and your body sweated and shook with fatigue, that the song grew strong enough for you to really hear what it was.

Angel song is not like birdsong, nor it is it like the song of a person. It is almost like the sound of a choir, if the choir was like a pipe organ or the wind passing through a cave. The noise settled in your bones and lungs. Sometimes, you felt yourself humming along, like just the presence of the sound was forcing the notes from your body.

You cleaned the church every three days, more or less- you didn’t clean at all on Sundays, but you did attend. So did the rest of the town. Had it gotten more crowded since the song started? Maybe- the church’s attendance was already high, and the faith strong. The angel would not have come otherwise.

You knew that the angel was trapped. You weren’t a fool- the basement door was chained and sealed, and the singing was louder the closer you get. No free angel would suffer being locked away like this. And then there was its singing. Usually, it just made your bone tremble and compelled you to sing along with it. On Sundays, its song amplified the worship, making your brain tingle with the divine. But sometimes, more frequently these days, the song struck you with such profound sadness, that you found yourself on your knees, face wet with tears.

It was over a month of the singing and the knowledge that something divine rested beneath your feet before you considered doing something about it.

In fairness: you were not qualified to interact with an angel, much less rescue one. You were not a priest, not a spiritual practitioner. A priest was technically your boss, though you cleaned more buildings in town than the church. If he had trapped the angel, there must be a reason.

But the angel’s song grew more sorrowed and more desperate, until you woke at night, nowhere near the angel’s song, with a hum vibrating in your chest and tears on your cheeks. And you came to the conclusion that, no matter what reason the priest has, the angel did not deserve this.

So you called a spiritual practitioner. As much as you may have wanted to help, you had no idea how. Better to leave such things to professionals.

You had hoped the practitioner would arrive at the church, sense the angel immediately, and free them. But there wass no fuss from the church, and no angel emerged. The practitioner left town before the sun set that day.

Three more practitioners and a priest entered the town over the next two weeks. None of them freed the angel. Your bewilderment grew with each failure. Were they not noticing it? Were they being turned away? Bribed?

The sixth person, a priest, was the one you followed. You tailed him to the church, and continued following him twenty minutes later, when he emerged. Once he had made it past the edges of the town, you ambushed him.

It wasn’t much of an ambush, really. You just stepped out onto the path in front of him and demanded he tell you what was going on. He was clearly weirded out, but once you said that you were the person who called him, he was a bit more willing to talk.

You asked him why he didn’t do anything to free the angel. He stareed at you, eyes wide. Then he spoke, quiet and almost frightened. “What that thing is should not be freed. It is best for everyone if it stays down there.”

Once he told you that, he dismissed himself, and hurried away. You stared after him. Then you returned home.

The creature in the basement could not be anything but an angel. It could have been one of the infernal, but the infernal don’t sing. Scream and howl and beg, but they do not sing. And no infernal creature would sit through the services that come every Sunday. People would avoid the church, rather than flocking to it in droves. And yet, if the priest had seen an angel, you found it hard to believe he wouldn’t have tried to release it. He certainly wouldn’t have told you it was a thing.

The next time you went to the church, the singing was low and tremulous. It reminded you of someone trying to sing through tears. Again and again, you found yourself at the basement door. When you placed your hand on it, the dark metal was warm, like it had been resting under a sunbeam.

You could not bring yourself to leave, even an hour after your work was done. The sadness of the song radiated around you and ever since you spoke to the priest, you were terribly curious. Perhaps that was a cruel thing, to be just as compelled by curiosity as compassion. But you were. If it had been just compassion, maybe you could have stood aside and let someone else do it. But it was curiosity as well, and you needed to do it yourself because you needed to know.

While you had access to most of the keys in your line of work, you didn’t have access to the ones that unlocked the chains and the door. Even after some snooping, you couldn’t find them, so you resorted to attempting to pick the locks. It was something you learned in your youth, mostly since you could never keep track of your house keys. The padlock was easy enough to undo. The door took more time, but still under five minutes.

The door itself was more of a barrier than the locks were. It was heavy enough that you wondered if it was even designed for only one person to open. But with enough effort, you managed to open it enough for you to squeeze through.

It wasn’t dark. Or, rather, it was dark, but it wasn’t as dark as it should have been. There were no windows in the basement and you had no light, so you shouldn’t have been able to see anything. Certainly not the gentle glow of what looked like sunlight at the bottom of the cool stone steps in front of you.

It wasn’t cold, either, you reflected as you headed down the steps. It should have been, if not dank, at least a little chilly. But the light was as warm as a sunbeam. You headed toward it, keeping your steps as light as possible. Surely whatever was down here had heard the door open and knew someone was approaching, but you tried to keep as quiet as possible regardless. It made you feel better.

The stairs ended at a doorway that opened into a room. It was clearly intended for storage of some kind, as most basements are. And it was still storing something. Because most of the room was occupied by a-

Well, that was the question, wasn’t it? What was that? Your first instinct was person, but people are not usually so large that, even on their knees, they cannot straighten their back without hitting their head on the ceiling. Their body filled most of the room. You could sit in their hand. And, of course, they were the source of the light. You couldn’t look at their center, since it was so bright as to be blinding, but even their extremities glowed like lamps. You had to tilt you head back to look into their face and you saw… nothing. Their head was human-shaped, but they had no hair, no face. It was almost frightening, the blankness there, but your attention was drawn to something else only a moment later.

Angels have halos. This one was no exception. A golden ring, elaborate in design, hovered behind their head. But it was not a simple, clean circle. It was broken. The metal was (or something that looked like metal) twisted and splintered and dented. The entire thing was rent apart, golden liquid spilling from the broken bits. It looked like something grabbed it and twisted until the halo split.

The song radiated through you then. And, for the first time, it occurred to you that this was not song. It just sounded like it. The angel was crying.

Everyone heard tales of fallen angels. Cast out for crimes or sin, sent to Earth. Crying to return. They were creatures to fear. An angel is dangerous. An angel that has been sent away and maddened with grief and loss is only more so.

You moved toward them, trying to see where they were chained to the wall. Your body moved almost on its own, and you wondered if the song was somehow compelling you to do so. It didn’t matter, though. You’d be doing this anyway.

There weren’t chains holding it in place. That was actually a relief. They would have been huge and you weren’t sure how to handle chains you couldn’t move. Instead, the angel seemed to be held in place by writings across the ground, walls, and ceiling. From a distance, they looked like just worn stone, but up close, you could see the writing. It took you some time to figure out what they were. Bible verses, in Latin and English. They seemed completely random. You assumed they were holding the angel here, since you couldn’t find anything else that seemed to be doing so. But this wass all over your head. Presumably there was a way to undo this, but you didn’t know what. It would be weeks of work to destroy all the writing here.

After taking some time to despair and scream in frustration, you went over to a wall and, by the light of the angel, started to read. It was a bit difficult, since there was no way to read without the angel being behind you, and your shadow appearing on the wall, but if you angled your head, you could make out the words.

Some of the verses were familiar to you. A few of them were about angels. Some of them were about God’s power or smiting the unjust. Some of them seemed completely unrelated. Maybe there was a reason that you just weren’t getting. But as you continued, you noted a pattern. They repeated.

It was a hard repeat to catch- there wasn’t a set pattern where it was the same order every repeat. But after going back and forth and squinting in the low light for long enough that you developed quite the headache, you found that the phrases were repeating. Every verse was repeated once per repeated section. A vague idea came to your head. It wasn’t a plan you were sure would work, but it was the only idea you had.

You slipped back upstairs and rummaged in the tool closet. Normally, you only bothered with the cleaning supplies, but there were hammers and nails there, for general repairs. You took a hammer and a screwdriver and brought them back down to the basement.

At the beginning of each repeat, you took the screwdriver and, using it as almost a makeshift chisel, hammered it into the wall until the rock chipped away. The words weren’t carved very deeply, so it wasn’t terribly hard to flake them off. Well, it wasn’t hard relatively speaking. It was still hard work to chisel anything at all, and your arms were trembling and aching in short order.

It was slow going. Fortunately, the repeats were long, so you didn’t need to chisel all that often, but it was hard to find the proper start, and there was a lot of small writing. Your back ached from stooping to get the stuff on the floor.

You had the inclination that you were doing something right, though. The angel had nearly ignored you before, as you’d walked around its cage. But now, as you chiseled at the walks, it turned its head toward you, face still blank, though you could tell it was watching. Maybe it was just curious, but you thought maybe it could sense something changing.

About midway through your second wall, the air started to take on a different… feel. Like it was getting thicker, almost humid, with a smell like before a storm. You took more breaks, almost dropping your hammer and chisel a few times. Your fingers weakened. You started smashing randomly with the hammer, though it didn’t seem to have a great effect. The angel watched, or did something similar, with its massive, blank face.

By the third wall, the feeling was suffocating. Whether it was from the unbinding of the angel itself, or the bindings themselves trying to fight back, it was impossible to say. You just staggered from one repeat to the next, barely able to stand. How were you going to get the writing on the ceiling? You couldn’t risk stopping and returning, in case someone discovered your work the next day, but you also could not risk getting up on a ladder- not when it felt like the floor was shifting and bucking under your feet.

Please, you thought as you brought your hammer down onto your makeshift chisel. Please be enough. Please be the last. You weren’t sure who you were begging to, pleading to, but as you brought your hammer down one last time-

Light. There was light and then there was nothing. You were on your back on the ground, though it didn’t hurt. Which was strange. If you’d fallen over, you expected your head to hurt where it had hit the ground. You blinked a couple times. The room was less bright than it had been. There were a few scraps of light that seemed to be drifting about like floating candle flames, but they were fading and taking the light with them.

You rolled over and looked toward the angel. It was no longer there. Or, to be more specific, the enormous, glowing, faceless creature was gone. Sitting in the center of the room, blinking in apparent confusion was… a person.

No, the person was the angel. You were sure of it, since the person had wings. Large, powerful-looking wings with scruffy brown feathers. Little wings of a lighter color were set where their ears should be. But they also did not look like the images of angels you’d seen in books or in stained glass. Those angels were always inhuman looking, with perfect, sculpted bodies and porcelain skin. This angel was a little pudgy, with little pockmarks and imperfections in its skin. Its feathers were ruffled and sticking out, and its long hair was ruffled. It blinked at you with drooping, tired-looking eyes.

“Ah…” Looking at the angel, you realized you hadn’t paused to come up with an exit plan for once the angel was free. You’d been more focused on just breaking the cage. There had been some vague idea in the back of your head, of the angel realizing it was free and busting its way out of the church through the ceiling. Though perhaps it was good that hadn’t ended up happening, since that would probably leave you crushed by rubble. You certainly hadn’t expected the angel to suddenly poof down into a nearly human form.

They seemed confused. They swayed in place, staring around the room like they’d never seen it before. Or, never seen it from that angle before, at least. They shifted their wings a couple times, stretching them out only the tiniest amount before trying to get to their feet. Despite looking rather unsteady, they stood with only a little stumbling and stayed on their feet. They glanced around the room one more time, then looked back at you.

They were tall. Bigger than most people you’d seen. And their wings only added to their bulk. They would have cut an intimidating figure, if it wasn’t for the out-of-it look on their face.

This was a new problem. You’d figured the angel would be out of your hair once you freed it. But this angel looked rather helpless. You got the impression that, if you left it there, it would stand there until the priests came back in the morning and locked it away again. Or killed it. It looked more killable in this form.

Leaving it was considered and discarded. It probably wasn’t a good idea to leave them here if they could remember your face and maybe reveal your identity if asked. And even if they couldn’t, you’d already put so much effort into freeing them. It seemed like a waste to ditch them at the last moment.

Not to mention, the idea of leaving them standing there, shivering slightly in the chill of the basement and blinking at you with confused, doe-like eyes made your chest ache.

You approached the angel. It locked its eyes on you, watching as you came closer. Not necessarily cautious- more like curious as to what you were going to do next. You reached out a cautious hand and took the angel’s.

They jolted, sucking in a breath the second your fingers came in contact. You froze. All of their feathers bristled and they seemed to shudder. For a moment, you thought you could faintly hear their song, but it faded so quickly that it may have been your imagination.

“It’s okay,” you whispered, the same tone you used to coax the church cats out of hiding places. “We need to go, though.” You tugged on their arm. Despite their size, they moved easily. You lead them up the stairs and into the church proper.

They followed you to the back door of the church. It was late, and the place was deserted, which was a relief. The angel was both winged and very naked, which would be hard to explain to anyone.

Getting them to your house was tense. The angel was conspicuous, so you had to avoid areas with people. Fortunately, it was late, so the cover of night and the lack of people on the street was enormously helpful. The angel was also quite easy to tug along, despite their size. You made it to the backdoor of your home with no real struggle, though you came very close to shoving the angel into a bush when a person stumbled across your path in your neighborhood. To your relief, they were very drunk and they seemed to barely notice your presence.

The moment you were within your house, you collapsed. The angel shuffled next to you, flexing their wings and glancing around. They didn’t seem anything more than mildly interested in their surroundings. After a moment, they sat down next to you.

You could have stayed on the ground all night, but after thirty minutes, you decided that it probably wasn’t good to your guest to let them stay on the ground all night. It was late and you could decide what to do with them in the morning, but now, you were both going to get some rest.

“Come on,” you grumbled, tugging at their arm. The angel allowed itself to be led into your small bedroom, where you encountered your first problem. The bed was not sized for an angel. Again, it was a normal bed. Not an unusually small one. But the angel was, at minimum, six and a half feet tall and carrying a set of bulky wings. Perhaps, if you shuffled some furniture around, you could have made it work, but it was very late and you were very tired. So you tugged all the bedsheets you had into the room and dumped them on the floor. The angel watched you the entire time, completely impassive.

Once you were done, you had to drag the angel over and push them into the makeshift bed. They blinked up at you from the pile. “Lie down,” you said, pushing on their shoulders. They allowed it, bowing under your touch with as much compliance as ever. “Go to sleep.”

You didn’t wait to see if they followed that order. Instead, you stumbled to your own bed, tugged the blanket you had over yourself, and closed your eyes.

Morning came entirely too early. Even when you were bone tired, your body clock woke you up at the same time every day. It couldn’t have been more than a couple hours of sleep, and probably less. You blinked tiredly for like thirty seconds before rolling over and catching sight of the angel.

It was still laying down in the pile of blankets. Its eyes were on you, blinking heavily every so often. You stared back at it. “I suppose you’re going to be here for a while,” you said. The angel just stared.

With little else to do, you got out of bed and headed into the kitchen. Your head ached, probably from lack of sleep, and also stress. It had been easy to not think about the consequences when you were freeing the angel, but now, well. The priest was going to want to know where his angel went, and you had a winged person in your house, as well as being the last person in the church that night. It wouldn’t be hard to put the pieces together.

You got into the kitchen and became aware of a second set of footsteps trailing after yours. You stopped and the footsteps behind you stopped as well. A quick glance over your shoulder confirmed it- the angel was following you. They gazed back at you as you stared at them. They were swaying a little on their feet, wings twitching like that helped them stay upright.

“I suppose you want breakfast,” you said. The angel blinked. It was the only acknowledgement they gave you. “Well, I’d be a terrible host if I didn’t feed you, I guess.”

At your instruction (physical instruction- it was easier to move the angel around than it was to try and give them verbal commands) the angel sat down at your tiny table. There wasn’t much room for more than one person, but you could make it work. Breakfast was never a particularly impressive affair for you, but if you had an angel over, you decided to go through the effort of actually heating up some biscuits and cooking some eggs and even a couple thin strips of bacon.

You set the plate in front of the angel. They stared down at the meal. Their gaze wasn’t necessarily dismissive. It just also reminded you of a dog examining a new object. Not a person getting a good meal.

“Do you know how to eat?” you asked after a few moments. If it had just become a mortal, than perhaps it wasn’t sure precisely how eating worked? You demonstrated a few times, slicing a sliver off your egg and placing it in your mouth before chewing with exaggerated deliberateness. The angel took it in, but still made no moves on its own breakfast. “Do you need help?” you asked, a bit irritated. You sawed off a piece of biscuit, dipped it in the egg and speared a little bit of bacon before holding it to the angel’s mouth. It recoiled when the fork nearly touched its lips.

A few more attempts at convincing it to eat were unsuccessful and you backed off, confused. Perhaps the angel didn’t need to eat after all, or wasn’t able. You had no idea what angels needed.

Now that you had eaten, you were starting to feel more ready to tackle the current issues. You had work. Not at the church, thankfully, but you still needed to leave. And as reluctant as you were to leave the angel alone in your house, you couldn’t think of anything else to do. Staying home would be incredibly suspicious. You needed to make it look like everything was normal.

As exhausted as you were, you dragged your clothes on and gathered your supplies. The angel watched you. They were still completely naked, though you were getting used to it at this point. “Are you going to put some clothes on?” you asked. The angel stared. “Never mind.” It wasn’t like it was going to fit in any of your clothes. It was too tall. “I’m going to be leaving for a while. I’ll be back as soon as I can, all right? Stay here. Don’t go outside.” You felt a little bad, telling the angel that had spent the past however long trapped in a single room that it couldn’t go outside, but that was a bad idea. Maybe later, you could bring them outside.

“Stay here,” you said, feeling a little like you were talking to a dog. The angel just stared at you. “I’m trusting you.” You left your home and took a few paces down the street, glancing over your shoulder all the while. The door didn’t open again, and you kept looking until your house had vanished around a corner, and even a little after that.

To your immense relief, the angel never followed. That didn’t stop you from being jumpy as you cleaned, though. Every time a person approached you, there was a moment of panic, either that someone had found a strange, winged person wandering the street or that the priests at the church were going to drag you in for questioning. But neither ever happened. You managed to finish up early (by cutting a few corners) and hurried home.

The angel was… exactly where you left them. Literally. Exact same spot. Had it even moved all day? It did look a little worse for wear- a little weaker, maybe, with dark patches coming in under its eyes and a definite sway when it tried to sit up straight. As soon as it saw you, it makes an attempt to surge to its feet- and fumbled, nearly landing straight on its face.

“Woah, hey there,” you said as the angel flailed on the ground, wings flapping like a startled duck. “You, uh. You doing all right?” The angel managed to push itself upright and blinked blearily at you. The swaying was still there, giving the alarming impression that they were a moment from falling again and only just barely preventing themself from doing so.

Perfect. You not only had an angel bunking with you, you had an angel bunking with you and there was something wrong with them. That could only end badly. “Okay, I’m going to need you to work with me here,” you said. The angel was, again, rather compliant as you tugged them into the kitchen and got them to sit at the table. They seemed to be shivering, so… fire in the stove? You grabbed a few blankets and placed them around the angel’s shoulders as well, until the angel was sufficiently covered. The angel’s shivering slowed and it seemed almost perplexed by that development.

“That’s better,” you said. “Are you feeling okay now?” The angel wobbled a little bit and they blinked at you. They didn’t seem to nod or shake their head at all, or communicate in any way other than staring. Which meant it was hard to figure out what they wanted. Or if they wanted anything at all.

After staring at the angel for a little while longer, just to convince yourself that they weren’t about to keel over, you went to the stove and heated up your dinner. It was just some bread and a very simple chunk of salted meat with a couple of vegetables. The angel watched you, though they still swayed like they were on a ship instead of steady ground.

You returned to the table, carrying your plate, and the angel’s eyes remained locked on you. No, not you, you realized as you got closer. Their gaze was locked on your plate. As you wanted, the angel’s mouth opened, ever so slightly, and a bead of drool actually welled up on their lips. As you set the plate on the table, the angel made a strange noise. You hadn’t been expecting it at all, so it took you a moment to realize it was the angel’s stomach growling.

“Are you hungry?” you asked. The angel stared back at you. After a moment, you pushed the plate of food toward the angel. Their eyes remained on it, but they didn’t make any move to eat. Not even when you took a fork and offered them a bite.

There was a bewildered moment, where you weren’t sure what was going on. Then it clicked in your head: the angel was hungry. They also had no idea what to do with it.

The angel was mortal now. Whatever had happened, when you broke its cage, it had become mortal. But it had never been mortal before. How was it supposed to know anything? How would someone know the pain in your stomach meant hunger if they’d never felt it before? How would they know the heaviness their limbs and strange inability to keep their eyes open would be cured by sleep, or their shivering meant they needed to sit near a fire with blankets?

The angel was a mortal, but it was a very new mortal, and it needed to learn all the other things mortals understood just by being alive.

You scooted closer to the angel and picked up the fork again. This time, you took a bite, making sure the angel watched the food travel into your mouth and you chewing and swallowing. Then, you moved the fork right up to the angel’s lips. “You’re hungry. This will help. You need to eat,” you said, not totally sure if the angel was understanding you. The angel blinked once, twice, then tentatively opened its mouth and allowed you to place the food inside.

The angel, with a sort of bewildered slowness, closed their mouth and chewed. It looked like clumsy chewing, but they picked up on it pretty quickly, their brow furrowed with focus. Then they tried to swallow and instantly choked.

You had a real, legitimate panic about having an angel choke to death at your table for nearly a full twenty seconds before the angel got their breathing under control again. You made them drink water, which went much smoother- maybe you should have started there- and cleaned up. The angel had recovered enough to watch you as you did so, drinking in every motion you made. Maybe it would have been a little creepy, if the angel hadn’t felt so genuinely curious about what you were doing.

When you returned the food to it, the angel ate more carefully, if still with enthusiasm. You’d realized, by that point, that the angel didn’t understand the concept of being too full, so while that would eventually need to be a learning experience, you just took the food away after you’d determined what the angel probably needed. It didn’t protest at all, but let you remove the plate and watched as you collected the scraps that could be composted.

It didn’t protest when you led the angel to bed, either. This time, you just tugged all the bedsheets you had onto the floor and directed the angel’s attention onto you. “We’re going to sleep. You need to sleep. Every night. You sleep like this.” You lay down on the floor, tugged the blankets over yourself, and went still, slowing your breathing. The angel watched until you sat up again. “Now you do it.”

With some very gentle persuasion, you got the angel lying on its side, eyes closed. You watched it until its breathing deepened and its body relaxed. Then you went to sleep yourself.

The angel was still fast asleep when you woke, and you were careful not to disturb it as you made your way to the kitchen. You had a feeling it would turn up and, sure enough, when the smells of cooking made their way down the hall, the angel appeared, a blanket wrapped around it like a cloak.

They ate breakfast, this time not even choking once, and even brought their plate over to the washbasin. “Okay,” you told them once you were done cleaning up. They looked at you, gaze attentive. “We’re going to need to get you some clothes.”

You did not have any clothes in their size, and since you were smaller than they were, you couldn’t just take some of your clothes in. The wings were also a complicating factor. In the end, you didn’t have the time or skills to really make anything elaborate for the angel. With one of your old blankets, you simply created rough arm and neck holes and added darts in the sides to hold the entire thing together. There was no way to create holes for the wings. They were large enough that you just left massive slits down the back to create space. It wasn’t perfect, since the slits left the back rather open, but it was better than nothing. The angel was remarkably still for the whole measuring and pinning and sewing. It took a few hours for the entire process to be over, and you were sore by the end, but the angel had clothes.

It was not long after you’d fully clothed them, when you were lying on your bed to enjoy a rest, that someone knocked on your door.

You jolted, nearly throwing yourself out of bed. The angel startled as well, though they seemed to be more upset by your reaction than the knocking. Cautiously, you crept through the door, grateful that your window allowed you to see the people at your door without needing to open it.

The angel came, warm against your back as they stared out the window after you. The Head Priest stood, dressed in his usual gold-flecked robes and with two guards stationed at either shoulder. You felt the angel shift and bristle behind you turned to look at them.

The angel was staring, unblinking, at the priest and his entourage. Its wings had extended a little, puffed up like the pigeons that littered the town did when they were threatened. But its face… it was the first time you’d ever seen the angel make a real expression of emotion. And it was afraid.

That, more than anything, made your stomach sink.

The knocking came again, louder, harder. The angel slunk back a little. One of its hands was latched onto your wrist and it seemed determined to drag you with it. It actually managed to haul you along for a few steps before you dug your feet in. “I have to answer the door. Go hide.” The angel released your wrist, but it hesitated, wings twitching. “Go. Hide. I will be fine.” The angel flexed its wings once, then turned and headed back to your room. You breathed in and out, then headed toward the door.

As soon as you opened the door, the priest moved into your house. He didn’t shove past you, since he didn’t touch you, but he did force his way in. The guards just roughly shoved you aside, barely recognizing your presence.

“Can I help you, your grace?” you said. It was difficult to keep your voice even. The priest wasn’t a withered old man, but he wasn’t young, and his gaze was as sharp as a shard of glass. He glared around the room, nose twitching. You resisted the irrational thought that he was smelling for something. You licked your lips. “Was my church cleaning not up to your satisfaction?”

The priest’s gaze focused on you. “The cleaning has been fine. However, two days ago, an object of some great importance went missing from the church.”

It was him saying ‘an object’ that saved you. Because you didn’t take an item, you had, technically, stolen a person. But your brain didn’t quite register that he couldn’t just say you’d stolen a person, so when he said ‘an object,’ you took him at face value and your surprise was genuine.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t steal anything.” The priest’s eyes locked onto yours, and you stared back with stupid, genuine bewilderment. There was a flicker across his face, like surprise- maybe he didn’t expect you to look so guileless.

“You won’t mind if we have a look around, then?” the priest said, voice lightly curious. Not even accusing. Genial.

It was a trap. Obviously. Say yes, the priest can poke wherever he wants and look for anything he determined to be incriminating. Say no, that was instantly suspicious, even if you were only doing it for the sake of your privacy. But if you said yes… there was no way he wasn’t going to find the angel in your bedroom.

“Actually, I do mind. Are you accusing me of something?” Acting outraged was your best defense. Not a good defense, just the best one you had. “I don’t appreciate having people rifle through my things just because I happened to be near the church when something was stolen.”

The priest’s eyes narrowed. The guards stiffened. “No accusation, of course. We’re merely… cautious. Surely you can understand why we would want to check out every possible lead. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, no?”

“I have nothing to fear, but that hardly means I want people meandering into my house at all hours, demanding proof for crimes there is no evidence I committed. Tell me, if I came into your home tomorrow, demanding to look for something you may have stolen while you were in my house, would you be perfectly happy to have me poking through your underwear drawer?” The priest’s face went a strange shade of pink-red, but you barreled on with no pause for his response. “And, to add to that, you haven’t even told me what was stolen! For all I know, you could simply claim any of my items to be the thing I stole and slap me in chains for it!”

The priest was still deadly calm, but there was a clear rage to his voice when he spoke again. “Do you truly think a man of god would do such a thing?” You lifted your chin in a gesture of audacity. “You call yourself that. But people can call themselves any number of things. And would a true man of god barge into someone’s house and demand to search their things with no evidence of their involvement in any crime?”

The priest’s face was heading toward a shade of puce, but, with effort, his jaw unclenched. “Very well. But I’m certain you’ll understand of we are, as of now, reluctant to have you in the church.”

“Yes, sir.” Losing your job was, really, one of the less-terrible outcomes, and the one you’d expected the most. You had other jobs, though losing the church would be something of a financial loss. Though you also had to consider that you were feeding another mouth, now… That could be a problem.

The priest seemed to take your thoughtful silence as some kind of shameful penitence, because he puffed himself up and nodded. “Take care. We will… see what we can find about the thievery.”

You guided him back to the door. It wasn’t until the door closed and you’d watched him head down the street a good ways before you left out a breath. You made it a few steps down the hall before your entire body demanded that you sit down and tremble for a while.

The priest was gone, for now, but who knew how long until he was back? He didn’t have enough evidence now, but that didn’t guarantee he wouldn’t find some. Or make some up- all he needed was enough to make the local governor force a search of your house, and there was no way you could hide the angel from that. You covered your face with your hands, trying to breathe slowly. If they found you, they could kill you.

Someone slumped down next to you. The angel. It pressed up close to your side, petting at your shoulder like it had heard about being comforting, but it hadn’t ever experienced it. One of its wings draped over you.

There was quiet for a while. The angel touched its head to yours, eyes closed. It was warm, tucked beneath its wing. Calming. You took deep breaths and thought hard.

The only evidence that you’d taken the angel at all was that the angel was there with you. Maybe there was some other evidence at the scene, but the angel was the big problem. The solution was, obviously, to get rid of the angel.

Well, not get rid of it. More like… set it free. They were still an angel, after all. They’d needed some basic training in how to be a person, but certainly they could survive on their own. And, well, it would ease some of the pressure on you, financial and legal.

The angel shifted next to you. You glanced at them. They gave you a once-over, then stood and headed off to your room. A few seconds later, they reemerged, dragging a fair amount of blankets with them. Before you could ask what they were doing, they had already knelt next to you and were shoving the blankets all around you. They bundled you up and carefully lay you on the ground. For your part, you allowed it to happen. The angel seemed to have something they wanted to do.

Once you were wrapped in blankets and lying down, the angel settled next to you. There was a rather proud look on its face and you realized, with a burst of amusement, that it was trying to get you to sleep, as this was more or less what you’d done with the angel to get it to sleep! Did it think you were tired?

The angel shuffled closer, so there was little space between your bodies, and spread a wing over you. The feathers shrouded you in darkness, though there was enough light to just make out the angel’s face. They were as inexpressive as ever, but they seemed to be studying you. When you stared back, with no indication of closing your eyes, they shifted, clearly uncertain what happened next.

“I’m not tired,” you told them. “Though I appreciate the effort.”

They stared at you for a long moment before, with now warning, hopping to their feet and all but running into the kitchen. You took a moment of peace, wrapped in blankets are you were, before following them.

The angel was rummaging through your breadbox. “Are you hungry? What are you doing?” you asked as you approached. The angel thrust a slice of bread at you. “Er. Thank… you?” The angel waited, watching you. It seemed to be expecting you to eat. Just to appease it, you did so. As soon as you started eating, the angel went back to rummaging through your food supplies. It offered you several pieces of dried fruit next, then a couple of strips of jerky. You took them all, though you stopped eating after the first couple of pieces. Once the angel noticed you weren’t eating, they paused and stared.

“Thank you,” you said, a bit bewildered by what was happening. “Are you okay? I don’t really need anything. Is there a reason you’re giving it to me?”

The angel stared at you. Their brows creased ever so slightly- maybe they were upset. You patted their arm, careful not to drop anything that had given you. “Don’t look so worried. It’s going to be okay. I promise.”

The angel looked back at you. Hard to tell what they were thinking, as it always was, but you thought they looked content. They took the food back and placed it away again. “Okay,” you told them. “We’ve got some things we’re going to work on.”

First step of getting the angel to live on its own: teach the angel how to be a person. The eating and sleeping bits were taken care of, and the angel had picked up on clothing and even sewing with surprising speed. Regardless of how little information it had known previously, it seemed all you had to do was give it the information once, and it would retain it. That didn’t make teaching it how to bathe any less difficult. And teaching it how to go to the bathroom- well, the less said of that, the better.

And so the week went. You went to work, leaving the angel to hide in your house, then returned home and taught it what you could. It picked up reading so fast you felt like you were reminding it of something rather than teaching it, and teaching it math and money went the same way. The angel even attempted to cook for you, though it hadn’t picked up that you were seasoning the food initially, so the meal was bland. You merely had to explain that to it, though, and the next meal was much improved.

Your next day off approached, not quickly or slowly, just approached. The angel seemed almost agitated, though, as time passed. More distressed when you left, tenser and quieter when you were around. You hadn’t told them about your plan to send them away- to free them, to free them- but perhaps they’d picked up on it on their own. They were still as silent and expressionless as ever, but they stayed near you, their head lowered as they presented you something they’d cooked, or showed you something they’d cleaned or sewed, waiting for your praise or correction.

When your next day off arrived, the angel’s agitation seemed to peak. It hovered near you, wings tucked close to its back. Even when upset, it didn’t show much expression or even move all that much. It just stood, like a stone statue, unhappiness radiating from it. Still, when you told it you were going for a walk, it didn’t protest. Just looked at you and nodded.

Its compliance made you feel guilty, somehow. Even thought you weren’t doing anything wrong. This was the best path. If they angel stayed, they would just be killed or recaptured. Along with you.

The hike to the woods wasn’t usually long, but you had to go the extended route to keep away from people. The angel hid their wings under a bulky robe. It wasn’t a very good disguise, but from a distance and the right angle, they would hopefully be mistaken as a hunchback.

You led the angel deep into the woods, deeper than you would usually venture. The angel flexed their wings, shifting the cloak. Their distress flowed around them, their eyes burning into your lower back. I’m sorry, you thought, even though you weren’t sure why. This was for the best, so why did it hurt?

It took hours of walking, legs sore, before you stopped in a clearing. It was a large clearing, and more oblong than circular, but it was good enough for your purposes. And those purposes were giving the angel somewhere big enough to take off from.

Admittedly, you weren’t certain it could fly, but the wings seemed large and healthy and it had no trouble with walking or any other physical functions after some initial wobbles. It stood to reason that flight would be no different. The angel looked up at the sky, staring. Its wings spread, extending out and out to their full length. It seemed to be giving them a good stretch- there hadn’t been room in your house to do so. After a moment, it gave a couple experimental flaps. Cool wind buffeted you.

The flaps gained in intensity and, for a moment, you thought it would take off right there. But its wings stilled and slipped shut and it looked at you.

“I got you this.” You thrust a basket at them. It wasn’t a lot, but it was what you could spare (technically probably more than you could spare, but a couple days of broth wouldn’t kill you) and the basket had a fabric strap long enough that the angel could wrap it around their body and hold it while flying.

The angel took the basket and peered at the food and water and clothes and single book you’d stockpiled inside. It looked them over for a moment, then glanced back up at you.

It was the second time you’d seen the angel really emote anything and it was sorrow.

The angel’s eyes watered and its apparent confusion at that development seemed to pale in the face of its clear upset. It practically threw the basket back at you, wings spreading and sending a powerful gust across the clearing. Then it opened its mouth and did something you’d never seen it do before.

It wailed. A keening sound of despair. You’d never heard it make any kind of noise before. In fact, it seemed startled by the fact that it had made any kind of noise, though, like the crying, that didn’t seem to stop it. Instead, the angel crumpled to the ground, wings striking the dirt, and wailed.

That wasn’t quite the reaction you’d been expecting. Maybe some protest, but not the clear despair it was displaying. “H-hey, don’t- you’re okay.” You approached the angel cautiously. Its wings kept flexing and slapping against the ground and there was an impressive amount of force behind them. Still, it didn’t direct any of the hits toward you, so it felt reasonably safe to approach.

As soon as you were within a few feet of it, the angel scrambled forward. You almost bolted, but the angel didn’t attack like you though it might. It pressed its forehead to the dirt an inch from your boots and spread its wings, every feather on end and quivering. When you tried to take a step back, the angel shuffled forward, pressing its head even more firmly to the ground. It seemed to be trembling.

Your heart ached. What were you doing?

“Look, I’m… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just thought it would be safer if you weren’t… But I didn’t mean to upset you.” You knelt next to the angel and placed your hand on its head. The angel went still. For a moment, the stillness was like a frightened dog, expecting a strike, then it melted into a gentle contentedness.

It took a couple moments before the angel was quiet completely again. They lifted their head, face sticky from tears and a bit of dirt smudged along their cheeks. The entire scene was a little pathetic. “Here.” You pulled out a handkerchief and rubbed at their face. After a moment of letting you do so, they took it and cleaned their own face off.

Once its face was clear and it had calmed down a little, the angel looked at you balefully. It seemed to be waiting. Almost resigned. But still frightened. Like it was waiting for a scolding or punishment.

“Are you okay now?” you asked. The angel looked balefully at you. One of its hands lifted, like it was reaching out for you, but it paused before it could make contact. Its head drooped. Its wings drooped too, proud feathers dragging in the dirt. “I’m sorry,” you said again. The angel curled in on itself further. Its eyes were on the ground. “I’m not trying to send you away, all right?”

One of the feathered ear-things on the side of its head twitched. You took that as an invitation to continue. “I thought… I thought you’d be safer if you left, though.”

The angel looked up at that. They didn’t change their expression much, but they were staring intently. You reached out, slowly enough that they could move away if they wanted to. They didn’t, and you were able to rest your hand on the side of their head. Your fingers brushed against the soft, downy little feathers of their ear-wings and the somewhat-tangled mess of their hair. The angel closed their eyes and leaned into your touch. Their entire body shuddered in a sigh. “The people who captured you are still here,” you continued. “If they find you, they’re going to hurt both of us. Maybe kill us.”

The angel leaned away from your touch and lifted its gaze to yours. They were focused on you, intently so. “It’s best if you leave,” you told them. “They won’t be able to find you if you fly away, and they won’t be able to tie anything to me, either. We’ll both be safer.”

It was quiet for several moments. The angel stared at you, their wings twitching with aborted motions. They looked between you and the sky, over and over. Their brows wrinkled. Then, in a flash, they reached out and enveloped you.

Technically, it was just a hug, but the angel’s sheer size and the addition of their wings made it so much more. They surrounded you, tucking you into their chest and holding you close. You could feel their heartbeat, jackrabbiting under their ribs, and their heavy breathing. They were soft and warm around you. One of their hands moved to cradle the back of your head.

You cried. It wasn’t a lot of crying. Mostly it was some particularly wet breathing and a few tears. But the angel held you closer, rocking you against its soft chest and you felt warm and shielded. It presses its cheek to the top of your head and you felt one of its ear-wings flapping, like it was stretching out to touch you.

It was a nice moment, but it couldn’t last. You stopped crying and slipped your way back out of the angel’s arms. They let you, tucking their wings back against their back again and their arms falling back against their sides. Looking into their face, you felt… guilty? That didn’t seem fair. You were doing this for their own good. Right?

The longer you looked at them, the less you could convince yourself of that. Your shoulders drooped and a fresh wave of tears came to your eyes. The angel didn’t want to leave. You wanted them to leave, because them staying there would be a problem for you. A genuine problem, yes, a problem that could get you killed. But it wasn’t fair to pretend that this was good for the angel, nor was it fair to ignore how the angel was feeling. It didn’t want to leave. It was terrified when it realized you were going to try to make it leave.

You hung your head. “I’m sorry.” The angel watched you. “I… I don’t know what to do. I’m scared. I don’t want you to leave, but we’re both going to be in trouble if you stay. We need a way to keep you safe, but I don’t know how to do that, and I can’t think clearly about it when I’m going to be in trouble if you get found out too-” Your voice choked off, breath heaving in panic. You scrubbed the heel of your hand against your eyes until it hurt, until the pain grounded you.

Fingers wrapped around your wrist, tugging it away from your eyes. The angel was holding onto you, both hands wrapping around your wrist. Their strength was more than you’d anticipated. Perhaps it was their general softness or their seeming clumsiness or cluelessness, but you’d never seen them as particularly tough.

The hand that held your wrist, however, was not weak. It was firm and unyielding. When you pulled away, it let you go without a hint of resistance, but you had no doubt that if it had wanted to keep hold of you, you wouldn’t have been going anywhere.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” you said. “I wasn’t sure if you would understand.”

The angel brushed its hand gently along the side of your face, cupping your cheek. Its face wasn’t terribly expressive, but there was something calmer, almost serene in its expression. It got to its feet, shaking out its wings, and extended its hand for you. There was a stunned moment before you took the hand and the angel pulled you to your feet. They kept your hand around theirs as they gathered up the basket you’d initially made for them and started to leave the clearing.

You let them lead you along until you realized they were leading you straight back to the village, and even when you got quite close to the buildings, they were not slowing down. “Wait,” you said. “What are you doing?” The angel gave your hand a squeeze, but they didn’t slow down. Anxiety prickled over your skin as you entered the town and headed toward the center.

People barely noticed you at first, but within a few minutes of marching through the town, people had started to point and stare. And then the staring turned into whispers and awe. Some people scrambled away. Some people gathered and followed from a distance, watching in something like awe.

You gave up on trying to stop them and instead walked alongside them to whisper furiously. “Hey. What are you doing? Do you have some kind of plan? I can’t tell what’s going through your head right now. I’m kind of just assuming you know what you’re doing, but it’d be nice to have some kind of confirmation.” The angel squeezed your hand again. Their thumb traced over your knuckles. Their expression was serene, calm, like they’d just realized something that comforted them. It was reassuring to you, so you allowed them to drag you wherever they wanted to take you.

Until you realized they were dragging you toward the church.

“Wait.” You didn’t try to pull away again, but you did trip over yourself in your realization, making the angel slow down. “You can’t be serious- we can’t go there! That’s the exact place we’re supposed to be avoiding.”

The angel stared at you for a moment, then released your hand. It nodded to you before turning and heading toward the church again.

“Wha- wait!” The angel paused, allowing you to catch up. “You’re still going, huh?”

The angel stared at you. You sighed. “Okay. I guess we’re going, then.

The angel held out a hand. You took it once more. Together, you walked toward the church.

As soon as you stepped through the doorway, the angel drew itself up, wings fluffing. The entire thing was quite intimidating to watch, given its already tall stature. It glanced around, as if assessing the space. Warm, honey-gold sunlight filtered through the tall, stained glass windows and illuminating the wood of the benches. When the sunlight hit the angel, it seemed to surround them, glimmering off their body in a way that wasn’t quite natural. Almost like a halo around its entire body.

You waited, mostly trying to see what the angel was going to do next. As it turned out, you didn’t have to wait very long, because a pissed-looking priest stormed into the sanctuary.

“The beast returns to holy ground,” he snarled. You stepped in front of the angel, arms spread.

“They’re not a beast. You’re the one who captured them and chained them in your basement. They haven’t done anything!”

“They have been cast out of the divine host. Their fall and subsequent capture are what is deserved for those who would defy our Lord.” The priest didn’t sound enraged or even particularly vicious. His tone was cool and cold. He approached, steps clunking heavily against the cool wooden floor of the church. You resisted the urge to step back and steeled your resolve as the priest approached. The angel didn’t seem to be doing much, though you could feel their presence at your back. “Your assistance with their disobedience is a serious strike against you, but the Lord God will welcome all stray members back to his flock, provided you are willing to repent and return the beast to its confinement.” The priest was leaning into your face, so close you could feel his breath touching your skin. The angel was still unmoving, but there was more tension to their body now. Like a big cat getting into a crouch.

Your breath was trembling, but you managed a clear enough whisper. “Fuck off.”

The priest leaned back. “Hm. Very well. May God have mercy on your soul.” The gestured toward a couple of men standing toward the back of the church. They started to approach, brandishing their short swords. “I would suggest surrender,” the priest said. “Unless you are eager to find out how the Lord God punishes those who disobey his-”

The angel lunged. Its wing brushed against your shoulder as it darted around you and slammed into the priest. He fell, the angel on top of him. Their wings shielded you from seeing what they were doing, but the choked gurgle from the priest let you know enough about what was happening.

The guards, who had been standing on either side of the aisle, near the pulpit, charged. One of them nearly caught the angel with their sword, but the angel managed to recoil just in time, leaving the priest gasping for air on the ground. The guards moved up, pushing the angel back as they blocked the priest from it. Together, they pushed the angel back a few more steps, advancing threateningly, until the angel glanced back and saw you. It stopped, digging its feet in, and turned back to the guards.

The angel spread their wings, blockading the entire aisle. It was difficult to see what happened next, but there was a scrambling noise of footsteps and the angel tucked their wings in and lunged.

Thanks to the armor the guards were wearing, this struggle was more prolonged. The angel’s wings flapped, coming down on the guard they were fighting with blows stronger than a fist could hope to achieve. One of the angel’s hands clutched at the guard’s wrist, driving the sword away from the angel’s belly. They wrestled the guard slowly to the ground, clawing at them with nails that seemed too long and sharp and stomping hard enough that the guard’s armor dented under their feet.

Chills wracked your body as you watched. The angel was a mortal, yes, but you’d clearly forgotten: mortal was not the same thing as human. And the strength with which the angel was tearing into the guard was not human.

And then a cold metal line settled against your throat. Sharp and cruel. A hand locked around your torso, pinning your arms to your sides. Icy terror settled into your brain and every vein in your body. Right. The angel was taking care of one of the guards. But there had been two.

“Call off the fucking bird,” the guard said, “before I slit your throat.”

The sheer terror in his voice should have made the threat less effective, but realizing that he was scared enough to kill you without thought was nearly enough to make you start begging for your life immediately. The angel whipped around as the first terrified whimper escaped your mouth.

It was the third time you’d seen the angel truly express emotion. And they were angry.

They bared their teeth and stretched their wings out, flexing them to nearly their full span. It was an impressive display, and a terrifying one. The knife dug a little more into your throat. Panic clawed your belly to shreds.

“Fucking stupid worthless shit,” the guard cursed behind you. The knife kept trembling at your throat, threatening to nick a little too deep. The angel watched, brows deeply knitted. It twitched its wings a few times, freezing when the blade drew blood at your throat. “You fucking take one step closer and your little pet human bleeds out like a pig,” the guard said. It wasn’t even a vicious or snarling threat. He sounded like he was on the verge of tears. But the knife was just as sharp and the trembling was making it slip against your skin in a dangerous fashion.

The angel paused. It straightened up out of its attack crouch, wings tucking against its back. The knife eased at your throat a little. The angel took in a slow, deep breath, eyes on you. Its expression relaxed into something gentler as it met your eyes. It seemed to take a deep breath. Its wings relaxed. It closed its eyes. And it began to sing.

It wasn’t singing with its mouth or vocal cords. It was the same singing you’d heard in the beginning, the singing that had drawn you to the church’s basement. Less like the vocalization of a human, but more like an emotion made into pure sound. It vibrated through your limbs and settled in your chest, a heavy weight of sadness and fear.

The song pulsed, rose and fell, over and over again, thrumming and pulsing and changing as it went. It started as a terrible projection of fear and pain, injury and despair. Then the pain was threaded with hope, then a joy and relief so palpable it was its own kind of pain. Peace and comfort followed that, almost like being settled in a warm bed after a nice meal. Then an abrupt sharpening of terror and sadness before turning to determination, then blind, horrible rage. The anger pressed in around you, bearing down like a sharpened spear. But the rage wasn’t quite aimed at you. It was aimed at the man holding you. And being the target of an angel’s pure rage, even when nothing physical is being done with it, is a daunting prospect. The guard’s knees went weak and the knife at your throat wavered.

The song intensified. Your own legs were trembling under the weight of it. Anger and hope and fear and happiness and even love, pressing down on you, emotion given a deep, physical property. You sobbed, barely feeling the knife at your throat. Had it fallen away? Could you just not feel it anymore? What was real? All that was real was the song and the love that was building in the song, growing more intense around you. It was insulating, like the angel was trying to wrap you in the song until you were surrounded by care, until there was nothing else in the world.

You blinked your eyes. They hadn’t been closed, but you hadn’t been seeing anything. It had been more like the world had shifted slightly out of focus and you were just getting it back to center.

You were lying down across a lap. The shifting of wings above you let you know whose lap you were lying across. The angel was holding you, cradling your head against its body. There was still the faintest traces of song humming from it, though it wasn’t the great, overbearing crescendo it had once been. You made an attempt to sit up and the angel shifted around you, letting you move while still offering support.

“What happened?” you asked. You felt woozy, a bit out-of-body. The angel, obviously, didn’t say anything, but it did stretch one of its wings toward the crumpled shape of the other guard. He was lying on the ground, unmoving. “Is he-” you started, then stopped when you realized his chest was rising and falling. He seemed stunned, like you’d been a few moments ago.

You twisted your head around to get a better look at the rest of the room and winced. Stinging pain radiated from your neck. The angel nudged your hand away and ran its fingers over the lines cut into your skin. Right, the knife. They didn’t seem to be actively bleeding anymore, so they must not have been deep, but the angel still seems distressed by their very presence.

“Are you okay?” you asked, tilting your head back to look up into their face. The angel stares back at you, their ear-wings folded calmly against either side of their head. They seemed physically unhurt, or they weren’t in so much pain that they were showing it. “Good.” You sorted through your muddled thoughts. The song had hit you so hard, it was almost like your own body had gone through all those emotions it had conveyed at a rapid pace. No wonder the guard was stunned. Your head was swimming. But then your brain finally catches on a thought and you startle. “The priest!”

The angel caught you as you attempted to scramble upright and assisted you to your feet. The priest was close to the pulpit, but he was as collapsed as the guard. He seemed to be recovering faster, though that primarily consisted of him flopping his limbs in all directions. You approached, the angel close behind you.

The priest stared up at you as you got within speaking range. His face was completely under his control, unlike the rest of him, and a sneer contorted his expression. “You cannot win against His holy will. God will ensure that His holy justice will-”

“Uh huh,” you said. “He doesn’t really seem to be doing too much smiting right now, though.” The priest groaned on the ground, grinding his teeth.

“Are you going to kill me?” he said, a semi-hysterical laugh bubbling from his lips. “It’s no matter. I will return to His Holiness and my eternal home in heaven. And you- do you think you’ll be able to stay here with blood on your hands and that beast stalking your footsteps?”

“They’re not a beast,” you snapped before forcibly calming yourself. “I’m not going to kill you.” The angel shifted, clearly irritated, but you held up your hand to them. “I don’t have anything to kill you for. You haven’t done anything to me. Not really.” You turned to the angel. “It’s their decision. If they want you dead- that’s up to them. Not me.”

The angel watched you as you spoke, then it turned its gaze to the priest. You placed a hand on the angel’s shoulder. Well, close to its shoulder. The angel was very tall. There was a moment of silence. The angel’s wings twitched. Maybe it was hesitant to try and kill now that it wasn’t the heat of the moment. Maybe it was weighing the pros and cons. The priest rolled onto his stomach and groaned.

The angel turned and pressed a kiss to your head. It happened so fast, you didn’t register it until the angel was turning and grabbing the man on the ground. They hefted him up by his lapels and started hauling him out of the church. You hurried along behind them.

It took only a few moments for the angel to make it to the enormous front doors of the church. They shoved them open with only one hand, sending more light across the sanctuary and revealing the large crowd of people milling around. At least half the town was gathered outside the church, presumably drawn by the commotion and the sight of an angel. The angel looked around them with what seemed to be satisfaction, then hefted the priest again, holding the man out in front of them. Then the angel extended their wings to their full length, drew the priest in close again, so their faces were mere inches apart, and began another song.

The previous song, the one inside the church, had been intense like holding your hand over an open flame, but this was intense like having a spear driven slowly into your brain. This was focused, purposeful. A spire of anger and pain. The world flickered behind your eyes, an image pressed against your brain- the memory of being thrown away, then lost, then trapped. The rage and grief and panic of being trapped. The priest’s face loomed down at you, sneering, cold, and the terror that welled inside of you twisted not just your stomach but your entire being. You were cast out and alone and the only thing you could do was scream as someone else caged you.

At some point, the angel had dropped the priest. They stepped closer to you, tucking their wings about you as the song ended, trembling and weak. They seemed tired, their wings drooping along with their posture. Their body slumped. They weren’t leaning against you, but they were swaying toward you. You reached up to take their face in your hands.

“You okay?” you asked. The angel blinked at you. A few more notes trembled out of it. You could feel them pass from the angel into you. And with them, something like an image: you, scoring out lines of text on a wall with a makeshift chisel, gently dimming the blinding brightness of the room to the comfortable darkness. The angel gave a long, shuddering sigh, then slumped forward until its body weight was slowly but surely crushing you.

The angel was asleep before either of you hit the ground. The priest didn’t seem to be doing much better. He was curled on the ground, occasionally twitching. Maybe he was crying, you weren’t sure. A couple of people walked over toward him, but no one seemed particularly worried. Had everyone else heard the song and made the connection too? Perhaps the angel had just been trying to tell its story. Maybe that was its revenge- making the entire town turn against him.

By the point you’d processed that information, you’d been smushed to the ground. The angel was big enough that you really couldn’t lift them at your best, and you were exhausted by the day. After only a couple seconds to shoving, you resigned yourself to being on the ground.

Footsteps shuffled closer and you looked up to see a few of your neighbors around you. “Need help?” an older man, one you recognized as someone who taught at the local university. You curled one arm protectively over the angel, cautious. “We’re not gonna hurt ‘em. Just trying to help get you home.”

You considered. Then nodded. The angel stirred as a few people worked together to lift it off of you, but it settled when you patted its arm. Slowly, you and the angel returned to your home.

You weren’t sure what you were expecting after you got to your house. For that moment, you didn’t expect anything at all, except for a long nap because you were exhausted. And you did get that, lying in the blanket pile on your floor with the angel. They practically crawled on top of you several times, and your subsequent crawling away so you weren’t crushed to death ended with the blanket pile being almost dragged to the other side of the room. The angel was, of course, never deterred, and it was on top of you by morning.

What you hadn’t anticipated happening at all was the gifts that kept appearing at your house. Clearly, your neighbors were dropping them off. Notes were often attached, sometimes independent of any gifts- wishing you well, giving you messages of support, and expressions of general kindness. There was food in the pile, from vegetables to fresh cheese and bread, as well as some cloth and even a quilt. That one, in particular, made tears come to your eyes. It had clearly been in a closet for a while, given the musty smell, but it was handmade and the kindness of the gesture was unmistakable.

It took you some time to remember what most of these gifts were for- not until you read the last note on the pile. It was from the town’s doctor, a simple gift of a few herbs used for healing, though they were in bundles too small to be useful. The note was simply ‘For health, luck, and peace.’”

The gifts, the note and herbs. You knew what they were for. You’d participated in the tradition before, though your gifts had been pretty paltry. They were traditional gifts given to a newcomer, sometimes when there was a baby born, but also sometimes when a person in the town married someone from outside the town. Gifts of welcome and acceptance.

You returned to the angel, arms laden with the gifts, and offered them to it. The angel seemed vaguely overwhelmed by them, but accepted them nonetheless. It still seemed tired, and so you spent the day at home, quiet and undisturbed. You bathed the angel, scrubbing bits of blood off it and trying to get the feathers of its wings clean. The angel, after some insistence, ended up bathing you, as well, and it fussed over the few bruises you’d gained in the fight. Another night was spent curled in the same nest-bed. This time, you just let the angel flatten you with its body. It was sort of cozy.

The next day, you returned to the church. The town was still a little quiet- there weren’t as many people out as there would usually be- but the people you did see nodded politely to you. Their nods were a little longer, a little lower, than they usually would be. Almost like slight bows. Though you weren’t entirely sure why they would be bowing at you. Perhaps they were bowing to the angel at your back.

The church seemed strangely abandoned, despite it having only been a bit over a day since everything had happened. The guard’s body was still crumpled on the floor, some blood splattered around him and dried to the floor. You approached it. The angel followed, though their wings fluffed up with agitation.

There wasn’t much else you could do with the body. You lifted it, with the angel’s help, and placed it on a pew. You cleaned the blood and viscera on the floor. Then, finally, you took the body downstairs, stripped it, and wrapped it in the white funeral cloth. The angel helped, with an expression on its face that seemed mournful, though it was hard to be sure.

Perhaps you could have left it like that, left the man wrapped in cloth and walked home. But it felt weird to do so. The angel helped you carry the man up into the graveyard. Then you dug out a pit and placed the body in it before burying them.

The angel knelt next to the grave, resting a hand on the dirt. “Sorry,” you told the grave. You weren’t sure where the other two were- the other guard and the priest, but you hadn’t seen them. Perhaps they’d been driven out. The townspeople certainly seemed to have taken your side. The man in the grave wasn’t entirely innocent- he had certainly seemed willing to kill or hurt the both of you. But you felt weird. The other two had lived. He hadn’t. Luck of the draw.

The angel leaned against you, just enough to feel the warmth of their presence. You sighed. They were safe, at the very least, and they were accepted by the town.

You looked at the angel. “What do you want to do now?”

The angel looked back at you. They blinked, once, slowly. Then they took your hand and pulled you into the church.

You knew where you were going before you got there. The heavy doors were solidly sealed, though no longer chained. The angel opened them, letting go of your hand as they did so. They stepped through the doorway, then looked back at you. You stepped forward and took their hand. And so, they led you back down to the basement.

The room was pitch black. You stretched out your hand and felt the rough walls. As you continued, you could feel the words carved into the stone, and some of the scratches and gouges where you’d carved the words away.

The angel moved toward the center of the room, away from the walls, and you followed them. They moved to the spot they’d been chained in. One of their hands was still around yours. The darkness of the room pressed in on you, so black there was no difference between your eyes being open or closed. The angel’s hand remained, the only point of contact in the room. Their thumb brushed over your knuckles, their fingers intertwining with yours. You could hear their breathing. You breathed, too. Together, in the small, dark room where you’d first met. There was nothing else. There was only the room.

The angel tugged on your hand, and you moved with them until you were flush against their chest. They hugged you, briefly, then sighed. It shuddered through all their bones on the way out, and seemed to take something with it. Like something they had been holding onto was released.

Then they pulled on your hand again and led you back out of the basement.

When you emerged into an area that was light enough to see, you caught sight of the angel’s face. It was the fourth time you had seen the angel really emote. And it was happy. There was a certain level of sadness or mournfulness to it as well. But the angel was smiling. Its gaze turned to you and it smiled wider still.

You cleaned the church for a while. It felt more like habit than anything else. Although there was something quite satisfying about going through the priest’s office and dumping everything onto the street. There should have been other officials in the church, but there weren’t any. Perhaps they’d fled when the priest was deposed, perhaps they’d just not wanted to stick around now that the angel they’d trapped was free. Who could say. You weren’t overly fussed at the loss.

When you emerged into the sanctuary, sore and a bit grimy, there were people there.

It was just a couple, a man and a woman. Then you saw the bundle they were clutching between them. A baby, presumably one born not too long ago. It squirmed a little in the blankets, but it didn’t cry. Its breathing seemed… maybe a little labored? You weren’t sure- you weren’t expert in babies.

The angel seemed to perk up when it noticed this, eyes intent, though it made no move to get closer to the couple. “Hello,” the woman ventured. You wracked your brain for their names. Tabitha, maybe? And the man was… Gerald? “We- we, ah.” Her voice quavered and she held the baby a little tighter.

“We came here for a blessing,” Gerald said. “We weren’t sure…”

Oh. Their baby was ill. “You might want to go to the town doctor,” you suggested.

“We were there,” Tabitha insisted. “They gave us medicine. But just in case we…” She glanced around the church, clearly anxious.

Right. They would want a blessing for their baby. One that would maybe grant good health, or at least a peaceful passing and a safe journey after, if not. You chewed the inside of your lip, unwilling to turn them away. But it wasn’t like you knew how to perform a blessing, or hand any authority to do so-

The angel caught your wrist and started tugging you along toward them. The couple huddled closer together at the sight of the angel, but both of them remained there. There was something in their expressions… perhaps awe? Perhaps even a flicker of hope. The angel stopped in front of them. Its hand shifted on your wrist until it was properly holding hands with you. Then it extended its other hand toward the couple.

They barely hesitated before holding their child out.

The angel didn’t quite touch the child, but their hand hovered over them. The air hummed with the faintest vibrations of a song. The baby squirmed. Your hand, the one the angel was holding, felt warm.

And then it was over. The angel dropped their hand. Their ear-wings fluttered a few times. They dipped their head to the parents in a slight bow.

“Thank you,” Tabitha whispered. She clutched the baby to her chest and it kicked its little legs a few times. “Thank you.”

The baby lived. Maybe it was the blessing, or maybe it was the medicine, it wasn’t clear. But clearly work had gotten around, because people came to you for blessings at least once a day. The angel always obliged, though they refused to work if you weren’t around, and they nearly always looked to you for something like permission before they performed the blessing. The only time they didn’t was when they were performing one for young kids or babies.

Perhaps the blessings was why you set up station in the church. It was easier for people to get to than your house, and the angel didn’t seem particularly bothered by being there. Sometimes, the people who came for blessings wanted to talk, too, and you were better suited for it than the angel. They listened, certainly, but people who were emotionally worn down didn’t tend to react well to an angel staring them down with a blank expression. You gave all the advice you could, which wasn’t much. They seemed to be happy after talking with you, though, so you kept at it.

The days settled into a steady routine. You would head to the church and take care of problems that any people had, be it by distributing blessings or by just talking to them. Then you’d gather the donations that had been left overnight and sort through them. The angel was a good help whenever you had to clean- their wings allowed them to get to areas in the high, sloping ceiling that you could never manage.

When they weren’t cleaning or blessing, they tended to hover around you. Not in an oppressive way- they just were usually nearby. Sometimes, if your mood turned, they would come closer, settling next to you, and either stretching their wings out toward you or draping their torso against you. The touch was comforting, and you found yourself responding similarly to their mood. You could almost sense when they were anxious, and they seemed pleased when you were nearby.

You’d just finished administering advice to a small crowd of worried people about a spate of rapid deaths and had settled down to look through the few offerings that had been left when it hit you. “Ah, fuck,” you said. The angel glanced over at you, ear wings twitching. “I’m a priest now, aren’t I?”

The angel headed over and flumped down next to you. Their wings wrapped around you in a comforting manner. “I give blessings and advice, I maintain the church, people leave offerings. Isn’t that a priest?”

The angel squeezed you with its wings. It nuzzled its head against yours. “I mean, I’m not a priest of God,” you mused out loud. “I don’t think I care much about Him.” You looked down at the angel, who stilled under your gaze and tilted its head until it was looking into your eyes. “I guess if I am a priest, I would be one for you, right? That makes me your priest.”

The angel shuddered. The motion trembled through its wings, making every feather stand on end. Its eyes went wide. Then it surged forward to mash its lips with yours.

It was so startling that you simply fell backward, unable to stand up against the angel’s enthusiasm. “Woah, woah, hey!” you said as the angel fumbled on top of you. One of your hands found the back of their head and tangled in their hair. The angle went still. “You okay?”

The angel closed its eyes and sang a few notes. An image rose into your mind- an image of you, leaning over the angel, your arms outstretched and a smile on your face. The emotion the angel felt surged so powerfully you could feel it in your fingertips. Vague other images swam through your mind- images of a couple kissing and a sense of both curiosity and jealousy, images of you and a deep sense of affection, and images of the town with a sense of protectiveness. The final image was one of you and the angel, wrapped together in each others’ arms, and the sense of want that came from that image made your breath catch.

When you came back to yourself, the song fading, the angel was blinking down at you. Their eyes were wet. You reached up and they leaned into your touch as soon as it met their cheek.

“Okay,” you said. “We can try this too. Let me show you.” Your other hand went back into their hair and you pulled them down for a kiss.

It was enthusiastic, if unskilled. When you broke away for air, the angel kissed furiously at every bit of skin they could reach. Scattered bits of song slipped from their lungs, tingling along your skin and mind in dizzying fashion.

Eventually, the angel backed off, apparently exhausted by the outburst of emotion. They slumped on the ground next to you, though there was an apparent reluctance to break contact. They kept a hand on your stomach, feeling you breathe. For your part, the connection sent wild sparks running through your body.

“I’m glad you’re here,” you said after a few moments. The angel tugged you closer, pressing its face to the top of your head and heaving a contented sigh. Even without the song, all you could sense in the slow, steady breath was love, love, love.

#exophilia #monster lover #monster romance #fallen angel #angel partner #fallen angel story #the angel #idk man this took too long and i don't even know if I like the ending but it's HERE NOW

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