𝐃𝐀𝐓𝐄: shortly after the angels’ collective arrival in infernum 𝐋𝐎𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍: the black palace 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐒: open to angels/demons, or anyone in infernum
as ravens to omen and vile weather to happy days, so do the hellhounds come to cassiel in the halls of the black palace. from memory or the command of their keeper they crawl forward from dens and dank trenches, following the call of her scent till the first finds her among the obsidian halls. cassiel knows the sensation of being stalked — that which is beautiful is hunted to the ends of the earth — and she knows azazel’s beloved monsters. each as high as her hip and baring eyes like polished stone, they were each misshapen in a way that seemed they had been crunched between the teeth of the shadows, who had attempted one bite before realizing they could not stand the taste, promptly spitting them back out. where once there had been one there springs another, and then a third in a manner so quiet and sudden that it could not be said if they emerged from far corners or merely splintered off the first hound, shadowy replicas of the original.
enough of you, the angel snarls when one of the beasts grows bold, raising an arm outward as if to cast a holy hand upon it. oren would have been responsible for dispelling such creatures had he been at her side, but wings had been required for the quick transit from caelum to the demon’s realm, and so he had been left to chase doe — and cassiel to raise her sword against hell’s teeth.
“my quarrel is with your mistress, foul thing.” the tip of her blade rises to the advancing monsters when she turns, a breath away from sinking into the largest’s throat. cassiel’s wings spread open, a feral creature enlarging their posture to intimidating, the impressive span of her feathers leaving shadow in their wake. the hellhound lower their heads in unison, snarling as they roll back their great dark joints and position to lunge. the angel presses a holy-forged metal to hot throat and answers with a growl of her own: “but i shall run you through if you do not withdraw.”
