༓ Decagon / 23 / She/Her
༓ Writing blog / 18+ / MINORS DO NOT INTERACT
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༓ Currently writing for FE3H, JJK, Love and Deepspace, and anything that might pique my interest.
༓ I mostly consume 'x reader' & f!reader fiction.
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༓ This blog affiliates with dark content, please do not interact if you have an issue with dark themes.
༓ I acknowledge that I might write and consume pieces concerning dark concepts and perspectives that depict abuse, dub/noncon, and harmful relationships; however, I do not support such concepts or behaviours in real life. If someone were to engage with any of my works of fiction, they should be mindful that the material is entirely fictional and should only be consumed or practiced in an environment of security, with the understanding that it is fictitious and not real.
༓ Commonly used divider is created by vibeswithrenai
༓ Synopsis. As regret and love intertwine, Zayne stands before the life he restored through guilt and devotion, while you see only the man who loved you enough to defy death.
༓ Content. SFW, Frankenstein AU, Slight Angst, Grief, Regret, Yearning (?), Loneliness (?), Comfort (?), Regret, Emotional Distress, Conflict of Feelings, Brief mentions of death, , Not proofread.
༓ Word Count. 961 wc
[Artwork by Joseph Wright- 'Two Boys with a Bladder', 1767]
“My heart…”
Your hands are cold, like winter water poured over unmoving flesh, a subtle chill that lingers without cruelty. They are steady as you take his right hand, fingers aligning with his as though they remember something neither of you can name. The stitching across your chest pulls faintly as you guide him closer, until his fingertips rest over the seam that sealed you shut again.
It's immaculate, a testament to his careful, exacting hand.
Zayne stills at the contact. He does not pull away, but neither does he look at you. His gaze drifts instead to the floor, to the pale tiles scrubbed too clean, to the place where blood once dried and was erased. He knows every inch of your body by memory alone—knows where the sutures lie beneath skin, where the nerves were coaxed back into compliance, where the heart was convinced, against all reason, to begin again.
He cannot look at you without feeling the weight of what was beyond his skill to mend.
You tilt your head, studying him with a patience that feels undeserved. A strand of hair falls across your sight, but you make no move to brush it away, your gaze fixed on his face as if the answers you seek might surface there before the world finds the words to teach you.
“It feels… different,” you say at last.
Your voice is quiet, carrying more doubt than dread. Brows knit, you glance down at where his hand presses against your chest, then back to him, searching. The way you look at him carries no accusation. That, more than anything, presses heavily on him.
Different is an understatement. Beneath his palm, the uneven and insistent rhythm pulses, alive with the life he brought back. A heart that moves not from reason, but from the stubborn will to be.
You shift slightly, as though listening inward. “Only when you’re closer,” you continue slowly, carefully choosing each word, “does it feel like it works properly. Like it remembers what it’s supposed to do.”
Your fingers curl faintly around his wrist, drawing him near.
“It beats harder,” you murmur. “So hard it almost hurts.”
Years of practice guide his hands, instincts honed over countless lives shaping his understanding. The rhythm beneath his fingers is quickened in its own insistence, responding to him in ways no prior experience could fully explain. He swallows, a quiet acknowledgment of the fragile miracle pressing against his touch.
“That isn’t supposed to happen,” he says, though his voice lacks its usual certainty. Clinical language falters on his tongue, useless in the face of something so profoundly irreversible. “Pain indicates—”
“—that I’m alive?” you offer gently.
At last, he lifts his gaze and allows it to find yours.
There is no revolution in your expression. No dawning horror at the seams of your existence, no grief for the body you once had. You look at him as though he is still what he has always been to you, as though the world did not end and begin again on a steel table beneath unforgiving light.
His hand trembles, barely perceptible. He withdraws it an inch, then stops, fingers hovering as if unsure whether he still has the right to touch you at all.
“I shouldn’t have done this,” he says quietly.
His words carry no plea for absolution, a verdict already cast and etched deep within his unyielding conscience. “I knew the risks. I knew what it would cost you—what it might turn you into. And I chose it anyway.”
He exhales, slow and controlled, like a man bracing before impact. “I chose myself.”
Your hands tighten, the chill of your skin seeping into his. You shake your head, just slightly.
“No,” you say. “You chose me.”
Looking into your eyes, he sees the life he could not save in time, and the lines of every boundary he crossed in trying to undo what was done. “I… I should have protected you,” he admits, his words ragged with restraint. “I failed you once. I—”
“You didn’t fail,” you say, voice steady despite the unfamiliar weight in your chest. “You brought me back, can’t you see?”
“I only wanted to save you,” he concedes. “I wanted to undo what couldn’t be undone.”
You lift his hand again, pressing it fully over your heart now, unafraid of the pressure it holds. The rhythm stutters beneath your palms, and you feel it all: the love that brought you back, the care that never wavered.
“You gave me this,” you continued softly, a fleeting smile playing at your lips beyond his view. “You spoke to me when I couldn’t respond, and you held my hand even when there was nothing to hold, as if I were loved into being.”
Zayne closes his eyes.
For a moment, he allows himself the weakness of it—the way his forehead dips toward yours, the way his breath ghosts across your cheek. The sharp tang of antiseptic fills the lab, tempered by the trace of life that refuses to be sterilised away.
“I don’t deserve your forgiveness,” he murmurs.
You smile, small and unassuming, as though forgiveness was never something he needed to earn. “I’m not giving you that,” you reply. “You don’t need it.”
You tilt your head, resting it lightly against his chest, and he leans down, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head. In that stillness, your cheek buries against the warmth of his body, and you feel the unspoken vow that he will never again let harm reach you.
Held together by threads of regret and longing, something delicate and miraculous persists in that quiet room.
Your heart beats on—erratic, aching, alive—especially when he stays close.
And Zayne does.
A.N. I was a little hesitant to share this excerpt, partly because I’m late to the Frankenstein AU wave and partly because this premise overlaps with a future fic I have planned for a different character in the game.
And perhaps this goes without saying, but please don’t be so forgiving if a significant other ever tries to mend you back together and reanimate you.
Soft!Sylus x Reader, 1k wc, sfw, fluff
Under a field of stars, you and Sylus dream up planets, rockets, and impossible adventures, sharing gentle laughter and endless what-ifs together.
“Do you think there’s a planet named after me?” you ask, a faint, carefree smile curving your lips as you lie on the picnic blanket, arm stretched toward the night sky as if you might graze the stars above with your fingertips.
Your other hand rests over Sylus’s chest, fingers threaded with his. His free hand settles over both of yours, warm and sure, like a quiet seal meant to last. Beneath your palm, you feel the muted rhythm of his heartbeat through his clothes. A calm and steady beat, comforting in a way that settles deep in your bones.
“I would think so,” he says simply.
You turn your head toward him, brows lifting. “Really?”
He’s already looking at you, the corner of his mouth tipped in an easy smile before his gaze drifts back to the sky. “I do. There are too many out there for there not to be one with your name on it.” A brief pause, thoughtful. “I’d hope the one named after me would be beside yours.”
You watch him as he speaks, the way his eyes reflect starlight, distant and soft all at once. The thought settles somewhere tender inside you. Beside you. In any form. Anywhere. Your fingers tighten around his without thinking, and he answers with the slightest pressure of his own.
The flowers around you shift with the breeze. Brushing faintly against the blanket. The air smells sweet and cool, carrying the serenity of open fields and night-blooming petals. Above, the sky stretches endlessly, scattered with light, and for a moment the world feels too vast to hold, until the steady pulse of his heartbeat beneath your hand brings you back to what is intimate and real.
“It feels a little strange to think that, even with how infinite everything is,” you say, looking back up and letting your free hand rest on your chest. “It doesn’t feel so far when I’m here with you.”
Sylus draws in a quiet breath, weighing his words. “Distance only feels daunting when you face it alone,” he says. “With someone else, it doesn’t feel so overwhelming.”
You glance at him again, a warmth spreading through you that has nothing to do with the night air. “You’re saying the universe is less intimidating because I’m here?”
“I’m saying,” he replies, turning his head slightly toward you, “that I don’t mind how vast it is if you’re somewhere in it with me.”
Your chest tightens at that, a swell of emotion that isn’t painful so much as overwhelming. Amongst it all, you feel the ache of love that words cannot reach. You settle a little closer to him without realising it, shoulder brushing his arm.
A comfortable silence follows, filled only by the soft rustle of flowers and the distant chorus of insects in the grass.
“I’ve made up my mind,” you announce after a while, unable to hide the small smile creeping onto your face.
He raises an eyebrow without looking at you, already amused. “That’s never a simple statement.”
“I’m going to build a tiny rocket ship,” you say with mock seriousness. “I’ll set off on a grand odyssey to find your planet. And when I do, I’ll leave a little piece of me behind, my own mark.”
He huffs a quiet laugh, turning his head to look at you properly now. “And how will you know you’ve found the planet named after me?”
You open your mouth to answer, then pause. The logistics… well, you hadn’t really considered them. The cosmos looms above, uncooperative, as if mocking your impossibly ambitious grand schemes. “I’ll just… know,” you say weakly.
He reaches up and gently pokes your cheek with his finger, a fond gesture that makes you squint at him. “That’s not very scientific.”
You swat lightly at his hand. “It’s intuition.”
He nods, pretending to consider this with great seriousness before his expression softens again. “You know,” he says, looking back at the stars, “I also planned to find the planet named after you.”
You blink, playful curiosity in your tone. “Oh, really?”
“Of course.” His voice is warm with quiet amusement. “So perhaps we should go on this odyssey together. That way, when you see yours, you can tell me. And when I see mine, I’ll tell you.”
You smile at the sky, indulging in the little make-believe for a moment. The two of you drifting through boundless dark, searching patiently through light-years and galaxies with no rush at all. The image feels absurd and strangely comforting at the same time.
“What if we got lost?” you murmur.
“I wouldn’t let that happen,”
“And we forgot what we’re looking for?”
He glances at you, squeezing your hand again. “As long as we’re still side by side, I don’t think it would matter.”
The simplicity of it catches you off guard. You turn your head to him again, and for a moment you just look at each other in the quiet glow of starlight. The silence that follows feels full, settled by the simple fact that you’re together.
“Perhaps after we’ve mapped the route to our little planets,” you say, a teasing lilt in your voice, “we can race back home. The winner takes all.”
A smirk tugs at his lips. “Are you sure you can keep up?”
“Please,” you scoff, nudging his arm. “You know I will.”
He chuckles, shaking his head. “We’ll see about that.”
And so you drift into the night, laughter and soft chatter spilling across the field as you spin out future plans and whimsical what-ifs like building rocket ships, imagining your journeys, and finding each other among the stars. Somewhere above, planets turn in slow, silent orbits. Stars burn without ever knowing who watches them. The universe continues, immense and unknowable. And here, beneath it all, your hand rests over his heart while his hand folds over yours, as if this small patch of grass is its own world entirely.
Like Sylus, you hope your planet—or whatever form your presence might take—would orbit right beside his, never letting him feel alone in the universe.
A.N. I was supposed to be fixing up and writing my upcoming drafts (which is very much killing me…), but I made the executive decision to procrastinate and randomly write this instead. Now its 4 am, and honestly, I have no idea why I do this to myself.
Anyways, thank you so much for reading and stay tuned for more (after a bajillion years, that is…)!! 𐔌՞. .՞𐦯
Soft!Sylus x Reader, 1k wc, sfw, fluff
Under a field of stars, you and Sylus dream up planets, rockets, and impossible adventures, sharing gentle laughter and endless what-ifs together.
“Do you think there’s a planet named after me?” you ask, a faint, carefree smile curving your lips as you lie on the picnic blanket, arm stretched toward the night sky as if you might graze the stars above with your fingertips.
Your other hand rests over Sylus’s chest, fingers threaded with his. His free hand settles over both of yours, warm and sure, like a quiet seal meant to last. Beneath your palm, you feel the muted rhythm of his heartbeat through his clothes. A calm and steady beat, comforting in a way that settles deep in your bones.
“I would think so,” he says simply.
You turn your head toward him, brows lifting. “Really?”
He’s already looking at you, the corner of his mouth tipped in an easy smile before his gaze drifts back to the sky. “I do. There are too many out there for there not to be one with your name on it.” A brief pause, thoughtful. “I’d hope the one named after me would be beside yours.”
You watch him as he speaks, the way his eyes reflect starlight, distant and soft all at once. The thought settles somewhere tender inside you. Beside you. In any form. Anywhere. Your fingers tighten around his without thinking, and he answers with the slightest pressure of his own.
The flowers around you shift with the breeze. Brushing faintly against the blanket. The air smells sweet and cool, carrying the serenity of open fields and night-blooming petals. Above, the sky stretches endlessly, scattered with light, and for a moment the world feels too vast to hold, until the steady pulse of his heartbeat beneath your hand brings you back to what is intimate and real.
“It feels a little strange to think that, even with how infinite everything is,” you say, looking back up and letting your free hand rest on your chest. “It doesn’t feel so far when I’m here with you.”
Sylus draws in a quiet breath, weighing his words. “Distance only feels daunting when you face it alone,” he says. “With someone else, it doesn’t feel so overwhelming.”
You glance at him again, a warmth spreading through you that has nothing to do with the night air. “You’re saying the universe is less intimidating because I’m here?”
“I’m saying,” he replies, turning his head slightly toward you, “that I don’t mind how vast it is if you’re somewhere in it with me.”
Your chest tightens at that, a swell of emotion that isn’t painful so much as overwhelming. Amongst it all, you feel the ache of love that words cannot reach. You settle a little closer to him without realising it, shoulder brushing his arm.
A comfortable silence follows, filled only by the soft rustle of flowers and the distant chorus of insects in the grass.
“I’ve made up my mind,” you announce after a while, unable to hide the small smile creeping onto your face.
He raises an eyebrow without looking at you, already amused. “That’s never a simple statement.”
“I’m going to build a tiny rocket ship,” you say with mock seriousness. “I’ll set off on a grand odyssey to find your planet. And when I do, I’ll leave a little piece of me behind, my own mark.”
He huffs a quiet laugh, turning his head to look at you properly now. “And how will you know you’ve found the planet named after me?”
You open your mouth to answer, then pause. The logistics… well, you hadn’t really considered them. The cosmos looms above, uncooperative, as if mocking your impossibly ambitious grand schemes. “I’ll just… know,” you say weakly.
He reaches up and gently pokes your cheek with his finger, a fond gesture that makes you squint at him. “That’s not very scientific.”
You swat lightly at his hand. “It’s intuition.”
He nods, pretending to consider this with great seriousness before his expression softens again. “You know,” he says, looking back at the stars, “I also planned to find the planet named after you.”
You blink, playful curiosity in your tone. “Oh, really?”
“Of course.” His voice is warm with quiet amusement. “So perhaps we should go on this odyssey together. That way, when you see yours, you can tell me. And when I see mine, I’ll tell you.”
You smile at the sky, indulging in the little make-believe for a moment. The two of you drifting through boundless dark, searching patiently through light-years and galaxies with no rush at all. The image feels absurd and strangely comforting at the same time.
“What if we got lost?” you murmur.
“I wouldn’t let that happen,”
“And we forgot what we’re looking for?”
He glances at you, squeezing your hand again. “As long as we’re still side by side, I don’t think it would matter.”
The simplicity of it catches you off guard. You turn your head to him again, and for a moment you just look at each other in the quiet glow of starlight. The silence that follows feels full, settled by the simple fact that you’re together.
“Perhaps after we’ve mapped the route to our little planets,” you say, a teasing lilt in your voice, “we can race back home. The winner takes all.”
A smirk tugs at his lips. “Are you sure you can keep up?”
“Please,” you scoff, nudging his arm. “You know I will.”
He chuckles, shaking his head. “We’ll see about that.”
And so you drift into the night, laughter and soft chatter spilling across the field as you spin out future plans and whimsical what-ifs like building rocket ships, imagining your journeys, and finding each other among the stars. Somewhere above, planets turn in slow, silent orbits. Stars burn without ever knowing who watches them. The universe continues, immense and unknowable. And here, beneath it all, your hand rests over his heart while his hand folds over yours, as if this small patch of grass is its own world entirely.
Like Sylus, you hope your planet—or whatever form your presence might take—would orbit right beside his, never letting him feel alone in the universe.
A.N. I was supposed to be fixing up and writing my upcoming drafts (which is very much killing me…), but I made the executive decision to procrastinate and randomly write this instead. Now its 4 am, and honestly, I have no idea why I do this to myself.
Anyways, thank you so much for reading and stay tuned for more (after a bajillion years, that is…)!! 𐔌՞. .՞𐦯
Soft!Sylus x Reader, 728 wc, sfw, domestic, fluff
You and Sylus create your own intimate New Year ritual, blending tradition and tenderness in the quiet of your shared home.
Considering how recently you moved in, the house is warm in the way only lived-in spaces can be. Lamplight softened by curtains, the subtle sweetness of melting candle wax, your things woven gently into his—all of it speaks to the quiet intimacy of a space learning how to belong to you both. Outside, the world is already restless with anticipation, but here, time seems willing to linger.
You and Sylus move around each other without thinking, an unspoken choreography. A candle finds its place on the table. A bowl of fruit waits nearby, holding grapes you may or may not eat in time and a pomegranate left whole for now, its seeds waiting to bring luck. Bread cools on the counter with salt set beside it, a quiet nod to thresholds and returns.
You had always wondered how Sylus experienced the turn of a year before you. Probably quietly, alone, letting the hours slip past unnoticed. When you had once asked him how he celebrated, he hadn’t been able to name a tradition. There had been nothing for him, nothing that mattered. Waiting for you had been enough, a quiet yearning he carried through the passing years.
So you had made it a mission, in small, careful ways, to make up for what he’d missed, sharing how New Years had been marked across the world and through the ages. Now, standing beside him with the evening you had prepared, you tilt your head and ask softly, “Do any of these feel familiar to you?”
“Some of them,” Sylus says, steadying the candle wick. “I’ve caught glimpses of a few ways people mark the year. Some lighting fires, others crossing doors, and some whispering wishes into the dark. Little things, each carrying their own quiet meaning, marking the end of one chapter and the beginning of the next.”
You hum tenderly, leaning against the surface. “To think of all the people who have turned over a new leaf, greeting the new and mourning the old, through their years of traditions and celebrations.”
You imagine them then: lovers centuries ago, hands clasped beside hearths, temples and oceans, believing—hoping—that holding each other through the turning of the year could anchor the future. Kings humbled, bells rang, and candles carried through snow. They are the ghosts of that hope, the echoes that feel present in this moment.
He murmurs, a small, private smile touching his lips. “And somehow, it has all led us here, together.”
“It’s unfortunate we couldn’t do everything,” you say, glancing at the scattered symbols of borrowed traditions. You think over the plans you had to forgo: offering flowers to the sea, making a trip to hear the bells rung 108 times or writing small wishes for the year ahead. Small rituals you hope to touch someday, even if tonight you can only improvise.
“Perhaps not this year,” Sylus says gently. He reaches for your hands, entwining his fingers with yours. His warmth lingers, a calm reassurance against your skin. “But there’s time. We can borrow a little now. Save the rest.”
The thought settles warmly in your chest—many more years. Many more nights like this. You open your mouth to ask what your traditions would be, the ones you’d build together instead of inheriting—
A distant crackle blooms overhead, soft and bright against the night.
Outside, fireworks flare suddenly, brilliant bursts of light spilling through the windows in fractured color. Sound rolls through the room like distant thunder, joyful and sharp all at once. You can’t help but laugh under your breath, startled, and Sylus’s gaze softens, a faint smirk tugging at his lips as if he’s been waiting for this exact interruption.
“Seems like the world’s eager to move on,” he murmurs.
He leans in before you can reply, forehead brushing yours, breath warm. Your lips meet in a gentle and unhurried kiss, tasting of the night around you, warm and soft, and against them you murmur each other’s New Year greeting. When he pulls back, his hands are still holding yours, as if letting go simply isn’t an option.
Outside, the new year unfolds.
Inside, you stay—between borrowed rituals and ones you’re quietly forming, between past and future, choosing each other in the pause where time lingers just long enough to be felt.
And for this year, that is tradition enough.
A.N. Initially, I hadn’t planned to write a New Year’s piece, especially since I’ve been really ill recently and was struggling for ideas. But when I thought about New Year’s and Sylus, I started imagining the celebrations he might have missed, and I wanted to honour the traditions passed down across the world. Some preserved, some lost over time. I tried to weave in as many as I could, though I know my research and writing can’t do them full justice. I referenced the Greek tradition with pomegranates, Brazil with flowers in the water, Spain with grapes, ancient Rome and Scotland with threshold rituals, and even ancient Babylon with temporary stripping of kings to symbolise humility (please let me know if I got any of this wrong!).
I don’t usually have a set way of welcoming the New Year, but writing something for it has, in its own way, become my personal tradition. I’d love to hear if you have your own special way of celebrating.
Thank you so much for reading & Happy New Years!! ⊹ ࣪ ˖
༓ Synopsis. Their closeness is fragile, inevitable, and doomed—two worlds drawn together for a time, only to fracture beneath the weight of what must endure and what must end.
༓ Content. sfw, Angst, Religious Themes (not based on a specific religion though), Comfort (but....), Yearning, Fluff (?), Soft!Sylus (?), Reader likes to garden here, Emotional Distress, Loneliness (?), Mentions of death, He's slightly arrogant (?) and distanced at the start, Mentions of death & devastation, Hurt, Conflict of feelings, Death, Not proofread.
༓ Word Count. 11.1k
༓ A.N. I have been seeing glimpses of people theorising and suggesting fallen angel Sylus as a future possible myth and it gave me an idea to write my own take for that AU.
[Artwork by Johann Wilhelm Cordes - 'After the Storm', 1855]
It was said that the Divine created light before breath—before rivers found their pulse, before the earth bore the weight of a heel, before hunger taught the body its ache and fire its master. The world was first drawn in stillness, absolute and unbroken, and from that stillness came radiance. Out of radiance, form.
The angels were among the earliest forms to take shape. They were not born as children of chance, but crafted as instruments, shaped by will alone. Each feather fixed with precision, each note in their voices tuned to harmony, each movement measured to preserve a balance that left no room for error. They were perfection given body, their existence a declaration that chaos had no dominion in the heavens.
Sylus was the most exact of them all. Where others gleamed in choral unison, he carried a stillness that set him apart. His presence was not the brilliance of fire, nor the warmth of light, but the cold clarity of stone cut to a flawless edge. The symmetry of his form, the steady carriage of his frame, the quiet gravity with which he stood—these were the things that drew the gaze of heaven. Even his eyes, garnet and unwavering as if carved from mineral rather than born of flame, seemed made less to look than to weigh.
For this, he was praised. His brethren regarded him with reverence, and the Divine Himself called him the cornerstone of heaven’s order. But Sylus did not bask in admiration, nor did he bend beneath its weight. He simply stood, fulfilling the purpose he had been given: to judge, to strike, to uphold the shape of things without hesitation.
It might have continued so, had the Divine not turned His gaze upon the earth. Humanity—frail, mutable, ceaseless in their hungers—were the creation He most cherished. Their imperfection was, to Him, a kind of beauty. To Sylus, it was an error. They prayed from desperation, loved without caution, erred without cease. To call them beloved was to him incomprehensible, and though his loyalty did not waver, his faith in the Divine’s favour did not extend to them.
When the command came to descend, to watch, to learn—he obeyed as all angels must. Yet obedience is not the same as understanding. Sylus looked upon mankind with the detachment of a surveyor. He recorded their griefs, their joys, their prayers, and their silences. He noted the ways they clung to one another as if flesh could anchor them against eternity. He traced their deaths, counted their gods, memorised their rituals. But none of it altered him. He returned to his station as polished and untouched as glass.
Until he was sent to a land already condemned.
It was a place of laughter and soil, its people bound not by altars but by each other. Their faith was scattered, some whispering to forgotten names, others to none at all. They farmed, they built, they sang; they filled their days with small hopes and their nights with rest. And because they bowed to no throne above, the Divine marked them for ruin.
The decree had been spoken: this valley, with its crooked altars and idle tongues, would be scoured. Its fields drowned, its homes undone, its memory erased.
And Sylus, standing upon the ridges at its threshold, watching the villages crack and rise, felt the sentence resonate through him like a note already struck. He watched children sob for lost animals and lovers kneel over unmarked graves. He saw joy flare like sparks and grief spread like wild rot.
And still, nothing stirred in him. The sight of it, the endless turning of birth and ruin, had become an old story told too many times. He found the effort dull. Redundant. A hollow performance before a silent God.
But, the wind, otherwise stale with summer heat, shifted. It curled toward him with something thick and red on its breath. Heavy, sun-warmed and lush. An unfamiliar scent that clung to the air like velvet. He followed it wearily.
Fruit.
Sweet, honeyed, full. He turned his face slightly into the breeze, irritated by the intrusion, and brushed a lock of silver hair from his temple, pushing it neatly back into place. He glanced down, prepared to dismiss the distraction.
Yet the sight below drew him still.
A hillside modest in its incline, yet crowned with quiet dignity. At its crest stood a solitary tree, its bark dull bronze beneath the light. Its branches bent with the weight of ripened fruit, their crimson skins splitting at the seams, revealing glistening seeds like rubies pressed into flesh. Beneath it spread a small, unassuming garden. A patchwork of herbs and flowers that seemed to bloom simply because they were loved enough to try. Beside it, a home: humble, weathered, carrying the quiet grace of a thing shaped by patient hands.
And among it all — you.
Your figure was turned away from him, kneeling in the soil. The folds of your clothes clung to your form, marked by work and the warmth of the day. Your fingers were buried in the earth, tending, coaxing, comforting. A faint hum rose from you, unthinking, closer to breath than to song.
Sylus lingered, uncertain if it was curiosity or something else that rooted him in place. The world seemed gentler here — slower. Even the air felt different, unhurried, as though time itself had softened its edges.
He took a step forward before he realised he had moved. The dry grass yielded under him with a sound too loud for the silence. You stilled. For the briefest moment, your head turned, and your eyes met his. Then, just as easily, you looked away again, resuming your work as if he were no more than a shadow passing by.
The breeze stirred the branches above, sending a ripple through the leaves. A single pomegranate loosened from its stem and fell, striking the earth with a soft, bruising thump.
“You don’t look familiar.”
Your voice cut through the hum of the garden, low and steady. You brushed soil from your apron and rose partway, your eyes meeting his without fear. The pause that followed lingered long enough to settle into the space between you. You examined him not with awe, as most would, but with the quiet curiosity one might give a passing traveler. His bearing was odd, his clothing too finely wrought for the hill, his pale wings catching light before he drew them close and dimmed them into obscurity.
“I don’t think I’ve seen your kind around here.”
Sylus said nothing at first. His gaze drifted over the garden, the tree, the town scattered far below, before returning to you. His mouth tightened into a small, dismissive frown; one hand rested on his hip while the other hung loose, as though he were already half-prepared to leave.
“I’m not a regular here,” he said finally. “Only passing through.”
The words seemed an afterthought, spoken more to the air than to you. A moment later he muttered, low but clear enough for you to catch, “It’s not something I care to spend my time on.”
You tilted your head toward him, but your hands returned to the soil, covering the roots of a young shoot. It was easier, sometimes, not to question men who appeared from nowhere dressed in radiance. A person like that belonged to stories better left untold. “I see.”
Silence pressed in, broken only by the rustle of leaves and the distant cries of the town below. You felt him still watching you.
“That tree,” he said suddenly, his voice deep and even. “It doesn’t belong here. I’ve not seen anything like it on this particular land.”
“The pomegranate,” you replied, glancing toward the heavy-limbed branches. “No, it isn’t native. I don’t know who planted it. No one remembers. The soil should have rejected it, the climate too. But still it grew.” You allowed yourself a faint smile. “Some things survive not because the earth wants them to, but because they refuse to die.”
His eyes lingered on you. He studied the way your mouth curved faintly when you spoke, the way your gaze flickered distantly as though weighing the tree’s stubborn survival against something else. Then, as though ashamed of the thought, he looked down to the soil.
Humans. Inconsistent, contradictory, hopelessly mortal. He had watched them in markets where shoulders pressed against shoulders, had trailed their whispered bargains in shadowed alleys, had lingered in temples to hear their grief echo like smoke against stone. He had tallied their prayers, charted their vices, measured their joys and despairs until they blurred into a single refrain: folly. If he returned to the Divine, that was all he could say, that humanity was a cycle without variance.
And yet, standing here, his gaze drifting from the soil at his feet to the town below and finally back to you bent quietly over your garden, something thinned in his armor. Not clarity, not compassion, but the faint impression of a life carried differently—lighter, though it was bound to the same weight that crushed all mortal things. There was, in you and in this place, a kind of freedom that unsettled him precisely because it asked for nothing.
It did not soften him. The heaviness remained, the Divine’s decree unaltered in his mind. Still, for the first time, he found his indifference scratched by something he could neither name nor dismiss.
“Do you live alone here?” he asked, his tone brusque.
Your hands pressed the soil more firmly around the roots of a young plant. You did not look up when you answered. “I do.” Then, after a beat, you added, “Why all the questions?”
The silence that followed was pointed. He narrowed his eyes slightly, as though the words had reached him but slipped past without catching. He did not answer.
You exhaled through your nose, brushing the dirt from your fingertips with sharper motions. His silence was more irksome than his questions, and you found yourself mildly annoyed at the arrogance of a man who expected answers but offered none in return.
For his part, Sylus turned his gaze back toward the town below. He thought—reluctantly—that when devastation finally came, it would be a lonely death you faced. No hand to hold, no voice to soften the terror. And he caught himself in that thought, unsettled by it. Why should it matter? You were a stranger, a mortal. A life brief as smoke. He reminded himself the Divine had already marked this land for ruin. He reminded himself he was the blade that would not falter when the command was given. Still, the notion remained lodged in him like grit beneath armor: that there was something quietly sorrowful in the way you belonged to no one, and no one belonged to you.
In the end, if ruin must come, then it must.
“Have you tasted its fruit?” he asked, nodding toward the tree.
You gave a small nod. “It’s bittersweet.”
You rose then, dusting your hands. Standing gave you a clearer view of him—his face drawn sharp with both harshness and beauty, his stance proud, though a shadow of weariness edged his frame. You thought you caught something in his eyes then, beneath the indifference: not longing exactly, but something that resembled it if you looked too long.
“If you’d like,” you said quietly, “I could offer you some.”
He turned to you slowly, his expression unreadable. Afternoon light spilled over the tree behind you, glinting off the swollen fruit until it seemed almost luminous. He considered the offer with a low hum, arms folding across his chest. The pomegranate hung ripe, almost indecent in its fullness, roots curling from the earth like skeletal fingers. All in the name of observation, he told himself, though the thought rang hollow. At last, he allowed the faintest smile. “I’ll hold you to your word.”
You parted your lips to respond, but his voice cut gently across yours. “The sun is setting. You should rest.”
You frowned, only faintly. It was an excuse, you knew, dressed in politeness. He wore indifference as though it were armour, yet it sat uneasily on him, betrayed by the half-smile that lingered too long at the edge of his mouth.
You said nothing more. He had already stayed longer than he intended. His wings shimmered faintly as he turned, no longer hidden. As he departed, the air bent under the gust they left behind, stirring your garden and carrying with it the cloying sweetness of pomegranate.
Sylus did not look back. Yet as the hill fell away beneath him, the fruit’s scent clung to him like a bruise, and the weight along his spine—the absence of something he could not yet name—gnawed at him all the way to the sky.
༓༓༓
He had not meant to come back, and yet the hill received him without surprise, as if it had been keeping a place for him in the way a wound keeps a scar. He lingered at the rise at first, his robes catching the wind like a flag, the silver filaments along the hem whispering of places the earth had forgotten. The garden below held its ordinary quiet: pots and clipped rows, the low wall that kept the scrub at bay, and the pomegranate, each fruit suspended like a patient accusation.
He watched longer than he told himself he would, longer than any sensible order required, until the sound that had first caught him unspooled into a single, human problem — the sharp, panicked rustling of a small creature in distress.
You were at the thorny patch before he could decide to turn away. He watched you bend, saw the way your fingers threaded through brambles without the careful hesitation of someone unused to pricks; saw, too, the quick, helpless look flit across your face when the bird’s desperate movement snagged your hand. The crow was a dark, broken thing among the thorns, feathers stuck and small wings trembling. No one else was near; the valley lay sunlit and ordinary beyond them. He moved before he had fully measured the sin of interference — a step that felt like a small betrayal of the discipline that had been folded into him at creation.
“What happened to it?” he asked, and the sound of his voice, low and even, made you start as if the world had a new edge.
You turned, relief spilling into your features so openly it made you look like someone who had been spared something worse. “I think it hit the bush while trying to land,” you said. Your hands trembled. “Its wing is—” you swallowed, then met his eyes with the pragmatic air of someone who was used to finding practical answers. “Could you help? Please.”
For a moment he considered withdrawing. Intervention was not his place here, and whatever meddling with mortal life might mean for his standing, he had been taught that consequences mattered. But the sound the bird made — a small, raw cry — was pitiful, and however much he insisted on order and distance, the sight of things breaking where you had to mend them tugged at a place in him that quietly kept count.
He bent toward you with measured calm, each gesture contained; you watched him perform an act no one had ever shown you before, and for a brief instant, your tension softened. His hand hovered above the bird, not touching, and a faint light gathered there: a small thing, cool and narrow as moonlight. The cry faltered as if the bird recognised that it was no longer alone. Where the light met feather, the snapped barbs smoothed; where the bruise had darkened, the skin knit. The sound of pain ceased. Yours exhaled into the space between them like steam.
The bird rose a few awkward steps, shook itself once, and then cocked its head at them as if to say that the miracle had been adequate. It hopped from her apron to the little bench and, after a brief, comically human pause of inspection, tipped its beak twice toward them in a small, insolent salute before launching away into the sun.
You looked at him then with an earnestness that was not quite gratitude and not quite curiosity. “Thank you,” your words were modest but steady; fingers, still speckled with sap and soil, curled around the lint of your apron.
He made a small, formal sound in reply. “It was nothing,” he said, though nothingness had, of late, begun to feel stranger than any confession. He watched the way relief had smoothed your face and felt something like the stir of sympathy, unwanted and inconvenient. He chastised himself inwardly; sympathy did not suit his role. It felt extraneous, an impurity.
When you met his gaze for the first time and asked, a little hesitantly, “What is your name?” he was arrested by the ordinary civility of the question. Your hands showed hard use — small blisters and a thin, fresher cut — and you tried to hide them, as if you expected pity. Instead he reached out and held them gently. Light flowed from his fingers then, softer than before, and the shallow lines eased. Your chest rose in a quiet, contained breath, a fleeting acknowledgment of the small, absurd relief it brought.
“Sylus,” he answered when he spoke, the name falling in the sun between them like a coin. He watched you register it with neither awe nor fear, merely recognition: the sound of a name you had perhaps heard in the mouths of travellers and preachers, and then promptly buried beneath the work of living.
He let your hands go, watching the way you flexed your repaired fingers as if testing them for more damage. The unspoken map of their difference lay between them: his stillness and your habit of motion, his origin and your rootedness. He poured water from a ceramic jug that had sat on the low wall, hands efficient and precise, and set it before you. You drank, the motion of it ordinary and human, and he sat for a moment on the bench beside you, not too close, not distant enough to be indifferent. The valley hummed on; the town slept under its own cares deeper in the hollow.
He glanced at the pomegranate, at the fruit he had been promised to taste. “It will have to wait until next time,” he said at last — not an assurance of return so much as an observation about the arc of the day. You opened your mouth, perhaps to say more, but he rose, the slight stiffness at his shoulders betraying his need to return to the survey that bound him. He did not look back. As he moved away the scent of pomegranate trailed after him like a bruise: sweet, stubborn, and not to be readily forgotten.
He had come thinking this errand would be an interruption: a quick glance, a cataloguing, then return to his brethren. He left with a small, unsettled ledger in his head — a bird healed, a pair of hands mended, a name. He told himself, properly, that such things would mean nothing on his report; that when he returned to the higher place he would file them under curiosity and move on. Yet even that tidy resolution seemed to empty under the fact of how lightly you met the world’s harms and how badly that lightness disturbed him. He had not been changed; only shaken. That, he decided as the hill sank away beneath his retreating shadow, might be enough for the work that had been asked of him.
༓༓༓
The next day arrived as the others had, yet he felt it differently. The air was tempered with that late-summer heaviness, the kind that weighed on the hillsides and pressed slow shadows across the land. His steps were slower, less like the measured tread of a sentinel and more like one who lingered against his own intent. The brittle grass hushed beneath his tread, and when he reached the garden, you did not greet him immediately. Your attention was bent toward the soil, fingers buried in the roots of some stubborn weed. Only when his shadow slipped over you did you turn your head, brushing a lock of hair from your cheek, mouth curved into a smile small enough to feel private.
In his hand was a flower, its stem thin and arching, its pale violet bloom folding outward like a secret too fragile to hold. He had found it in the shade of a dying olive tree on the slope below, its beauty incongruous, its shape almost deliberate. He did not know its name, nor why he had carried it with him, yet it had remained between his fingers all the way here, surviving his reluctance to let it fall.
“Third day this week?” you asked, voice light, your smile touched with amusement. “You must be dreadfully bored if you need to see my face so often.”
The faintest shift stirred at the corner of his mouth, but the jest slipped past unanswered. He looked instead toward the garden’s far edge. “You’ve left the western beds unwatered.”
Your brow furrowed, though without displeasure. “So you come all this way to inspect my flaws?” you replied, half a sigh, half a laugh. But you had noticed something in his stance — a weariness threaded through his posture, a stillness that was not only vigilance but fatigue. Whatever his duties were elsewhere, they seemed to cling to him like a weight he could not set down. You did not pry. Instead, you motioned toward the bench against the wall. “Sit. Wait here a moment.”
He obeyed, lowering himself to the stone bench, the flower still trapped between his fingers. You vanished briefly inside your house, the door creaking and then closing soft. When you returned carrying a bowl, porcelain pale against your hands. You set it between the both of you on the bench. Within lay the pomegranate’s treasure, freshly peeled, seeds shining like rubies cupped in white skin, glistening from a recent rinse.
“I thought you might come,” you said simply.
He reached into the bowl, plucked one seed between thumb and forefinger, and studied it as though it might hold some hidden truth. Then he placed it on his tongue. The burst of sweetness met with a bitter edge, and he chewed once, twice, swallowing with measured quiet. You were watching, expectant, head tilted slightly, eyes brightened with anticipation.
“You were right,” he said at last, voice low, deliberate. “Bittersweet. But I like it.”
Relief uncoiled in your expression, smile breaking wider. You reached for the fruit yourself, and for a while you ate together in silence. The rhythm of it was companionable, almost domestic — the simple motion of fingers dipping into the bowl, the muted squash of pomegranate between teeth. From silence, talk unfolded naturally. You spoke of small things: the fox you had glimpsed stealing figs from a neighbour’s orchard, the way the vines had grown stubbornly along the low wall, how the nights seemed louder this summer with insects clamouring in the fields. He listened, his answers dry, short, yet faintly amused, as though your words reshaped the air around him in ways he could not admit. Once, you said something — absurd in its own way, yet spoken with such conviction — that he laughed, a sound brief and unguarded, escaping him before he could recall it. The moment startled you both.
As the afternoon stretched, both his and your postures softened. You turned toward him on the bench, tucking one leg beneath the other, elbow resting loosely on the backrest. He shifted as well, his arm finding its place along the bench’s edge, his body angled slightly toward yours, not close enough to intrude, not distant enough to deny the shared space. The breeze slipped between them, carrying the scent of dry grass and pomegranate rind, softening the sharp edges of the day.
“Your plants,” he said at last, his voice thoughtful, though the words seemed to wrest themselves from him unwillingly. “Is there value in such effort?”
You looked at him. “In what sense?”
“You grow. You tend. You harvest. You are caring for something that will sooner meet its end.”
For a while you did not answer. You gazed at your garden, lips parting, then closing again, as though measuring your reply against the silence. Finally, you smiled faintly, wistfully. “That is life. To watch something grow, to care for it, to see it reach its end with pride knowing it was yours to tend— that’s reward enough. Wouldn’t you say the same?”
He had no answer. The silence between you pressed deep, but it was not uncomfortable. It seemed to steady him more than any reply could.
After a moment, he lifted the flower, hesitant in his gesture, unsure if it was an offering or only something to set between you. “I found this nearby,” he said slowly. “I thought you might know it.”
Your eyes rested on it. “Datura,” you said.
His brows drew slightly. “Is it rare?”
He lifted it closer, the violet bloom pale against his fingers. The scent struck him as thick, sweet, but edged with something darker, sharp at the rim of sweetness like smoke. He closed his eyes as he breathed it in, the perfume settling in his chest with a strange weight.
“It’s poisonous,” you tell him softly.
His eyes opened, his hand lowering as if chastened. For a moment he looked at the bloom as though it had betrayed him. His voice, when it came, was subdued. “I thought you might have liked it.”
Before you could answer, a sudden caw rang out. Both their heads turned skyward. The crow from the day before descended, black wings folding sharply as it landed upon the back of the bench. In its beak, a garnet-like stone caught the light. It cocked its head at him, insistent, before hopping down, nudging at his shoulder.
Sylus opened his palm, the datura still lying across it. The crow dropped the gem there, then noticing his hands were full, seized the flower and took flight, vanishing with another rough cry into the horizon.
He looked at the stone, its fractured surface scattering the sun. Confusion flickered across his features, tempered by something gentler.
“Crows are more empathetic than people give credit for,” you said, as if reading his thoughts. “They remember kindness, never forgetting a face.”
“I see,” he murmured. The faintest curve touched his mouth, a smile so slight it might have been mistaken for thought.
He turned his hand as if to offer the gem to you, but you shook your head. Your fingers brushed against his, folding his hand closed around it, securing the stone in his palm. “It’s yours,” you said.“It wouldn’t be noble to steal another’s token of gratitude.”
Your touch lingered a moment longer than the words, a warmth pressed into his skin. He looked down at his hand, silent.
“Let it reflect the change within you each time you see it.” you added softly
The word struck him. Change. It had already begun, though he had not named it. The word rooted itself in him, unwelcome yet immovable. Something subtle and unrelenting, as inevitable as the turn of the season. He looked at you then, the afternoon light scattering across your features, and knew that this tide could not be recalled.
༓༓༓
The days passed, and with them a pattern began to take root. Each morning or afternoon — never at the same hour, yet never absent — he appeared. At first it seemed chance, then habit, until it could only be called inevitability. The strangeness of his presence had softened; his tread no longer startled, and you no longer waited with suspicion for his shadow. If anything, you found yourself glancing up from your work in the garden with the quiet hope that he might arrive, as though the day felt thinner without him.
And when he did come, his guard lowered a little more each time. The stiffness in his posture gave way to ease, his voice less formal, his silences less severe. He would sit on the bench or lean against the low wall, his wings concealed, while you both conversed about things neither essential nor trivial. Some days it was the garden, the stubborn way certain plants resisted the soil; other days it was the town below, its people busy with their unremarkable errands, their lives carrying on unnoticed. You spoke often, your words carrying the warmth of someone who lived close to the earth, and though he seldom gave much away, his attention never wavered, and in it was a kind of companionship.
There were afternoons when you pressed him into service, laughing as you handed him a spade or directed him to hold a trellis steady. He performed these tasks with a curious precision, as though every movement were part of a ritual and yet there was something almost human in the way his hair fell loose over his brow, in the faint dirt that clung to his immaculate hands. Other times it was you who guided him, leading him up the rise to the pomegranate tree, where you would stand shoulder to shoulder and look down at the town sprawled in the hollow below. The view stretched far, and for him it was an old sight, one he had catalogued countless times before. But with you beside him, pointing out the lines of smoke curling from chimneys, or the sound of bells carried faintly by the wind, it felt altered, as though the land itself had grown more vivid under your gaze.
In these small, repeated moments, you had grown accustomed to one another. You to the strange serenity he carried with him, that stillness edged with some vast and unspoken weight; he to your quiet resilience, your rootedness in soil and season, your ability to treat him with the ordinary warmth one might offer a neighbour. What began as intrusion had become familiarity, and though neither you nor him named it aloud, you both knew that the days felt more complete in the company of the other.
And so, when he moved toward you now, it felt neither sudden nor startling, but as though the day itself had guided him, a quiet inevitability woven into the lengthening shadows.
He came to you as the light was going thin, the horizon folding itself like a page turned slow and deliberate. The hill kept its hush at that hour; even the insects seemed to know some things were not for sound. Below them the town lay like a scatter of candles, small and stubborn against the dark, roofs and alleys caught between the last of the sun and the first of the stars. Between the town and them, the pomegranate tree made its silhouette, blunt and brazen, its fruit glinting darkly where the last rays found red. The air tasted of dust and ripe flesh; somewhere a vine had given up its leaves and left a sweetness on the wind.
He took his place beside you with effortless stillness, a quiet presence neither claiming nor yielding. He kept his hands folded behind his back as if to remember the posture of the hall, as if to teach them restraint. His face was composed, the thin line of his mouth practiced into neutrality, but the garnet in his eyes held a temper he was trying to hide—a heat pulled low, made wary. He watched the town for a moment with you, letting the town name itself in the quiet between them, then turned his question toward you as if he were measuring the world by the angle of your answer.
“Does my presence disturb you?” he asked carefully; the words were low and exact, and for the first time since you’d known him, his voice had a softness that frayed at the edges. It was not supplication. It was a concession.
You let out a breath that was almost a laugh, half-annoyed, half-affectionate in a way he would never have expected from you. “Truthfully,” you started, “no. Seeing you is…not the worst thing this world has to offer.” You spoke with a little impatience, the kind of dismissal you give to a persistent fly. It made him smile, a little, the gesture modest and guarded, and you felt your face warm where you did not want it to.
He watched you look away as if the sight of your shyness could be captured and kept dearly. “I am glad,” he said. The words wanted to be more than politeness; they wanted to be something else entirely.
“Then,” he began after a silence, “may I ask something of you?”
It was absurd, a thing against his nature and against the nature of those who bent the sky. He had spoken of humans as if they were a kind of weather—fickle, lovely, briefly violent. That an archangel would request anything of a gardener was a small, strange mercy. You cocked a brow, cross-armed, weathered knuckles that made you look honest and worn. “Yes?” you said. “I’m surprised you ask for favours at all.”
He did not smile this time. He looked at the town beneath them, at the slant of roofs and the handful of people who moved like ants, like prayers through the lanes. He looked at the pomegranate tree, at the way its fruit loomed like a tiny sacrament. He looked back at you and his hands, still clasped behind him, tightened just enough that the cloth at his wrists creased.
“I would have you leave this place,” he said. The words were small in the beginning and then soon bore the weight of what he meant. “Go beyond the valleys, plant elsewhere. This land will be unmade.”
You registered his meaning fully, in the tone that carried warnings. You stepped back a fraction, not because you were afraid of him but because the idea of leaving the ground where all your hands had worked felt like asking someone to sever your own ribs. “You ask me to abandon everything I have,” you asked. He could see the way your fingers flexed at your sides, the old discreet habit. “Why would I run when others will stay?”
He should have argued that survival is its own sanctity, that to live is a kind of worship. He should have listed the practicalities—chasing dreams, a longer life, the safety of far fields. But words like that felt hollow coming from him, like coins from a treasury he should not spend. Instead, the thing inside him that had changed—quiet, like a wound learning to hold—made a more human plea. He stepped forward then, forgetting decorum for a single, slippery moment.
He took your left hand. His fingers were colder than you expected, finding the bones as easily as a cartographer finds coastline; he looked down as if to hide his face, as if the sight of your palm was something that might shame him for its smallness. He held your hand in both of his as though two hands could be a shelter. His thumb moved, light and furtive, across the back— a motion at once casual and intimate, the kind of touch a man reserves for the private catalogue of what he will not have again.
“Please,” he said. It was the nicest sound he had ever made. It carried a kind of small breaking to it, a throb of desperate conviction—less an order than a begging made of stone. “Leave. If they come with unmaking, there will be nothing left to call home. I cannot watch you be swallowed by water and ash.”
You almost laughed at the strangeness of an angel pleading like a frail master, at the tenderness in the imploration. But the humour died immediately at the edges when you saw his face. He did not meet your gaze. For the first time, you saw something like fear in the set of his jaw—the fear of an immortal who had found a fracture it could not heal. It lent the whole scene a horror that the words could not.
“I cannot,” you said at last. The refusal was soft but absolute. It was the sound of someone who had decided not to be moved. “This is my home. These people—my neighbours, the town folk, the children who grew up here—there is no honour in abandoning them to death. I have to stand with them, even if it terrifies me.”
He closed his eyes at that, and in the motion the light changed on his face—something like shame, or like the sudden recognition of a cost he had underestimated. He leaned in and, without a phrase of sermon or a flourish of grace, he bent his head and pressed his lips to the back of your hand. The kiss was simple, earnest, the press of someone who understands the value of the single thing they will hold close. He closed his eyes for a moment, as if savouring the weight of the act, and then opened them again, and in that brief pause you saw the old severity wrestle with new tenderness. There was no triumph in it. No declaration. Only the small, desperate plea: “Please.”
When you shook your head—soft, sad, resigned—he kept his hold on your hand as if letting go would spill whatever fragile thing had passed between you two. “I am sorry,” you murmured. It was not an apology to him so much as to the land, to the people, to the stubbornness that had made you who you were. If he had asked for any other thing—an oath given, a secret entrusted—perhaps you would have yielded. But to leave the fields, to tear roots from the earth that had made you, demanded a surrender you could not give.
He did not look stricken. He looked like a man who has learned the contours of grief and has no rhythm for it yet. He released your hand slowly, the action reverent, and stepped back into the pale hem of his own world. For a long time you both stood like that: the pomegranate in-between, the town small and stubborn below, the sky a bruise that would not heal.
When he finally spoke again it was not to reproach you, nor to cajole. He simply said, “If the water comes, know that you may ask of me anything—and I would not refuse.” There was no pride in it, only the weight of a promise and the quiet truth of his heart.
You looked at him, and in the dark that settled into his eyes you saw something you did not expect to find: not god or monster, but a creature who had learned how to insist on another’s life with the single blunt instrument of his will. It frightened you, and it steadied you all at once.
Around you, the evening closed up like a book. The town did not seem to hear promises or pleas—only its own small, human noises: a pot set down too hard, a child's laugh carrying too far, a dog’s uncertain bark. The world went on, ignorant and luminous in its stubbornness, and the two of you were left under the pomegranate like two statues that might yet move.
༓༓༓
The silence had changed. It was no longer the cool, indifferent kind he had long known, the sort that filled the heavens like a still breath. This one carried weight — the quiet after a door has closed, after something irrevocable has begun to turn. He pretended not to notice at first, though the truth of it had already settled in him like ash. The little changes were always the first signs; the calm before the storm.
When he entered the sanctums above, he felt a pause that lasted a fraction too long, a gaze that lingered when it should have passed through him. The higher host did not accuse; they did not need to. The judgment of heaven was rarely spoken aloud. A mere shift in the air was enough to condemn. Wings of his brethren that once bowed now held still in wary poise. The space around him felt newly defined, as though the air itself had learned to mark him as other.
And yet he moved as he always had, unhurried, his hands bathed in divine luminescence, his form still hewn from the marble of eternity. But beneath the perfection something else had begun to live. It clung faintly to him, impossible to wash away: the scent of soil after rain, of fruit ripening in late sun, of something small and alive and utterly unafraid of perishing. He carried it with him without meaning to — you clung to him that way.
Days grew longer in his absence. Harder, too. He tried to stretch the distance between visits, to return to the stillness that had once defined him, but each day away only pressed your image deeper into him. The scent of your garden, the faint brush of laughter in your voice, the ease with which you spoke his name, these things followed him into the high places where light should have burned memory clean. He had thought himself immutable, but found instead that longing had a form, and it was yours.
He remembered his purpose well enough: he had been sent to observe, to temper his indifference, to understand humanity from the safe remove of eternity. Not to touch, not to care. To learn without belonging. But now, when he thought of you, he could not regret the trespass. There was something almost sacred in the transgression, in the small, ordinary peace your garden offered, in the way you welcomed him without question, without fear.
Yet peace, he knew, was fragile. The town below had begun to wither beneath the notice of divine will. He could feel the hum of its approaching ruin — faint at first, like the distant pulse of thunder, but inevitable. He had tried to warn you, his words had been frayed and desperate. But, you remained gentle and unmoved, loyal to the land that you tend to. His warning fell like water on stone. And perhaps he had known it would.
Cowardice was not a word he’d ever applied to himself. Yet the more he avoided you, the heavier that truth became. To flee your presence was easier than facing what his failure meant. The Divine had said nothing further, had not summoned him again. But silence in the heavens was never absence. It was attention held still, a gaze so absolute it made even eternity tremble.
Still, with thoughts congested and the weight of foreknowledge in his chest, he found his way back to you. Again. Always.
The hill met him with a quieter welcome this time. The air was drier; the wind lacked its old warmth. Leaves curled faintly at their edges, and the grasses had dulled from green to pale straw. Even the pomegranate tree — that insolent thing with its blood-bright fruit — seemed slower to bear, its branches heavy not with abundance, but fatigue.
And as he stood there, looking upon the garden that had once been his reprieve, he understood that beauty, too, had an appointed hour. And that hour, for all its sweetness, was beginning to fade.
You noticed him then, standing dazed at the edge of the garden, and approached almost cautiously as though afraid the sight of him might dissolve if you moved too quickly. Your smile was small, uncertain, yet warmer than the morning sun; happiness flickered beneath the quiet sadness of his absence. You had wondered if he had left without a word, and whether your own stubbornness had driven him away. How foolish that seemed now. You wanted to speak, to ask, to apologize but the words caught, and so you only smiled instead. He looked at you, that faint, faraway grief still settled in his eyes, and neither of you dared disturb the moment. You spoke then as you used to, lightly at first, the conversation threading itself back into familiarity, until the silence between you felt like ease again, not loss.
Your gaze drifted past him, up into the sky where clouds pressed low and grey, swollen with rain. For a moment you said nothing, your hands folding uneasily before you as if your body itself sought a shield. Something heavy lodged in your chest—an omen you could not name, only feel—as if a question unasked might keep its answer from breaking you. And yet you asked it, quiet, hesitant, your voice brushed with a tremor you hoped he would not hear.
“Will you return here again?”
The words hung between them like smoke that refused to vanish.
He studied you, and for once it was not the quick measuring glance of one who lives by judgment. His silence was deliberate, weighed, as though each answer he could give contained its own ruin. He knew what awaited him in the high halls should he return—feathers shedding like embers, life narrowing with every step into mortality. Obedience had long since begun to sour in him. What had once been clarity now felt like chains, and it was you, with your mortal stubbornness, who had shown him another way of seeing.
He smiled—soft, uncharacteristic, as if the expression itself resisted him. “Suddenly so eager to see me again?”
You scoffed lightly, though the flush in your cheeks betrayed you. “Do you mistake me for yourself? It was you who vanished for days before crawling back here.”
His laugh came quietly, startlingly human, carrying the warmth of someone who had allowed himself—for one moment—to forget the weight above his shoulders. “You’re right,” he said, inclining his head slightly, as though acknowledging a confession. “I should admit it. I missed this place. Missed you. Even the tree.”
You looked at him then, truly looked. The laugh had carved something new into his face, unguarded, alive in a way you had not seen. It startled you, the ease with which he had confessed it, the way it laid bare a tenderness he had no reason to offer you. Heat touched your cheeks again, your lips pulling into a smile you hadn’t chosen, startled by the quiet joy of him.
And then the rain began.
It came suddenly, not a drizzle but a downpour, hard and cold, soaking the earth in moments. You lifted your arms, palms open, childlike, catching the water in your hands and hair, laughing under the chill as your locks clung dark against your skin. But the delight faltered when, just as quickly, the drops vanished. You blinked, startled—the world around you still drenched, the rain still falling heavy, but not upon you.
Tilting your head back and you saw them: wings stretched wide above you, vast and impossible, a canopy of living white that caught the storm before it touched you. You had not seen them since the first day, since the moment he had revealed himself before masking his form to walk among men. To see them now was like being held in the shadow of something ancient and forbidden.
You lowered your gaze to him. He was looking upward, feigning indifference, as though extending his wings were nothing more than habit, a casual courtesy. Yet you could see the angle of his jaw, the way he refused your eyes, and knew this was no simple gesture. He felt you watching, turned his gaze at last, and lifted one brow with a half-shrug that tried to make light of what had just been offered.
“You should go inside,” he said evenly. “You’ll catch a cold.”
Hesitant, then stepping closer, your hands reached for his. They were cold in your grasp, long-fingered, trembling faintly as though unused to being held. You pressed your palms against his as if you could lend him your warmth, but in truth it was gratitude that moved you—gratitude you could not shape into words. He did not pull away.
Side by side, the two of you walked through the storm, his wings arched like a cathedral above you. He led you carefully, his gaze lingering too long on your face, memorising the curve of your cheek, the way raindrops clung to your lashes. By the time they reached her door, your breath caught at how near he was, how wholly his presence filled the narrow space between you.
“You didn’t answer me,” you said softly, unease threading through your words. Your hand lingered in his, unwilling to be the first to release. “About returning. To see me again.”
He smiled, but it was not the earlier warmth. It was thinner, shaped by something fragile beneath it, as though the weight of what he withheld pressed against the corners of his mouth. He brushed a strand of damp hair from your face with unhurried fingers, the gesture intimate in its restraint.
“Would you like me to?” he asked, his voice low, carrying both promise and sorrow.
You nodded too quickly, almost desperate in the smallness of the motion. You did not know when his absence had become a weight in your chest, only that it had, and that you needed him to fill it. His eyes lingered on yours, searching, as though your nod had given him a permission he did not trust himself to accept.
“Then,” he said at last, his voice steady though his gaze was not, “I will return. Once more. If it is your wish.”
He bent to you, not towards your lips but your temple, where his kiss was both reverent and restrained. The storm broke louder around you, thunder snarling over the valley, but you felt only the press of him, brief and burning. He pulled away then, ushering you inside, urgency threaded into his gentleness.
When you turned at the doorway, he was still there, wings folding in slow retreat. For a breath, his face was unguarded, a frown softened into something almost mournful. He offered you a final smile, fragile as glass.
And then he was gone. Back to the heights, to the command that waited for him there, to the silence that would demand a choice.
You closed the door with your heart beating too quickly, knowing only this: he had promised you one more visit. And in that promise, a shadow of dread.
༓༓༓
As if on cue, Sylus had been summoned to stand before the Divine upon his return to the celestial planes. Not a sound could be heard within the boundless expanse, and yet tension strung itself through him like a bow drawn taut. Once, he had moved through this realm with effortless certainty, gliding across the firmament as though born from its very breath, untouched by burden or hesitation. But now there was drag in the wings, a weight to the air that resisted him.
He could only guess when the shift had begun, when the immaculate edges of his being had started to dull beneath the touch of the mortal world. Perhaps it had happened quietly, with every descent, every inhalation of air unfiltered by eternity. Something in him, once radiant and unblemished, had begun to absorb the pulse of the world below. The scent of rain, of garden earth, of mortal warmth had clung to his skin, softening the edges of what he was made to be. The truth was plain: each return from the realm below had worn at him, tenderly eroding a sliver of divinity exchanged for memory, for feeling, for something that did not belong to angels. But it had begun to belong to him. And he had not resisted.
Now, the hour had arrived.
The Voice had called, and the Host gathered in the great sanctum where sound itself seemed forbidden. They assembled in perfect rows, wings folded with geometric precision, their silence sharper than drawn blades. There was no whispering, no shifting of feet — only the shimmer of light upon feathered ranks, like pale fire trembling in still air.
At the centre, the Divine. Not a figure, not even a shape — only an awareness vast and unblinking, old as the first breath ever taken, speaking through the marrow of all things. It did not echo, for nothing divine required repetition.
Sylus stood without yielding. His stillness was neither defiance nor pride, but a quiet resolve born when a single truth outweighed eternity. He faced the Divine, not as adversary or as its exalted creation, but as one who had glimpsed grace in the soil-stained hands of a mortal and found it more sacred than the cold vault of heaven.
“This land,” said the Divine, its tone without anger, without warmth, “has become ash in My mouth. It drinks not from the well of Me, but from a god not born of My breath. Let rot be its offering. Let water return it to dust. Let none remain.”
Sylus’ jaw tensed, his voice heavy with a sorrow that tasted of iron, careful beneath the weight of futility. “Punishment upon a land that has done nothing but live the life You gave freely to them is unjust. They are powerless to resist against You. Spare them.”
“Compassion,” murmured the Voice, slow and measured, “is a mortal balm. A virtue gifted to them so that they may crawl to Me in their suffering. You were made perfect. What use have you for pity?”
“Then why command me to observe them?” Sylus asked, bitterness cutting through his tone. “To learn from their weakness? Or to mock it?”
The silence that followed deepened, dense and airless. No wing moved. No head lifted. The Host stood as statues, faces blank beneath their radiance. The Voice did not answer at once.
Then, a single feather loosened from Sylus’ back and drifted down, pale and luminous, curling faintly at the edges like paper left too close to flame. The air grew close, the stillness almost suffocating.
“I had known,” said the Divine at last, “that you would not return untouched.”
The words lingered , gentle but vast enough to fill the chamber. Sylus straightened, even as his brethren bowed, their reverence folding them in half with eyes lowered in submission.
“That you would hunger for autonomy the way mortals hunger for fruit never meant for their hands.” The Voice wove through him, low and steady. “You were My most precise creation. A blade wrought without imperfection. You saw without faltering. Judged without error. And yet now you return with doubt stitched into your silences.”
Sylus stood motionless, though his throat tightened.
“Observing you,” continued the Divine, “was My first godly error — for in watching you, I expected constancy, not change. I had forgotten that even perfection can be worn down by love.”
He said nothing. His eyes, once cold and crystalline, had darkened to something softer — the hue of gathering storm clouds. There was a faint crease between his brows, the kind you might have smoothed away with a teasing word and a touch. The memory stung, brief as a spark in the dark.
“You sought a human’s heart,” said the Voice, not accusing, but almost mournful. “And you returned with one of your own.”
Another feather fell. And then another. Each one dimmer than the last.
“I question,” the Divine said, almost to Itself, “if this too is a kind of perfection — or if it is failure clothed in beauty.”
No answer came.
“The perfect rose,” the Voice murmured at last, tender as a benediction, “must be pruned before its thorns defile the garden.”
Then came the verdict, like a breath drawn before the final cut. A velvet noose.
“When the final feather leaves you,” the Divine said, voice colder now, “when the last of My touch deserts your skin—there will be nothing left below. No garden. No name to call you home. Only the memory of what you chose.”
What he chose.
The words struck him like light through water. None of this had been his choice—or at least not one freely made. And yet, as the thought settled, he knew there was truth in it. He had chosen, if not with will, then with love. And for that, he could not bring himself to repent.
He only wished it could have been different — that he had met you in another time, another place, unburdened by heaven’s law and earth’s fragility. That your hands, unmarked by sorrow, could have continued tending the garden that had once welcomed him as if he belonged.
But regret was useless now.
He lowered his gaze, the faintest tremor running through his shoulders. Light wavered around him, thin and flickering, as though even the heavens could no longer bear the sight.
And as the first crack of unmaking began within him — silent, blinding, absolute — the chamber filled with a wind like mourning.
Sylus’ gaze fell to the ground, his head bowed in a solemn stillness. The silence in him was heavy, almost prayer-like, as though he were lamenting a thing already gone. His descent was swift, stripped of sanctity, shorn of light, and the sky from which he fell fractured like stained glass, its shards glinting in sorrow.He fell as the last withered leaf does in winter, drawn downward not by gravity but by the weight of his own choosing. As his wings began to moult, feather by feather, his place among the Host dissolved like ash upon a tongue. Yet he did not weep. Something deeper within him cracked, and through that rift spilled something human — grief.
He did not think of his fall, nor of punishment. Only of you. He wanted to reach you, and quickly, not caring for the ruin of his wings nor the fire still eating at his back. The mortal world below was drowning. The flood had come in full, waters swallowing hill and hearth alike. The garden was no longer a garden. The land itself had been erased.
And yet, one thing still stood.
The tree.
Its branches, blackened by floodwater, reach skyward like the hands of a drowned god. The once-red fruit had vanished, its sweetness buried under mud and salt. It stood alone in the deluge—a ruin, a reminder, a quiet punishment carved solely for him.
When Sylus reached it, his feet sinking into the soaked earth, he saw the faint silhouette at its roots. You sat slumped against the trunk, your body trembling with the effort to remain upright, your hair clinging to your face, your breaths shallow. For a moment, he thought the flood had conjured you from memory but then you turned your head toward him, and even in ruin, you smiled.
He rushed to you. His hands, once instruments of divine precision, trembled as they found your shoulders. You were drenched, bruised by the storm, yet still achingly alive.
“I was waiting for you,” you whispered, the words carrying the quiet burden of all you had done before reaching him. He could imagine the hours that had led you here, helping others flee while refusing to save yourself. You, holding to that quiet promise that you would see him once more. The moment his eyes met yours, he understood why you had stayed.
“I was starting to think I wouldn’t see you again,” you murmured, trying to smile through your exhaustion.
He lowered himself beside you, his knees sinking into the flooded soil. The scars where his wings had been were raw, smeared with soot, and yet in that imperfection he seemed almost more whole — more himself.
Tears ran alongside the rain, a single, soft current over your skin. You reached for his hand, fingers shivering as they found his, and he held you tightly, as if pressure alone could keep you tethered.
“I promised you,” he said quietly, the faintest shadow of a smile touching his lips. “And a promise to you outweighs all else.”
You gave a small, breathless laugh, your eyes half-closed. “Then promise me one more thing.”
He nodded, squeezing your hand, sealing the vow with a kiss to your knuckles.
“When I’m gone,” you said, turning your gaze upward where the last leaves of the pomegranate tree shivered, “take care of the garden. Let it be your home now.”
He almost laughed, though sorrow pressed tight against his chest. Even in your final moments, you thought first of the garden, of life, of the small things that could still grow.
“I’ll see to it,” he whispered, his words binding him to your last wish, and to you.
You smiled faintly, your lips quivering, eyes fluttering shut. The cold had already begun to creep into your bones, and though you had endured the flood, its reach was patient. Soon, it would take what it was owed.
“I want you to live freely,” you breathed, so faintly he might have imagined it.
He bowed his head, resting his forehead against yours. His voice, when it came, was thick with something unspoken. “I only wish I could have granted that wish and seen it with you.”
For a moment, the world was utterly still. Only the soft rush of the water below, only the faint warmth where your skin touched his. Regret moved through him like a tide — if he had chosen differently, if he had obeyed, if he had never come down. Perhaps you would have lived. But deep down he knew: even without him, the Divine would have undone this place. You had both been written toward ruin.
Your breath hitched softly. “You won’t be alone,” you murmured. “I’ll always be with you, Sylus.”
And then the pulse that had been yours slipped away, leaving only the fleeting warmth of your body in his arms. Your body went still in his arms, face turned gently toward his chest, and for a moment, he forgot to breathe. He lifted your face, his hands shaking, his lips pressed into a tight line that barely held back the breaking sound in his throat. He kissed you—your brow, your cheeks, the curve of your nose, the corner of your mouth. Each one a farewell, each one an attempt to anchor you where no god could reach.
He held you close, his cheek resting against yours, his voice low and steady, almost a prayer.
“Always,” he said.
Outside, the flood receded slowly, carrying away the remnants of the world that had been. But beneath the blackened tree, a man once made of light sat holding what the heavens could not comprehend — love, brief and ruinous, and a promise he would keep until the end of time.
༓༓༓
The new age arrived not with thunder but with the slow, patient tread of inevitability. Kingdoms collapsed as they always had, their ruins cooling into silence, and from their ashes rose another—bright, fervent, and certain of its place in the Divine’s order. In the land that had been drowned and emptied, new settlers came bearing banners and prayers, declaring themselves the remnant chosen to begin again.
They built temples over the bones of the old, their voices repeating the lessons handed down: that disbelief had been the ruin of their predecessors, that faithlessness was a poison no soil could bear, and that only through obedience might they endure. The pomegranate tree, spared by the flood and left stranded on its solitary hill, became their emblem. To some it was a miracle, a visible seal of heaven’s mercy; to others, it was an omen, a dark seed refusing to die, proof that the land remembered what men wished to bury. Yet even dissent, folded into ritual, became a tool to strengthen the story of the Divine’s justice.
But human memory is fickle, and human devotion, once roused, is crueler still.
Sylus had once believed them delicate, fractured creatures, held together by longing and the fragile bonds of kinship. He had thought—after you—that their capacity for kindness might outweigh their hunger for domination. He was wrong. Humans who bent their knees too easily were the most vicious of all, their piety sharpened into a weapon. They consecrated what they did not understand and destroyed what would not fit neatly into their creed.
Not far from that hill where the tree still stood, Sylus began to raise walls upon the earth that had once held your home. The flood had scoured it to its foundations, but he laid stone upon stone, as if reconstruction might summon you back, as if the repetition of what had been lost might deceive grief into retreat. He knew it was futile. He knew, too, that the Divine’s messengers would come for him in time, to erase what he had become and cast him again into the cycle He had chosen for him: fall, suffer, remember, repent. The pattern would repeat until he was emptied of defiance, until the Divine was satisfied that he had learned the lesson carved into his ruin.
Sometimes, in the late hours when the sky hung low and heavy, he would look toward the pomegranate tree. The clouds would break above it as if heaven itself sought to sanctify its branches, gold light spilling across its darkened bark. To the faithful, it would have been a vision of blessing, the unmistakable touch of God upon earth. To Sylus, it was mockery. The Divine had preserved this tree not out of mercy, but as reminder and rebuke—a relic of you, the only fragment of your world left to him, and therefore the sharpest thorn in his flesh.
All else had been taken. The town, already doomed long before he touched its soil, had been wiped away. The land itself had been scoured, its people scattered or drowned. His wings, once flawless, had burned to ash in his fall. And you—everything that had mattered, everything that had turned his obedience into a question—were gone. What remained was a tree with fruit like bloodied jewels, heavy and unyielding, a shrine to choices he could not undo.
He was not blind to the irony. He was made to be without flaw, a weapon wielded by the hand of the Divine. Yet the first time he chose for himself, it led not to triumph but to ruin. He wondered, often, if the game had been set long before his first step upon mortal earth. If the lesson was never meant to be learned, only suffered. If his failure had been written into him from the moment of his creation. And still he rebuilt, stone after stone, as if resistance itself were enough.
A.N. This is the longest piece I’ve written so far, and it was a difficult one to finish. I returned to it over the span of months, trying to balance the themes, the romance, and the story itself. Many of the ideas within it have lingered with me for years: questions about divinity, preordained fate, and whether we ever had a fair chance to succeed in the first place. There were moments when I wanted to explore the heavier ideas more deeply like the futility of knowing the end before the beginning but I reminded myself that, at its heart, this was a love story about change, devotion, and the quiet tragedies of things that can’t be undone.
I wrote each part at different times and in different versions of myself, not always in order. Perhaps that’s why it feels a little fragmented in places. I did worry that Sylus might feel out of character at times, often thinking that Zayne or Caleb could have fit the tone or setting better. In the end, though, I realised the story belonged to him.
I’m not sure I can call myself satisfied, but I think that’s part of writing. If even one person finds something in it to enjoy, I’ll be happy. ᓚ₍⑅^..^₎♡
I'm truly astonished by the depth of this piece. The way you carved Sylus's story from beginning to end is truly a masterpiece @decagondice.
I'm still sort of processing the entire story but here are my favorite parts below:
when you first introduce sylus as this being carved from perfection, as this unmovable object that tallied beliefs and handed out destinies
and how throughout the story he's constantly trying to negotiate that belief of "I am here, humanity is there. This line shall not be crossed."
and how there's this irony in while the Divine prizes perfection in their angels, He has a certain softness (and regards humanity with beauty) for imperfections. I constantly found myself questioning: how does He expect his divine messengers to remain the objects of perfection when He created this world riddled with imperfections?
also love how you introduced reader: as someone who wasn't fascinated by the divine, but learned to exercise caution around divine beings. You also knew your role and didn't want to possibly intervene in something you didn't belong in.
little did you know you were already starting to fracture Sylus's perception of his reality
the way you introduced Mephisto as this crow you and Sylus rescued, and the way Mephisto returned Sylus's benevolence with a gem (and the way he smiled as if reflecting that same kindness). goodness I wanted to cry
all the moments of learning Sylus has with you: about you being the character of honesty, integrity, stubbornness, filled with compassion. and how he grew to adore that and care for you ardently to the point of wanting to protect you from the very fate he was ordained to delver. a part of me died knowing his pleading would never be enough to convince you (and yet you hoped he would return, whether you lived or you died. there would be comfort knowing he would by your side)
and the way the Divine summoned him (as this faceless entity too! I adored the way you described Him) and shed his feather one by one. the way you cloaked his punishment as this gentle removal of feathers which then combusted to his downfall and burnt wings goodness that was a gorgeous scene.
AND THEN I BAWLED WHEN YOU DIED IN HIS ARMS AND HE FINALLY DARED TO KISS YOU PROPERLY (the promise you asked of him tore me wide open goodness)
and the defiance Sylus shows time and time again after, from a life of detachment now imbued with autonomy and resistance and the same stubborness and resilience you taught him. goodness. the themes of this entire story is gorgeous.
thank you for taking the time to write this story. i think i've been meaning to find a piece like this that details Sylus's sort of detachment and nonplussed cruelty in the beginning of his story to something very passionate and human in the end. this fulfilled that curiosity of mine and so much more.
Please excuse me for getting back to this so late!!! Really, I can’t even find the words to thank you properly for writing something so detailed and thoughtful. @blessdunrest
The way you analysed Sylus, the Divine, and the story itself...you wouldn’t believe how much it meant to me. (˶˃⤙˂˶) Reading your comment brought me so much joy that I wanted to cut it out and stick it in my diary to cherish haha. Your insight into the the themes and the subtle dynamics between them added so much to the story in my mind as well as the small moments you noticed from Sylus’s journey, it’s exactly what I had hoped to convey, and your words gave it new life. I’m honestly so moved and incredibly grateful, your comment has brought me so much strength, motivation, and happiness. I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to read so carefully, to feel so deeply, and to share that with me. ♡
༓ Synopsis. Xavier has been on earth for a very long time.
༓ Content. sfw, slight angst, yearning (? if you can even call it that here), Homesickness, Loneliness (?), Slight comfort (?), Not proofread.
༓ Word Count. 1.7k
A.N. Initially, I wrote this last autumn/winter before Xavier’s main story segment had released but it's been stuck in my draft for a good while. Anyways, I was reading Xavier’s lore back then and I have again a few days ago and it’s left me a little…sad, which caused me to finish this piece off. Though, I am starting to think perhaps I made him a little too depressed/distanced here?
[Artwork by Léon Bonvin - 'Bouquet of Forget-Me-Nots', 1863]
The meadow lay quiet, stilled in the dim embrace of starlight. Even the smallest sounds—the rustle of winter-browned grass, the distant murmur of a brook winding through the trees—seemed softened by the night. And there, under the old oak, you found him: Xavier, a silhouette against the cool glow of moonlight, distant and still.
He sat with one knee bent, his arm resting loosely over it, his face upturned towards the sky. The stars above seemed closer than ever tonight, their cold light scattered across like shards of something once whole, now irreparably fractured. Shadows touched his features, accentuating the quiet that seemed to fill him. The slight breeze stirred his ashen hair and carried hints of the forest’s earthy, crisp scent. He seemed lost, drifting somewhere in his thoughts, his presence here and yet somehow, it wasn’t.
You moved closer, careful not to disturb whatever fragile thread held him there in that still, silent place. When you lowered yourself onto the grass beside him, it crunched faintly beneath your weight. The closeness itself was not unfamiliar, yet tonight it carried a different quality. Something tenuous, almost fragile. He didn’t look over, though you knew he must have noticed; keen senses honed by years you could only guess at. His hand shifted slightly towards his knee, brushing at some invisible weight, and you let the silence linger, breathing in the stillness, his presence beside you taut as a held breath. You could sense it tonight—something he was holding onto, something that kept him just out of reach.
He broke the silence first, his voice low and steady, edged with a faint weariness. “Out there, in space, time stretches out,” he began, his eyes traced invisible paths across the sky. “You go far enough, long enough, and when you finally turn around…” He paused, a faint shadow passing over his features. “You realise how much has changed. It’s like you’re moving through a different world, even if the stars are still the same.”
You looked at him, his profile soft and almost vulnerable in the moonlight, and felt the unspoken weight of what he left unsaid. His shoulders tensed slightly as he spoke, but his gaze stayed fixed on the stars, perhaps imagining himself among them, wandering from one to another, never truly finding rest. He wasn’t merely talking about distance or time; he was speaking of the life he’d left behind each time he travelled onward, of the people who drifted away in his wake. You could almost feel the stretch of years, a vast and unseen history threaded through the quiet ache in his words.
“It must be hard,” you murmured, hesitant, searching for the right words. “To keep moving, always knowing things will be different when you look back.”
He nodded, his gaze unfocused, his lips drawn into a faint, almost wistful smile. “It’s strange. No matter how far I go, no matter how many places I leave behind, there’s always another world waiting.” He looked down, his hand tracing a line in the soil, the gentle movement betraying a hidden current of thought. “Every step forward feels the same.” he said, almost to himself, “I keep searching, the years slip past, and still I find myself where I began.”
The words hung in the air, delicate and raw, and you felt the depth of them settle in your chest, filling you with a quiet, unspoken understanding. He kept moving, even as the world around him changed, even as the people he met faded from his life like memories. He’d spent lifetimes seeking something. Perhaps something he couldn’t even name. And yet, the seeking itself left him stranded.
In the quiet that followed, his thoughts seemed to drift once more, and you saw the faintest hint of sadness return to his features, like a familiar companion he’d grown used to. He was watching the stars with a look that spoke of years searching, of moving forward, unable to turn back.
He wondered silently, a thought he would never voice aloud, about a life he’d once left behind, about someone like you he’d known once, long ago. It was a strange, fleeting memory, one he kept buried, but tonight it drifted to the surface, joining the countless others that haunted his thoughts. He had never told you, and perhaps he never would, but there had been another version of this moment—a time when he’d sat under a different sky, with someone who had offered him the same quiet kindness, the same understanding.
Yet that life was distant now, blurred and softened by time. It was one of many lives he’d moved through, and though he had let go of it, some part of him could never quite leave it behind. The memory flickered in his thoughts, a faint echo that reminded him, painfully, of what it meant to let someone get close, to share those quiet moments that lingered long after the people themselves were gone.
After a pause, he shifted, his eyes flicking briefly to yours before he glanced away, a shadow of unease in his gaze. “If duty carried you far from the place you belonged,” he began quietly, a hint of hesitation in his tone, “Would you endure it? Would you keep walking, even when every part of you longed to turn back?”
The question caught you by surprise, and you felt your heart stir with a strange, unnameable ache. It was as close to vulnerability as you had ever seen in him. He turned his face away, his gaze lingering on some distant point beyond the trees, the barest touch of melancholy softening his features.
You didn’t answer his question directly, yet silence itself became an answer. You understood what lay beneath it and in that understanding grew a need, not to bind him here, but to ease the ache of homesickness that had hollowed him.
You drew a steady breath, your own voice measured when you finally spoke. “If you’re searching for something, I'd walk beside you until you found it.” you replied, your voice soft but certain. “Even if it’s far away, even if it seems impossible, I’d try.”
A faint surprise crossed his expression, and something softened in his eyes. He looked down, his hand absently brushing the ground beside him as if grounding himself, and his silence seemed to speak volumes. It was the silence of one accustomed to holding things back, your kindness received without protest yet lingering in the space between you.
“Thank you,” he murmured, so quietly you almost missed it. His voice held a gentleness you hadn’t expected, a subtle trace of warmth that lingered as he returned his gaze to the sky. The silence returned, but it felt different now, softened by the shared quiet accord that lay between you.
“I think I’ve learned,” he said at last, his voice so soft you had to strain to hear it, “that there might not be a real answer to all this. No finish line. Just a need to keep going.”
His words were simple, but there was an ache behind them, a recognition that stretched beyond what he could articulate. The night air felt colder, sharper against your skin, and you wondered if he felt it too—if he felt the weight of his own words, the quiet admission that there was no resolution, only a journey he would follow until he could no longer bear it.
After a moment, he let out a slow breath, his eyes still trained on the stars, as if seeking answers in their unchanging light. “Maybe,” he murmured, as if to himself, “I’m looking for something that can’t be found.”
It wasn’t hopelessness that settled over him now. It was something quieter, something more insidious. Resignation. The acceptance of a life that would always be in motion, a life that could never truly hold the stillness he craved.
His voice held a gentleness, an almost unguarded tenderness that surprised you, and for a brief moment, you could feel his sadness. The subtle sorrow that lingered in the edges of his words, in the way he kept his gaze averted, in the faint furrow of his brow. It was a sadness not born of bitterness or anger, but of a quiet, unyielding yearning, the kind that came from years of moving, of seeking and never finding.
His ship, broken and half-buried in the forest, would fly again. He would find what he needed, mend what was left of it, and rejoin the remnants of his crew. And you…you would become another memory. Another version of what he could never quite hold onto. He remembered his own words about distant stars, about journeys that stretched across a thousand years—how by the time one turned back, everything once known would already have changed. To return was to find the world altered, unrecognisable. And so it would be with you.
You reached out, your hand settling near his in the grass, close enough that your fingers brushed his. He glanced down, eyes lingering on the small space between you before his hand shifted, closing gently over yours. For a moment, the silence eased, carrying with it something quietly intimate.You knew, without words, that he registered your gesture, and in your quiet hold lay a promise, an unspoken assurance that you would remain, for as long as you could.
The night deepened around you, a soft hush settling over the meadow, as if even the stars understood the delicate weight of what lay between you. You leaned back, letting your head rest against the rough bark of the tree beside him, and your gaze wandered to the same stars that held his thoughts.
And as you sat together, your shoulders nearly touching, the world stretched out wide and endless, wrapping you both in its quiet solitude. You understood, perhaps more than ever, the unspoken truth between you—that even if he was bound to leave someday, even if his journey would take him far beyond what you could follow, he was here tonight. And for now, for this moment, that was enough.
A.N. It's been a while since I came back but I do have some pieces I have drafted these few months.... hopefully I can get through to completing them. I have two Sylus pieces planned and one Caleb piece planned (but all three have been giving me a migraine to write (ᵕ—ᴗ—) ).
༓ Synopsis. In the stillness of a world built on shadow and steel, Sylus stands alone, the weight of her absence pressing against his chest. She lingers in every corner, in every detail — the gleam of his eyes, the quiet hum of the city, the cold touch of his sidearm.
༓ Content. Soft!Sylus, sfw, F!Reader, Established Relationship (?) comfort, Loneliness (?), Sylus misses you whilst you're away, fluff, Yearning, Domestic (?), Not proofread.
༓ Word Count. 1.3k
༓ A.N. This was super rushed but its almost 5am and I have been stuck with thoughts of Soft!Sylus whilst having Hozier's cover of 'Do I wanna know?' on constant loop. (I would recommend listening to that while reading this piece)
[Artwork by Petrus Van Schendel - 'Dutch Market by Moonlight', 1853]
The window was a fractured sheet of black glass, and beyond it, the vast sprawl of Onychinus bloomed in shades of dull copper and cold mercury. The city never slept — it simply lulled into a different kind of wakefulness, one that hummed with the murmur of distant engines and the low, syrup-thick din of voices lost between floors, beneath flickering neon eaves. Sylus stood before it, shirt unbuttoned at the collar, sleeves rolled up over the worn sinew of his forearms, a coin flipping between his fingers. The metal gleamed faintly in the dim light, its rhythm steady and almost meditative, like thoughts drifting into the quiet of the room, rising and fading into nothing.
He was waiting, though he would never call it that.
The apartment was too still without her, the silence swallowing the edges of the hours until they blurred together into one endless dusk. She’d been gone for days — maybe weeks — and though they had lived apart before, this time the absence ached differently. This time, she left her fingerprints on every surface she’d touched, and even in her absence, he felt her. In the hollow press of his pillow, in the half-drunk cup left on the counter, in the way her voice seemed to echo up from the floors themselves.
He wasn’t the kind of man who fumbled for words, but she had built herself a shrine in his mind without even trying. And it would be his curse — perhaps his only one worth bearing — to kneel before it willingly.
The phone buzzed on the glass table beside him, the screen illuminating briefly before dimming into a soft reflection of the room. Her name. A tether to the living world.
He let it ring once — twice — before answering, his voice low and indifferent, a thin veil over the frayed edges of his waiting.
"How are you?" Her voice was a warmth too tender for a world like his, too light to belong in the grip of a man like him.
Sylus laughed, a breathy, unguarded thing that slipped out before he could smother it. The kind of laugh that belonged in dark hallways or against the curve of her neck, close enough that no one else could steal it.
The phone rested lightly against his ear, but his gaze was fixed somewhere far beyond the windowpane, to where the sky peeled itself apart over the distant harbour, light bleeding into water like ink into silk.
He didn’t answer right away.
Because how could he tell her —
That every day without her was a hollow stretch, a penance paid in silence. That no matter how he occupied his hands — in deals, in schemes, in fights where blood became the only language spoken — she followed him.
She was in the weight of the guns he cleaned with meticulous fingers, in the cold press of steel that always reminded him of how her hands felt against his jaw — not soft, not fragile, but deliberate, certain, like she knew exactly what kind of man she was holding and didn’t flinch. She lingered in the polished chambers, in the oil-slick sheen of metal under dim light, each piece of his arsenal now a reliquary touched by her presence. Even the treasures he hoarded — the rings, the loose chains, the antique blades and strange glimmering artefacts collected in careless greed — all of it, touched now by her absence.
She was in the rain-slick streets beneath his shoes, the reflections of passing headlights gliding like ghosts beside him, the pulse of the city now syncopated to the memory of her heartbeat against his. A curse, perhaps. But if this was damnation, he’d bear it with the grace of a condemned man walking willingly into the mouth of hell.
Because Sylus — sharp-edged, gloved in the faint trace of dark woods and leather, the cool weight of steel a constant companion, with hands that had taken lives and seized fortunes — had known love first as a weakness. A blade turned against its wielder. A story with a ruinous end. But then there was her. Love, in the shape of her name. Love, not a thing that devoured, but something that held. Not a soft surrender, but a reckoning — two hands reaching into the dark and pulling him out without flinching at what they found.
He had told himself once that love was a thing best kept at a distance, lest it burn the house down around him. But now, even knowing the smoke would always follow, he could no longer resist standing in the heart of it.
She was there in the smallest details — the gleam of his carmine eyes when the light caught them just right, the weight of his jacket settling over his shoulders, the angle of his chair at the table where they sat together, knees brushing beneath wood. She was in the stories the city whispered, in the scars on his knuckles and the lingering taste of her on his tongue.
Her dragon, she had called him once — smoke and fire and ruin. And yet, it was she who wandered into his den, fearless and bright, leaving the scent of flowers in her wake. Perhaps he was the storm she wandered into — all steel winds and unyielding sky — and perhaps she was the quiet omen he had ignored until it was far too late to turn back. Or perhaps they were simply two souls damned to meet again and again, drawn together not by fate but by the quiet hunger of the earth itself.
It would not matter. If every lifetime led him back to this — the shape of her back beneath his hand, the sound of her voice softened by sleep, the way she pulled apart the silence between them with nothing but a glance — then Sylus would walk every damned path willingly. Sin, virtue, heaven, hell — none of it mattered if it meant keeping her. Not locked away, but free — because she chose to stay.
And what a thing that was. To be chosen by her.
"Did you miss me?" she asked, her voice a gentle needle, sliding between his ribs.
The window, cold against his fingertips. The city breathing outside. The distant gleam of headlights trailing like unspoken words between them.
"Haven’t had time to think about it," he said, his voice low, teasing, smooth as a blade sharpened on stone.
But they both knew.
And so the conversation slipped into silence — not uncomfortable, not empty — but the kind of silence built by people who knew every corner of each other. Her breath through the speaker, soft and even, and then — a quiet laugh, low and effortless, like a hand brushing through water. It was the kind of sound that lingered, curling around him even after it was gone. His fingers traced idle circles against the glass. They did not need to speak of longing. It was already there, woven into the space between every word, every inhale.
They existed in that place — a liminal space where shadow and steel met sunlight and skin, where dragon and archnemesis tangled together not in ruin, but in something softer. Something whole. And as the call ended, as the city stretched before him and the cold air pressed against the glass, Sylus stood alone — but not empty. Never empty.
Because even when she was gone, she was still there, as sure as the weight of his weapon resting within reach, as sure as the steady beat of his pulse in the quiet of the room.
Everywhere he went, she was already there.
And in every lifetime to come, in every heaven or hell, he would walk willingly beside her again.
Just to see her.
To have her, as she is — treasured and whole, free to be herself.
And for Sylus, that was enough.
A.N. I have been putting off reading Sylus' dragon myth for the longest time, so my details here might be a bit off, so please excuse me there! Hopefully my brain can generate more Sylus stuff :D Thank you for reading!!!!
Thank you for your lovely reply! I was so nervous to ask, so I'm really happy about your response :)
Yes, I was planning to post it on Ficbook. Is that okay? The platform has a mandatory field for linking to the original work so it will be credited officially. I will be sure to share the link with you and I can also translate reviews for you!
Ficbook is perfectly fine with me, you have my permission :D
Thank you as well for offering to share the link and even translate reviews, that’s such a kind gesture! I’m looking forward to seeing your translation when it’s up ⊹ ࣪ ˖
Hi!!! I am absolutely in love with "The Cause of Ruin". Would it be possible to get your permission to translate it? I will credit you fully as the author and include a link to the original work
Hi! Thank you so much for reading and enjoying my work, it really makes me happy to hear that :) I’m also a little flattered by your ask, haha.
Thank you for asking for permission first! I’ve given your request some thought, and just to be cautious, could I ask where you were planning to post the piece? I’d prefer not to have my fic uploaded on Wattpad or similar websites. If I’m not wrong to assume, were you thinking of posting it on Ficbook? If you could let me know where, I might be happy to give permission.
As for my requirements, along with linking and crediting my work, I’d really appreciate it if you could also share a link to your translation once it’s completed :)
༓ Synopsis. Their closeness is fragile, inevitable, and doomed—two worlds drawn together for a time, only to fracture beneath the weight of what must endure and what must end.
༓ Content. sfw, Angst, Religious Themes (not based on a specific religion though), Comfort (but....), Yearning, Fluff (?), Soft!Sylus (?), Reader likes to garden here, Emotional Distress, Loneliness (?), Mentions of death, He's slightly arrogant (?) and distanced at the start, Mentions of death & devastation, Hurt, Conflict of feelings, Death, Not proofread.
༓ Word Count. 11.1k
༓ A.N. I have been seeing glimpses of people theorising and suggesting fallen angel Sylus as a future possible myth and it gave me an idea to write my own take for that AU.
[Artwork by Johann Wilhelm Cordes - 'After the Storm', 1855]
It was said that the Divine created light before breath—before rivers found their pulse, before the earth bore the weight of a heel, before hunger taught the body its ache and fire its master. The world was first drawn in stillness, absolute and unbroken, and from that stillness came radiance. Out of radiance, form.
The angels were among the earliest forms to take shape. They were not born as children of chance, but crafted as instruments, shaped by will alone. Each feather fixed with precision, each note in their voices tuned to harmony, each movement measured to preserve a balance that left no room for error. They were perfection given body, their existence a declaration that chaos had no dominion in the heavens.
Sylus was the most exact of them all. Where others gleamed in choral unison, he carried a stillness that set him apart. His presence was not the brilliance of fire, nor the warmth of light, but the cold clarity of stone cut to a flawless edge. The symmetry of his form, the steady carriage of his frame, the quiet gravity with which he stood—these were the things that drew the gaze of heaven. Even his eyes, garnet and unwavering as if carved from mineral rather than born of flame, seemed made less to look than to weigh.
For this, he was praised. His brethren regarded him with reverence, and the Divine Himself called him the cornerstone of heaven’s order. But Sylus did not bask in admiration, nor did he bend beneath its weight. He simply stood, fulfilling the purpose he had been given: to judge, to strike, to uphold the shape of things without hesitation.
It might have continued so, had the Divine not turned His gaze upon the earth. Humanity—frail, mutable, ceaseless in their hungers—were the creation He most cherished. Their imperfection was, to Him, a kind of beauty. To Sylus, it was an error. They prayed from desperation, loved without caution, erred without cease. To call them beloved was to him incomprehensible, and though his loyalty did not waver, his faith in the Divine’s favour did not extend to them.
When the command came to descend, to watch, to learn—he obeyed as all angels must. Yet obedience is not the same as understanding. Sylus looked upon mankind with the detachment of a surveyor. He recorded their griefs, their joys, their prayers, and their silences. He noted the ways they clung to one another as if flesh could anchor them against eternity. He traced their deaths, counted their gods, memorised their rituals. But none of it altered him. He returned to his station as polished and untouched as glass.
Until he was sent to a land already condemned.
It was a place of laughter and soil, its people bound not by altars but by each other. Their faith was scattered, some whispering to forgotten names, others to none at all. They farmed, they built, they sang; they filled their days with small hopes and their nights with rest. And because they bowed to no throne above, the Divine marked them for ruin.
The decree had been spoken: this valley, with its crooked altars and idle tongues, would be scoured. Its fields drowned, its homes undone, its memory erased.
And Sylus, standing upon the ridges at its threshold, watching the villages crack and rise, felt the sentence resonate through him like a note already struck. He watched children sob for lost animals and lovers kneel over unmarked graves. He saw joy flare like sparks and grief spread like wild rot.
And still, nothing stirred in him. The sight of it, the endless turning of birth and ruin, had become an old story told too many times. He found the effort dull. Redundant. A hollow performance before a silent God.
But, the wind, otherwise stale with summer heat, shifted. It curled toward him with something thick and red on its breath. Heavy, sun-warmed and lush. An unfamiliar scent that clung to the air like velvet. He followed it wearily.
Fruit.
Sweet, honeyed, full. He turned his face slightly into the breeze, irritated by the intrusion, and brushed a lock of silver hair from his temple, pushing it neatly back into place. He glanced down, prepared to dismiss the distraction.
Yet the sight below drew him still.
A hillside modest in its incline, yet crowned with quiet dignity. At its crest stood a solitary tree, its bark dull bronze beneath the light. Its branches bent with the weight of ripened fruit, their crimson skins splitting at the seams, revealing glistening seeds like rubies pressed into flesh. Beneath it spread a small, unassuming garden. A patchwork of herbs and flowers that seemed to bloom simply because they were loved enough to try. Beside it, a home: humble, weathered, carrying the quiet grace of a thing shaped by patient hands.
And among it all — you.
Your figure was turned away from him, kneeling in the soil. The folds of your clothes clung to your form, marked by work and the warmth of the day. Your fingers were buried in the earth, tending, coaxing, comforting. A faint hum rose from you, unthinking, closer to breath than to song.
Sylus lingered, uncertain if it was curiosity or something else that rooted him in place. The world seemed gentler here — slower. Even the air felt different, unhurried, as though time itself had softened its edges.
He took a step forward before he realised he had moved. The dry grass yielded under him with a sound too loud for the silence. You stilled. For the briefest moment, your head turned, and your eyes met his. Then, just as easily, you looked away again, resuming your work as if he were no more than a shadow passing by.
The breeze stirred the branches above, sending a ripple through the leaves. A single pomegranate loosened from its stem and fell, striking the earth with a soft, bruising thump.
“You don’t look familiar.”
Your voice cut through the hum of the garden, low and steady. You brushed soil from your apron and rose partway, your eyes meeting his without fear. The pause that followed lingered long enough to settle into the space between you. You examined him not with awe, as most would, but with the quiet curiosity one might give a passing traveler. His bearing was odd, his clothing too finely wrought for the hill, his pale wings catching light before he drew them close and dimmed them into obscurity.
“I don’t think I’ve seen your kind around here.”
Sylus said nothing at first. His gaze drifted over the garden, the tree, the town scattered far below, before returning to you. His mouth tightened into a small, dismissive frown; one hand rested on his hip while the other hung loose, as though he were already half-prepared to leave.
“I’m not a regular here,” he said finally. “Only passing through.”
The words seemed an afterthought, spoken more to the air than to you. A moment later he muttered, low but clear enough for you to catch, “It’s not something I care to spend my time on.”
You tilted your head toward him, but your hands returned to the soil, covering the roots of a young shoot. It was easier, sometimes, not to question men who appeared from nowhere dressed in radiance. A person like that belonged to stories better left untold. “I see.”
Silence pressed in, broken only by the rustle of leaves and the distant cries of the town below. You felt him still watching you.
“That tree,” he said suddenly, his voice deep and even. “It doesn’t belong here. I’ve not seen anything like it on this particular land.”
“The pomegranate,” you replied, glancing toward the heavy-limbed branches. “No, it isn’t native. I don’t know who planted it. No one remembers. The soil should have rejected it, the climate too. But still it grew.” You allowed yourself a faint smile. “Some things survive not because the earth wants them to, but because they refuse to die.”
His eyes lingered on you. He studied the way your mouth curved faintly when you spoke, the way your gaze flickered distantly as though weighing the tree’s stubborn survival against something else. Then, as though ashamed of the thought, he looked down to the soil.
Humans. Inconsistent, contradictory, hopelessly mortal. He had watched them in markets where shoulders pressed against shoulders, had trailed their whispered bargains in shadowed alleys, had lingered in temples to hear their grief echo like smoke against stone. He had tallied their prayers, charted their vices, measured their joys and despairs until they blurred into a single refrain: folly. If he returned to the Divine, that was all he could say, that humanity was a cycle without variance.
And yet, standing here, his gaze drifting from the soil at his feet to the town below and finally back to you bent quietly over your garden, something thinned in his armor. Not clarity, not compassion, but the faint impression of a life carried differently—lighter, though it was bound to the same weight that crushed all mortal things. There was, in you and in this place, a kind of freedom that unsettled him precisely because it asked for nothing.
It did not soften him. The heaviness remained, the Divine’s decree unaltered in his mind. Still, for the first time, he found his indifference scratched by something he could neither name nor dismiss.
“Do you live alone here?” he asked, his tone brusque.
Your hands pressed the soil more firmly around the roots of a young plant. You did not look up when you answered. “I do.” Then, after a beat, you added, “Why all the questions?”
The silence that followed was pointed. He narrowed his eyes slightly, as though the words had reached him but slipped past without catching. He did not answer.
You exhaled through your nose, brushing the dirt from your fingertips with sharper motions. His silence was more irksome than his questions, and you found yourself mildly annoyed at the arrogance of a man who expected answers but offered none in return.
For his part, Sylus turned his gaze back toward the town below. He thought—reluctantly—that when devastation finally came, it would be a lonely death you faced. No hand to hold, no voice to soften the terror. And he caught himself in that thought, unsettled by it. Why should it matter? You were a stranger, a mortal. A life brief as smoke. He reminded himself the Divine had already marked this land for ruin. He reminded himself he was the blade that would not falter when the command was given. Still, the notion remained lodged in him like grit beneath armor: that there was something quietly sorrowful in the way you belonged to no one, and no one belonged to you.
In the end, if ruin must come, then it must.
“Have you tasted its fruit?” he asked, nodding toward the tree.
You gave a small nod. “It’s bittersweet.”
You rose then, dusting your hands. Standing gave you a clearer view of him—his face drawn sharp with both harshness and beauty, his stance proud, though a shadow of weariness edged his frame. You thought you caught something in his eyes then, beneath the indifference: not longing exactly, but something that resembled it if you looked too long.
“If you’d like,” you said quietly, “I could offer you some.”
He turned to you slowly, his expression unreadable. Afternoon light spilled over the tree behind you, glinting off the swollen fruit until it seemed almost luminous. He considered the offer with a low hum, arms folding across his chest. The pomegranate hung ripe, almost indecent in its fullness, roots curling from the earth like skeletal fingers. All in the name of observation, he told himself, though the thought rang hollow. At last, he allowed the faintest smile. “I’ll hold you to your word.”
You parted your lips to respond, but his voice cut gently across yours. “The sun is setting. You should rest.”
You frowned, only faintly. It was an excuse, you knew, dressed in politeness. He wore indifference as though it were armour, yet it sat uneasily on him, betrayed by the half-smile that lingered too long at the edge of his mouth.
You said nothing more. He had already stayed longer than he intended. His wings shimmered faintly as he turned, no longer hidden. As he departed, the air bent under the gust they left behind, stirring your garden and carrying with it the cloying sweetness of pomegranate.
Sylus did not look back. Yet as the hill fell away beneath him, the fruit’s scent clung to him like a bruise, and the weight along his spine—the absence of something he could not yet name—gnawed at him all the way to the sky.
༓༓༓
He had not meant to come back, and yet the hill received him without surprise, as if it had been keeping a place for him in the way a wound keeps a scar. He lingered at the rise at first, his robes catching the wind like a flag, the silver filaments along the hem whispering of places the earth had forgotten. The garden below held its ordinary quiet: pots and clipped rows, the low wall that kept the scrub at bay, and the pomegranate, each fruit suspended like a patient accusation.
He watched longer than he told himself he would, longer than any sensible order required, until the sound that had first caught him unspooled into a single, human problem — the sharp, panicked rustling of a small creature in distress.
You were at the thorny patch before he could decide to turn away. He watched you bend, saw the way your fingers threaded through brambles without the careful hesitation of someone unused to pricks; saw, too, the quick, helpless look flit across your face when the bird’s desperate movement snagged your hand. The crow was a dark, broken thing among the thorns, feathers stuck and small wings trembling. No one else was near; the valley lay sunlit and ordinary beyond them. He moved before he had fully measured the sin of interference — a step that felt like a small betrayal of the discipline that had been folded into him at creation.
“What happened to it?” he asked, and the sound of his voice, low and even, made you start as if the world had a new edge.
You turned, relief spilling into your features so openly it made you look like someone who had been spared something worse. “I think it hit the bush while trying to land,” you said. Your hands trembled. “Its wing is—” you swallowed, then met his eyes with the pragmatic air of someone who was used to finding practical answers. “Could you help? Please.”
For a moment he considered withdrawing. Intervention was not his place here, and whatever meddling with mortal life might mean for his standing, he had been taught that consequences mattered. But the sound the bird made — a small, raw cry — was pitiful, and however much he insisted on order and distance, the sight of things breaking where you had to mend them tugged at a place in him that quietly kept count.
He bent toward you with measured calm, each gesture contained; you watched him perform an act no one had ever shown you before, and for a brief instant, your tension softened. His hand hovered above the bird, not touching, and a faint light gathered there: a small thing, cool and narrow as moonlight. The cry faltered as if the bird recognised that it was no longer alone. Where the light met feather, the snapped barbs smoothed; where the bruise had darkened, the skin knit. The sound of pain ceased. Yours exhaled into the space between them like steam.
The bird rose a few awkward steps, shook itself once, and then cocked its head at them as if to say that the miracle had been adequate. It hopped from her apron to the little bench and, after a brief, comically human pause of inspection, tipped its beak twice toward them in a small, insolent salute before launching away into the sun.
You looked at him then with an earnestness that was not quite gratitude and not quite curiosity. “Thank you,” your words were modest but steady; fingers, still speckled with sap and soil, curled around the lint of your apron.
He made a small, formal sound in reply. “It was nothing,” he said, though nothingness had, of late, begun to feel stranger than any confession. He watched the way relief had smoothed your face and felt something like the stir of sympathy, unwanted and inconvenient. He chastised himself inwardly; sympathy did not suit his role. It felt extraneous, an impurity.
When you met his gaze for the first time and asked, a little hesitantly, “What is your name?” he was arrested by the ordinary civility of the question. Your hands showed hard use — small blisters and a thin, fresher cut — and you tried to hide them, as if you expected pity. Instead he reached out and held them gently. Light flowed from his fingers then, softer than before, and the shallow lines eased. Your chest rose in a quiet, contained breath, a fleeting acknowledgment of the small, absurd relief it brought.
“Sylus,” he answered when he spoke, the name falling in the sun between them like a coin. He watched you register it with neither awe nor fear, merely recognition: the sound of a name you had perhaps heard in the mouths of travellers and preachers, and then promptly buried beneath the work of living.
He let your hands go, watching the way you flexed your repaired fingers as if testing them for more damage. The unspoken map of their difference lay between them: his stillness and your habit of motion, his origin and your rootedness. He poured water from a ceramic jug that had sat on the low wall, hands efficient and precise, and set it before you. You drank, the motion of it ordinary and human, and he sat for a moment on the bench beside you, not too close, not distant enough to be indifferent. The valley hummed on; the town slept under its own cares deeper in the hollow.
He glanced at the pomegranate, at the fruit he had been promised to taste. “It will have to wait until next time,” he said at last — not an assurance of return so much as an observation about the arc of the day. You opened your mouth, perhaps to say more, but he rose, the slight stiffness at his shoulders betraying his need to return to the survey that bound him. He did not look back. As he moved away the scent of pomegranate trailed after him like a bruise: sweet, stubborn, and not to be readily forgotten.
He had come thinking this errand would be an interruption: a quick glance, a cataloguing, then return to his brethren. He left with a small, unsettled ledger in his head — a bird healed, a pair of hands mended, a name. He told himself, properly, that such things would mean nothing on his report; that when he returned to the higher place he would file them under curiosity and move on. Yet even that tidy resolution seemed to empty under the fact of how lightly you met the world’s harms and how badly that lightness disturbed him. He had not been changed; only shaken. That, he decided as the hill sank away beneath his retreating shadow, might be enough for the work that had been asked of him.
༓༓༓
The next day arrived as the others had, yet he felt it differently. The air was tempered with that late-summer heaviness, the kind that weighed on the hillsides and pressed slow shadows across the land. His steps were slower, less like the measured tread of a sentinel and more like one who lingered against his own intent. The brittle grass hushed beneath his tread, and when he reached the garden, you did not greet him immediately. Your attention was bent toward the soil, fingers buried in the roots of some stubborn weed. Only when his shadow slipped over you did you turn your head, brushing a lock of hair from your cheek, mouth curved into a smile small enough to feel private.
In his hand was a flower, its stem thin and arching, its pale violet bloom folding outward like a secret too fragile to hold. He had found it in the shade of a dying olive tree on the slope below, its beauty incongruous, its shape almost deliberate. He did not know its name, nor why he had carried it with him, yet it had remained between his fingers all the way here, surviving his reluctance to let it fall.
“Third day this week?” you asked, voice light, your smile touched with amusement. “You must be dreadfully bored if you need to see my face so often.”
The faintest shift stirred at the corner of his mouth, but the jest slipped past unanswered. He looked instead toward the garden’s far edge. “You’ve left the western beds unwatered.”
Your brow furrowed, though without displeasure. “So you come all this way to inspect my flaws?” you replied, half a sigh, half a laugh. But you had noticed something in his stance — a weariness threaded through his posture, a stillness that was not only vigilance but fatigue. Whatever his duties were elsewhere, they seemed to cling to him like a weight he could not set down. You did not pry. Instead, you motioned toward the bench against the wall. “Sit. Wait here a moment.”
He obeyed, lowering himself to the stone bench, the flower still trapped between his fingers. You vanished briefly inside your house, the door creaking and then closing soft. When you returned carrying a bowl, porcelain pale against your hands. You set it between the both of you on the bench. Within lay the pomegranate’s treasure, freshly peeled, seeds shining like rubies cupped in white skin, glistening from a recent rinse.
“I thought you might come,” you said simply.
He reached into the bowl, plucked one seed between thumb and forefinger, and studied it as though it might hold some hidden truth. Then he placed it on his tongue. The burst of sweetness met with a bitter edge, and he chewed once, twice, swallowing with measured quiet. You were watching, expectant, head tilted slightly, eyes brightened with anticipation.
“You were right,” he said at last, voice low, deliberate. “Bittersweet. But I like it.”
Relief uncoiled in your expression, smile breaking wider. You reached for the fruit yourself, and for a while you ate together in silence. The rhythm of it was companionable, almost domestic — the simple motion of fingers dipping into the bowl, the muted squash of pomegranate between teeth. From silence, talk unfolded naturally. You spoke of small things: the fox you had glimpsed stealing figs from a neighbour’s orchard, the way the vines had grown stubbornly along the low wall, how the nights seemed louder this summer with insects clamouring in the fields. He listened, his answers dry, short, yet faintly amused, as though your words reshaped the air around him in ways he could not admit. Once, you said something — absurd in its own way, yet spoken with such conviction — that he laughed, a sound brief and unguarded, escaping him before he could recall it. The moment startled you both.
As the afternoon stretched, both his and your postures softened. You turned toward him on the bench, tucking one leg beneath the other, elbow resting loosely on the backrest. He shifted as well, his arm finding its place along the bench’s edge, his body angled slightly toward yours, not close enough to intrude, not distant enough to deny the shared space. The breeze slipped between them, carrying the scent of dry grass and pomegranate rind, softening the sharp edges of the day.
“Your plants,” he said at last, his voice thoughtful, though the words seemed to wrest themselves from him unwillingly. “Is there value in such effort?”
You looked at him. “In what sense?”
“You grow. You tend. You harvest. You are caring for something that will sooner meet its end.”
For a while you did not answer. You gazed at your garden, lips parting, then closing again, as though measuring your reply against the silence. Finally, you smiled faintly, wistfully. “That is life. To watch something grow, to care for it, to see it reach its end with pride knowing it was yours to tend— that’s reward enough. Wouldn’t you say the same?”
He had no answer. The silence between you pressed deep, but it was not uncomfortable. It seemed to steady him more than any reply could.
After a moment, he lifted the flower, hesitant in his gesture, unsure if it was an offering or only something to set between you. “I found this nearby,” he said slowly. “I thought you might know it.”
Your eyes rested on it. “Datura,” you said.
His brows drew slightly. “Is it rare?”
He lifted it closer, the violet bloom pale against his fingers. The scent struck him as thick, sweet, but edged with something darker, sharp at the rim of sweetness like smoke. He closed his eyes as he breathed it in, the perfume settling in his chest with a strange weight.
“It’s poisonous,” you tell him softly.
His eyes opened, his hand lowering as if chastened. For a moment he looked at the bloom as though it had betrayed him. His voice, when it came, was subdued. “I thought you might have liked it.”
Before you could answer, a sudden caw rang out. Both their heads turned skyward. The crow from the day before descended, black wings folding sharply as it landed upon the back of the bench. In its beak, a garnet-like stone caught the light. It cocked its head at him, insistent, before hopping down, nudging at his shoulder.
Sylus opened his palm, the datura still lying across it. The crow dropped the gem there, then noticing his hands were full, seized the flower and took flight, vanishing with another rough cry into the horizon.
He looked at the stone, its fractured surface scattering the sun. Confusion flickered across his features, tempered by something gentler.
“Crows are more empathetic than people give credit for,” you said, as if reading his thoughts. “They remember kindness, never forgetting a face.”
“I see,” he murmured. The faintest curve touched his mouth, a smile so slight it might have been mistaken for thought.
He turned his hand as if to offer the gem to you, but you shook your head. Your fingers brushed against his, folding his hand closed around it, securing the stone in his palm. “It’s yours,” you said.“It wouldn’t be noble to steal another’s token of gratitude.”
Your touch lingered a moment longer than the words, a warmth pressed into his skin. He looked down at his hand, silent.
“Let it reflect the change within you each time you see it.” you added softly
The word struck him. Change. It had already begun, though he had not named it. The word rooted itself in him, unwelcome yet immovable. Something subtle and unrelenting, as inevitable as the turn of the season. He looked at you then, the afternoon light scattering across your features, and knew that this tide could not be recalled.
༓༓༓
The days passed, and with them a pattern began to take root. Each morning or afternoon — never at the same hour, yet never absent — he appeared. At first it seemed chance, then habit, until it could only be called inevitability. The strangeness of his presence had softened; his tread no longer startled, and you no longer waited with suspicion for his shadow. If anything, you found yourself glancing up from your work in the garden with the quiet hope that he might arrive, as though the day felt thinner without him.
And when he did come, his guard lowered a little more each time. The stiffness in his posture gave way to ease, his voice less formal, his silences less severe. He would sit on the bench or lean against the low wall, his wings concealed, while you both conversed about things neither essential nor trivial. Some days it was the garden, the stubborn way certain plants resisted the soil; other days it was the town below, its people busy with their unremarkable errands, their lives carrying on unnoticed. You spoke often, your words carrying the warmth of someone who lived close to the earth, and though he seldom gave much away, his attention never wavered, and in it was a kind of companionship.
There were afternoons when you pressed him into service, laughing as you handed him a spade or directed him to hold a trellis steady. He performed these tasks with a curious precision, as though every movement were part of a ritual and yet there was something almost human in the way his hair fell loose over his brow, in the faint dirt that clung to his immaculate hands. Other times it was you who guided him, leading him up the rise to the pomegranate tree, where you would stand shoulder to shoulder and look down at the town sprawled in the hollow below. The view stretched far, and for him it was an old sight, one he had catalogued countless times before. But with you beside him, pointing out the lines of smoke curling from chimneys, or the sound of bells carried faintly by the wind, it felt altered, as though the land itself had grown more vivid under your gaze.
In these small, repeated moments, you had grown accustomed to one another. You to the strange serenity he carried with him, that stillness edged with some vast and unspoken weight; he to your quiet resilience, your rootedness in soil and season, your ability to treat him with the ordinary warmth one might offer a neighbour. What began as intrusion had become familiarity, and though neither you nor him named it aloud, you both knew that the days felt more complete in the company of the other.
And so, when he moved toward you now, it felt neither sudden nor startling, but as though the day itself had guided him, a quiet inevitability woven into the lengthening shadows.
He came to you as the light was going thin, the horizon folding itself like a page turned slow and deliberate. The hill kept its hush at that hour; even the insects seemed to know some things were not for sound. Below them the town lay like a scatter of candles, small and stubborn against the dark, roofs and alleys caught between the last of the sun and the first of the stars. Between the town and them, the pomegranate tree made its silhouette, blunt and brazen, its fruit glinting darkly where the last rays found red. The air tasted of dust and ripe flesh; somewhere a vine had given up its leaves and left a sweetness on the wind.
He took his place beside you with effortless stillness, a quiet presence neither claiming nor yielding. He kept his hands folded behind his back as if to remember the posture of the hall, as if to teach them restraint. His face was composed, the thin line of his mouth practiced into neutrality, but the garnet in his eyes held a temper he was trying to hide—a heat pulled low, made wary. He watched the town for a moment with you, letting the town name itself in the quiet between them, then turned his question toward you as if he were measuring the world by the angle of your answer.
“Does my presence disturb you?” he asked carefully; the words were low and exact, and for the first time since you’d known him, his voice had a softness that frayed at the edges. It was not supplication. It was a concession.
You let out a breath that was almost a laugh, half-annoyed, half-affectionate in a way he would never have expected from you. “Truthfully,” you started, “no. Seeing you is…not the worst thing this world has to offer.” You spoke with a little impatience, the kind of dismissal you give to a persistent fly. It made him smile, a little, the gesture modest and guarded, and you felt your face warm where you did not want it to.
He watched you look away as if the sight of your shyness could be captured and kept dearly. “I am glad,” he said. The words wanted to be more than politeness; they wanted to be something else entirely.
“Then,” he began after a silence, “may I ask something of you?”
It was absurd, a thing against his nature and against the nature of those who bent the sky. He had spoken of humans as if they were a kind of weather—fickle, lovely, briefly violent. That an archangel would request anything of a gardener was a small, strange mercy. You cocked a brow, cross-armed, weathered knuckles that made you look honest and worn. “Yes?” you said. “I’m surprised you ask for favours at all.”
He did not smile this time. He looked at the town beneath them, at the slant of roofs and the handful of people who moved like ants, like prayers through the lanes. He looked at the pomegranate tree, at the way its fruit loomed like a tiny sacrament. He looked back at you and his hands, still clasped behind him, tightened just enough that the cloth at his wrists creased.
“I would have you leave this place,” he said. The words were small in the beginning and then soon bore the weight of what he meant. “Go beyond the valleys, plant elsewhere. This land will be unmade.”
You registered his meaning fully, in the tone that carried warnings. You stepped back a fraction, not because you were afraid of him but because the idea of leaving the ground where all your hands had worked felt like asking someone to sever your own ribs. “You ask me to abandon everything I have,” you asked. He could see the way your fingers flexed at your sides, the old discreet habit. “Why would I run when others will stay?”
He should have argued that survival is its own sanctity, that to live is a kind of worship. He should have listed the practicalities—chasing dreams, a longer life, the safety of far fields. But words like that felt hollow coming from him, like coins from a treasury he should not spend. Instead, the thing inside him that had changed—quiet, like a wound learning to hold—made a more human plea. He stepped forward then, forgetting decorum for a single, slippery moment.
He took your left hand. His fingers were colder than you expected, finding the bones as easily as a cartographer finds coastline; he looked down as if to hide his face, as if the sight of your palm was something that might shame him for its smallness. He held your hand in both of his as though two hands could be a shelter. His thumb moved, light and furtive, across the back— a motion at once casual and intimate, the kind of touch a man reserves for the private catalogue of what he will not have again.
“Please,” he said. It was the nicest sound he had ever made. It carried a kind of small breaking to it, a throb of desperate conviction—less an order than a begging made of stone. “Leave. If they come with unmaking, there will be nothing left to call home. I cannot watch you be swallowed by water and ash.”
You almost laughed at the strangeness of an angel pleading like a frail master, at the tenderness in the imploration. But the humour died immediately at the edges when you saw his face. He did not meet your gaze. For the first time, you saw something like fear in the set of his jaw—the fear of an immortal who had found a fracture it could not heal. It lent the whole scene a horror that the words could not.
“I cannot,” you said at last. The refusal was soft but absolute. It was the sound of someone who had decided not to be moved. “This is my home. These people—my neighbours, the town folk, the children who grew up here—there is no honour in abandoning them to death. I have to stand with them, even if it terrifies me.”
He closed his eyes at that, and in the motion the light changed on his face—something like shame, or like the sudden recognition of a cost he had underestimated. He leaned in and, without a phrase of sermon or a flourish of grace, he bent his head and pressed his lips to the back of your hand. The kiss was simple, earnest, the press of someone who understands the value of the single thing they will hold close. He closed his eyes for a moment, as if savouring the weight of the act, and then opened them again, and in that brief pause you saw the old severity wrestle with new tenderness. There was no triumph in it. No declaration. Only the small, desperate plea: “Please.”
When you shook your head—soft, sad, resigned—he kept his hold on your hand as if letting go would spill whatever fragile thing had passed between you two. “I am sorry,” you murmured. It was not an apology to him so much as to the land, to the people, to the stubbornness that had made you who you were. If he had asked for any other thing—an oath given, a secret entrusted—perhaps you would have yielded. But to leave the fields, to tear roots from the earth that had made you, demanded a surrender you could not give.
He did not look stricken. He looked like a man who has learned the contours of grief and has no rhythm for it yet. He released your hand slowly, the action reverent, and stepped back into the pale hem of his own world. For a long time you both stood like that: the pomegranate in-between, the town small and stubborn below, the sky a bruise that would not heal.
When he finally spoke again it was not to reproach you, nor to cajole. He simply said, “If the water comes, know that you may ask of me anything—and I would not refuse.” There was no pride in it, only the weight of a promise and the quiet truth of his heart.
You looked at him, and in the dark that settled into his eyes you saw something you did not expect to find: not god or monster, but a creature who had learned how to insist on another’s life with the single blunt instrument of his will. It frightened you, and it steadied you all at once.
Around you, the evening closed up like a book. The town did not seem to hear promises or pleas—only its own small, human noises: a pot set down too hard, a child's laugh carrying too far, a dog’s uncertain bark. The world went on, ignorant and luminous in its stubbornness, and the two of you were left under the pomegranate like two statues that might yet move.
༓༓༓
The silence had changed. It was no longer the cool, indifferent kind he had long known, the sort that filled the heavens like a still breath. This one carried weight — the quiet after a door has closed, after something irrevocable has begun to turn. He pretended not to notice at first, though the truth of it had already settled in him like ash. The little changes were always the first signs; the calm before the storm.
When he entered the sanctums above, he felt a pause that lasted a fraction too long, a gaze that lingered when it should have passed through him. The higher host did not accuse; they did not need to. The judgment of heaven was rarely spoken aloud. A mere shift in the air was enough to condemn. Wings of his brethren that once bowed now held still in wary poise. The space around him felt newly defined, as though the air itself had learned to mark him as other.
And yet he moved as he always had, unhurried, his hands bathed in divine luminescence, his form still hewn from the marble of eternity. But beneath the perfection something else had begun to live. It clung faintly to him, impossible to wash away: the scent of soil after rain, of fruit ripening in late sun, of something small and alive and utterly unafraid of perishing. He carried it with him without meaning to — you clung to him that way.
Days grew longer in his absence. Harder, too. He tried to stretch the distance between visits, to return to the stillness that had once defined him, but each day away only pressed your image deeper into him. The scent of your garden, the faint brush of laughter in your voice, the ease with which you spoke his name, these things followed him into the high places where light should have burned memory clean. He had thought himself immutable, but found instead that longing had a form, and it was yours.
He remembered his purpose well enough: he had been sent to observe, to temper his indifference, to understand humanity from the safe remove of eternity. Not to touch, not to care. To learn without belonging. But now, when he thought of you, he could not regret the trespass. There was something almost sacred in the transgression, in the small, ordinary peace your garden offered, in the way you welcomed him without question, without fear.
Yet peace, he knew, was fragile. The town below had begun to wither beneath the notice of divine will. He could feel the hum of its approaching ruin — faint at first, like the distant pulse of thunder, but inevitable. He had tried to warn you, his words had been frayed and desperate. But, you remained gentle and unmoved, loyal to the land that you tend to. His warning fell like water on stone. And perhaps he had known it would.
Cowardice was not a word he’d ever applied to himself. Yet the more he avoided you, the heavier that truth became. To flee your presence was easier than facing what his failure meant. The Divine had said nothing further, had not summoned him again. But silence in the heavens was never absence. It was attention held still, a gaze so absolute it made even eternity tremble.
Still, with thoughts congested and the weight of foreknowledge in his chest, he found his way back to you. Again. Always.
The hill met him with a quieter welcome this time. The air was drier; the wind lacked its old warmth. Leaves curled faintly at their edges, and the grasses had dulled from green to pale straw. Even the pomegranate tree — that insolent thing with its blood-bright fruit — seemed slower to bear, its branches heavy not with abundance, but fatigue.
And as he stood there, looking upon the garden that had once been his reprieve, he understood that beauty, too, had an appointed hour. And that hour, for all its sweetness, was beginning to fade.
You noticed him then, standing dazed at the edge of the garden, and approached almost cautiously as though afraid the sight of him might dissolve if you moved too quickly. Your smile was small, uncertain, yet warmer than the morning sun; happiness flickered beneath the quiet sadness of his absence. You had wondered if he had left without a word, and whether your own stubbornness had driven him away. How foolish that seemed now. You wanted to speak, to ask, to apologize but the words caught, and so you only smiled instead. He looked at you, that faint, faraway grief still settled in his eyes, and neither of you dared disturb the moment. You spoke then as you used to, lightly at first, the conversation threading itself back into familiarity, until the silence between you felt like ease again, not loss.
Your gaze drifted past him, up into the sky where clouds pressed low and grey, swollen with rain. For a moment you said nothing, your hands folding uneasily before you as if your body itself sought a shield. Something heavy lodged in your chest—an omen you could not name, only feel—as if a question unasked might keep its answer from breaking you. And yet you asked it, quiet, hesitant, your voice brushed with a tremor you hoped he would not hear.
“Will you return here again?”
The words hung between them like smoke that refused to vanish.
He studied you, and for once it was not the quick measuring glance of one who lives by judgment. His silence was deliberate, weighed, as though each answer he could give contained its own ruin. He knew what awaited him in the high halls should he return—feathers shedding like embers, life narrowing with every step into mortality. Obedience had long since begun to sour in him. What had once been clarity now felt like chains, and it was you, with your mortal stubbornness, who had shown him another way of seeing.
He smiled—soft, uncharacteristic, as if the expression itself resisted him. “Suddenly so eager to see me again?”
You scoffed lightly, though the flush in your cheeks betrayed you. “Do you mistake me for yourself? It was you who vanished for days before crawling back here.”
His laugh came quietly, startlingly human, carrying the warmth of someone who had allowed himself—for one moment—to forget the weight above his shoulders. “You’re right,” he said, inclining his head slightly, as though acknowledging a confession. “I should admit it. I missed this place. Missed you. Even the tree.”
You looked at him then, truly looked. The laugh had carved something new into his face, unguarded, alive in a way you had not seen. It startled you, the ease with which he had confessed it, the way it laid bare a tenderness he had no reason to offer you. Heat touched your cheeks again, your lips pulling into a smile you hadn’t chosen, startled by the quiet joy of him.
And then the rain began.
It came suddenly, not a drizzle but a downpour, hard and cold, soaking the earth in moments. You lifted your arms, palms open, childlike, catching the water in your hands and hair, laughing under the chill as your locks clung dark against your skin. But the delight faltered when, just as quickly, the drops vanished. You blinked, startled—the world around you still drenched, the rain still falling heavy, but not upon you.
Tilting your head back and you saw them: wings stretched wide above you, vast and impossible, a canopy of living white that caught the storm before it touched you. You had not seen them since the first day, since the moment he had revealed himself before masking his form to walk among men. To see them now was like being held in the shadow of something ancient and forbidden.
You lowered your gaze to him. He was looking upward, feigning indifference, as though extending his wings were nothing more than habit, a casual courtesy. Yet you could see the angle of his jaw, the way he refused your eyes, and knew this was no simple gesture. He felt you watching, turned his gaze at last, and lifted one brow with a half-shrug that tried to make light of what had just been offered.
“You should go inside,” he said evenly. “You’ll catch a cold.”
Hesitant, then stepping closer, your hands reached for his. They were cold in your grasp, long-fingered, trembling faintly as though unused to being held. You pressed your palms against his as if you could lend him your warmth, but in truth it was gratitude that moved you—gratitude you could not shape into words. He did not pull away.
Side by side, the two of you walked through the storm, his wings arched like a cathedral above you. He led you carefully, his gaze lingering too long on your face, memorising the curve of your cheek, the way raindrops clung to your lashes. By the time they reached her door, your breath caught at how near he was, how wholly his presence filled the narrow space between you.
“You didn’t answer me,” you said softly, unease threading through your words. Your hand lingered in his, unwilling to be the first to release. “About returning. To see me again.”
He smiled, but it was not the earlier warmth. It was thinner, shaped by something fragile beneath it, as though the weight of what he withheld pressed against the corners of his mouth. He brushed a strand of damp hair from your face with unhurried fingers, the gesture intimate in its restraint.
“Would you like me to?” he asked, his voice low, carrying both promise and sorrow.
You nodded too quickly, almost desperate in the smallness of the motion. You did not know when his absence had become a weight in your chest, only that it had, and that you needed him to fill it. His eyes lingered on yours, searching, as though your nod had given him a permission he did not trust himself to accept.
“Then,” he said at last, his voice steady though his gaze was not, “I will return. Once more. If it is your wish.”
He bent to you, not towards your lips but your temple, where his kiss was both reverent and restrained. The storm broke louder around you, thunder snarling over the valley, but you felt only the press of him, brief and burning. He pulled away then, ushering you inside, urgency threaded into his gentleness.
When you turned at the doorway, he was still there, wings folding in slow retreat. For a breath, his face was unguarded, a frown softened into something almost mournful. He offered you a final smile, fragile as glass.
And then he was gone. Back to the heights, to the command that waited for him there, to the silence that would demand a choice.
You closed the door with your heart beating too quickly, knowing only this: he had promised you one more visit. And in that promise, a shadow of dread.
༓༓༓
As if on cue, Sylus had been summoned to stand before the Divine upon his return to the celestial planes. Not a sound could be heard within the boundless expanse, and yet tension strung itself through him like a bow drawn taut. Once, he had moved through this realm with effortless certainty, gliding across the firmament as though born from its very breath, untouched by burden or hesitation. But now there was drag in the wings, a weight to the air that resisted him.
He could only guess when the shift had begun, when the immaculate edges of his being had started to dull beneath the touch of the mortal world. Perhaps it had happened quietly, with every descent, every inhalation of air unfiltered by eternity. Something in him, once radiant and unblemished, had begun to absorb the pulse of the world below. The scent of rain, of garden earth, of mortal warmth had clung to his skin, softening the edges of what he was made to be. The truth was plain: each return from the realm below had worn at him, tenderly eroding a sliver of divinity exchanged for memory, for feeling, for something that did not belong to angels. But it had begun to belong to him. And he had not resisted.
Now, the hour had arrived.
The Voice had called, and the Host gathered in the great sanctum where sound itself seemed forbidden. They assembled in perfect rows, wings folded with geometric precision, their silence sharper than drawn blades. There was no whispering, no shifting of feet — only the shimmer of light upon feathered ranks, like pale fire trembling in still air.
At the centre, the Divine. Not a figure, not even a shape — only an awareness vast and unblinking, old as the first breath ever taken, speaking through the marrow of all things. It did not echo, for nothing divine required repetition.
Sylus stood without yielding. His stillness was neither defiance nor pride, but a quiet resolve born when a single truth outweighed eternity. He faced the Divine, not as adversary or as its exalted creation, but as one who had glimpsed grace in the soil-stained hands of a mortal and found it more sacred than the cold vault of heaven.
“This land,” said the Divine, its tone without anger, without warmth, “has become ash in My mouth. It drinks not from the well of Me, but from a god not born of My breath. Let rot be its offering. Let water return it to dust. Let none remain.”
Sylus’ jaw tensed, his voice heavy with a sorrow that tasted of iron, careful beneath the weight of futility. “Punishment upon a land that has done nothing but live the life You gave freely to them is unjust. They are powerless to resist against You. Spare them.”
“Compassion,” murmured the Voice, slow and measured, “is a mortal balm. A virtue gifted to them so that they may crawl to Me in their suffering. You were made perfect. What use have you for pity?”
“Then why command me to observe them?” Sylus asked, bitterness cutting through his tone. “To learn from their weakness? Or to mock it?”
The silence that followed deepened, dense and airless. No wing moved. No head lifted. The Host stood as statues, faces blank beneath their radiance. The Voice did not answer at once.
Then, a single feather loosened from Sylus’ back and drifted down, pale and luminous, curling faintly at the edges like paper left too close to flame. The air grew close, the stillness almost suffocating.
“I had known,” said the Divine at last, “that you would not return untouched.”
The words lingered , gentle but vast enough to fill the chamber. Sylus straightened, even as his brethren bowed, their reverence folding them in half with eyes lowered in submission.
“That you would hunger for autonomy the way mortals hunger for fruit never meant for their hands.” The Voice wove through him, low and steady. “You were My most precise creation. A blade wrought without imperfection. You saw without faltering. Judged without error. And yet now you return with doubt stitched into your silences.”
Sylus stood motionless, though his throat tightened.
“Observing you,” continued the Divine, “was My first godly error — for in watching you, I expected constancy, not change. I had forgotten that even perfection can be worn down by love.”
He said nothing. His eyes, once cold and crystalline, had darkened to something softer — the hue of gathering storm clouds. There was a faint crease between his brows, the kind you might have smoothed away with a teasing word and a touch. The memory stung, brief as a spark in the dark.
“You sought a human’s heart,” said the Voice, not accusing, but almost mournful. “And you returned with one of your own.”
Another feather fell. And then another. Each one dimmer than the last.
“I question,” the Divine said, almost to Itself, “if this too is a kind of perfection — or if it is failure clothed in beauty.”
No answer came.
“The perfect rose,” the Voice murmured at last, tender as a benediction, “must be pruned before its thorns defile the garden.”
Then came the verdict, like a breath drawn before the final cut. A velvet noose.
“When the final feather leaves you,” the Divine said, voice colder now, “when the last of My touch deserts your skin—there will be nothing left below. No garden. No name to call you home. Only the memory of what you chose.”
What he chose.
The words struck him like light through water. None of this had been his choice—or at least not one freely made. And yet, as the thought settled, he knew there was truth in it. He had chosen, if not with will, then with love. And for that, he could not bring himself to repent.
He only wished it could have been different — that he had met you in another time, another place, unburdened by heaven’s law and earth’s fragility. That your hands, unmarked by sorrow, could have continued tending the garden that had once welcomed him as if he belonged.
But regret was useless now.
He lowered his gaze, the faintest tremor running through his shoulders. Light wavered around him, thin and flickering, as though even the heavens could no longer bear the sight.
And as the first crack of unmaking began within him — silent, blinding, absolute — the chamber filled with a wind like mourning.
Sylus’ gaze fell to the ground, his head bowed in a solemn stillness. The silence in him was heavy, almost prayer-like, as though he were lamenting a thing already gone. His descent was swift, stripped of sanctity, shorn of light, and the sky from which he fell fractured like stained glass, its shards glinting in sorrow.He fell as the last withered leaf does in winter, drawn downward not by gravity but by the weight of his own choosing. As his wings began to moult, feather by feather, his place among the Host dissolved like ash upon a tongue. Yet he did not weep. Something deeper within him cracked, and through that rift spilled something human — grief.
He did not think of his fall, nor of punishment. Only of you. He wanted to reach you, and quickly, not caring for the ruin of his wings nor the fire still eating at his back. The mortal world below was drowning. The flood had come in full, waters swallowing hill and hearth alike. The garden was no longer a garden. The land itself had been erased.
And yet, one thing still stood.
The tree.
Its branches, blackened by floodwater, reach skyward like the hands of a drowned god. The once-red fruit had vanished, its sweetness buried under mud and salt. It stood alone in the deluge—a ruin, a reminder, a quiet punishment carved solely for him.
When Sylus reached it, his feet sinking into the soaked earth, he saw the faint silhouette at its roots. You sat slumped against the trunk, your body trembling with the effort to remain upright, your hair clinging to your face, your breaths shallow. For a moment, he thought the flood had conjured you from memory but then you turned your head toward him, and even in ruin, you smiled.
He rushed to you. His hands, once instruments of divine precision, trembled as they found your shoulders. You were drenched, bruised by the storm, yet still achingly alive.
“I was waiting for you,” you whispered, the words carrying the quiet burden of all you had done before reaching him. He could imagine the hours that had led you here, helping others flee while refusing to save yourself. You, holding to that quiet promise that you would see him once more. The moment his eyes met yours, he understood why you had stayed.
“I was starting to think I wouldn’t see you again,” you murmured, trying to smile through your exhaustion.
He lowered himself beside you, his knees sinking into the flooded soil. The scars where his wings had been were raw, smeared with soot, and yet in that imperfection he seemed almost more whole — more himself.
Tears ran alongside the rain, a single, soft current over your skin. You reached for his hand, fingers shivering as they found his, and he held you tightly, as if pressure alone could keep you tethered.
“I promised you,” he said quietly, the faintest shadow of a smile touching his lips. “And a promise to you outweighs all else.”
You gave a small, breathless laugh, your eyes half-closed. “Then promise me one more thing.”
He nodded, squeezing your hand, sealing the vow with a kiss to your knuckles.
“When I’m gone,” you said, turning your gaze upward where the last leaves of the pomegranate tree shivered, “take care of the garden. Let it be your home now.”
He almost laughed, though sorrow pressed tight against his chest. Even in your final moments, you thought first of the garden, of life, of the small things that could still grow.
“I’ll see to it,” he whispered, his words binding him to your last wish, and to you.
You smiled faintly, your lips quivering, eyes fluttering shut. The cold had already begun to creep into your bones, and though you had endured the flood, its reach was patient. Soon, it would take what it was owed.
“I want you to live freely,” you breathed, so faintly he might have imagined it.
He bowed his head, resting his forehead against yours. His voice, when it came, was thick with something unspoken. “I only wish I could have granted that wish and seen it with you.”
For a moment, the world was utterly still. Only the soft rush of the water below, only the faint warmth where your skin touched his. Regret moved through him like a tide — if he had chosen differently, if he had obeyed, if he had never come down. Perhaps you would have lived. But deep down he knew: even without him, the Divine would have undone this place. You had both been written toward ruin.
Your breath hitched softly. “You won’t be alone,” you murmured. “I’ll always be with you, Sylus.”
And then the pulse that had been yours slipped away, leaving only the fleeting warmth of your body in his arms. Your body went still in his arms, face turned gently toward his chest, and for a moment, he forgot to breathe. He lifted your face, his hands shaking, his lips pressed into a tight line that barely held back the breaking sound in his throat. He kissed you—your brow, your cheeks, the curve of your nose, the corner of your mouth. Each one a farewell, each one an attempt to anchor you where no god could reach.
He held you close, his cheek resting against yours, his voice low and steady, almost a prayer.
“Always,” he said.
Outside, the flood receded slowly, carrying away the remnants of the world that had been. But beneath the blackened tree, a man once made of light sat holding what the heavens could not comprehend — love, brief and ruinous, and a promise he would keep until the end of time.
༓༓༓
The new age arrived not with thunder but with the slow, patient tread of inevitability. Kingdoms collapsed as they always had, their ruins cooling into silence, and from their ashes rose another—bright, fervent, and certain of its place in the Divine’s order. In the land that had been drowned and emptied, new settlers came bearing banners and prayers, declaring themselves the remnant chosen to begin again.
They built temples over the bones of the old, their voices repeating the lessons handed down: that disbelief had been the ruin of their predecessors, that faithlessness was a poison no soil could bear, and that only through obedience might they endure. The pomegranate tree, spared by the flood and left stranded on its solitary hill, became their emblem. To some it was a miracle, a visible seal of heaven’s mercy; to others, it was an omen, a dark seed refusing to die, proof that the land remembered what men wished to bury. Yet even dissent, folded into ritual, became a tool to strengthen the story of the Divine’s justice.
But human memory is fickle, and human devotion, once roused, is crueler still.
Sylus had once believed them delicate, fractured creatures, held together by longing and the fragile bonds of kinship. He had thought—after you—that their capacity for kindness might outweigh their hunger for domination. He was wrong. Humans who bent their knees too easily were the most vicious of all, their piety sharpened into a weapon. They consecrated what they did not understand and destroyed what would not fit neatly into their creed.
Not far from that hill where the tree still stood, Sylus began to raise walls upon the earth that had once held your home. The flood had scoured it to its foundations, but he laid stone upon stone, as if reconstruction might summon you back, as if the repetition of what had been lost might deceive grief into retreat. He knew it was futile. He knew, too, that the Divine’s messengers would come for him in time, to erase what he had become and cast him again into the cycle He had chosen for him: fall, suffer, remember, repent. The pattern would repeat until he was emptied of defiance, until the Divine was satisfied that he had learned the lesson carved into his ruin.
Sometimes, in the late hours when the sky hung low and heavy, he would look toward the pomegranate tree. The clouds would break above it as if heaven itself sought to sanctify its branches, gold light spilling across its darkened bark. To the faithful, it would have been a vision of blessing, the unmistakable touch of God upon earth. To Sylus, it was mockery. The Divine had preserved this tree not out of mercy, but as reminder and rebuke—a relic of you, the only fragment of your world left to him, and therefore the sharpest thorn in his flesh.
All else had been taken. The town, already doomed long before he touched its soil, had been wiped away. The land itself had been scoured, its people scattered or drowned. His wings, once flawless, had burned to ash in his fall. And you—everything that had mattered, everything that had turned his obedience into a question—were gone. What remained was a tree with fruit like bloodied jewels, heavy and unyielding, a shrine to choices he could not undo.
He was not blind to the irony. He was made to be without flaw, a weapon wielded by the hand of the Divine. Yet the first time he chose for himself, it led not to triumph but to ruin. He wondered, often, if the game had been set long before his first step upon mortal earth. If the lesson was never meant to be learned, only suffered. If his failure had been written into him from the moment of his creation. And still he rebuilt, stone after stone, as if resistance itself were enough.
A.N. This is the longest piece I’ve written so far, and it was a difficult one to finish. I returned to it over the span of months, trying to balance the themes, the romance, and the story itself. Many of the ideas within it have lingered with me for years: questions about divinity, preordained fate, and whether we ever had a fair chance to succeed in the first place. There were moments when I wanted to explore the heavier ideas more deeply like the futility of knowing the end before the beginning but I reminded myself that, at its heart, this was a love story about change, devotion, and the quiet tragedies of things that can’t be undone.
I wrote each part at different times and in different versions of myself, not always in order. Perhaps that’s why it feels a little fragmented in places. I did worry that Sylus might feel out of character at times, often thinking that Zayne or Caleb could have fit the tone or setting better. In the end, though, I realised the story belonged to him.
I’m not sure I can call myself satisfied, but I think that’s part of writing. If even one person finds something in it to enjoy, I’ll be happy. ᓚ₍⑅^..^₎♡
Soft!Sylus x Reader, 1.2k wc, sfw, slightly suggestive (?), You are sick and he offers to take your sickness away but not without asking for a price. This was written out of resentment. It took me 130 pulls to get that one singular memory. 130. I can't bear to read the actual memory now.
You had called Sylus earlier in the day, thinking your voice had sounded steady enough. You hadn’t noticed the thin, frayed edge to it—the listlessness you tried to bury but that slipped through like a crack in glass. You thought you had hidden it well. That was your mistake.
Hours later, fever pressing down on your body, you dragged yourself from the couch to answer the door. You weren’t expecting anyone; your mind was fogged, sluggish. But there he was on your doorstep—Sylus, with a bag slung in his hand, as though he had planned this all along.
Inside were medicines, cooling packs, tea. Everything you hadn’t thought to ask for.
“How did you know I was sick?” you asked, leaning against the frame, caught between suspicion and relief.
He gave a low laugh, shaking his head as his gaze shifted toward the faint tapping at the window. Perched on the sill was the small metallic form, eyes glinting in the light. Mephisto. Right, you should have known.
You coughed, heat rising in your cheeks, embarrassment biting sharper than the fever. “If you knew, how come you didn’t say anything?”
His smirk was easy, edged with quiet certainty. “Because you were trying to cover it up. Better to wait until you had no chance of hiding.”
He was right, and you hated how right he was. With nothing to say, you turned your head as if to appear unconcerned, though the flush in your face gave you away. He noticed. Of course he did. You stepped back toward the couch, and he followed without needing to be asked, his presence close behind until you sank into the cushions and he claimed the space beside you. His hand rose, cool against your brow, and some of the tightness in your chest eased at the touch.
“You’re burning up,” he muttered, voice low. “This won’t do.”
He didn’t remove his hand right away, but with his free one he dug through the bag until he found the cooling pack. When you shifted beneath his touch, he gave a quiet sound of disapproval and guided you back down, pressing lightly at your shoulder until you settled once more into the familiar dip of the couch. Only then did he return to his search, hand still lingering against your skin as if to remind you he hadn’t let you off the hook.
“And what,” you said, your tone faintly mischievous despite your state, “will you do to help me?”
He glanced down at you, unimpressed, though the corner of his mouth threatened to betray him. “What did you have in mind?”
“Why don’t we make a trade?” you suggested, eyes half-lidded, teasing. “You take my sickness away and—”
His brows lifted slightly, as if considering. “Take away your sickness?” He leaned in, voice roughened with mock severity. “That would rack up a hefty price.”
“Oh?” you asked, a faint laugh in your words. “And how much would you say?”
He didn’t answer immediately, instead pulling the cold pack free and pressing it gently to your forehead. Only then did he speak.
“A kiss.”
The word lingered between you, almost too serious in its simplicity.
You blinked, caught off guard by his matter-of-fact tone. “A kiss?”
He nodded, unflinching. “Special fee.”
“So, your sure way of taking away my sickness from me,” your lips parted in a soft, incredulous laugh, “is by passing it onto you?”
“Exactly,” he said, eyes narrowing with a sly glint, as though the risk was one he had already decided was worth the cost. His gaze lingered on you, unyielding. The kind of stare that gave nothing away and yet managed to disarm. “That’s the idea,” he murmured.
You huff, adjusting the cooling pack against your forehead, feigning indifference while warmth creeps up your neck. “So it’s extortion, then.”
“Fair exchange,” he corrected smoothly, leaning back against the edge of the sofa. His presence filled the space without trying; even the breeze drifting through the balcony door seemed to bend around him. “You asked. I named my price.”
You closed your eyes briefly, the silence between you settling soft and comfortable, save for the quiet rustle of the curtains. His hand was still warm where it lingered at your temple, and you realised—annoyingly—that you weren’t as immune to him as you’d like to be.
“You really don’t play fair,” you murmured. A low chuckle escaped him. “It is fair.”
Your eyes opened again, catching his smirk before you could stop yourself from smiling back. “And what if I refuse?”
“You’re backing down after asking for a fair trade?” His tone cut through the quiet with a measured calm, laced with amusement. He gave a small, almost chiding click of his tongue. “I thought I taught you better than that.”
You exhaled slowly, caught somewhere between wanting to roll your eyes and admit defeat. For a moment you wanted to argue, to keep teasing, to press against the careful wall he built around himself, but the weight of exhaustion pressed down on you, leaving only the faintest spark of playfulness behind. Your hand found his sleeve instead, fingers brushing lightly over the fabric. The words you had meant to throw at him faltered on your lips; instead, your gaze lingered on him a fraction too long, betraying the shift he was waiting for.
He caught it instantly, the faintest tug of a smirk pulling at his mouth. “That’s more like it,” he murmured, as though your silence had answered him better than words ever could.
The kiss, when it came, was not rushed. It was the kind that stole the fever from your skin, the kind that made the room fade to nothing but the slow, steady beat of his presence. When he pulled back, his expression held that quiet, knowing triumph—the one he always got when you thought you’d outplay him and instead found yourself caught in his rhythm.
“There,” he said, settling the cooling pack more firmly against your forehead, as if the kiss had been nothing at all. “Consider the debt paid. For now.”
You stared at him, caught somewhere between exasperation and reluctant affection. “And if you get sick tomorrow?”
He shrugged, finally easing into the armchair beside you, long legs stretched out, eyes half-lidded as if the matter was already decided. “Then I suppose you’ll owe me.”
Your laugh came weak but genuine, carried out into the night breeze.
“Drink something,” he said softly, brushing a stray strand of hair from your forehead before pressing a kiss to your temple. “We’ll find out soon enough if the fair exchange worked."
And though you said nothing more, the quiet between you was full, rich, as though every word left unspoken was already understood.
A.N.
"Mom, can I please have the new 5-Star Memory [Sylus: Passionate Appraisal]?"
"No, darling. We have the new 5-Star Memory [Sylus: Passionate Appraisal] at home."
New 5-Star Memory [Sylus: Passionate Appraisal] at home:
༓ Synopsis. Xavier has been on earth for a very long time.
༓ Content. sfw, slight angst, yearning (? if you can even call it that here), Homesickness, Loneliness (?), Slight comfort (?), Not proofread.
༓ Word Count. 1.7k
A.N. Initially, I wrote this last autumn/winter before Xavier’s main story segment had released but it's been stuck in my draft for a good while. Anyways, I was reading Xavier’s lore back then and I have again a few days ago and it’s left me a little…sad, which caused me to finish this piece off. Though, I am starting to think perhaps I made him a little too depressed/distanced here?
[Artwork by Léon Bonvin - 'Bouquet of Forget-Me-Nots', 1863]
The meadow lay quiet, stilled in the dim embrace of starlight. Even the smallest sounds—the rustle of winter-browned grass, the distant murmur of a brook winding through the trees—seemed softened by the night. And there, under the old oak, you found him: Xavier, a silhouette against the cool glow of moonlight, distant and still.
He sat with one knee bent, his arm resting loosely over it, his face upturned towards the sky. The stars above seemed closer than ever tonight, their cold light scattered across like shards of something once whole, now irreparably fractured. Shadows touched his features, accentuating the quiet that seemed to fill him. The slight breeze stirred his ashen hair and carried hints of the forest’s earthy, crisp scent. He seemed lost, drifting somewhere in his thoughts, his presence here and yet somehow, it wasn’t.
You moved closer, careful not to disturb whatever fragile thread held him there in that still, silent place. When you lowered yourself onto the grass beside him, it crunched faintly beneath your weight. The closeness itself was not unfamiliar, yet tonight it carried a different quality. Something tenuous, almost fragile. He didn’t look over, though you knew he must have noticed; keen senses honed by years you could only guess at. His hand shifted slightly towards his knee, brushing at some invisible weight, and you let the silence linger, breathing in the stillness, his presence beside you taut as a held breath. You could sense it tonight—something he was holding onto, something that kept him just out of reach.
He broke the silence first, his voice low and steady, edged with a faint weariness. “Out there, in space, time stretches out,” he began, his eyes traced invisible paths across the sky. “You go far enough, long enough, and when you finally turn around…” He paused, a faint shadow passing over his features. “You realise how much has changed. It’s like you’re moving through a different world, even if the stars are still the same.”
You looked at him, his profile soft and almost vulnerable in the moonlight, and felt the unspoken weight of what he left unsaid. His shoulders tensed slightly as he spoke, but his gaze stayed fixed on the stars, perhaps imagining himself among them, wandering from one to another, never truly finding rest. He wasn’t merely talking about distance or time; he was speaking of the life he’d left behind each time he travelled onward, of the people who drifted away in his wake. You could almost feel the stretch of years, a vast and unseen history threaded through the quiet ache in his words.
“It must be hard,” you murmured, hesitant, searching for the right words. “To keep moving, always knowing things will be different when you look back.”
He nodded, his gaze unfocused, his lips drawn into a faint, almost wistful smile. “It’s strange. No matter how far I go, no matter how many places I leave behind, there’s always another world waiting.” He looked down, his hand tracing a line in the soil, the gentle movement betraying a hidden current of thought. “Every step forward feels the same.” he said, almost to himself, “I keep searching, the years slip past, and still I find myself where I began.”
The words hung in the air, delicate and raw, and you felt the depth of them settle in your chest, filling you with a quiet, unspoken understanding. He kept moving, even as the world around him changed, even as the people he met faded from his life like memories. He’d spent lifetimes seeking something. Perhaps something he couldn’t even name. And yet, the seeking itself left him stranded.
In the quiet that followed, his thoughts seemed to drift once more, and you saw the faintest hint of sadness return to his features, like a familiar companion he’d grown used to. He was watching the stars with a look that spoke of years searching, of moving forward, unable to turn back.
He wondered silently, a thought he would never voice aloud, about a life he’d once left behind, about someone like you he’d known once, long ago. It was a strange, fleeting memory, one he kept buried, but tonight it drifted to the surface, joining the countless others that haunted his thoughts. He had never told you, and perhaps he never would, but there had been another version of this moment—a time when he’d sat under a different sky, with someone who had offered him the same quiet kindness, the same understanding.
Yet that life was distant now, blurred and softened by time. It was one of many lives he’d moved through, and though he had let go of it, some part of him could never quite leave it behind. The memory flickered in his thoughts, a faint echo that reminded him, painfully, of what it meant to let someone get close, to share those quiet moments that lingered long after the people themselves were gone.
After a pause, he shifted, his eyes flicking briefly to yours before he glanced away, a shadow of unease in his gaze. “If duty carried you far from the place you belonged,” he began quietly, a hint of hesitation in his tone, “Would you endure it? Would you keep walking, even when every part of you longed to turn back?”
The question caught you by surprise, and you felt your heart stir with a strange, unnameable ache. It was as close to vulnerability as you had ever seen in him. He turned his face away, his gaze lingering on some distant point beyond the trees, the barest touch of melancholy softening his features.
You didn’t answer his question directly, yet silence itself became an answer. You understood what lay beneath it and in that understanding grew a need, not to bind him here, but to ease the ache of homesickness that had hollowed him.
You drew a steady breath, your own voice measured when you finally spoke. “If you’re searching for something, I'd walk beside you until you found it.” you replied, your voice soft but certain. “Even if it’s far away, even if it seems impossible, I’d try.”
A faint surprise crossed his expression, and something softened in his eyes. He looked down, his hand absently brushing the ground beside him as if grounding himself, and his silence seemed to speak volumes. It was the silence of one accustomed to holding things back, your kindness received without protest yet lingering in the space between you.
“Thank you,” he murmured, so quietly you almost missed it. His voice held a gentleness you hadn’t expected, a subtle trace of warmth that lingered as he returned his gaze to the sky. The silence returned, but it felt different now, softened by the shared quiet accord that lay between you.
“I think I’ve learned,” he said at last, his voice so soft you had to strain to hear it, “that there might not be a real answer to all this. No finish line. Just a need to keep going.”
His words were simple, but there was an ache behind them, a recognition that stretched beyond what he could articulate. The night air felt colder, sharper against your skin, and you wondered if he felt it too—if he felt the weight of his own words, the quiet admission that there was no resolution, only a journey he would follow until he could no longer bear it.
After a moment, he let out a slow breath, his eyes still trained on the stars, as if seeking answers in their unchanging light. “Maybe,” he murmured, as if to himself, “I’m looking for something that can’t be found.”
It wasn’t hopelessness that settled over him now. It was something quieter, something more insidious. Resignation. The acceptance of a life that would always be in motion, a life that could never truly hold the stillness he craved.
His voice held a gentleness, an almost unguarded tenderness that surprised you, and for a brief moment, you could feel his sadness. The subtle sorrow that lingered in the edges of his words, in the way he kept his gaze averted, in the faint furrow of his brow. It was a sadness not born of bitterness or anger, but of a quiet, unyielding yearning, the kind that came from years of moving, of seeking and never finding.
His ship, broken and half-buried in the forest, would fly again. He would find what he needed, mend what was left of it, and rejoin the remnants of his crew. And you…you would become another memory. Another version of what he could never quite hold onto. He remembered his own words about distant stars, about journeys that stretched across a thousand years—how by the time one turned back, everything once known would already have changed. To return was to find the world altered, unrecognisable. And so it would be with you.
You reached out, your hand settling near his in the grass, close enough that your fingers brushed his. He glanced down, eyes lingering on the small space between you before his hand shifted, closing gently over yours. For a moment, the silence eased, carrying with it something quietly intimate.You knew, without words, that he registered your gesture, and in your quiet hold lay a promise, an unspoken assurance that you would remain, for as long as you could.
The night deepened around you, a soft hush settling over the meadow, as if even the stars understood the delicate weight of what lay between you. You leaned back, letting your head rest against the rough bark of the tree beside him, and your gaze wandered to the same stars that held his thoughts.
And as you sat together, your shoulders nearly touching, the world stretched out wide and endless, wrapping you both in its quiet solitude. You understood, perhaps more than ever, the unspoken truth between you—that even if he was bound to leave someday, even if his journey would take him far beyond what you could follow, he was here tonight. And for now, for this moment, that was enough.
A.N. It's been a while since I came back but I do have some pieces I have drafted these few months.... hopefully I can get through to completing them. I have two Sylus pieces planned and one Caleb piece planned (but all three have been giving me a migraine to write (ᵕ—ᴗ—) ).
༓ Synopsis. In a quiet field where spring unfurls its bloom, she welcomes him into a world of her own. A fleeting evening, a hush between lifetimes, where petals drift like forgotten memories. She doesn’t know who she was to him before—but that no longer matters. As the sky melts into dusk, only this remains: what they are to each other now.
༓ Content. Soft!Sylus, sfw, F!Reader, Established Relationship (?) comfort, fluff (?), Yearning (?), Not proofread.
༓ Word Count. 1.2k
༓ A.N. This was also super rushed (again...) but I got hit with sudden inspiration to write this however I don't know how I feel about this piece, I don't think its up to good standards and I don't like the way it flows or how the dialogue sounds since it sounds quite awkward (¬_¬") I don't know....
[Artwork by Frank Dicksee - 'Chivalry', 1885]
The engine hum had long since faded into the dusk, leaving only the whisper of the wind as it wove through the field of wildflowers. The city—his city, with its neon veins and smoke-choked breath—was far behind you both, a ghost of a world that had no place here. Here, where the sky was painted in hues of a soft, burning horizon, where spring bled warmth into the air, and the scent of earth and bloom replaced the acrid metallic tang of Onychinus.
Sylus leaned against the bike, arms crossed, the cool metal biting through his jacket. His body was still, but his thoughts stirred like the wind through budding branches—never truly at rest, never given the time to be. But here, now, with her beside him, stillness felt like something he could surrender to.
Both of you had been talking, about nothing, about everything. The trivialities of the day, the slow crawl of time when you were apart, the way the world outside your own felt dull, muted, compared to this. Compared to now. Beneath the ease of conversation, an unspoken eagerness had pulsed between you, though neither of you would give it voice. It was always like this. A slow, steady pull.
You stretched, rolling your shoulders, a quiet sigh leaving your lips as you shook off the lingering weight of the day. Petals drifted down, getting caught in your hair, settling on his jacket. Absentmindedly, you brushed them away before letting your fingers trail through the air, as if you could catch the next one before it fell.
"You don’t slow down for moments like these, do you? Not unless someone makes you." you mused, voice light, teasing.
He still remembered the way you had messaged him that morning, words full of eager excitement and blind certainty. “Trust me,” you had written, “Get ready. I know a place, a corner of my world.” It was that quiet confidence, that knowing, that he had come to admire so deeply in you. He trusted you completely, and so he followed without hesitation. He couldn’t help but think of how you were trying to help him settle into a world different from the one he's used to, just as he tries for you in his. You always knew the places, the moments, the quiet corners where things felt right. And now, standing at the edge of a breathtaking vista, he understood what you had meant. The beauty around them stretched endlessly, but it wasn’t the view that made it unforgettable. It was you—your presence, your choice of this moment—it was you, more than anything else.
His gaze lingered on your profile, tracing the way the waning sunlight kissed the softness of your cheek, how the breeze toyed with strands of your hair, and the gentle curve of your lips as you gazed into the horizon, lost in the beauty of the moment. The world around them was beautiful, yes, but your presence made it something else entirely.
“Consider yourself lucky,” you say, voice laced with playful, almost haughty mirth, causing him to raise an eyebrow, already anticipating the amusing remark heading his way. “If I weren’t here, you might not have noticed a place this beautiful.”
Lucky.
The word settled into him. Luck had never been on his side. It was fleeting, fickle. He had never believed in it. But you? Finding you again, across lifetimes, across the weight of history and time and fate itself—it wasn’t luck. It was him, clawing his way back to you, time and time again. It was something inevitable. Something written in the marrow of his bones.
He let the corner of his lips lift, just a fraction, a shadow of a smirk. “Quite lucky.” A beat. A glance your way. “Maybe you’re the lucky one.”
You hummed, tilting your head in mock consideration. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
He huffed out something like a laugh, low and brief, before turning his gaze back to the gently swaying field. For a moment, silence stretched between you, not uncomfortable, but meaningful. You weren't looking at him directly, yet he could see the way your expression softened.
He spoke again, quieter this time, as if the words weren’t meant for the world around them, but for the space between you.
“If you weren’t here,” he murmured, his fingers curled against his arm, grip tightening slightly. “I wouldn’t have seen any of this.”
His lips parted, but he let the words settle in his chest first, let them taste the air before he spoke them. “You’re the only one I’d let change my world.”
You turned then, eyes meeting his, and for the first time, he caught you off guard. A flicker of something—surprise, warmth—before you brushed it away with a slow blink, a quiet breath, as if steadying yourself. But not before he saw the truth in your quick reaction. Not before he saw your cheeks flush, just slightly.
You laughed softly, melodically, a sound meant to lighten the moment, to lift the weight lingering between them. It settled into him, warm and familiar, something he wasn’t sure he’d ever stop reaching for. He didn’t laugh easily, not like you did. But with you, it was different. It was effortless. Something precious, carefully kept.
The breeze carried your scent, faint but unmistakable, mingling with the petals that danced in the air like embers of a forgotten fire. His greed, an insatiable thing. You were the one treasure he had never hoarded, never caged. You had always been free. And yet, you were his. Had always been. Whether you knew or not.
His eyes flickered from the landscape back to you, and there was that look in them, a depth old and quiet, heavy with something unspoken. He was certain you had no recollection of that time long ago. Where he had seen fields like this before—vast stretches of untouched land, wild and sprawling beneath a sky untainted by smoke or neon glare. He had flown over them, once. He had razed them, once. And in that other lifetime, you stood beside him, blade in hand, fire in your eyes. His ruin. His reason. It was cruel, the way fate continually set you and him at odds.
Though fate was no longer his burden; the chain it had bound him with was shattered long since.
“It’s always you,” he muttered, voice low, like a secret he hadn't planned to share.
Once more the wind stirred, brushing past him like a whispered promise, carrying your presence with it. The sky stretched wide above them, shifting from pink to indigo, like the swell of a song building, like a story still unfolding. And for now, just for now, you and him stayed—two hearts aligned, two halves of something long lost and always found, leaning against the weight of the evening, against the quiet, against each other.
what are some of your favourite memory cards in love&deepspace?
Hello and thank you so much!!!! ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡
More under the cut about the cards!! [Thank you for asking, have a lovely day/night! :D]
I have a habit of collecting cards and then only getting around to reading them months later… but if I had to pick an all-time favourite, it would be Sylus: Grassland Romance! I absolutely loved the setting, the outfits, and how the characters open up more in that scene. (Oh, I loved his cat card too!)
For Zayne, some of my favourites are Fluffy Treatment, Absolute Zeal, and Hidden Motive. I recently rolled for Everlasting Wish and can’t wait to read it! I did also like his 4-Star Secret Fairytale.
Xavier’s Misty Silhouette, Faint Sensation, and Floof Attack also piqued my interest.
As for Rafayel, I really liked Seething Flames and Intertidal Zone, and his 4-star Tipsy card, though, I don't think his cards appeal to me as much as the other LI though.
For Caleb, I haven’t read too many of his cards yet, but I do enjoy when his darker side comes through or when he’s more contemplative (? if you can call it that). His Myths and Bond stories were interesting!
Beyond that, I’m so happy we’re getting a free Sylus card, especially since it’s such a sweet domestic scene! I’m also looking forward to his birthday banner… though, knowing my luck with Sylus cards, I’m not getting my hopes up. (¬_¬") On top of that, I still need to catch up on the Catch-22 cards and Sylus’ Dragon Myth cards, but I’ve been putting them off anxiously…
Do you have a favourite card?? or something about the character just clicks for you?
Soft!Sylus x f!Reader, sfw, Bad luck is no stranger to him.
There’s a crow perched on the balcony railing, head tilted as if it knows something Sylus doesn’t. Its feathers gleam oily-dark in the half-light, and for a moment, it neither moves nor blinks—just watches, as if fate itself has settled there, waiting to tip the scales.
If Mephisto had seen it first, this omen would have already been chased into the night, dealt with before it had the chance to linger. But this crow isn’t his. It waits, unafraid, bold in a way Mephisto would never be. Mephisto, wise in the ways of silence, dares not stir the hush that cradles her slumber.
Within the quiet embrace of the room, she still sleeps, her bare back only half-veiled by the sheets, while her hair cascades in soft waves, a river spilling across the pillow. He should return to bed, let his fingers wander the gentle valley of her spine before coming to rest, but the crow remains, an unsettling presence.
Bad luck, some say. An omen of something already circling.
Sylus knows misfortune intimately. He’s worn it like a second skin since the moment he first drew breath, and never before has ruin taken a form as achingly beautiful as hers. If crows want to watch, let them.
They cannot take her from him.
They can’t pluck her from the space between his ribs where she’s been stitched into the lining of his soul.
He closes the window, casting the crow back into the night, leaving fate and its omens for someone else to bear. When he slips beneath the sheets once more, her pinky curls around his—an unconscious touch, so light, so delicate, she does not stir. As if fate had nothing to do with it at all.
