cacophonous aggregations

[rylan-ianson-blog]

Fallen Fireflies || Rylan // Dru || FB7, Closed.

[rylan-ianson-blog]

Rylan leaned so easily into his touch, it was instinctual, needy, and desperate for the comfort that came from such touches of people wanting to console him. He sobbed then. Dropping his head between his knees, body trembling to his core while he tried to keep his noise of grief wedged between his legs. But it was hard to hide the flood of emotions accompanied with losing someone he loved for five years. The ring for her finger burning in his pocket. Having just seen her moments prior, and wishing with all he had that he had just called out to see her smile one last time. 

"Thank you mister," he sniffed, wiping his eyes with the back of his sleeve, and made to stand straighter before the angel so he didn’t feel so pathetic in his gracious display of humility. "For your words, and stopping to say them to me. Safe travels—" he just managed to get out, though the words at the end peaked in the strain, and was followed with additional tears cascading down his face. 

His polite behavior was necessary to keep some semblance of normal, and it did help to calm him. Moving forward enough to brush past the angel and moved away with a slight limb though no worry to his injuries. Handing the driver every coin he had, Rylan slipped into the carriage. Body laying curled easily into the seat and closed his eyes. Praying softly, wholeheartedly, that Veronica Hearth had rested in peace.

[rylan-ianson-blog]

Fallen Fireflies || Rylan // Dru || FB7

[rylan-ianson-blog]

Something akin to emptiness filled the young toy maker while he stared up into the heavens, hazel iris’ reflecting the loss of wonder once held so confidently and proudly in front of the angel. Dru’s decend into his space collapsed him inward in reflection to the home of his dearly departed. He felt a lightness of air fill his lungs when he enveloped him in all his grace. It mattered not of his age, or the fact that black silks cascading over his crown forced the man eye’s to flutter close in instant comfort. Salty tears blurred past long lashes to pool, and flutter in large gatherings to stain upon ashened cheeks as erodeded rivers in attempt to rid the ash clung to his body with no prevail.

Too stunned into a state of quiet, shock soaking his veins with further threat of an unmoving body. Rylan’s hope hung in the gallows, swaying teasingly of what it meant to love and experience such loss. Not aware of the man who fathered this family, who married their mother had so cruelly roasted them alive and ran away, and would for years get away with such murder. Rylan’s outlook on life would change the next two days, redirecting it completely from what could have been— to what should have been all along.

"I hope she didnt suffer…" he managed to whisper, eyes distant and non looking at the being so close to him. Wanting to thank him, curl up by his side, and sleep forever if that meant what was happening in the foreground wasn’t indeed happening. "Death seemed like such a dream. One I never thought on, nor feared, nor anticipated in my life. I feel foolish it took losing the woman I loved in such a way to instill that fear into me. I pray they all made safe passage to heaven. However would I know such a personal journey Dru? Believe in it with all I have? Would that lessen this?" His fingertips pressed into his chest right over his heart, the muscle painfully strained, and utterly broken.

[dru-dgery]

"It is senseless to fear death," the archangel softly spoke as the crowd shifted around them, passed around their stationary forms as if time was a variable that only effected those outside of his and the former groom-to-be's little sphere. Spectators gathered to sate the nosiness of their unbridled curiosity then, after a short time, left, either bored or heartbroken or both. The propriety of the committed atrocity was certainly a point that could be contested, but that everyone met their ends no matter their species was not. Dru could not help Rylan's being unprepared to face the ambivalence of reality revealed by the proverbial turning of the cards. "Death is a natural, logical conclusion to creation, and while it is sometimes able to be manipulated or staved, ultimately it is inescapable. As long as one continues to tally up the growing aggregate of their years, then they will meet death; time will see to it."

He receded like a chilly fog bested by the warmth of the sun, and slowly unwound himself, the hadal curtains of his oppressive outfit, from the younger man.

"Their paths are not for you to know, unfortunately," he said in retreat. "The result is a carefully considered culmination of their measured lives. Believe whatever makes you feel better - the care and consideration expressed by a grieving heart is no adverse stone upon your own quantitative actions.

"I know that in this fresh state of pain that this likely gives you little to no comfort, but try to see past the tragedy of this event and savor what love you were able to share during the brief instances that your souls were able to meet, and recall the joyfulness that was delighted in as well as the bouts of suffering that were foiled through those fond memories, even if the rest of life or the trials of the after afterlife is full of tribulation for those who are so susceptible. People often say that things happen for a greater reason, but I don’t necessarily believe that, despite the calculability of the entropy that exists in this realm. The incongruity of others’ rationale is a scourge upon the already stained tapestry that is this mortal coil, but you should not look for sanity where it does not exist – it is found in heart of the bonds that were shared, not in the imprudent severing of their physicality."

He placed a hand on the back of Rylan’s head, gentle and sympathetic.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

[bellevenna]

Fraternal Familiarity || Belle + Dru

[bellevenna]

Belle accepted the proffered length of silk, dabbing gently at watery eyes and softly inhaling the exotic smoky spices which permeated it; they might have been fairly overpowering, but memories, comforting and beloved, triggered and flooded forth and it was these she grasped at even as she clutched the fabric in her hands.

For all the topics she and her brother had covered in their countless conversations over the centuries, affairs of the heart, namely her own, had seldom been breached. First it had been out of a sense of respect; she knew too well how painful it was for Death to hear Destruction’s name. Then, as a secret needing fierce keeping; Sitri, their illicit affair, no matter how harmless their twin intentions had been, could not be openly discussed. And now, with Shiloh, the last in that short list of former lovers, Belle’s separation from Azrael forbade their discussing her attachment to the wolf until now.

Not knowing quite where to start, Belle made the decision to simply start with the beginning, to trace her heart’s attachments from the first to the last in the hopes that some light might be shined on her current heart’s woe.

"My love for Abaddon was a pure, innocent thing, born of the pure and innocent want to be always by his side. Of enjoying the way he looked he upon me, the feel of his hand in mine. When he first kissed me …" Here she stopped, struggling for any adequate word to describe that single, simple gesture. "It was as if everything outside of we two disappeared, there was nothing but us and that moment and I knew then that I wanted nothing but his arms ever holding me.

"Sitri, Julian … I had the mind to kill him where he stood when first we met. I recognized him for what he was, and he me, but that we were both in the middle of a city, with countless innocent bystanders stayed my hand. He dogged me, needling me, shadowing my steps ‘ere he could." A shadow of a smile turned up the corners of Belle’s lips; the memory was a fond one, despite it’s tragic end.

"We entered a sort of truce and from that came a friendship that eventually became …" She shrugged, shifting in her seat, drawing one knee to her chest and clasping her hands about her shin.

"I knew him for centuries before we fell in love, Azrael. I did not tumble blindly into his bed, unthinking and uncaring, and he did not seduce me for ruination’s sake. I know it does not seem so, but I never meant for any hurt to come of our being together. I wanted only to be with him who I loved; I had, still have, no desire to see Heaven tumble or to join Hell’s ranks. Our coupling … It was the most natural thing in the world, an extension of the affection we had come to hold for each other. I would call it beautiful, though I know the word is cliché. More over, it did not feel wrong.

"My love for Shiloh came as a surprise. I did not go looking for him, not so soon after I had lost everything. He … I thought him a good match. He made me laugh. And he was so fierce in his declarations of love … The three years we were together were some of the happiest I have had and that is not a claim I make lightly. But … He could not be faithful, would not do it, perhaps, and that I could not abide. I am a selfish woman, a selfish lover, and I will not share my lover, his bed, with another. I will not share his heart with another and I do not know that he understands that."

Belle frowned, chin resting on her knee, a thumb crooked at her mouth, teeth worrying at the ragged nail. “I do not know that he understands how deeply it hurt to know he loves another, that his repeated declarations of love are undone by his actions.

"And there I’ve revealed myself to be a hypocrite, for what have I done to you, brother, but much the same? If I thought our Father so petty, I would name this divine retribution, but I know it is only … The failings and fallings of love.

"You asked if it was worth it, falling in love, despite the heartbreak. I cannot lie, Azrael, and so I would say … yes. No doubt the answer diminishes me further in your eyes, but it is such a wonderful thing, brother, even with the pain that inevitably comes."

[dru-dgery]

There was something vulgar in hearing Abaddon being spoken about in any context of love other than that which was fostered in siblinghood, that which Azrael himself held so suffocatingly dear. A sour taste surfaced in his mouth, a snapping of neural synopses triggered a bout of misanthropy for even the girl before him that had once been so close, and these things, while not meant to break the levees they pressed against, were hard to hold at bay; this anger, this eternal frustration the remaining angel harbored for his former sister's flights of fancy thus expounded upon, was only partially swallowed and stuffed back into the churning recesses from whence it came.

"Well," he began, causally caustic as per usual, "I'm not sure what comfort you expect out of me when your own words serve the purpose just as well. You say that it's worth it to constantly love and lose. It's worth it to feel serendipitous delight come in a flush of frenzied hearts and a blushed brushing of feathersmooth skin, then wane in the heartache conjured by unearthed truths. To smile then cry, to feel joy ebb into pain." He lifted a hand as if it were possible to casually swipe the notion away; a verbose fly pestering petulance. "Fine, good, whatever. Learning from one's mistakes is obviously too hard of a thing to accomplish, though I guess you are mortal now, so you're allowed these degenerate dalliances like everyone else."

Azrael, likely, just simply didn't understand, and this may have exacerbated the irritability he wrestled with. How could angels, his own kind, spend so much time involving themselves in affairs that were meant to corrupt mortals? How could his people, born of supposed infinite wisdom, constantly reduce themselves to falling, literally and figuratively, for manipulation wrung from the groins of others? Was it really not the end of the world yet? The exhaustion the angel of death felt from constantly putting up with the trifles of humanity was worn clearly on his face. For once in his extremely long life, the man didn’t sequester himself behind a façade of cleverness, or shade himself under the guise of being aloof.

"So... what?" He asked. "What do you want me to do? Reassure you that you're in the right for standing your ground? Do you want me to tell you that it's not your fault that your relationship with a werewolf didn't work out? He's half-broken, Belle. You know, you have a real knack for turning a blind eye to the things that really matter about someone - be they an off-limits demon, or a half-wolf half-man who is barely able to strain some semblance of sanity from the sieve of his overburdened head.

"Look, whatever you're hoping to find here, I don't have it. I don't pity you and the bad choices you make. Find faith in your own reassurances, I have none to spare. It's worth it, you said, and so you will march forward... to find another to occupy your bed, and further muddle the wreckage that fills your head. Sure, you can’t lie. Let us not mention the predisposition you have to carefully cover certain truths, especially from those that would wish to save you from eternal ruin."

[magdalena-ashwood]

A Chance Encounter // Magdalena & Dru [Closed]

[magdalena-ashwood]

Magdalena nodded, she understood that it would take longer then five years for her Heavenly Father to forgive her for what she had done, if he would at all. What made her life pleasant in this world was the few friends she had made since falling. Without them she may have lived her mortal life walking a much more horrid path in life then she did now. Those she held deer to her were the ones who made her want to do and be a better person. Sometimes she wished she could go back and make a different decision, she wondered what her life might have been like if she had chosen to keep her wings and walk among the earth and Athoria as the graced being she once was. “I understand, I know that I have many choices to make in my future and a full life to live though it is limited by time now. I don’t expect your forgiveness for my outburst just now, I just want you to know that I am sorry. I will do my best to earn our fathers forgiveness and repent for the things I have done wrong.” She said, her eyes glistening from the tears streaming down her pale cheeks.

She reached up to wipe the tears away, her horse nudging her lightly with its head, wanting to get home and warm. “I am glad I had the chance to meet you today. You’ve made me think and broke the walls I put up around my stubborn self. For that I must thank you.” She said, her voice while no longer shaking was still soft, her tone light. “I may not get the chance to meet you again until my end but if we do meet again before that it would be a pleasure.” She said as she watched him with his back to her. She knew he would be on his way and she on hers.

[lailah-nox]

Dondequiera || Lailah & Dru

Lailah’s heart sank with each letter that she read from Azrael’s note. She could nearly hear his voice speaking each syllable in his sorrowful tone. Night had been neglecting him for her own foolish reasons and he’d known it. He may not have possessed every detail, but Death knew her well and figured her absence would not come without reason. Truth be told, Lailah had succumbed to the pull of wrath and lust; two sins that she’d often struggled with. Rylan, a lowly human, had played a part in her occupied time. If it wasn’t him then it was extinguishing demons or others of their ilk. She’d even fallen victim to some silly enchantment. It happened to various citizens of England, succumbing to whatever magical poison that was set on mysterious gifts left at their doorsteps. Night’s rages had been uncontrollable and if it weren’t for Breena, Lailah would have killed an innocent and been thrown from Grace. 

Tears had begun to swim in her eyes, but they’d dried the instant she realized Death had forgiven her. Azrael still wanted to see her and follow Lailah to her most coveted place on Earth. She smiled at that and began to work fervently at preparing for their outing. Lailah knew just the right place she’d take him; a place that often made her heart swell with wonderment. It was a place where they could rest under their coveted stars and be as close as they could to the heavens. 

Once her preparations were finished, Lailah slipped into the void between words and traveled to a land she rarely visited. Athoria. In the blink of an eye she found herself surrounded by Hollowed Oak, but in front of her, lied the hermit’s tent. Though she dared not enter, for Night always respected Death’s space. “Azrael.” She called with repentance in her tone. Winter’s oncoming breeze ripped through the air, causing Lailah to draw up her hood. “I am late, I know, but as the humans say…it is better than never.” 

[dru-dgery]

The tent was not a strictly sacred place, but Death always adored the care and respect that the majestic Lady Night unfailingly brandished when approaching either him, or his conglomeration of interests and encampments, his places and peculiarities. Azrael noticed these little things each time they were displayed. For as much mind as he had to enduringly worship the bigger picture of the life and the death of the world they inhabited, he was oftentimes a hound for little details whose microsopicality begat some begging to be forgotten. Clashing though the polarities of these perceptions may have initially seemed, their relation was actually rather close, best explained through the eyes of the alchemists when they looked up to the stars intent on seeing the face of the God of their choosing in those splatter-specks and his, or her, divine knowledge released as the ebbing of a yellow sunrise into red, citrinitas bleeding into rubedo. As above so below - the words fell freely from the lips of these hermetic hierophants, were etched into the stones of their tombs and the texts of their secret societies. The macrocosm was reduced and replayed upon the smaller scale of the microcosm; what turnings were seen in the incomprehensible outer reaches of the unhindered universe would eventually be played out upon Earth as would an exponent echo its integers in formulaic ripples whose speed may have mirrored that of light, but was vexed by distances so great that each peak was followed by a trough whose inactivity spanned lines of time that endured through the rising and falling of entire civilizations. As words of war were on the lips of Heaven's host, so they were upon its mortal disciples; as the sun would eventually sear and swallow the Earth, so would the diligent, supermassive vacuum of gravity at the center of Earth's time-tuned galaxy eventually grow and absorb the remnants of a vast system that was a mere solar spot swirling in the starfield's elliptical bend of lights - as above, so below.

Summoned, the solitary angel emerged from the acute folds of his entranceway bearing not only the burden of his usual dress, intensified by the replacement of gauzy silks for thicker knit cottons and the addition of a heavy cloak whose vastness could have seen it doubled as a curtain, but a smile as well. The expression was demure upon his oft severe features, bend of lips curled to offer a duplicitous warmth - it part it was plain happiness to see the woman, in part it was self-satisfaction to see his missives still worthy of a response.

Though the words in his letter could have come across as condemning, that inflection was not so much his intention. Azrael was a demanding entity when he wanted to be, but the demands inscribed upon the blood-inked page of his were not without some jest, nor were they lacking desires that were counterintuitive to his eternal loneliness. After all, the same (mostly) playful chiding could have been served back to him should Lailah had been the one to reach out first. Avenues of affection were simply a two-way street; give and get, take and return.

“You know I am not opposed to scraps,” he said as a preamble of dismissal, standing before her and offering his hand. The limb was covered with the supple, achromatic skin of kid, a bespoke glove that whose existence centered around covering his hand, and his hand alone. Each finger was then doubly adorned with jewels. Segmented bones encircled those spindly digits, gem-studded teeth shone in the ambient light of their surroundings, rings of rubies were radiant, and pyrite stars shimmered in their enamored offering. “Never mind the time. We have an abundance to spare, and so I submit myself to the whims of your predilection.”

[magdalena-ashwood]

A Chance Encounter // Magdalena & Dru

[magdalena-ashwood]

Magdalena seemed confused and took a step back, her expression changing and becoming softer. She had become defensive when there was no real need to be. “Wait a second, I am sorry, perhaps I misspoke and I apologize, I did not mean to offend you.” She said, her gaze shifting to the ground. She knew she had only herself to blame, it was not possible to blame any other. Her fall was a mere trick, one that she had been stupid enough to fall for and give up her grace. I don’t know exactly how to turn this conversation into a more pleasant one but I know I would like to. I was not trying to compare myself to our creators son, I was simply trying to make a point, which did not seem to come across as I had wanted it to.” She shook her head and sighed, more in frustration with herself then anything else. She lifted her gaze again. “Please allow me to restart.” She said looking at him as he turned to walk away.

"I do hear what I am saying now, I was speaking without thinking. I know that you may not be fond of me but I ask for the chance to explain myself please. My fall….it was…a trick. A trick of demons. I only found out recently when I visited my vessels home in the countryside past Leeds. I learned that they were forcing someone to pray for companionship in order to draw me down, I don’t know why, I haven’t figured that out yet. Had I been smarter I would have checked into things more or I would have just come here to see what was going on without ripping out my wings, but I didn’t and I do regret that. I didn’t think. I did not have a desire to abandon anything, if I could take it all back I would have done things differently, if there is a way to redeem myself then I would gladly choose that path in order to return home." Her anger from earlier was gone, her voice softer and sounding more regretful as she stood before him. Her eyes were threatening tears. "I tell myself and others who ask that I do not regret it but that’s because I feel I need to be strong, I know I made a mistake. I could say that all day but it wouldn’t make a difference." She said, a tear finally falling from her eye.

She didn’t know what more to say, she knew she had soured the conversation because of foolish pride and she had lost her way and strayed from heaven for selfishness. Truly she was damned and he was right. She didn’t want to believe her father would out right turn his back on her but speaking with Azrael was making her walls crumble, causing her eyes to open and she began to believe she was forgotten, unforgiven and headed on a sure path to damnation despite the happy face she put on for others so they wouldn’t worry about her. She would continue showing them happiness but deep down Azrael had caused doubt about the path ahead of her and had really made her think, even in the short conversation they did have.

[dru-dgery]

The angel of death paused to honor the request, and though he didn't completely face her again, nor drag himself back to the spot in the road he had been occupying, his chin did turn to give her his attention.

He took it in; the fallen's words, her altered demeanor. It was a better attempt than the previous, even if his prejudice would not allow him to completely scrap the interaction from his memory. In truth, and despite himself, Azrael was of the belief that the forgiveness offered by their creator was attainable to anyone who really put their mind to it and focused their efforts on it, the former and besmirched angel of love not excluded. That belief was not without the inherent covenant that it was oftentimes a difficult path to navigate, a rocky and precarious road to tread, but it was not impossible if one had the humility and the time to spare. The archangel served an incredibly wrathful deity, but on the obverse side of His immaculate coin shone an eternal love to counterbalance that potential for anger and jealousy that so frequently shook the hallowed halls of Heaven.

"You could speak of your regret all day and it would amount to repentance, a necessary and crucial step forward in climbing the mountain that lies before you to some semblance of peaceful afterlife, rather than resigning yourself to the dizzying descent of Hell and it brimstone trappings. Present whatever face you deem the most apt to those whom you call your friends, lovers, whatever to protect yourself, but don't do it to me. We were family once, even if not very familiar, and that kinship is owed naught but honesty. Disingenuousness will get you nowhere with Heaven, and it will get you even less with me. My creation's purpose, which could be said for all of us - your former kind, to be clear - is to help. This help is useless if it is built upon falsehoods and lies."

It was safe to say that Azrael would likely not think of Magdalena as a friend, or see her in a favorable light that was his own making any time soon, after all he barely afforded his once extremely close and beloved sister any decent or demure conversation since she had fallen, but his personal opinions were not the end-all, be-all of mortal existence. He recognized as much, even if he did have the tendency to be hard-headed about them. The silver-haired woman had a bevy of options in front of her, she had a full life to live and make decisions for herself. In the end, it was the culmination of experiences and trials of living that would decide the destination as it did for every mortal, and while he imagined her existential errata to bear the mark of those once condemned, surely there was room enough to fill its pages with deeds to either counteract or further damn.

"Your situation is not completely hopeless thus far, but do take into account that you're starting off downstream. The wounds of your willful abandonment, as I’m sure they are for you, are still fresh for our Father," he said. "Vicious as my presence may be, perhaps look at it in a more fortuitous light that you are alive upon this meeting, rather than on the brink of expiration. It is natural that everyone makes mistakes, but unfortunate that some just happen to be more dire than others."

[dru-dgery]

Compasses and such. || Dru & Ellis

[elliscallaghan]

“Gamblin’, eh?” The darkling laughed, looking up at the angel hiding behind human flesh next to him without judgement so much as amusement. Ellis taunted him, smile genuine, “Somethin’ ye can’t do at home, eh? Shyte, I can be a night-wrecker for folks at cards, I’ll have ye know. Ye come back to Leeds, an’ we’ll see who cleans house first.”

He winked, thumbing his nose as if he had an itch on the end before laughing again, a warm, comfortable chuckle that was cut short, caught in his throat like a burning ember, leaving him blinking at the rest of Dru’s words. He could stand the company of demons but had no pity for the fallen of his own kind? The angel of death drew interesting lines in the sand, but it also raised a strangely unnecessary wildfire of guilt that raged across the back of his neck and down his spine. He had only met a handful of fallen, and they seemed to be decent folk, just as weighed down by the burden of their choices as Dru seemed weighed down with vehemence for those same decisions.

Selfishness, it seemed, was not just a human curse.

Selfishness seemed to be a disease that infected every creature, supernatural and otherwise.

Ellis couldn’t entirely hide the scowl that briefly creased into his sharp features, thinking of Belle who bore her fallenness with such a strange grace that covered obvious sorrow and Mags who seemed to truly suffer under the weight of her choice once one bothered to push past the wordy cheerfulness she presented on the outside. Thoughts of Magdalena may have even brought some color to his cheeks in addition to the fiery heat that clawed down his back, though it wasn’t out of guilt so much as the force of just how quickly he’d allowed her to crawl under the walls he’d so carefully built out of so much dark, Hereford stone. Part of him wanted an explanation, wanted to know the finer details of how Death managed to separate the selfish evil often inherent in demons, demons who fell not just past heaven but onward to hell itself, from those of his kind who chose mortality through some selfish decision, many of whom seemed to strive to redeem themselves where his kin did not.

The darkling felt somewhat trapped in the middle, having a heart for both, having chosen not to prefer one over the other, having fought hard to at least have a semblance of tenuous neutrality … though he knew, somewhere inside the fiery cavity of his chest, such ideals were just that: ideal.

Instead, he nodded, choosing not to tread too deeply into Dru’s opinionated waters, allowing the creature whose age was incomprehensible to the blacksmith, to have his own opinions. He was more than entitled, just like Ellis was entitled to agree to disagree.

“I doubt I’ve even scratched th’surface o’who y’are. I have a feelin’ what rests between m’ears couldn’t handle knowin’ all o’who y’are, an’ that’s okay. It’s yer kindness that’s at least willin’ to see past what I am, or part of what I am, an’ let me know more ‘bout what y’are. An’ we don’ always gotta agree on things, neither, but I’m too tired from travelin’ back from the Ports t’argue with th’likes o’yerself right now.” He finally responded with honesty, ever curious, ever interested in observing things outside of himself, ever searching for a way to assuage the deep sense of worthlessness that hid buried inside the charcoal of his bones,

“Ye said once ye don’ need a boat, so long as y’ve been somewhere b’fore. Which’s good, if ye ask me. Y’can call th’ocean all sorts o’fancy things if ye want, but I jus’ think it’s fuckin’ terrible. Simple as that.” He smirked, unable to contain his frustration for long if only because he found Dru’s poetics somewhat amusing, interesting, and hinting at agelessness, “So, I take’t ye travel between Athoria an’ England an’ wherever else ye wanna go all the time now, or is there somewhere ye actually call home other than th’obvious, since yer wearin’ flesh?”

[dru-dgery]

"Argue?" the angel asked with a taken aback hoisting of swordlike brows, as if there were anything to bicker about. He didn't think he was being all that unfair to abstain from condemning demons based upon the conflicting nature of their making with his own. "Hm... alright."

Dru's entire existence was founded upon the selfishness instilled by an infallible creator, forcibly choked down and regurgitated ad infinitum. That it was perpetuated should not have been as surprising as was the fact that he had just openly admitted his prejudice and, in his own roundabout way, denied possessing the perfection that many often expected of his divine kind. Without a doubt, as long as one had a will free enough to think for themselves, then their thoughts would spend a good amount of time gravitating around themselves, but there were particular hierarchies to the angel of death's reasoning, a peculiar logic that was not lacking the impartiality that was required of his station. If, in the future, Ellis really dared to dissect the angel’s reasoning, then perhaps he might not feel so affronted by what casual conversation was so inept at conveying when the opportunity for a back and forth was severed from its lifeless form.

“Another time, then.” Sudden surprise softened into a sideways glance that was brimming with suspicion, but the look didn’t linger for long. Even if he was curious as to what could cause the man to don such a pinched brow, Dru moved forward.

"For me, home is more this flesh and these bones than anything," he then answered, offering up a similar clarification to one that was given to a curious Middle Eastern warlock in the past. "Places don't really matter aside from either my personal affection for them, or their general usefulness. Athoria has grown to be a sort of niche of amalgamated strangeness, and so I loiter here frequently, but I pledge allegiance to no king or country of this world because those boundaries and warred over laying of segregative lines do not matter to me. I go wherever I please or wherever the loss of life takes me." Caught in a bout of consideration, Dru tilted his head an acute degree.

"Having said that, I do have a tent upon this island that I sometimes occupy, but it is more a collection of junk than a home and I mostly use it for telling fortunes in my spare time. It's on the outskirts of the Slums, along the very edge of a makeshift circus' encampment whose avenues and alleyways are oftentimes packed with gawkers who thrive upon witnessing the disenchanted and deformed perform petty tricks for any scrap of coin they can get." The angel shrugged, but the action did a poor job of conveying the fondness he possessed for the troupe of mish-mashed curiosities. “Tucked into a mountain's pass to the far east of here, upon a range that sort of outlines the vast frozen lands of a mostly unconquered frontier, there is a group of nuns that maintain a half-church, half-ossuary in my honor. Aside from their infrequent company, it’s mostly untouched by travelers in part for its isolation, in part for the frequently terrible weather of the area, so I spend a good amount of time there too, surrounded by my thoughts. In truth, I have a lot of little hideaways scattered about this planet, but, like I said, none of them are a home to me. I don't keep a bed; I don't really sleep. Material items matter, but at the same time they don’t – the come and go of their own queer volition. Creature comforts are difficult to acquire when the creature who is looking to collect finds little to no comfort in anything but an intangible concept, like ‘The End’, being replayed over, and over, and over again.

"Anyway, I come to Leeds frequently, but," here, the angel smiled with slight sardonicism, "I don't play for money. Perhaps I could make an exception though."

[dru-dgery]

From The Lips Of Libertines. || Adarna & Dru

[knight-mahalath]

Azrael’s description of the city’s inhabitants was completely accurate. The demon couldn’t have explained it better herself, although she only disagreed with one thing. “Rock bottom, hm?” Adarna mused with a chuckle. “I beg to differ, but to each its own, I suppose.”  Experiencing the hedonistic lifestyle of Leeds was far from rock bottom. Unlike in the confines of Athoria’s finer cities, social class and other formalities did not matter. Each person bore themselves with to the world with no masks to protect them. One was completely raw and exposed like a fresh wound. To see the truth that humanity tried so hard to conceal was the greatest thing that a mortal could experience. It was no surprise that Azrael didn’t see that, for as dark as he was, he was still divine. 

Death went on with his ramblings as they continued their stroll. Citizens bustled about as usual, carrying on in the streets with drink in their hands and laughter on their lips. A small gathering jeered on as two barmaids brawled in an alleyway. At the same time, a penniless man was being harassed for payment owed to a brothel. Adarna was on the verge of tuning Azrael out until he spoke of rumors related to a certain werewolf. Why was Shiloh important to him? Her dark eyes gazed at him with skepticism, but her unsaid question was answered sooner than she thought. 

Rage flashed in the demon’s dark irises, her entire body growing rigid while dangerous tension tangled between them. “You what? H—” The words died on Ada’s tongue as Azrael continued. She didn’t wish to care for anything else he had to say; Shiloh was her’s. Screw Death and his little need to hoard souls. Though, despite her anger, she listened and soon saw an advantage to this loss of what belonged to her. The sneer on her lips slowly curled into a devious grin. “The information you have isn’t completely wrong, but you’re missing a few details. The demon Levistus Catavian was behind Shiloh’s confinement in the pits. Capo of Seryth he may be, but the organization as a whole had no clue of his plans. Not even your beloved twin.”

Her eyes met his, steadily, with a victorious glint in them. “Shiloh holds importance to me as well. He’s a lover of mine, you see, and I care for him deeply. You aren’t the only one ready to reap over what belongs to you.” That signature smile of Adarna’s never faded, for her very thoughts swelled with vision of Death smiting Levi in all of his dark glory. “That icy fuck wishes to use Shiloh for his benefit, not kill him. The pits, that was simply a test. He plans to continue these…trials and endanger his life further. Know that if Shiloh does die, I will be more than happy to roll out the velvet carpet for you as you waltz into Abaddon’s den and smite Levi and all that follow him. Just be sure to leave your brother and I out of your little lightning storm. Agreed?” 

[dru-dgery]

"No," the grim man immediately replied, his words soaked in omen, dripping with an air of ill-fated nonchalance that gave minute hints, unnerving in their brief glimpses, to just how much of a nihilist he was, how little he genuinely cared about this world and the people, the species inhabiting it. There was lingering derangement in the angel’s time-toiled mind - he had nothing left to lose but himself, and most of the time he wasn’t sure if even that remained. "Not agreed."

There were many fundamental differences between the succubus and the celestial-born being at her side, each prone to clashing as nature would have them do, conflicting as necessary upon the choppy seas of their posturing. However, none were more noticeable in that moment, even compared to the subject of sex and celibacy, than Lilith’s waning attentiveness and Azrael’s stranglehold of the same. Minor details made a painted picture all the more cohesive - the woman may have given more away than she cared to in the sudden stiffening of her posture, the controlled return to the flirtatious flensing of their mercurial conversation.

"Thank you for the insight, but I resent the underlying notion that you apparently think me as daft as the rest of my kind. It would be a fool’s error to mistake me for a pawn which you can play. I’m not going to do your dirty work for you, that was not the reason for my bringing Shiloh up." Where her smile was sweetened with entropic possibility, his was nonexistent. "I know it is not in your nature to submit to the more gentle waters of this world and its emotions, or to follow tails that lead anywhere else but your own festering backends, but hear me out, allow me to plead to some scrap of sensibility left in that sex-addled mind you possess. It makes Abaddon look like an incompetent leader to let his lot run ‘round unchecked and it makes you look transparently disingenuous to lounge in the lap of luxury while someone to which you are attached is harmed. Where’s the skill of manipulation there, Lilith? Left upon the bedside table? Tucked between the sheets? Abandoned in the rigor mortis-stiffened groin of a lover lost?" The archangel briefly sighed, as if lamenting the imagined loss of a supremely skilled player in that cunning game of life they played. "Look, if it’s true that the strumming of your heartstrings result in the sounds of a softened symphony in the presence of this man rather than one that is strictly self-serving, then make good on those words and feelings and belay the suffering that is so tethered to yourself. Hell, even if you are only in it for yourself, then help extended his life if only to be of further use to your orgiastic cause.

"Now, I am not opposed to a little assistance,if it strictly works to prolong the life attached to a soul that I am not yet ready to indefinitely claim, or, I should say, am not ready to incessantly argue with other claimants for in some post-mortem probate. But, and let me reiterate myself for further clarification, if this injustice persists and I am forced to come collecting upon Seryth’s doorstep, then you and my brother will have much more to worry about than rolling out some ratty, feculent, blood-soaked carpet for the likes of the Heavenly host.”

She had met his eyes and he held onto her beauty in an unwavering stare, “I am a reasonable man, Lilith, don’t force the clarity to blur for the sake of paying homage to the seven sins.”

[rylan-ianson-blog]

Fallen Fireflies || Rylan // Dru || FB7

[rylan-ianson-blog]

Rylan’s lungs burned. His bag had crashed upon the cobblestone path while his feet carried him shoving through the crowds. The heat sheared the air with blackened billowing smoke that lured the towns people out to quell the flames. Screams of children pierced the town, shrieks of flames licking bodies like they had been tossed in an oven by the wicked witch. His breaths heaved, legs powerful and young in his descend down the small mountain road to get to the source.

Shock flooded him. Suffocated him into actually tripping and crumbing to the ground, his elbow and knee collided with the rough stone, but he scrambled up.

"Move! Go!" Hands shoved, and voice pitched in his scream to get closer. "Get them out! Veronica!!!" A strong pair of hands wrapped around his bicep, nearly dislocating his shoulder when he was dragged back from the flames.

Too hot boy! Stay back!

The roof had collapsed by the time they could attempt to help, embers burning as captured fireflies until they bellowed into flight. He watched with a layer of disconnect. Body chilled into a shock that only stirred to life when a few of the men started moving the lumber. The young boy moved quickly to help, needing some sort of confirmation, or to cling to hope that they had lived. That maybe it wasn’t her house. That it hadn’t been their screams he heard. The wood was hot against his flesh, but he worked with one of the guys to hull the main beam up. Soot caked his face, and smaller flames licked behind them that people were putting out with water.

Tossing it left! There is a body here! Think it’s the older boy—

But it wasn’t Bran, or Willy, or Edgar. Not her beautiful mother, or terrible father. If it wasn’t them…then only left…was….”Is she breathing? Is she alive?!” He had let go of the beam in his scramble to see her, and the dispatch of weight sent the object crashing on his shoulder, slamming his knee into a jutted piece of iron fitting. Rylan screamed as the metal gouged open his flesh, but it continued only because he was forced to fight the strong Hereford man lifting him out of the rubble. Dragging him kicking and screaming, punching who ever it was that held him close to their body. He felt weak, and pathetic, and angry at being handled like some child when the women he was marrying was right there!

"Put me down!" he yelled out in his attempt to kick the large man, and succeeding in blacking out his vision a second from the pain in his leg. But the boy was beyond reason at this point. Shock, and grief clouding him into a near manic state that he suddenly and beautifully crashed from. Though he couldn’t move from the ground by which the man threw him, and he still. Head held his stained and blistered fingers through the front of hair stained black, as tears swelled into his eyes and tracked down his face.

He lifted his hazel eyes, now blown to a bright expression from the dampness caught over the red in his whites and saw Dru. His presence some how blending into the chaos and destruction of the moment like he belonged there all along. Rylan’s state of mental delirium wasn’t rationally thinking in his usually beautifully, normal human way. All he could do was look up with a tilt of his chin into the folds of fabrics that blended the man into night it’s self, until he could just see his face. Expression distant and observing, unable to talk, or process anything other than that Dru’s stance over him, with the moon catching the rays to his lean shoulders, and the stars dotting the night sky with their own version of fireflies seemed to keep him from completely fading away.

[dru-dgery]

The angel's oppressive presence forced a sea of gawkers to part from the path of the toymaker's violent discarding, a space that had quickly grown cluttered with a resurgences of curious legs. He closed in on the young man's sadness, his reverberant heartbreak, like a void intent upon devouring and kneeled at his side.

There was peace of mind to be had in seeing the corpse of what was once alive settled into the eternal slumber of the afterlife, but surely this final consolation's comfort was negated when the end of the living's life was forced; when the body was not simply resting, but literal remnants of what once was. The scent of charred wood and flesh filled the air around them, the putrid wafting of hair transmuted to ash lingered in waves whose persistent haunting threatened incessant. As was clearly displayed by the events of that night, beauty burned like everything else when placed upon the pyre. Even the sweetest, most innocent of loves were not immune from the harsh realities of the world, nor protected from the blatant disrespect and desecration sometimes forced upon them by outside, uncontrollable forces.

Dru did not test the waters before submersion, he did not offer a gentle tap upon the toymaker's shoulder as a means of paltry introduction into the gesture that was to follow. Rather, he enveloped the boy in his stunned silence, divinity-laced arms draping themselves around the youth’s sore shoulders, coating sweat-soaked skin and fabric in sweetly scented swathes of night, aphotic silkscapes, the turbid wastelands of suffocating mourning. Black sleeves whose lengths fell in bunches at their shadowed sides blocked the putrid air from partaking in further torment of his hand-picked victim – the last vestiges of sandalwood drowned out noxious putrefaction, neutral oakmoss recalled the sublime surroundings of far off forests whose trees remained untouched by fire. His hair fell in gilded curtains around his face, silken ends resting upon Rylan’s shoulders; an impeccable cheek briefly brushed against the other’s crown in motion, in settling into the platitudes of Heavenly condolence.

In that moment, all the love that the young man had put into the doll he made for that nameless, ill-fated child two years earlier was given back, not in the echoed beating of a hardened heart belonging to a steeled entity, but in the reverberations of the love of an omnipotent Creator possessed for his prized creations and the empathy woven in between, that which filled the spaces even an archangel was inept at translating.

[rylan-ianson-blog]

Fallen Fireflies || Rylan // Dru || FB7

[rylan-ianson-blog]

The ring felt heavy. Why did it feel so heavy? 

Rylan had moved through the shadowed walkway with ease, the streets of Hereford not crowded less the people piled into the tavern. He wouldn’t be found in such a place tonight, he needed to think. Clear his head with the night air that seemed crisp, more clean up in the mountains. He actually quite loved this side of England, not able to appear here often with London needing his attention, but he saw the appeal. If only the people of Hereford weren’t so forthcoming about him not being welcome, though he was confident in many ways that if Veronica wanted to stay here, if could make it happen. 

He spun the cheery and opal ring around his finger again, lifting it sky way to let the opal catch in the moonlight. The trinket seemed less than what he wanted to offer Veronica, but it was perfect for who she was. Her father was going to be a nightmare, and a defeated frustration tucked the ring safely away. Drawing about a pace to his step while he tried to gather any further ideas to prove to her father that this would be a good decision. 

Walking with determined steps towards the Inn, hands sweaty, and a paleness to his actual confidence wavered that he would knock on the backdoor and tell her what happened. Rylan stopped at the door, remembering shared kisses under spring rainstorms here before he fled town. Their courting hadn’t been technically proper, though Rylan did like her mother and brothers very much. Having always given the boys boys, or sat with them when he could to show them something he learned. They were a good family, and his hand dropped before knocking on the door, knowing it wasn’t all together proper to go behind her fathers back. Was it?

Rylan retreated confident steps back to the streets, and found himself wondering like he was lost, but it was more that he didn’t really know what he was doing. He was always sure of himself in all he did, but this was different because it involved her. Finding a bench he folded his body into the lone object, thankful people had turned in for the night, and watched the Inn from afar. Seeing Veronica and her brothers pile out the door and head home, flaring the want to wave and draw attention to himself but he didn’t. Come morning he would try again proper like her said he would. And it will all be ok.

[dru-dgery]

Subservient pebbles stirred in his presence, stately stones bowed and shifted aside to stare. The archangel's kid-covered feet marched along in a languid descent down the mountain's side, woven wandering punctured by the perseverance of the Heavens - despite the numerous tragedies that struck, everyday, Earth under the ignited eye of the sun or the softened gaze of the moon, they paid little mind and scantly offered empathy, never enough to disrupt their mighty ministrations. He was not as strict, but then again, he was not as great.

Evening turned down its sheets into night. The sun and its splash of fiery color was gobbled into the gut of the toothy range, swallowed once more, on the cusp of digestion, and soon discarded of yet again.

As he walked, the robed man’s eyes followed the tracked remembrances of many years’ worth of traveling merchants that were etched into the softer sediment of that trail. Hand-made carts and half-broken wagons’ wheels cut sluggish slits into the dust and sand, the footshapes of man and beast alike were stomped alongside, each telling their own tale of survival through the treading of distended distances and oft dangerous passes in search of things beyond – better homes or better food, better trade or better community – all mulling in impermanence for the longing of the elusive and abstract hope of something better. It was well-past the prime hour for these types to set out with their acquired goods to barter with in other villages, and so it was a lonely road, but not altogether abandoned.

The quietude of his own company was disturbed by the shuffling dismay of another, a man whose breath was broken not only with strain but mortal conflict, existential condemnation. His constant chuffing of air was a song more akin to a time that was yet to be breached, when the sooty clouds of progress that clotted Hereford’s air would be churned by machines of industry rather than human hands alone, when steam and steel would help shoulder the brunt of heavy work rather than worn flesh and tired bone. He chugged and sputtered like an engine intent on outrunning the phantoms of his actions, the phantoms of thought that were now his family.

And it was well worn, fitting for a frame that comprehended the gravity of his situation. However, not even guilt, a steady stream of heavily compounded unseen comeuppance accumulated over the man's lifetime, would ease the wrongdoings of a father spurred to selfish madness by the misgivings of his malformed mind.

Azrael stopped and stared. The cursed patriarch paid him no mind.

Approaching the town proper, its sky was lit with the ambient glow of expected disaster. A house was engulfed with flames, and upon its roof danced the belligerent embers of fireform spectres. Cooled by the atmosphere, their ashen bodies were playfully scattered on a passing breeze, like lifeless remnants of fallen fireflies.

The angel of death was summoned not to collect, as did the first responders, nor to mourn, as did the gathered and largely helpless crowd. He was called by a mass of suffering which he sought to alleviate before nature could run its course, but even divinity, on occasion, wasted too much time. The screams of pain, once radiant in their tomb of immolation, had solidified into the silence of death by the time he arrived. A reaper would see to the souls, and so the man stood and took in the sight of selfishness manifested as paternal wrath; the blazing personification of senseless torture that humankind inflicted upon itself.

[dru-dgery]

A Letter. || Self.

Dear Lailah,

As the autumnal season ebbs into winter, my thoughts are consumed with remembrances of you, of long nights full of celestial glitter and the sweet solitude of sky-sailing starships. These calamities crawl from unfathomable outer reaches and move through wide orbits - from icy expanses to the inescapable conflagration of the sun - and I wonder about the alien beauties they have seen. Destitute masses of rock and gas, frozen worlds and forgotten worlds. Specks of scintilla sway in the gems of your eyes, and I wonder about the alien beauties you have seen. Decadent dervishes dressed for nebulous dalliances? Cosmic courtesans bathed in silver, drowned in gold? Mortality finds itself as dull as ever. Sometimes I feel as though I should let myself sleep for countless decades and wake up in another land, another time. Forsake the trivialities of the present for those of the future.

What is it that occupies your time? What is it that keeps you away from me?

When I left you with the words that our successive meetings should not span the ostentatious distances of time with which we are more familiar, I did not mean it in jest. It has already been too long.

Of everywhere you have ever been, what place holds the prize of your favor? Take me there; take me anywhere.

My love, everlasting, A.

[bellevenna]

Fraternal Familiarity || Belle + Dru

[bellevenna]

"If I had thought to buy your time, I would have thrown a fistful of coppers on the table and demanded you tell my fortune as if you were the common gypsy you play at being," came Belle’s retort, rashly spoken with a heat she had never before shown her beloved brother. It was hurt, however, and not anger that flashed in her eyes and clouded her brow. "I thought only to bring a token of affection and care, to show you are still foremost in my thoughts despite —" She stopped, for what could she say; they both of them knew what had driven them apart. "Despite my being a foolish girl," she finished lamely, quietly. 

The rolling rock was caught, stopped with a raised palm, turned about with careful fingers. She glanced at it, catching the play of light and facets of color so astutely described by its owner, but only for a moment. It was soon sent rolling back across the table’s worn surface to once more be captured by that heavenly body to which it rightly belonged.

"I came to see you, Azrael, because I desired of your company. Is that so very hard to believe?" Belle leaned forward in her seat, beseeching, fingers flexing against tabletop for want of something to grab and touch. 

"I have said good-bye to one more lover this sevenday and so I have come here because I am a selfish, silly girl who wanted only to while away the hours with a brother she still loves and adores. I know your hurt lingers, Azrael, but I do not have forever to see it mended. Would that I did, but I do not and I can only offer what I have already given: Apologies and a hope of reconciliation. I do not ask that you forget my sins, brother, only that you forgive them …" 

Tears born of hurt, heartache, and frustration welled in her eyes and dampened her cheeks. She cuffed them away, sniffling softly, and turned her face away; these were not the pretty crystalline tears Sofiel had shed, shimmering diamonds dotting peachy cheeks and making eyes sparkle. These were the tears of a mortal girl, messy and uncouth, eyes and nose going red as the color drained from weathered cheeks.

[dru-dgery]

"All the same," her brother replied, eyes turned down to re-welcome the sphere back into his clutches, "it is not my predicament that you do not have the longevity to spare to see the ripples of your wrongdoing wane. Though it pulls upon the remaining strings of my heart, those that have yet to snap, to see you in pain and to see you so frenetically try to make things right between us, no amount of apology, no demand or ultimatum where those words fail will force the process of my forgiveness along. Though people who don't understand may say otherwise, forgiveness is vastly more involved than forgetting. It is easier to willfully ignore the hurt inflicted by a beloved one when you are certain that, surely, they love you too much to cause you such pain; that they wouldn't do this, whatever it is, to you because of what you mean to them, for how much you both have been through together. What you're asking me for is acceptance within myself, for me to come to terms with our schism and grant you a personal pardon. Well, you will have to wait. These feelings have not yet reached their infancy."

The willowy angel shifted, perhaps uncomfortable that his unrelenting irascibility had been the break that coaxed tears from his sister's once noble, once divinely proud eyes. The verdancy that formerly held the strength of a thriving forest fueled by the fury of a sacred star was extinguished by the doldrums - stagnant, sad, and sopping. From his dripping black form, the man unwound a swathe of silk and slipped it into her grasping hand so she may better swipe away her visible sadness. It reeked of agarwood and ash, clove and the aromatic copulation of sweet, exotic spices.

"But, that doesn't mean that I am bereft of all compassion," Dru continued, only slightly reluctant. "I am sorry that you seem so unable to grasp that which felicity is apparently fixed upon denying you. I wonder, dear Belle, does the brutal end of these relationships still justify their blissful beginnings? Is it not some form of madness to force yourself to walk the same rut that conjured your celestial condemnation?

"I cannot pretend to understand your predicament," his voice was accompanied by a soft sigh, "but if your burden of hurt is eased in words, then I shall dutifully listen."

[dru-dgery]

Compasses and such. || Dru & Ellis

[elliscallaghan]

“I don’ think anyone really knows what folks do with what other folks say; it’s not jus’ an issue for yer angelic kind.” Ellis laughed, shaking his head, unable to help but glance upward into the night sky at Dru’s words, “I don’ think I want ye to be tellin’ me ‘bout all the stuff out there, when there’s enough shyte to deal with down here. I’m glad, though, that ye’ve got th’headspace to deal with that. Someone’s gotta, I guess.”

The darkling grinned, lopsided and warm, willing to tease the unfathomably older creature all while aware that he was also being somewhat self-deprecating. He not only had no interest in contemplating too many of the farther, deeper possibilities beyond his own limited sphere of influence, but he certainly didn’t spend a lot of time thinking even an iota beyond those things. Earth was teeming enough with life, unlife, and everything in between; Ellis did not want to waste his mortality thinking about the idea that there could be the same myriad of possibilities elsewhere, that all of those flickering points of light were anything more than beautiful decoration in the dark velvet of the night sky.

“Forty seven years now.” He said instead, answering Death’s more mundane question, “Almost half a century. Every fuckin’ time I say that out loud, I feel kinda old. No’ in comparison t’ye ‘course, but I’ve certainly outlived my human peers. I wonder jus’ how long I’ll keep at it … sometimes. Othertimes, I don’ wanna think ‘bout it. Ye certainly don’ have such a burden, an’ neither would I, really, were I more than jus’ half of a whole. Then again, ye prob’ly wouldn’t have so much to say to me if I were a true demon, eh?”

The darkling shrugged his narrow shoulders, aware that he’d lived much longer than he should have, had he been just a human, and unsure of just how long a life stretched out before him as something more. The not knowing was always somewhat uncomfortable, an itch he couldn’t reach to scratch, and he had no desire to die a human death, to grow old and unable to do the things he enjoyed now. Not that he was in a hurry to die feeling youthful, either. He secretly hoped there was some inbetween, and that the end of that inbetween, of his life, would be fiery and dangerous.

“I heard bits an’ pieces ‘bout Athoria while in England. From friends. From strangers. From jus’ listenin’. Once I left Norwich for Hereford, I heard a bit more. Once I grew tired o’Hereford, I left England altogether an’ headed here. Almost didn’t make it, though. There was a storm on that disgusting ocean, an’ I almost drown. Would ‘f seen yer face sooner than now had that been the case … maybe.” Ellis added the question with a hint of hopefulness, as if he would actually be quite happy to be the bones in Dru’s possession on some rainy road to nowhere, “But, I made it. I hope to never get on a damn boat again, though. Eventually I found m’way to Leeds an’ apprenticed to a smithy. Mateo was a good man, an’ he left me the shop when he died. Been there ever since, ‘round my kin but still not a part of ‘em, I guess. Sometimes friends, but still m’own man.”

He wasn’t sure if he entirely believed that, but he made it a point to live that way regardless. While he desired to keep a connection to demons, even to Seryth, he did not carry a burning need to give his existence over to them entirely. Perhaps the seeds of such independence had first been planted in Norwich, among the demons there, instead of here in Athoria. The darkling hadn’t pondered the deliciate strands that made up the firmament of his decisions, but he fought hard to keep his sense of self whenever possible.

“Why were ye lettin’ lads pick yer pockets in Leeds? That don’ seem like th’most comfortable of cities for yerself ‘r yer kind, considerin’ …” Ellis grinned again, adding with no small amount of curiosity, “Family visit?”

[dru-dgery]

"It wasn't an agreed upon arrangement," Dru corrected. "The child guessed wrong in that he thought he had found an easy target, mistook my purse for carrying coins rather than its actual contents: teeth. As for family bearing the burden of my visit - no. Not this time. I would not go to Markus' den of disestablishment of my own accord, not without good reason; not unless to settle a score." Of which there were probably many to settle, but left to placid abandonment for the sake of garnering some semblance of civility between the two. Azrael loved to test Abaddon's boundaries, but even he, eternal pest and younger brother, realized when to leave well enough alone. He didn't have a desire to tread too deep into the gang's territory, for if he did, the guilt of his conscience would probably force him to do something about the unchecked organization, and the archangel of death so hated physically fighting.

"I go to Leeds for the gambling, if I'm to be honest about it. A lot of people there have a lot of things to lose; a lot of people, at first glance, mistake me for being inept with cards." Dru lifted his shoulders lackadaisically. "That, and it's not so bad of a place. ... Well, actually it is, but is it not an angel's duty to help those that are in need?" The question was wolf in sheep's clothing, presented by a man whose grin was contradictory - he helped those poor, downtrodden saps alright, but the deals he offered oftentimes weren't worth the price they were willing to pay. This, of course, usually made for a wreck of regret on their parts.

"Despite your assumptions," he spoke on, "my joviality actually does go beyond halves such as yourself. For most, natural-created and full-blooded demons included, it's the respect that makes the relationship for me, not the predisposition to destroy in my bones, nor the war upon my breath. I will give anyone the time of day that can afford the same to me, and though the plateaus of agreement may sometimes be out of reach if there is a modicum of deference to be had in the disagreement, then it makes the discussion more sweet than sour.

"In fact, I think the only types of people I have an undeniable, unmitigated distaste for are the fallen. Having the resilience that I do, and experiencing the loss of family - twice over, now - I have, I retain a very poor opinion of them. Their weaknesses are as transparent as their minds are fractured; they work like dogs whose plagued minds control their decrepit, malformed bodies. What wastes." The angel shook his head briefly to and fro.

"Perhaps that's more about me than you cared to know, but you're a good sport to divulge about yourself so freely upon my curiosity. The sea is a beast, indeed. A maneater, an eraser of existence powered by the pullings of cosmic forces, forever churning in infinite hunger while its seafoam saliva slathers seafarers, sips upon shores specked with unsuspicious sentience...

"Thankfully you remain unscathed, even if residually traumatized." Another grin, an askew glance. Ellis’ age-centric jesting was volleyed with Dru’s in regards to the darkling’s journey.

[dru-dgery]

From The Lips Of Libertines. || Adarna & Dru

[knight-mahalath]

"Ah, see that is where you’re wrong, King Reaper. It isn’t the make-up of the body that is the mystery." She said with a pitiful shake of her head, Death was ever the literalist. "It is the pleasure one body can give to another, that is in question." Ada spoke in a matter of factly tone, quite amused by his demeanor. Azrael’s nose was raised high in the hair, bearing his  ’holier than thou’ expression that he wore so well. She imagined that Abaddon would’ve found such qualities irritating, but the demoness adored his theatrical behavior. "Oh, come on, that isn’t all which draws me to you. I could never be so shallow; I admire everything about you.” 

What she said was mostly true. Azrael’s resilience, pride, and selfish loyalty made him most appealing. His power, his divinity, even his sorrow was alluring. There was so much sadness in his gaze, such pain and muted agony that she could feed from all that negative energy for an eternity.  And the way he danced along the edge of darkness with unhallowed finesse was enough to make anyone envious. God, he was perfect; an inverted mirror of Lucifer himself. 

The immortal rose from his seat and offered Adarna his arm. She genuinely smiled at the offering, not minding one bit that he once again teased her with what she couldn’t have. “How chivalrous.” The demonic beauty chimed as she slithered from her seat. “I’d love to take a walk with you.” Almost too eagerly, looped her arm with Death’s and took her place at his side. They were almost the same height, given that the Archangel was a half head taller than Adarna. Still, in her opinion, they made a striking match.  

Her dark eyes glittered with curiosity upon hearing his final statement, contrasting well with her raising brows. “And what would that something be? I hope its important.” 

[dru-dgery]

Her point on the topic of pleasure was conceded with a shrug and sly smile, quick to come, quicker to leave. Forward they tread, arm bearing arm, thoughts bearing transparency - or at least as much transparency as could be displayed between an angel and a succubus.

"For the amount of contempt I speak with when talking of this city, I actually have a rather soft spot for it in my heart. I think this is, in part, due to the freedom of indulgence it offers mankind and those that live alongside - you really get to see the true face of people, what makes them tick, their various motivators, their weaknesses in the form of crutches, addictions. It's a very honest thing to experience, being surrounded by those that are nearing, at, or have sunken past rock bottom, you know?" The man's chin briefly turned away from the beauty of his companion, to see his point proven. In the doorway of a whorehouse, there was a nameless man being shaken down and ruffed up for the unattended to debt he had let accumulate at that establishment. The crude sounds of shouts and curses briefly stirred the air around them.

"A large portion of the time these unfortunate circumstances are pure, unhindered consequence; what has been sowed being finally reaped," he continued. "But, then, on occasion, one hears about something uncouth, and is given pause. Rumor has it that a little fun was had at the expense of someone that I am attached to. The man whose name is Shiloh Garrett. Perhaps you've heard of him? Perhaps you know of the apparent cage match he was involved in around here? Some say Seryth was the organizer, you know... Oh," the angel smiled, "and when I say attached, I mean his soul is mine; signed, stamped, and sealed."

The delicacy with which Azrael kept that lascivious limb entangled with his own was a gesture that made clear the candor and further enforced the sincerity in his following words. Though cloth met cloth where they were connected, his free hand, bare and chilled by the season on the outs, covetously covered her captured appendage.

"Perhaps this is better told to your boss, but surely you'll be able to conjure some shred of empathy in what I have to say. If you recognize anything about me, it should be that I am not the type to assert dominance over destiny. I recognize the worth of demons and their placement in the greater scheme of things, the macrocosmic view of the intricate turnings of the world. Despite my making, I consider myself a very amiable person toward your kind - live and let live, balance is best, and so forth and so on. However," his eyes, green with something that was not envy, far from it actually, slipped aside to stare upon her elegant features, "there are boundaries; there are lines even in this compromise. Let it be known, my dearest Lilith, that if I am forced to come collect what's rightfully mine - the soul of that werewolf if your lot should so kill him - from the woeful plot of land upon which you wretches play, then I will, with compatriots, bearing tidings of smiting and banishment."

While what the archangel had said about his recognition of the necessity of demons roaming the earth was not a fabrication - line-walker that he was - if there was anything to really understand about Azrael, then it was that he was not adverse to threatening a resurgence of Holy War over protected possessions.

"I think that's rather important, hm? Hopefully you understand it's nothing personal..."

[bellevenna]

Fraternal Familiarity || Belle + Dru

[bellevenna]

Though she knew well enough where to find him, Belle had only visited her brother’s abode once before this day. Her aversion to the place came not from a reluctance to enter foot into the unwholesome alien atmosphere, but out of a sense of respect; she did not wish to be overly remindful of what they had once been and had.

She stepped lightly, carefully, across the sand and glass strewn floor, soft-soled leather boots protecting tender flesh from sharp edges and slivers. So beckoned, she then pulled out the sole chair and sat upon it, one leg tucked beneath her. The basket she placed on the tabletop.

The smile she gave Azrael was small, genuine, though tinged with a hint of sadness. “Hello, Azrael.” Her hands fidgeted with the basket in their hold for a moment, then she recalled herself and pushed it slightly forward. “A gift. I did not want to arrive empty-handed. There’s a parcel of blueberries, I recall they are … if not a favorite, a fruit you do not overly mind. An apple and pear are there, too.”

Belle paused, knowing how silly the gesture was, knowing how useless it was given her brother’s eccentric eating habits. Still, she hoped he might appreciate the thought behind it, the care it represented.

"What was it that had so held your attention when I came in? She asked in all earnestness, regarding her brother across the table, through the smoke curling ever upwards from the burning incense. Judging by her casual demeanor they might have been in a tavern or a more traditional homestead. She took no issue with the mess and clutter, the sigils and symbols scrawled on the walls. Then again, why should she mind any of it; the trappings were not the reason for her visit, it was the man she had sought out for solace.

[dru-dgery]

The man turned his chin up, skeptical derision shading his expression. Though in an ever increasing number of years past he would not have questioned the nature from which any gifts were bestowed upon him by his former kin, some doubt, catastrophic doubt born from the surfaced lies dredged by the woman’s excommunication to leave still fresh wounds in the afterglow of her betrayal, made itself known.

The pair had once taken their generosity to a boundless degree - Sofiel gifted Azrael with adornments refined from the corpses of her hunts, and in return Azrael gave her his trust, friendship, and, most important of all, his love. They were a pair of siblings whose lives were interwoven to a sometimes indiscernible depth, their closeness founded not only upon the reverberant hurt of an older brother's (or older lover, depending on which lens the situation was examined through) abandonment, but the growth from those unseen scars, and the betterment of themselves through secluded sermons of segmented thought.

"What is the meaning of this?" he asked, slightly put-off. "Do you seek to buy my time with eluded to vulgarities? Is my company suddenly demanding petty placation now that you are subject to the divine judgment of the Creator and the petty toils of your mortality? Foolish girl, you can't pay for affection in soon to rot fruit."

Dru set the basket aside. On the floor, next to precarious piles of mostly inanimate riffraff and assorted corporeal flimflammery. Hopefully the woman did not expect simple gratitude from her consistently hostile former family member.

His chiding, though often acerbic, in this instance was not prolonged past the point of relevancy. As soon as his hand was free from the grip of the container’s handle, its fingers went wrapping around the pristinely polished surface and portable-sized girth of the rock. Upon the table it was placed, and sent rolling, with a gentle push from spindle-like digits, in the natureborne's direction.

Though black in the stillness of shadows, its movement in the wavering light of the angel's confines illuminated facets belonging to hidden spectrums, fragmented rainbows dotting its surface like a geometric atmosphere of a diamond-hearted moon; a distant satellite harvested from a unknown system.

"I acquired this rock recently," the archangel said when it was safe in her grasp, "See how it shines for you - skies swirling with a phantasmagoric storm. Have you come to stare at these things of my surroundings or is this visit only a minor snag in your schedule, like a leaf briefly lost upon the breeze of your passing favor..."

[dru-dgery]

Funeral Rites. || Ocrus & Dru

[thegoddessesvessel]

The rays of the moon tried to penetrate skin made of steel, as a blackened heart beat along with the shuffling of feet, and eyes full of rotting corpses watched with a narrowed gaze. The woman, clothed in black and pierced with the silver thorns of her gown, had watched their ritual from the beginning, with eyes that refused to blink, and a body so still that it seemed to have turned into stone. She had watched as their queen stood, with their king in hand, and watched their dances with downcast eyes, had watched as the ravens had gathered with eagerness around them, waiting for the first drop of blood to spill. And as time passed, and their movements grew more frantic, she grew more agitated. The rage that she absorbed was one that had destroyed civilizations, slaughtered man, woman, child not out of mercy, but out of spite. Her fingers had the capability to bring civilization to it’s knees, her lips bore the kiss of death to be delivered to the masses. But, her current state, didn’t allow her to do such things. For the mortal body she resided in would surely be torn apart from such an action, and her sisters would be devastated if their vessel was ruined.  And so, Iratalott resigned herself to the mortal limitations her vessel imposed, and could only watch their worship with a muted sense of the fury she normally felt. 

They danced to the tune of death, the whistle of bone-chilling breezes and the rustling of bone striking bone. They danced for her. Too many times had she watched men, mortals, dance with passion in the name of another, raise their voices into one harmony to sing out in the name of a man-made God. And they had made out death to be a man garbed in a black cloak, with ashen skin and skeleton fingers clutching a scythe that would strike all who saw with a blow of death. No, she was no black-hooded figure. She was the beauty of rotting flowers, the beauty of blue tinged skin, and stiffened limbs. Those who earned her presence when she came for them, saw the beauty of black holes embodied in a single figure, were able to gaze upon the dark mystery that was the Goddess of Death.

And yet, so many had strayed away. Her name no longer fell upon tongues, mortals no longer looked up to the heavens in search of her. Even her own children, the elven race, had left her. Oh, they would scurry up to their alters and sing out in praise. But it was always in the name of flames, of earth, of water. Even the elves had forgotten about her, and had turned to visions of a man cloaked in black. And despite the words she spoke through the lips of Ocrus, none seemed to take such things seriously. Even as she swept down from her perch in the sky, to lay her lips upon the bodies of those destined to join the other stars that she hung in the universe, they did not pray for her. Even as the final breath was uttered, and the heart slowed, they did not believe it was their time, did not believe, she would come. Mortality, seemed to promise those it held under it’s claws that they would exist for one day longer, would breathe another breath, would see another sunset. No, they no longer believed in the comfort that came in death, no longer looked up at the stars and saw their fallen companions. No, they would rather believe in a mysterious figure cloaked in shadow, than a beautiful maiden with vortexes in her eyes.

And it was in that moment, that she found herself moving forward, the limbs of her vessel moving towards the circle. None took notice but the group’s Queen, who watched with muted eyes, before turning her attention away from the oncoming stranger. It almost made Iratalott cackle at the cruel irony of the situation. Even Queens find no time for the Gods. 

The circle opened as a man held out an ink-stained hand, beckoning for her to join their dance. And she found her own hand snaking out to connect his his. Lily white flesh streaked with blood as the silver thorns pierced her vessel’s flesh, streaking down to rest between their hands, like a chalice to be offered in sacrifice to the raven Gods they prayed to. She joined their dance with ease, and as time passed, her movements grew more and more frantic. Each step she took, and earthquakes tore the earth apart, each turn of her body, and the skies rained blood. She could feel her vessel’s body shaking with the violence of the earthquakes the Goddess created, and could see the blood pouring from the wounds upon her collarbone. And it was then, as the body reacted to the presence of Death herself, that lips could no longer hold back the songs of the dead, and her silence could no longer be contained. 

She sent the message to the mind of the man who had opened up his hand to her, and who held the blood of her mortal between his fingers. It would be he who recognized her as death before all, and soon enough, all, would cower in her presence. Even the ravens, who watched from above with gleaming eyes, would fear her.

You worship the black wings of false Gods, hên. Look upon me, for I am Death, and you all shall meet your end when my lips graze your flesh.

[dru-dgery]

The catastrophe of their connection soon sent the crows scattering, too disturbed to continue their glossolalic funeralia, too outnumbered by the ill-fated omens of various ancient expirations colliding to express further concern with the trespasses of man upon their superstition-steeped societies. Carrion bloated, aligerous bodies fled into the night from whence they had been called, bled black back into the bombazine backdrop of sky and tree and the nyctophillic consummation of the unison shadow that frolicked in both. The swooping of wings replaced the clangor of craw-conjured mourning with heavy, less-dire songs, but in time even they waned, ever supplicant to the sounds of antipodal landmasses fracturing under the feet of the cataclysmic interlopers. The bird-king, with bleeding breast, was all that was left of the scene.

The material world was isolated silence in the deprived wake of the avian rapture, but Dru's head was rapt with reverberations of incomprehensible accumulations of other times, and other disasters that were long forgotten by not only the memories of men, but the skin of earth, constantly crusted over and over and over and over to obscure layers upon layers of ageless remembrances and the compact coagulation of carbon cremations. That perpetual scabbing shuddered under the tapping of toes and slamming of heels; an expansive hierophant whose translation of the Might that danced above was better witnessed by the succumbing of stones that cracked in absolution, whose succor was felt in frightened adulation whose fractures fragmented mantles and jangled molten cores.

Her voice rattled in the cramped space of his cranium as if he were clairaudient, but these tones were clearly not of long lost souls. They mingled amongst contemplations beyond the finite intricacies of life as it currently was. His consecrated mind operated in a constant state of divination, plucking putrid prophecies from the aether of the dark matter void between Heaven and the realm of man, thinking forward and backward and circular - ouroboric, even - like a penned animal whose escape plan centered solely upon digging freedom from the tunnels formed by his own, incessantly surmounting, repetitious rut. That invaded mind was a space for hoarded thought, a palace whose architecture of sacred spirals, golden ratios, and the divine frescoes dotting each were obscured by the clotted masses of infinite abstraction that filled those metaphorical halls. The origin and body of her relentless hymns were anachoristic and clashed, woefully, with his the tenants of his own.

A misplaced step forced his elongated form to totter, distracted and rueful that he should be called a pretender where he was not, by a woman whose kin were tethered to their own, separate sovereignty. He stopped and stood, dragging, like a dead weight, her with him.

The celestial being did not pretend to know how any other alien society worked, but he did not assume them false nor wrong, even if their nativity to the trenches they currently walked was nonexistent. He would not stoop to match her churlishness. He would not be party to the barbarism of peremptory assumption. No, the archangel could be diplomatic, and before him stood a vast field of possibility from the plenipotentiaries of two separate yet coexisting civilizations.

Dru did not fear nor did he cower; he was too old for that, comprehended too much to be subject to irrational emotions and the effects of their tidal turnings. There was blatant disrespect in the verbal vandalization of his thoughts - the contravention of his consciousness - and though apocalyptic bile begged escape from the knotty depths of his innards, the subdued sounds of their surroundings were ruffled by a sound more pure, more putrescent. His voice was akin to honey-lacquered nails sharply slipping across slate. Its lull was sweet and velvety, but beyond that heavenly hum, into the dregs of dark recesses of the stomach, it caused a sickly tingle which was slow to spread, a crescendo of queasiness that lurked in the tips of fingers, the meat of muscle. He was sedate effervescence in a single glance with a disheartening reputation akin to those of magpies, whose omens of ill-fated futures were legends oft whispered between the paranoid and superstitious.

"Intruder," he said, delicate and presented with deference that did not quite alleviate the intrinsic accusation in the title, "The mortality of this world is not yours to govern, and the death of Man is not yours to claim. I am Death of this realm and though I will not grant you a kiss, the divinity in my bones can confirm your adevism is as brazen as your field of view is closed. Look upon me and realize your misstep, look upon me and find comfort in co-aligned purpose, an echo of likeness in a world, an exponentially expanding universe, that marches toward us."

The compromise was camaraderie. His proof was in the gemmed ends of his oceanic entanglements, for if this woman, this so-called personification of eternal expiration, was capable of understanding the tangible feeling of enclosed souls, then she would certainly find such stirring there; dangling free, but forever caged.

The stars etched strewn-about smiles upon his cosmic flesh. Those cursed constellations clutched tighter the skin, the blood, the bones of the beatific sight before him.

[magdalena-ashwood]

A Chance Encounter // Magdalena & Dru

[magdalena-ashwood]

Magdalena let her hand fall back to her side, she wasn’t sure what to say at his words. She suddenly stopped caring about the whispered words that spread amongst the angels in heaven, anger crossed her expression for only a second as she looked at him but she would not let that get the better of her. Yes she was fallen, her views limited now that she was not the divine being she used to be but she still had her faith, still remembered her heavenly father, and believed that he would forgive. She still prayed to him every night. She used to believe that her falling was due to selfishness, but no more. She believed at the time she was falling for something else entirely. Someone who needed her, someone who prayed to her as hard as they could every day because they could not find what they were looking for, and while she tried to help them, she was unable to. Her choice may have been rash and rushed but she believed with all her heart that she was doing the right thing, and surely her creator would not fault her for that.

In truth she wanted to yell at the man standing before her, did he not know that love was more then what one could physically see? Did he not have a proper understanding of the creator she herself once knew so very well? “You know nothing about me, save for what you hear or have heard in the hushed whispers of the angels of my former home. I do truly believe that it is possible for me to return there some day, I am not a bad person and my mind is not self-serving as you so seem to believe it is. I do not just think about myself, but for many others as well. I continue to do my job though I do not have it any longer. Who are you to say that this was not a part of our creators divine plan? Do you assume for a second that because I made the choices I did and took the actions I took that I do not hold him in the highest regard? Do you presume to know what he is thinking? How could you possibly fathom what his plans are when all it seems you do is assume things about people without even know the whole story.” She said, her voice calm, her expression soft.

She would gladly explain everything to the man before her but something told her it would not matter, he seemed set in his judgement of her and she was not sure she could change his mind. “As far as love goes it is more then something you can physically see. Love is many things, it is the memories that one holds on to that only the heart can see. Love is a temporary madness that erupts like volcanoes and then subsides, and when it subsides you must make a decision. You must decide whether or not your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away. So yes, I still have love whether you can see it or not does not matter. You can say that what I have is cruelty and not love but I have lived my five years here working to see that other people are kept happy and loved. Yes, they nailed him to a cross and they beat him and burned him but does it not say that he died for their sins? That he took their sins upon himself so hat they might be forgiven?” She asked as her silver gaze held his.

"It is true that I am no longer perfection, I am limited in this form that I chose to take, but I will never forget our creator and even if he does not forgive me for what I did and even if I am to burn in hell for eternity I will take comfort in two things. One, hell is warmer then the confounded cold season that approaches and two, the devil is not some red man with horns with a pointed tail, he can be beautiful and he was once an angel. So despite what may or may not be the outcome of my mortal life, I at least know that I will go home one way or the other. It matters not if the creator forgives me, I will always love and forgive him. I will pay whatever cost needs paying." She said matter of factly. Her words seemed harsh but her voice continued in its calm tones.

[dru-dgery]

"Who am I to say?" he asked, initially slightly taken aback.

"Who... Am... I... To... Say?" It was repeated for clarity, for reiteration of how daft the question was to ask. Surprise ebbed into ferocity, divine might and justice conquering emotions weak and humane, those that made lesser beings fall for tricks that children could thwart, that made unstable minds uncertain of the capacity for wrath the Creator of humans possessed.

"I am The Archangel Azrael," he said firmly, inexorably, with the incontestable resonance of thirty-four million years of tried and true service on his proverbial curriculum vitae. "I know everything about you that I need to know. Your raison d'être is well seen in the way you present yourself, in the way that you speak, and from the evidence of your actions past. Do not presume that my reading of you is immaterial opinion, or that I speak for me and only me - my judgment is the direct installation of The Creator's will, and if you are angered by such, then you only have yourself to blame. You have conjured this fate with your own hands, and your lack of humility will only fuel the damnation that you so willingly tempt."

It was true that Dru was set on his current verdict, but it was not presented with an out - he had said as much in his initial assessment - and it was not formed from a blatant disregard for the scope of the situation that was presented to him. Here he stood before a woman whose age was once a fraction of his own, a woman who had disregarded his attempt at understanding to selfishly ask about her fate and when she was so kindly indulged in an answer, she still responded with dismissive simplifications - at least Hell is warm, indeed. She had been given the opportunity for a more gentle conversation, but response had been snubbed for a query that was more concerned with herself. Magdalena was not speaking to ears that were willingly deaf, she was speaking to ears that heard her words for what they were - narcissistic drivel. Even humans who were not former angels were more aware of the penance that came coupled with their faith, the mortal sin they were meant to spend their entire lives atoning for. They wore their supplication better - not masked by flashy outfits or haughty defiance. From his sacred perspective, if she had been doing the right thing, then she wouldn’t have fallen. Fault had already been had. Fault had been resoundingly had.

"Do you hear yourself speak? You are telling me that your 'highest regard' is complete abandonment, is forsaking the sanctity of your purpose and divine duty to the entity that formed you from nothing. Is that, the example that you have already set, inarguable proof of the 'love' you hold for your creator?” A scoff from the angel would have only betrayed humor where he had none.

“And yet,” he continued, not finished, “you have the audacity to say that you will 'forgive Him' as if there is anything to forgive in omnipotence? You compare yourself to His son, like you are some martyr in wait to be strewn up on a cross, or do you mean to assert that his death was meant to cover your sins as well?" Dru raised his chin, looking down his elegantly sculpted nose at the woman whose words mangled her once holy appearance, whose actions exacerbated the compounding wreck that was she. "What is this meretricious mongrel I see before me? How dare you. How. Dare. You."

If Dru were prone to actions better displayed in his lost sibling he would have spat at her feet, but was more civilized than that; than demons that would, no doubt, welcome the former angel with the flayed skin of open, pustule-pocked arms.

“How is it that you are ignorant to the politics from which you were cast out of as much as you are bereft of comprehension of the duty whose purpose you once served? Lucifer was a good friend of mine before he abandoned Heaven. Spare me your nescience, and spare me further descent into the rancid hovel of asininity in which you wallow.”

He turned in preparation to leave, sending the fetid air of his disintegrating corpse wafting where it pleased. His fingers clutched the putrefacient beast as it if a lifeless body were more capable of understanding the words he had been saying than the remnants of what was once his kin.

“The biggest issue I take with you, personally now, is that you assign the words ‘temporary’ and ‘madness’ to your description of love. Erupt it may, but subside it does not. I want to believe that you don’t know what it is to love or lose when you trounce about this land dressed in the rags of complacency, and speak with the tongue of Iscariot. But I suppose you do, and your bitter defenses, your unwavering pride only further prove your lack of it for our God...

“What a shame.”