What I initially intended as a short blurb to describe my Slayer's closest friend and Thrall ended up getting away from me. The results - a short story - lay therein:
[🎨: Picture of a Crying Madonna, 1889. Hermann Kaulbach]
Incapable of paying debts accrued by her mother while she still lived, Daria - as the only living relative - was tapped by the Russian mafia to pay what was owed. Her home and car were a single droplet in an ocean of debt; with the mob's Damoclean sword dangling above the necks of herself and what few friends she had at the time, she found herself pressed into selling her dignity.
Shipped across the pond to America, a foreign land in which she only partially spoke the dominant language, she endeared herself to her pimp. It was, relatively, 'fine' as these sorts of arrangements go - she had a place to rest her head at night, guaranteed protection if something went awry with a john or jane, and food in her belly.
Until he found out that she happened to be eating for two.
Expected to keep earning - and having nowhere else to reasonably turn - she found herself seated amongst the pews of a small, unassuming Cathedral sometime after weekday Mass. Spiritual salvation was the furthest thing from her mind - she just needed somewhere calm and quiet to rest her head and the library was hardly open for as long as she would like. Yet, unuttered as her prayers were, they were heeded by one of His angels nonetheless.
A kindly, unassuming bearded man in his early-to-mid thirties introduced himself as Deacon Franklin Ramos and - sensing a lack of wariness directed at him - invited her to speak about what brought her to his doorstep. For hours, she unburdened herself - and he listened without judgement, offering her what meagre help he could from his parish. No expectation of joining, no proselytizing in His or Mary's name, no illicit favors - no catch… At a loss for words, she struggled to say much of anything.
"Say nothing." He said, the dark skin around his eyes crinkling with mirth; candlelit shadows dancing on the wall behind him. "You have nothing to thank me for, Ms. Markova. Things were never meant to get this bad - but take heart that all will be good in the end."
He looked old then. Older than he had any right to; decades of world-weary dread weighing down his posture. The light in his eyes was dull and jaded, threatening to sputter out on occasion yet somehow managing to keep burning as best it knew how.
In time, Daria had a new apartment to call her own, funded in no small part by the parishioners of the church. She and the Reverend met for coffee once a week. Things were 'relatively' on the up-and-up, save the unsavory rumors floating around about a 'so-called'-man of God cavorting around with a lady of the night.
After her son was born, Franklin found time to make a house call at the Markova residence.
"You are angel, you know that Reverend?" Daria remarked warmly from the doorway, dabbing softly at her lips with a crumpled paper towel following one of her coughing fits.
The person-suit said nothing for a moment as he watched Levi's little chest rise and fall underneath his soft blue swaddling. A finger gently rises to his lips to silence her. "…He has just fallen asleep."
She nodded, hobbling to stand next to him; their companionable silence only offset by the lullaby faintly chiming from the mobile overhead. Around and around the little angels spun, protecting the boy as he slumbered in blissful ignorance.
They left the room after some time, the reverend gathering his coat - mentally rehearsing his excuse to take his leave.
"I do not know what I would do if something happened to me, Reverend." She mused softly as she pulled the door shut.
Shaken from his thoughts, he turned
his gaze to her. "Come again?"
"With my work. With Vasily." She explained, fumbling around her coat pocket for a cigarette. "I have already made vow before God - I will be better mother than my own was ever to me - I said. He will hold me accountable to this."
"But if I was to be arrested, spend years in rotting away in some American prison while my baby spends his formative years surrounded by strangers. Strangers with dubious intentions?"
Her face darkened fitfully as she finally found her nicotine-laced bounty. Lightning it, she took a long drag - making sure to blow it away from Levi's room.
"Or worse - if I end up like my father? I could not bear it, Reverend."
She was met by a long, pregnant pause.
"I am sorry, Reverend. It has been lo-"
"I could help you." he added softly, coat long forgotten - cast aside and draped across the arm of a recliner.
"I appreciate the offer, Reverend, but there is little time in a clergyman's day for the raising of the children. Besides-"
"You misunderstand me." He said simply. Seeing the confusion writ large across her face, he continued. "I am offering you the means of protecting yourself - and your connection to your son… It is not a gift offered lightly, Daria."
"What gift?" She asks, nervously twirling the cigarette betwixt her fingers.
"A gift from From Him, passed down to me, and offered freely to you."
Silhouetted by the moonlight filtering in from the window, wings the color of the night sky sprouted from his back - not quite having enough room in the small apartment to reach their full wingspan. Four identically shaped, but significantly smaller, wings were given form from each side of his head, each folding inward to his eyes and ears… Smoke accumulated from the working woman's cigarette seemed to pool and cluster around him, purified by his very presence - smoky smog to clear vapors, enshrouding and obscuring the Fallen Angel.
Gripped by pure, instinctual terror - Daria froze in place, her cigarette plopping ineffectually ontop of the dozens of others in her ashtray. Her skin grew clammy, her eyes threatening to pop out of their sockets as her brain struggled to process what exactly it was that she was seeing.
"𝔅𝔢 𝔫𝔬𝔱 𝔞𝔣𝔯𝔞𝔦𝔡" the meat-suit spoke again, its voice sickeningly sweet and as calm as it ever had been. "ℑ 𝔬𝔣𝔣𝔢𝔯 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔬𝔫𝔩𝔶 𝔴𝔥𝔞𝔱 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔥𝔞𝔳𝔢 𝔫𝔢𝔢𝔡 𝔬𝔣. 𝔑𝔬𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔪𝔬𝔯𝔢, 𝔫𝔬𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔩𝔢𝔰𝔰. 𝔗𝔥𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥 ℑ 𝔪𝔲𝔰𝔱 𝔠𝔩𝔞𝔦𝔪 𝔶𝔬𝔲𝔯 𝔰𝔬𝔲𝔩 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔠𝔥𝔢𝔯𝔦𝔰𝔥 𝔦𝔱."
"ℑ 𝔪𝔲𝔰𝔱 𝔥𝔬𝔩𝔡 𝔦𝔱 𝔠𝔩𝔬𝔰𝔢 𝔱𝔬 𝔪𝔶 𝔟𝔬𝔰𝔬𝔪, 𝔰𝔬 𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔱 𝔫𝔬𝔫𝔢 𝔪𝔞𝔶 𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔯 𝔡𝔢𝔰𝔢𝔠𝔯𝔞𝔱𝔢 𝔦𝔱."
"𝔇𝔬 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔱𝔯𝔲𝔰𝔱 𝔪𝔢, 𝔇𝔞𝔯𝔦𝔞?"