A human woman meets an angel in an abandoned church.
Mostly just playing around with creating my own lore for angels.
Just fluffy-ish!
Word count: Not even full 2k.
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People told Paislee, all her life, that looking at an angel could do a number of things. Melt a human’s face. Drive them insane. Make a human claw out their own eyes. It was something about the divinity being insurmountable for a human being to understand. The fact no one had a specific description of an angel didn’t help in the slightest, either.
Yes, there were always the old - perhaps entirely flawed - descriptions in religious books. Of angels being an amalgamation of creatures; or humanoids with four wings; or just floating wheels with eyeballs and wings. But it was pretty much unheard of for a human to see an angel in their true form. Ever.
Yet, here she stood.
In an abandoned church.
In the middle of a ghost town.
No one for miles.
Staring up at an angel.
And Paislee was certainly staring. Drinking in all the details of the being that stood before her, bathed in the artificial light of her cellphone. Though there were plenty shafts of light dropping into the darkened church through holes in the ceiling.
At first, her brain could only register the general shape of it. Tall. Taller than any orc or minotaur she’d ever met. Though she couldn’t see all of their body, they gave off the impression of spindliness. And stark white, almost glowing in the grim darkness of the church. But the longer the silence settled, the more Paislee focused on the finer details.
Their head was bare and smooth. The face like a featureless mask, sectioned into two pieces. Each side of their face possessed an eye and there was a third, resting on the seam in its face. All three possessed dark blue sclera and cyan blue circles for irises. And all three were turned toward her, staring just as intently as she stared at them.
A tattered grey fabric, nothing more than a blanket with a jagged hole cut out for the head, hung over their form, to about their knees. Though Paislee could still spot four hands, with long and sharp looking fingers, peeking out beneath the article of clothing.
The angel stood deathly still. She wasn’t even sure if they were breathing. It was hard to tell, since the thing hadn’t moved since Paislee spotted it.
The longer she stared, the longer she wondered if it was an angel. Regardless if a human had ever actually seen an angel, the stories about insanity-inducing, eye-melting, unfathomable divinity were consistent, to a degree, when it came to the harm that could befall a mortal. Her initial presumption was based off nothing, except some innate knowledge that it was an angel. Maybe it was just the result of the setting, in an old - relatively well-kept, though abandoned - church.
But if this wasn’t an angel, what were they?
Before Paislee could formulate her own question, the being finally moved.
Toward her.
She gave a startled squeak, stumbling back until she hit a wall. The angel was undeterred as it slowly closed the distance between them, stooping close to Paislee when within her personal bubble.
“What are you doing here?” Their voice was soft, soothing, but there was a displeased hiss beneath the words. The mask-like face didn’t move, Paislee noticed, but there had to be some mouth somewhere. It wasn’t a voice in her head. She could still hear the echoes of their voice in her bones.
“I… I…” Her brain scrambled to remember why she was there. The angel let out a low huff, as if it would begin growling if she took much longer. Paislee swallowed, closing her eyes to wrangle her thoughts into something coherent. The scents of the dilapidated church filtered into her nose: old damp wood and grime and the faint scent of trespassing animals. “M-my grandfather died and willed this town to me. He bought the land d-decades ago, long after the town had been abandoned. I did-didn’t know anyone lived here.”
Paislee thought the angel made another huffing sound, like a quiet and bitter laugh. “Not inaccurate.”
“W-what?”
Like an owl staring at a mouse, the angel cocked their own head to the side. Their gaze intent on Paislee’s face. “I am nobody. Nothing.”
It was such a strange thing for them to say. They were physically there, they existed! Briefly, terror grasped at Paislee, wondering if the angel desired the anonymity for other, nefarious, means. However, a sound - a bird shifting, a rat scuttling, wood settling, Paislee wasn’t sure - in the rafters caught her ear.
Suddenly remembering the church, a thought struck suddenly. Little was known about angels, but perhaps the place of once-worship had something to do with the angel’s presence. And perhaps why they said they were nothing.
With a swallow, her gaze turned back to the being’s face. It still hadn’t looked away, but Paislee couldn’t decide if their attention was curiosity or hunger. She chose to ignore that uncertainty, for the moment as she softly asked, “Does this have to do with this church being abandoned?”
The angel made a thoughtful sound, attention finally flickering away from her, to the cobwebbed beams of the church, swinging to the dark corners were birds roosted and bats hung. “Yes.”
Even quieter, not quite wanting to know the answer, Paislee prodded further, “Have you been here since it was abandoned?”
“Yes.”
“Why not go to another church?” Paislee struggled against the lump in her throat, trying to recall when the town had been deserted. She could have sworn it was during the 1800s, but perhaps there had been squatters that came in more recent years? Though her grandfather never mentioned it. One thing she knew, she wanted the angel out of there. “I-I could help you find one of your denomination.”
The angel’s gaze fell back to Paislee. “This church wasn’t only abandoned by mortals.”
Paislee’s eyebrows furrowed at the words. She opened her mouth, to ask for clarification or to suggest something else; she wasn’t entirely sure.
“This place was abandoned by its god.” The angel continued speaking, voice calm and smooth. As soothing as their voice was, the lump in Paislee’s throat fell heavily to her stomach, anticipating the next words with dread. “As was I.”
---
“I do not have faith in a god.” The words were said matter-of-fact and with such certainty, Paislee had to take a moment to force herself not to simply accept the angel’s - Omniel - assertion.
“Are you certain, Omniel?” Paislee’s lips pursed, not finding their explanation entirely acceptable. The angel didn’t glance up from the book they were reading while sitting ramrod straight in a plush antique chair.
Three months had passed since Paislee met Omniel. To say there had been quite a transformation would have been an understatement. The raggedy blanket had been exchanged - after much fashion research - for button-up shirts, modified to fit Omniel’s arms, and pressed slacks. When the mood hit Omniel, they would even wear suspenders.
Beyond the superficial layer of clothing, much more had changed as well. On occasion, Omniel would grow headwings or even back wings. Paislee still didn’t understand the mechanics of it, since Omniel never seemed to tear their shirts with wings suddenly sprouting. From what she understood, thanks to extensive research, was angels didn’t have a singular physical form. They existed on the borders of reality, which meant physical parts of them could shift in and out. Much of the time, angels could control it, could keep a form, but strong emotions could break that discipline.
Paislee shuddered, recalling how Omniel had liquefied a week into their cohabitation. They had turned into sobbing dark blue goop after watching The Dog Episode of Futurama. It had taken Paislee introducing Omniel to three flavors of ice cream via separate pints and watching Legally Blonde to equalize their moods. Not that Omniel would admit it now.
The angel had a much more composed aura, nowadays. Paislee couldn’t count how many times they’d been a blessing when it came to renovating the abandoned town. She still wasn’t entirely certain how to transform the land into a sanctuary, but Omniel had certainly helped in the face of zoning restrictions and lawyers and construction workers and more. For whatever reason, the angel seemed capable of picking up on subjects that Paislee lacked. Despite having been alone for such a long time.
Omniel simply seemed much more robust than in the beginning.
Unable to relent, she adjusted the books in her arms until she found her notebook. Flipping it open, her finger slid over the numerous, sloppy notes scrawled on the lined papers. “From all the research I’ve been able to do, angels seem to thrive when they find a god to follow.”
Omniel finally placed their book aside, tilting their face toward the human woman. They shook their head, their eyes closing solemnly as they repeated, “I do not have faith in a god.”
Paislee stared at Omniel for a solid moment, her lips scrunched a little off-center with skepticism. When her look didn’t seem to get through to the angel, she sighed and shrugged. It was Omniel’s business who or what they had faith in and they didn’t have to share it with her. “If you say so.”
As Paislee turned to leave, mumbling something about getting lunch, Omniel shifted in their chair. The movement caught Paislee’s eye and she waited, as the angel crossed their legs and settled their elbow on the chair’s arm, chin in one hand as the second hand on the same arm tapped their fingers on the upholstery.
All three of Omniel’s eyes stared at her for a breath as two sets of headwings fluttered by their temples. A sensation crawled down Paislee’s spine, warm and tingly. A common reaction she had to the angel watching her with such intensity. One she just couldn’t grow used to or ignore. She felt as if Omniel was analyzing her, seeing something play out behind their own eyes that she couldn’t comprehend. Perhaps they saw her death or her life or everything about her.
Not for the first time, Paislee hoped Omniel didn’t have omniscience. Living together as they had for three months, she couldn’t say all of her thoughts of the angel were strictly friendly. Involuntarily, her attention flickered to the angel’s arms, bisected into two forearms at the elbow. They were strong-looking arms, though just as lithe as the first day she saw the angel. She had too many thoughts about those arms to indulge, forcing her attention back to Omniel’s face.
“If solving this mystery matters to you,” the angel began and Paislee thought she could hear a shred of amusement in their voice, “My faith belongs to you.”
Paislee blinked dumbly a few times, the words floating in her synapses but not sinking in. When the words did finally settle into comprehension, she couldn’t help the laugh that fell from her lips. “Omniel, I’m no god!”
Before she could even finish, the angel was getting to their feet and approaching her. Paislee’s heart stumbled in her chest. For a split-second, she could see the old Omniel, the one whose movement’s reminded her of a wild animal, untethered to social mores. The same one who didn’t understand personal space as the current one strode closer than they had in weeks. Craning her neck, Paislee realized she had forgotten how tall the angel was.
“As I said, I do not have faith in a god,” Omniel took Paislee’s hand in one of theirs, raising her knuckles to their smooth, mask-like face. The angel pressed where their lips should have been - or perhaps were, in a different dimension - and Paislee flushed, feeling soft give and warm breath against her skin.
The angel paused, observing the woman’s face with heightened interest. Though they quickly finished their point, again their tone taking on a warm, fond inflection, “But I do have faith in a goddess.”
This is Paislee! Eventually I'll write out her whole backstory but the jist of it is that she's an angel and one of Anna's healers/nurses. She has something to do with Two's story ;)
Paislee finds an interesting-looking knob on a synthesizer in a music store and very much enjoys its feature! Best bit is that she didn’t even turn the knob up all the way. Who knows what could happen then?
Full-size image and .sai project file are up on my Patreon page.
