Chapter Text
Twilight is bored.
It’s a lovely day outside with the sun shining and the wind lightly blowing through the tree he sat in, yet there isn’t anything he particularly wanted to do.
Being the devil he is, he could very well cause some problems in the little village he decided to live in temporarily. It would be easy to manipulate some of the humans and to set them up for despair, or even make the nearby church tremble in fear at his presence.
Yet he had done those things many times already and it had become something of a bore to him. Then again, it was work as far as he was concerned. It had been a long while since he was given an assignment bigger than causing some livestock to die.
Maybe this was just the result of him being a workaholic. Whatever the reason, there was something else that got his attention right now.
The sound of something falling to the ground with a thud made him flinch. It must be something a human did, he assumes. Twilight knew they liked to play games that involved such things to entertain themselves. But seeing what fell made him do a double take.
A small baby’s crib with a child swaddled in blankets inside of it. At that moment, the only thing going through Twilight’s mind was pure confusion.
Humans didn’t actually use their children like this to play games, did they….?
Shaking his head, he starts to glide down from his spot in the tree toward the child. How pitiful, he thinks. Even he wasn’t so cruel as to use children like this, despite his being a devil. Further proof that humans deserved to be toyed with.
When he crouches down to inspect the baby, however, Twilight is met with another puzzling thing.
The baby has wings. Tiny, white feathery wings which peeked out of the blankets.
“An angel…?”
The child lets out a squeal as if to reply to the devil’s shocked question. Her little wings stretch a little, letting Twilight know that this wasn’t some prank or trick.
Twilight genuinely isn’t sure what to think. An angel falling from heaven and onto earth, and at this age? He had never heard of such a thing. It wasn’t like it was uncommon for angels to walk on earth. Twilight had seen a few and even met some as well, despite the tense awkwardness of the interactions.
He isn’t the type of devil to eat up an angel either. Yes, he is meant to cause mischief and trouble for mortals along with other such problems, but he didn’t particularly deal with angels very often. Much less an angel that is a child.
A cry from the angel snaps Twilight out of his train of thought. Little tears roll off of her cheeks as her face scrunches up. For a moment, the devil contemplates on what to do. This situation wasn’t really his problem. The child wasn’t his either. And plus, the affairs of heaven and hell were separate. It’d be best if he didn’t do anything.
But the sound of the child’s cries is unable to convince him of that rationality. Angel or not, it didn’t feel right to leave her here alone. Twilight sighs.
The devil would bring her to heaven and drop her off there. That’d be the extent of his business with her. Short and simple, easy and quick. He starts to gently pick the child up from the basket, then holding her in his arms. The angel’s cries appear to lessen at this action.
It felt ridiculous. A devil, holding an angel’s child? It was definitely not something he expected to do today.
Twilight had barely entered heaven before turning back. It wasn’t that he couldn’t enter. With the right credentials and reasons, he could pay a visit to the realm of God, ignoring the suspicious looks that angels would give him.
It was the fact that the closer and closer he got to heaven, the more the angel in his arms cried.
He didn’t know what to do to stop her tears. Rubbing her back, speaking to her, nearly everything he did didn’t work.
The only thing that worked was when he turned away from those pearly white gates. It annoyed Twilight. For an angel, it sure was strange that she didn’t want to go back to heaven.
In the end, he decided to put off the visit. It was already troublesome enough that the child cried her eyes out on the way, but the scene of a devil holding a clearly crying angel wasn’t really a good look. Yes, it wouldn’t be surprising to some, but still. Twilight wasn’t that cruel.
He would keep the angel with him until the time came again to go to heaven. It would be annoying, yes, but it wasn’t like he could hand the child off to someone else. Meeting another angel and giving them the baby wasn’t a bad plan, but Twilight disliked the idea. He wasn’t about to be accused of kidnapping a young angel just yet. Meeting another devil or a human was out of the question, of course.
Gliding down from the sky with the baby in his arms, he brings his descent to a slow and lands in front of a cottage door. The little house was somewhere he found on a whim. It was abandoned and somewhat dusty, but it’d do for now.
After cleaning up the little house, he inspected the child again. At first glance, the child seemed like any other baby angel. But while tiny wings are attached to her back like others, little horn like accents adorned her head. They weren’t anything like Twilight’s horns. His were black, curling out of his head. The baby’s, however, were small and white. He wasn’t sure if they were actually horns, honestly. But he wasn’t about to mess with them when it was his first time seeing a baby angel. The child, upon realizing that he was staring at her, smiles.
Twilight ignores the strange flutter in his chest.
“Hm…”
A name would be needed for the child. But it wasn’t like he could name her himself when he was going to return her anyways. Gently placing his hand in the basket, he searched around for a card. The angels above always labeled the name of their children, so there must be something that had the child’s name on it.
After a few moments, the feeling of paper let him know he found it. Taking it out from the folds of the blankets, he reads the letters on the card. Twilight hums a little, seeing then name.
“Anya…”
The child, or rather Anya, lets out a happy squeal at the sound of her name. A ghost of a smile graces Twilight’s lips as he looks back to her.
“So, you know your name already? That’s good. I don’t have to worry about calling you something else for now,” he says, a little humor in his tone. Anya smiles again and stretches a tiny hand out toward Twilight. The devil isn’t sure what to do at first.
“Do you need something…?”
Anya continues to reach out toward him, a pout forming on her face. Her expression makes Twilight smile a little in amusement. For such a small thing, she was entertaining. Lifting a hand, he allows her to latch onto his finger to sate her interest in him.
Upon her touch, it shocks him just how small her hand is. Tiny and fragile, something that could easily break if he isn't careful enough.
Something in Twilight’s heart that softens at that moment. Something that makes him hold his breath without realizing it.