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Love.
The word had come to Lute’s mind in a lapse, slipping through the endless lines of doctrine that kept her from straying.
Feathers whispered against feathers as the seraph’s form unfurled before her, because there was no better word in her limited lexicon to describe it, towering over every lesser creation. Her multitudes upon multitudes of eyes were open, pinning down that prideful sinner to the scarred, salted ground he hailed from. Her voice boomed, demanding respect lesser creatures gave up without a second's delay.
The moment had ended before she could dwell on it long enough, that infernal creature drawing everyone’s attention back to it like a particularly gory corpse as it put on a display of prideful excess. But the afterimages had danced behind Lute’s eyes like eager winners savouring luxuries her kind was only permitted to dream of. They danced day and night, swaying in the darkness to the soundless melody of a love she spent seven years smothering under the ever-growing pile of bodies served up to her Seraphim in dutiful worship. A love that had taken root and blossomed from the blood-wet earth.
She was ‘in love’.
As close to it as an exorcist could get, anyway. For exorcists, like all angels, had no hand to play in affairs of passion.
Lute hated the feeling. It was hard to cultivate, a plant that followed no gardener’s hand. Perhaps that was why it wasn’t something they were typically permitted; God gives a soul only what its capacity allows. But such lines had gone soft and fuzzy around the edges after Sir Adam had been taken from her. Taken, because that was the best way to describe it. He had been taken too soon by creatures that laid no claim to him, but kept his body hostage anyway.
He had promised to teach her about love. Of course, that had come after many, many nights of drunken rants and strummed strings and things that Lute had few words to describe and even less gestures for. His opinions on it had been loud and confident, decrying it as decadence of the soul, the plight of every human to tread the earth. But he had promised, even if he had book-ended it with a sly note about how she would be better off without that forbidden knowledge, a strange bitterness on his tongue. She had already been without. All angels were, yet she saw no point in correcting him; he had been content with his assumptions. He had wanted her to see just how much of a curse it were to love, even as she yearned to experience a fraction of it, to ‘knock some sense’ into her, as he put it. He never got the chance to, nor did she get the chance to lay her heart bare to him either; the human, the only person in heaven that would understand what writhed within her chest.
He’d told her she’d understand when she felt it, that it’d click for her like a chess pawn reaching the far end of the board.
She understood now, as those feathers glimmered in nonexistent light at the edges of her dreams.
It was torment. It was a performance that ran her ragged and made her heart throw itself against the walls of her rib-cage until it quivered and bled. It was the lightest she’d ever felt since the moment of her creation, since the first breath her lungs drew.
It was love.
And Lute was going to fight it, too, with excellence.
Her Seraphim had become different in a way Lute struggled to vocalise without that lump in her throat smothering it.
It was eerie to see, for starters. After a lifetime of her steady hand guiding Lute’s every move, Sera moved with a strange hesitancy usually reserved for winners still quivering from divine judgement; her status had not spared her the shock all of heaven had received from that bastard’s onslaught. Even more so, the Exterminations occupied their talks on a near constant basis. Mere awareness of it as a sin felt sacrilegious to Lute, which it surely was; she was sure all angels were above sin, but Seraphim knew better, and doubting them was worthy of being smited where one stood. Yet those hairline cracks were there for those with eyes to see, and Lute couldn’t avert her gaze as she used to. As the months passed, that hesitancy had made itself a home in the angel’s wings.
And as those months passed, the battle Lute waged had found itself rekindled with her on the losing front. That accursed love had slowly drowned in her grief, treading gold with every gasp it took save for the few days where it could break the surface of the water and breathe.
Today was one of such days.
They’d been discussing something in the privacy of Sera's war room, Lute had forgotten exactly what but it was surely nothing pleasant. It was getting harder to tell the boundary between the visual and the physical recently. Her sight had been haunted with one too many afterimages, one too many familiar eyes and grins, and she had been far too occupied with keeping him at bay to notice what was going on around her at all times. It had left the sharp blade of her awareness hopelessly dulled, and she yearned for battle to sharpen it once again. It was only once that touch grazed her shoulder did she flinch, the world coming back into focus. The chairs before her were empty, window glass amber as the dying sunlight painted the walls in dull gold. On instinct, she’d looked up, and was met with the cool, concerned blue gaze of her Seraphim looming above her.
From here, Sera looked like the finest of God’s creations, sculpted with artistry that could only be of the divine.
Lute wondered if she could tell of the exorcist's worship, even if it was left unsaid.
“You seem distracted.” Sera said, tilting her head slightly to examine Lute’s face in more detail.
Lute, for her part, didn’t reply, not having much in the way of excuses nor justifications. Her Seraphim would find it more disgraceful had she feigned thoughtfulness after being so clearly absentminded. She just looked down, hand moving to fiddle with the halo on her wrist out of habit.
“This quietness is out of the ordinary for you.” Sera’s hand moved from one shoulder to the other, the ghost of a touch passing faintly warm over the back of her neck, making her feathers flutter slightly as the Seraphim stepped in front of her. Her voice was soft as she spoke, soothing balm on Lute’s frayed nerves. She could lose herself and drown between the syllables if she weren't careful. If only. “The others have shown concern for you.”
“Concern?” Another hairline crack, though this one was older. Lute knew better than to cling to the delusion the others would worry, but it was great pretence to pry. “As if. You all never preferred my ‘ordinary’, but those two just lack the spine to fess up.” She muttered, knowing how Abel and Emily surely spoke of her in her absence.
“That's not entirely true.” There was a hint of a smile in Sera’s voice. “I’m still learning what I prefer.” She didn’t look away from Lute, not even when the exorcist herself had to break the contact.
Those fleeting moments still felt unearned, especially with how their meetings prior had been fraught with disagreements and arguments. Lute hadn't been swayed to pacifism — probably never ever will, but her traitorous heart still played at passion it could only emulate, leaping at every sharp angle the Seraphim showed. It was an exorcist’s heart after all, it had never been taught to be afraid. It was fond of that piercing gaze that should’ve terrified her, that cut through her as if she were made of silk; dutifully, with a prayer, it kissed the edge of every blade where it met skin.
Love was a foolish thing with no place next to an angel’s rationality.
That same tender touch moved again while she was distracted. It followed the feathers up her collar, tracing her jawline before Sera tilted her chin up, making their eyes meet again. Lute's golden irises met her cool blue gaze, and resisted the instinct to glance away once more. It was too much, always had been too much for her heart to bear. That traitorous, loathsome feeling of…
“Where have you gone, Lute?”
Lute blinked, the words startling her. “Huh?”
“Your eyes go hazy when you're thinking, just a little, but it shows.” Sera's thumb stroked the line of her jaw once, as if scared the exorcist would shatter in her grasp. “Do you not wish to stay?” She asked, her hand beginning to slip away before Lute's muscles remembered they could move. “I understand you’re still troubled; we may discuss this at a—”
Her hand shot up, gold talons curling around Sera's wrist — even though they cut through steel like butter, they were now dull against the seraph's sleeve. A lesser angel couldn't bring one of the closest to god's throne any harm. Her voice was a whisper, frantic like the wing-beats of the exorcists she'd seen die time and time again behind her eyelids. “No, no. I do… I…”
The Seraphim waited, giving Lute’s pounding heart room to breathe.
“I can’t be alone. Not right now.” The words left her breathless to admit, shameful. She was better than this, so whispered the presence of Adam in the back of her mind. But she'd been pacifying him far too long, and with every tick of the clock, his blood-lust grew beyond what she could bear. After he was taken, every day felt like an eternity to get through, her chin just barely breaking the surface of the water with every gasp… and she was tired. It was selfish of her to admit; the most selfish thing of all, even. She was so, so tired.
But Sera’s patient eyes made Lute feel like she could be selfish.
How foolish.
Exorcists were not made to indulge in such things. She knew, on some level within the core of her being that passed for a soul, that she was not created for such indulgence. And yet with everything changing around her enough to spin her out of orbit, she dared to wonder if this was where God had chosen to lay the stones of her destined path.
Perhaps she could, for just a while.
The High Seraphim took her by the hand, gold metal meeting rich brown.
“Come with me.”
Sera, with a beat of her impressive wingspan, stole the pair away to a chamber of marble and silver — a place far more intimate than the war room, one Lute had no time to examine the details of when she had more important sights to witness. For when Sera had taken them here, she'd also taken away the illusion of humanity that fell like a shroud over her every move. The seraph towered over her still, yet her visage was now distinctly avian; a middle point between that true, blessed form and the shell she wore for courtesy.
Her face had taken on an owlish appearance, beak and all, and what once were human digits were foregone in favour of elegant, long talons. Her hair shimmered as if alive, the thick curls now woven from downy feathers to accent her slender wings. The fabric of her dress had given way to something more organic, white threads fuzzy and soft. Eyes split open at the junctures of her wings, the folds of her dress, the pads of her shoulders; geysers of god's blessing, dyed a cloud's pale baby blues and all focused on Lute. The seraph's halo, perched atop the wide unblinking eye midst her brow, had been staring too — a row of eyes along the brightly glowing band had lazily rolled to study the quivering exorcist like she were the most interesting thing in the world.
The transformation had only lasted a fraction of a second, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it affair, even if Lute had committed every nanosecond to memory. Sera had merely set a hint of tension in her shoulders free, and the carefully maintained shell had unravelled like a rolling spool of thread. She moved with a newfound elegance, almost swimming through the air as she took a step back to give Lute room to breathe.
Because the exorcist, god help her, had forgotten to breathe. Not because she was in pain or anything, no. Her heart was hammering away, words both worshipful and obscene in their own right trapped behind the dam in her throat. It was her second time witnessing a glimpse of Sera’s holiness, but even now it still felt like the very first.
For starters, this time she felt allowed to stare back.
Sera’s multitude of eyes turned towards her, some narrowing. “I'm sorry,” she said, and her voice reverberated against the high ceilings. “I didn't mean to startle you.” She remained a respectful distance away, though her wings didn’t need to beat to keep her afloat.
Lute had to will her mouth to shut. Letting it drop open like that was just disrespectful on all grounds. “It’s not… not that, I-I uh…” She stammered — god, she was stammering now. Only Sera could render her a mess in this way. Collecting her pieces hastily, Lute found her bravery among the mumbled deflections at her feet. “I’m adjusting, your majesty. My apologies.”
“None needed. Though, the look on your face could've convinced me otherwise.” The transcendent voice’s melodic tones were melancholic now, just a tad. “It’s alright, I take no offence. Most angels find this form… uncomfortable to behold.”
“Most angels are cowards,” Lute said, the words coming out before she could stop them. She quickly clammed up after, but what was done was done. She could see Sera's head tilt slightly in her direction, those eyes dissecting her like a particularly challenging verse of scripture.
“Harsh,” was the word that the seraph eventually settled on.
“I am meant to be.”
“You were taught to be.” Sera corrected, words gentle even as they cut Lute’s veil of bravado into ribbons, leaving her uncertainty bare like a newly hatched chick. “And I never apologised to you for it.”
Lute looked away, the comment slipping like a blade between her ribs. This again; the never-ending display of pity that haunted her ever since Adam was taken, falling like a shroud over Sera’s every gesture. “Is that why you said I could stay? To humour me into docility before launching into yet another speech about redemption and change?”
“No.” Sera’s many eyes had been downcast, shying away from her. “I know you’ve grown weary of that — and me — by now.”
Even at the smallest hint of hurt, Lute's instincts flared protectively. “Not of you. Never of you.” She said quickly.
Sera didn't have a response to that, at least not one she could verbalise. Instead, she drew a talon closer, resting it on the side of Lute's face and making the exorcist go quiet. The ethereal form was cold against her skin, the subtle glow emanating from it blooming around the corner of her vision. Sera’s eyes softened, making the haunting form lose a bit of its intimidating aura. And she smiled. Small and sad with the turmoil of an era behind it, but it was a smile nonetheless. “That makes one of us, at least.”
Lute’s lips parted to let a protest free, but quickly decided against it, her mind having zeroed in on the sensation of the talons cradling her cheek with far more gentleness than she expected. They could cut her life short sooner than she could react, only not drawing blood upon Sera’s will, but an exorcist was not made to fear.
But they weren’t made to be treated so gently, either.
It was all so different than what had been beaten into her mind day in and day out, and a part of her still bristled at the notion of this being the new norm.
The rest of her was far more occupied with just how soft Sera’s hand was.
“I thought you’d tire of me first.” Lute muttered, trying to put an edge in her tone that failed to land. The words were bitter on her tongue. “In your pursuit of… redemption, and all.”
Sera leaned closer, her other hand brushing a lock of hair out of Lute’s eyes. “You’re included in that, too.”
“As if.” The exorcist kept her eyes on the glimmering, translucent talons, watching them refract light onto her drab, grey uniform. “I’ve got nothing to atone for.”
She could hear the soft exhale of disappointment from Sera, her silence a familiar note in their past fights. But this time, it had come without the stern warnings that the seraph was usually quick to dish out. When Lute met her eyes again, there was a sadness in her eyes that gave the exorcist pause, like she’d gone weary of the battles that only served to harm them both. “And who’s atoning for what was done to you?” The seraph said, wings drawing closer to curtain Lute within their loose embrace, like the exorcist was going to scatter in the wind at the softest touch.
Sure enough, Lute winced at the words, knowing what Sera was referring to. She shook her head in protest, but Sera was quick to tilt her chin up, her tapestry of eyes dimming as Lute squinted in the light.
“I can’t compel you to see what I see, Lute, but I won’t leave you behind to drown in my sin and yours, either. But,” she pondered saying more, but pulled away, her hand hovering in the air before it dropped to her side. “You’ve been troubled enough, anyway, now’s not the time for such discussion.”
Lute could taste bitterness on her tongue as she held it. Ever-present, his voice was murmuring dissent below the words, white noise to background her racing thoughts.
Things really hadn’t changed. No matter what inference, what implication had danced along Sera’s fingertips, nothing had changed. Adam was dead on the rubble of the pentagram and nothing had changed. She was foolish to ever think they had, to follow the lead of her just-as-foolish heart and crash against the very same bars from which she had been blessed.
Change of the intricate hilt stood to matter little when the blade’s edge hurt all the same.
“When has it ever been the time?”
The seraph’s voice, when she spoke, was taken aback. “What?”
“What if I’ve done nothing but drown this whole time?” Lute’s wings flared as she found her voice again, that comment serving to drive her well over an edge she’d been teetering on for months. “Y-you talk about it like it’s some sort of great transgression but — god, Seraphim — how many times have we gone over this exact thing and you’ve just told me to stay put and accept it? All this time I’ve done nothing but transgress in your eyes. From the moment you made me, I had transgressed. So what changed?”
“That’s… not true.” Sera, for her part, genuinely looked hurt. Whether it were at an assumption of guilt on her part or the exorcist’s complete lack of self-worth, Lute didn’t know. “You hadn’t…”
Yet she carried on nonetheless, wanting to lay her heart bare before her shame eventually caught up. “It is. You know it is, you know better than anyone of my flaws.” Lute reached up, gathering Sera’s hand in hers like it were a freshly-sharpened blade and startling the seraph. “Yet every time I speak to you we go back to this; this supposed sin of yours, this fruitless endeavour when all I ever wanted was to keep heaven and you safe but you’ve changed and you don’t listen and—”
“Lute—”
“—and I miss you.” Lute pressed Sera’s hand to her forehead, squeezing her eyes shut to hold back what few tears hadn’t rolled down her cheek yet. “I miss the you that carried herself with the grace of god’s most honoured. I miss the you that trusted she knew best. I miss the seraph who believed in the certainty of her fate and mine.”
“I was wrong to.” Lute could feel the seraph’s hand tremble against her skin. “I allowed the exterminations, I let Adam have free reign over the army, I pushed you so far that I… I lost you.”
“But I’m right here.” Lute opened her eyes, her breath coming in trembling sobs. “I was always here. I did everything you ever asked of me.”
“Oh, Lute.” Sera’s many eyes looked away, and the exorcist could see a tear falling from the corner of one only by the glimmer of light passing through it. “That’s the problem. I asked you to do so much and you’re still here.”
Lute’s throat was dry as she scrambled for the familiar. “The exterminations weren’t—”
“This isn’t just about the exterminations! You don’t see it, do you?” Sera pulled away, leaving the exorcist’s hand hanging in the air, a hurt seeping into her expression even as she desperately fought it off. She couldn’t keep showing weakness around Sera, not like this. “I’ve spent thousands of years with the belief I was spared the chaos and misery humanity spread far and wide… and now look at me. How many times have you gone down there and sinned in my name? How many times have I sinned against you and every angel in that army? How many lives have I sent spiralling into the depths of hell because I thought myself better?”
“You never harmed me.” Lute couldn’t help the distress in her voice. That shameful, shameful panic that sent a tremor through her wings whenever they broached this topic. “You won’t listen to me about anything else, I know you won’t, but I can rebuke that at the very least.”
The seraph’s face was wrought with what could only be described as pain, one so vivid it had no place on an angel’s features, and she turned away, giving the exorcist no chance to witness her grief. “Lute… please, don’t. I don’t want to do this again.”
“It’s the truth.” She walked closer, trying to mask her hurt beneath defiance, that very same defiance that kept her from shattering the very first day she laid her eyes on the seraph before her. “It doesn't matter what purpose you gave me away for, a sword wasn't forged to question the hand that wields it. Back when you still cared to wield me.”
An exorcist was made to kneel and serve.
“You don’t understand, It does matter—”
“To who? The angels that would rather pretend I don’t exist? The God that turned on me the second a conniving little serpent made its way into heaven?” Lute dropped to her knees, Sera’s towering form blocking out the lights overhead as she raised her palms and begged for an answer. “To who, Seraphim?! TELL ME!”
“TO ME!” Light erupted from the seraph’s wings as her form completely unravelled from its human confines, nearly blinding Lute. Her tears were now falling freely, even as she towered above the exorcist. “You matter to ME!”
An exorcist was not made to mind her bounds.
“Then why won’t you listen to me?” Even though it was so hard to keep looking, Lute refused to turn away, her tears still flowing. “Why do you hide behind sin and righteousness and whatever it fucking is that scares you of me so badly?! Just tell me what you want me to be!”
“I can’t!” Sera cried, her wings upon wings shuddering as her talons dug grooves in the marble. The noise was deafening, like the cries of a million souls piercing the air before falling silent as Lute shrank back from the seraph looming above her. “I can’t stand here and ask you to throw aside everything I’ve asked you to be like— like I know better! I don’t know better! I had to be set straight just like…” Even though this form lacked the human visage, Lute could see Sera’s many eyes do that familiar thing of tracking on anything but the exorcist’s face as she held her tongue from uttering the name she dared not utter. “I had the decree and the scripture and thought it was enough like an arrogant fool, like I hadn’t learnt my lesson the day Adam was made. I was so, so certain of myself — until that day in the court where you turned to me and begged until your voice went hoarse and ragged and all I could think of was ‘I lost her.’”
Lute hadn’t expected this, and her frustration was undercut by bafflement. What?
“And I didn’t know why. I thought I knew what to do to do right by you. I thought I was helping you, I thought you were better after, but I’ve watched you scatter across my vision a million times already and I feel like I’ll watch you scatter a million times more and I…” Sera continued, her voice taking on a desperate, almost frantic edge as her trembling talons hovered close to her face, as if she was resisting the urge to rip her own form to ribbons. “Even though I’m the one who watched this world from before it were even a thought I couldn’t remember when you’d started looking at me like I’d hung the stars. I couldn’t remember what I did for you to love me like this. All I had were reasons upon reasons for you to forsake me, to hate me; but now I’ve changed, and even though you reject it with every fibre of your being, even though you fight tooth and nail to not be shown kindness, even though you should want my blood paid in repentance you’re still here.”
Lute couldn’t look away, even as Sera looked at her with a grief that she’d only seen reflected in shards of glass and broken vinyl records. She could hear her own soft gasp as she tried to speak, but words felt too small for… this, whatever it may be. She looked down, suddenly feeling that familiar insignificance that often book-ended their arguments slam into her enough to knock the wind out of her sails.
Seeing Lute crumple under her words, a laugh broke through the seraph’s silence, wet and listless, incredulous at its presence much like every other aspect of her being. “I can’t keep you. I can’t want you. I can’t.” She muttered; she laughed again, breathless, falling from her like glass shards along the tears that were running down her cheeks. Sera laughed, and laughed, until every gasp turned into a sob, until the disbelief morphed into grief as reality refused to relent, for she had indeed sinned. “I can’t!” Sera cried again, even if Lute hadn’t found her voice yet. “I can’t! I can’t! I can’t! I can’t! I can’t! I can’t!”
The exorcist only watched, feet rooted to the spot where she stood, as Sera’s almost-endless form hovered low to the floor in distress. Her trembling wings had come up, the primaries shielding her from view and Lute’s wide, wide eyes. What once was bravado she was all too ready to let burn had fizzled out into startled, primate terror. Just one of the few common grounds she’d hoped she ceded to Adam’s kind aeons ago.
She raised a hand to touch one of the shivering feathers, but dared not approach. “Your majesty—” She tried, the title familiar on her lips, a plea to normalcy whose pieces lay at their feet.
“Please,” Sera's many eyes squeezed shut, feathers obscuring her face from view even as the tears continued to fall, softly echoing as they hit the tiles. “Don’t, Lute… please.” Lute flinched at the words, but Sera wasn’t done speaking just yet. “I don’t want to lose you too.”
When she realised what the seraph had said, Lute couldn’t stop herself from looking up, eyes wide. It felt like blasphemy, for an exorcist to be cared about to this extent; they were tools of heaven, after all. For an angel, no, a seraph to have such investment in one was like honouring one's instruments in crystal displays—
Oh.
Lute's heart jumped.
Oh.
She remembered the way Sir Adam had handled his guitars; the reverence in his slender, calloused fingers as they traced the curves of polished wood and steel, the way he’d scold any angel who so much as breathed too close to them, the way his brash and filthy attitude would be washed down with his wine and rib to reveal the First Man of Eden. He'd shown her once, drunk and coasting on the high of something illicit to her kind, the inside of a case lined with velvet so soft it seemed woven from angelic feathers. This one’s older than you, he’d said, and laughed when she’d bristled at the implication. Older than most things up here, actually. Got the best sound this side of heaven, no contest. She’s been with me through everything.
All Lute could think of was that he’d called it ‘she’.
The exorcist had considered it strange at the time, the way he'd ascribe person-hood to something so inanimate. She’d asked him why, once, and he’d just shrugged and strummed a few chords while spinning up improvised lyrics that would’ve scandalised the elders had they heard. She’d thought it strange, problematic even — objects were made to be exhausted, used up in eventuality. On the third song, she’d told him as much, and he’d laughed, called her a stubborn little bitch and told her she’d understand someday.
Her throat tightened, and she pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes until stars burst behind her lids, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to spill. It was foolish. It was so, so foolish, to make this connection now of all times when she’d spent months mocking other angels for their sentimentality and timidness and their need to be wanted like she’d wanted Sera all this time.
“Lute?” Sera’s voice was soft, uncertain. The feathers around them rustled as the seraph shifted to see what was happening, and Lute felt the warmth of her presence draw closer, head craning down to meet the exorcist’s face. When she pulled her hands, few of Sera’s many tearful eyes were peeking from behind her wings in concern, fixed on Lute like they were waiting for her to bolt. Maybe she was about to.
“You—” Lute started, then trailed off. Her voice cracked on the single syllable, and she had to swallow hard before trying again, but what came out was just a stammer, that same noise justifying its presence as if it could repress the realisation itself. “You love me too.”
Lute watched Sera’s many eyes go wide. The seraph’s beak opened and closed several times, no sound escaping, as if she'd just processed the information Lute let slip. Even when the exorcist was but a flicker in comparison to her greatness, Sera was still vulnerable to those four words far more than a seraph had any right to.
“You love me too,” Lute repeated like she was trying to will it away, her voice cracking on the words. “That’s why you’re doing this. That's why you kept insisting upon your guilt even when— even when all you did was—” She choked on a sob, pressing the heels of her palms to her eyes to try and stem the flow of tears that wouldn't stop. “Oh, god.”
“I didn't mean for you to…” Sera said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I didn’t want you to have to—”
“You could’ve at least told me.” Lute sniffled, wet and broken, her hands coming up to reach for Sera’s wings like she’d collapse to the ground without the seraph keeping her on her feet. But the angel flinched away, leaving her hanging. The exorcist’s hand dropped to her side, before she hugged her arms close to herself, not knowing what to do with her hands.
Hearing the confrontational edge in the exorcist’s voice, Sera’s wings came back up like shutters, the seraph retreating further into herself. The worst part of it was the way Sera still couldn’t meet her eyes. “I can’t keep hurting you.”
“Then what do you call this?”
No answer. Watching the sun’s rays dance along Sera’s still-trembling wings, Lute dropped to her knees next to the other angel, and could only think that Sir Adam had been so, so right.
She just never expected for the queen to be next to her at the far end of the board.
Hours passed in silence, the room’s pristine whites giving way to soft blues as twilight fell upon Heaven. For a while, the exorcist almost thought she’d fallen asleep, blanketed by the thick, regretful silence suffocating both of their voices.
But it didn’t last forever.
“I’m sorry.”
Lute hadn’t noticed she’d curled up by the seraph’s form until she heard those words. She moved instinctively to scoot away, but the wing by her back pressed closer, silently urging her to stay. She looked at it as if it had grown a head of its own, before looking back towards where she — making an educated guess — figured Sera was under the many, many feathers. The subtle glow of her many eyes was slowly beginning to seep through the coverts, cutting between the secondaries to paint Lute’s own monochromatic feathers in soft blues.
“I’m sorry,” Sera eventually whispers, again. “I shouldn’t have.”
Lute’s voice sounded distant even to her own ears. “I should be the one saying sorry. I pushed you. You didn’t want to get into it.”
“I pushed you. You came to me to avoid this very thing but I had to… I don’t even know what I had to do anymore. I just wanted you to stop hurting.”
Lute ran a hand through her hair, remembering that she indeed had been brought here for that very thing. She’d forgotten all about their gripes with her in the hours gone by. “I should’ve known better. We always—”
“Fight?”
The seraph had said it with a note of sadness, and Lute looked away, feeling her eyes sting with the tears she knew were threatening to spill. “I can’t call this a fight. I just hurt you and you… hurt yourself.”
“It’s supposed to hurt.” Sera’s voice is still shaky, but it was on its way to get steadier, or so Lute hoped. She couldn’t bear listening to that waver pull her ribs apart one by one. “Redemption, confession, the like.”
“Is it?” When Lute notices Sera nod, just slightly, she huffs. “Yeah, that’s why I don’t believe in that shit.”
That gets a laugh out of her. It’s small and tired, but it’s there, and that’s enough for Lute. The feathers move with a whisper as Sera’s eyes peek from behind them, their glow dim but still radiant in its own right. Reaching with her dominant hand, she lightly nudged one out of the way to meet the seven eyes behind it. This form, for all its grandiosity and eeriness, for all the stories spun about how it rendered men mute and frightened the disbelievers into an early grave, never failed to make her heart sing.
She was still as beautiful as the day Lute first laid eyes upon her.
Lute dared to reach closer, the glow of the halo on her wrist casting soft shadows against the down that framed Sera’s face, and her thumb stroked the seraph’s cheek reverently, once. Sera’s seven eyes flickered towards her hand, some narrowing as if they were attempting to decipher the intent behind the gesture through the fog of her exhaustion. But none looked away, and Lute didn’t pull away either. They were both too tired to really care.
“You’re still looking at me like that,” She murmured, with the type of sorrow once reserved for pondering a tragedy that befell creation. “Even now.”
Lute’s hand stilled for a moment. “Like what?”
“Like I’d broken the dawn over your world.”
The exorcist let out a sigh, like she were explaining the obvious. “You did. You created the earth and the heavens and everything in between—” she swallowed, eyes downcast, before she touched her forehead to the seraph’s between those many bright, bright eyes. Their light dimmed as the two angels touched, giving the moment its respect. “And you’re all I have left. I don’t want to lose you too.”
“Is that why?” The rest of Sera’s question, surely touching upon redemption, was left unspoken, but Lute knew where Sera was going with this, and she closed her eyes.
“There are other reasons.”
“But that is the reason, in part.”
The sigh that left Lute carried with it months’ worth of unspoken grief. “In part.”
Lute could feel a wing brush against her shoulder; her own wings reflexively trembled, and it froze before it rested against her back, drawing her even closer. Sera shifted slightly, making her nearly stumble as Lute was reminded acutely of their now-disproportionate size difference. She really was a speck compared to the seraph. “And here I was telling you to accept your whole world changing under your feet. I didn’t make it easy on you, did I?”
“I don’t care.” Lute slid off the seraph’s beak gracelessly, flopping onto her back with an arm over her eyes; she could hear Sera adjust herself as she rose, then craned her neck to look down at the exorcist, feathers whispering while they grazed the marble below. “I wasn’t made to live easy; I kill and I live and I persevere, you know that better than anybody.” Lute moved her arm a little, just enough to see Sera’s reaction to her words. “Besides, causing trouble just means I get to see you more.”
Sure enough, the corners of the seraph’s many eyes had crinkled in amusement. “At least one of us enjoys this charade.”
Lute laughed, and she became all-too aware of how long it had been since she last laughed like this, even if it had only lasted a while. In the midst of the contemplative silence that followed, she could feel Sera nudge her shoulder gently, and only then did she realise that she’d been holding them with that same tension that hadn’t left her muscles in months. “I'm here.”
“You’re thinking again,” Sera murmured, her voice soft and steadier than it had been earlier, closer to the benevolent angel Lute had served her entire life. “Going away.”
“Wasn’t aware I was doing it.”
“Liar.”
Lute sighed, closing her eyes as she laid back, feeling her back hit the soft feathers of Sera’s form, soft enough to lose oneself in if she wasn’t careful… and oftentimes, she wasn’t. It was why they were here, in part if not in whole, trading blows against one another’s emotional armour despite being ultimately on the same front. Even her love had been sharpened against the whetstone of repression to try at every turn to draw its beloved’s blood. Even if Lute couldn’t remember when it had fallen into her hands.
Maybe Sera wasn’t the only person who’d changed.
“I’m sorry.” Lute whispered, the words like thorns on her tongue, so quietly that Sera had to lean close to catch them. The seraph was now everywhere, her slender form surrounding Lute like a garden of silver down. “I’m sorry for… the way I am. For not knowing how to change or concede or… be something less painful to love.”
“You don’t have to apologise,” Sera’s answer was reflexive, as if she’d been rehearsing it. “I’m the one who—”
“Let me have this one fucking moment where I’m vulnerable and honest and shit.” Lute saw the eyes all around her widen slightly at the curse, but the seraph didn’t seem offended, just a tad startled. “God.”
“Fine! Fine. There’s nothing wrong with vulnerability.” Conceded Sera, rolling her seven eyes in unison. Perfection was reserved for god after all. She leaned down, a few feet away from Lute now. “But it’s not your fault for being hurt. You know that, right?”
“It’s not all on you either.”
The seraph hummed. “I mean, one could argue…”
Lute pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration, though there was a smile on her face, clear as day. “We’re already fighting again?”
“I don’t think this one counts,” Sera was smiling too. “But I wouldn’t mind if we do.”
“Because you love me.”
“Because I love you, as you are and as you will be.”
“Will you still be here? If I never change?”
“I don’t know about ‘never’,” Light danced across the seraph’s form as it finally receded back into something more human, narrowing the difference between them until she were standing before Lute, a familiar sight the exorcist knew well. “But I will. And I’ll probably keep making mistakes through it. We’re going to fight, too, a lot more than we should because you’re grieving and I’m burdened and we both have more years of damage than either of us wants to own up to…”
Lute couldn’t help but snort at that last part. “That’s… one way to put it.”
“And I’ll still be here, if you’ll have me.” Sera reached for Lute’s hand — the prosthetic, minding Adam’s halo on her wrist — and took it in both of hers. “If you’ll let me make things right.”
Lute looked down at her hand in Sera’s, at the way the subtle glow of the halo on her wrist made the gold glimmer like jewellery, and couldn’t help the emotions welling in her chest. “Only if you’ll let me make them right in turn.”
“I’d love nothing more.”