Fallen Angel

[peterpan]

Who will be my angel? I think I would enjoy corrupting something pure.

I imagine Fallen Angel as a gothic ravishment. I would be overjoyed if a woman whom enjoys fantasy writing became attracted to this scenario of a flawed heroine and repressed desires fulfilled.

I have thrown in all these details, but thats just what happens when I get enthusiastic about something. I invite you to put your own slant on things. Actually, the plot rather calls for it.

***

The basic plot I have in mind is an angel who flies too close to hell and is snared by a demon, however with a sci-fi twist.

I would like to enact it as a ravishment, focusing on the repressed desires of my angel. She believes with rigid faith that to succumb to carnal pleasure is to damn herself and fail her creator. I (the demon) do not believe in souls, or am curious to see how losing her soul would change her. I am sure I have none of my own.

My angel may truely be an angel, or just a woman brought up to believe this to be her role in some strange post-apocalypse world. I imagine the angels living in cities amongst the clouds, amongst a rather sterile perfection. Perhaps they are clones, are hatched from eggs or both. Indisputably my angel would have glorious wings, but perhaps they are chrome and sharp as razors. perhaps she wears it as a harness. Or her wings may be real, a product of genetic engineering.

The details do not matter so much as that perhaps she has been lied to. She may have gleaming armor and a flaming sword yet still be a prisoner of totalitarian theology invented by a madman. Or she could be entirely correct and her soul is in great jepardy.

My ideal angel would be intelligent and brave and full of rightous fury. Her fire is a symptom of her repressed desires. from different perspectives she is noble, murderous (to demons) and behind her strength strangely pathetic. For ultimately it is her own strength of character that has imprisoned her, and that I would so love to rescue her from.

***

As a Demon I would appear as the charicature of a handsome man carved from black stone. The only part of me that is not black is red demon script above my left brow and cheekbone, and other parts of my body.

My features are a little too pronounced, my lips too cruel, to be human. I am hot and smooth to the touch like a riverbed stone that has lain all day in the sun.

My hands are strong and the fingers a little too long. My natural stance is satyr-like although I can hide this.

***

"Hurry, my legion. I will not lose this prize!" The gargoyles at the gates had heard our trumpet calls and the way to the comparative safety of hell lay open, warm and inviting.

Yet the One True God, whom was not our god, did not wish us success in the least of our endevors, and least of all this one. For I, Obsidian, had captured myself an angel.

There was my prize, lashed hurriedly to the spent seige bow and hauled towards the gates of hell by frenzied beasts. Now at the foot of the stone bridge. Now past me. Already the massive gates were beginning to close in anticipation of securing her.
She had not appreciated the ironic honour I paid her. Strapped at ankles, wrists and shoulders to the upright bow, the effect was much as a crucifiction. So would she enter hades and bring light to the darkness, at least briefly.

The effect was coincidental. My concern was only to bring her home entirely undamaged, Her wings uncrushed. Once my mind had struck upon the seige bow it would accept no alternative. Yes, perhaps the image of my triumphant homecoming with a live angel held high like a standard had swayed me. Certainly it had enraged the angels.

Twice the sky had opened up and the angels had come, hurling lightning down apon us as we retreated with our spoil. The canyon impedded them. The first time they had shyed from harm to their sister. The second time they acted more desparately. The third time, I knew, the angels would be looking for a smiting. They would scorch the earth a mile in all directions to prevent me keeping my prize.

I would not surrender her. This gift was owed to me. This angel was the one promised. I knew it from the way she fought. More pragmatically I knew it because when my legions had her snared and surrounded, hopelessly outnumbered, she did not expire. She slew three more of my legion as they stood over her like statues in stock poses of confusion.

(It is a well tested fact that angels, when grounded and surrounded by darkness with no hope of escape, simply expire. Whether from a weakness of the heart or suicidal resolve I do not know. So likewise I did not know whether my angel owed her situation to a strength or weakness of character. I longed to know everything about her)

On the bridge, while the gates were open and we were most exposed, I knew the angels would come. The eye of a storm opened above us and almost straight down they plumeted. I was the last at the gate, brandishing my whip and howling into the artificial gale in the small hope of delaying them even a second more. They came faster than I thought even angels could fly. Already my eye had judged the distances, predicted the inevitable outcome, and my cry became one of simple emotion.

They would be too late.

The stone gate closed before them with a dull boom.

 

[Marigold]

Ariana

OOC: I usually preface any entrances into new threads by saying that if the addition is in any way unwelcome, I won't mind being told so a bit. Consider this entry so prefaced.

Ariana does not look like a warrior. Small and slight, she is, but makes up for it with a fierce nature born for battle. Her hair is golden, her eyes blue, as are many Angels of her ilk, all created from the same strand of DNA. She looks no older than an eighteen year old human, but is actually a bit shy of a century old. This is very young for the folk of her race, and she is considered something of a wayward child.

IC: Weeping was too pale a release for the misery I felt. I had been taken by the Legions of Hell, and I knew it was my own fault. Instead of praying to the Heavenly Father to take me, I'd been swept away by my rage and stayed in the battle, though I knew I was surely lost. My superiors had reiterated endlessly throughout our training that we should never, ever let ourselves be taken by the Demons. Not only might they gain information about the Warriors of Heaven, but they might somehow endanger our immortal souls. Fear swamped over me, a palpable and oppressive force. I'd always been too rash, too foolish. Amara, the general of my platoon had said so a thousand times. "Think before you act, Ariana. You have too much anger in you. Fight out of your love for our Lord, not out of hate for our enemies." Oh, how I wished now that I had been able to follow her orders, how I had wished it even then, but I'd never been able to obtain the calm the other Angels seemed to claim as a birthright. I wasn't the best warrior Heaven had ever seen, not even close, but I made up for my lack of size and strength with a sort of grim determination to see the armies of Hell defeated once and for all. I'd just ignored the startled looks my passionate offenses had attracted. Now I was captured, the first Angel in ceturies to have commited this sin. Lord have mercy on me. Lord have mercy on my soul.

 

[peterpan]

Wonderful!

OOC: Wonderful! I will brood on my reply

Getting a bit late in this part of the underworld. I am guessing I can currently forge replies around twice a week barring happy coincidence.

By the way, How are you dressed or armored currently? For myself, My current clothes are weatherworn and coloured to blend in with the ground (from the air). A cloak, a horn, Perhaps an armored shoulder and wrist bands. The cloth is very rough and stiff because demon skin is hard and smooth as stone. Demons don't need protection from the elements, except perhaps for when the elements are motivated

 

[Marigold]

OOC: Twice a week is good. I'm glad you don't mind. Ariana is the sort of character I enjoy playing most.

 

[peterpan]

The angel seemed to be staring blindly, eyes whipping this way and that yet fixing on nothing real. At first I misinterpreted this as terror, as weakness.

I leapt apon the carriage of the seige bow. Timber groaned under my weight and the beasts snorted. My angel faced me with a look of hatred and warning that could not be misinterpreted as fugue. But she did not quite face me. Then I understood.

Her eagles sight could see many things, but could not peirce demon blackness. She would see all that she wished and more, soon enough.

I do not know what prompted me, but suddenly I wished to experience my realm as she. I closed my eyes and turned my head to and fro listening to the sounds. The exhausted breath of the beasts, the scuffle of clawed feet and rustle of the uniforms of the legion's remainder, silently watching. Unless her hearing was so acute as to hear eyeballs swivel in sockets. The scrape of steel on stone. The tapping of messages.

I opened my eyes to see her staring directly at me. She was still blind but she knew I was there.

She was a child.

Momentarily, I grew angry. This is my great prize, that so many had died for? This is what made us fear the sky?

She appeared undamaged. One cheek was slightly bruised, perhaps. A thin line of wetness down the other. She seemed to be massaging a back tooth with her tongue. I thought nothing of it for a second then suspicion seized me. Grabbing her jaw I pulled her head back. A finger sought to arrest her tongue before it could unscrew the poison filling. There was none. I knew there was none. We had examined angels teeth before.

I released her. She had cried out once as I grabbed her, but no more than that. I was strangely proud of my angel. My angel. At long last.

The urge to speak rose in my throat but I quelled it viciously. If I had spoken then I would have mouthed explanations. Apologies. Such as she did not deserve apologies from Demons.

Instead I finally said this:
"My name is Obsidian. A popular name amongst demons. But only one Demon can own it. That demon is I. Your fate."

Springing from the carriage, I strode to the front of the troop and kept striding. Taking a fire staff from a waiting gargole I ignited it.

"Deeper!" I cried.

 

[Marigold]

Ariana

Blackness. It was all around me, it swallowed me. I could have been the only being left in existence exept for the scuffle and grunts of the horrid beasts that shared the darkness with me. Was I one of them now? I should have been afraid, afraid of what they would do to me now they had me in their grasp, but all I could feel was rage. Rage at myself for letting it get this far, but it was too late now. Even God could not hear a prayer muttered in this black waste. Rage at my unseen foes, for existing, for marring the perfection of my Father's creation. For holding me here.

Suddenly a hand had grasped me by the hair, pulling my head back roughly, a hot finger probing rudely in my mouth. A cry of surprise escaped before I could quell it. I almost bit the finger off, but some instinct, some shred of a sense of self-preservation finally kicked in, and I merely held myself rigid in my bonds until the strange hands left me. Then a voice.

"My name is Obsidian. A popular name amongst demons. But only one Demon can own it. That demon is I. Your fate."

Obsidian? They had names, these filthy monsters? It seemed somehow wrong that they should. They should be nameless, faceless, one the same as the next. Oh, if only I'd managed to keep even one of my weapons, they'd all tremble before me, see God's Wrath personified. I stared haughtily into the black.

The seigebow I was harnessed to groaned as the weight of the one named Obsidian departed, then the sound of a flame igniting, and I was momentarily blinded by even this weak light. I closed my eyes against it, even as the same voice shouted "Deeper!"

And so my descent into Hell began.

 

[Marigold]

OOC

Ariana would be wearing a tunic and leggings, which had once been snow white, but are now stained with grime and blood, very little of it her own. Soft boots that go to her knees, a belt at her waist, its scabbard now empty. Her hair is pulled away from her face in a pragmatic braid that hangs between her white-feathered wings to reach her waist, a few stobborn wisps escaping and hanging in her eyes in limp curls. No armor, as it would impede movement, and her quicksilver speed is Ariana's first defense.

 

[peterpan]

OOC:__________________
Way too long, but I figured I had to get you somewhere that you had a choice to do more than glare while being towed around on a seigebow by a yak, lovely though the image may be

You can assume my home is huge and so feel free to introduce or describe parts of it.


IC:___________________

(An angel's sword in an angels hand can cut through the stone of Demon flesh as if it were air. This is because we are formed of the same logic. The sword simply instructs the demon flesh to powderise before it. Or to catch flame, or to fester. Almost any wound an angel can visualize, an angels sword can inflict. Without the guiding will of an angel, the logic of Demon-flesh wins out. We touch the blade and it blackens, pits, and finally shatters into coallike fragments. Such of course was the much deserving fate of her sword. I had memorised the script on it first, through habit. Angel script is pretty, though I cannot read it.)

I lead my legion without a backward glance. Not because I had no concern or curiosity for the beautiful creature bound to the seigebow and dragged behind me through a Demon city. Why was I averse to facing my angel? Since I had lit the staff and illuminated my world for her I had shown her nothing but my cloaked back. She must think I am disinterested in her.

Understanding washed over me like the brush of angels feathers. I wanted her to think I was disinterested in her; though my every thought was buried in her, and even facing into the darkness I am blinded by the vison of her; the paleness of her still burned into my retina.
I wanted to give her this much peace. Many the time I had imagined this day, gloatingly describing her fate in every detail to my captive angel. Her fate rolled inexorably forward. The biting sweetness of it still tortured me with pleasure.

So young. That was it. Too young to have been there on that day. The day God and his angels stole heaven from us. She was an innocent and I felt no urge to avenge demonkind upon her body. Rather I would give her a gift, and that gift would be bitingly sweet.

FINALLY at the very gates of my personal domain, I found I could face my angel and smile. Once in the Cavernous courtyard, with the portculis safely closed, I felt secure in freeing my angel of the now tiresome Seigebow. First I dropped my own weather stained cloak and the various requirements of my campagn. My ebony torso was the work of a master craftsman, whom I also employed for all my gargoles and Succubai.

I let her inspect his craftmanship a moment before I leap once more upon the seigebow.

Gathering the leather strips at both shoulders I pulled the strips apart. One shoulder of her tunic was ripped open in the process and the rip tore far down one side. No matter. The tunic was ruined in any case and I found the effect pleasing. As I sawed free the strips binding wrists and ankles I said this:

"Once there was a girl who thought she was an angel. She thought her god loved her. But her god did not care about her. This child was just fodder for his armys. A virginal slate for the twisted word of God. Forever incomplete inorder that every day of her life she could be told that this feeling of incompleteness stemmed from her failure to entirely satisfy her creator.

Then one day her creator abandoned her completely. Or perhaps his attention was simply elsewhere. Or perhaps for a split second she saw through him. Denied him. A Demon took her.

The angel did not know it yet, but this Demon would give her something her god never would. He would complete her. Then she would give him the totality of love that she could never give her creator.

Freed, and learning that all pleasures were permitted for her, she wished nothing but to share this freedom with her sister angels. So she whispered into her Demon lover's ear the password of Heavens Gate.

And so all the Demons returned to Heaven and all the angels were freed. And all the Demons sung her name and all the Angels cried out her name as they were pleasured for all eternity."

I looked up at My Angel as the last bonds parted around her ankles.

"Can you tell me this brave girl's name?"

 

[Marigold]

Ariana

The seigbow rolled inexorably onward, and I laid eyes on the City of the Damned for the first time. Oh, it was an abomintation that I was even here. From what I could see in the weak torchlight, the buildings were all dark, huddled together in a dizzying confusion of arcitechural styles and sizes. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the way the city had been laid out, unlike the Cities of Heaven, which were all scrupulously clean and logically planned. My eyes fell on the cloaked back of the one who held the torch, and somehow I knew he was Obsidian, the one who had spoken earlier. He moved with a fluid grace, and this disturbed me. All the creatures I had battled and killed from his realm had been horrors, nightmares made flesh, and I found it strange that anything that moved like that could have been spawned here. Still, my rage gripped me, warmed me, and I imagined sinking my flaming blade bewtwixt his shoulders and watching him dissipate before my very eyes.

We were slowing now, the seigebow, Obsidian, our horrid entourage, and I. Through the portculis of a forbidding stone wall, into the courtyard of a castle that look to be carved from the namesake of my captor. My eyes travelled upward, over the turrets and windows and gargoyles crouching at the corners of the gutters. Did one of them move? No, of course not. My eyes returned to Obsidian himself, who had finally turned to me, shirtless. I had never seen a shirtless male before. Were they all so hard, so lethal looking? So beautiful? My rage soared to new heights, that there should be anything beautiful in this place, that they were allowed to taste, even for a moment, what God himself had achieved.

Obsidian approached me, freeing me from my bonds, tearing my tunic in the process. I mourned its loss, one of the few tangible links to my home, but stood impassively as he continued to cut the bonds. He began to speak. Telling me a story, as it seemed. If it were possible, my Holy Anger grew with every word. How dare he speak such things against the Holy Father? Any shortcomings were entirely my own, God would never have abandoned me! My face betrayed none of my anger, however. I'd become adept at hiding the roiling passions inside me. They were frowned upon by my sisters and brethren.

"Can you tell me this brave girl's name?"

Oh, he was in for a rude awakening if he truly thought I'd hand over the key to Heaven's destruction like some weak human. I looked into his eyes levelly and answered him.

"I know not who the Angel in the story's name might be. Pity that, for if she were real, I'd kill her myself."

With that, I spread my wings and took flight, relying on the element of surprise and my own astonishing agility to make way for the walls. Hopefully, my Lord willing, I'd find a place to hide until I could figure a way to escape, or at least get myself killed in the process. Even though I knew death here would result in the utter destruction of my soul, I was willing to expire rather than be the instrument of any trouble for my Father. Somehow I knew, even then, that death or escape were the only ways of saving myself, and most probably Heaven as well.

 

[Marigold]

A few OOC thoughts

I have something of a background worked out, though it never seems less than awkward to insert it into a post. I see the time setting as being sometime in the distant future. Once, man had automobiles and computers and great cities of glass and metal, but that was before God broke the world and remade it, leaving humankind with only the dregs of the technology they once possessed. Now, they live hardscrabble lives built on the ruins of a once-great civilization. After the Apocalypse, Demons and Angels alike were freed to roam the Earth at will, and the poor, beleagured planet is the site of most of their battles, with gates to both Heaven and Hell littering the landscape at irregular intervals.

The angels themselves are of the same basic construct as humans, excepting the obvious addition of wings. However, they have the adavntage of being incorruptable. Angels do not become ill, they do not age. They can be killed through violent means, but even at that, their powerful bodies can withstand much more damage and heal much more quickly than their earthbound brethren. Angels are not born, as such. Instead, they are constructed by God himself. He keeps a static number of them, and makes replacements on the odd occasion one gets killed. They appear as they live, in adult form, with the basics of language and knowledge of the world around them in place, and go on to train for their specific assignments from there. They are physically able to reproduce sexually, but this has not been done since before Noah built his Ark. Physically perfect, and impossibly beautiful to the last and least angel in God's repetoire, they nevertheless place little importance on their fleshly forms. To an angel, his or her body is nothing more than a tool, to use to furthur God's cause. If the body dies, the soul goes on to another realm that cannot be attained by those still living, be he demon or human or angel, and so they exercise some amount of self-preservation, so as to continue their usefulness. To an angel, however, the soul is everything, and it must be completely and fantatically dedicated to the Father.

 

[peterpan]

OOC: Nice tagline. I will definitely use that somewhere

(The IC was written before your notes. I like your interpretation and thanks for adding a description to the Demon city).

To demons, everything is a construction. Both angels and demons agree that demons have no soul, but in the demon's case it is because they do not believe in it, or believe it to be some unnecessary newfangled thing that God contrived so that he could call his creations superiour to all the rest.

Likewise, if I learn of the stopping power of demon rock to the angel's ability to expire, I would find this more evidence that the soul is bound by physical laws. Perhaps I would try to modify a machine to touch angel's souls.

Demons are very good at shaping. Demons and gargoyles are shaped from materials of different qualities (The details are secret). Many creatures are shaped from earthly ones. I was thinking succubi could be animals reshaped as angelic.
IC:_______________

Her fury was magnificent! Did she not see how far she had already strayed from the path alloted her? An angel drowned in virtue would murder my people with a benevolent smile stonelike on her face, looking through and past us as if to better appreciate the world that could be when all of us were rubble. If I were to be slayed by an angel's hand, let it be this one. Let it be with passion and heat and fury so that I could die knowing I would not pass from memory directly the deed was done.

Nor did I imagine a virtuous angel would speak so directly of killing another. They would 'forgive her','reclaim her soul','return her to her lord for judgment'. On this I could not be sure as I knew nothing of how angels dealt to each other. For all I knew those masks of compassion were reserved for dispatching my Kind.

My admiration did not delay my whip hand. The scaled coil flung out almost of its own accord, to coil around her ankle at the very limit of it's extension. The tip was a living snakes head that could deliver a paralysing venom designed for angels. Instead I instructed it to turn upon itself and fix upon it's own length, A noose I did not think could be parted.

My angel's wings spread wide were breathtaking, so white against the black sky of the Demon City. Each perhaps the length of her body they beat with impossible strength, raising a small gale around me.

The suggestion that she considered the sin of suicide frightened me. I had not anticipated it. "More whips!" I called. Gargoyles on the cornices responded with what seemed agonising slowness, raising hands with more snakelike coils. Let me be right about my knotwork! (the courtyard was roofed with steel bars, but I feared she could almost slip through)

No angel would consider taking her own life violently. She would not need to. Her god had designed some form of destruct mechanism into their DNA. Another secret I would dearly wish to learn! Perhaps in her fury she would let slip some clue.

"Are you sure you do not know her," I taunted the struggling angel as hand over hand I reduced the radius of her freedom. "I think you would rather like her. I know some part of you chooses to remain here with me, for else you would simply expire."

 

[Marigold]

Ariana

I was flying upwards one moment, hope and triumph soaring in my heart, then my movement was cut off with a jerk. Another few frantic beats of my wings passed before I realized my ankle was bound. I looked down, panicked to see the one called Obsidian holding the end of the coil in his hand, as if I were a dog and he held the leash. I wore a scowl as I prepared to jerk the whip, for that is what held me, from his hands, but then another coil joined the first, this one about my wrist. Then another, and another. I was bound again. My escape was not to be, but still I beat my wings, trying to drag them all with me, if need be. I do not suppose I was thinking clearly.


"Are you sure you do not know her?", he taunted, "I think you would rather like her. I know some part of you chooses to remain here with me, for else you would simply expire."

Oh, for my sword, to sever the lashes holding me and to drive right between his mocking eyes! I screamed out in a fury, "Do not flatter yourself, Hellspawn! I'd die if the choice were left to me!"

Nothing more to do, nowhere to go, and my rage ebbed somewhat, replaced by a weariness the likes of which I'd never felt before. I descended to the stone of the courtyard again, and stood quietly while the monsters uncoiled their whips. Obsidian stood looking at me with a strange expression I could not begin to understand. How I wished for a ray of sunlight. This place was so ceaselessly dark.

Escape was a hope that I would have to lay aside for the moment, and I prepared myself to be beaten, tortured, whatever he had in mind for me. I looked up at him, my expression as bleak as I felt, waitng for the blows to come.

 

[peterpan]

She could not chose to expire. That at least was a comfort. Also a mystery.
I walked slowly towards her, seeking not to startle her. Gargoyles approached from either side, reeling in the coils that bound her. Part of me hoped that her calm was a symptom of acceptance. Part of me was glad that she was not so easily broken. Her calm was stoic. I saw in her eyes that she expected the simple cruelty of blows.

Her naivety was heartbreaking yet also aroused my lust. For an instant, between one stride and the next, my lust had me convinced it would be best to simply rip her bare and ram worldly knowledge into her, that any hesitancy was cruel when her fate was long since sealed. For an instant I recalled her white wings fluttering once more in her urgency for a goal tantalisingly in reach. That is how it would be. With my strong arms I would pull her towards that goal instead of from it.

My hand reached for where the tunic was already ripped and almost exposing a white breast. Momentarily I cupped the breast through the cloth, the tips of my fingers upon the torn edge so that a single clench would begin it all. Instead I found myself brushing a couple of stray curls from her pale upturned face.

The mercy I had almost convinced myself to deal her was the mercy one would pay an unthinking animal. She deserved to know her fate and prepare for it as she chose, even if that were cruelty. Some mistook Innocence for virtue because it was attractive. Rather innocence was attractive to those without, inorder that they inflict themselves upon it, and replace the innocence with wisdom.

"What is your name, my angel."

I saw many different answers flit across her eyes. Finally when she spoke her voice was almost flat.

"MY name.." MY name, the emphasis said. Not HER name. A name entirely dissasociated from the angel in my story.

"..is Ariana."

I Nodded, pondered how to begin.

"Ariana. Who created your breast so perfect. A breast designed to enflame the lust of man and Demon both. Have you ever imagined the sensation of a baby suckling at that breast. Do you think you will ever be with child? Ariana tell me what your breast is for."

"Who created you with all the beauty in the world. Gave you the whole sky, and told you his love for you was infinite. That your love for him should also be infinite. But.."

"You must know what the but is Ariana. At some level it must gnaw at you. But. One thing was forbidden. A condition on His infinite love. The beauty he gave you must never be enjoyed. The womb he gave you must never be filled. One moment of true happiness on your part and His infinite love would be withdrawn forever."

With one hand I held her to my chest as my other unsheathed a curved blade as sharp as sin.

"Take comfort in my strength. Accept that you can bear no blame for being helpless before it. Take comfort in the hardness of my chest. Without your blade you can inflict not the slightest harm upon it. Few things barring an angel's blade can hurt me. Have no shame in being unable to avenge yourself for what follows."

"Take heed of this lesson I give you now. This is no dream. There is no sudden reprieve. Once you accept this you can start thinking of your new life as one of the fallen with the same calm that you faced the inevitability of your recapture."

With one forearm on her back, pressing her against me, and the hand of that arm holding the one pragmatic braid near the root, I began to saw the braid through.

 

[peterpan]

OOC: This is intrusive to the way your character looks. Its fine to
convince the Demon to change his mind. could be a small turning point of some sort even.

 

[Marigold]

Ariana

No blows...no beating. Instead, he walked towards me, and the look on his face was somehow more frightening than uncontrolled fury would have been. He reached out, his hand upon my breast, and perhaps I should have pulled away, but my surprise rendered me quite incapable of action. An odd sort of fission leapt from his hand to my chest, rather a strange sensation. My nipple tightened as if I were cold, but his hand was hot. I looked up to him, bewildered, even as the hand left the torn tunic to gently brush a few unruly curls from my eyes. Why was he doing this? Why had he not begun to torture my secrets from me?

He asked my name again, and I open my mouth to tell him it was Wrath or Justice or some equally quelling response, but instead what came out was quite simply what he asked for. At least I managed to deliver it with some pride, some emphasis on the fact the I was me, and not the figment of his imagination he'd told me about earlier.

He began to speak again, about my breast of all things. I'd never given that part of me much consideration, except to cover it properly and promptly after bathing. I'd never given much thought to the reason why certain parts of me were to be covered either, it was simply knowledge that had been there when I hade been made. My body was just....there, to use for the Lord's cause. He asked me if I'd ever imagined breeding. Like an animal? Animals and humans bore offspring in their bodies, not Angels.

Then his words turned to my Father, and it was everything I could do not to tremble like some frightened prey, for he had hit upon my one greatest weakness. My doubt. Oh, his strange rambling about my body being enjoyed meant little to me, as I had no real idea of what he was speaking, but his words about God's love being conditional...that struck me like the expected blows. It *had* always gnawed at me. The rules, the constraints. Everyone had always told me that I was wrong to feel as I did, indeed, to feel at all. If it was wrong of me, why had God made me this way? I felt a panic rise in my chest. No, his words meant nothing. It was some fault of my own, not the Father's.

In this Demon's arms now, as helpless as he told me I was. How did he know me as he did? Did he have some magic or machine that allowed him to read my every thought, to peruse the pages of my past as if it were a book? He had a blade now, perhaps he would kill me, but no...he raised it to my hair and began to saw at it. My hair had always been something of an annoyance to me, the curls looked pretty on the angels of the choir, the ones whose job it was to bring beauty to Heaven, but on a Warrior it was but a feature to waste time upon controlling. Even yet, as he began to cut, I found myself reluctant to part with it, some bit of vanity I hadn't known I posessed rearing its ugly head. Wonderful. Another sin to add to my mounting pile. I looked up to him, not knowing what to do with myself or him or any of what had happened to me. Did he not understand, with all the knowledge he obviously called his own, that my entire world had been wrenched away from me? Did he have to claim my very appearance as well? Accept, he told me. Stop struggling. To stop struggling was to damn myself, to become what I'd spent my short life battling to eradicate from creation. Could he not understand this either?

"Please" I whispered. "Please don't."

 

[peterpan]

"Please. Please don't," she whispered.

My resolve crumbled as if I were constructed of inferior stuff. Why should I relent when soon I must rape her of her imagined soul? Wasn't it cruelty to give her hope that if she abased herself sufficiently, I would relent?

But then, why had I sort to reduce her beauty? No mark or debasement upon her form would reduce her beauty for me now. I wished her beauty for my eyes alone.

Looking into her eyes I threw away the knife.

"Hair is a very simple thing. Easily shaped. You will have hair that reaches your ankles if you wish."

We were still in the courtyard with gargoyles and the seigebow that had been her prison for such a long journy. With a word I dispersed my minions to their duties, and paying the war no more thought, swept Ariana into my arms and carried her up the stone steps and through the oak door, across the threshold into my true home, where nothing sullied by the outside world was allowed to pass.

I splashed through the shallow pool for cleaning feet that all must pass through, unconcerned that my angel was still booted and in my arms. Soon she would be cleaner that she had ever been.

A demon always washed before entering a demon's true home. No great thing since our skins were stone and unconcerned with the wet or great deluges of water. Traditionally the entrance was built by or behind a natural waterfall. From that had evolved the room before us.

The walls and pillars were black marble with smokey ribbons of white. Two attendents waited posed like statues (mere golems, but carved in the form of beautiful women from the same stone). A black snake coiled on the arm of one, for she had not moved since I left. The snakes were ubiquitous.

The walls and pillars curved up to an apex some meters above from which water continually thundered to an iron grating in the centre of the floor.

But my angel could not stand up under it. Besides she was embedded with the dust of a long ride mixed with the sweat of fury and fear. She was stained with troll blood, a noxious substance, in all rendering her very dirty in deed.

I stopped before a bronse rounded basin set in the floor. Two meters across and filled with a very black mud that glistened like tar. It moved slightly, as if trying to form hands and faces that would swirl apart like patterns on oil to form new patterns.

Extending a little of my conciousness into the two golem, I called them forth to take Ariana from me.

"This is powdered demon stone wetted with oils. Some of it was once demon but now can hold form only weakly and is suited only for simple tasks. It cleans very well. It will enter every pore and analyse the surfaces by a simple algorithm, taking dirt and dead skin but leaving necessary body oils. It will remove the Troll blood better than any other method. It will even seal and sooth small wounds."

"Undress and enter the basin and wash in it. These beautiful statue will assist you if you become unsure. The mud devours hair, so do not let your braid fall in it. It may devour feathers, The Golem will hold them up if you wish."

I did not mention that as well as the golems, I could also extend my conciousness into the mud. I also striped of the last of my outsider cloths and stood back, immobile and on the surface as uncaring as stone, under the waterfall that pounded upon my naked head and chest. I would learn much as we both followed our separate paths to cleanness.

Would she show shame in her body before me? Perhaps attempt to conceal it behind her wings? Would she step willingly into the mud, or fight and struggle as the Golems washed her? How would she respond to the touch of the two Golem and the different touch of the mud? This would tell me much I desired to know.

 

[Marigold]

Ariana

Something made him heed my request and he tossed his knife away, saying that hair could be easily shaped. Shaped? I stored the scrap of imformation away automatically. If I somehow managed to escape, it might be helpful to the Cause. Obsidian lifted me up and carried me into his palace as if I were incapable of walking. I frowned, but did not fight him. I would save my strength for the battles that actually mattered.

Inside, the place was forbidding as the exterior had been. The very darkness of the stone seemed to leer at me. The torrent of water roared, but not as loudly as one would think and I looked at it curiously as he washed his feet. I found this curious as well. Were Demons tidy? He finally deposited me by a black pool, roiling and somehow sickening because of the furtive movement within. I listened as he explained what it was, and my eyes widened in horror when he ordered me to bathe in it. He wanted me to undress with other beings present? And then willingly put my body in that mess? A little disbelieving laugh escaped.

"I'm sorry, but I don't think you understand. I can't undress in front of anyone, much less Hellspawn. I don't have a problem with taking a bath, in fact, it sounds wonderful, but if you could take me to a bathing room, it would be more appropriate." This I said politely, but resolutely. Even if the worst had befallen me, I could at least comport myself in a dignified manner.

However, my captor seemed to have no use for my dignity. He merely nodded to the convenient statuary, and they took my arms in a gentle, but nonetheless stonelike grip. One held me tight, despite my struggling, as the other undressed me. I had never been so humiliated before. A deep, all-encompasing aversion to nudity is a part of any Angel's makeup. The statues did not stop until I stood naked and shamefaced. Then the one who had done the stripping took my other arm, and they held me before him, for his inspection. Fury filled me once more as his eyes raked over my small form slowly, missing no detail. I had no hair that wasn't attached to my head, for that is the way I was formed, the way all Angels were formed, I would assume. My breasts were neither small nor large, the round swells tipped with rosy peaks. My skin was, of course flawlessly pale, excepting where it was streaked with dirt or blood or a few shallow cuts. The whips had left welts on both wrists and one of my ankles.

At length, he seemed to have seen enough to satisfy him, and the demons that held me dragged me to the pool. This was another struggle, and not because of my pride this time. The pool truly frightened me, and the thought of being scoured by half-dead demon flesh was enough to my anyone queasy, I would think. Nevertheless, the statues were as imovable as the stone they were formed of, and I was soon immersed to the waist in the sluggish fluid that felt disturbingly alive. Mindful of his warning, I held my wings high, and the Statue-women took care not to let my hair get into the slime. Once in, I ceased my fighting, for I was anxious to have the whole thing over with. The statues scoured the grime from me, and he did not lie about the cleaning properties of the pool. Soon I was done, the shallowest of the cuts faded as if they had never been, and the statues assisted me out of the pool once again.

Obsidian had watched the entire process as if it were the most fascinating phenomenon that had ever occured, and when I finally stood before him and the Demonesses had released me, I wrapped myself in my wings, having no other form of concealment.

I ground out from between clenched teeth, "May I *please* have my clothing back now?"

 

[peterpan]

She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen.

She did not enjoy the Golem's touch. Or the caress of the black mud. She had shown some fear, but mastered it. And yet I had no impression that she truely understood what it was she had to fear. Fortunate she did not escape into the Demon City!

The mud, having no will of it's own, would obey the the commands of demons, or otherwise the leaked imaginings of the less disciplined mind. Human women forced into this bowl constructed their own ravishment from their deepest imaginings. Eventually the instant enactment of their imaginings would drive the purest wanton. Some demons kept humans enslaved by this addiction as amusements. I disliked the shortness of such women's attention span.

Ariana simply had no concept of the use to which her body might be put. She expected only teeth and claws and suffocation from the pool, nothing I had interest in exploring with her. I now understood the root of her confusion at my earlier probings. She simply did not understand. She would.

Oblivious to my internal revalation, Ariana, having finished, growled with what now seemed to me like unto the exasperation a child shows for the senseless and cruel ways of adults. "May I *please* have my clothing back now?"

Her words were so incongruous to her situation that I barked out a laugh before I could stop myself. The expression on her face made me laugh harder. My laughter only died as I remembered that her request was entirely serious. She had no doubt been created with the compulsion to modesty ingrained.

"No."

She had learnt fury. She could unlearn modesty. Yes. When I took her It would be surrounded by mirrors so that every way her head turned she would see how my mouth and hands worshipped her body, as she felt me moving inside her.

"I thought I would need to bind your hands," I mocked gently. "Now I see I do not. I need only to keep you naked and your hands will be welded to your body, to cover a few inches of flesh!"

Her belt and boots were salvageable. I gave them to the assistants to process. Maybe a time would come when they would make a suitable present. A reminder of her life before. For now I would not leave her anything she could use to escape in a moment's inattention. Like the laces of her boots. The tunic and leggings were torn and bloodstained and dusty. I threw them into the mud where they were consumed as if by invisible fire.

Perhaps I could use her very compunction to fixate her mind on the mysteries of her body.

"Does he clothe you because he is shameful of his own creation? Or is he jealous of any one but him gazing upon it. Articulate what you fear to be the consequences. Answer me well and honestly and I shall dress you in all the gold and jewelery of a princess. Otherwise, speak no more of it until you have an answer."

More gently I added. "I left you your braid, did I not? Down here where your God cannot see you, and the choice is yours and for you alone, would you trade your braid for a few feet of silk?"

 

[Marigold]

Ariana

OOC: I've been up for thirty hours straight now, so if this post is rather insipid or typo-ridden, I eschew responsibility.

IC:

No? He says "No" after laughing in my face? If I were not so busy trying to keep myself covered, the temptation to leap upon him and at least try to claw his eyes out might have been overwhelming. As it was, I merely simmered quietly and repositioned a wing to better conceal myself.

"Does he clothe you because he is shameful of his own creation? Or is he jealous of any one but him gazing upon it. Articulate what you fear to be the consequences. Answer me well and honestly and I shall dress you in all the gold and jewelery of a princess. Otherwise, speak no more of it until you have an answer."

This caused a rather surprised blink on my part. It was just bad to be unclothed. I knew not why, had never given it a moment's thought.

"I left you your braid, did I not? Down here where your God cannot see you, and the choice is yours and for you alone, would you trade your braid for a few feet of silk?"

At this, he turned away as if to leave. I stopped him with a little cry of alarm. As badly as I hated him for doing this thing to me, he was the only remotely familiar thing here. I found myself not wanting to be left alone. Yes, surely it was only the fear of the unknown.

He stood looking at me, waiting for me to say something more instead of standing there like some witless dolt. "I...I'm truly not sure why it is bad...and I don't suppose there are any real consequences, but..."

A frustrated sigh. I was not used to articulating such things, and knew I was making a muddle of it. "Right now I feel embarrassed, vulnerable, stripped of my dignity. I feel as if I am nothing anymore. To me, that is the consequence of having no clothing. To be in this position in the first place is demoralizing enough, but to be reduced to running about like some unknowing, uncivilized animal only drives the point home all the more surely. I don't want gold or jewels or silk. I only want a simple piece of clothing that covers me. If the price is my hair, then you may have it."

I winced a bit, but resolved myself to its loss. The braid seemed an insignifigant thing next to being so exposed, to having strange eyes look at me, know what my body looks like in places I have only glimpsed in passing myself. No, if he wanted my hair, for whatever unknowable purpose, he was welcome to it.

I stood before him, sick inside at the humbled and pathetic picture I knew I made. I truly was nothing now. Most likely not even an Angel. Perhaps even now the Father was forming my replacement. Another shift of wing and hand to cover myself better, and I awaited his answer with something akin to dread.

 

[peterpan]

OOC:_____________
If you can still spell eschew correctly, (and in truth I would not know ) then your spelling is fine. Otherwise, if I cannot tell if the word is correct, what matter?

Hmmmm.. that would be an interesting exercise: writers on Literotica arranging a roleplay-athon, with the condition that all players turn up significantly underslept and inebriated.

IC:_____________
I looked at my warrior angel, taking in once more the beauty of her form. I wished to hold her head to my naked breast, to feel her own breasts pressed against my heat. Once more the lust that had assaulted me in the courtyard almost took me.

She had talked to a demon of her feelings, opening up to him a tiny piece of her heart that she had not known she had. She had shown vulnerability and, in despair, looked to a Demon to care.

I pondered the cruelty of what I would do next. Yet I was a Demon. Surely she would not for one second place true hope on a Demon's word?

"I will remove you of your braid."
"I will show you where you may dress in all the gold and finery of a pure and chaste princess. Or a choice of princesses."
"I will prove to you that you are still an angel; I will let you fly in sunlight."

I paused to let the words sink in. Everything I had spoken was truth. I let her read this from the sadness in my eyes.

"I expect no thanks for this. I expect you to hate me. I am a Demon. I only ask that you understand. Not accept, or invite, or forgive."

"My actions are not merciful. After I have done these things, I shall have my Demon's way with you. That thing you feared, That fear you could not express (for your god has allowed you no words for it) when in the courtyard and by the seigebow I touched your breast.. That thing shall come to pass."

I took her hands. Her face was so fixed on me and she had been so ashamed to look upon her own body that she did not yet notice the first token of it's desecration. The black mud that ate hair, it had bitten a hairs-width into her nails, and armored them with a layer of blackest purest Demon stone.

I looked into her eyes and found my tragic answer.

So it began.
First I took her braid. Not by cutting but by simple unravelling. I mussed the hair and comed it over her breast with my fingers.

Then I lead her from the bathing antechamber and into the vast atrium that was the central column of my home. Vast iron stairs spiralled up both sides of the Chiminy-like room, starting from where we stood and first meeting opposite us. The room was tall, but the way it narrowed as it rose made it seem taller still and strangely distorted, as if seen through a fish eye lense. Great chains the width of a mans waist hung down from the distant ceiling on pulleys. Great vines of my own concoction tangled most of the chains, and some of the silhoettes against the distant light above were not vines but great black snakes that quested from one vine or chain to the next. Gargoyles nestled in alcoves, overgrown yet still attentive.

But the room was large enough for an angel to fly in and swoop. And the light was sunlight. The first cruelty was that from here it looked as if an angel could simply fly up to it and be away. But the optical illusion that doubled it's height also halved the apparent spacing of the bars, and the sunlight that shone through was directed by great mirrors from much further above. I was counting on my angel first attempting freedom before even modesty.

"You may spread your wings and appreciate the sunlight that enters here. Convince yourself that you are still an angel. The snakes and gargoyles will not bother you. But they will catch you should you.. fall."

Many rooms lead off. I directed her eye to the doors opposite. "Once have had your fill of flying and sunlight, that is the hall of conquests. There you will find the attire of princesses, preserved much as they were delivered to us."

Another cruelty. The hall contained princesses, much as they were delivered to me. When demonkind learnt of the prophesy that had shaped me, they had begun elaborate experiments into the corruption of innocence across the world. The women and girls were princesses and those promised to god in all his various guises, extorted from the cowering human fiefdoms. The girls were promised that all they must do to return to their homes was resist the pleasure inflicted on them.

The black demonscript covering their bodies held them unaging for my inspection, endlessly reliving the very breath in which pleasure overtook them, and also described in detail the minutae of the experiment and conclusions. The conclusions were simply sumarised. Humans were easier than angels.

All the gold and finery of these experiments was not of their own choosing. Rather they were hung with all the most erotic and debasing attire that human men across the world had ever designed for human women.

Ariana might be able to canabilise these frozen princesses of enough ribbons and necklaces and netting and bracelets to preserve every bit of her modesty, but at the risk of being too laden with jewelery to walk let alone fly. I wondered if even on the forms of enraptured women Ariana would percieve the purpose of the clothing, beyond its inferior modesty.

What would she do? Totter out with her modesty intact but barely able to lift her arms in her own defence as I pluck each garment from her like a petal? Flee through my house, that she might chose the site of her own deflowerment? Or would she simply fly into a rage and attack, her modesty momentarily forgotten? All I truely knew was that one of my promises I would enact without compromise.

 

[Marigold]

Ariana

OOC: Nifty! The Great Insomniacs Drunkfest '01! We'll make it an annual event. Although I'm not entirely sure what the folk around here would produce with their inhibitions lowered. Scary thought, that. By the way, what is Obsidian wearing at this point? I posted before you edited a couple of entries back and if he's shed of clothing, this would elicit more of a reaction on Ariana's part than she's shown thus far.

IC:

I stood in the atrium, the weak sunlight filtering down and warming my cool face. Even this little drop of of gold from the sun's surface soothed me. I am a creature of Light, first and foremost. I was formed from it, I had spent my life serving it, and it was all I could do not weep with gratitude. I did not weep, however; merely lifted my wings, mindless of my state of undress now in the rapture of this one simple joy. Unknowingly, I allowed Obsidian a glimpse of what I was like before this had happened to me, for even though my fury and doubt had always been a part of me, so had the joys of being one of God's servants. Flight was the gift he had bestowed upon us that made up for the lack of time to persue our own goals. To fly was to feel alive, and I did so now, the Demon nearly forgotten. I rose with the unconcious grace that was as much a part of me as my body or my breath, towards the distant glow above. Up and up, engaging in a few playful arial acrobatics on the way, but not nearly as far as it had first appeared I would be able to go. I reached the bars at the top and was cruelly reminded again of my captivity. For those few precious minutes, the reality of it had fallen away in the pleasure of the movement of soaring, and to be drawn up short somehow made it seem worse than it had been before. I hovered just beneath the bars a moment, drinking in the sunlight wistfully before allowing myself to spiral slowly back down to the stone floor. Landing beside the Demon, I wrapped myself again in hands and wings. At least I now had the added coverage of the golden waves of hair that concealed my breasts to a certain extent.

I looked to the floor sadly, wondering if he had planned the effect of my flight. Giving me just a taste of freedom had somehow magnified the lack of it in my mind. Funny how one never thinks about or appreciates such things until they are taken from us.

He nodded to the door across from us. "Would you like to chose your clothing now?" He put an odd emphasis upon the word clothing, but I nodded with as much eagerness as I was capable of mustering at this point. We trailed our way across the room silently, and I tried to make heads or tails of his warning of what I had feared happening at the seigebow coming to pass. What had I feared then, with his hand on my breast? I shuddered a bit, but no answer presented itself.

Two Gargoyles detached themselves from the wall and opened the doors before us. I don't know what I had been expecting. A museum full of the clothing of this creature's dead victims, perhaps? What greeted me instead were a chorus of feminine moans, and I blinked in astonishment. Why, the princesses themselves were still here. As we stepped into the room, I looked about at the looks on the faces of these creatures. They seemed to be in the midst of some sort of torture, their bodies covered with the black writing of the Demons, which I did not know how to read. One near me cried out, her face twisted in what must be agony. "What's wrong with them?" I asked Obsidian in a horrified whisper.

"They are locked in the moment just before their release, for all eternity." he replied. The answer did not tell me anything, but he seemed not to care. "You may choose your clothing from one or more of them. Take as much and anything you would like." I frowned a bit. The things these poor wretched creatures wore would not provide adequate covering for most insects, although what little of it there was was certainly sumptuous. I did not lie about my lack of interest in riches, however. What was the use of baubles to one such as myself? My eyes fell again on the girl who'd cried out before. She wore a heavy collar of beaten gold that extended over her breasts. Her hair was covered by a black headdress of elaborate design, her eyes heavily lined with some sort of cosmetic. I tried not to notice the look on her face, which was confusing to me. Instead I homed in on the gauzy dress she wore beneath the pounds of gold and lapis jewelry. It was plain white silk. As much as my mind reeled at taking the very clothes off the back of these somehow pathetic creatures, I realized the loss of the material would make little difference in what you could see of her. "I'll take her garment." I croaked in a strained whisper. Obsidian nodded and the ever-present gargoyles took it from her and brought it to me.

I dressed in it hurriedly. I'd chosen well. The bodice of the gown fastened behind my neck, the silk draping softly over my breasts in the front, but leaving my back bare so there was no interference with my wings. The skirt fell in soft folds to my ankles. I realized the the silk was so thin, you could see my nipples clearly through it, as well the details of my navel and the slit in the flesh between my legs when I moved so that the cloth fell against it. At least it was some nominal barrier to prying eyes, and I allowed myself to take comfort in the illusion of coverage. I did not meet Obsidian's gaze, in fact had not looked directly at him since before I'd bathed. He turned wordlessly and led me from the disturbing room, towards what I knew not.

 

[peterpan]

OOC:___
I didn't give much of a description when I stripped of my gear before standing under the waterfall. I was thinking of being in a loincloth, but that is too naked now and would have struck Ariana sooner.

Barefoot..I imagine something like a leather skirt that is quite tight at the waist (and has a wide ?sash?) I have seen something like this somewhere oriental but don't know what it is called. I will just call it a leather kilt to sound more manly, and cross my fingers that the image makes sense. All it really means is that the legs have not been called to attention. Beneath this I will wear something like a chainmail loincloth. (Demons need lots of support but have little problem with rash or pinching ) This is standard for demons and Ariana would frequently have fought Demons wearing nothing but this, and rusty to boot.

Hmmm.. this triggered a bit of a deluge.

These (the unclean ones) are Demons of low intelect, perhaps Golems, which are only act in the presence of a guiding mind. I am a Demon Lord, A rarity now on the battle field.

Actually I have been building up quite a Demonology, bits of which I can drop on you shortly. The gist is just that in the beginning the battles were pretty much white against black, hero against hero. But in Ariana's time it has become pretty much white against shambling monstrosities made of just about anything that can roll over the landscape, and new variations appearing all the time: concrete golems and hidious organic things that try to overwelm by force of numbers. There are many things that are designed to look somewhat like Demon Lords, Essentially being Demons of low quality construction and material, and mindless Golems of black stone. This makes it hard to detect the now rare occasions that a Demon Lord actually takes a hands-on approach and could explain how you were ambushed.

IC:_____

How beautiful my angel was in her element. Naked and carefree, delighting in the sunlight that caressed her body. the light seemed almost to swallow her, to curl around her. To bouy her up. I watched her through Gargoyle eyes from many perspectives, but it was the view from the floor that was most entrancing. Then she had reached the top, fliting like a tiny moth infront of the small crack of sunlight. I could not watch her disappointment. Then she began to decend.

I looked down. A shadow fell across my eyes. I percieved my angel sweeping playfully around me before alighting on my outstretched hand like a hawk returned to her master. Her skin was the purest white of porcelain. Her wings were as black as her nails from the Demon dust that had plated them over time and made them into razor blades. Her hair was black splinters. Her eyes were black on black and the tears of joy she wept at my homecoming ran down her face as the blackest ink. She tried to smile and her face cracked. The vision shattered. Like Porcelain.

Ariana stood before me.

Had her brief display of abandon also been an illusion? There was little sign of it now as she stood before me, hands crossed over her chest and the tips of her wings concealing her thighs, one knee modestly infront of the other. In a touchingly sweet oversight, a diamond was formed between elbows and wings that framed her navel, and I could observe from the movements of her taut belly that her breathing was slightly elevated from her exertions. And she seemed to glisten from the slightest film of angels sweat. Only this slight betrayal by her body revealed God's masterpiece as wrought of simple flesh.

I had not expected her to return to me. I had expected her to land directly by the hall of conquests, hunting cloth, while I remained here and would not need to watch her realisation of the trick I had played on her. I expected her to rush out in fury or in misery. Instead she made me watch.

Ariana chose the simple white gauze of a very ancient, very young empress.

Still stinging at my own shame, I felt that Ariana had not paid the women enough respect for their contribution towards the order to come. They were the finest specimens of a once noble race. I barely forgave her for not understanding what she saw. After a few seconds of sullen silence, that in hindsight was hypocracy of the worst degree, I felt constrained to tell Ariana something of the woman she had so grudingly used, but should have used with gratitude.

"This woman had been one of the first. She had called herself Cleopatra, for the simple reason that she was mad. Yet somehow she had carved herself an empire from the radioactive chaos of the fall of man, by the age of thirteen, and held a small piece of what was once humanities earth in relative civilization for seven years, if twisted by her insanity."

I paused, wondering to myself.

"Perhaps it was because she believed in demons before she ever met one."

"She was unsullied nobility only in her own mind but had remained chaste at least in those seven years since her rebirth.
The many human suitors that she played skillfully against each other in order to maintain power finally betrayed her to the Demons, and shortly after the last of human civilization of note was gone."

"I had only recently spoken my words of purpose with my rough hewn tongue, where I lay unrealised in the seam of unfinished heros, and the concepts of pleasure were new to the Demons that experimented upon her. Finally it was the gentle flicking of a demon asp's tongue that she permitted to bring her paralysed flesh to the state in which you had the honour of witnessing it."

I had timed it well. We had come to what I hoped might be the last doorway Ariana ever walked through as a God-Fearing slave of heaven.

My expression was blank, as if this were the threshold to any other room, as I ushered Ariana through before me. She entered, frowning deep in thought at something she had apparently finally gleaned from what I said, I think so unaware that she did not know she had entered a room until the door closed behind her with the softest gentlest sound of doom.

Ariana stood on a lush tongue of carpet that led from the door to her goal.

The room was large but shrouded in the heaviest blackness, barring it's very centre which lay in a cirle of light. There lay a square black satin slab only a handspan thick that nontheless promised to be sinfully soft. Although it was suspended another handspan from the floor by slats, although its corners were four low posts lathed with heads like rosbuds the term bed somehow would not apply. There were no headboard, no pillows, no blankets but the sheet that wrapped it. There was no up or down, all four sides were entirely symetrical. The posts were set deeply into the rock of the floor.

A thin coil decended from an invisible ceiling to almost touch the slab. It twisted slightly in the rock still air and the tiny black snakes eye of it's shaped tip seemed a star that winked.

In my hands I held a delicate brush, and a tiny bottle of the blackest ink.

"Will you, a warrior of heaven, be as brave as Cleopatra?"

 

[Marigold]

Ariana

I followed him, listening to his tale of the human I'd taken the dress from. I'd never taken a particular interest in humans. The humans were not my job. They belonged to the Guardians, and my task was to kill demons. I really saw them as little more than animals with the power of speech, but his story had sparked a moment of contemplation. I'd done nothing to help those women, nothing to alleviate their misery. I felt a twinge of guilt for this, but the simple fact was that Angels were made for one specific task, and did not function well outside that realm of expertise. I was not used to considering anything beyond which sword stroke to use to disintegrate the next monster. Perhaps it was time for me to learn flexibility. I resolved to find some way to free the humans. I might be consigned to separation from the Father for all eternity, but perhaps I could find other ways to do His work, by thinking for myself.

Obsidian went on, letting slip, perhaps by accident, a bit about his origins. Obviously Demons were formed in an obscene parody of the way we were. This too was something I'd never thought about. Why had I never stopped to consider any of these things, why had I blindly attended to whatever task was set in front of my face with no contemplation? Was it perhaps because I was discouraged from it? I could remember asking questions when I was newly-formed. Why? How? Nevermind Ariana, that is not for you to worry on, just come to sword practice. It struck me that this was perhaps a bad way to deal with people. Maybe even a little cruel. If I'd been allowed to adapt more, perhaps I would not feel so lost now. Perhaps I would not even be here now in the first place.

It occurrred to me that these thoughts were blasphemy, and I immediately recoiled from them. How far I'd fallen in such a short time. My wings trembled as I berated myself for my churlishness. To blame my current situation on anyone but myself was a dodge, a rationalization to make myself feel better. I'd always been troublesome, and this was just the conclusion to a life not lived with the absolute dedication and discipline that had been asked of me. I accepted the shame I felt as inadequate punishment for my ingratitude and drew up short as I noticed we'd entered a chamber of sorts.

It was stark and forbidding and it somehow felt like my destiny, my doom pervaded the very air.

"Will you, a warrior of heaven, be as brave as Cleopatra?"

The fine hairs at the nape of my neck prickled, and I felt the shadow of my demise as one feels the first breath of a storm as a gentle breeze. Oh, I did not believe he meant to do me the simple kindness of killing me. Instead, he would make me into a traitor.

I faced him levelly, looking him in the eyes. "You will not break me. You. Will. Not. Break. Me."

 

[peterpan]

OOC: I am just amazed at how addicted I instantly became
I wonder if I will get any work done THIS week

IC:__

Without warning I had dropped her in the cold waters of inevitablity. For a moment I thought she would shatter, and I would be alone once more. instead she hardened.

"You will not break me. You. Will. Not. Break. Me."

Until this moment I could not be absolutely sure of the true material of her character. Yes, she was hot, Sometimes white hot, from the furnace of her fury, but some alloys when heated and suddenly cooled would shatter. Others would become stronger. For iron to become steel, it was not purity that was desired. Just a little bit of carbon.

However, neither would Ariana be likely to stand still and submissive while I performed some delicate preparations upon her body. It had been necessary to startle her with the impliments of Demon script, and make her think once more of the women in the hall of conquest, but momentarily I reshaped them as a stone pendant around my neck.

I advanced. She did not retreat. I encompassed her shoulders in my arms, pinning them. One hand clenched her hair and kept her face to mine as I knelt. She could not raise her hands higher than to claw at my waist and she was too flat against me to kick. Our faces were close in the cage of my shoulders and arms. Her wings beat against me but could not intrude.

Ariana's eyes were wide but still steely. I could feel her heartbeat, rapid like a bird's. With my free hand I moved hair from her face delicately. Then I retrieved the brush.

The brush was a strange shape of metal with almost no substance, but one end unmistakibly had quills.

When I spoke, the words were almost holy.

"This is shadow of the great Demon, collected from where it fell upon the fabric of this universe. It is said that the great Demon was so massive and so black that even its shadow had mass.
It is the source of all Demon power.
It is Clockwork demons, smaller than the smallest increment of time.
Maxwells Demon, the humans named it. But they did not believe in it. For it violated one of the four great laws.
When they invited what they did not believe in, it reduced all human wisdom to inconsequence. Rewrote history both forwards and backwards.
Demon ink."

"It will make you the most coverted of God's angels, even once you are godless and without faith. They would most certainly take you back, and render you down for the merest chance of it. The foundations of Heaven were built by Demons, according to plans written in Demon ink. If there is a soul, A web of Demon ink could catch it."

I returned my attention to my angel's face. I wished to kiss it, but this was not the time.

"These will be only minor ensorcelments. To secure your attention."

There was required only a few quick strokes of Demonscript to each eyelid. The effect was not unpleasing to me. Though they appeared solid black, each bristle wrote its own script within the sweeping curves of my strokes, and if you could look close enough you would see that each bristle was infact many, and each wrote its own script fractally upon Ariana.
Threads of script entered Ariana painlessly, and for a second black ink swirled in the whites of her eyes. Then the whites cleared and all that remained was a thin black outline to the blue of each iris.

"Look at Me, Ariana." Her eyes jerked to mine. She struggled, but could not even blink as I blew the ink dry. Her eyes would not tire. For the few seconds the instruction lasted, their stare was as timeless as the eyes of Cleopatra.

For a brief second I extended my conciousness to the ensorcelled eyes and looked at my own face. There was water in her eyes as well as hatred but she would say nothing to condemn or free me.

I wanted her to tell me everything. Let out her hatred, let out her fears, and betray the first glimmer of enlightenment when I found the key to pleasure her. I wanted her to talk to me regardless of what she said.

Squeezing each lip into a pucker, I layed down a new script and blew it dry. Tendrils extended back to the speach centres of Ariana's mind. It was no truth spell. I could not command anything from her unless I also commanded her lips what to say, and what use was that? Rather it would be as a drunkness that only touched her lips and left her mind confused only by her lips betrayal. Words she would have bitten back or reconsidered. Irrelevant thoughts. Thoughts never intended to be spoken.

Oh she could fight it, with song and litanies and simple attention to saying nothing. I had no doubt of her will. But I also had no doubt that her will would soon have other battles.

We were still close enough to share the same breath. Her body was trembling against mine now. At last I allowed myself to kiss her cheek.

"Tell me what you need, my angel. Speak your thoughts."

 

[Marigold]

Ariana

OOC: Tell me about it. All we can do is ride the wave of obsession until it ebbs.

IC:

"Tell me what you need, my angel. Speak your thoughts."

"I need to go home!" The words come out of my mouth unbidden. "You're turning me into something I don't want to be. Why must you be so beautiful?" I gasped, having intended to say none of this, and even yet I continued. "You've changed me in just the short time I've been here already, made me think things I was never intended to think, know things I was never meant to know. How changed will I be in a week, a month? I don't know what you mean to do with me, but in the changing of me, you will destroy what you seek, I think. And what then? I'll be of no use to you and of no use to Heaven. Why, why won't you simply kill me before I hurt those I've tried so hard all my life to please? You frighten me, Obsidian. I see the death of all I am written in your eyes."

The words had come out of me as if pulled, and I slumped against him, too fretful and exhausted to fight at the moment. "I'm so alone. Before I was part of something great. A spring in the great clockwork of the universe. Here I am but me, and very small and weak. I hate it. I want my sword back, so I can slay you all and reclaim what I was. So I can be strong again. Can you even imagine what it's like to stand in God's Legion, hearing the trumpets sound the call to battle, rushing forward with thousands of your Brethren to face a common foe? There *is* no you at that moment, only the unstoppable force of God's Wrath. I don't know how to be me. No one ever told me how."

My voice wound to a halt on a pathetic quiver and I hated myself more than I'd ever hated any monster I'd driven my sword through. My mind went blank and the words ceased and I said a prayer in thanks for it, though it would not be heard. I merely rested my head on the chest of the one who was becoming the center of my world, whether I willed it or no.