[fic] Accusations
Title: Accusations.
Author:
zekkass.
Artist: the_disillusion
Fandom/Original: Original.
Rating: NC-17.
Characters/Pairings: Kazbiel/Suphlatus, Flauros (two fallen angels, a demon)
Warnings: Femslash, general creepiness, etc.
Word Count: 10,418 words.
Notes: Many thanks to
ravenspear for her beta-work. :3 Written for
angelic_bigbang, too!
This was written in a flash of inspiration as NaNoWriMo was coming up, and while it's not quite the story I envisioned, it is something I'm pleased with, and I hope you all enjoy it.
While I think it works as a standalone story, it does lead rather obviously into my much longer story, Division. You're not obligated to read it, but it's there if you want to. :3
Finally, there isn't an artpost yet - I'll edit this when there is one.
Summary: It starts with a question: "Do you remember Heaven?" and goes from there. A pair of Fallen angels talk themselves into leaving Hell for Earth after one of them realizes that something much nastier than demons or angels is looking for her by destroying small portions of Hell in the process. Kinda. It's complicated, and does involve a fight against a sea monster who is also an angel.
---
"You don't remember Heaven," her lover accuses. "That's why you're so happy down here."
Kazbiel props herself up on her elbows and gives her a look. "Nothing wrong with making the best of a situation, is there?"
"Do you remember Heaven?" Suphlatus asks her flat-out. She sits up as she does, swinging her legs off the bed. The tattered cloth around her waist threatens to crumble into dust as she moves, but as always it just barely holds itself together.
Kazbiel distracts herself by studying the smooth skin of Suphlatus' back and doesn't answer. It's a sticky question.
She watches as Suphlatus stands up and turns around, and she tries a friendly smile when Suphlatus leans in to cup her chin with long fingers. Kazbiel can feel the ragged edges of her fingernails against her cheeks.
They meet each other's eyes, and Kazbiel licks her lips, tilting her head in Suphlatus' hold.
"You don't, then." Suphlatus says at last.
"I didn't say anything!"
Suphlatus closes her eyes and lets go. "You don't need to."
"Suph - "
"Why don't you remember Heaven?"
Kazbiel kicks her feet in irritation, then rolls over and sits up. "I remember it fine. It was just never home for me. Not like Hell is now."
It may be wrong of her to take pleasure in the confusion on Suphlatus' face, but being wrong is what Hell is about. None of the angels here are kind, no matter what they play at.
"Care to explain that?"
"Heaven's a sore spot for everyone," Kazbiel says, shrugging. She gets off the bed as well, grabbing a string from mid-air and putting her hair up, tying a knot in it with deft fingers. "Just not for me. Get over it."
She feels ragged fingernails at the base of her throat.
"...I knew I couldn't stay there, alright? From the moment I popped into being, I knew Heaven would get rid of me, one way or another. It's nothing special or worth learning. Is that better?"
"None of us knew what would happen." Suphlatus' voice is flat, and Kazbiel knows she's in for more questions.
"I didn't know this would happen." Kazbiel turns to face Suphlatus, and puts her arms on Suphlatus' shoulders, leaning in. "I just knew I'd be kicked out eventually. When there was a place outside of Heaven that I could be kicked to."
"That's - "
Kazbiel interrupts her with a finger to the lips. "Until you know the story behind my creation, don't say a word. Just trust that I remember Heaven, and I don't miss any of it."
Suphlatus gives her a quiet look - she doesn't believe Kazbiel - but she pulls her claws back from Kazbiel's neck. "I won't get the rest of it out of you, will I?"
"You're smart enough to know when to retreat." Kazbiel offers, and she collects the sheet from the bed, wrapping it around her in a makeshift outfit. She doesn't mind the dust that coats it, and she doesn't mind how filthy she is simply by being around the angel of dust.
Suphlatus says nothing to her, and the bed collapses as its reality makes way for Suphlatus' will. The room crumbles into a cave, and Kazfiel walks with her to its mouth.
"Do you remember the gardens?" Suphlatus speaks suddenly, and Kazbiel stops at the question.
"Which ones?" Kazbiel says. She remembers them, and she remembers...
Suphlatus says nothing.
Kazbiel looks at her, then closes her eyes and gives into the unspoken request.
"It was the only time I was able to get close to my twin."
As a little girl, she's crouched behind some flowered bushes, peeking through the foliage to spy on the men sitting under the trees. Her form is intentional, as is Haniel's when he abandons the human shape in favor of a lion to confront her. Imagery is half the communication in Heaven, and she leaves immediately at the threat.
There's a lot she doesn't tell Suphlatus, even if they are lovers.
She changes the topic. "What do you think of the attempt to recreate some of those gardens here?"
"Doomed to failure, and I might help it along." Suphlatus says flatly. There's not a lot she's emotional about, but the undercurrent of anger under those words is stronger than Kazbiel's heard before.
"Something bothering you?" She asks.
"Go play with the humans if you won't answer my questions."
Clear dismissal. Kazbiel gets going.
---
There is no comfort to be found in Hell except in the arms of another Fallen, and that is never a perfect distraction. There is always a rock that digs into the back at the wrong moment, or a surge of heat in the room that burns, or countless tiny coincidences that line up to make the encounter unpleasant.
It doesn't help that the Fallen are entirely unpleasant as a whole. It's easy to try loving another, but what feelings they can raise are hollow, bitter imitations of what they once had in Heaven.
The only emotions that last are anger and loyalty, and Lucifer has decreed that they must be loyal to him and him alone.
Everyone thinks of disobeying his orders and no one follows through on their thoughts.
Hell is a terrible, awful place, and Kazbiel makes it her home in lieu of other options.
---
Kazbiel sits on a rock in the middle of nowhere and lets herself curse her choice of lover. Suphlatus' home is unpleasant to travel through, and just because they can mold portions of Hell to their personal visions doesn't mean they should.
There's the sound of breaking rock and wind whips up, and when Kazbiel looks up, there's a tornado forming in the storm, an artifical force made to make Suphlatus' desert worse.
Fear makes Kazbiel draw her wings in close, giving her small shelter from the storm, but necessity makes her stand up. As always she is reminded of Heaven, because here she cannot flit between forms without effort, time and pain (another inconvenience of Hell's design) then she must weather the destruction of this storm.
Except that there is nothing but her pride preventing her from taking to wing and fleeing from the danger as fast as possible, and that's what she does.
It's an excuse to drop in on Suphlatus again, too.
---
"I've never understood why you're the angel of dust."
"I get the sense that you don't understand a lot of things about angels." Suphlatus is standing at the mouth of the cave, exposing herself to the elements she has created. Kazbiel stays back from the biting winds and tries to force down indignation.
"You're talking like I'm some human," Kazbiel says.
"There is no understanding why I'm the angel of anything. Just trust that we were made in the right way for the right purpose."
"Which is why we're down here."
"Bitter? I'm glad you are. Some of us should gnash our teeth, wail, and rage at the Heavens. Else we'll get curious angels descending to find out what's happened to us down here."
"You aren't bitter, Suphlatus? I'm surprised, I thought you missed Heaven."
Kazbiel watches muscles tense in Suphlatus' body, and walks closer, fingers outstretched to brush at her back. The circle outlined in ink is hidden under layers of grey dust, and she can see pale skin when the wind wipes the dust away.
"It's never that simple," Suphlatus says, and Kazbiel abruptly has to step back and cover her face. The wind has sharpened, and new cuts open on her arms where it lashes at her. "You should stay inside."
Kazbiel lowers her arms, lifting her chin. Is this it? Is this where she calls an end to their affair? Is she willing to attack Suphlatus over this issue? Here is the problem with pride, and here is the problem with maintaining a hierarchy among the Fallen: when it's entirely a case of who will bow to who when tempers flare. Suphlatus' words could be a slight, and if she stays inside it might be a signal that she'll bend to Suphlatus' will in other things.
Her arms hurt, and if she cared about pretending she was human she would make her arms bleed as well, but she does not.
She moves forward and tangles her fingers in Suphlatus' hair, tightening her grip there, and she yanks her lover's head back enough so she can kiss dried and cracked lips. She bites, tastes dirt, and growls low in her throat.
Suphlatus is moving, grabbing her shoulders as she turns, and they wrestle for position as the wind howls around them, and it hurts when Kazbiel finally forces Suphlatus down on the ground; it hurts as the sand batters her feathers and tries to rip some free.
Kazbiel bends down and kisses Suphlatus again, feels her hair fall down over her shoulders and knows that the tie binding it has failed.
"What did you take offense to?" Suphlatus asks her when she finally lifts her lips. "What angered you?"
Kazbiel shakes her head and moves down Suphlatus' body, holding her shoulders as she licks her breasts, and there. There's the moan she listens for every time they do this, and there's the sign she was waiting for. Now she can lower her guard a little (not entirely, never entirely) and enjoy the sex.
She bites, and feels Suphlatus raise her legs, urging her to slide down and lick further down, but no - not yet. There will be bruises for both of them when she's finished, and that sets the tone for the entire act.
Teeth, moans, and the taste of dust. Suphlatus rolls them over and pins her hands above her head as she licks and tastes her neck, and Kazbiel can feel the stone of Suphlatus' knees digging into her thighs as she kneels on her, and it hurts - "Get off me!" - but Suphlatus laughs at her and slips rough fingers into her and that hurts too, but in all the best ways.
Kazbiel kisses her again, splays her hands on Suphlatus' smooth back, and decides that her cuts will bleed light today, see if she can't cover the sand of this cave in light, see if she can't clean away the dust with it. (Water makes it clump together, makes it all worse, and wind makes it cut into her.)
- bright light around Suphlatus' fingers as Kazbiel comes -
They're kissing again, and Kazbiel shoves Suphlatus against the wall so she can kneel before her (that's always good for the ego, makes it less likely she'll get hurt while she's busy down here) and licks.
The wind dies down as Suphlatus lets it go, busy with the sensation of tongue and lips, and Kazbiel revels in the sounds she hears now, revels in how clearly she can hear Suphlatus moan.
She tilts her head back and grins at the sight, Suphlatus' hands held close to her breasts and still covered with light, and Suphlatus' head tilted back, bliss apparently on her face - enough incentive for Kazbiel to return to her task, more than enough incentive for her to be gentle now, to make it last.
There aren't words when Suphlatus finishes, and Kazbiel pulls her down to kiss her again, and if their only bed is stone and sand, and if their blanket is tattered fabric Suphlatus makes, it's so much better than anything Kazbiel felt in Heaven.
(Kazbiel, meaning 'she who lies to God')
---
Leaving Suphlatus behind is easier than it should be. There's no storm, and the wasteland seems smaller this time. Kazbiel flies up, and up to the very roof of Hell, and trails fingers along the hot stones that aren't always solid.
"Shouldn't be here for too long," she murmurs to herself, feeling the familiar tug start to worsen. If she gave into it, she'd leave Hell, and probably be slain or worse by an angel on Earth. There'd be no chance that she could find her way to Heaven and then to her twin. Not by flying blindly.
It's still harder than it should be to pull her fingers away from the stone (the roof isn't always stone; she's been in portions of Hell where it's an endless ocean, or sky, or wooden or something else altogether) and it's an effort to spiral down and land.
There. Landfall, and already she regrets it. The ground is red and slick with blood, and there are open fires nearby: the heat is immense, and she has to actively alter the reality around herself so she does not burn with it.
A demon approaches her, coiled like a whip, and makes obeisances to her.
"We welcome your presence," it says, and she stares it down, attempting to ascertain its age. The demons are getting more creative as new humans twist themselves in attempts to make life in Hell bearable, and its fascinates her to see how grotesque they can become.
Perhaps it's a form of worship towards the Fallen? As some of her bretheren have twisted their own forms or portions of their forms for countless reasons, and she needs only to think of Suphlatus' alteration of her legs into stone for an example.
"I'm not staying long," she says at last. "Get back to your business."
She watches the demon leave, winding around itself as it goes, and she concludes that she needs more information to determine its age. Not that it matters, after all - demons are a dime a dozen down here, and any strong human can force itself to thrive in such conditions.
It's always fun to stay and study the demons, but she has other reasons to be here, in the region of Hell most humans call home. Namely, there's a demon she finds entertaining.
Kazbiel walks the winding paths through the fires and lava, wings spread to soak in the heat, and she continues to stifle that ever-present tug.
"Flauros!" She calls ahead of her. He'll be here, she knows it. It's why she calls out.
A headless man approaches her, the face of a leopard embedded in his chest. He waves a clawed hand at her and the leopard shows its teeth.
"No threats today, please." She says. There's nothing to fear from him, in fact there's nothing to fear from any of the demons here, but she doesn't feel the need to remind the demons of their places constantly. Pretending that they were equals was interesting, too - rumors about other Fallen from the perspective of demons were easy to collect if they decided they liked her.
At least, Flauros pretended to like her. Others were more blatant about their fear, or their toadying.
The leopard's face speaks.
"Show me your face. Kazbiel. There is nothing for you here, yet I welcome your presence. There are rumors about."
She tilts her face towards him and lets the leopard's eyes roam over her features, patient. "What kind of rumors?"
"On the origins of Hell." Flauros' voice is a low rumble, and he gestures with a finger for her to follow him. They're both silent as he leads them down, down claustrophobic passageways with crude staircases carved from the rock. Man-made passages, perhaps? She can see the carving of these passages being an appropriate punishment in Hell, as they go on forever and it takes too long for them to reach a stopping point. Not that it's where the staircases end, as they continue to go down, down too far for her to see.
Flauros lets them out on the shores of an ocean, and the ceiling above them cuts off abruptly, as there is nothing above them and nothing ahead of them and only water below.
He crouches on the shores and points out at the waters. A cold wind blows off the waters, causing her to think of covering herself (and deciding against it), and causing Flauros' red fur to ruffle.
"What am I looking for?" Kazbiel asks, looking out at the waters, then at Flauros again.
"Wait," Flauros says, and she does.
The wind worsens, and the grey nothing above the water lightens. There's something out there, something too flat and too straight to be there.
"Oh," she says.
Flauros lowers his hand and stands up.
"You want me to find out what it is." She states, eyes still drawn to that line in the reality of Hell. Is it a door? Is it something worse?
"I want passage across the waters so I can find out what it is." He amends. "I cannot travel past here."
Kazbiel dips a finger into the water of the ocean to find out why, and hisses. It stings, it's too cold to be unfrozen and here it is, still liquid. She shakes off the water quickly, heating her finger and healing the sudden frostbite, and understands.
It's easy to decide what to do: the tug is there, and she needs something to do.
Hands under his arms, warmth extended to shield them from any water that may lash up at them, and she flies, hard and fast over these oceans. It's barely a minute before the light dims again, and she's flying in the grey dark.
"If you can still see it, tell me if I fly off course," she says over the wind.
"Change yourself," he says, a gentle rebuke, but he's soon giving 'too far to the left' and 'higher, please' directions.
Kazbiel lifts him more, savoring the strain in her arms, and wonders at how long she'll need to do this. It's going to take too long, she knows that.
There's no telling how long it's been when Flauros speaks again.
"Stop."
She does. "What is it?"
"Wait for the light to come back."
"That might take a long time," she says.
"Yes." Flauros rumbles agreement. "But we should wait for it to come back."
---
Suphlatus walks over sands; listens to the wind. All things eventually turn to dust, and all things end. She can hear everything crumbling now.
The wind lashes at her, drives the sand against her. Today she is annoyed by it, and turns it into dust, and watches fresh sand fall onto the suddenly calm desert.
"Kazbiel," she murmurs. "Come back. I can hear it."
Hear what?
She turns, shifting uncertainly. Suddenly the desert is too large, too quiet, too dark. Too dirty. She can't hear her sisters; her brothers. Loneliness fills her, and she covers her ears.
Maybe she should be glad that no one is here to see her fear, and maybe she is glad that no one knows how Hell gets to her. Maybe.
She can hear it. She can hear everything crumbling to dust, and the end of all things, and -
---
The light comes back.
It's sudden, a flick and there's light illuminating the nothing surrounding them, and Kazbiel would shiver except that she can't feel the wind anymore. It's not cold here, and it's not dark anymore.
She looks out at the flat line, and has to avert her eyes from it. Some things simply shouldn't be, and this is one of them. Up close it's too much to look at it.
"What is it?" Flauros asks from below her. "Do you know?"
Kazbiel shakes her head and tells herself that she can't show fear. Angels are higher than demons in all things, and so she must know.
She forces herself to look at it again.
"It's..." She trails off. It was warping, the line was bending and twisting before going flat again. "I need to set you down," she concludes. She wants to touch it.
There isn't air here, and there isn't anything here, but it's the normal sort of nothing, normal for Hell. She makes air out of it, gives it a color and solidifies it before setting Flauros down on the rectangular cloud.
"Are you scared?" She asks Flauros, voice light, teasing. She doesn't mind if he is; it'd make her feel better.
Flauros doesn't answer, eyes trained on the anomaly, and she turns back to it, holding back a sigh. Pride; it's something everyone down here has, something everyone nurses. An attempt to be closer to their sovereign lord?
The line twists again, and she flies close to it, wary yet curious. The tug inside of her is worsening, and she wonders: is this something more than the usual pull towards Heaven? Is it worse because the thing inside her wants to get away from this - whatever this is?
"Flauros!" She says, sharply. Too sharply, perhaps.
"What do you want?" Flauros asks, and she looks back at him to see him crouching again, digging his claws into the solid air.
"There's something through this. Watch." Impulsive lies for strength, for courage, and she pushes her hand through the line, through to wherever it's come from. She ignores thoughts about how she might lose her hand, or worse.
A crack, like thunder, and the line widens, opening like an eye. Her hand is still within it, and she feels - the thing inside her isn't tugging anymore, but yanking, and abruptly she is pulled back from the opening, flung back through the sky, curling her hands close to her in a protective hug.
It's too late, of course: she knows what's through there. Something touched her, a message, something was communicated to her.
"Oh," she says, stunned. "Oh."
Cold snaps at her as she lands in the water, and abruptly she has moved, has placed herself next to Flauros on the air. She can see the opening again, and her hold on herself tightens.
"What happened?" Flauros asks, and she startles when she feels him put a hand on her shoulder. "I saw - "
"It wants me. It wants to tear me apart, to take it," she's babbling. She closes her mouth, tells herself to calm down. That rift there is as far as it can come into Hell. She felt how much it wanted to follow her, how much it wanted to pull her in, and she felt its frustration. (Could such a deep and pervasive feeling of isolation and anger be frustration? There aren't words for what she felt from it.)
She tilts her head back to look up at Flauros.
"It's a window."
Flauros says nothing, tightens his grip on her shoulder.
"Closest word for it," she clarifies. "It's...that leads outside Hell. There's something there, looking in."
Flauros looks at the tear, and she looks back at it as well.
"It knows me." She whispers.
"Close it," Flauros says, voice suddenly commanding. It's a tone she's unused to hearing, and immediately she wants to push him off the air, watch him fall. No demon should order an angel, she can't let him get away with it.
She doesn't push him off the air, and reaches out, working with her essence (is that the thing inside her helping her? can it do anything other than react and try to pull her to Heaven?) to sew it shut.
She shivers as there's a stain on reality that reads of anger and something old and more, watches that black spread like oil on water, and then she wipes it clean. No, she won't let it stay.
"Done," Kazbiel whispers. She won't look at Flauros.
"I won't ask questions," Flauros says, hand still on her shoulder. "And I won't tell anyone about what we saw."
"Are you trying to comfort me?" She asks, twisting to look at him.
"Would you accept it if I were?"
Kazbiel frowns, then stands. "I have a lover already."
"I don't want you like that," Flauros says, and she frowns. It's easy to see how he might be attracted - human men like her form, don't they? - but -
"Are you trying to distract me?"
"I've never seen you look so upset," he says. He turns around, walks to the other edge of the cloud. "Can we go?"
She grabs him by the shoulders and flies, lost in thought: maybe he was right to distract her. But then, that would mean that he might even care about her wellbeing, and no demon...no creature thrown down here can care. Not like that.
"I should drop you," she whispers into a furred ear. "We should see how deep this ocean is."
"I thought you found me interesting." It's his only protest.
Her grip tightens, loosens, but ultimately she doesn't let go. She likes him too much, even for what he is.
---
"Why do you miss Heaven?" Kazbiel asks, and that's her greeting. She's found Suphlatus climbing rocks, picking her way down the side of this canyon - this giant chasm that marks one boundary of her territory - and it's a question she thinks she knows the answers to.
"Ask that again and I'll be right," Suphlatus answers her, testing her footing before taking another step. "You don't remember Heaven."
"I'm asking because I'm curious. Here, like this: why are you down here, instead of in that desert of yours?"
"But you don't know the answer to either question, Kazbiel." Suphlatus sounds bored. Kazbiel excuses her lack of attention due to the focus her lover is putting into climbing.
"Are you going to answer me or not?"
"I can't reach them all, but I can feel them." Suphlatus glances at her. "Something defying my will. It won't fade to dust like it should. I need to find it, and end it."
"And the other question?" Kazbiel prods, flapping her wings steady and slow to stay aloft but not bother Suphlatus with errant winds.
"I'd have to show you. It's not something I can tell you."
"Are we talking about an emotion or a memory or something else?"
"Everything." Suphlatus slips and falls down several feet before she catches a ledge and finds new footholds. "Everything, we're talking about Heaven."
"Right. Do you want me to carry you down there?" Kazbiel spirals down after Suphlatus, careful not to look directly at the dark. "There are better ways to go down."
"If I can get down like this, I can get back up with this wall, and I won't need to rely on you." Suphlatus grunts as she's forced to scoot to the side, searching blindly with her feet to find new footholds. "I would appreciate silence."
Kazbiel frowns and looks up, and up, and up - it's a long way to the top. There isn't light down here, either, and she's tempted to make a candle appear in her hands.
"Don't," Suphlatus whispers, and Kazbiel looks at her.
"Don't what?"
"Don't make a light. Not down here."
"You know me too well," Kazbiel says, half-jesting, half-afraid of what that means.
Suphlatus doesn't answer her, and Kazbiel closes her eyes. If they're going into a darkness this deep, then perhaps she should blindfold herself. It would be best to start getting used to navigating by sound and smell now, while it's still safe.
"Do we know if anyone has ever gone down this chasm?" She asks in a hushed tone.
"I have." Suphlatus answers. "But I haven't gone to the bottom, and never this far before. I haven't had a need to."
Kazbiel mms. She feels uneasy, and the feeling gets worse the lower they go. Suphlatus' climbing is slowing down, too, as stable footholds become fewer and farther between.
"Too smooth," Suphlatus mutters.
"What?"
"The wall's too smooth."
"You mean you're running out of places to climb."
"It's not just that, Kazbiel." There's something odd in her voice. Fear? No. Something else. Kazbiel has trouble identifying it. "It's close."
"Now can I make a light?"
Crack! - the sound of breaking rock, and Kazbiel immediately flies lower, following the noise. She hears Suphlatus swearing, and it's a frantic grab for her shoulders, before she can get arms around Suphlatus. It's the work of a moment to create some light, and then there they are: two stone walls, going up and down forever, slowly narrowing the further down they go.
Suphlatus was right, too: the walls are smooth, and the uneven edges she was using to climb are gone now.
"There," Kazbiel whispers, securing her grip on Suphlatus. She won't look down.
"...I'll find humans hung out here," Suphlatus whispers. "Chained to the wall to unsteady places..."
Kazbiel says nothing, and tries to calm herself. There's nothing below. She has to believe that.
Abruptly there are the sound of claws, scratching uselessly at a door. A scrabbling, and her instinct is to flee. But Suphlatus is heavy in her arms and fear...fear is not permissible here.
"What was that." She asks instead, tone flat to mask everything.
"We're close," Suphlatus says, and Kazbiel is glad she can't see her face. "It won't ever fade into dust, it's eternal, undying, wrong; Kazbiel, we have to end it. It has to. Has to go." Fear isn't allowed here, Kazbiel is sure that she doesn't hear fear in her voice.
The scrabbling is getting faster, more frequent. Kazbiel can hear it.
"Turn," Suphlatus orders. "I need to face it."
Kazbiel is stiff as she turns, movements jerky and hesitant. It will be a rend in reality like the thing Flauros showed her, and inside it - through it - will be something that knows her, and she will have to flee then, she may need to drop Suphlatus so she can flee fast enough to escape it, and -
There are rats. Eyeless rats, clawing at the walls of the canyon. There are no rends in reality, none like the one she saw, just rats. Tied tail to tail, a balled mass of them trying to climb the walls, silent except for the sound of claws scrabbling at rock, digging grooves in the stone.
"What..." Kazbiel asks, staring at the writhing mass. This can't be what she was afraid of, can it?
"Kill it!" Suphlatus orders, and Kazbiel has never been so happy for direction before in her life.
Fire is her first thought, thought becomes reality, and the twine holding the rats together burns easily enough, sparks burning fur as the individuals fall away and down into the dark.
It doesn't take very long, honestly. The last of the twine burns away, and so do the rats, and they are alone again in the dark. Lower as well, as Kazbiel lost altitude while she was focused on the fire.
"Please say that was it," she asks, but she knows in the pit of her stomach that it wasn't. It's not silent down here, and the scratching is still present, but now...the rats are gone. It's a patient scratching, the knocking of something that knows it will get through with enough time and effort. It makes Kazbiel's heart race in fear, and the tug worsens, pulling at her.
"No," Suphlatus says. "I'm sorry."
"Then where - ?" Kazbiel doesn't finish her question. She may not be able to stay down here for much longer. "Suphlatus, we can leave it for later." It's a feeble protest, too weak to succeed and she can't stop herself from saying it.
Suphlatus puts a hand down, on Kazbiel's hip, and digs her fingernails into skin. "Down."
Kazbiel makes a soft noise and drops, tightening her hold on Suphlatus. She imagines water flowing out of the cut, water winding its way down her leg, down to her toes, dripping off in a steady rhythm, droplets falling for eternity.
Water for rats, she thinks, instead of thinking of where Suphlatus is guiding her, with one word commands and claws in her skin when she doesn't fly fast enough.
Down.
Down.
The walls are closing in when Suphlatus stops her. Her wingtips brush at stone and it's still smooth, but darker now. Not grey stone, but black, and glossy. Almost pretty, and in the pale light she still has up, it's chilling. She doesn't feel safe down here, for all her power.
Neither does the tug inside of her. The jumble of syllables within her are desperate to make her ascend, to force her back to the known areas of Hell.
For there is the rend in reality, the window through which that terrible being lurks. She can reach inside it again, she could simply disappear through it, for the window's glass is transperent to her. She knows this, she felt this at the last one.
"That," Suphlatus says, pausing, "Needs to be destroyed." She pats Kazbiel's hip and tilts her head back. "Kazbiel, get rid of it."
Kazbiel raises a hand, automatically thinking of fire again, but no, that won't work here. It's harder this time, what with the frantic screams within her, and her fear, but she closes it. The act itself is easy, even if focusing for it is not. The window closes, and it's done.
"Good," Suphlatus murmurs. "Let's go." There's something in her tone, something that warns of curiosity and questions later. It makes Kazbiel tense, rings warning bells in her mind.
She could drop Suphlatus, and avoid the questions altogether.
It's a tempting thought.
Suphlatus shifts in her hold, and Kazbiel snaps back to reality. Tempting or not, she wouldn't dare. So she ascends instead, and flies up as fast as her wings can carry her.
---
"There was one of those in here," Suphlatus says conversationally, as if they weren't lying together; post-coital. "It was right there. By your foot, and halfway into the wall as well."
Kazbiel yelps and shoots Suphlatus a dirty look before rolling off her and getting up. Time to go, if Suphlatus is getting into that mood.
"Scared?" Suphlatus asks, voice a low rumble.
Kazbiel creates twine out of dust and begins to tie her hair back, ignoring the question. She lifts her foot when Suphlatus grabs for it, and hops back when Suphlatus gets up.
"I'm not scared of you, if that's what you're asking," she offers.
"You closed that thing a lot faster than I did with the one here, and it was a lot cleaner than mine was." Suphlatus says, voice calm. "Care to explain?"
"No."
The mouth of the cave collapses. Kazbiel stills, her hands still in her hair. Was this planned? She berates herself for letting it happen, because it probably was. Suphlatus wouldn't let this go, not after it threatened her domain.
"Bleed light for me, Kazbiel."
Stone slams into her side, and Suphlatus follows up the kick with another, and when Kazbiel collapses against the wall, she fists her hand in Kazbiel's hair, dragging her up. They kiss, and Suphlatus bites, and Kazbiel turns her head away, swallowing. It hurts, that they're doing this now.
Suphlatus hisses and pins her to the side of the cave. "Talk to me."
"It's going to take a lot more violence before I tell you anything you want to know." Kazbiel says, spitting.
Suphlatus steps back, studying her in the dim light, and Kazbiel waits for the blows she knows are incoming. It will be easier to deny her lover once the pain is worse. Then she can use the bitterness, she can survive the stab of longing, of loneliness, she can rid herself of yet more family -
"Kazbiel," Suphlatus says, interrupting her thoughts. "There's no need for this resistance. We can trade."
"Trade?" Kazbiel asks, finally able to lower her hands from her hair. "Trade what?"
"Information," Suphlatus says. "Isn't it obvious?"
"There's nothing you can tell me that would be worth what I know."
"Not even memories of Heaven?"
Kazbiel pauses, honestly tempted. She looks at Suphlatus, and studies her. Is this a way out? Can she keep this angel? This connection?
Unfortunately, suspicion is still required. She can't let go of it, not here, not with another Fallen.
"What are you trying to do?" She's thinking, Let me trust you.
Suphlatus raises a hand, puts a finger over Kazbiel's lips, raises it to her forehead and adds another finger. She pushes gently, and Kazbiel opens her mouth, eyes widening.
She can see -
It's the only thing that she believes in. The singing. It reverberates through Heaven, fills the air with glory, and Suphlatus often joins in, adding her voice to the choir. Voices fade in and out as angels are called to duties, become engaged in other activites, but there are always more singing; there is always an ongoing hymn of praise and exultation in the air of Heaven.
There will always be a hymn in Heaven, and Suphlatus (who knows the fates of everything and everyone around her, who knows that all fades to dust at the end of time) feels life and eternity when she sings, and she knows that it will never fade. It is the only pure thing that will last, the only thing she will not seek to destroy.
- and Kazbiel stumbles back, gasping, hearing the song and feeling Suphlatus' joy and her sorrow in the memory.
"You don't remember Heaven," her lover accuses. "Not the way you should."
Kazbiel closes her eyes and tries to remember the song; she knows she heard it, but she can't remember ever joining in, she can't remember thinking of it as anything other than background noise.
"I'm trying to show you what you don't have," Suphlatus says, voice gentle. "And I'm trying to find out why. That's a fair trade, isn't it?"
"No," Kazbiel says with a bitter laugh, and she sees Suphlatus stiffen in surprise. "No, it's not. I'm getting the better deal, and you don't even know. But I'll take it. I'll tell you everything."
She sees Suphlatus relax again, and the cave shifts, softens itself into tiled floor and a shallow pool for them to recline in. There are even glasses set near the pool, filled with a clear liquid.
"Sit," Suphlatus says. "Talk to me."
Kazbiel lets out a quiet breath and slides into the pool, not minding its too-cold chill. It'll help keep her sober, and focused.
"Alright," she says. "I will."
---
"It's a name," Kazbiel starts. "I've got half of one in me, and it's the reason I'm here now. You see, I wasn't meant to be in the first place." She stops. It's the first time she's told anyone this story, and she can't help but expect Michael to storm in and silence her.
Suphlatus nudges her leg, a gentle push to go on, and Kazbiel looks up, exhaling.
"Before I was around, there was an angel named Kasbeel, and it made the curiosity-driven mistake of asking Michael for the hidden name of God. I don't know why Michael actually told it, but barely seconds later he killed Kasbeel by cutting it and the name into two halves. I'm one of those halves, and you can bet that the half of the name I hold wants to become whole again."
She stirs the water, stalling for a moment. It's almost a relief to say it all in one go, but she still balks at going further; at tying this to the terror she felt below in the dark.
She's lucky that it's Suphlatus, and Kazbiel looks across at her, glad that she isn't pushing beyond simple nudges to go on.
"What is it?" Suphlatus asks.
"The thing that's making those windows," Kazbiel murmurs. "It knows me. Don't ask me how; I don't know. All I know is that it has an interest in me, and that the name in me is utterly terrified of it."
"What is it, specifically?"
"I don't know," Kazbiel repeats, and closes her eyes. "It's big, powerful...I made the mistake of sticking my arm through one of those windows, and I got a sense...it's nothing either of us would recognize, and it..." She trails off.
"It knows you and has an interest in you, and that's why we're finding rifts in reality. It's trying to get a good look at you."
"No, that's not why - !"
"Then why?"
"It's incidental," Kazbiel sips her drink. "If I weren't here; if I..."
"Mm...I don't believe you."
"What?" Kazbiel lifts her head, startled.
"I think you're wrong about it, and that if you went somewhere else we'd find little rifts there, too."
"That's a guess!"
"Judging from your fear, I don't think it needs to be, to make you flee." Suphlatus murmurs. "Where are you planning to go now?"
Kazbiel sets down the glass with shaky hands and clambers out of the water. She hates how well Suphlatus knows her; hates how well she can be manipulated by her. "Away from you," she whispers, because that's the only answer she has. What are her options? What's the safest path?
"Kazbiel, sit back down," Suphlatus orders, and unconsciously Kazbiel obeys, sitting at the lip of the pool. A superior to a subordinate, for Kazbiel is lower in the hierarchy regardless of her status as Fallen and she must be focused to deny the nature of angels. "That's better. Look at me."
Kazbiel looks at her, then looks away. She'll have to go deeper into Hell, because she can't leave it for Earth, and Heaven is out of the question.
"Kazbiel, I'm not the source of your problems," she says. "What will running from me get you? Think."
The mouth of the cave has closed again, and it's hot in here. Kazbiel scoots away from Suphlatus, already looking for another way out. It doesn't matter that Suphlatus' domain is inescapable down here; she'll escape.
"We all have agendas down here," Suphlatus says, getting to her feet, the pool vanishing. "I can't believe you expected me not to have one."
"You won't get anything from me," Kazbiel says, fires burning the air around her as she summons the forces needed for escape. She'll melt the rock; she'll melt everything here if she has to. She can see the dust already being summoned to cover the fires, but no, no she will not be caught here.
Suphlatus slams into her, throwing them both to the floor, and abruptly the fires are gone.
"Kazbiel, look at me."
Kazbiel turns her head away.
Suphlatus slaps her. "I said, look at me. Why are you running from me now?"
"Too much," Kazbiel murmurs, looking at Suphlatus now. "Too close."
"You're scared," Suphlatus accuses.
"I can't afford to be!"
"But you are," Suphlatus says, and shakes her head, getting up again. "Calm down and think. This creature is trying to find you. We can assume that safely, I think. Its presence terrifies what you have. Half of the name of God. We can conclude then that you don't want to meet this thing for a proper meeting. So you run." She puts out fires as she talks, and smothers Kazbiel's quiet attempts to leave. "Kazbiel, what happens when you meet the other half of the name?"
"I don't know," Kazbiel says, slowly stopping. She isn't getting out yet, is she? "It wants to find its other half. I can feel it pulling all the time."
"Let me guess the problem," Suphlatus says. "It wants to lead you to Heaven."
"That's where he is," Kazbiel murmurs. "Let me go."
"He? Ah...your other half."
"My brother."
"Kazbiel," Suphlatus says, patient. "How do you get an angel out of Heaven?"
"Either make them Fall or get out of the way because they've come down on a mission."
"We're going to bring your other half down," Suphlatus says, decisively. "Will you need to run when you have the entire name, Kazbiel?"
"And if you're holding my strings, what strength will you have?" Kazbiel mutters, but she sits up. "Fine. I'll go along with your plan."
"Then we need to find a way out of Hell that's not kept under watch from Heaven."
Kazbiel thinks of the roof, of the surface that's more than a surface between realms, and nods. She's calmer now, and able to think about Suphlatus' plans. It's...she recognizes that she's too easily driven by emotion, especially when it comes to her memories.
"I'll cut your strings," she tells Suphlatus.
"You're welcome to try," Suphlatus answers. "Until then, there are things we need to do, such as find a way to Earth. Do you suppose that demon you like knows any hidden passages?"
"Worth a try," Kazbiel says. "Let me out."
"Fine," Suphlatus says with a light smirk on her lips. "I'll go with you."
Oh, Hell.
"Fine," Kazbiel snaps, and she walks out of the now-open cave and takes to wing and doesn't look back.
---
We lost something, Kazbiel thinks as she flies. When we fell from Heaven we lost something and it wasn't just Lucifer. We're still angels, but not. I think, and there's the crux of it. Suphlatus wonders why I don't miss Heaven and it's because I think, and I question, and that's it. (Does my twin question, too? Is he stifled? Does he mind?)
"Kazbiel," Suphlatus says to her, once she lands. "Talk to me."
No, Kazbiel thinks. "What is it about Hell that makes us question each other and ourselves?"
Aha, there!, Kazbiel thinks. Suphlatus blinking and taking too long to respond. That's what she needs to do to confuse Suphlatus, to keep her lover out of her head.
"It's not Hell," Suphlatus finally says. "We were questioning before we came here, and Kazbiel...this is a subject for another time."
"You told me to talk to you," Kazbiel says, but she agrees. There's Flauros standing there, and she can feel eyes on them. Other angels, perhaps other demons? Privacy can't be guaranteed here, but in this place (she hesitates to describe it, can't think of words. A walkway of stone, many walkways of stone, fire bursting from the rocks themselves - there's no justice to the place there, no bite to it) she feels exposed. How far up is the roof, she wonders, but the heat makes the air wobble and play tricks and she can't trust what she sees when she looks up.
"You aren't the angel of anything," Suphlatus murmurs to her, a sudden venomous bite to her voice. "I wonder if you're an angel."
But Flauros is approaching and she cannot reply without saying too much.
"Angels," he greets; there's a tenseness about him that she does not like. Is he afraid? She can see fur standing on end, or is that the heat interfering again? "Let us leave here."
"Take us up instead of down," Suphlatus orders, and the leopard face clicks its teeth shut before turning and walking away. They follow in silence.
Too many thoughts chase around her head as she walks: what would Kasbeel have done; would it have fallen with Lucifer? What was it the angel of? What will I do on Earth, how will I call Kazfiel down without risking myself? Can I trust Suphlatus? How far can I trust her? What is she planning? Angel of Dust; she can feel another one of those windows. I should ask her where they all are.
What is my purpose, if my only directive has been to stay as far away from Kazfiel as I can?
The last takes her by surprise, makes her laugh unexpectedly. She ignores Suphlatus' look and the way Flauros' fur ruffles (or is that wind?) and there are too many ways for her to take that. She can declare herself free, she can defy orders for the first time and truly fall, she can hide herself down in Hell and suffer as she was made to do, and the last gives her conviction; makes her stay on the path and at Suphlatus' side.
"I've thought things through," she tells Suphlatus, and knows that Flauros' leopard face is flicking an ear back to listen. "And you'll show me more of your memories, so I can be properly angry about this."
"Who am I to stop you?" Suphlatus asks, and there still is that smirk lingering on her lips.
Kazbiel doesn't hesitate, and wipes it off with a kiss.
---
"Unnecessary risk," he tells them. He won't elaborate, and he won't judge them any further.
He might have, if he were a younger demon, one without experience with the angels. The trouble is, as far as he is concerned, is that the angels (having had time to become accustomed to Hell) are settling into routines and territitories and behaving according to their natures. (He has had time to observe this happen, even from his limited perspective.)
Angels, fallen or not, are agents of fate. They adore order unless actively rebelling against it, they adore routine, and this is why he finds Kazbiel's activities now so disquieting. The fallen angels are unhappy but unwilling to change until the day Lucifer breaks free, and here she is, surely the cause of the other angel ordering him to take them up instead of down.
Up to the exits of Hell, he interprets, instead of down into the deepest pits, where the oddities of the outside bleed into the unruliness of Hell's reality.
He doesn't dare ask Kazbiel for details, or for reasons. Not with the other angel's supervision.
Her gaze is unwavering when she places it on him, and he knows that only Kazbiel can distract her. (Unless - are there other angels, other demons who can? He doesn't know much about her at all.) He listens to her quiet conversations with Kazbiel and wonders: what can he do to hinder her? He distrusts her association with Kazbiel, and he cannot say why except for the simple fact that she is typical of the fallen angels. (Mysterious; inhuman; amused.) (He is aware that it is redundant to call an angel inhuman. Might as well call a demon a human: you'd be right, you'd be wrong at the same time.)
The trail leads him through caves, through narrow tunnels that were created by creatures best not thought about, and he stops when he feels a pair of claws on his back, between his shoulderblades. Where the base of his neck would be, if he still had that shape.
"Yes?" He asks, voice a low growl. It's not Kazbiel who's doing this.
"Why do you care about her?" Suphlatus asks, drumming fingers in his fur. "I understood that demons are the lowest of their kind, incapable of emotions that might lead...out."
"I was once a man," he reminds her, voice still low. "I could go mad if I let myself forget that."
"Answer my question."
He says nothing, keeping his mind a careful blank, and he resumes walking. He owes her nothing, and they came to him specifically for what he could offer.
"Oh, you're an arrogant one," she murmurs, but he doesn't find claws in his back. "Is it love, then?"
"No." Easy enough to deny. "Angel, I have no desire to anger you today." Here he stops, turns to look at them. "One of your bretheren promised me rewards if I would lead you into its domain. It thinks to discover more about the rifts by questioning you, who closed one. Its servant holds a grudge, as you also killed one of its cohorts. I have thrown my loyalty to you and if you will allow me, I will continue guiding you along these paths."
He watches Kazbiel stop, honestly surprised, and he watches Suphlatus nod: was she expecting this?
"Lead on," Suphlatus commands, before Kazbiel can work her mouth. "Before it discovers your betrayal."
Flauros gives a mocking bow, and leads on. He cannot comfort Kazbiel now, no matter how much he wants to. Not with Suphlatus there.
---
Hell unrolls before them as Flauros leads them up and out of the tunnels. Kazbiel can spot Suphlatus' wasteland, the lavapits of Af's design, the twisted skin-mazes that come from nowhere but Hell itself, that canyon she spent too much time in and more. It's an ugly patchwork, and Kazbiel shivers to think that she is above it all.
The roof stretches above them, a vast ocean now.
"Hell is too dangerous," Flauros rumbles beside her. "There are no exits that are unmarked, and it matters not how far you look. The question instead is to find exits that are more dangerous than others."
"Oh," Kazbiel says, comprehension dawning. She has put off the thought of actually leaving Hell for a long time now, and the logistics are more complicated than she was thinking. (Which fits Hell, but she hates knowing Hell's nature too well now.)
"I should ask you how you know this," Suphlatus comments. "The guardians wouldn't let you near them, let alone answer questions."
"The only obstacles between me and home are an ocean and an angel."
"The only obstacle between me and home is an army. Do you see me scratching at the bars?"
"This isn't about dignity," Flauros says, looking up. "I can't go with you."
Kazbiel looks at him, then flies up, going to the water. She's not ready for the plunge yet, nor is she ready to alert the guard that someone wants out, but she wants to skim her fingers in the water. So she does, and oh - it's cold. She leaves her fingers in, trying to become accustomed to it, but it is cold, bitingly so. If she were human she would lose fingers to it immediately, as it severs nerves and steals flesh.
Even as an angel it won't be pleasant. She isn't getting used to it, and when she pulls her fingers free they are numb.
"Too much," she mutters, already balking.
"It will harden you," comes Suphlatus' voice, and Kazbiel turns in the air to stare down at Suphlatus. Is that dust on the wind? Is that how she can hear her? She is very far up.
A thought angers her: Suphlatus might want her to go alone, might want to escape the pain and stay down here while waiting for results.
Her wings fold, and she drops back down to Suphlatus and Flauros, bristling. There's nothing else she can do to prepare, and there's no point in waiting.
"We're all going," she declares, and there - the word inside is ready to go, nearly pulling her up into the water, Flauros is flinching, Suphlatus looks both thrilled and annoyed. He won't be able to survive this, will he? And Suphlatus can't fly (can she?). It doesn't matter. "It's going to be cold, and depending on the guardian it might be dangerous. Flauros," here she is surprised at how determined and heartless she sounds, "You're not allowed to die until I say so."
Is he angry? Good. He'll need heat.
"Suphlatus," she says, changing her attentions. "You first." And she snatches her up, flying up to the water and pushing her in, glad that Suphlatus isn't struggling. She can swim in the water, even if she can't fly, and the shock of the cold on her forearms as she delivers Suphlatus into the water is excruciating.
Hell is too hot on her hands when she drops down to pick up Flauros.
"You won't understand," Flauros says, digging his clawed hands into her arms hard enough to hurt, "but I consider you a daughter. I was a man once, and a father."
"You could say mine is with me," she says, and doesn't give him a chance to talk back before she thrusts him into the water, flying in after, keeping hands on him. She won't let him run now.
The cold is a physical blow, and she knows that the guardian angel is alert to their presence already. This will have to be quick, she thinks, and even then they may not avoid battle.
It doesn't matter where Suphlatus is, not when she has to focus to swim up - up to Earth, not up to Hell - with Flauros weighing her down and not helping with his refusal to move, (can he move?) and she can feel the other angel beginning to move. Who is it? Where is it?
Bubbles float past her nose, and they are an unexpected boon as she knows which direction to fly to.
Turn back, comes the order, and oh - It is something vast and terrible, an angel and not, and why didn't Flauros mention this? Even through the numbing effects of the cold she can feel him shaking, and now she knows that it isn't just from the cold.
There is a bright tug within her, a demanding yank to go on.
I cannot, she sends back to the angel, and all she gets in return is laughter before abruptly the waters are silent. Silent and dark. She dares to look down, and even the lights of Hell (ha!) are dimmed.
It's dangerous, and so she resumes swimming. Thoughts rise to the surface, traces of panic and fear and determination, and she wishes she hadn't decided that Flauros' life was in her hands, because now it literally is, and she doesn't want to be responsible. She needs to let go for more mobility down here (fur is heavy underwater) and she can't.
For all her bravado and for all the tugs the syllables give her, she is afraid that this angel might be too much.
It's silent, and she might be blind down here, and she wonders if light would be a good or bad idea.
A pulse through the water, and she can feel something swimming past. The angel is here.
Kazbiel, Suphlatus calls. His name is Rahab.
What good will that do? Kazbiel calls back. There is nowhere down here to work spellwork with his name, and her usual methods of fighting won't work. But she must make something work...
The water whirls around her and she feels more than hears Suphlatus' scream.
Rahab, Rahab. Does she know this angel? Has she met him before? Could she call him brother? (The answer to that is no, for she is Fallen and he is not.)
She decides on light, and creates a ball of it, illuminating the waters. Unexpectedly she feels the syllables within her fuel it, and the light is brighter than she intended: far brighter, blinding. She continues to swim up as the light floods the area, and she can see Rahab and Suphlatus.
The dust rising like blood in a cloud, and floating in it is her lover. Kazbiel tightens her hold on the still-shaking Flauros and manuevers over to her, wrapping an arm around Suphlatus' waist.
Rahab has taken her legs.
Rahab, who is at once more and less than Kazbiel was expecting. The image of the sea serpent, an elongated man, both images overlapping, with one similarity: his mouth, his teeth. Large, saw-edged, flesh caught on the edges.
The human image (overgrown black hair floating around his shoulders; scarred flesh) is blindfolded. The leviathan has no eyes.
He turns in the water, slowly, snapping Suphlatus' stone legs in half with loud crunches.
Kazbiel kicks her legs, quickly moving to try to fly up, but she knows: the surface is far away, and he is in his natural element. They're going to have to do something else to escape. It's harder now too, as Suphlatus is yet another weight in her hands. Flauros at the least has stopped shaking, but he's useless to her.
How twisted you are, to exchange tasty flesh for tasteless rock!
Kazbiel jerks her head around, catching a last glimpse of teeth and the double-image, and in that moment the light goes out. Her mind is racing, and she feels him approaching as she struggles to ascend. There's no time to respond, and what does she -
She can feel him approaching. He's sightless. The pieces fall into place. Perhaps -
A fleshy thing appears behind and under her, wriggling its limbs in a blind panic. A flesh golem, created spur of the moment. More are created as she swims, in a wide arc around her, and she can feel their undulations stir the water.
It might not work, but she stills the water around her with a touch of effort, and keeps swimming. It might buy her time.
Kazbiel, Suphlatus murmurs, stirring from under her arm.
Quiet. I'm focusing.
To her surprise, Suphlatus doesn't reply. Instead, she feels the churning in the water that signals Rahab, and feels one of her golems be destroyed.
He's close, but those teeth aren't in her skin, and she's quietly relieved. This may not last, and she may need to find another plan, but they're still ascending and she can create an endless number of those golems.
Your name, comes Rahab's voice after what seems like an eternity of swimming.
Don't tell him, Suphlatus murmurs to her.
Kazbiel closes her eyes briefly, still swimming, and decides on recklessness. Perhaps not her name, perhaps...
Kazfiel, she tells Rahab. Similar to her name, but not. Her twin's name.
Kazfiel, Rahab repeats, and she gets the sense that he's tasting the name. I'll find you.
Kazbiel shivers, though not from the cold, and swims on.
---
There is a marked difference between Rahab's domain and the deep seas on Earth. For example, Kazbiel's wings shrivel away to become invisible, and as light slowly becomes visible above them she looks at herself and all she can see is a perfectly normal nude human with red hair.
Suphlatus is the same, and Kazbiel wonders briefly if she'll need to spend energy creating her new legs over those stumps, but her attention is caught by Flauros before she can raise the question.
For Flauros is less and less heavy in her arms, and his shape is twisting, obscuring itself in black smoke. It's Suphlatus who leans into her and provides the answer to her unspoken question.
He can't be allowed to stay here without something binding him here. So find him a human body to inhabit or bind him in another way.
Kazbiel threads a noose of her Grace around his smoke, binding him temporarily, and she feels Suphlatus' approval.
We're nearly there, Suphlatus murmurs, raising a hand towards the light. Earth itself will be ours to explore, and we can find all the dark shadows to hide ourselves in, and delight in all the pleasures of human flesh.
I'll be able to lure down my twin, Kazbiel says. And then...
And then what?
He and I meet, and we'll just have wait and find out for ourselves what happens after that.
---
Author:
zekkass.
Artist: the_disillusion
Fandom/Original: Original.
Rating: NC-17.
Characters/Pairings: Kazbiel/Suphlatus, Flauros (two fallen angels, a demon)
Warnings: Femslash, general creepiness, etc.
Word Count: 10,418 words.
Notes: Many thanks to
ravenspear for her beta-work. :3 Written for
angelic_bigbang, too!
This was written in a flash of inspiration as NaNoWriMo was coming up, and while it's not quite the story I envisioned, it is something I'm pleased with, and I hope you all enjoy it.
While I think it works as a standalone story, it does lead rather obviously into my much longer story, Division. You're not obligated to read it, but it's there if you want to. :3
Finally, there isn't an artpost yet - I'll edit this when there is one.
Summary: It starts with a question: "Do you remember Heaven?" and goes from there. A pair of Fallen angels talk themselves into leaving Hell for Earth after one of them realizes that something much nastier than demons or angels is looking for her by destroying small portions of Hell in the process. Kinda. It's complicated, and does involve a fight against a sea monster who is also an angel.
---
"You don't remember Heaven," her lover accuses. "That's why you're so happy down here."
Kazbiel props herself up on her elbows and gives her a look. "Nothing wrong with making the best of a situation, is there?"
"Do you remember Heaven?" Suphlatus asks her flat-out. She sits up as she does, swinging her legs off the bed. The tattered cloth around her waist threatens to crumble into dust as she moves, but as always it just barely holds itself together.
Kazbiel distracts herself by studying the smooth skin of Suphlatus' back and doesn't answer. It's a sticky question.
She watches as Suphlatus stands up and turns around, and she tries a friendly smile when Suphlatus leans in to cup her chin with long fingers. Kazbiel can feel the ragged edges of her fingernails against her cheeks.
They meet each other's eyes, and Kazbiel licks her lips, tilting her head in Suphlatus' hold.
"You don't, then." Suphlatus says at last.
"I didn't say anything!"
Suphlatus closes her eyes and lets go. "You don't need to."
"Suph - "
"Why don't you remember Heaven?"
Kazbiel kicks her feet in irritation, then rolls over and sits up. "I remember it fine. It was just never home for me. Not like Hell is now."
It may be wrong of her to take pleasure in the confusion on Suphlatus' face, but being wrong is what Hell is about. None of the angels here are kind, no matter what they play at.
"Care to explain that?"
"Heaven's a sore spot for everyone," Kazbiel says, shrugging. She gets off the bed as well, grabbing a string from mid-air and putting her hair up, tying a knot in it with deft fingers. "Just not for me. Get over it."
She feels ragged fingernails at the base of her throat.
"...I knew I couldn't stay there, alright? From the moment I popped into being, I knew Heaven would get rid of me, one way or another. It's nothing special or worth learning. Is that better?"
"None of us knew what would happen." Suphlatus' voice is flat, and Kazbiel knows she's in for more questions.
"I didn't know this would happen." Kazbiel turns to face Suphlatus, and puts her arms on Suphlatus' shoulders, leaning in. "I just knew I'd be kicked out eventually. When there was a place outside of Heaven that I could be kicked to."
"That's - "
Kazbiel interrupts her with a finger to the lips. "Until you know the story behind my creation, don't say a word. Just trust that I remember Heaven, and I don't miss any of it."
Suphlatus gives her a quiet look - she doesn't believe Kazbiel - but she pulls her claws back from Kazbiel's neck. "I won't get the rest of it out of you, will I?"
"You're smart enough to know when to retreat." Kazbiel offers, and she collects the sheet from the bed, wrapping it around her in a makeshift outfit. She doesn't mind the dust that coats it, and she doesn't mind how filthy she is simply by being around the angel of dust.
Suphlatus says nothing to her, and the bed collapses as its reality makes way for Suphlatus' will. The room crumbles into a cave, and Kazfiel walks with her to its mouth.
"Do you remember the gardens?" Suphlatus speaks suddenly, and Kazbiel stops at the question.
"Which ones?" Kazbiel says. She remembers them, and she remembers...
Suphlatus says nothing.
Kazbiel looks at her, then closes her eyes and gives into the unspoken request.
"It was the only time I was able to get close to my twin."
As a little girl, she's crouched behind some flowered bushes, peeking through the foliage to spy on the men sitting under the trees. Her form is intentional, as is Haniel's when he abandons the human shape in favor of a lion to confront her. Imagery is half the communication in Heaven, and she leaves immediately at the threat.
There's a lot she doesn't tell Suphlatus, even if they are lovers.
She changes the topic. "What do you think of the attempt to recreate some of those gardens here?"
"Doomed to failure, and I might help it along." Suphlatus says flatly. There's not a lot she's emotional about, but the undercurrent of anger under those words is stronger than Kazbiel's heard before.
"Something bothering you?" She asks.
"Go play with the humans if you won't answer my questions."
Clear dismissal. Kazbiel gets going.
---
There is no comfort to be found in Hell except in the arms of another Fallen, and that is never a perfect distraction. There is always a rock that digs into the back at the wrong moment, or a surge of heat in the room that burns, or countless tiny coincidences that line up to make the encounter unpleasant.
It doesn't help that the Fallen are entirely unpleasant as a whole. It's easy to try loving another, but what feelings they can raise are hollow, bitter imitations of what they once had in Heaven.
The only emotions that last are anger and loyalty, and Lucifer has decreed that they must be loyal to him and him alone.
Everyone thinks of disobeying his orders and no one follows through on their thoughts.
Hell is a terrible, awful place, and Kazbiel makes it her home in lieu of other options.
---
Kazbiel sits on a rock in the middle of nowhere and lets herself curse her choice of lover. Suphlatus' home is unpleasant to travel through, and just because they can mold portions of Hell to their personal visions doesn't mean they should.
There's the sound of breaking rock and wind whips up, and when Kazbiel looks up, there's a tornado forming in the storm, an artifical force made to make Suphlatus' desert worse.
Fear makes Kazbiel draw her wings in close, giving her small shelter from the storm, but necessity makes her stand up. As always she is reminded of Heaven, because here she cannot flit between forms without effort, time and pain (another inconvenience of Hell's design) then she must weather the destruction of this storm.
Except that there is nothing but her pride preventing her from taking to wing and fleeing from the danger as fast as possible, and that's what she does.
It's an excuse to drop in on Suphlatus again, too.
---
"I've never understood why you're the angel of dust."
"I get the sense that you don't understand a lot of things about angels." Suphlatus is standing at the mouth of the cave, exposing herself to the elements she has created. Kazbiel stays back from the biting winds and tries to force down indignation.
"You're talking like I'm some human," Kazbiel says.
"There is no understanding why I'm the angel of anything. Just trust that we were made in the right way for the right purpose."
"Which is why we're down here."
"Bitter? I'm glad you are. Some of us should gnash our teeth, wail, and rage at the Heavens. Else we'll get curious angels descending to find out what's happened to us down here."
"You aren't bitter, Suphlatus? I'm surprised, I thought you missed Heaven."
Kazbiel watches muscles tense in Suphlatus' body, and walks closer, fingers outstretched to brush at her back. The circle outlined in ink is hidden under layers of grey dust, and she can see pale skin when the wind wipes the dust away.
"It's never that simple," Suphlatus says, and Kazbiel abruptly has to step back and cover her face. The wind has sharpened, and new cuts open on her arms where it lashes at her. "You should stay inside."
Kazbiel lowers her arms, lifting her chin. Is this it? Is this where she calls an end to their affair? Is she willing to attack Suphlatus over this issue? Here is the problem with pride, and here is the problem with maintaining a hierarchy among the Fallen: when it's entirely a case of who will bow to who when tempers flare. Suphlatus' words could be a slight, and if she stays inside it might be a signal that she'll bend to Suphlatus' will in other things.
Her arms hurt, and if she cared about pretending she was human she would make her arms bleed as well, but she does not.
She moves forward and tangles her fingers in Suphlatus' hair, tightening her grip there, and she yanks her lover's head back enough so she can kiss dried and cracked lips. She bites, tastes dirt, and growls low in her throat.
Suphlatus is moving, grabbing her shoulders as she turns, and they wrestle for position as the wind howls around them, and it hurts when Kazbiel finally forces Suphlatus down on the ground; it hurts as the sand batters her feathers and tries to rip some free.
Kazbiel bends down and kisses Suphlatus again, feels her hair fall down over her shoulders and knows that the tie binding it has failed.
"What did you take offense to?" Suphlatus asks her when she finally lifts her lips. "What angered you?"
Kazbiel shakes her head and moves down Suphlatus' body, holding her shoulders as she licks her breasts, and there. There's the moan she listens for every time they do this, and there's the sign she was waiting for. Now she can lower her guard a little (not entirely, never entirely) and enjoy the sex.
She bites, and feels Suphlatus raise her legs, urging her to slide down and lick further down, but no - not yet. There will be bruises for both of them when she's finished, and that sets the tone for the entire act.
Teeth, moans, and the taste of dust. Suphlatus rolls them over and pins her hands above her head as she licks and tastes her neck, and Kazbiel can feel the stone of Suphlatus' knees digging into her thighs as she kneels on her, and it hurts - "Get off me!" - but Suphlatus laughs at her and slips rough fingers into her and that hurts too, but in all the best ways.
Kazbiel kisses her again, splays her hands on Suphlatus' smooth back, and decides that her cuts will bleed light today, see if she can't cover the sand of this cave in light, see if she can't clean away the dust with it. (Water makes it clump together, makes it all worse, and wind makes it cut into her.)
- bright light around Suphlatus' fingers as Kazbiel comes -
They're kissing again, and Kazbiel shoves Suphlatus against the wall so she can kneel before her (that's always good for the ego, makes it less likely she'll get hurt while she's busy down here) and licks.
The wind dies down as Suphlatus lets it go, busy with the sensation of tongue and lips, and Kazbiel revels in the sounds she hears now, revels in how clearly she can hear Suphlatus moan.
She tilts her head back and grins at the sight, Suphlatus' hands held close to her breasts and still covered with light, and Suphlatus' head tilted back, bliss apparently on her face - enough incentive for Kazbiel to return to her task, more than enough incentive for her to be gentle now, to make it last.
There aren't words when Suphlatus finishes, and Kazbiel pulls her down to kiss her again, and if their only bed is stone and sand, and if their blanket is tattered fabric Suphlatus makes, it's so much better than anything Kazbiel felt in Heaven.
(Kazbiel, meaning 'she who lies to God')
---
Leaving Suphlatus behind is easier than it should be. There's no storm, and the wasteland seems smaller this time. Kazbiel flies up, and up to the very roof of Hell, and trails fingers along the hot stones that aren't always solid.
"Shouldn't be here for too long," she murmurs to herself, feeling the familiar tug start to worsen. If she gave into it, she'd leave Hell, and probably be slain or worse by an angel on Earth. There'd be no chance that she could find her way to Heaven and then to her twin. Not by flying blindly.
It's still harder than it should be to pull her fingers away from the stone (the roof isn't always stone; she's been in portions of Hell where it's an endless ocean, or sky, or wooden or something else altogether) and it's an effort to spiral down and land.
There. Landfall, and already she regrets it. The ground is red and slick with blood, and there are open fires nearby: the heat is immense, and she has to actively alter the reality around herself so she does not burn with it.
A demon approaches her, coiled like a whip, and makes obeisances to her.
"We welcome your presence," it says, and she stares it down, attempting to ascertain its age. The demons are getting more creative as new humans twist themselves in attempts to make life in Hell bearable, and its fascinates her to see how grotesque they can become.
Perhaps it's a form of worship towards the Fallen? As some of her bretheren have twisted their own forms or portions of their forms for countless reasons, and she needs only to think of Suphlatus' alteration of her legs into stone for an example.
"I'm not staying long," she says at last. "Get back to your business."
She watches the demon leave, winding around itself as it goes, and she concludes that she needs more information to determine its age. Not that it matters, after all - demons are a dime a dozen down here, and any strong human can force itself to thrive in such conditions.
It's always fun to stay and study the demons, but she has other reasons to be here, in the region of Hell most humans call home. Namely, there's a demon she finds entertaining.
Kazbiel walks the winding paths through the fires and lava, wings spread to soak in the heat, and she continues to stifle that ever-present tug.
"Flauros!" She calls ahead of her. He'll be here, she knows it. It's why she calls out.
A headless man approaches her, the face of a leopard embedded in his chest. He waves a clawed hand at her and the leopard shows its teeth.
"No threats today, please." She says. There's nothing to fear from him, in fact there's nothing to fear from any of the demons here, but she doesn't feel the need to remind the demons of their places constantly. Pretending that they were equals was interesting, too - rumors about other Fallen from the perspective of demons were easy to collect if they decided they liked her.
At least, Flauros pretended to like her. Others were more blatant about their fear, or their toadying.
The leopard's face speaks.
"Show me your face. Kazbiel. There is nothing for you here, yet I welcome your presence. There are rumors about."
She tilts her face towards him and lets the leopard's eyes roam over her features, patient. "What kind of rumors?"
"On the origins of Hell." Flauros' voice is a low rumble, and he gestures with a finger for her to follow him. They're both silent as he leads them down, down claustrophobic passageways with crude staircases carved from the rock. Man-made passages, perhaps? She can see the carving of these passages being an appropriate punishment in Hell, as they go on forever and it takes too long for them to reach a stopping point. Not that it's where the staircases end, as they continue to go down, down too far for her to see.
Flauros lets them out on the shores of an ocean, and the ceiling above them cuts off abruptly, as there is nothing above them and nothing ahead of them and only water below.
He crouches on the shores and points out at the waters. A cold wind blows off the waters, causing her to think of covering herself (and deciding against it), and causing Flauros' red fur to ruffle.
"What am I looking for?" Kazbiel asks, looking out at the waters, then at Flauros again.
"Wait," Flauros says, and she does.
The wind worsens, and the grey nothing above the water lightens. There's something out there, something too flat and too straight to be there.
"Oh," she says.
Flauros lowers his hand and stands up.
"You want me to find out what it is." She states, eyes still drawn to that line in the reality of Hell. Is it a door? Is it something worse?
"I want passage across the waters so I can find out what it is." He amends. "I cannot travel past here."
Kazbiel dips a finger into the water of the ocean to find out why, and hisses. It stings, it's too cold to be unfrozen and here it is, still liquid. She shakes off the water quickly, heating her finger and healing the sudden frostbite, and understands.
It's easy to decide what to do: the tug is there, and she needs something to do.
Hands under his arms, warmth extended to shield them from any water that may lash up at them, and she flies, hard and fast over these oceans. It's barely a minute before the light dims again, and she's flying in the grey dark.
"If you can still see it, tell me if I fly off course," she says over the wind.
"Change yourself," he says, a gentle rebuke, but he's soon giving 'too far to the left' and 'higher, please' directions.
Kazbiel lifts him more, savoring the strain in her arms, and wonders at how long she'll need to do this. It's going to take too long, she knows that.
There's no telling how long it's been when Flauros speaks again.
"Stop."
She does. "What is it?"
"Wait for the light to come back."
"That might take a long time," she says.
"Yes." Flauros rumbles agreement. "But we should wait for it to come back."
---
Suphlatus walks over sands; listens to the wind. All things eventually turn to dust, and all things end. She can hear everything crumbling now.
The wind lashes at her, drives the sand against her. Today she is annoyed by it, and turns it into dust, and watches fresh sand fall onto the suddenly calm desert.
"Kazbiel," she murmurs. "Come back. I can hear it."
Hear what?
She turns, shifting uncertainly. Suddenly the desert is too large, too quiet, too dark. Too dirty. She can't hear her sisters; her brothers. Loneliness fills her, and she covers her ears.
Maybe she should be glad that no one is here to see her fear, and maybe she is glad that no one knows how Hell gets to her. Maybe.
She can hear it. She can hear everything crumbling to dust, and the end of all things, and -
---
The light comes back.
It's sudden, a flick and there's light illuminating the nothing surrounding them, and Kazbiel would shiver except that she can't feel the wind anymore. It's not cold here, and it's not dark anymore.
She looks out at the flat line, and has to avert her eyes from it. Some things simply shouldn't be, and this is one of them. Up close it's too much to look at it.
"What is it?" Flauros asks from below her. "Do you know?"
Kazbiel shakes her head and tells herself that she can't show fear. Angels are higher than demons in all things, and so she must know.
She forces herself to look at it again.
"It's..." She trails off. It was warping, the line was bending and twisting before going flat again. "I need to set you down," she concludes. She wants to touch it.
There isn't air here, and there isn't anything here, but it's the normal sort of nothing, normal for Hell. She makes air out of it, gives it a color and solidifies it before setting Flauros down on the rectangular cloud.
"Are you scared?" She asks Flauros, voice light, teasing. She doesn't mind if he is; it'd make her feel better.
Flauros doesn't answer, eyes trained on the anomaly, and she turns back to it, holding back a sigh. Pride; it's something everyone down here has, something everyone nurses. An attempt to be closer to their sovereign lord?
The line twists again, and she flies close to it, wary yet curious. The tug inside of her is worsening, and she wonders: is this something more than the usual pull towards Heaven? Is it worse because the thing inside her wants to get away from this - whatever this is?
"Flauros!" She says, sharply. Too sharply, perhaps.
"What do you want?" Flauros asks, and she looks back at him to see him crouching again, digging his claws into the solid air.
"There's something through this. Watch." Impulsive lies for strength, for courage, and she pushes her hand through the line, through to wherever it's come from. She ignores thoughts about how she might lose her hand, or worse.
A crack, like thunder, and the line widens, opening like an eye. Her hand is still within it, and she feels - the thing inside her isn't tugging anymore, but yanking, and abruptly she is pulled back from the opening, flung back through the sky, curling her hands close to her in a protective hug.
It's too late, of course: she knows what's through there. Something touched her, a message, something was communicated to her.
"Oh," she says, stunned. "Oh."
Cold snaps at her as she lands in the water, and abruptly she has moved, has placed herself next to Flauros on the air. She can see the opening again, and her hold on herself tightens.
"What happened?" Flauros asks, and she startles when she feels him put a hand on her shoulder. "I saw - "
"It wants me. It wants to tear me apart, to take it," she's babbling. She closes her mouth, tells herself to calm down. That rift there is as far as it can come into Hell. She felt how much it wanted to follow her, how much it wanted to pull her in, and she felt its frustration. (Could such a deep and pervasive feeling of isolation and anger be frustration? There aren't words for what she felt from it.)
She tilts her head back to look up at Flauros.
"It's a window."
Flauros says nothing, tightens his grip on her shoulder.
"Closest word for it," she clarifies. "It's...that leads outside Hell. There's something there, looking in."
Flauros looks at the tear, and she looks back at it as well.
"It knows me." She whispers.
"Close it," Flauros says, voice suddenly commanding. It's a tone she's unused to hearing, and immediately she wants to push him off the air, watch him fall. No demon should order an angel, she can't let him get away with it.
She doesn't push him off the air, and reaches out, working with her essence (is that the thing inside her helping her? can it do anything other than react and try to pull her to Heaven?) to sew it shut.
She shivers as there's a stain on reality that reads of anger and something old and more, watches that black spread like oil on water, and then she wipes it clean. No, she won't let it stay.
"Done," Kazbiel whispers. She won't look at Flauros.
"I won't ask questions," Flauros says, hand still on her shoulder. "And I won't tell anyone about what we saw."
"Are you trying to comfort me?" She asks, twisting to look at him.
"Would you accept it if I were?"
Kazbiel frowns, then stands. "I have a lover already."
"I don't want you like that," Flauros says, and she frowns. It's easy to see how he might be attracted - human men like her form, don't they? - but -
"Are you trying to distract me?"
"I've never seen you look so upset," he says. He turns around, walks to the other edge of the cloud. "Can we go?"
She grabs him by the shoulders and flies, lost in thought: maybe he was right to distract her. But then, that would mean that he might even care about her wellbeing, and no demon...no creature thrown down here can care. Not like that.
"I should drop you," she whispers into a furred ear. "We should see how deep this ocean is."
"I thought you found me interesting." It's his only protest.
Her grip tightens, loosens, but ultimately she doesn't let go. She likes him too much, even for what he is.
---
"Why do you miss Heaven?" Kazbiel asks, and that's her greeting. She's found Suphlatus climbing rocks, picking her way down the side of this canyon - this giant chasm that marks one boundary of her territory - and it's a question she thinks she knows the answers to.
"Ask that again and I'll be right," Suphlatus answers her, testing her footing before taking another step. "You don't remember Heaven."
"I'm asking because I'm curious. Here, like this: why are you down here, instead of in that desert of yours?"
"But you don't know the answer to either question, Kazbiel." Suphlatus sounds bored. Kazbiel excuses her lack of attention due to the focus her lover is putting into climbing.
"Are you going to answer me or not?"
"I can't reach them all, but I can feel them." Suphlatus glances at her. "Something defying my will. It won't fade to dust like it should. I need to find it, and end it."
"And the other question?" Kazbiel prods, flapping her wings steady and slow to stay aloft but not bother Suphlatus with errant winds.
"I'd have to show you. It's not something I can tell you."
"Are we talking about an emotion or a memory or something else?"
"Everything." Suphlatus slips and falls down several feet before she catches a ledge and finds new footholds. "Everything, we're talking about Heaven."
"Right. Do you want me to carry you down there?" Kazbiel spirals down after Suphlatus, careful not to look directly at the dark. "There are better ways to go down."
"If I can get down like this, I can get back up with this wall, and I won't need to rely on you." Suphlatus grunts as she's forced to scoot to the side, searching blindly with her feet to find new footholds. "I would appreciate silence."
Kazbiel frowns and looks up, and up, and up - it's a long way to the top. There isn't light down here, either, and she's tempted to make a candle appear in her hands.
"Don't," Suphlatus whispers, and Kazbiel looks at her.
"Don't what?"
"Don't make a light. Not down here."
"You know me too well," Kazbiel says, half-jesting, half-afraid of what that means.
Suphlatus doesn't answer her, and Kazbiel closes her eyes. If they're going into a darkness this deep, then perhaps she should blindfold herself. It would be best to start getting used to navigating by sound and smell now, while it's still safe.
"Do we know if anyone has ever gone down this chasm?" She asks in a hushed tone.
"I have." Suphlatus answers. "But I haven't gone to the bottom, and never this far before. I haven't had a need to."
Kazbiel mms. She feels uneasy, and the feeling gets worse the lower they go. Suphlatus' climbing is slowing down, too, as stable footholds become fewer and farther between.
"Too smooth," Suphlatus mutters.
"What?"
"The wall's too smooth."
"You mean you're running out of places to climb."
"It's not just that, Kazbiel." There's something odd in her voice. Fear? No. Something else. Kazbiel has trouble identifying it. "It's close."
"Now can I make a light?"
Crack! - the sound of breaking rock, and Kazbiel immediately flies lower, following the noise. She hears Suphlatus swearing, and it's a frantic grab for her shoulders, before she can get arms around Suphlatus. It's the work of a moment to create some light, and then there they are: two stone walls, going up and down forever, slowly narrowing the further down they go.
Suphlatus was right, too: the walls are smooth, and the uneven edges she was using to climb are gone now.
"There," Kazbiel whispers, securing her grip on Suphlatus. She won't look down.
"...I'll find humans hung out here," Suphlatus whispers. "Chained to the wall to unsteady places..."
Kazbiel says nothing, and tries to calm herself. There's nothing below. She has to believe that.
Abruptly there are the sound of claws, scratching uselessly at a door. A scrabbling, and her instinct is to flee. But Suphlatus is heavy in her arms and fear...fear is not permissible here.
"What was that." She asks instead, tone flat to mask everything.
"We're close," Suphlatus says, and Kazbiel is glad she can't see her face. "It won't ever fade into dust, it's eternal, undying, wrong; Kazbiel, we have to end it. It has to. Has to go." Fear isn't allowed here, Kazbiel is sure that she doesn't hear fear in her voice.
The scrabbling is getting faster, more frequent. Kazbiel can hear it.
"Turn," Suphlatus orders. "I need to face it."
Kazbiel is stiff as she turns, movements jerky and hesitant. It will be a rend in reality like the thing Flauros showed her, and inside it - through it - will be something that knows her, and she will have to flee then, she may need to drop Suphlatus so she can flee fast enough to escape it, and -
There are rats. Eyeless rats, clawing at the walls of the canyon. There are no rends in reality, none like the one she saw, just rats. Tied tail to tail, a balled mass of them trying to climb the walls, silent except for the sound of claws scrabbling at rock, digging grooves in the stone.
"What..." Kazbiel asks, staring at the writhing mass. This can't be what she was afraid of, can it?
"Kill it!" Suphlatus orders, and Kazbiel has never been so happy for direction before in her life.
Fire is her first thought, thought becomes reality, and the twine holding the rats together burns easily enough, sparks burning fur as the individuals fall away and down into the dark.
It doesn't take very long, honestly. The last of the twine burns away, and so do the rats, and they are alone again in the dark. Lower as well, as Kazbiel lost altitude while she was focused on the fire.
"Please say that was it," she asks, but she knows in the pit of her stomach that it wasn't. It's not silent down here, and the scratching is still present, but now...the rats are gone. It's a patient scratching, the knocking of something that knows it will get through with enough time and effort. It makes Kazbiel's heart race in fear, and the tug worsens, pulling at her.
"No," Suphlatus says. "I'm sorry."
"Then where - ?" Kazbiel doesn't finish her question. She may not be able to stay down here for much longer. "Suphlatus, we can leave it for later." It's a feeble protest, too weak to succeed and she can't stop herself from saying it.
Suphlatus puts a hand down, on Kazbiel's hip, and digs her fingernails into skin. "Down."
Kazbiel makes a soft noise and drops, tightening her hold on Suphlatus. She imagines water flowing out of the cut, water winding its way down her leg, down to her toes, dripping off in a steady rhythm, droplets falling for eternity.
Water for rats, she thinks, instead of thinking of where Suphlatus is guiding her, with one word commands and claws in her skin when she doesn't fly fast enough.
Down.
Down.
The walls are closing in when Suphlatus stops her. Her wingtips brush at stone and it's still smooth, but darker now. Not grey stone, but black, and glossy. Almost pretty, and in the pale light she still has up, it's chilling. She doesn't feel safe down here, for all her power.
Neither does the tug inside of her. The jumble of syllables within her are desperate to make her ascend, to force her back to the known areas of Hell.
For there is the rend in reality, the window through which that terrible being lurks. She can reach inside it again, she could simply disappear through it, for the window's glass is transperent to her. She knows this, she felt this at the last one.
"That," Suphlatus says, pausing, "Needs to be destroyed." She pats Kazbiel's hip and tilts her head back. "Kazbiel, get rid of it."
Kazbiel raises a hand, automatically thinking of fire again, but no, that won't work here. It's harder this time, what with the frantic screams within her, and her fear, but she closes it. The act itself is easy, even if focusing for it is not. The window closes, and it's done.
"Good," Suphlatus murmurs. "Let's go." There's something in her tone, something that warns of curiosity and questions later. It makes Kazbiel tense, rings warning bells in her mind.
She could drop Suphlatus, and avoid the questions altogether.
It's a tempting thought.
Suphlatus shifts in her hold, and Kazbiel snaps back to reality. Tempting or not, she wouldn't dare. So she ascends instead, and flies up as fast as her wings can carry her.
---
"There was one of those in here," Suphlatus says conversationally, as if they weren't lying together; post-coital. "It was right there. By your foot, and halfway into the wall as well."
Kazbiel yelps and shoots Suphlatus a dirty look before rolling off her and getting up. Time to go, if Suphlatus is getting into that mood.
"Scared?" Suphlatus asks, voice a low rumble.
Kazbiel creates twine out of dust and begins to tie her hair back, ignoring the question. She lifts her foot when Suphlatus grabs for it, and hops back when Suphlatus gets up.
"I'm not scared of you, if that's what you're asking," she offers.
"You closed that thing a lot faster than I did with the one here, and it was a lot cleaner than mine was." Suphlatus says, voice calm. "Care to explain?"
"No."
The mouth of the cave collapses. Kazbiel stills, her hands still in her hair. Was this planned? She berates herself for letting it happen, because it probably was. Suphlatus wouldn't let this go, not after it threatened her domain.
"Bleed light for me, Kazbiel."
Stone slams into her side, and Suphlatus follows up the kick with another, and when Kazbiel collapses against the wall, she fists her hand in Kazbiel's hair, dragging her up. They kiss, and Suphlatus bites, and Kazbiel turns her head away, swallowing. It hurts, that they're doing this now.
Suphlatus hisses and pins her to the side of the cave. "Talk to me."
"It's going to take a lot more violence before I tell you anything you want to know." Kazbiel says, spitting.
Suphlatus steps back, studying her in the dim light, and Kazbiel waits for the blows she knows are incoming. It will be easier to deny her lover once the pain is worse. Then she can use the bitterness, she can survive the stab of longing, of loneliness, she can rid herself of yet more family -
"Kazbiel," Suphlatus says, interrupting her thoughts. "There's no need for this resistance. We can trade."
"Trade?" Kazbiel asks, finally able to lower her hands from her hair. "Trade what?"
"Information," Suphlatus says. "Isn't it obvious?"
"There's nothing you can tell me that would be worth what I know."
"Not even memories of Heaven?"
Kazbiel pauses, honestly tempted. She looks at Suphlatus, and studies her. Is this a way out? Can she keep this angel? This connection?
Unfortunately, suspicion is still required. She can't let go of it, not here, not with another Fallen.
"What are you trying to do?" She's thinking, Let me trust you.
Suphlatus raises a hand, puts a finger over Kazbiel's lips, raises it to her forehead and adds another finger. She pushes gently, and Kazbiel opens her mouth, eyes widening.
She can see -
It's the only thing that she believes in. The singing. It reverberates through Heaven, fills the air with glory, and Suphlatus often joins in, adding her voice to the choir. Voices fade in and out as angels are called to duties, become engaged in other activites, but there are always more singing; there is always an ongoing hymn of praise and exultation in the air of Heaven.
There will always be a hymn in Heaven, and Suphlatus (who knows the fates of everything and everyone around her, who knows that all fades to dust at the end of time) feels life and eternity when she sings, and she knows that it will never fade. It is the only pure thing that will last, the only thing she will not seek to destroy.
- and Kazbiel stumbles back, gasping, hearing the song and feeling Suphlatus' joy and her sorrow in the memory.
"You don't remember Heaven," her lover accuses. "Not the way you should."
Kazbiel closes her eyes and tries to remember the song; she knows she heard it, but she can't remember ever joining in, she can't remember thinking of it as anything other than background noise.
"I'm trying to show you what you don't have," Suphlatus says, voice gentle. "And I'm trying to find out why. That's a fair trade, isn't it?"
"No," Kazbiel says with a bitter laugh, and she sees Suphlatus stiffen in surprise. "No, it's not. I'm getting the better deal, and you don't even know. But I'll take it. I'll tell you everything."
She sees Suphlatus relax again, and the cave shifts, softens itself into tiled floor and a shallow pool for them to recline in. There are even glasses set near the pool, filled with a clear liquid.
"Sit," Suphlatus says. "Talk to me."
Kazbiel lets out a quiet breath and slides into the pool, not minding its too-cold chill. It'll help keep her sober, and focused.
"Alright," she says. "I will."
---
"It's a name," Kazbiel starts. "I've got half of one in me, and it's the reason I'm here now. You see, I wasn't meant to be in the first place." She stops. It's the first time she's told anyone this story, and she can't help but expect Michael to storm in and silence her.
Suphlatus nudges her leg, a gentle push to go on, and Kazbiel looks up, exhaling.
"Before I was around, there was an angel named Kasbeel, and it made the curiosity-driven mistake of asking Michael for the hidden name of God. I don't know why Michael actually told it, but barely seconds later he killed Kasbeel by cutting it and the name into two halves. I'm one of those halves, and you can bet that the half of the name I hold wants to become whole again."
She stirs the water, stalling for a moment. It's almost a relief to say it all in one go, but she still balks at going further; at tying this to the terror she felt below in the dark.
She's lucky that it's Suphlatus, and Kazbiel looks across at her, glad that she isn't pushing beyond simple nudges to go on.
"What is it?" Suphlatus asks.
"The thing that's making those windows," Kazbiel murmurs. "It knows me. Don't ask me how; I don't know. All I know is that it has an interest in me, and that the name in me is utterly terrified of it."
"What is it, specifically?"
"I don't know," Kazbiel repeats, and closes her eyes. "It's big, powerful...I made the mistake of sticking my arm through one of those windows, and I got a sense...it's nothing either of us would recognize, and it..." She trails off.
"It knows you and has an interest in you, and that's why we're finding rifts in reality. It's trying to get a good look at you."
"No, that's not why - !"
"Then why?"
"It's incidental," Kazbiel sips her drink. "If I weren't here; if I..."
"Mm...I don't believe you."
"What?" Kazbiel lifts her head, startled.
"I think you're wrong about it, and that if you went somewhere else we'd find little rifts there, too."
"That's a guess!"
"Judging from your fear, I don't think it needs to be, to make you flee." Suphlatus murmurs. "Where are you planning to go now?"
Kazbiel sets down the glass with shaky hands and clambers out of the water. She hates how well Suphlatus knows her; hates how well she can be manipulated by her. "Away from you," she whispers, because that's the only answer she has. What are her options? What's the safest path?
"Kazbiel, sit back down," Suphlatus orders, and unconsciously Kazbiel obeys, sitting at the lip of the pool. A superior to a subordinate, for Kazbiel is lower in the hierarchy regardless of her status as Fallen and she must be focused to deny the nature of angels. "That's better. Look at me."
Kazbiel looks at her, then looks away. She'll have to go deeper into Hell, because she can't leave it for Earth, and Heaven is out of the question.
"Kazbiel, I'm not the source of your problems," she says. "What will running from me get you? Think."
The mouth of the cave has closed again, and it's hot in here. Kazbiel scoots away from Suphlatus, already looking for another way out. It doesn't matter that Suphlatus' domain is inescapable down here; she'll escape.
"We all have agendas down here," Suphlatus says, getting to her feet, the pool vanishing. "I can't believe you expected me not to have one."
"You won't get anything from me," Kazbiel says, fires burning the air around her as she summons the forces needed for escape. She'll melt the rock; she'll melt everything here if she has to. She can see the dust already being summoned to cover the fires, but no, no she will not be caught here.
Suphlatus slams into her, throwing them both to the floor, and abruptly the fires are gone.
"Kazbiel, look at me."
Kazbiel turns her head away.
Suphlatus slaps her. "I said, look at me. Why are you running from me now?"
"Too much," Kazbiel murmurs, looking at Suphlatus now. "Too close."
"You're scared," Suphlatus accuses.
"I can't afford to be!"
"But you are," Suphlatus says, and shakes her head, getting up again. "Calm down and think. This creature is trying to find you. We can assume that safely, I think. Its presence terrifies what you have. Half of the name of God. We can conclude then that you don't want to meet this thing for a proper meeting. So you run." She puts out fires as she talks, and smothers Kazbiel's quiet attempts to leave. "Kazbiel, what happens when you meet the other half of the name?"
"I don't know," Kazbiel says, slowly stopping. She isn't getting out yet, is she? "It wants to find its other half. I can feel it pulling all the time."
"Let me guess the problem," Suphlatus says. "It wants to lead you to Heaven."
"That's where he is," Kazbiel murmurs. "Let me go."
"He? Ah...your other half."
"My brother."
"Kazbiel," Suphlatus says, patient. "How do you get an angel out of Heaven?"
"Either make them Fall or get out of the way because they've come down on a mission."
"We're going to bring your other half down," Suphlatus says, decisively. "Will you need to run when you have the entire name, Kazbiel?"
"And if you're holding my strings, what strength will you have?" Kazbiel mutters, but she sits up. "Fine. I'll go along with your plan."
"Then we need to find a way out of Hell that's not kept under watch from Heaven."
Kazbiel thinks of the roof, of the surface that's more than a surface between realms, and nods. She's calmer now, and able to think about Suphlatus' plans. It's...she recognizes that she's too easily driven by emotion, especially when it comes to her memories.
"I'll cut your strings," she tells Suphlatus.
"You're welcome to try," Suphlatus answers. "Until then, there are things we need to do, such as find a way to Earth. Do you suppose that demon you like knows any hidden passages?"
"Worth a try," Kazbiel says. "Let me out."
"Fine," Suphlatus says with a light smirk on her lips. "I'll go with you."
Oh, Hell.
"Fine," Kazbiel snaps, and she walks out of the now-open cave and takes to wing and doesn't look back.
---
We lost something, Kazbiel thinks as she flies. When we fell from Heaven we lost something and it wasn't just Lucifer. We're still angels, but not. I think, and there's the crux of it. Suphlatus wonders why I don't miss Heaven and it's because I think, and I question, and that's it. (Does my twin question, too? Is he stifled? Does he mind?)
"Kazbiel," Suphlatus says to her, once she lands. "Talk to me."
No, Kazbiel thinks. "What is it about Hell that makes us question each other and ourselves?"
Aha, there!, Kazbiel thinks. Suphlatus blinking and taking too long to respond. That's what she needs to do to confuse Suphlatus, to keep her lover out of her head.
"It's not Hell," Suphlatus finally says. "We were questioning before we came here, and Kazbiel...this is a subject for another time."
"You told me to talk to you," Kazbiel says, but she agrees. There's Flauros standing there, and she can feel eyes on them. Other angels, perhaps other demons? Privacy can't be guaranteed here, but in this place (she hesitates to describe it, can't think of words. A walkway of stone, many walkways of stone, fire bursting from the rocks themselves - there's no justice to the place there, no bite to it) she feels exposed. How far up is the roof, she wonders, but the heat makes the air wobble and play tricks and she can't trust what she sees when she looks up.
"You aren't the angel of anything," Suphlatus murmurs to her, a sudden venomous bite to her voice. "I wonder if you're an angel."
But Flauros is approaching and she cannot reply without saying too much.
"Angels," he greets; there's a tenseness about him that she does not like. Is he afraid? She can see fur standing on end, or is that the heat interfering again? "Let us leave here."
"Take us up instead of down," Suphlatus orders, and the leopard face clicks its teeth shut before turning and walking away. They follow in silence.
Too many thoughts chase around her head as she walks: what would Kasbeel have done; would it have fallen with Lucifer? What was it the angel of? What will I do on Earth, how will I call Kazfiel down without risking myself? Can I trust Suphlatus? How far can I trust her? What is she planning? Angel of Dust; she can feel another one of those windows. I should ask her where they all are.
What is my purpose, if my only directive has been to stay as far away from Kazfiel as I can?
The last takes her by surprise, makes her laugh unexpectedly. She ignores Suphlatus' look and the way Flauros' fur ruffles (or is that wind?) and there are too many ways for her to take that. She can declare herself free, she can defy orders for the first time and truly fall, she can hide herself down in Hell and suffer as she was made to do, and the last gives her conviction; makes her stay on the path and at Suphlatus' side.
"I've thought things through," she tells Suphlatus, and knows that Flauros' leopard face is flicking an ear back to listen. "And you'll show me more of your memories, so I can be properly angry about this."
"Who am I to stop you?" Suphlatus asks, and there still is that smirk lingering on her lips.
Kazbiel doesn't hesitate, and wipes it off with a kiss.
---
"Unnecessary risk," he tells them. He won't elaborate, and he won't judge them any further.
He might have, if he were a younger demon, one without experience with the angels. The trouble is, as far as he is concerned, is that the angels (having had time to become accustomed to Hell) are settling into routines and territitories and behaving according to their natures. (He has had time to observe this happen, even from his limited perspective.)
Angels, fallen or not, are agents of fate. They adore order unless actively rebelling against it, they adore routine, and this is why he finds Kazbiel's activities now so disquieting. The fallen angels are unhappy but unwilling to change until the day Lucifer breaks free, and here she is, surely the cause of the other angel ordering him to take them up instead of down.
Up to the exits of Hell, he interprets, instead of down into the deepest pits, where the oddities of the outside bleed into the unruliness of Hell's reality.
He doesn't dare ask Kazbiel for details, or for reasons. Not with the other angel's supervision.
Her gaze is unwavering when she places it on him, and he knows that only Kazbiel can distract her. (Unless - are there other angels, other demons who can? He doesn't know much about her at all.) He listens to her quiet conversations with Kazbiel and wonders: what can he do to hinder her? He distrusts her association with Kazbiel, and he cannot say why except for the simple fact that she is typical of the fallen angels. (Mysterious; inhuman; amused.) (He is aware that it is redundant to call an angel inhuman. Might as well call a demon a human: you'd be right, you'd be wrong at the same time.)
The trail leads him through caves, through narrow tunnels that were created by creatures best not thought about, and he stops when he feels a pair of claws on his back, between his shoulderblades. Where the base of his neck would be, if he still had that shape.
"Yes?" He asks, voice a low growl. It's not Kazbiel who's doing this.
"Why do you care about her?" Suphlatus asks, drumming fingers in his fur. "I understood that demons are the lowest of their kind, incapable of emotions that might lead...out."
"I was once a man," he reminds her, voice still low. "I could go mad if I let myself forget that."
"Answer my question."
He says nothing, keeping his mind a careful blank, and he resumes walking. He owes her nothing, and they came to him specifically for what he could offer.
"Oh, you're an arrogant one," she murmurs, but he doesn't find claws in his back. "Is it love, then?"
"No." Easy enough to deny. "Angel, I have no desire to anger you today." Here he stops, turns to look at them. "One of your bretheren promised me rewards if I would lead you into its domain. It thinks to discover more about the rifts by questioning you, who closed one. Its servant holds a grudge, as you also killed one of its cohorts. I have thrown my loyalty to you and if you will allow me, I will continue guiding you along these paths."
He watches Kazbiel stop, honestly surprised, and he watches Suphlatus nod: was she expecting this?
"Lead on," Suphlatus commands, before Kazbiel can work her mouth. "Before it discovers your betrayal."
Flauros gives a mocking bow, and leads on. He cannot comfort Kazbiel now, no matter how much he wants to. Not with Suphlatus there.
---
Hell unrolls before them as Flauros leads them up and out of the tunnels. Kazbiel can spot Suphlatus' wasteland, the lavapits of Af's design, the twisted skin-mazes that come from nowhere but Hell itself, that canyon she spent too much time in and more. It's an ugly patchwork, and Kazbiel shivers to think that she is above it all.
The roof stretches above them, a vast ocean now.
"Hell is too dangerous," Flauros rumbles beside her. "There are no exits that are unmarked, and it matters not how far you look. The question instead is to find exits that are more dangerous than others."
"Oh," Kazbiel says, comprehension dawning. She has put off the thought of actually leaving Hell for a long time now, and the logistics are more complicated than she was thinking. (Which fits Hell, but she hates knowing Hell's nature too well now.)
"I should ask you how you know this," Suphlatus comments. "The guardians wouldn't let you near them, let alone answer questions."
"The only obstacles between me and home are an ocean and an angel."
"The only obstacle between me and home is an army. Do you see me scratching at the bars?"
"This isn't about dignity," Flauros says, looking up. "I can't go with you."
Kazbiel looks at him, then flies up, going to the water. She's not ready for the plunge yet, nor is she ready to alert the guard that someone wants out, but she wants to skim her fingers in the water. So she does, and oh - it's cold. She leaves her fingers in, trying to become accustomed to it, but it is cold, bitingly so. If she were human she would lose fingers to it immediately, as it severs nerves and steals flesh.
Even as an angel it won't be pleasant. She isn't getting used to it, and when she pulls her fingers free they are numb.
"Too much," she mutters, already balking.
"It will harden you," comes Suphlatus' voice, and Kazbiel turns in the air to stare down at Suphlatus. Is that dust on the wind? Is that how she can hear her? She is very far up.
A thought angers her: Suphlatus might want her to go alone, might want to escape the pain and stay down here while waiting for results.
Her wings fold, and she drops back down to Suphlatus and Flauros, bristling. There's nothing else she can do to prepare, and there's no point in waiting.
"We're all going," she declares, and there - the word inside is ready to go, nearly pulling her up into the water, Flauros is flinching, Suphlatus looks both thrilled and annoyed. He won't be able to survive this, will he? And Suphlatus can't fly (can she?). It doesn't matter. "It's going to be cold, and depending on the guardian it might be dangerous. Flauros," here she is surprised at how determined and heartless she sounds, "You're not allowed to die until I say so."
Is he angry? Good. He'll need heat.
"Suphlatus," she says, changing her attentions. "You first." And she snatches her up, flying up to the water and pushing her in, glad that Suphlatus isn't struggling. She can swim in the water, even if she can't fly, and the shock of the cold on her forearms as she delivers Suphlatus into the water is excruciating.
Hell is too hot on her hands when she drops down to pick up Flauros.
"You won't understand," Flauros says, digging his clawed hands into her arms hard enough to hurt, "but I consider you a daughter. I was a man once, and a father."
"You could say mine is with me," she says, and doesn't give him a chance to talk back before she thrusts him into the water, flying in after, keeping hands on him. She won't let him run now.
The cold is a physical blow, and she knows that the guardian angel is alert to their presence already. This will have to be quick, she thinks, and even then they may not avoid battle.
It doesn't matter where Suphlatus is, not when she has to focus to swim up - up to Earth, not up to Hell - with Flauros weighing her down and not helping with his refusal to move, (can he move?) and she can feel the other angel beginning to move. Who is it? Where is it?
Bubbles float past her nose, and they are an unexpected boon as she knows which direction to fly to.
Turn back, comes the order, and oh - It is something vast and terrible, an angel and not, and why didn't Flauros mention this? Even through the numbing effects of the cold she can feel him shaking, and now she knows that it isn't just from the cold.
There is a bright tug within her, a demanding yank to go on.
I cannot, she sends back to the angel, and all she gets in return is laughter before abruptly the waters are silent. Silent and dark. She dares to look down, and even the lights of Hell (ha!) are dimmed.
It's dangerous, and so she resumes swimming. Thoughts rise to the surface, traces of panic and fear and determination, and she wishes she hadn't decided that Flauros' life was in her hands, because now it literally is, and she doesn't want to be responsible. She needs to let go for more mobility down here (fur is heavy underwater) and she can't.
For all her bravado and for all the tugs the syllables give her, she is afraid that this angel might be too much.
It's silent, and she might be blind down here, and she wonders if light would be a good or bad idea.
A pulse through the water, and she can feel something swimming past. The angel is here.
Kazbiel, Suphlatus calls. His name is Rahab.
What good will that do? Kazbiel calls back. There is nowhere down here to work spellwork with his name, and her usual methods of fighting won't work. But she must make something work...
The water whirls around her and she feels more than hears Suphlatus' scream.
Rahab, Rahab. Does she know this angel? Has she met him before? Could she call him brother? (The answer to that is no, for she is Fallen and he is not.)
She decides on light, and creates a ball of it, illuminating the waters. Unexpectedly she feels the syllables within her fuel it, and the light is brighter than she intended: far brighter, blinding. She continues to swim up as the light floods the area, and she can see Rahab and Suphlatus.
The dust rising like blood in a cloud, and floating in it is her lover. Kazbiel tightens her hold on the still-shaking Flauros and manuevers over to her, wrapping an arm around Suphlatus' waist.
Rahab has taken her legs.
Rahab, who is at once more and less than Kazbiel was expecting. The image of the sea serpent, an elongated man, both images overlapping, with one similarity: his mouth, his teeth. Large, saw-edged, flesh caught on the edges.
The human image (overgrown black hair floating around his shoulders; scarred flesh) is blindfolded. The leviathan has no eyes.
He turns in the water, slowly, snapping Suphlatus' stone legs in half with loud crunches.
Kazbiel kicks her legs, quickly moving to try to fly up, but she knows: the surface is far away, and he is in his natural element. They're going to have to do something else to escape. It's harder now too, as Suphlatus is yet another weight in her hands. Flauros at the least has stopped shaking, but he's useless to her.
How twisted you are, to exchange tasty flesh for tasteless rock!
Kazbiel jerks her head around, catching a last glimpse of teeth and the double-image, and in that moment the light goes out. Her mind is racing, and she feels him approaching as she struggles to ascend. There's no time to respond, and what does she -
She can feel him approaching. He's sightless. The pieces fall into place. Perhaps -
A fleshy thing appears behind and under her, wriggling its limbs in a blind panic. A flesh golem, created spur of the moment. More are created as she swims, in a wide arc around her, and she can feel their undulations stir the water.
It might not work, but she stills the water around her with a touch of effort, and keeps swimming. It might buy her time.
Kazbiel, Suphlatus murmurs, stirring from under her arm.
Quiet. I'm focusing.
To her surprise, Suphlatus doesn't reply. Instead, she feels the churning in the water that signals Rahab, and feels one of her golems be destroyed.
He's close, but those teeth aren't in her skin, and she's quietly relieved. This may not last, and she may need to find another plan, but they're still ascending and she can create an endless number of those golems.
Your name, comes Rahab's voice after what seems like an eternity of swimming.
Don't tell him, Suphlatus murmurs to her.
Kazbiel closes her eyes briefly, still swimming, and decides on recklessness. Perhaps not her name, perhaps...
Kazfiel, she tells Rahab. Similar to her name, but not. Her twin's name.
Kazfiel, Rahab repeats, and she gets the sense that he's tasting the name. I'll find you.
Kazbiel shivers, though not from the cold, and swims on.
---
There is a marked difference between Rahab's domain and the deep seas on Earth. For example, Kazbiel's wings shrivel away to become invisible, and as light slowly becomes visible above them she looks at herself and all she can see is a perfectly normal nude human with red hair.
Suphlatus is the same, and Kazbiel wonders briefly if she'll need to spend energy creating her new legs over those stumps, but her attention is caught by Flauros before she can raise the question.
For Flauros is less and less heavy in her arms, and his shape is twisting, obscuring itself in black smoke. It's Suphlatus who leans into her and provides the answer to her unspoken question.
He can't be allowed to stay here without something binding him here. So find him a human body to inhabit or bind him in another way.
Kazbiel threads a noose of her Grace around his smoke, binding him temporarily, and she feels Suphlatus' approval.
We're nearly there, Suphlatus murmurs, raising a hand towards the light. Earth itself will be ours to explore, and we can find all the dark shadows to hide ourselves in, and delight in all the pleasures of human flesh.
I'll be able to lure down my twin, Kazbiel says. And then...
And then what?
He and I meet, and we'll just have wait and find out for ourselves what happens after that.
---