[the weight of worlds between]
Madrigal of the Kirin struck a breath-stopping tableau. Dark leather armor secured her from chest to thighs, and she stood tall, lithe, and graceful in a scene of bloody death, flickering fire, and fog. The long, thin gazelle horns atop her head were complimented by the wooden staff held a large lantern from which curled whisps of pungent smoke and disappeared into the haze. Black face paint accentuated large brown eyes, the irises spreading color over more space than would be customary in her round, full human face. Her beauty was like the wind; at times you could ignore it, overpowered by the nobility of her personality, while at other times the force of it knocked you sideways.
On the stony beach, mist and sea spray clung to her skin, fur, and clothes. She moved on longest legs with the smallest bit of balance from her large, dark wings. Madrigal knew little of the ocean and found the endless horizon of water disconcerting. Her favorite landscape was mountains and trees and free-flying birds seen from aerial perspective.
And how she wished she could be flying, carefree and content, instead of wading among the battered, beaten bodies of the dead. Madrigal knew she should be thankful for their victory, but the battle had been a massacre for both seraphim and chimaera. Ignoring the horror of lifeless bodies, she tried her best to center herself around the sound of the waves, the familiar scent of the incense, and the miracle of collecting souls and rebirthing her people.
For those angels groaning or pretending death with no one coming for them – how could these "civilized" seraphim neglect their dead? – the thin edge of her half-moon blades gave them a quick, merciful death. It was a heavy burden to bear, doling out death or life based solely on the body you were born in. She had no battle-rage in her, having never been in battle, and she felt each choice to kill like guilt gripping her ankles, reaching for life, that she had to dislodge. The fingers found purchase instead around her heart.
Moments like these, when she felt regret and mercy for the angels, were becoming increasingly frequent. Madrigal had to shore up her resolve with a focus of her hate: they killed my people, they killed these chimaera, they wouldn't hesitate to kill me. And what's more, when she needed the touch of greater perspective: they make Brimstone a slave to his magic and all of us slaves to this war.
Madrigal closed her eyes for a breath, fighting the urge to rise above the gore and fill her lungs instead with fresh air untainted by death, and then sighed. When brown eyes opened again, she stepped carefully around a single angel, purposefully ignoring the ashen embers of his wings and the tally marks on the hands still clutching his sword, when her thin, gazelle legs drew to a halt. She dutifully paused by a chimaera corpse; a friend, she noted with sorrow, and let the incense in her lantern circulate through the wet, heavy air and create a pathway for the soul to follow.
She hadn't said anything to Brimstone, but every now and then she was sure she felt a soul as it journeyed to her thurible. Sometimes as she stood in the carnage with the smell of the incense wrapping around her senses, she felt another part of her reach out into the world. Madrigal knew it had something to do with magic, because she sometimes felt this… calming distance, she might call it, almost like a trance – come over her as she helped Brimstone with his work. She knew the souls moved through the space around her, these chimaera were always resurrected later, but since the souls were invisible, she didn't know if it was silly to think she could feel them. But she could. She could sense an impression of one's soul when it traveled near enough to her and she reached out in her tranquil state. These impressions could be of anything: a place, an emotion, a color… some she loved dearly for the beauty conveyed in this touch, and others she abhorred for their malice and anger. She tried not to do it too much, however, because she'd brushed an angel's soul or several and the experience was confusing and painful.
Gently pressing forward in the ruin, Madrigal saw the unmistakable radiance of angel wings through the curtain of fog. She cocked her head to the side, understanding, an angel is still alive.
He said nothing at her approach, which was slow and thoughtful. She knew without a doubt, thanks to her new senses, that she and this angel were the only living beings within eyesight or earshot.
Maybe it was the grief of the carnage, maybe it was the lulling of the nearby ocean or the belief that in this place alone among the mist, she could decide with a whole and healthy heart who could live or who could die, but she knew she wouldn't kill him. His eyes were unlike any she had seen in an angel's face, and something behind them spoke to her. She couldn't understand, but she watched the hate drop from fiery eyes as wonder smoothed the skin around them. The transformation of his face allowed her to glimpse his beauty, and she appreciated it not as that of an angel, but of a living being. She took in his mutilated shoulder, the blood surrounding him, and felt the decision like a lock clicking into place within her. They did not feel like enemies here in this place, just a person in pain and someone with the means to help alleviate that pain.
Madrigal drew closer to Akiva on tentative legs until she could kneel beside his broken body, her eyes fixed to his face. He turned slowly toward her, as if he were succumbing to her gravity, and he reached with bloody fingers to grasp hers. He was touching her! An angel— startled thoughts formulated in her mind, feelings of revulsion and confusion and surprise, and before she could make sense of anything, she snatched her hand away from him.
More impossibly still, he spoke "I'll go with you," in chimaera. With me? His words cut through her shock. Where would we…? and then she knew, looking at her thurible, that the incense tugged at his half-alive, half-passing spirit.
"That's not for you," she said with a tinge of insolence, before stalking off to fix her staff into the ground at a safe distance. "I don't think you want to go where I'm going," she continued, the image of Brimstone making a revenant body for a seraphim too shocking and repelling to consider. Too odd and other.
He answered, "Death," as if she had asked a question. "I'm ready." He's ready, hmm? She shook her head. She felt things moving inside her, shifting and fitting together in new ways. So serious! All solemnity and resignation in his tone, and here she was, working to save his life. She acknowledged his words with the patience and surety of a parent entertaining a child's fantasies.
"Well, I'm not. I hear it's dull, being dead." She said, smiling down at him.
His answering smile struck her like a bee sting. She had been trying to lighten the mood, true, but she had not expected… that smile, or how it warmed her. She blushed, grateful his eyes were closing.
"Dull sounds nice. Maybe I could catch up on my reading." What? Are you kidding? She snorted. Who was this bizarre, handsome stranger? She smiled sardonically to herself as reached over and and dislodged the sheath of one of his swords from the leather of its strap. This will be used to save a life instead, she whispered in her mind like a prayer. Using the leather strap, she twisted a tourniquet to stave off his blood flow.
"I recommend living," she breathed, trying to act nonchalant but her voice still carried a touch of reverence.
"I'll try," he answered. But then the moment was broken by chimaera chatter. "Shh," she murmured with a finger to her lips.
They both felt the bubble of their impossible interaction rupture and burst, its pieces evaporating as if it had been nothing substantial or significant. But still, she was reluctant to leave her patient, this angel whose life she saved despite the fiery wings on his back and the tally marks on his hands.
Madrigal looked at Akiva, and the weight of worlds were held in the space between them.
The sun broke through the mist for a moment, and she saw its light touch his face and streak through his eyes. She searched his face, drinking in the details to etch him on the walls of her mind forever.
She would never be able to explain it, in this life or her next, why her fingers touched his brow and traced a path to his throat. She knew this encounter enveloped in mist had changed her, this angel had changed her, and the life beating beneath the palm of her hand in the strong length of his throat was something she was proud of and thankful for. The beauty and wonder in his eyes touched a place in her soul only Brimstone had found and she had little explored.
It was a place that made her question everything except the strength of her heart. For some reason, the gaze of this stranger, this angel, this enemy, stroked the chords of her heart and she could ignore the sound no less than she could ignore the call to fly. Maybe it had always been there, a part of her waiting to be discovered. Looking at him felt like life discovered.
She offered the angel one last open look and the smallest lift of full lips, a sweet smile, before she hastened off, bounding on chimaera legs, and left him to live.
[end]