A Fallen Angel, Chapter 1: By No Fault of His Own

Originally written by: Jazzpha

NOTE: The Teen Titans don't show up in this chapter, but they're in this fic by the end of Chapter 2. From then on, they have quite a lot of face-time. Trust me.

Dmitri looked up from his book and sighed. His parents still weren't back yet, and the young angel was starting to worry. The meeting with the Tzarion Council shouldn't have taken this long unless something had gone horribly wrong, and Dmitri didn't even want to think along those lines. Sighing and cradling his head in his hands the youthful seraph, who looked to be about 19, looked back down at his book with his startlingly sharp gray eyes and kept reading.

It had been like this for a long time, about as long as Dmitri could remember. He had been sent off to be looked after by Ezekiel, the custodian of the Empyrean's libraries, a week after he had been born. Since then Dmitri had seen little of the Empyrean on the outside of the gilded walls, and even less of his parents. His father, Azrael, one of the greatest warriors in all of the Empyrean, had only graced his son with his presence once. When he had done so he had looked very sad and frustrated, as if he or his child had committed some grave sin. Dmitri's mother, Clara, one of the most beautiful angels to have ever been created, had also been weighed down with suffering of some kind, although Dmitri couldn't be sure what. Her flawless face was drawn with consternation so severe it made Dmitri's heart ache like few other things had before.

Shoving those thoughts aside, Dmitri dove back into his book once again, trying to replace the unease he felt creeping gradually into his soul with the fantastic adventures and wars of the angels of old. Michael, leader of the vanguard in the army that struck down Lucifer; Darian, the powerful arch-angel who had sealed the terrible demon Koroga away not once, not twice, but three times before convincing the Kitsune that a loss was a loss. After that, neither Koroga nor his horde had ever harassed the halls of the Empyrean again. In fact, in a remarkable reversal, the Kitsune had fought by the side of the angels when the gargantuan Fenris Wolf and his two sons, Hati and Skoll, had come unchained from their iron bonds deep within the stomach of the underworld, craving vengeance. It seemed as though the nine-tailed fox demon was not without honor, and he felt indebted to Darian for sparing his life so many times. Dmitri found himself entranced by these stories, which he would have thought myths and legends if the angels within the pages weren't still alive in Dmitri's own time. Once again, however, the angel found himself yanked out of his comfortable little dream-world, although this time he didn't object: it was his girlfriend's musical voice calling out to him in greeting.

"Dmitri, are you going to pull your head out of the clouds and greet me or do I need to come over there and bring you down-to-earth myself?"

Dmitri only chuckled and got up, closing the book and looking at his girlfriend before pausing to admire her beauty. No matter how many times he saw her, she still looked like, well… an angel, but in a more metaphorical, spiritual sense.

White-silver hair flowed down to the small of her back, some of it falling in light bangs to frame her angular, majestic face which was made all the more compelling by the golden orbs of her eyes that shone with incredible radiance. She was wearing pure white leather leggings and a leather jerkin under a white robe that tapered out to be a cape. She was about 5' 10", and muscular but not overly developed; just enough that you could tell she was no shrinking violet despite her sometimes lithe and fragile appearance. Her ears also pointed up ever so slightly, which Dmitri found to be very interesting. As far as he had seen in terms of angels, no others had ever possessed pointed ears. His eyes had instinctively wandered at this point to her perfectly proportioned chest, and a half-joking half-annoyed cough was needed to jolt him out of his hormone-induced stupor.

"First off, I'm up here. Second, stop drooling like a hound-dog, you're embarrassing yourself."

Dmitri unhappily forced his eyes to make an arduous and painful exodus from the land of milk and honey up to the face of his girlfriend. After seeing the smile on her face, though, he decided it wasn't so bad.

"Alicia," he said, serious, "do I tell you enough just how beautiful you are?"

The angel blushed and flapped her snowy-white wings in small, coquettish beats, feigning an innocent school-girl type look.

"Aw, do you really think so?"

Dmitri chuckled and levitated over to Alicia before enveloping her in a loving embrace that lasted quite a few moments before he leaned away from her, looking distracted. Alicia knew something was wrong, and was resolved to know what had put her dearest Dmitri into such a funk.

"So what's gotten you all introspective all of a sudden?"

Dmitri snapped out of his far-off stare and looked at Alicia for a second like he hadn't heard what she had said before shrugging.

"It's just that, well, are we supposed to be this close? Emotionally, I mean. Isn't it some sort of sin?"

Alicia laughed at how innocent and naïve her boyfriend could be at times like this. Then again, she thought sadly, being locked up in here like a bird in a gilded cage 24/7 wasn't the best way to experience the outside world and learn about how it worked.

"Dmitri," she said, with the tone of a parent explaining the birds and the bees to their ignorant, still-innocent child, "if what we're doing is a sin, half the angel in the Empyrean would have been sent down to the infernal depths of the underworld by now for 'sinning'. The only really punishable offense would be actual sexual intercourse, and I don't think any angel has done that, ever."

Dmitri was puzzled even further by this statement, and cocked his head sideways like a curious cat. How could angels sin? That just didn't make much sense. Alicia laughed at the way he looked and sighed before continuing to explain.

"If you think what we're doing is bad, you should see the looks Lord Ashur shoots me every five minutes while he teaches me how to use a bow and arrow. I mean, you'd think he was in heat or something it's so blatantly obvious."

The male angel's expression changed dramatically, shifting from puzzlement to extreme jealousy. "If that old codger even tries to touch you, I'll rip his fingers off myself!" His face twisted into the funniest 'angry-face' Alicia had ever seen, and she sputtered and giggled before hugging Dmitri tightly.

"That's my Dmitri," she said, her head nestled in the crook of his shoulder while his chin rested on her shoulder. Dmitri sighed and smiled more contently than a kid at Christmas. Could life get any better?

Probably not, but it could get worse; a lot worse, as a matter of fact.

"Dmitri! Come quick, child, there isn't a moment to lose!"

Ezekiel's solicitous voice echoed through the countless book-stacks, giving the two lovebirds more than enough time to spring apart before the librarian came into view. The horrified look on his face made Dmitri think he had been caught with his hands in the cookie jar, but it was in fact far more serious than that.

"Dmitri, my child, it's your parents… they've been sentenced!"

The silence was deafening.

"Sentenced?" Dmitri was petrified with fear on the inside, but tried not to show it. "How to you mean, 'Zeke?"

The old angel went rambling right into his explanation, which was another sign to Dmitri that something was very amiss. Usually the stodgy old librarian would mumble about the younger generation's lack of respect for their elders or some such, but he didn't now and that worried the young angel.

"The Tzarion Council decreed an hour ago that your father, Azrael, was to be banished from the Empyrean for all time, and to return would be punishable by pain of death!"

This news hit Dmitri like a sledgehammer, for as little as he knew his father he still respected him a great deal. What knocked his second wind right out of him, though, was what Ezekiel hadn't said.

"But what about my mother? Is she O.K.? Is she going to have to leave, too?"

At this, old 'Zeke broke down sobbing.

"Child…" he said, "your mother… has already… b-b-be-been executed."

Dmitri thought he might fall over and die right at that moment, but instead he gave Alicia a strong hug, like a wounded cub trying to somehow draw strength from its mother in a time of distress. Alicia, for her part, could only try to comfort her loved one in the best way she could. Eventually the stricken angel found his voice and spoke.

"But why? Why did this happen to them?"

A powerful voice answered the rhetorical question from the corner of the room by the door that Alicia had entered through.

"Ezekiel does not have the answers you seek, but I do." It was Azrael. His green eyes shone fiercely, yet they seemed dead at the same time; clinging pitifully to life only through some last-ditch adrenaline burst fueled by pain, sorrow, and regret.

"Come, my son," the Arch-Angel continued, "I have ten long hours until my banishment to let the suffering sink in, and in that time I think it is only fitting you learn the truth about who… and what… you are."