He whisked by, a shadowy plume of darkness. His precise, careful movements, ensured his every target would go down. As an angel of his profession, he felt it his responsibility carry out this task.

He didn't truly care about the invasion of the sacred land that had filled the angel of recreation with such an intensely righteous fury, they had let it happen, so it was obviously intended. And, though he felt quite discontented at the slaughter of the loyal clan that had seen mortals do much worse. Besides, they would face their true punishment once he struck.

With a jovial trill - what might have been a sung laugh if he had a body - he danced about, catching on the breaths of more of the sinners. The sound was caught by a few unlucky ears, who quickly found nightmares crawling up their eyes, blinding them in deadly hallucinations.

As he drew closer to the easily grandest structure he could feel the humans' ringleader hiding in, he noticed the winged cherub was headed for the same destination; it seemed he would be leaving the man alive: he may be an angel of death, but he didn't have a death wish.

With a slight, silent chortle, he swooped by the entrance to save a mortal bystander from her much more gruesome wrath. He caught a glimpse of the human that had caused this; he was so... mortal. He didn't know why he was expecting anything else; it always was just fragile, little mortals: thinking they were something better. He almost felt about what was going to happen to him. Almost.

His expression had been strained; he was hiding his fear well, but no fear could escape his eye. And, so he looked, finding cruel and selfish thoughts, horrifying memories, plans...

This man would only receive what he deserved from her.

With that he continued his task.


He had been cleaning up stragglers, when he'd seen what she was doing.

She had trapped the leader - his soul - in a wooden prison: a suitable fate until he passed.

What a wonderful idea, after all, most of the souls hadn't departed yet. He allowed the surrounding corpses to melt away, decomposing into the ground, sprouting roots, and near instantly bursting into all sorts of trees, catching the souls as the old bodies once had.

Satisfied with this, he took to traversing the plains again, this time with the intention of keeping the invaders alive.

When the deed was finally done, he was left with a pile of useless, empty, half rotted bodies: souls already gone.

He was currently admiring one in particular. It was slender, tall and wide eyed, half the skeleton was already visible. He'd made his choice.

He called for the skin and muscle still on the remains to shrivel into nothing, before hoisting up, and holding it under the rushing waters of the river he'd noticed the angel of protection had made not too long ago.

Then, he pulled it back up and lay it down, willing it dry. And with a quiet prayer of thanksgiving to the sinner it had belonged to, he took it as his form.

He slowly rose, flexing his new joints. This would work nicely. As a final touch, he let the shadow mass of his previous form recollect on the blank scalp of his skull, where it stood to tall and large, while it's mass swished and shrank and grew like a flame. It could have passed as an afro. He found him self laughing a strange laugh, with a strange voice - they felt natural: like his.

With his new body complete, he allowed the rest of the pile to turn into trees, and used one of the many scattered weapons left behind to cut them down.


He admired the large, comfortable shack he had built with pride, waking into the space as the sky began to darken.

And thus the land was done. Any weapons he didn't collect had been all too hastily swallowed into the ground, and aside from the odd chat he had with his neighbours, all he ever truly did was make carvings from trees of whatever souls he felt like freeing, expand his living area, and replace chopped trees with whoever was foolish enough to trespass on their home.

And that was the way thing stayed for a long, long time...