Over white sand, sheltered by rocky islets and strands of kelp, the water took on a greener hue, patches of verdant light that touched the minds of man and elohim alike. The water was a liquid gem, like translucent jade, like sunlight caught in green amber, like the waters of Paradise. In the shallows close to shore, the sea was transparent and peaceful. Where the seafloor dropped off, the water instantly turned a deep blue, marking deeper water. The deep was mysterious, turbulent, restless. The line between the two waters, so stark and apparent, it was like the boundary between lives, shared and distinct.
Charlotte was looking down at the ocean also, holding a porcelin urn against her stomach. She saw her mother looking at her and offered neither smile nor acknowledgement. Her eyes looked away from Daria, inland, to where the land was less easy than by the shore, Steep hills climbed to the mountain peaks behind, giving the impression that the mountains fell directly into the Pacific. In the distance, like a thin scar, parts of the coastal road could be seen, disappearing, only to reappear on the side of a more distant mountain spine.
Tired of waiting, Charlotte finally decided the time to let go was at hand. Daria softly sang a breeze and the wind that whipped Charlotte's long curly locks around her face also carried Greg's ashes seaward. Charlotte's hair hid her face for a moment, but when Daria's silent song ended, she could see the tears. She offered no tears of her own, instead looking back toward the ocean. Greg was already gone. This show of reverence for ashes was for Charlotte.
"You could have saved him."
Daria looked back at her. She was tempted to deny this accusation, but her seraphic nature did not sit with lies. Perhaps this was from when she had only been Darlene, but Daria greatly wished that Charlotte would not say anything further. It would be better if she just got in her car and left, on her way back East, to college and life beyond a shared past with someone who wasn't Daria.
"Why? How could you just let him die like that, knowing you could have saved him?"
Daria's human heart skipped a beat. She felt a strange chill coming over her. Be silent, she urged her daughter. If only she had the luxury of lying, she could deflect those words, make them die and never be heard again.
"Are you going to answer me?"
No, Daria thought, I will not answer you. Let this bitterness die here, or let Charlotte take it with her. As long as Charlotte was away, let her feel what she would. Let her utter her curses to the wind. Just let Daria not be the one to hear.
"What good is it being an angel, if you won't even help your own husband?"
A hand of cold stone gripped Daria's heart. She squeezed her eyes from the pain of that accusation and what it revealed. A single drop of water drifted down her craggy cheeks. The rest of her tears she bled within, trying to contain her pain and composure. No, she cried inside.
Daria stopped singing the clouds. They parted and a shaft of strong sunlight warmed them both. Daria's shadow was larger than it should have been. It was almost deformed, with two large humps from her folded wings plainly evident from anyone looking down at the uneven ground.
"Don't try to hide it. I know what you are. I saw when Daddy died. At first, I thought I was freaking crazy. But I see you still and now I understand. I think Daddy saw it too, at the end. And to think that you just stood there, letting him die, letting him suffer."
"I did not let him suffer. I took what pain I could. And you're wrong, I could do nothing. It is not allowed."
"Not allowed? Or did you just not want to?"
"Both." Daria agreed. "Yes, I could have saved him, but there are rules that my kind have to respect. We are not gods. There were once those of our kind who thought they were. They started by wanting to help, to change the fate of men. They started out with good intentions, but in the end, they fell to their own vanity."
"I can hear you, sometimes. Your lips don't move, but it sounds like you're singing. She walked over to her mother, still clutching the urn. "I wake up at night and it's like my senses are all mixed up. I hear colour, I touch sound, and I can taste what I see. And that sound I touch, it's all around me. I can see it now, like everything, that rock, that grass, the ocean, they're all vibrating, pulsing with - something."
"You were born before my Awakening. You shouldn't have been born at all. Your kind is not allowed."
"What do you mean?" Charlotte sensed a coldness in Daria. She sensed something else also. She looked around, but they were alone.
"You're a nephilim. If angels and humans mate, your kind are the result. The first nephilim were monsters. They devoured man and elohim alike."
Daria touched her daughter's cheek. Charlotte pulled her hand away and stood back.
"The chances of a nephilim from a pre-awakening are so small, I had hoped that I was wrong. But I saw signs in you, even as a child. And now, by your own words, you have revealed yourself."
"Why are you here?" Charlotte asked. "Why can I see you now, and not before?"
"I was sent here. You see me as I truly am because you have awakened. Your sorrow was the key to unlocking your inner self. Sometimes the Awakening happens later, sometimes not at all. It would have been better if you had never awakened. You could have lived your life in peace," Daria said, directing the words at Charlotte, but meaning them for herself.
Charlotte looked down at her own hands. "I'm not a monster," she declared. "Why did you marry father then, if you didn't want children? It seems I may be your mistake, but I really don't care. I'm glad to be alive and grateful for it. I only wished I had - what did you call it, awakening? I wouldn't have let Daddy die the way you did."
"You do not know the songs that could have saved him. Oh, you might have tried, I grant you. And the results would have been disastrous. Nephilim are very powerful. Your kind can walk through the Symphony and can use the powers of the elohim without consequence, without conscience. Your kind are the incestuous progeny of God's children that should have never been. You are an abomination."
Charlotte's expression couldn't have been more pained than if Daria had just walked over and slapped her in the face. She tried to stop them, but a stream of tears erupted. Her eyes swelled and she dropped the urn. It smashed into pieces.
The part of her that was still Darlene wanted to rush over and comfort her daughter. Darlene didn't see a nephilim, a monster, an embarrassment, a danger. She saw only her child, her little girl who was in pain and who needed her mother's arms for comfort.
"You called me an angel. I am not. I am a seraph, of the Choir of Seraphim. We are the highest of the choirs, who in Heaven, sing the Trisagion, and who were created to sit at God's feet. Ours is the burden of leadership. Ours is the gift of duty."
Charlotte stopped crying, or tried to. Her face continued to twitch, and pools of tears occasionally welled up again. She picked up the shards of the urn and cut her hand. It hurt like hell, but she stopped crying. The cut bled at first, but then the wound closed. There wasn't even a scar. Charlotte dropped the shard and gasped, examining her hand.
"Part of you is seraphim too. I want you to listen to me. You cannot remain here. You have to go away. I want you to think about that. I want you to be brave."
"Fine. I'll be at college. If angels, or seraphs, still care about their daughters, you can call me there." Charlotte took out the car keys. "You coming or not? I'll drop you off in Santa Cruz on the way to the airport."
Daria sang. Charlotte looked at her. Then, seeing that her mother was looking past her, she looked behind, toward the mountains. Two winged elohim swooped down from the clouds they were hiding behind. The looked liked birds from the distance. Others seeing them probably saw only that. But Charlotte saw them truly and her jaw dropped, from fear, yes, but mostly from wonder.
"They're so beautiful!" she gasped.
The elohim, clad in golden armour and wielding fierce broadswords whose edges danced with flame glided down and landed, golden sandals touching the grass in front of Charlotte. Somehow, the grass did not bend. The angels seemed to possess no weight. Yet, they were seven feet tall with bright burning eyes. Charlotte could not look into those eyes without feeling pain.
"These two cherubim have been guarding you ever since you were a little girl. They have been watching over you, making sure you did not fall into the hands of the Enemy. They will now take you when you are ready."
"Ready? Ready for what?"
The cherubs each grabbed one of Charlotte's arms. Their grip was like fire. They whirled her around to face Daria.
"What're you doing?" she protested. "Let go of me! Let me go!"
One of the angels addressed Daria. "We have guarded this child these many years. If she agrees not to use her powers, we can guard her until she dies a normal death. We are willing to do this."
Daria's response was scorching. "I will forget you even mentioned what you just said. There is a war. I cannot justify two cherubim guarding my daughter for the rest of her days. You are needed elsewhere. Charlotte has made her fate."
"Charlotte, look at me." Daria commanded. "Look at your mother."
Charlotte did not want to, but there was something very compelling about Daria's voice. She tried to fight it. But Daria continued to insist and Charlotte looked up at her."
"We cannot allow you to remain here on Earth. You have powers you don't even comprehend yet. The Enemy could use you to unmasque our kind, even before we have awakened. We cannot, dare not, help you use those powers. But the Fallen would only encourage you. They would torture you, twist you, until you were as wicked and lost as they are. Perhaps someday, you will understand that what I'm doing to you is a kindness."
"Mother? Help me?" Daria could taste her daughter's fear. It was more bitter than bile. It burned her like acid.
"Look at me." Daria commanded. "Be brave. The pain will pass. See me now. See me for what I truly am."
Daria transformed herself into her true form. Daresiel's first memory was being at God's feet, soaking up the divine radiance until it's burning glory fused herself into her own being.
Charlotte saw the seraph. It was like a glorious winged being, snake-like, with a multitude of eyes, wholly inhuman, alien, powerful, and radiant. That divine radiance, unshielded, burned her flesh like fire. Out of equal parts fear and reverence, Charlotte dropped to her knees, half pleading, half worshipping the thing before her. She screamed out in pain as her flesh soaked up the energy emanating from the seraph. The pain seemed without end, but when it did end, there was only an echo of terror and agony. Charlotte felt at ease, peaceful. She felt like, like she was floating. But she wasn't floating. The cherubim still held her firmly. She was still a prisoner.
She looked down. There was a body kneeling in front of her. She couldn't see its face, but the corpse was smoking. The cherubim let her go and she walked around and seeing the face, shuddered. She was looking at her own death, her own face, frozen in pain and terror, as if begging for release. Her eyes had been burned clean from the radiance mortal eyes could never perceive.
Daresiel, still in her daemonic form, that of a winged snake with many pairs of jewelled eyes, stood hovering nearby, its wings sending scented air blowing past Charlotte. Seeing her mother's true form neither hurt nor frightened Charlotte any longer.
"Am I dead?" she asked.
"Only your human half, my dear. Human bodies cannot withstand the true revelation of the elohim. Yours is more resistant. Only the fire of the seraphim is pure enough to purge a nephilim's body of its soul. Ours is the reflection of the purest divine radiance since we were the closest to God. Our true visage was never meant for mortal eyes. One of the consequences of your awakening is that you could be - taken - without consequence to the Symphony. This has always been a sign to us that your kind is not meant for Earth."
Charlotte wanted to weep for her life, for the experiences she would never have, love and family most of all. But she no longer had a body to bring tears. But she could feel pain and loss very well.
The cherubim, now revealed as terrible winged animals, flanked her on either side.
"Your protectors will take you now, to be with others of your kind."
"Am I going to Heaven?"
"Yes."
Daresiel thought of the flame pits of Machon. Knowing that her daughter might be sent there, Daresiel had gone back to Heaven, to see for herself. She had pitied the nephilim she saw there. To be put into the same torturous prisons of lava and fire as transgressing celestials, when the nephilim were guilty of nothing but having been born was a hard reality. The seraph bled brilliant tears of diamond fire from each of its eyes."
"Will I see Daddy again?"
"No, my dear," the winged snake spoke without moving its mouth. "That is not allowed. You don't belong to the destiny of Man. You will be taken to the Fifth Heaven of the Firmament. It is your destiny. Be brave and trust in the mercy of the One."
But was such mercy to be counted on? God had destroyed entire choirs for the slightest transgressions, and yet let others continue for even greater sins. Daria held onto her thoughts. Believe in the Rapture, she told herself. Ours is duty. We are nothing.
Charlotte screamed, crying for her mother as one of the huge cherubs grabbed her with its mouth, holding her firm in its jaws as it took wing. The other followed as an escort. They flew upward beyond the clouds, ultimately to disappear into the realms of the spirits.
Daria resumed her corporeal form. She called a wind, a terrible biting winter wind, not caring that it withered the grass with its unnatural cold. The deeper the icy cold bit into her material flesh, the more powerful she sang the wind. The pain it brought her was a poor castigation, as it could not banish the thoughts of her daughter screaming, while she did nothing. Darlene would not let Daresiel rest. Her daughter's body, charcoal and ash, eroded in the wind, flying toward the ocean in small particles, to rest alongside the ashes of her father in the calming blues and forgotten realms of the deep deep ocean.
In the end, only a pair of blackened keys, small bits of burnt jewelry and change were left. These Daria ground into the dirt until she couldn't see them anymore.
story by Solanio