All right, I decided to put up the second chapter, cuz I got bored. So read and review, plz! No flames!

Disclaimer: I don't own XME, I only own my characters and my plots~. No stealy meh charries unless I say so!

Summary: Kurt is a Fallen, an indescribably beautiful race of demon–angels. Kitty is a fledgling priestess with a hidden power. Kitty knows that Kurt isn't her enemy, but can she prove it?

Fallen Angel

2. Meeting and Tattoo

Kitty scribbled the last words onto her letter and carefully slipped it into the tiny container on her desk. A knock at the window distracted her. She went over and unlatched it, surprised to see Fira standing below it in broad daylight.

"Fira!" She tugged the girl into the shadows. "What if someone sees you?"

Fira was the designated messenger. She had always come at night before, so this was the first time Kitty had ever seen her in the light.

She had brown hair tied back into two ponytails; she had tan skin and leaf–green eyes; like the others, she had pointy ears. Her tawny wings were folded flat against her back. She shrugged and held out one hand for the container. Kitty gave it to her and watched as she slipped it into a pouch on her belt.

"Why have you come now?" asked Kitty quietly.

Fira's eyes darted nervously. "It's dangerous at night now," she murmured, her eyes flicking over the stack of pitchforks, hoes, and rakes in a messy pile near the meadow.

"Surely they won't go into the Forest?" muttered Kitty; appalled at the very idea. Did the people think they could take on the Fallen with their inhuman qualities and strengths, as well as their strange powers?

"Maybe…" Fira looked down. "I'd better go." She winked at Kitty and vanished, becoming invisible in a second. Though Kitty could no longer see the young Fallen, she saw the grass being moved away by Fira's passage. She leaned back into her room, closing the window. What was going on in the Forest?

She had to find out.

Night had descended upon the valley. Kitty looked up at the shining moon. She crept across her room and unlatched the window, crawling out through it, crawling through the meadow, eventually reaching the trees after being scared half to death by the squeaks of a lone field mouse.

She wandered through the tall, thick trees. "Hello?" she whispered, remembering Kurt's warning about shouting in this place—she did not want to attract any bad spirits!

"You should not have come here."

The voice startled her into motion. She turned, trying to see into the shadows in the trees, but her night vision was rather bad, and she saw only the tree-shadows.

There was a soft thump as something landed behind her. Kitty looked to see not Kurt, but someone who looked somewhat like him, although she was female.

The woman had glowing golden eyes and blue skin. Her hair was not blue, but orange, a strange color with all the blue. Her wings, folded against her back, were blue as well. She had no tail, unlike Kurt.

"You should not have come here." she repeated.

"I'm sorry," muttered Kitty. "Um, do you know Kurt? Because I—"

"I know him. What about him?" Her eyes seemed to follow Kitty's every movement.

"Well, I… I wanted to see him," said Kitty.

"You will not see him tonight. He is busy with the rest of our warriors."

"So it's true?" Kitty gasped. "You're really going to attack us?"

The woman's eyes gleamed and she bared her teeth, also fanged like Kurt's. "They attacked us, not the other way around!"

"Huh?"

"It is what they chose. They may have superior numbers, but they will find that not everything in the Forest is as friendly as we are!"

"Um…" Kitty blinked.

"What?"

"Actually, I don't think they are willing to fight you… I heard the elders discussing something else…" she trailed off. Should she be telling the secrets to this Fallen that she didn't even know? Despite everything that was said about her, she was still human, right?

"Not so willing to give up your secrets, eh?" the woman smiled, not quite unkindly, her eyes flickering in the light. "But as you will soon realize, you are not as human as you think you are…"

"Wh-what do you mean?" Kitty stammered.

"Your tattoo. I've heard the other humans whispering about you… Did you know they believe you have some Fallen blood in you?" Her eyes glittered in the darkness.

Kitty stood there, shocked. She sensed the Fallen was telling the truth, but why would the others say that about her? What had she done to make them think she had Fallen blood in her?

"Why?" she asked slowly, surprised to find her voice not shaking. It was as though a truth had been revealed to her, yet she'd known it all along.

"Why?" the woman repeated. "Ask yourself that. Maybe you'll come up with an answer."

"It's my tattoo, isn't it?" Kitty looked at the ground, feeling salty tears well up in her eyes.

The woman nodded. "Yes. Oh, I almost forgot something. Kurt wanted you to have this." A paper floated to the ground at Kitty's feet.

"Huh?" She picked it up. It was a picture of a village in the trees, surrounded by a ring of mountains, a waterfall in the background. The houses were in the trees, a tangled grouping, with rope bridges strung between them in a network of passages. "Where is this place?"

"It's our village. Kurt wanted you to have at least had a picture of it, since he sincerely doubts you'll ever see it…but one never pretends to know the will of the world."

Kitty nodded numbly. Her throat was dry. As the woman turned away, preparing to leave, Kitty said, "Wait." She felt she owed no allegiance to the humans anymore. How long have they kept this secret from me, yet talked about it behind my back? She looked up. "They—they're planning to burn down the Forest!"

"When?"

"At full moon—about a week and a half from now."

The woman narrowed her eyes. "We'll be ready for them."

"Wait!" Kitty called again.

"What now?"

"What's your name?" Kitty held her breath.

But the Fallen woman only answered, "Names are powerful things in a place like this. I would not tell you it yet, because I do not yet trust you. The fact that Kurt told you his name right away shows he trusts you."

Instead of flying away, she simply vanished in a flash of crackling white light. Kitty was alone again. She looked at the scrap of paper again. "I'll treasure it always," she whispered to the trees, and turned and headed for home, determined to find out what her tattoo looked like, and mull over tonight's revealed secrets.

Kitty looked into the mirror. She felt her apprehension like a coldness in the room. What was it about her tattoo that made the other people of Girva think she had Fallen blood?

Slowly she turned around, her eyes flicking over the intricate lines and swirls of the tattoo, the blue-black color seeming almost purple in the dim light from her lantern sitting on the table.

Across her back traced the outline of folded wings—and that wasn't all. Kitty had seen this pattern of feathers only thrice before. The first time, with Kurt, the second time, with Fira, and just now, with the woman who looked as if she could be one of Kurt's relatives.

The feathers on her back were meant to look like a Fallen's wings.

Kitty's breath caught in her throat. What did this mean? Her mind was whirling. Was she a human? She looked like one, for sure. She traced the edge of one feather, and even though she could see it was merely a part of the tattoo, why did it seem like there were feathers under her hands?

What did it all mean?

Was she…a Fallen?

Or, at least…not completely human?

So that's the second chapter! Mweh~ Yes, I'm sure some of the characters seem OOC, but that's the way my story's plot's supposed to work. So deal with it, hah! Read and review, you know you want to~!

~Shadey

P.S. You won't see many of the other characters in here, simply cuz I don't know where to put them, and have no part for them. So if you think there's an unusual abscence of other characters, you're right!