Authors: Alexandra Rowland
“
We killed it for you, Highest Lucien, second only to the Light,” Jocelin crooned, leaning towards Lucien, who leaned away at the same time. Lalael turned sharply and strode into the circle of pillars, and Lucien pulled away from Jocelin's iron grip on his arm and followed.
“
He going to be alright?” Lalael jerked his chin towards the young man.
Lucien glanced at the boy and shook his head. “He's already gone,” he said softly.
“
Oh,” Lalael said.
Lucien snorted and crossed his arms. “Poor bastard's better off dead than alive. Once a fifth gets its hands on you, you might as well blow your brains out.” Lucien's voice turned steely. “I just wish I knew where he'd picked the demon up, how a fifth-caste got left behind.”
Lalael looked down at the young man. “Me too.”
“
My Lords?” Mara called. “Is everything alright? I told the others to stay out of this room once we heard that roar – Oh my gods!” She had seen the demon and clapped her hands over her eyes. Lucien and Lalael shivered in unison. “What was that?” she asked, deceptively calm. Andrew, a few feet behind her, came forward, nose pinched between his fingers, and studied the demon.
“
That was a demon that Jocelin killed for us. The same one that did its victim in.”
“
The little ones didn't do that,” Mara said in a shaky voice.
“
Key point: They were little.”
She risked another look and turned away. “Oh gods – I think I'm going to be sick.”
“
Would you stop saying that?” Lalael demanded as the two of them twitched again. “And if you're going to be sick, go outside.”
“
The Angel Jocelin killed it?” Andrew asked.
“
We did indeed. It was a fearsome foe –”
“
Well, you weren't very frightened,” Lalael mumbled.
“
...But it fell to us.”
“
Is it good for eating?” Andrew asked. Lucien raised an eyebrow at him in amusement. “Right, sorry I asked. How shall we get rid of it?”
“
Burn it, bury it, drag it down to the waterfront and throw it in the harbor, I don't care. Just get rid of it.”
“
And what about... him?”
“
He doesn't look halfway through his teens,” said Mara, mournful and muffled by the hand she'd clamped over her mouth.
Lucien stormed out the door. Jocelin followed after, trailing clothes of white and gold fluttering and dancing behind the angel with Jocelin's movements.
“
I don't think he cares what you do with the kid either,” said Lalael. “Just make it all go away.” He followed after Lucien and Jocelin.
***
Jocelin was furious. They'd sent the angel away to play with Mara and her pretties, and then all they did was sit outside on carved rock and speak strange words, and sometimes not say words at all.
All of this made not a whit of sense to Jocelin, but then again, neither did most things. Feelings, yes, feelings Jocelin understood, and if they had been at all conscious of self, they would have noticed just how many feelings they had. Words were sounds, and time blurred and jumped about so, but feelings were the same.
At the moment, Jocelin was going from fury to cold hate. They detested Lalael, disliked how much time the object of Jocelin's affections spent in Lalael's presence, and simply hated that Lucien would rather speak to the silly redheaded one than their own self.
“
We don't like him,” whispered the voices. The voices always spoke, except when they didn't, except when they did. Sometimes the angel was confused, for they all sounded the same, and Jocelin's own voice sounded the same as the voices. “We have to get rid of him, so that our love will see us,” Jocelin whispered back. The voices argued wordlessly. “The red one dislikes us too,” the angel murmured.
“
Sorry, what?” Mara, who was standing nearby, asked.
“
The red one dislikes us.” The priestess looked at the tapestries that they were walking past. Indeed, there was one that was mostly red embroidery, but she hardly thought that Jocelin was speaking about the wall hangings.
Jocelin stared at the dark-headed Mara being. Her hair reminded the angel of Lucien's, in a vague, distant way that some part of the angel disliked too, because it was so weak and shaky. Reminding, what was that for? Remembering, what was that? How did memory work when it seemed like everything that had ever happened was happening at once?
“
We feel fondness for the Honored Fallen Lucien,” Jocelin said to the voices.
“
Yes, I think we're all fond of him, Angel Jocelin,” Mara said.
“
We wish to give him more... gifts.” The angel looked around and picked a piece of beautiful softness off the floor.
“
No no, Jocelin, that's not a very pretty color, is it? That's just lint. He'd never like that,” Mara said, taking the treasure away.
“
We want it. It is soft. Give!” Jocelin demanded. Mara gave; the angel clutched at it desperately. “Lucien would like it because we gave it.” Jocelin stared intently at the fluff, then dropped it like it burned.
Mara laughed. “He's sweet like that, but don't tell him I said that. Sometimes he likes to pretend he's more jaded than he really is, but he takes care of us. Good thing too. We might be dead without them. I don't know how they made the temple work like this, but I think they went overboard... The Dali painting that this place has turned into? I keep expecting my things to melt off the tables.”
The voices shouted all at once. Jocelin stopped and swayed. “No, no, my loves, it won't do that. Those don't melt.”
“
Jocelin? I was just playing, dear, I know watches and things don't melt easily, and we don't get heat waves around this time of year.”
The angel turned away from her. “A mara is a nightmare,” Jocelin intoned, “They come snatching in the night.”
The priestess smiled, and the voices quieted in confusion. What was that expression for? What was its purpose?
“
Servant Lalael does not like us,” stated the angel quickly. Oh, thank goodness, the smile had gone away.
“
Why do you say that?” the Mara-creature asked. “He's been very generous.” She went to put her hand on the angel's arm, but Jocelin shied away, hands clutched to their chest.
“
He has forgotten where home is,” Jocelin said. “Angels belong Above, not below. So too with the Honored Fallen. He belongs Below, not above.”
“
Do you belong Above too, then, Jocelin?”
The angel looked at her suddenly, the voices dead quiet. For a moment, Jocelin could nearly hear their own thoughts. “They told us we did not belong. We belong nowhere. Not Above, and not Below, and not Between the two.” The voices rose to a cacophony. “And not in the void.”
“
I'm sorry to hear that,” Mara said sadly. “Everyone needs to belong somewhere.”
“
We don't. We belong to the wind, but the wind does not belong to us.”
The priestess began leading Jocelin down the corridor again. “Well, I've heard crazier things, I suppose,” she said. Sweet Mara, the voices liked her.
“
We should speak to Servant Lalael,” said the voices through Jocelin, in the angel's own voice. “We should remind him of Above.” Suddenly the voices clamored in joy. Yes, they said, yes, that is how we shall have our love for our own.
Jocelin turned and stalked away, leaving Mara behind, blinking and agape. The angel wandered through the labyrinthine corridors of the temple until the crisp blue of the underside of the Great Dome came into view, and the shining brightness of the great light stared back into Jocelin's own eyes. The angel didn't like it when the great light was so spiteful, so impertinent, nor that no matter how high Jocelin flew, Jocelin could not reach the underside of the Great Dome to scrape off a little of its blue paint.
“
We'd only scrape a little,” Jocelin mumbled to the voices. “So that the Outside could drip in.” The angel wandered through the gardens and over the lawn, between the white pillars that lay strewn like lawn ornaments. The angel skirted the children who played amongst the white pillars – the little boys who were trying to make daisy chains, and the little girls who chased each other, shrieking and laughing. Jocelin didn't like them – their hands were sticky and their eyes too large.
Then the angel noticed that one of the sticky, large-eyed objects had been following at a shy distance. The two stared at each other, but after a moment, the girl opened her mouth and called Jocelin pretty. The angel was baffled. Then the thing asked a question and held out some enchanting strands of color in its little fist. The strands of color shone like water and fluttered with brightness most beguilingly – Jocelin studied them carefully.
“
Why?” the angel asked. “We have no use for thy bits of color.”
“
Please?” the girl asked. “You'd look even prettier. Can't I braid them in your hair?” Jocelin looked off into the distance. “I have a blue one,” the child said, proudly holding it out.
Jocelin's head tipped to one side. “You cut it from the Great Dome.”
“
What's a Great Dome?” the girl asked. Jocelin looked upwards, and after a moment, so did she. “Oh. The sky?”
“
Sky,” Jocelin whispered. “Called the sky. The small one takes the paint from the...sky... when we cannot.”
“
It's just like the sky!” she nodded joyfully. “And this one is dandelions! And this one is like a raincloud.”
“
Thou art a witch?”
“
No, silly,” the girl giggled. “Witches are old and ugly with warts and green skin and hooky noses and they go 'Aahh!' when you wet them. They're mean.” She beamed at Jocelin. “I'm not a witch, I'm a girl. Can I play with your hair?”
Jocelin sat on the grass. The girl squealed and clambered onto one of the pillars conveniently behind the angel, so she could sit and braid. “My name's Annie. What's yours?”
“
Annie-thing.” Jocelin wondered what an Annie was. “Our name is the Angel Jocelin.”
“
Do you know Mr. Lalael? He's an angel too, but Miss Mara told me he can do cool things like gods do. My mommy told me there's no such thing as angels and gods, and she said there's no such thing as fairies, too, so does that make them real, since angels are real? Stay still!”
Jocelin froze. Something about the child's stern command compelled the angel. “We... we do not know of these strange enchantments.”
“
Fairies? They're little and they have wings like butterflies or dragonflies or leaves and you have to leave milk out at night for them.”
“
We do not understand.”
“
Because otherwise they do bad things. I know so,” Annie said with great conviction. “I read it in a book. Are you a boy or a girl? And why do you say we?”
“
We... because it is right.”
“
Oh,” she said. “There's more than one of you.”
Jocelin whimpered. “There are many, and they sing in our sleep. We wish to be rid of them, but they shall not stand for such insolence and they punish us. They sing in our rest so we cannot sleep.”
“
Like dreams?”
“
Dream...” Jocelin mumbled. “We knew what dreams were like once. But then we did not know, and the knowing of dreams went... away. Now we know not of dreams.” The gentle tugging of the angel's hair stopped.
“
It's when you sleep and see stuff that isn't real,” she said, and began braiding again. “I dream about the Before time. And sometimes that I'm a princess with a doll and a kitten and a pink castle. Do you like dolls?”
***
Lalael gaped at the other angel. “Um. Oh. Well. Right. Jocelin-- Angel Jocelin, my apologies,” he stammered, never taking his eyes off the other angel's hair. “Um. What did...” he gestured vaguely at the angel's head. “Sorry, could you say that again?”
“
Yes, Servant Lalael,” Jocelin said, and walked out of the small room. A moment later, the angel walked back in.
“
Servant Lalael!” said Jocelin. A pause. “Thou stare.”
“
Yes, we – er, I do stare. What and the why?”
“
Priestess Mara had... silken pieces, on the flat desk in her room. Pieces of many many dark and nighttime colors, like starlight and clouds cut out of the sky. We were enchanted, for they shine like feathers and were color.”
“
Yes.”
“
And Priestess Mara did not give them to us, though she said she... did not need them.”
“
And how did they end up braided into your hair? Not like I'm saying it's an incompetent job or anything, but...”
“
The small ones were given the colors.”