Topic: To Start Anew with Memories of Old

ASeraphimFallen

Date: 2009-07-23 16:16 EST
Flowers, creeping vines, thick, proud stalks and sonograph blossoms, frayed-edge petals and fragrant sprays; each kind held their value for the delicate one. They reminded her of the uniqueness of people, for no life was the same, and neither were the leaves or petals that made up the rampant flora that encompassed her little home. There was a particular striking breed of poppies that were growing along the back glen strip behind her cottage, in fact, that reminded her of crimson eyes.

Crimson eyes, a garnet's finest cast of light from a wayward beam of sunlight; such a fierce color, so rich and eye-catching. They spoke of fires long left behind, of sulfur and the lingering taste of smoke; Lazarus... Her demon counterpart, the missing piece of her anima, the voice that called her to Fall. Her Crimson Guard, the voice that stilled her torment through the nights that Raithmoore held her captive, lulling her into the sweet embrace of unconsciousness when the pain threatened to shake her very soul from it's roots.

Lazarus.

Lazarus.

Lazarus.

"My missing piece..." Soft, mellifluous, thick with tenderness and a smile; her voice barely rose, a ghost of a noise even to her own ears. Lissome digits rose, brushing a stray petal on one of the flowers that lay in a basket about her arm. Missing piece indeed, sometime long ago, some small piece of star crossed with another star; and their need was born. Without knowing, without seeing; one felt the other, between the hellish planes of mortality and strife, to the harold of golden grace and feathers from above.

Somehow, through the years and the humanity they'd assumed, their meeting was finally achieved in the realm of Rhydin. The fallen seraphim had seen lesser miracles occur than theirs, but something deep down told her this luck was a short lived thing, if not only a small joy in the face of greater evils to come. This was not a thought to cater now, though; the sun was in the sky and a new trove of flowers were in bloom. There was much work to be done.

Work...

There was an idea the small woman had been contemplating. Lazarus often spent time away during the brighter hours, and just where he went she wasn't sure, for the long face he always bore was too short lived to question. Every time those crimson eyes found her, they seemed to come alive, and though it was a reaction the owlish woman would never grow unused to seeing, one could only spend so many hours by their lonesome with greenery for their company. Recent visits with a certain Ogre, Throx Skullcrusher, had colored the delicate maid curious. Throughout the markets where the large, lumbering creature lived and worked, were a myriad of shops; this she knew, for she?d been their often in this demeanor and the prior. What Laoell failed to notice though, was that there were only a small number of flower shops and green-houses.

A small one in particular caught the little lady?s eye, and after a slow, leisurely stroll with her large companion around the shop?s commons, dark eyes had garnered the attention of the owner?s whizzened form from the back of the building. A small conversation ensued, and a delicate touch from the maiden rendered the beginnings of a deal?
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http://th05.deviantart.net/fs42/300W/i/2009/146/1/0/Poppy_by_venus_galerie.jpg

ASeraphimFallen

Date: 2009-08-01 23:35 EST
"Ahh, there ye' be, lil'un... A month's worth o'fine, fine florals. I dare say I cannae' a'test tha' me business has had such a profitable time fer some while." Just how a voice could actually give someone an image of it's speaker; whizzened, wrinkled in the kindliest of ways about the face, stooped yet strong with age, thin without being frail, loose-skinned but exuberant with an inner youth that time just could not diminish. This was the lovely elder woman who Laoell dealt with.

"Miss, please. I cannot accept such a payment, i-it's, it's far too much." Modesty, proper but shy, the weak-smiled angel tried to give back a few of the coins to the owner of the flower shop with a small shake of her head.

"Nae a lick'o sense in yer head, eh darlin'? Go on now, pretty miss, ye no doub' have a swee'heart needin' t'see ye' in somethin' special fer all yer hard work, hm?" Old hands reached, curling young one's back around the coin purse in question, ushering it backwards into the maiden's chest gently. The old woman mimicked Laoell's earlier shake of the head, but no hair sheltered these shoulders, for all it's thin, gray splendor was up in a prim bun.
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This little scene was on a fond replay through the small lady's mind on her walk back home through the peaceful clamor and fray of the marketplace. She walked a thing apart, slow and seemingly adrift in her own thoughts, as if those wings she bore were instead stretched out in a glide instead of tucked, as normal, oh so carefully against the slender dip of her back. People passed on either side of her, some eyes lingering, some not; for the folk of Rhydin were an eclectic bunch from all manners and makes of realms, and not all were too surprised to find a seemingly angelic being in their presence...

Some at least.

Others would stare, quite openly, for all the careful manner in which she walked and held her wings, at her small person. Laoell often tried her best to ignore these eyes, but the weight of them brought trickles of shame.

Shame.

Why was it always shame?

Love for her demon, and love for the realm of living were the only things that kept the delicate maid from succumbing to her darker thoughts. How often can one say they left all their life behind... Left all their timeless years of devote servitude and pure love of their God for such a whimsical, star crossed fate such as love?

Selfish, shameful, wanton; it was everything that stood against what her prior purpose stood for, yet here she was walking upon feet instead of aloft in the air. Her Song had been compromised, her eternal nature dampened to some whim of mortality she'd yet to fully understand. And a love... A demon who's soul fed her more deeply than she'd ever felt touched. For all the contentment and comfort she found in her Lazarus' arms, to be apart from his warmth was to bring down the gravity of her situation. The small job harvesting and delivering her flowers for the shop in town was only a piece meant to fill the void of purpose and the weight of shame she now knew in her life.

For all the love she held for her Crimson Guard, she would not trade all the world; but that did not mean it didn't shake her to the core with fear of the unknown. Unknown repercussions for her falling, unknown backlash for her demon's willful abandonment of his post below.

Actions did not come without consequence, surely their lifetimes of existence had taught both angel and demon this?

Either way, Laoell padded quietly, her steps having drawn her back towards the line of the forest, a minute torrent of ups and downs in her heart, clutching her little coin purse close. It wouldn't be out of place for one to picture that purse as a doll, for all the maiden's small stature and haunted appearance. For all her distractions, the small lady never felt the eyes from Below and Above the realm assess her with distaste.
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http://th06.deviantart.net/fs5/300W/i/2005/127/e/9/Storm_a_Brewing_by_studio7designs.jpg

ASeraphimFallen

Date: 2009-11-08 12:58 EST
With winter came the calming of everything, from those of the political unrest with their cold, angry eyes to the lingering warmth of summer's sweet grip. The time she's spent away with Lazarus had her returning to a cool atmosphere and a sad lingering of the season's flowers. Though poor, half dead things they were, their dried state of beauteousness was an odd, macabre kind of perfection thought brought out the angel's rueful smile. With a touch more gentle than normal is how she gathered them, and with her demon's company she walked them into the Market where not only her buyer had been long awaiting her return, but a certain large, lumpy friend.

The motions were so normal that Laoell found them strengthening her already glowing demeanor brought on from her and Lazarus' tranquil vacation. Doe dark eyes seemed alight from within, glimmering with a visible joy as she wound her slender arms around this face and that, though she still longed for one cool, dark presence more than any; Vilrath. Their terms had been... different since her deliverance from the Citadel, and when further truths had surfaced, she felt all but powerless to the quakes that shook her from the memory of his fury swollen eyes.

Distracted by the coming cold, the kilter and kind of familiar faces, and the ever present arms of her Crimson Guard, Laoell had all but forgotten about the eerie, otherworldly feelings that'd been prickling at her before their flight from the city's unrest.

Those eyes, both above and below, however, had not forgotten about her nor her demon.

The radiants from above held a common thread with their demon kindred below for one of those rare occasions it seemed, for the fallen seraphim's happiness. Hands that were born from sulfur and fire caressed her with all the tenderness of a poem born love, whispers of adoration and assurance passed between them like air, soft and sweet; their existence was as calm as a potter's wheel, predictable and ever turning. Such human things and joys sickened those watchful eyes, bringing rage to the angelic and the demonic alike.

Who was this fallen voice of God to enjoy her exile so? Who was this blasphemer who'd taken her suffering and brought contentment from it? The balance between heaven and hell had been breeched through a mortal realm.
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Above...

"Laoell lives, m'Lord... She is a sign. The four of the apocalypse are restless for their release." Tall, golden, and gilded; this was the winged figure that stood before a sprawling throne. Between the angel's feet and his Lord's throne, though, was a great rippling pool that held a distorted image of Rhydin's great city, for it was the location of their topic's whereabouts. Looking upon the scene was a vast, seemingly endless council of faces staring out from their choirs, each one balanced between stoic or nonplussed at the matter laid out upon the table. All of these faces were torn between the speaker and the one he was addressing. Either way, though, their attention was rapt.

Visions of father time might paint a better picture for God than most others, for the man settled upon that magnificent dais was wizzened with gray and long in the beard. For all that age, though, his face held a harsh strength about it. What the armored creature before had said only tightened the lines along that imposing face more.

"Send Samaston, Gabriel..." Not quite booming, but not soft either, this was all their God had said, his voice all the heavier for it with a torrid slur of emotion. Gabriel bowed, wings spreading, and the entire council began to murmur.