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thirtyforthree again, this time for Kira Sakuya/Mudo Setsuna/Mudo Sara from Kaori Yuki's Angel Sanctuary. There will be spoilers in nearly every theme -- given the characters, it's nearly impossible to avoid them! -- and a lot of potentially objectionable content. This is because the source manga has a lot of potentially objectionable content. If incest squicks you, or you know you'll be bothered by some unusual and often negative interpretations of Judeo-Christian theology, you probably won't want to read any of these stories.
With that said...
Theme: #3 - Giving up
Warnings: spoilers!
Notes: This fic is set way the hell pre-manga, and is the bridge between Get out (in which Jibril visits Alexiel in Eden) and Love bites (in which Jibril makes a bargain with Nanatsusaya). As always with this project, I am assuming Jibril was a lot more active in protesting the state of heaven than Raphael gives her credit for. (2,500 words)
---------------------------------------------
The Transient and the Eternal: Giving up
---------------------------------------------
Lucifer held out his hand, and Alexiel placed her fingers in his grasp.
"You carry the sword," he said as he gathered her close and spread his wings. "I don't know how far the suppression field extends, and there's no point leaving you defenseless."
Alexiel gripped the hilt of his sword between suddenly sweaty palms and braced herself for the dizzying swoop of flight.
This wasn't freedom -- she could never be free, not until God stopped toying with Rosiel -- but God wasn't keeping his half of their bargain. Forging a new bargain with Lucifer gave her the chance to act, to reset the battlefield to her advantage.
"There will be pursuit," she said as Lucifer sprang into the air, his wings straining for purchase against the sky.
"I know," he said. His breath was hot on the back of her neck, tickling the edge of her ear. "I made arrangements. Once we pass through the gates of Atziluth, out of his direct influence, I can break the barriers around heaven and take us safely to hell. If we can't reach the gates, I'll play distraction. You will go here." Directions and the image of a secluded house sliced through Alexiel's mental walls and unfurled in her mind.
They flew past the limit of Eden's aura. Power shocked through her soul like thunder.
She tore herself from Lucifer's arms, her wings beating furiously, and raised his sword to strike. "Don't touch me. And never presume like that again."
Incredibly, he laughed. "Then kill me, because I could sooner die than leave you alone. And presumption is my nature." He spread his arms and lowered the shield of his astral power, waiting for her decision.
As she had at their first meeting -- still unable to explain why -- she lowered the sword and let him live. For now.
"Good," Lucifer said. "Now hurry; we have no time to waste."
They flew across the ocean, dipping low to skim the face of the waters, hoping to hide among the waves. But in the end, caution was irrelevant. God, Rosiel, or some faceless general had anticipated them, and a great host waited at the gates of Atziluth. Ranks upon ranks of angels stood in the island garden before the archway, merkabas hovered overhead with guns trained in all directions, and a handful of shock troops swooped over the water in dizzying circles, to cover any possible gaps.
Lucifer swept a measuring eye over the banners of the commanders, apparently searching for one in particular. "At least they had the sense to leave Michael out of this disaster," he said, turning back to Alexiel. "Here, take my cloak and cover yourself; you stand out too much without clothes. Keep the sword. I'll attack and then draw them toward Etenamenki. You're more than able to deal with whatever remnants they leave to guard the gates."
Alexiel took the black cloth from his hand -- their fingers brushed, and she wondered again why she noticed such small things about every interaction with him. She slung his cloak over her shoulders and fastened the clasp around her neck.
The slide and rasp of fabric against her skin was alien after eons unclothed, and she suddenly felt twice as naked as before. Judging by the hungry edge shading Lucifer's smile, she looked more vulnerable as well.
Secrets always had a magnetic pull.
"How will you escape?" she asked, shifting her grip on his sword. "Once I've won free, who will play distraction for you?"
His smile was like a wolf baring its fangs. "God," he said. "He guards his privacy with every rule and restriction imaginable. When he finds his own army attacking his doorsteps, I'm sure his wrath will be instructive. Why else would I fly toward his stronghold?"
"How do you know he won't be expecting you?" Alexiel protested.
"He may know countless secrets, but he doesn't know everything," Lucifer said. "Now go!" He spun Alexiel around by her shoulders and shoved her down toward the water, until the waves lapped chill around her ankles. "Stay low, stay quiet, and don't panic, no matter what happens."
His wings strained against the damp air as he gained height. Then he arrowed toward the waiting army, a nimbus of shadows gathering around and between his four wings.
Alexiel watched him, feeling oddly bereft. It made no sense to miss him or to worry about him. She'd only met him twice, only exchanged a handful of messages through Jibril's careful hands. She didn't care about him. She only cared what he could do for her. She had thought he felt the same about her.
And yet...
Unaccountably chilled, Alexiel began to fly toward the far promontory of the island, nearly a mile distant from the gates. She would land and proceed on foot, under the cover of leaves and animals, while Lucifer dealt with the main body of the army.
Perhaps they should have stayed together. She was sure she could defeat any angel in heaven, one on one -- the wellspring of power her position granted her was enough to destroy this entire island, should she summon it all at once. The echoes she caught from Lucifer were comparable in strength, if not greater. But he knew war from personal experience, as she did not, and perhaps the merkabas held weapons Rosiel had never mentioned to her. Perhaps her ignorance would distract him at a crucial instant.
If he were protecting himself or making tactical choices, that was fine.
If he were trying to protect her...
Alexiel clenched her hands around the hilt of Lucifer's sword and vowed to show him yet again why she was more than his equal at any game he chose to play.
As she descended, a massive explosion of black flame enveloped the gates. Sound followed a second later; the shockwave of compressed, heated air disrupted her flight and sent her crashing uncontrolled to the ground. Fortunately the noise of splintered branches and the thump of her body to the emerald grass were more than covered by the roar of a thousand angels screaming vengeance for their slain comrades, and a handful of surviving merkabas revving their engines for pursuit.
Alexiel stood on bruised feet and frowned at the chaos Lucifer had unleashed. Surely he could have thinned the ranks somewhat before drawing the host's attention. As it stood, the time it would take him to reach Etenamenki and return left her barely ten minutes to win her way to the gates through whatever rear guard remained. How inefficient.
She drew a handful of excess fabric from either side of the cloak and tied a rough knot around her waist, creating a sort of open-skirted dress. It was far from pretty, but it should help her hide in shadows and also keep the cloak from fouling her movements with her borrowed sword. Thus prepared, Alexiel began running through the woods, footsteps silent on the unnatural carpet of grass.
Twenty minutes later, she admitted defeat. She had held the gates as long as she could, but the war host was returning and there was still no sign of Lucifer. Alexiel hated to abandon him, as she had hated the estrangement God had forced between her and Rosiel. But if she were captured she would render his entire plan futile. If she fled, on the other hand, she could return and rescue him in turn.
She sowed fire in the forest and slammed the gates behind her. The area on the other side was not a true layer of heaven -- rather, a place between, akin to a massive cavern with twelve guard posts spaced in a rough circle around the flat ground before the gates. Twelve angels lay unconscious on the floor, several lightly scorched and others bleeding from shallow wounds. Lucifer had seen fit to let them live, then. Alexiel followed his lead, pausing only to take a shirt from one, a skirt from another, a jacket from a third, and a sheath and swordbelt from a fourth. She settled the hood of Lucifer's cloak over her face and hair and descended into the less restricted parts of heaven.
---------------
Briah was a revelation. Even before her endless captivity, Alexiel had rarely been around more than a handful of people at one time. Heaven was still new in her youth, still raw and unformed. Now it teemed with thousands upon thousands of angels, jammed into cities that glittered like diamond and lies.
She kept one hand under her cloak, fingers wrapped around the pommel of his sword. The assurance of its presence settled her, made her less likely to draw it unthinking.
The house whose image and ward keys Lucifer had pressed into her mind lay in Mathey, the fifth level. Either that realm had been preserved in something closer to its original wilderness, or the house's owner held high enough rank to establish a significant estate around the building, since it seemed lost in a tangle of trees. Whatever the truth, it seemed a sensible refuge. Lucifer's presumption in giving her orders notwithstanding, it was true that she could not go long undiscovered in Briah -- already her bare feet were attracting strange, sidelong glances -- and she was certain she could overpower anyone who might take Lucifer's absence amiss and think to place blame on her.
The question was how to reach Mathey.
There had been no way for her to feel any use of astral power in Eden, not when she was cut off from her own, root and branch, but even outside that barrier and past the defenses of Atziluth, Alexiel would almost have sworn she walked among humans rather than angels. So few inhabitants of heaven seemed to hold power worth guarding against, let alone use that power. If she opened a gate through the void, no doubt that would ring like a clarion call to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear.
Or it would set off mechanical monitors. Everything seemed mechanical here, made of circuits and wires in a twisted mockery of the machines that had kept Rosiel alive before her sacrifice. Doubtless there were equally mechanical ways to travel between the levels, but Alexiel was certain they would be watched and guarded.
She needed a back door, or a distraction.
And while she pondered, she could also use a bath. Lucifer's cloak hid many things, but it could not disguise the scents of blood, smoke, and Atziluth's endless ocean breeze that clung to her skin. They would mark her in a heartbeat when the remnants of the war host realized she was gone from Eden and began to search for her in earnest.
Alexiel strode toward a building whose sign promised showers and soaks for angels of both sexes. She had a moment of worry at the entrance when the doorkeeper demanded her name and rank, but he accepted the nonsense she told him with a curiously blank expression and washed-out eyes.
The women's side of the building was empty, though she heard scattered noises and the faint hiss and splash of water echo through the wall from the men's rooms. Perhaps this was a time of day when the population of heaven was occupied at their assigned tasks. Alexiel had lived without seasons or sundown for so long that the notion of regimented hours seemed faintly amusing, a childish affectation she had long since outgrown.
She chose a small, two-person stall with a beaded curtain to create an illusion of privacy. The walls were tiled in blue, white, and gold: the sun's glory reflected in sea and sky, like a mocking reminder of the view from Eden. She stripped off her stolen clothes (but not her borrowed sword; the risk of rust was distant and small while the risk of being caught unarmed was immediate and large) and hung them on the hook in the corner. Then she began to wash smoke and blood from her hair.
As the water finally ran clear instead of reddish black, another woman slipped naked into the room, beads clicking and swaying behind her, and turned on the other shower.
"Hello, Alexiel," she said.
The falling water closed like ice around Alexiel's wrist, pinning her hand to the hilt and the sword in its sheath.
"Jibril," Alexiel said. She relaxed her grip and stance as best she could in the water's ever-changing grip. "I didn't recognize you. Your hair--"
Jibril smiled up at Alexiel from between strands of ordinary brown. Even her eyes were different: warm hazel instead all the shades of water, from ice-gray to the deepest blue-black of the frigid ocean depths.
"It's amazing what you can do with refraction, if you practice long enough," she said as the shower resumed its natural flow. "I'm not the head of heaven's intelligence for nothing. Now tell me, where is Lucifer?"
Despite all her years of holding indifference as a desperate shield against Rosiel's pleas, Alexiel's face must have answered for her.
The light in Jibril's eyes dimmed. "Ah," she said.
Alexiel's hand clenched on the hilt of his sword. "Either of us alone could have overcome the war host, had we been free to use all our power. Perhaps I should have abandoned the gate and gone to find him. Together it would have been simple to split our foes and--"
Jibril placed her fingers over Alexiel's lips, stilling her useless words. "No. He meant for you to be free, and he achieved that goal. Would you dishonor him by throwing that victory away?"
Silently, Alexiel shook her head. Water streamed down her face like the tears she had not shed in years beyond counting.
"Then we'll get you to safety -- my house in Mathey will do for now, until I can arrange safe passage out of heaven altogether -- and when I've learned Lucifer's fate, we'll come back and rescue him. Do we have a bargain?"
Alexiel thought of Rosiel, imprisoned by his own love and insecurities. She thought of herself, imprisoned by the promise of her brother's life. She thought of heaven itself, caught in the lie of God's grace and goodwill.
How much worse could he call down on Lucifer, who had proved he could be defied?
How much worse would he call down on her, when she inevitably failed?
Even so, how could she not make a stand, when Lucifer and Jibril had risked so much for her?
"Heaven must fall," she said. "God must be cast from his throne. If you will help me in that quest, water guardian, then yes, we have a bargain. This I swear, to death and beyond."
"And I so swear in return. Now dry off, get dressed, and let me find you some shoes from the lost-and-found box. The afternoon is nearly gone and we have far to travel."
Jibril held out her hand, and Alexiel placed her fingers into her grasp.
---------------------------------------------
End of Story
---------------------------------------------
I have no idea why this fic, of all things, chose tonight to wrap itself up, but I'm not complaining. Writing is writing, and now I only have six more pieces to go until I am done with this project. *crosses fingers*
Okay. Sleep now.
thirtyforthree again, this time for Kira Sakuya/Mudo Setsuna/Mudo Sara from Kaori Yuki's Angel Sanctuary. There will be spoilers in nearly every theme -- given the characters, it's nearly impossible to avoid them! -- and a lot of potentially objectionable content. This is because the source manga has a lot of potentially objectionable content. If incest squicks you, or you know you'll be bothered by some unusual and often negative interpretations of Judeo-Christian theology, you probably won't want to read any of these stories.With that said...
Theme: #3 - Giving up
Warnings: spoilers!
Notes: This fic is set way the hell pre-manga, and is the bridge between Get out (in which Jibril visits Alexiel in Eden) and Love bites (in which Jibril makes a bargain with Nanatsusaya). As always with this project, I am assuming Jibril was a lot more active in protesting the state of heaven than Raphael gives her credit for. (2,500 words)
---------------------------------------------
The Transient and the Eternal: Giving up
---------------------------------------------
Lucifer held out his hand, and Alexiel placed her fingers in his grasp.
"You carry the sword," he said as he gathered her close and spread his wings. "I don't know how far the suppression field extends, and there's no point leaving you defenseless."
Alexiel gripped the hilt of his sword between suddenly sweaty palms and braced herself for the dizzying swoop of flight.
This wasn't freedom -- she could never be free, not until God stopped toying with Rosiel -- but God wasn't keeping his half of their bargain. Forging a new bargain with Lucifer gave her the chance to act, to reset the battlefield to her advantage.
"There will be pursuit," she said as Lucifer sprang into the air, his wings straining for purchase against the sky.
"I know," he said. His breath was hot on the back of her neck, tickling the edge of her ear. "I made arrangements. Once we pass through the gates of Atziluth, out of his direct influence, I can break the barriers around heaven and take us safely to hell. If we can't reach the gates, I'll play distraction. You will go here." Directions and the image of a secluded house sliced through Alexiel's mental walls and unfurled in her mind.
They flew past the limit of Eden's aura. Power shocked through her soul like thunder.
She tore herself from Lucifer's arms, her wings beating furiously, and raised his sword to strike. "Don't touch me. And never presume like that again."
Incredibly, he laughed. "Then kill me, because I could sooner die than leave you alone. And presumption is my nature." He spread his arms and lowered the shield of his astral power, waiting for her decision.
As she had at their first meeting -- still unable to explain why -- she lowered the sword and let him live. For now.
"Good," Lucifer said. "Now hurry; we have no time to waste."
They flew across the ocean, dipping low to skim the face of the waters, hoping to hide among the waves. But in the end, caution was irrelevant. God, Rosiel, or some faceless general had anticipated them, and a great host waited at the gates of Atziluth. Ranks upon ranks of angels stood in the island garden before the archway, merkabas hovered overhead with guns trained in all directions, and a handful of shock troops swooped over the water in dizzying circles, to cover any possible gaps.
Lucifer swept a measuring eye over the banners of the commanders, apparently searching for one in particular. "At least they had the sense to leave Michael out of this disaster," he said, turning back to Alexiel. "Here, take my cloak and cover yourself; you stand out too much without clothes. Keep the sword. I'll attack and then draw them toward Etenamenki. You're more than able to deal with whatever remnants they leave to guard the gates."
Alexiel took the black cloth from his hand -- their fingers brushed, and she wondered again why she noticed such small things about every interaction with him. She slung his cloak over her shoulders and fastened the clasp around her neck.
The slide and rasp of fabric against her skin was alien after eons unclothed, and she suddenly felt twice as naked as before. Judging by the hungry edge shading Lucifer's smile, she looked more vulnerable as well.
Secrets always had a magnetic pull.
"How will you escape?" she asked, shifting her grip on his sword. "Once I've won free, who will play distraction for you?"
His smile was like a wolf baring its fangs. "God," he said. "He guards his privacy with every rule and restriction imaginable. When he finds his own army attacking his doorsteps, I'm sure his wrath will be instructive. Why else would I fly toward his stronghold?"
"How do you know he won't be expecting you?" Alexiel protested.
"He may know countless secrets, but he doesn't know everything," Lucifer said. "Now go!" He spun Alexiel around by her shoulders and shoved her down toward the water, until the waves lapped chill around her ankles. "Stay low, stay quiet, and don't panic, no matter what happens."
His wings strained against the damp air as he gained height. Then he arrowed toward the waiting army, a nimbus of shadows gathering around and between his four wings.
Alexiel watched him, feeling oddly bereft. It made no sense to miss him or to worry about him. She'd only met him twice, only exchanged a handful of messages through Jibril's careful hands. She didn't care about him. She only cared what he could do for her. She had thought he felt the same about her.
And yet...
Unaccountably chilled, Alexiel began to fly toward the far promontory of the island, nearly a mile distant from the gates. She would land and proceed on foot, under the cover of leaves and animals, while Lucifer dealt with the main body of the army.
Perhaps they should have stayed together. She was sure she could defeat any angel in heaven, one on one -- the wellspring of power her position granted her was enough to destroy this entire island, should she summon it all at once. The echoes she caught from Lucifer were comparable in strength, if not greater. But he knew war from personal experience, as she did not, and perhaps the merkabas held weapons Rosiel had never mentioned to her. Perhaps her ignorance would distract him at a crucial instant.
If he were protecting himself or making tactical choices, that was fine.
If he were trying to protect her...
Alexiel clenched her hands around the hilt of Lucifer's sword and vowed to show him yet again why she was more than his equal at any game he chose to play.
As she descended, a massive explosion of black flame enveloped the gates. Sound followed a second later; the shockwave of compressed, heated air disrupted her flight and sent her crashing uncontrolled to the ground. Fortunately the noise of splintered branches and the thump of her body to the emerald grass were more than covered by the roar of a thousand angels screaming vengeance for their slain comrades, and a handful of surviving merkabas revving their engines for pursuit.
Alexiel stood on bruised feet and frowned at the chaos Lucifer had unleashed. Surely he could have thinned the ranks somewhat before drawing the host's attention. As it stood, the time it would take him to reach Etenamenki and return left her barely ten minutes to win her way to the gates through whatever rear guard remained. How inefficient.
She drew a handful of excess fabric from either side of the cloak and tied a rough knot around her waist, creating a sort of open-skirted dress. It was far from pretty, but it should help her hide in shadows and also keep the cloak from fouling her movements with her borrowed sword. Thus prepared, Alexiel began running through the woods, footsteps silent on the unnatural carpet of grass.
Twenty minutes later, she admitted defeat. She had held the gates as long as she could, but the war host was returning and there was still no sign of Lucifer. Alexiel hated to abandon him, as she had hated the estrangement God had forced between her and Rosiel. But if she were captured she would render his entire plan futile. If she fled, on the other hand, she could return and rescue him in turn.
She sowed fire in the forest and slammed the gates behind her. The area on the other side was not a true layer of heaven -- rather, a place between, akin to a massive cavern with twelve guard posts spaced in a rough circle around the flat ground before the gates. Twelve angels lay unconscious on the floor, several lightly scorched and others bleeding from shallow wounds. Lucifer had seen fit to let them live, then. Alexiel followed his lead, pausing only to take a shirt from one, a skirt from another, a jacket from a third, and a sheath and swordbelt from a fourth. She settled the hood of Lucifer's cloak over her face and hair and descended into the less restricted parts of heaven.
---------------
Briah was a revelation. Even before her endless captivity, Alexiel had rarely been around more than a handful of people at one time. Heaven was still new in her youth, still raw and unformed. Now it teemed with thousands upon thousands of angels, jammed into cities that glittered like diamond and lies.
She kept one hand under her cloak, fingers wrapped around the pommel of his sword. The assurance of its presence settled her, made her less likely to draw it unthinking.
The house whose image and ward keys Lucifer had pressed into her mind lay in Mathey, the fifth level. Either that realm had been preserved in something closer to its original wilderness, or the house's owner held high enough rank to establish a significant estate around the building, since it seemed lost in a tangle of trees. Whatever the truth, it seemed a sensible refuge. Lucifer's presumption in giving her orders notwithstanding, it was true that she could not go long undiscovered in Briah -- already her bare feet were attracting strange, sidelong glances -- and she was certain she could overpower anyone who might take Lucifer's absence amiss and think to place blame on her.
The question was how to reach Mathey.
There had been no way for her to feel any use of astral power in Eden, not when she was cut off from her own, root and branch, but even outside that barrier and past the defenses of Atziluth, Alexiel would almost have sworn she walked among humans rather than angels. So few inhabitants of heaven seemed to hold power worth guarding against, let alone use that power. If she opened a gate through the void, no doubt that would ring like a clarion call to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear.
Or it would set off mechanical monitors. Everything seemed mechanical here, made of circuits and wires in a twisted mockery of the machines that had kept Rosiel alive before her sacrifice. Doubtless there were equally mechanical ways to travel between the levels, but Alexiel was certain they would be watched and guarded.
She needed a back door, or a distraction.
And while she pondered, she could also use a bath. Lucifer's cloak hid many things, but it could not disguise the scents of blood, smoke, and Atziluth's endless ocean breeze that clung to her skin. They would mark her in a heartbeat when the remnants of the war host realized she was gone from Eden and began to search for her in earnest.
Alexiel strode toward a building whose sign promised showers and soaks for angels of both sexes. She had a moment of worry at the entrance when the doorkeeper demanded her name and rank, but he accepted the nonsense she told him with a curiously blank expression and washed-out eyes.
The women's side of the building was empty, though she heard scattered noises and the faint hiss and splash of water echo through the wall from the men's rooms. Perhaps this was a time of day when the population of heaven was occupied at their assigned tasks. Alexiel had lived without seasons or sundown for so long that the notion of regimented hours seemed faintly amusing, a childish affectation she had long since outgrown.
She chose a small, two-person stall with a beaded curtain to create an illusion of privacy. The walls were tiled in blue, white, and gold: the sun's glory reflected in sea and sky, like a mocking reminder of the view from Eden. She stripped off her stolen clothes (but not her borrowed sword; the risk of rust was distant and small while the risk of being caught unarmed was immediate and large) and hung them on the hook in the corner. Then she began to wash smoke and blood from her hair.
As the water finally ran clear instead of reddish black, another woman slipped naked into the room, beads clicking and swaying behind her, and turned on the other shower.
"Hello, Alexiel," she said.
The falling water closed like ice around Alexiel's wrist, pinning her hand to the hilt and the sword in its sheath.
"Jibril," Alexiel said. She relaxed her grip and stance as best she could in the water's ever-changing grip. "I didn't recognize you. Your hair--"
Jibril smiled up at Alexiel from between strands of ordinary brown. Even her eyes were different: warm hazel instead all the shades of water, from ice-gray to the deepest blue-black of the frigid ocean depths.
"It's amazing what you can do with refraction, if you practice long enough," she said as the shower resumed its natural flow. "I'm not the head of heaven's intelligence for nothing. Now tell me, where is Lucifer?"
Despite all her years of holding indifference as a desperate shield against Rosiel's pleas, Alexiel's face must have answered for her.
The light in Jibril's eyes dimmed. "Ah," she said.
Alexiel's hand clenched on the hilt of his sword. "Either of us alone could have overcome the war host, had we been free to use all our power. Perhaps I should have abandoned the gate and gone to find him. Together it would have been simple to split our foes and--"
Jibril placed her fingers over Alexiel's lips, stilling her useless words. "No. He meant for you to be free, and he achieved that goal. Would you dishonor him by throwing that victory away?"
Silently, Alexiel shook her head. Water streamed down her face like the tears she had not shed in years beyond counting.
"Then we'll get you to safety -- my house in Mathey will do for now, until I can arrange safe passage out of heaven altogether -- and when I've learned Lucifer's fate, we'll come back and rescue him. Do we have a bargain?"
Alexiel thought of Rosiel, imprisoned by his own love and insecurities. She thought of herself, imprisoned by the promise of her brother's life. She thought of heaven itself, caught in the lie of God's grace and goodwill.
How much worse could he call down on Lucifer, who had proved he could be defied?
How much worse would he call down on her, when she inevitably failed?
Even so, how could she not make a stand, when Lucifer and Jibril had risked so much for her?
"Heaven must fall," she said. "God must be cast from his throne. If you will help me in that quest, water guardian, then yes, we have a bargain. This I swear, to death and beyond."
"And I so swear in return. Now dry off, get dressed, and let me find you some shoes from the lost-and-found box. The afternoon is nearly gone and we have far to travel."
Jibril held out her hand, and Alexiel placed her fingers into her grasp.
---------------------------------------------
End of Story
---------------------------------------------
I have no idea why this fic, of all things, chose tonight to wrap itself up, but I'm not complaining. Writing is writing, and now I only have six more pieces to go until I am done with this project. *crosses fingers*
Okay. Sleep now.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-02-10 02:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-02-11 01:32 am (UTC)