WAYWARD SOULS

This helmet didn’t really fit Murmur all that well. He had a smaller head, and his eyes didn’t quite reach the eyeholes. He couldn’t see who had come in, so he was just trying to listen. They weren’t saying anything, just moving around. He could hear the shuffle of other weapons, but he thought that it meant he hadn’t been found out. He screeched when the helmet came off, and a sword was at his throat. He tripped backwards, falling on his back. “Oh, it’s just you. You scared the crap out of me.” He tried to sit back up, but the armor made it hard to do that. He was like a turtle stuck on his back. He pulled his arms in and crawled out of the armor. “I didn’t know it was your armor. I just … found it.”

“Good,” she huffed. At least he had some common sense then. “You should be scared.” Any number of people here would’ve have stabbed first and asked questions later. Thankfully, she was more levelheaded than that. Her sword remained drawn for a moment before she spun it in her hand and drew it down to her side again. “Yes, Murmur, you found it…in my apartment.” She gestured around her with her free hand. “Pray tell, what else did you ‘find’ here, Christopher Columbus?” she asked. “Am I going to have to empty out your pockets?” She wished he’d just stick to stealing things out of Ouelette’s closet.

@ofwaywardsouls​ {Abaddon & Murmur}

Finders keepers was a motto that Murmur tended to live his life by, though most people wouldn’t agree with it when sometimes he “found” things in places that weren’t exactly public and that he might’ve had to crawl through an “open” window to get to. In his defense though, if the light hadn’t shined on it just right to reflect down at him, he wouldn’t have scaled the wall to figure out what it was. It was a breastplate. An old one, but there was a shiny spot on it. Naturally, he put it on. It was heavy and built for muscles much bigger than his. Unfortunately it made it so he couldn’t move very quickly. When he heard a key in the door, he knew he wouldn’t make it out the window in time with this armor on, so instead he pretended to be the stand that the armor was displayed on. He took the helmet and put it on too to cover his face. If he didn’t move, they probably wouldn’t notice. Be a statue, Murms, he told himself.

Abaddon just got back from a meeting with the other right hands and truth be told she needed to blow off some steam. Lucky for her though there were plenty of ways to do that here. One of her favorites was sparring. She entered a security pin into one of the locked display cases on the wall in front of her and it opened to reveal a variety of swords. She picked one up and tested its balance before putting it back and looking over a few more. None of them really spoke to her today. She turned away from the display case and that’s when she noticed it. Her old battle armor was off. The sword was tilted slightly, and the helmet sat strangely. Someone had been in her home. Without warning, she grabbed the tilted sword from its stand and used it to pry the helmet off. To her surprise, her blade was now pointed at the tender neck of none other than Murmur. “You got five seconds to explain what you’re doing with my armor.”

🐍🐍🐍

“Yes,” she replied indignantly. “busy.” she wasn’t going to clarify mostly because she was afraid she’d get caught in the lie. it was clear abaddon didn’t really believe she was busy with much of anything anyway. as her older sister stepped forward, dagon’s instinct was to take a step back; however, she wasn’t fast enough. abaddon was already in her space, her touch more gentle than dagon expected. the words, too, caught her off guard. “alright then,” she eased a little. “it’s a no from me for the riot.”

dagon was used to azazel’s style of command. it was harsh and demanding. he didn’t like dagon and never attempted to mask that. during the war, he’d had it out with her multiple times about the fact that she reported things to aamon directly instead of going through him first. right hands were supposed to report issues to other right hands, not to the princes directly. she only reported to aamon firsthand because she didn’t want azazel knowing belgirel or andras’s business. he couldn’t do anything to belgirel, but he’d do a whole lot to andras. after the war, things didn’t improve much between dagon and azazel. he didn’t like her relationship with aamon and she suspected he was worried she’d try to take over his position as right hand. dagon had no interest in being the right hand to wrath. she didn’t have it in her, but that didn’t seem to ease any tensions between her and her older brother. because azazel was so hard to work with, dagon simply continued to report any concerns she had directly to aamon. but there was a new right hand now…maybe things could be different? she had to give it a try at least.

“look, i’m sorry,” she apologized. “azazel was exhausting and whenever her came to our kingdom it was always to fight.” it wasn’t just that azazel judged dagon, he sometimes took it further and judged belphegor too. dagon imagined that was because dealing with belphegor was what caused him to lose out on the promotion he really wanted. he wasn’t really equip for it if he couldn’t handle all of lucifer’s siblings. “what is it that he wants to know about bells?” she asked. she’d seen the two of them connect with one another at belphegor’s party a few nights back. she imagined that’s what sparked the newfound concern.

🗡️🗡️🗡️

She smiled as Dagon dropped the pretenses and simply told her no. Abaddon appreciated directness whereas her older brother wanted to be placated. “Very well then. I hope you enjoy your 11 days of brain rot and I will enjoy my fun riot,” she teased. She was pretty sure Dagon only watched the show so she could yell at the television about the inaccuracies. And Andras watched it with her for the hot doctors. She both was and wasn’t surprised to hear Dagon apologize. Apologies weren’t exactly something their family did. 

“I’m sure that he was,” she nodded. He had a tendency of picking on Dagon and playing it off as if he was just trying to make her stronger. As if she herself hadn’t survived a war and raised a kingdom out of death and ruin. “He was always jealous of you.” Azazel found Dagon’s relationship with Aamon threatening. He wanted that kind of trust from Aamon, but her brother was nowhere near as personable as he thought he was. His fatal flaw was simply not making an effort to connect with the other Princes. He failed to see that Aamon valued his family despite the turbulence in those connections. Abaddon found Dagon’s relationship with Aamon to be endearing. It was like watching a doberman interact with a dachshund. Adorable. Aamon had a tendency to act more like the angel she remembered him to be before the fall around Dagon and Belphegor too which was why Abaddon was here to begin with. “They said some pretty concerning things to Aamon at their birthday party so he wanted me to check in. He’s worried about their new witch friend, the one with connections to Michael.”

“Good,” he replied plainly when Abaddon remarked that Dagon was doing better. Aamon generally didn’t show worry on his face, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t worried. For two sloth demons, Belphegor and Dagon were getting into as much trouble as Belgirel usually got up to when he was alive. “Ah, we haven’t had a good casting out in forever,” he recalled. The angels usually fell of their own free will or because of their own self-doubt. The fact that Raphael was doing the sentencing was both surprising and not. Raph didn’t take pleasure in doing those sorts of things, but their sense of justice and duty usually prevailed. “I don’t think he’ll like what’ll happen if he denies that request.” His younger brother had no reason to deny it as far as Aamon could see. “Did your sister say what instigated this?” he asked. That would determine what kind of torture he planned to put this Guardian under.

Aamon wasn’t generally soft, but he did have a soft spot for her younger sister. Andras assumed it was sexual. Azazel assumed it was some kind of political competition. Abaddon took a more free thinking route and simply assumed he cared. Dagon was soft and intuitive like Raphael. “Really reminds me of the good old days except we actually had a cause and motive. Things aren’t adding up with this one,” she admitted. She’d looked into what Elemiah had done and the why of it all just wasn’t adding up. “The Guardian in question is, was, the boyfriend of her friend Chastity. Apparently Chastity ended up accidentally stabbing him when that island ruins debacle happened. She felt bad about it and he used that feeling to isolate her from her friends, trick her into marrying him, and then suggest she either fall or off herself. At first I thought it was some sort of elaborate plan to get back at her for stabbing him, but even then the motive is flimsy.” By all accounts it was his own fault he got stabbed. Perhaps he was a sore loser.