#slainphoenix

              “ sabine. ” her voice trembles more now. scourge is a sickness all may be rid of save her --- save the one which holds healing in her hands like hope. like it’s all she needs. tired is the smile which curves at her lips and she takes the other woman’s hands in hers. presses a kiss against knuckles which have seen more fight than any young soul should ( but then again --- what are they but old souls born into bodies strong enough to push on ? )

               oracle is tired. inside she feels her bones cracking, every darkness pulled from beneath the flesh buried in her own so others could shine. it wasn’t fair to fall in love when her end was spelled out in the stars. it wasn’t fair. but those weren’t the words she wanted to say. she needed something feather light, something soft ( like her mouth across sabine’s knuckles, like her fingertips pressed into her palm )

an angel he was, once; an angel he can be again. to the eyes of others, at least. at a time, that might’ve been enough. but they cast down the one called the devil, and he is no longer content to rejoin them. they will be forced to earth, thrown down off their divine seats to join him in the hell they fashioned for his torment. if he must play the part of one of their kind for a time, then so be it. the chance to make one of their blind followers suffer for it will be reward enough.

truly, this one is no longer needed; their part is done, or so they would believe. yet if the king’s sworn sword is no longer by his side then they have no shield to protect them. the oracle may have performed that role instead, but the devil sought and devoured her. now it seeks one of those most devoted to her so that others might be baited into his jaws.

they are drawing near to where he stands, he knows, here at the crossroads. so he summons the powers he kept a hold of even as he was cast down (he had been granted them to serve the mighty, those who had ignored the cries of millions; they would not be lost to him unless his life was lost in finally wreaking terrible vengeance). time slows, and his appearance changes in the eyes of the one who perceives him; not the foe they have come to despise, slayer of kings and oracles, but that of a blooming love with the stem cut short, doomed to never flower.