Chapter Text
“The High Seraphim—!”
“The High Seraphim…”
“She’s here? Why is she here? What happened?”
“Shhh! Don’t look her in the eyes.”
“Which ones?”
Vaggie ignored the loud clank! of a helmet being slapped. Her hand tightening on her spear, she kept pace with the High Seraphim’s steps. Vaggie’s sisters all looked on, some with expressions of shock, some with awe, some with fear, and others with averted eyes, but all stood at attention.
Whatever the reason for this, it must be important if the High Seraphim herself was requested.
The call had come in the middle of the night. Vaggie had been sparring, her knuckles humming from overuse as she boxed in the barracks’ courtyard, when a shimmering light had illuminated the dusty field. A parchment of paper adorned in dappled golden hues unfurled, the writing it sported drawn out in dark and elegant ink. All it had said was a location: Survivor’s District. Vaggie had immediately put on her armor and taken flight.
It was rare to receive orders outside of Extermination Season. With it being six weeks out before training even started, Vaggie knew it must be important. The seal of the High Council had only rushed her movements.
She didn’t know what they wanted, or why they wanted her there specifically, but it was blasphemous to not answer the call, so she came.
She was even more confused when she was met with pure chaos.
A flock of her sisters had been spotted just beneath the clouds, each one of them with their weapons drawn and the head of formation bearing a spotlight. Vaggie had asked what was going on when she joined them, but all she got was a dismissal. The second in command, her older sister Twist, had told her to go down to the Eastern ward and wait with the others. When Vaggie had done as she was told— as she always does— she was met with three more sisters, all of them armed and guarding a portal.
Vaggie had stood sentinel, awaiting command.
Just before dawn, the High Seraphim stepped through.
So here she was now, apart of the procession for a rarely seen leader of her order, and confused as fuck.
“Where is it?” The High Seraphim asked in her commanding voice. “Which one of you found it?”
A sister bearing forward curved horns stepped out from amidst the flock. She bowed at the waist, “It was me that found it, High Seraphim.”
“Name and rank?”
“Patches, First Notch, Warden of the Martyr District.”
“Patches…” The High Seraphim hummed. Her brows knit together. “What news, then, Warden?”
“It’s as we feared, Seraphim,” Patches told her. “The rumors were true. We found it hiding in the park in the branches of a tree.”
“Was it hostile?”
“No ma’am. It was compliant to our orders. But, um,” Patches gave an audible swallow, “It did… speak.”
The High Seraphim’s brow rose. “And what did it say?”
“It asked for a sister. Two sisters, to be exact.”
“Their names?”
Patches bowed lower. “The first name it gave was sister Lieutenant Lute’s.”
This didn’t seem to shock the High Seraphim in the slightest. She nodded slowly, “Lute… Reasonable, I would say. She is the most notorious. No doubt her name strikes fear into their hearts enough to be whispered of outside of season. And the other?”
Patches’ hands shook. She folded them behind her back. “It asked for sister Vaggie.”
Vaggie gripped her spear tighter. Being a Second Notch, it wasn’t unrealistic for her name to be known amongst them. She was just surprised they knew it, seeing as she never removed her mask or spoke during missions.
“Is that all it said, Warden Patches?” The High Seraphim cocked her head. “Because if so, dispose of it and let’s be done. I don’t know how it crossed worlds, and I’m not too keen to let this knowledge get out.” She waved her hand in the air, “Purge the filth from our realm.”
Patches’ head bobbed, either in a swallow or a nod, it wasn’t ascertainable. But she didn’t move. “There is… one more thing, High Seraphim.”
“Go on.”
“It’s not a Sinner,” Patches said. “Sister Astroglide was able to pin it with an arrow, and its blood was… was gold.”
A hush settled over the crowd.
“Gold?” The High Seraphim nearly choked. “Are you positive?”
“Yes ma’am. I saw it myself. I have the arrow that pierced its flesh.”
“Give it to me.”
Holding her hand out, Patches waited for a nearby sister to give the arrow up. Once it was in her palm, she walked it over to the High Seraphim, kneeled, and held it aloft. The High Seraphim took it between her fingers.
There, reflected in the Holy Light of her halo and slowly oozing down the silvered head, was a stretch of smeared gold.
“Unbelievable,” the High Seraphim breathed. “Positively inconceivable… And we’re sure it isn’t—“
“It’s not,” Patches cut her off. “I swear by it, your Holiness, we checked. It’s not her or anyone we know of his line. This one is… it… it looks like us.”
The High Seraphim dissolved the arrow, specks of black and silvered steel drifting away before disappearing on the wind. She frowned. “Bring me to it at once.”
“Yes, your Holiness.” Rising to her feet, Patches turned on her heel and marched through the separating crowd of sisters. The High Seraphim followed, Vaggie keeping steady pace. She clenched her jaw, not knowing what was waiting for her. The whispers of her sisters echoed around her in the darkness.
“A halfbreed…”
“Is it true? Did I hear that right?”
“Did you see how gold it was…?”
“This doesn’t make sense… How did this happen?”
“I heard it crying. What a baby.”
“I saw it had a tail! How disgusting.”
Ignoring the murmured words, Vaggie walked. Patches led them down along the ward, past a collection of market stalls on the empty cobbled street, and down by the water’s edge to beneath an arched bridge. More voices rose on the wind.
“What’s your name?”
A jumbled sob.
“She isn’t here— is she? Where is she? Did she help you cross the realms?”
Another jumbled sob.
“We can’t send you back until you tell us—!”
“Enough!”
The trio of sisters beneath the bridge paused their interrogation, helmets turned towards the High Seraphim as she held up her hand. The first to step forward was a familiar face.
“High Seraphim,” Lute bowed, “Welcome. Apologies for the early morning call.”
“Niceties are wasted at a time like this,” the High Seraphim told her flatly. “What has it been saying?”
“It wants its mommy.”
“Its mommy?” The High Seraphim frowned. “Just how old is it?”
“I’m not sure,” Lute shrugged, “But it looks to be quite young. It still sucks its thumb.”
“Sucking its thumb? How humiliating. A lesser blood, for sure.” The High Seraphim’s head cocked. “Is its mother here? What of its father?”
“I don’t know— that’s what we’re trying to find out. It would be easier, but it keeps crying. It’s been crying for hours.”
“How long has it been here?”
Lute frowned even harder. Her helmet reflected the moonlight passing between the clouds. “I… don’t know. My best estimate is two days, three maximum if we are to take the rapidly spread rumors as honesty. Not to mention it’s very food motivated and driven— it was found eating peaches.”
That seemed to please the High Seraphim. “So it’s hungry,” her lips curled at the edges. “Good. We have leverage. You,” she looked pointedly at the sister to her left, “Fetch me more peaches. I want this beast to talk.”
The sister gave a curt bow before taking to the air. Her wings were silent.
“Lieutenant,” the High Seraphim got Lute’s attention, “Send away your harem. I want to see this creature for myself by myself.”
“Yes, High Seraphim.” Glancing to the other two sisters, Lute waved them off. They left in the same manner as the first one did, bowing before taking wing. Vaggie unfurled her own wings and readied for flight.
“Not you,” the High Seraphim stopped her. “It cried for you by name, sister. You stay.”
Vaggie put her wings away. “Yes ma’am.” She swallowed.
Lute gestured along the internal curve of the bridge’s underbelly to where a recessed nook was situated in the rock. Vaggie followed the High Seraphim closer, not sure what she was expecting to find. The belly of the bridge was damp with echoing drips of water and the rustle of the wind. When Vaggie inhaled, all she could smell was the district around her, but underneath it all was something… sweet. Incredibly sweet— and floral. Almost like wild honeysuckle.
The clicking of their boots rang back in double as they reached the internal curve of the bridge. The part that met the street was etched into the stones, cobble and rock melding together as if neither one truly began or ended, but instead were blended by a painter. Where the stonework stood most defined was an alcove just big enough for two people to hunch over beside each other; a lover’s recession. Inside, curled in on itself as it sat on a ledge of blackened rock, was a child.
A demon child.
With tanned skin, hair the color of silver with ash-toned ends, thin and gangly limbs, a soot-toned tail capped with a spade bearing a crimson heart, and wearing sullied penguin pajamas, the girl looked barely old enough to be away from her parents. Her arms, which were crossed over her folded knees, bore gilded metal bracers. The girl’s legs darkened past the knee with messy fur. She had cloven hooves the color of mulberries.
A demon indeed.
Vaggie gripped her spear tighter.
“Demon,” Lute barked at it, “You’re in the presence of the High Seraphim Sera. Speak.”
The girl raising her head, Vaggie’s throat tightened when bloodied irises set in swirling gold sclera looked around. The girl’s face was thin, her nose rounded, and she had a red dot on each cheek like a marionette would. She was tiny.
The High Seraphim loomed over the girl. “How did you get here?”
The girl wiped at her ruddy eyes and sniffed. “I don’t,” she hiccupped, “I don’t know.”
“Did you die?”
She shook her head, her little bangs fluttering over dark brows. “I— I don’t think so?”
“Where were you born?”
“At— at home. Downstairs.”
“Downstairs?” Sera’s lips pressed together into a thin line for a moment. “Do you mean Hell?” She pointed at her feet. “Down there?”
The girl nodded. “Yeah… Miss Sera, you know that. You know I’m—!”
“Hush,” Lute growled.
Shrinking in on herself, the girl cowered. She lowered her eyes. More tears began to fill them.
The High Seraphim bent at the waist to peer at her. “So small,” she wondered aloud. “So young… you can’t be more than a handful of decades old. Tell me, demon… Why are you here?”
“I don’t know,” the girl snuffled. She slowly shook her head from side to side. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. I wanna go home,” she moaned. “I want my mommy, Miss Sera… Please.”
“Please? Now, now,” the High Seraphim’s eyes shone with surprise, “So polite… I’ve never heard a demon say ‘please’ before. Nor have I seen one so…” She cocked her head at the girl’s tail, watching it tuck closer between the jagged rocks, “Delicate.”
“M’sorry,” the girl whimpered. “I’m so sorry… I don’t know—“ she choked on a frightened sob, “I don’t know how I got here. Cas said he knew magic but— but I didn’t—!”
“Who is this Cas?”
The girl looked up. Her mouth slightly open and her brows pinched, she was confused. “Caspian…? Auntie Em and Auntie Lute’s son…?”
Lute snorted. She schooled her features as soon as the Seraphim glared at her. She cleared her throat and straightened her spine, standing at attention.
Sera looked back at the demon. “The lieutenant doesn’t have a son,” she hummed.
“But she does!” The girl argued, “She has two! Magnus, Caspian, and a girl named Andi!”
“As if,” Lute scoffed. “I wouldn’t be caught dead with a child, let alone three.”
“Enough, Lieutenant,” Sera admonished her. “This demon is clearly confused. It’s not its fault for being ignorant.” Then, lowering her voice, she addressed the child. “Now tell me, little demon; was it a portal that brought you here?”
The girl nodded.
“Did anyone else come over with you?”
She shook her head.
“Are you sure?”
Another nod.
“Good,” Sera breathed easier. “Very good… That means we can dispose of you without fuss. Lieutenant?”
Lute stepped forward. “Your Holiness?”
“Do your job.”
Lute unsheathed her sword in a single swift move.
The girl curled tighter in on herself as Lute approached, her whole face awash with terror. “No,” she moaned weakly, “No, please, Auntie Lute…! I’ll be good! Just call Mommy and I’ll— I’ll go home! Please! Call Mommy!”
“Cry all you want,” Lute told her calmly, “It’ll only make this more enjoyable.” She raised her blade.
The wind shifted. One moment it was brushing against Vaggie’s front, carrying the scent of water and sweet grass and river stones and mud and honeysuckle, then in the next it was at her back. The girl’s head popped up, her eyes widened, and suddenly she was a blur of scrabbling hooves.
Vaggie raised her spear, ready for the kill.
She paused as tiny arms wrapped around her knees.
“Mommy!”
The world went silent.