by Amanda Churi
“Beautiful” did the scenery no justice; Mabel could only offer forth the widest of smiles, tiptoeing forward with a hand extended. She had to experience it herself! If it looked like this from afar, she couldn’t even begin to comprehend all the treasures hidden within!
Yet Mabel’s feet suddenly came together. She remembered Eero and glanced behind her; he had crouched so low that only the crests of his eyes were visible.
A plate of golden light brushed over his face and the debris sheltering him. Surprised, Mabel turned back toward the sanctuary, taken off guard by a swelling sphere of sunlight expanding in the distance. On the waxy surfaces of silver and gold leaves, ribbons of light tumbled from one plant to another, joining with rays of white, pink, red, and even purple. The beams danced in Celtic, whimsical spirals, congregating around the living star being birthed in the center of the forest. A freed, childish laughter grew as the light gradually condensed, molding into a human of ever-flowing holy dust.
Mabel smiled so hard that she ached. Her strained heart felt no more pain nor anxiety. How could it when she saw those amber eyes embedded in such a divine presence, so openly and proudly displaying the Lord’s power?
The spirit’s beaming pupils widened, the wisps of dyed fire dissipating into the air as well as her cloak of starlight, revealing a bronzed peasant woman with the most beautiful, wavy blonde hair.
She stared directly at Mabel, alarm drowning her face. Her hand flew to the sword at her hip—the one that Mabel knew would one day be hers.
Mabel grabbed the back of her head, forcing an awkward laugh. What was she supposed to say? I’m the child that’s going to come out of your death? Lovely conversation starter.
Maeve’s alert face suddenly folded; she released a single burst of laughter—an overwhelmed exclamation paired with an amazed smile. She released the hilt of her sword and began walking toward Mabel. “Oh! H-hello! I am sorry, you frightened me! How did you get here?!”
“O-oh!” Mabel exclaimed, relieved that she broke the ice first. “I’m not sure! See, I—” She stuttered when she noticed Maeve’s eyes veering; they no longer met Mabel’s but went right through.
Mabel tisked her tongue, peering over her shoulder at Eero, who ducked to hide himself completely. “Of course… This isn’t my memory.” Submitting to defeat, she crossed her arms and stepped off to the side, watching carefully.
Maeve spread her arms wide in invitation as she passed by her invisible Receiver. “Oh, do not be shy! Please, come out! It has been forever since I have had a visitor!”
The brush remained still. Mabel winced and zoomed in on the coward as the memory allowed her to peer past the natural wall. Eero was huddled with his back against the trunk of a tree, eyes broad and Coruscus’ aura shot. He anxiously ran his hands over the cord of his tail, glancing up at the beaming stars and cursing them under his breath until, finally, he rose, reluctantly unveiling himself.
Maeve’s face fell flat, eyes heightening in perplexion. “Oh?”
Eero scowled, eyes down and averting. What was with him? He legit looked embarrassed.
His silence disappointed Maeve. “You do not speak? That is… Too bad… It has been years since an angel has come to see me! It is a bit lonely being the only one on this planet with a foot in both worlds, you know!”
Her statement was too naive, cracking Eero’s shell and releasing the vile specimen that had the audacity to call itself a personality. “Angel?” he snarled darkly, keeping his eyes down. “What, you blind?”
Maeve stopped short of the border where her sea of life ebbed and flowed against an invisible barrier—one that never reached Eero. “Pardon? Humans cannot see Paradise anymore…”
“Paradise?” Eero hissed. He reached out on his deceased side of the forest, snapping a branch off its trunk and outstretching it toward Maeve. The pressure in the air soared, and when the bark was within inches from the pulsing forest, a golden flash zoomed over the unseen barrier between them, severing the twig with such ferocity that it ripped the entire limb out of Eero’s grasp, launching it back into its own sinful sector.
Maeve took a deep breath, shuffling back to distance herself. “The sword denies… Never have I seen it outcast an angel…”
“Are you really that stupid?” Eero grumbled, pushing his chin farther into his chest. “I’m not an angel.”
Her flawless face cracked, her eyes lightening when the connection was made. “But… You do not act like the fallen. Then again… I have never encountered one, so I suppose I would not know what a demon is like…”
“Well, you do now.”
Maeve cocked her head, frowning. “You are broken… Are you not?”
“NO, I’M NOT!” He threw up his head and down his arms, his entire body throbbing with ragged breaths. The purple in his eyes was the dimmest Mabel had yet seen, and his face was contorting painfully. “Your stupid, pixie-dust presence is just playing games with me is all!”
Mabel knew that her expression mimicked Maeve’s in every way. He was lying. Seeing Maeve and all her magic, the beauty of Heaven’s glory, it reaped Eero from the inside out… It was why the usually hard, unforgiving demon was on the verge of having a mental breakdown.
“Why did you fall?” Maeve asked softly.
Her inquiry made Eero rip out his teeth in a thirsty, hateful snarl. “None of your business—!”
“You had so much to exist for. Why did you turn your back against Him and rebel? Is the life you live now really all that amazing? Worth the small number of lives you took before you forever lost your place?”
“SHUT UP!”
“But why? What did you gain? You have only lost.”
The short temper ingrained into his fibers split, and Eero boldly sprung right up to the border. A hollow, distant moan filled the air, the faintest of yellow sheens beginning to creep across the hidden gates as a warning. “I don’t remember shit about that terrible place except how I was nothing but a tool. God didn’t love me—He didn’t love Satan or any of us. He chose Jesus to pay for the mounting sins of flesh and pushed us below Him so that we had to bow to two. It’s one thing to serve God; it’s another to serve a mere angel with equal status.”
Maeve raised a brow. “But is that not what you do now? Lucifer—”
“It’s Satan,” he roughly corrected. “And I’m Eero.”
“…A name that He couldn’t break.”
Eero scrunched his nose so hard it turned into a snout. “What are you talking about? That’s not true. Besides, what makes you think you know anything about me? You didn’t even realize I was a demon until I outright told you!”
“I would have no knowledge of how Satan manipulated your appearances unless I had seen them; after all, you usually stay cooped up in Hell.” She stroked a white rose beside her, setting it ablaze with a kind, pure light that only enhanced its beauty as opposed to destroying it. “But that does not mean I am oblivious to names, especially those who I was told to look out for.”
Her statement made Eero seize up in suspicion, but she continued to speak. “Sorry to say that I am not afraid of you; with those damned, saddened eyes, there is no way I can be. You do not want to fight me; you just want to make your new master proud and climb the power ladder, is that not correct?”
“Of course not,” he grumbled. “You are an enemy to all of Hell, trying to spread goodness and change those whose names we already have engraved into shackles. It is my job to destroy you, as it should be for the fiercest soldier!”
“This is fierce? Wow: low standards.” She turned her back and proceeded to walk away.
“HEY!” Eero took a sharp step forward—the golden sword raced across the boundary in a blur, nearly striking him. He immediately recoiled, snarling like a mad man as Maeve smirked from afar. “Let me in, dammit!”
“That is a right you sacrificed long ago. Just one moment, please.” She walked on a few seconds more before the forest bowed and parted way, revealing a lone, twisted, dead tre
e that no other plant dared to touch—not even the grass around it, sacrificing that patch of earth to death and despair.
Nature shuddered as she approached the outcast tree, fearlessly plucking a ripe, ruby-red fruit from its wrung branch. Maeve stared at it for a moment, closing her eyes before returning from whence she came with a sigh. Mabel just watched, aghast when they stood nearly toe to toe, the fruit that began it all dripping a succulent dew through Maeve’s fingers. Face straight, she fearlessly reached through the boundary, extending the death wish to Eero’s surprised face. “Take it.”
Eero blinked uncertainly, but something compelled him; he reached forward, grabbing the fruit from beneath so that their hands never touched. “Is this…?”
Maeve retracted her hand to safety. “Yes. The deceitful work of both your master and God. It is the fruit that Satan tempted my parents to long ago: the Tree of Knowledge. It is what made Time birth Death.”
Eero snorted. “How marvelous. I’ll take it back to Satan as a souvenir, along with your head.”
“It is not for display,” she corrected firmly. “That fruit is yours, Eero.”
He was puzzled—Mabel was too. “Why?” he suspiciously prodded. “All it does is reveal the truth of the world; I already know those things.”
“Do you?” Maeve challenged.
“Of course! I am not some foggy-brained human!”
“Well, then what do you have to lose? If you think you know everything, where is the harm in taking a bite?”
Her reasoning racked Eero’s puny brain; he stood stiff and lost, unsure of what to do, especially when he looked back at the delectable fruit.
Maeve took that as her opportunity. “You fell once, did you not? What is the worst that could happen? That you learn even more knowledge? …Perhaps even the truth of your existence? All it takes is one bite—”
“I have all truths,” he justified with a glare. “What more could I discover? I served in Heaven and now reign in Hell; that is all there is to it, you stupid female!”
She crossed her arms. “Then prove me wrong. Prove to me just how enlightened you really are.”
Eero scoffed and raised the fruit to his lips, staring at Maeve’s straight face with eyes of gloat. He threw his mouth open and chomped half of it away, chuckling when he resealed his lips.
An invisible bolt of lightning struck him in the back and shoved him to his knees, Eero immediately dropping the fruit with a muffled wail and bulging eyes. He desperately grabbed his mouth, trying to dig his claws in under his lips and yank them apart as he whimpered like a frightened puppy. But even with all his strength, he could not succeed; his mouth would open for nothing, digesting the damage done and forcing him to swallow.
Mabel ached watching him kneel there. His body broke into a river of sweat, hands pushing down on his mouth as his purple eyes were whisked away to lands unknown. Coruscus’ light was flaring and dying in random, violent cycles; every bone and muscle quivered in agony until, finally, tears began to fall from his fixed eyes. Even Mabel wanted to give the brute a hug, especially when the tears started to fall harder and faster, desperate, nasally inhales trying to calm Eero when his mouth refused to part. Piece by piece, the fruit slithered down his throat; every mouthful did more damage than the last until not even his mouth could hold back his misery. Red, steaming saliva was seeping through his gruff fingers, and he was breaking, bending further and further until he held his head to the Earth he was thrown to.
“You are not evil…” Maeve said softly through his growing cries, continuing to back away as Paradise faded with her. “Remember, God does not call the equipped. He equips the called.”
With a final step, she vanished, as did everything around her, stripping the forest back to its rotten bones. Eero did not even take note. He continued to cry and intake whatever morbid truth she subjected him to see, turning the world around him into mud from both his tears and the magically reopening wounds upon his back. No wings would come forth, but the pattern that the blood made showed Mabel just how beautiful they had really been… Not ones of feathers, but wire and metal, beams and cogs—
Very similar to how he had made Pinion’s.
He broke, loud and desperate. His mouth recoiled open, and his hands flew, frantically scraping off what scarce chunks remained. He was screaming, continuing to cry all while trying to undo the damage done, but it did not work…
And he gave up, collapsing forward in a heap of self-destruction. His sobs were settling, bodily convulsions winding down, but he did not stand… He just lay on his side, still crying as he was forced back into the reality that he chose, all while staring down the remaining half of what showed him such great pain in the first place.
“Eero…” Mabel whispered weakly. “I’m so… So sorry…”
“I don’t want it.”
A massive weight knocked her on the head, bringing her down face-first, and just as she was about to hit the ground, she phased through it.
With that strike, she found herself back in Justus’ workshop, but the moment that she realized she had returned, a searing pain ripped through her spine. It took her breath away, forcing her forehead to the metal table as she continued to search for air, only then realizing that her positioning had changed. She was no longer on her back but rather stomach, and there was blood.
Puddles of it—seas. Not a speck of the floor below her was spared. Thick, heavy globs coated her surgical bed and painted her arms that she found stretched out before her, still dripping from her fingers and adding to the ocean beneath.
“What…?” she wondered with a wheeze. She tried to move, but the moment she arched her back, she collapsed, her bare chest smacking the gloppy, drenched table, as a current of hot, bubbling nausea rushed from her gut to her mouth. “What—?”
“I said ‘I don’t want it,’” the rough voice came again.
Battling with her unseen affliction, Mabel took care rolling her head to the side, only to find Eero sitting hunched up in the corner of Justus’ demolished workshop. He was a ball with his long knees tucked in at his chest as he delicately stroked Coruscus like a cat. Only his blade gave light to him in his darkened state—but even that was minimal. “I don’t want apologies…” he went on to say quietly. “What’s done is done, and there’s no changing what you did.”
“But—” A knife cut through her chest, throwing her back into a series of miserable grunts and coughs.
Eero rose with a reluctant sigh, coming over to inspect her. “Don’t strain yourself; you hardly lived through it.”
The shock of his statement cut through her coughing spree. “What?”
Eero groaned, turning to a pile of bloody instruments stacked high on the floor next to the table. He took up the jagged hand saw, proceeding to scratch off the dried blood stains. “I didn’t know how else to do it… I couldn’t touch it since it was forged with holy magic—let alone fix it. My only option was to break it.”
“HUH?!” Her arms clenched. She instinctively tried to rise once more, only for the deep, dragging pain carving out her entirety reminding her to stay down. He broke it?! The sword that she could not survive without?!
And yet, she clearly did. Just to double check, she curled her outstretched fingers, looking at them as though they were foreign when they obeyed her. So, she was still here, but that meant…
“You broke the link…” she rasped. “Then, my powers…”
“Are still there.” He put the saw down and began cleaning a set of pliers.
Alright, she didn’t understand a thing. First off, she should have been well beyond death, and secondly, that sword sealed her powers—was the very source! She wanted to test his claims, but in her current state, the mental image of her erupting into a bonfire kept her content with whatever came from his filthy mouth. “Then what’s with all of the blood?”
He looked up, face straight. “Hm?”
“The blood? That’s all over? What does that have to do with breaking the s
word?”
His answer didn’t come quickly. He was stiff, thinking through what to say. He walked off to the edge of the room and grabbed a large slab of a broken mirror, reapproaching Mabel and standing in front of her face. He lifted the mirror and tilted it to capture the image he desired, but he never spoke.
She inhaled so sharply that it amplified her pain. She had no clue how long she had been trapped in Eero’s memory, but it had to have been a while considering the modifications done to her. Running along the length of her spine were the remnants of her sword, broken up into pieces so fine and small that they resembled animate, radioactive glitter. All were aglow, shedding white power and grace, but the cracks previously in her sword now belonged to Mabel’s body; they carved white, flowing ravines into her skin that branched from her spine, wrapping around to the fronts of her ribs and the sides of her breasts. She looked as though she was ancient marble on the verge of falling apart, kept together only by magic.
“No more power should be able to escape,” Eero tiredly explained. “Your entire vessel is now the sword, specifically your spine, and since you both are now one, you should have access to far more power as well as control.”
She was astounded. He really did all of that…? For her?
She looked away, not allowing him to see her faint smile. He couldn’t have wanted her dead that badly if he would go to such lengthy extremes to keep her alive… And he couldn’t have hated her as much as he said he did either.