Falling from Grace

Pagan gods against angels; the battle-lines have been drawn. But some of them don’t want to fight…

Seriously AU. Don’t like, don’t read. This is the first of a trilogy; it’s basically a prologue to the other two stories.

The thunder growled in the distance. Coinneach rolled his eyes, listening to the bad-tempered rumble. ‘Sounds like Hereweald in a bad mood,’ he reflected with a twitch of his lips, before sighing and settling into a more comfortable position. ‘Whatever they are saying has certainly put him in a bad mood.’

The storm was drawing closer, he noticed. ‘Ah, the discussion is finished.’ He waited, humming to himself absently.

The rain pelted down viciously. Coinneach grimaced. ‘A very bad mood.’ He stood up, looking to the heart of the storm.

Star-in-sky was stalking towards him with the tense grace displayed only during his worst tempers. “They say the decision has been made, and cannot be changed.”

“And greetings to you too, my partner,” said Coinneach dryly. Seeing Star-in-sky’s glare, he sighed. “We both knew what their answer would be.”

The dark eyes flashed. Above them, unnoticed, a blaze of lightning tore the sky. “They would not even listen to me, Coinneach!”

“And they would not listen to Hereweald, when he pleaded for us.” Seeing the shock in Star-in-sky’s eyes, echoed by the pause in the driving rain, Coinneach blinked. “Surely you knew of that?”

A longer rumble from the skies answered his question. Coinneach sighed again. “Star-in-sky, if the people who live nearby are drowned, it will not help our cause.”

“Huh? Oh.” Star-in-sky looked vaguely embarrassed. “You know that I have no control over this, Coinneach! It is the nature of things. The skies always reflect my moods.”

“They will not for much longer.”

The rain grew fiercer, lightning blazing until the clouds seemed on fire, thunder deafening any mortal that heard it.

“I will not be separated from you!” The words were a desperate vow.

Coinneach smiled strangely. “Of course not. No more than Hereweald is separated from Eadgyæ.”

Star-in-sky paused. “Coinneach… What are you saying?”

The golden angel leaned forwards, one hand cupping the storm-spirit’s face. “Will you come with me, wherever I go? Risk everything if I ask it of you?”

“Yes.” The sudden quiet in which Star-in-sky made the vow proved how seriously he meant it.

“Then come with me now.”

Hereweald breathed a sigh of relief as the rain slackened off. Eadgyæ gave him an understanding smile. “You see. Coinneach has always been able to calm Star-in-sky.”

“This is different. What they would risk – what we are risking…” Hereweald shook his head, discomforted by the thought. “There are no others we may turn to, after this. Every door will be closed to us, every person our enemy.”

Eadgyæ stepped closer to him, recognising how heavily the choice he had made weighed him down. “Not all,” she comforted him. “And we will be together.”

Hereweald nodded. “Yes.”

The pagan goddess studied her lover, the arch-angel, thoughtfully. “There is no place for any of us with our own people,” she pointed out sadly. The battle-lines had been drawn before ever their races met; the angels could not allow beings whose existence on this plane relied on blood sacrifice to remain here. But the belief systems were complicated, and not all of the beings they fought against were dangerous to the humans they were sworn to protect.

Hereweald, whose very name meant “army leader”, had found himself drawn to this quiet goddess, named “rich/blessed war”. Despite what her name suggested, her actual purpose was providing for those whose lives were affected by wars and battles so that they were not left destitute – or worse. Hereweald had approved of her function, and more of her methods.

He had not been the only angel to find qualities worth saving in an opponent.

Coinneach, “handsome”, had been captivated by a relatively young being – Star-in-sky, whose moods were reflected in the weather. The storm-spirit, for his part, had been intrigued by Coinneach. Each was drawn to the other.

Even though they had met on the battlefield.

Coinneach had been in the grip of the fierce battle-rage that possessed him during these fights, unaware of the carnage left in his wake. Hereweald was the only one who dared go near him at such times – the only one of their company who trusted him to recognise an ally.

Hereweald was also the only one who knew that Coinneach had never responded to his actions afterwards with anything less than horror. There was not a single time when he had been able to contain his nausea at his actions.

‘It is not his nature to blithely destroy, whatever opinion the rest of our company may hold,’ Hereweald had thought grimly once while supporting the blond head as Coinneach retched dryly, sobbing with his pain and guilt.

But during each battle he was a ferocious warrior, and none who stood against him survived, whatever their weapon.

Until the one who stood, unarmed, and cried for mercy.

Coinneach’s every muscle seemed frozen with the effort required to stop the deadly blow aimed at the being’s head.

The being had thanked him, bowing forwards – and been struck by a sudden bolt of lightning.

Coinneach had looked to the spirit who had thrown it, not understanding his actions.

“He was going to betray your good faith,” the spirit had growled as he moved to the dead remains and turned them over to reveal the knife hidden in the being’s hand. “Nikolaos was always stupid,” he added bitterly.

One of the other angels noticed the spirit, and immediately aimed a sword-blow at him that would have severed his head from his body.

The blade rang against Coinneach’s sword, raised in protection of the spirit. The battle-rage had never completely faded from Coinneach’s blood; the sudden attack drew it forth – against any who seemed to threaten him… or the spirit, who was clasped to his chest in a parody of a lovers’ embrace.

The spirit squirmed in his arms. “I fight my own battles, angel,” he growled. “Let me go, that I can protect your back!”

Neither of them had ever considered the other his enemy… but they had not precisely been friends, either. Star-in-sky had left Coinneach in a state of constant exasperation at his quicksilver moods and irreverence for authority, while Coinneach’s own tendency to lecture the spirit almost led to fisticuffs on several occasions. Hereweald found himself arguing with both when he tried to send Coinneach on a mission alone, whether or no it was dangerous, and soon enough he considered them a team.

Word of this reached the Powers who commanded the army, and Hereweald was called to account for his acceptance of the storm-spirit. He argued his case as persuasively as he knew how; but to no avail. As a spirit of the opposing pantheon, Star-in-sky was not considered an appropriate ally for the angels. Worse, during his trial, Hereweald’s own growing relationship with the goddess Eadgyæ was discovered and denounced.

The four had been brought to this, finally – their last attempts to argue their cases with the Powers fruitless, all that was achieved being that both sides made it clear that they must choose a side to fight with and make no exceptions for any they came across.

“Do they even think of the mortals whom we are supposed to be fighting for?” Coinneach had demanded at one point. Hereweald had been unable to answer.

None of them could betray their people or their friends in such a manner as the Powers demanded. So they had agreed upon a different solution… One which none of their opponents would think to guard against, until it was too late.

And with Star-in-sky’s final pleas disregarded, the time for their last resort had come.

The four beings stood together, exchanging uncertain glances. “We are agreed?” Hereweald asked formally.

His companions nodded. “We are.”

“Yes.”

“Uh-huh.”

Hereweald rolled his eyes at the familiar grunt from the storm-spirit, but forbore to comment. Instead, he took firm hold of Eadgyæ’s hand, and shook out his wings for the last time. Star-in-sky and Coinneach were already holding tight to each other.

Before them stood the Doorway. Passing through this would strip all of them of most of their powers, leaving them with little more than the mortals they would be condemned to living beside. But they would be left in peace together – if they managed to avoid being separated by the Doorway when they passed through.

A final shared look, and the four stepped through the Doorway.

Agony. The deepest parts of themselves torn away, their very essences drained. The two angels’ wings were wrenched from their backs to leave torn and gaping wounds. The storm-spirit and goddess were stripped of abilities which were more a part of them than their names or faces. Incapable of thought in that moment, an instinctive reflex was all that kept them from losing each other. Don’t… Let… Go.

There were no witnesses to the sudden appearance of four battered strangers on the moorlands, two of whom were clearly gravely wounded. Their disappearance was a different matter, but none who witnessed it cared to try and follow. There were only two simple pronouncements.

“The traitors have fled to hide amongst the mortals.”

“The renegade angels have Fallen.”