Work Text:
The clouds parted and the mountains speared into the sky. A spiny building wedged itself between the peaks: The Chapel of the Fallen Chorus. Flying buttresses propped up the narthex, populated by gargoyles. They venerated a rosette window composed of spears and feathers. From deep within the chapel, the Followers of the Fallen Chorus arranged themselves the same way around a summoning circle.
They’d laid the relics of their target upon a bed of thorns, inside an iron cage. The cultists lit the rosemary and sandalwood, humming the refrain through their veils. Each wore a sanguine robe, and each bore a curled goat horn full of myrrh at their hip. As the air filled with incense clouds, each Follower completed their incantation, and raised their goat horn. One after another, they upended the oil. It flowed into all the designs they’d hacked into the stone floor. The fluid flowed underneath the thorns. Dark amber in color, but in the candlelight, it could have been mistaken for blood.
All of the cloaked cultists turned their faces away. The angel Calaiaphas exploded into the cage. The force of his entrance sent every nearby man to his knees. The relics melted, and the rose thorns turned to dust, and the oil rose like living serpents into the cage. Particles swirled and intermingled around a multitude of wings. A single eye within looked heavenward, once, before closing with a scream that threatened to shatter the windows. The entire Chapel reverberated with the echoes of the angel’s anguish, but its ancient stonework held fast. Wings beat against the cage and feathers caught. Myrrh splattered. The screaming wound its way through the cloisters and down from the vaulted ceilings. It died with a pathetic little gasp from the figure in the cage, who lay limp under the weight of enormous, feathered wings, one of which fell to their side at an odd angle. This was followed by very quiet, very human sobbing.
*~*~*~*
“If you’re good, the Praeceptor will allow you to stretch your wings.”
The iron latticework caught their feathers at the worst angles. Calaiaphas had held out for as long as they could, about a week, before the anxieties of being stuffed into a human’s form wore them down. The quickest had been the matter of thirst. A hooded figure would offer a cup of water through the bars every few hours or so. Calaiaphas had learned to take it when offered, or endure the pounding of their own heartbeat against the inside of their skull until it was offered again. The second was, of course, food -- Starving hurt both the stomach and the spirit. The cultists never taunted Calaiaphas over whether he would eat and drink, or not. They simply offered bread and soft cheese, water and weak mead. The third awful matter was posture. The cage pressed in on Calaiaphas and their wings had to twist to fit, forming a second enclosure of feathers and limb. This the cultists could do nothing about, not until the Praeceptor indicated otherwise. They bowed apologetically to Calaiaphas.
“Please,” Calaiaphas, finally. They gripped the wrist of the robed stranger who had served them their daily meal, through the weave of the cage. Many of the angel’s pinions had stripped themselves against the iron bars. Calaiaphas could remember being made of shimmering starstuff, but their feathers had grayed, then stained with flecks of blood.
The pain, too, of the shattered right wing constantly throbbed.
“Will you please Her?” asked the cultist.
“Yes,” said Calaiaphas, finally.
*~*~*
The snow howled against the barred window. Calaiaphas could also see no way past the room’s door with its bolts and screws, and the crowd of attending servants. Still, there was enough room to stretch their wings, almost full extension except for the very tips of their pinions. The robed servants ducked to avoid Calaiaphas’s one working wing. Calaiaphas fluttered, and the curtains wobbled in response. Spare sheets of paper shifted away from their wingbeats. Calaiaphas gripped their own elbow behind the small of their back and cracked their shoulders in pleasure. The heavy sets of back muscles that moved Calaiaphas’s wings writhed sensuously under feathers.
At first, Calaiaphas disliked the feel of human fingertips padding around their feathers. Small imprints of oil were left in their wake. The fingers pressed in, through the feathers and to their skin. The servants bodily sat Calaiaphas down in a chair in front of a mirror. There, while having their various limbs addressed by servants, Calaiaphas was forced to observe what they had become. They remembered being a star-like thing, with a large eye capable of peering into every facet of reality. A galaxy had adorned their brow as a halo. And their wings had been impossibly numerous, fractally multiplying with every thought, every color and sound of the rainbow and every whisper of life held within.
Calaiaphas’s body had resolved into a lean, bony thing with dull skin, almost ashen, not a fleck of stardust to be found. Their halo had corroded into a black disc and settled into their head as two sharp horns nestled in cinder-gray hair. As Calaiaphas struggled to keep their wings close to their body, the feathers only promised marginal protection: the warmth that a common pigeon might enjoy. These were hardly the wings that had shielded Calaiaphas from the vagrant entities of the universe. The color and life had been drained from them, in exchange for granting them physicality.
The servants preening Calaiaphas’s wings were gentle, but firm, with them, not allowing the angel to avoid their touch. “You must be presentable for the Praeceptor,” one of them whispered. His grip squeezed the wrist bone of the wing. Calaiaphas shuddered at the reminder that they now had bones inside of them. But half of the shuddering, they had to admit, was a result of the rhythmic stroking. Little darts of pleasure sang through their limbs. The touching...wasn’t so bad. Even the idea of human oils on their feathers didn’t bother them as much as it had in the beginning. They bound Calaiaphas’s broken wing with linen and a splint.
The servants displayed a robe through which they coerced Calaiaphas’s arms. Simple, thick wool had been dyed with dark blue lapis lazuli. Golden threads had been woven through in the pattern of the milky way, with tiny pearls arranged according to constellations in the sky. The robe had a high, stiff collar that forced Calaiaphas to look ahead. The clothing piece fastened in back with three-dozen eyelets to allow the wings to show through. A plush rope was tied around Calaiaphas’s waist, the knot set at an asymmetrical angle that Calaiaphas was not allowed to adjust.
“Ah,” was the noise that escaped Calaiaphas’s mouth unbidden when golden cuffs were attached to their good wing. The cuffs gripped the wing wrist and made it so that Calaiaphas could not shut their pinions. The servants clipped another cuff where the wing met the flesh of the angel’s body. These prevented Calaiaphas from closing that wing around their body. As Calaiaphas was guided down a long, frost-rimed cloister by the hooded servants, winds caught their forever-open wings and threatened their balance.
Who was the Praeceptor? Calaiaphas wondered, in fear and in hope. The hooded servants whispered amongst themselves, praising the Praeceptor, whispering praise that the angel they’d summoned was responding so well to their orders.
Whoever She was...Calaiaphas was about to meet Her.
*~*~*
She sat upon an obsidian throne. Stone gargoyles supported it, grimacing, with one carved bent over in supplication, as a footrest beneath Her boots. The servants had polished them to a wet gleam. Sanguine silks draped Her legs upwards, twisting into a robe composed of loose knots. A cloak of gray feathers wrapped around Her pale neck. Copper hair coiled about her face and mingled with the plumage cresting Her shoulder. Her eyes were as blue as the snow outside, piercing into Calaiaphas from above. She’d painted Her lips black, and fashioned Her crown from iron, after the horns on Calaiaphas’s head.
The Praeceptor Annafex dismounted her throne and walked around Calaiaphas’s kneeling form and spread wings. Calaiaphas had never felt so small, so vulnerable, so lovely than they did with the cold floor digging into their knees and palms. She grazed one of the angel’s wings with the back of their hand. Calaiaphas cried out, in spite of warnings from the other cultists to remain quiet.
The bottom of the Praeceptor’s boot collided with Calaiaphas’s body. The angel toppled to the floor. The Praeceptor leaned more of Her weight on their chest until they struggled and cried. Their wings bashed into the ground, and the golden cuffs dug in painfully. The pressure of the Praeceptor felt like falling from the heavens, like being enclosed in iron, like being asphyxiated.
The expression that crossed the Praeceptor’s face betrayed something beyond what She represented as the leader of the Fallen Chorus.
“Faster? Slower? Just right?” the Praeceptor Annafex asked. It was a question directed to Calaiaphas only, not meant for Her followers.
“Slower,” Calaiaphas gasped. “Or...stop.”
Annafex smiled and took her boot from the angel’s chest, and allowed them space to breathe.
*~*~*
All of the cloisters were theirs for Calaiaphas to wander. The library of the Fallen Chorus, with its shelves of forbidden books, were Calaiaphas’s to read. They could ask for any meal they liked, and any drink, provided it was made of something humanly obtainable. The Praeceptor hadn’t seen any reason to restrict Calaiaphas’s freedom beyond what the snowy mountains contained. It wasn’t like the angel, with their new, somewhat-mortal restrictions, would be able to make it to the small hamlet in the foothills.
The only rule? Calaiaphas had to offer their wings to the Praeceptor whenever She wanted to look at them, or touch them.
Calaiaphas knew that She would never take their feathers, or break their bones, or go any farther than what was pleasurable to them. Sometimes She threatened to dissolve that illusion, sure, but Calaiaphas chalked that up to being somewhat more mortal than normal and unable to peer into Her thoughts, as they had from the heavens. Being human was so much more visceral, immediate! Sensing the despair of billions of human lives was nothing compared to the pain of one calculated blow.
But...The Praeceptor could do whatever she liked with Calaiaphas. And that was what caused Calaiaphas to moan out of turn, and invite Annafex’s gentle, chuckling wrath.
*~*~*
The thick white fur of the tusked wolf made a magnificent blanket for the climate. It had been tossed against the wall of the Praeceptor’s room, and the heat in the central firepit dimmed to embers. A blizzard roared dimly beyond the stone walls. Ice coated the Chapel of the Fallen Chorus, and yet, Calaiaphas and Annafex lay panting and sweating together on a bed made bare by their efforts. The bones of an ancient deer composed the chandelier overhead.
Calaiaphas confessed that they didn’t know this would be so lovely, to stink of another human and to stain the sheets so frivolously. They mused over their grip on Annafex’s wrists, that they did not know whether it was being an angel that made them so eager to serve, or if it was Calaiaphas’s own personality taking shape as human. Annafex bit her lip in a way that made Calaiaphas’s grip weaken. She’d been kissed up and down and all over, touched and rubbed. There was a strength within her that allowed her to press against her angel and flip them over, while their wings rose up and embraced her. The broken one had healed well in spite of the ritual going slightly awry. Calaiaphas could flex it just as easily as the one that had survived unharmed.
“You were unhappy up there,” she said, honestly.
“I was,” said Calaiaphas, “But I do wonder, why I’m so predisposed to this. Didn’t I escape the Authority above? What does that say about me? To love...being subservient?”
Annafex smoothed some of Calaiaphas’s feathers down. They especially liked it when she focused on the smallest feathers where the wings joined their back. She knew that, too. “Nothing! Or at least, you know here, you’ll have a say. That was my promise to you.”
Calaiaphas considered Annafex deeply as they closed their eyes. They hugged each other. The angel knew Annafex had devoted her life to researching their name. When Claiaphas first started doubting the Authority and began casting about in the darkness for some sort of response, only Annafex had risen in response. Annafex dug their true name out of a cache hidden deep in the desert, where the Authority had compelled loyal followers to hide it. A person who knew an angel’s name could summon them from the sky, after all, and how much authority could one have if their divine followers were all mincing around with humans? Annafex had then developed the exact ritual that would safely bind an angel to a solid form, and, even though they’d be missing their halo and their wings would dim, their mind and heart would be whole. Calaiaphas’s eyes shot open. They were gray, but Annafex had discovered stardust deep within them.
“But you know, you didn’t have to form an entire cult out of it all,” Calaiaphas said.
Annafex giggled. “Well no, but…I just felt like it. Not everything’s about you.”
She shoved them playfully against the mattress and Calaiaphas requested that the shackles be removed from their wings so that they could more properly embrace her. She then said their name tauntingly, and Calaiaphas couldn't get enough of it. No god would ever hide their name again, so long as it was spoken from her lips.