A divine angel "Seraphiel" was her name. Though in the heavens above no one ever said it aloud. Angels didn't need names, they had halos instead. Hers glowed silver white, the brightest among the others. Which the other divine ones envied. "too eager, too blinding" They often mutter.
Though she didnt care, her only task was to watch over The library of Echoes. A celestial archive where every humans story was etched into starlight, she loved it there, the echoes of the folly things humans wrote, the way tragedies and triumphs hummed around her, it felt like a lullaby. She had always read all kinds of stories, yet of course just as the Gods had favorites she had her own.
Lydander, who's 23 lived in a crooked stone tower at the edge of village near a clif, sharp-tongued, one who loved words more than people, allergic to sunlight. People in the nearby village called him "the ghost who writes" partly because he rarely left his tower, and more so because of how unsettling his written works were.
*Down on earth at midnight*
He wrote by a candlelight, fingers stained with blue ink, muttering dialogues to the shadows, "Rivers that flow backward to undo regrets...? To undo regrets they made the rivers flow backwards....? Ugh fuck" he screamed as he crumpled the paper and threw it on the ground.
Seraphiel titled her head from above while watching thinking to herself. "Why destroy what you create?"
Just then Cassiel a seraph with wings like storm caught her staring too long at Lysanders world.
"Youre not supposed to care." He voiced sternly "We watch. We dont feel."
Seraphiel wispered under her breath "What if i want to."
Cassiels voice softened "Angels who want fall. Stop playing mortal Sera, i know you know better than that. Given all the time you spend reading."
"It wouldnt be considered falling if I.... I flew down there to meet him." She said as she looked down upon him.
Cassiel having duties of his own not wanting to waste his time arguing sighed and left the library. And as fate had not intended it, Seraphiel destroyed the order of the heaves. She.... flew down.
She smiled as she watched behind the walls admiring the writer. Not noticing as a feather of hers blackened and fell.
Midnight clung to the cliffs like a curse. Lysander rarely left his tower after dusk—the villagers' whispers slithered loudly in the dark, it set him unease. But tonight, the air felt different, as if the stars themselves had stopped breathing. a static of wonder overflowed him, He grabbed his rusted lantern, its flame coughing weakly against the gloom, and stepped outside.
The path to the cliff's edge was a jagged scar of rocks and thorns. His boots crunched over shale, the sound swallowed by the growl of the sea below. Halfway to nowhere, he froze.
There, wedged between two stones, lay a feather.
Not the iridescent black of a crow, nor the mottled gray of a gull. This was a void given shape—obsidian, impossibly smooth, its edges shimmering faintly, like starlight trapped in tar. Lysander crouched, lantern trembling as he reached for it.
"Odd," he muttered.
"Odd," echoed a voice behind him, "is a word for things that defy sense."
He spun, lantern swinging wild.
She stood barefoot in the dirt, her hair a tangle of moonlight, her dress too thin for the chill.
"You're trespassing." he said, sharper than he'd meant to. The village girls didn't wander here, not even the bold ones.
"Am I?" She stepped closer, as the lantern light washed over her. Her eyes were.... wrong. Too bright, too unblinking, like twin coins at the bottom of a well. "This place… it's yours?". She voiced as she looked up at the tower.
"As much as any tomb belongs to its corpse."
A moment of silence filled the atmosphere till he said
"Where did you come from?" he demanded.
"Far away." She said facing him.
"That's not an answer."
"No?" Her gaze fixed once again to his tower, its crooked silhouette clawing at the sky. "You write stories, ghost-who-hides. Do you always demand answers… or just the ones that frighten you?"
He stiffened. The villagers' name for him, spat like a curse, sounded almost musical on her tongue. Almost fond...
"Who are you?"
"Sera." She said it like a shrug, as though names were trivial things.
"Sera." He tested the sound. Too soft. Too human. "And what does Sera want?"
For a moment, she looked almost startled, as if the question were a key to a lock she'd forgotten. Then she turned, handing the feather to him. "To see where stories rot before they're born. Invite me in, Let me see where the rot breeds."
He hesitated. Villagers crossed themselves when they passed his tower. Children dared each other to throw stones at its door. Yet here stood this strange woman, asking for entry like it was nothing. Like he was nothing to fear.
"Why?"
"Because," she said, stepping so close her breath warmed his collarbone. "You want to know if I'm real."
His jaw clenched.
"Damn her." He thought to himself
*The Tower*
Deeply annoyed, he walked back to his tower.
She followed him inside, not waiting for an invitation.
Lysander's sanctuary reeked of ink and loneliness. Books slumped on sagging shelves, their spines cracked. Papers carpeted the floor—scribbled with words.Seraphiel drifted to his desk, her fingers trailing over a half-crumpled page. *Rivers that flow backward to undo regrets—*
"Why this?" she asked, voice low.
"Why anything?" He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. "It's trash. I burn most of them by dawn. But not this one...Not yet."
She glanced at him, he hated how her eyes seemed to peel back his ribs, to poke at the rot inside. He'd written about witches, about fae, about things that lurked in the dark. None of them unsettled him like this—this girl who wore the night like a second skin, who didn't flinch at the shadows.
"You don't belong here," he said, though the words rang hollow.
"Neither do you." She shuffled through the papers on his desk. "Yet here we are."
A gust slammed the tower door shut. The lantern flickered.
"Someone's coming," she whispered.
"No one comes here."
"Not for you." She turned, and for the first time, fear flickered in her borrowed face. "You should hide."
"From what?"
A shadow passed over the moon—vast, winged, but gone in a breath. "Nevermind. I have to go," she said walking towards the door. "Ill be back" as she smiled looking backed at him.
Lysander's pulse roared. "You still havent answered, What. are. you?"
".....Human" She answered hesitantly. "Wait—" Though he wasnt satisfied she has already left. A lingering feeling of his wanted to run outside to see... her. Yet it was like something else prevented him from doing so.
"Write better stories, and burn fewer." he heard an eerie whisper.
*Back in the Heavens above*
The Library of Echoes had always hummed. A chorus of human sighs, laughter, and last breaths woven into constellations. But now, as Seraphiel slipped back through its gilded arches, the air felt… hostile.
Cassiel found her sitting in the corner unbothered.. reading, his wings—a tempest of thunderheads and lightning—unfurled like a war banner.
"You flew to him," he said, voice cold.
She didn't turn nor flinch. Her fingers traced the edge Lysanders book "I observed. As we're meant to."
"Observed?" A crack of thunder shook the shelves. "You let him see you. You reek of mortal filth"
He stepped closer, storm-wings casting the room into shadow. "You think this is a game? A story to toy with? His hand shot out, gripping her wrist. "You reek of him. Of ink and arrogance."
She yanked free. "And you reek of fear."
The accusation hung between them, sharp as shattered glass. Cassiel's wings stilled.
"Fear," he repeated softly, "Its is what keeps the heavens whole. What keeps you from becoming what we purge."
A bitter laugh escaped her. "Ah yes. The great Cassiel, Keeper of Order, Slayer of Fallen Stars."
His jaw tightened. "They chose corruption."
"Or curiosity." She stood comming closer to him "Your no different you killed. You are the one who killed them, tell me? What makes you different from the 'corrupt' ?" She scoffed.
"It is the orders. All things i did was because it was ment to be done." He screamed.
Cassiel sighed "I am telling you this to protect yo-.. your purity, I don't want you to fall. Dont do it again." He said with now a softened voice as he stepped out of the library.
*Pfft what is ment, this what is ment that.* She thought to herself looking down once again at Lysander's world. Plotting her next visit.