Of course, the day that the peace would be broken started out just as normal as any other before it. Noth had eaten breakfast with his beloved siblings in his villa. Jean went off to the manor to study the servant’s jobs. Helt had clung to him like glue for a few hours, making sure they were always in the same room, and sitting and reading something somewhere nearby as Noth went about his usual routine. And as to be expected, this meant that Ren was also there clinging to the both of them as well. She’d recently taken a liking to fiddling with people’s hair, and sometimes Noth would let her put his hair up in a braid or ponytail. She absolutely adored playing with the rust-coloured tips of his hair, so she liked doing things to him more than to Helt. Eventually Noth told them that he had to go out, and so he left them to play in the greenhouse.
The teen made idle chit chat with his angel as they made their way into the nearby town. She would roll her eyes as he lightly fawned over how adorable and strong the children were, and he’d roll his eyes as she fussed and fawned over how much he’d grown. Every time that they made this trek together over the past few months, he’d end up laughing over some strange joke or comment she’d make, and she’d laugh along with him. Those moments were when he felt closest to her. Besides bedtime, when she’d stubbornly cling on to him and say she needed to pet him to sleep, these were really the only moments that he had alone with his angel anymore. He loved spending time with his new family, but this quiet time with Serris felt so simple and refreshing, like a cool breeze wafting against you on an almost too warm day. It almost felt nostalgic, in a way.
The two of them were off to the nearby town to keep the peace, just as they did every day. Noth felt anxious if he didn’t wade into the streets and make sure that nothing abhorrent was going on once a day. It would be absolutely terrible if he let something happen to people who didn’t deserve it right under his nose again, especially if those people were innocent children like his own. And because of this paranoia, the teen had been vigilantly stalking the streets, determined not to let another monster slip him by. For the most part, he’d just found thugs and thieves in the back alleys, but on occasion his hunting would bear fruit, and suitable prey would cross his path. He’d managed to get enough of a reputation that some of the seedier people in town would run away from him as soon as they recognized him, so for his 15th birthday his angel had gifted him a cloak as black as the night. It matched his original hair and eye colour, and somehow made him feel like he’d been wrapped in his mother’s love; After all, she’d been the one to give those colours to him in the first place. Noth felt safe in the cloak, and nowadays, whenever he left the manor he would make sure to wear it.
On this particular day he only encountered a thief, desperate for money to survive. The scrawny, starving young man quickly cowered when his knife was easily removed from his hands. Noth had learned how harsh his previous punishment for these ‘lesser offenders’ was, so instead he’d chosen a different one. Now, if he knew these people were just desperate, he would simply wish them up some food and make them promise that they wouldn’t ever ambush someone again, lest they really suffer his wrath next time.
Perhaps he’d grown a little too soft over the past year.
But was that really a bad thing?
At least now he had the power to back his leniency up.
After a few hours of patrolling the town, Noth headed back home. His angel clung to him with her arms around his neck and her face buried in his hair, even as she still floated along. She had always been the clingy kind, but Noth could tell that something was decidedly off this time. Serris had grown more and more on edge while they’d been out, and she hadn’t said a single word to him for about two hours now. When he suddenly felt the vibrations from her talking right against his head as they reached the front gates, the teen almost jumped right out of his shoes. Her voice was so quiet and muffled, that if he hadn’t been able to feel her talking he would have thought he’d imagined it all.
Noth turned his head a bit to look at her, but he couldn’t see her face since it was still buried in his hair.
“What was that?”
The teen grimaced as the arms around his neck tightened. He tugged at them lightly with his hands, but they refused to budge even a little bit.
“What’s wrong? What has you so freaked out?”
He could feel Serris quivering for a moment against his back, and just when he thought he could feel something wet getting onto his hair, there was a sudden loud thudding sound. His angel's arms had let go. She was no longer floating anymore and had crashed to the ground. She was slumped in the dirt in the most defeated position he’d ever seen her be in. Her face was pointed downwards, and her hair was covering it, so he couldn’t tell at all what expression she was making. He tried to kneel down and start asking her what was wrong, but before he could do much of either of those things, a long, slender arm whipped out and grabbed hold of his shirt, tugging him down to her level. The bleary, scribbles of eyes he could make out through the strands of her hair were completely fear inducing. Somehow, she almost looked like her eyes were melting, or perhaps as if a child had drawn her eyes out of crayons, and had drawn a dozen overlapping circles. Noth instinctively held his breath in fear, the words of concern he’d previously been about to say instead dying in his throat.
It took a lot for Noth to gulp down his fear and work up the courage to respond to the scary, monster-like thing that his angel had become, but after a few minutes of building his resolve, he closed his eyes, put a hand on the fist that had dragged him down, and replied in as even of a tone as he could manage.
“I have to go in there. It’s my home, and my family lives there. Our family.”
His words made the angel let go of her hold on his shirt, her hands instead coming up to cover her face as she began to sob. Tears from her eyes dripped down her arms along with blood from her hair. Noth frowned deeply, upset by the sight of the person he was closest to crying. This was no time to let himself be scared of her, he already knew she was scary sometimes! He quickly flung his arms around her head, hugging her tightly to his chest, and gently and slowly patted the top of her head.
“I don’t know what has you so worried, but do you really think that I could just suddenly start hating you? We’ve been together for how many years now, and you’re literally a part of me. You’ve saved me from so much, and you’ve always been there for me. Why would I ever, ever hate you?!”
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Noth’s speech and skinship seemed to be working, and after a few minutes the angel’s sobbing had finally stopped. The teen tried to pull back and get a look at her face, but the sudden strong hug he received around his torso quickly stopped any plans for that. Figuring she wasn’t quite ready to let go just yet, Noth decided to just keep lightly patting her head as he had been. But his hand stopped moving once he felt the rumbles of her words against him.
She hugged him extra tight, enough to make him feel like his back might just snap, and then turned him around and pushed him away towards the gate.
He looked back over his shoulder at her with doubt for a few seconds, but ultimately he knew that his stubborn angel wasn’t going to step foot inside his villa until he saw whatever it was that she hadn’t wanted him to see. For the first time in years, he’d have to face something without her.
It didn’t take long for Noth to receive the offending item. Once he’d solemnly made it into his villa, he realized that Jean had apparently been waiting for him, a letter in her hands. She told him that his father had received it for him from the church today, and that it was urgent that they reply to it. The fact that it was from the church made him frown in worry. He’d known they must have been up to something. He’d been right that whatever it was had to do with Serris’s increasing angst lately. What awful thing had they come up with? Noth thanked the small girl, and she smiled beautifully and curtsied like the maids did, before she took her leave with an accomplished look on her face. Truthfully, he’d wished that she hadn’t left. He didn’t want to be alone for this; It was too difficult for him to open and look at all on his own, and he would have been grateful for the company of one his strong, undaunted little siblings.
The teen checked in the greenhouse for the other two children, hoping that maybe they could be the ones to keep him company instead, but he realized that the two of them must have been off in their rooms napping about now, since they were no longer where he’d left them. How unlucky. He wasn’t shameful enough to wake the children up just so he could act like a child himself, so it seemed that he would truly have to face this trial alone. Noth took a step back inside the villa, having decided that he’d just trudge upstairs and handle this in the safety of his room, but then Elillith suddenly appeared, slowly making her way down the stairs.
“Elillith? Why are you-”
Since his words faltered and fell off, the stoic woman decided to blandly answer his unfinished question.
“‘M back fr’m puttin’ the kids down.”
He’d completely forgotten about Elillith in his panicking. Yes, the children were strong and in turn made him try to be strong too, but she was also quite the strong person, and she additionally knew the predicament that he was in to some extent. She was also like a cool and calm older sister to Noth, and had listened to a good few of his irrational fears, so why should he be shy with her right now? Noth’s face crumpled down, letting go of the shock he’d been showing and instead turning terribly grave. He marched up to the woman who had stopped at the bottom of the stairs, and when she quirked up an eyebrow in a rare change of face, the teen grabbed onto her sleeve in an almost cute and needy gesture.
“Elillith, can you sit with me while I read this letter? I’m afraid it might have something very bad in it, and I need someone with me right now.”
She didn’t even respond. Instead she just moved over a bit, sat down on the step she was standing in front of, and patted the free space on the step next to her. Noth’s face lightened up, thinking that the move was just like her, and he quickly moved to join her. He leaned a little towards her as he sat, his arm touching against hers like it was desperately seeking warmth. He was sure he was feeling much less nervous, until the letter came back into his view and easily dashed any such belief. What would it say? Would this letter be a decree of war between him and the church? Would it be full of rude words for him, admonishing him for having dared to not go along with their will to kill him? Had they somehow found out about his angel and now wanted to suck up to him? Really it could have said any number of insane things inside, and he wouldn’t know a single line of it until he opened and read it.
Luckily for Noth, his morbid curiosity for what could possibly have hurt his angel so much was quickly spurring him on, and after a few moments he ended his standstill and finally opened the letter.
It was a decree.
It had far too many flowery words written all over the page, but it really boiled down to three main points:
It said that he had been deemed worthy of a noble titleage.
He must show up to the main branch of the church within the week to learn exactly which title and land he would be receiving.
That would also be the date when he would learn what his new, noble name would be.
It all sounded positively crazy that the church would just suddenly recognize him as a noble. They knew what his [Gift] was, and they’d hated him for it for over half his life. They’d even sent assassins, and yet now they wanted to give him one of the highest honours that a citizen could receive? It just couldn’t be true. If he had to show up in the pope’s church, then that meant that the pope that hated him so much might actually have to talk to him. There’s no way that the higher ups or the pope would be willing to just let that happen. And what’s more, such a silly proposal couldn’t possibly be what had flustered his angel so much.
But then Noth caught sight of another, smaller note that was hidden inside the envelope, behind the main letter.
‘The prophet wants to see you. He knows about you. He knows about your angel. She's been lying to you. He wants to tell you the truth about her. There is no turning this down, it is the God-dess’s decree.’
The prophet? The prophet?! The one that’s second only to the pope? The one that gets oracles from the God-dess? No one was allowed to go against a decree of the God-dess that came from his lips, lest the God-dess smite you. Noth’s fingers crinkled the note where they held it. He hated how powerless he was feeling from just a title alone. It’s possible that this was even worse than if it was the pope calling on him in a way, considering the fact that this was the prophet who knew about his secrets. Perhaps if this note had come from the pope, then Noth might have been able to somehow deceive him and convince him that there was no angel. There was even a chance that he could fake having a different [Gift] by using some kind of elaborate wish. Even if the pope ranked high in holiness, there was no way that he could have outranked an angel, after all, so Noth should have had the upper hand in some way or another.
But none of that was true for the prophet.
If the prophet said they knew something, then they definitely knew it.
There was no tricking them.
They were all seeing.
There was nothing that the God-dess would not tell them.
The prophet was their mouthpiece, after all.
And what was worse, with such all-seeing eyes, there wasn’t a single chance that the prophet wouldn’t be able to see Serris.