Aclysia hadn’t been peaceful.

She had been watching.

“Would you like to talk to the Cardinal today?” the servant that visited her every day at noon asked. There was a second one, presenting the same question at midnight. Each time, it came along with a simple, piteous, meal. Dark bread, a little bit of meat, fish, cheese to top it off, and some water.

Aclysia wordlessly began to eat, only as much as she needed to maintain an optimal level of mana. Without Apexus, or anybody else, that would give her mana, she was bound to extract it from physical sources instead. A less effective, not to mention vaguely unpleasant procedure. Not because the food had to leave the body again, unlike mortals she turned her food into magic, not sustenance, leaving no waste by the end of it. Instead, it was just a lot of internal work that made her unnecessarily sluggish. Taking in physical matter was a last resort for a divine creation, not something to be relied on.

The servant left, the thick door closing behind her with the sound of heavy iron locking, and soon Aclysia pushed away the remains of her meal, only to once again stare at the teeth and the feather she had been left with. Days ago, she had finally stopped sorting them in different patterns. Not because she had finally found the one that seemed correct, but because she had finally resolved what she would do.

Leave.

It was a remarkably short-sighted plan, especially for her. She had no idea where to go afterwards, aside from elsewhere. She wanted nothing to do with this leaf anymore, with these people or anything associated with them. All she wanted was to be free to travel and see the things her beloved could no longer see, until she was satisfied with her life here and returned to the Trunk. Then she would see her father again and be the angel she had always been supposed to be.

That it was the Church she had to escape to fulfil that, well, her father was one of the less convinced gods that such an institution even had a place in the Omniverse. It was an opinion Aclysia had now come to share, even if her initial thoughts on the matter had been in the opposite direction. They failed to be the bastion of decency and ethics she had sought. All they had for her were questions.

How to leave, however? The door was always locked and she lacked the ability to overwhelm the servant while they went inside. At least, without using potentially lethal magic. Even if she did muster the conviction to do so, what good would it do? She was still stuck within the walls with dozens more Priests, Paladins and servants running about.

There was a second option, the windows, but the Cardinal had thought of that. A magical barrier was layered over the windows, as she had found out while opening one a while ago, in search of a way to flee. Some sort of defensive installation by nature, doubtlessly, but just as effective at keeping things in as it was at keeping things out.

Regardless, those were her two paths outside. Trying to fight her way to the outside or forcing herself through the barrier. For the former, she could strike at an opportune time, when the guards were in bad positions or something to that end. She would have little influence over this, but all she needed was to reach some point from which she could fly away. Once she took to the skies, she was safe. There was no way she could rely on or hope for any luck in the second strategy. It was harder, less likely to succeed and painful.

Regardless, she chose it.

When the sun vanished behind the horizon, hours before the second servant would visit her, Aclysia took a deep breath and finally decided to move. She had gone through so many variations of this event, thought and doubted how this attempt could go. There was nothing left but to try.

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She opened one of the windows. The crystal glass reflected the light of the full moon. Careful Aclysia stretched her arm out, only to stop before she could touch the invisible barrier. Any flare at this dark hour could have alarmed somebody, every second could count. One last breath. Then, she pressed forwards.

Blue fire spilled out around her, a basic magic discharge. At first it was just a warning, cold burning that didn’t harm her in any way, an unpleasant prickling on her skin, as if the hand had fallen asleep. A prickling that soon turned into a sensation more akin to needles stabbing into her every pore. The harder she pressed against the barrier, the more of her physical and magical power she threw against it, the stronger it fought back. The metal fairy felt as if her palm was melting, turned liquid by the sting of urchins.

Then her hand managed to get through.

The pain only got worse.

The barrier tried to close the hole in itself with the same natural force as water would. To the cold burn and the stings now came an immense pressure. Aclysia’s vision blurred as tears of pain rose into her eyes. Yet, still, she carried on, gripping the frame on the outside of the window. ‘Anywhere… anywhere but here…,’ she thought as the skin was seared off her forearms, revealing the black, metal bones underneath. ‘Apexus.’ The name simply appeared in her mind, gave her the strength to carry on.

The rest of her arms pressed through with relatively little issue. It was her head that gave the biggest trouble. Bit by bit she pressed through, screaming despite her best effort to keep quiet. If the constant blue flickering hadn’t alarmed anybody yet, those screams did it with absolute certainty. Screams that she could have spared herself if she had just been willing to hurt or kill.

Finally, her head was through and by comparison, the rest was a cakewalk. Shoulders, chest, the clenched fist she held in front of it, every bit of her that followed through, it all hurt, but it was manageable. There was a ruckus behind her, several people storming into the room. They witnessed the legs of the metal fairy getting through. A particularly quick interventionist reached her in time to grab her by on her moth-like wings.

It was too late by then. Gravity helped Aclysia’s cause and the base of her wings was too damaged to even hold a little weight. Like a wilted flower petal, it ripped off her back, creating only a tiny spark of pain.

A burned and partially crushed body fell three stories down to the hard ground below. No human could have survived going through a barrier like that. Indeed, even for a divine being, that had been a test. Aclysia was blind, largely without skin and whatever had remained of her maid uniform was just ash now. Still, she began to crawl the moment she knew again where up and down were. One hand was clawing at the dirt, the other was pressed against her tormented, false flesh. Healing magic flowed into herself. Soon she went from a crawl to a three-limbed hunching, then to a stumble, finally to a run.

Little more than her legs and eyes had healed. She couldn’t expend too much mana, if she did, she would simply collapse into unconsciousness. The rules of her supernatural body limited her in this regard. It was also what prevented her from flying, having not nearly the power to restore an entire wing.

She was slow. She could hear the people screaming behind her. Heard their trampling steps in the grass, then cracking over the thin branches that covered the forest floor. ‘I just want to be free…’ she cried in her mind, knowing that these monstrous humans would not listen to her. ‘Please, leave me, please, I just want… I just want to see him again… Apexus, please,’ her limited vision blurred as the pain and the panic made her once again lost in grief as her body mechanically moved along. ‘Please, come back to me, let me see you…’

She stumbled, didn’t even notice the flash of light in the night. She hit the ground hard, the flat grass, and the fist she had held tight until that moment opened. The sight of the feather caused the tears to run over her face uncontrollably. At the ends that had peeked out of her hand, it had been seared black, while the emerald in the middle, so close to her own eyes, was crushed to the point that nothing but the colour was of any beauty or grace anymore. The one keepsake she had resolved to take with her and it too was ruined.

‘Can’t… give up…’ she thought, resolving herself past her sobbing. She had already come so far. She needed to get back to her feet and keep running away from the Church and…

The trampling behind her was gone.

Confused, she blinked numerous times, raising her head. Even through the blur, she spotted a colour that shouldn’t have been in the forest. A familiar metallic colour, ordered in a thorn fence and a face like a grinning skull behind it.

“And so we meet again, little angel.”