It was still early in the morning, and the Sun was sitting just right in the skies for Arianna to raise both hands, and skillfully play with the shadows on the floor. Gabrielle watched in awe, just letting the nun weave the image with both of her hands, unsure if this was a trick of the light, some discipline of the hand, or outright magic on display. She saw a little man waving back at her, and she enthusiastically waved back as the sister took over the narration.

Now listen to me, Gabrielle. What I’ll tell you now is a secret, and you must never share this with anyone in the church. Understood?

“No one? Not even Sister Alejandra?” Gabi was aghast, covering her mouth in surprise while Arianna shrugged.

Okay, you can talk to her about it, for she already knows this story as well… but besides her, no one else. Not a soul in the church must know, understood?

“What about Baraqiel?” Gabrielle added, “can they know this?”

Arianna rolled her eyes.

Okay, Baraqiel too. But to no one else in the church!! Understood!? Do you even want to hear the story??

“I do, I do! I am sorry.” The little girl sighed, pouting and once more focusing on the angry little shadow man. “Please continue.”

All right, then. All right…

The shapes on the floor rippled and shifted, going from a little man to something bigger and familiar to the girl: a tree rising slowly, growing bigger and bigger as the sister spoke.

Legends say that somewhere, lost in a huge desert forgotten by men and gods alike, there is a tree that grows as tall as the Heavens, and with roots stretching deeper than Hell itself. It was planted there, but no one knows by whom or when, probably even before humanity itself came down from the Towers…

“Was it the gods?” Gabrielle asked, for that was often the answer. The ever elusive Gods, gone for who knows how long, were usually to be credited for everything mysterious and infinite in the world.

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Arianna doubted herself. Among the members of the Church, she was one of the few odd ones who actually believed in the legend of the Tree of Origin to begin with, and this already put her in an uncomfortable spot with the god-centric beliefs of others. Was it really right to share those beliefs with someone as naive as Gabrielle?

“…It was probably the gods.” She finally opted to just lie. “The Gods are whimsical like that.”

“I knew it!” Gabi celebrated, nodding to herself and feeling a bit smarter.

The tree is the spot where all souls are born, flowing into a huge River of light that slithers out of its base and coils around all of Jericho. When a person is born, their soul comes from there, and then the body forms around it. It’s a common origin for every single living creature in this beautiful world!

The shadows continued to serpentine, little figures rising from under the tree. Arianna was exploiting her rudimentary knowledge of magic for such a frivolous display, and she was aware of this! But she simply couldn’t help but show off a little bit– Gabrielle was probably already infected, after all, so a bit more playfulness wouldn’t do more damage, right? As long as she didn’t outright call it magic…

The little girl was more than enchanted by this, observing with big, unblinking eyes.

“Why don’t I remember any of this? Is my soul bad?”

Your soul is all right, Gabi. Everyone’s soul is all right… we just forget about this when we are younger, no one is sure why. Probably to keep the secret safe.

“Yeah, if people knew where the tree was they'd probably try to make a mallet with it! A magical mallet would be so strong, and probably super heavy!”

Arianna decided to ignore that little blasphemy and continue.

There is a thing that we can get to remember, under special circumstances: inscribed all over the tree there are strange shapes, marks that hold within themselves a fragment of the power of the tree. Some people call them Angel Scars, others call them the God’s Syllabary, but to make it simple we usually just call them “Runes”.

And these are the secret to turning a person into an Angel.

“How?” Gabrielle’s eyes were as wide as plates right then.

“...” The whimsical narration stopped fully, as Arianna simply didn’t have a clear answer for that. “Well, that’s just a rumor. No one truly knows how, and probably the Father doesn’t even know what he is doing either.”

Gabrielle fell silent again, watching the shadows return to their boring hand form, and then watching Arianna shake the exhaustion off them. A part of her brain wanted to ask about Baraqiel’s very own Rune, but their Covenant was very clear on keeping that secret hidden from everyone. She didn’t want to upset her one friend…

So she decided to try and be sneaky about it.

“If someone remembered a rune, what would happen with it?”

Arianna frowned slightly. This little girl can’t be more obvious, she thought while shaking her head. For now she would simply play Gabrielle’s game.

“If a person remembers, they will always remember one rune from the Tree. Once they do, magic will be attracted to them, and problems will always follow. Thinking too hard about the rune could call forth its power by accident, and without proper control or knowledge they can end up hurting themselves.”

Gabrielle gulped loudly, blinking rapidly as the implications hit her.

Oh no.

“Thanks for the tale, Sister, but I have to go now. I have to tell Baraqiel something.”

“Be careful, okay Gabi?” Ari simply sighed and moved out of the little girl’s way, letting Gabi sprint past and then just shaking her head again. “Oh, that poor little idiot…”

She was about to turn right on her heels and walk back to the Chapel, when suddenly something seemed to move in the corner of her eye. The bushes shook, too softly to be an animal yet too violently to just be the wind. Arianna turned right around, facing the bush and staring it down for a moment. It never moved again.

Huh…

Could it have been just her imagination?

But if it was, then why did she have such a bad feeling about it…?