“Hello master,” the seraphim – her seraphim - repeats, and Maria knows she’s not going to get tired of thinking that. It’s jarring how settled she feels now, more stable, and maybe a little more godly. Everything had felt overwhelming since she had arrived, so she had assumed her drifting listlessness was a side effect of her new divinity, but perhaps it was just because she wasn’t fully tethered to the heavens yet. Either way, it’s a relief and Maria takes her first easy breath.

“It is my utmost pleasure to be serving you,” the angel continues, little dandelions blooming across her vine-covered skin, “I hope you find my abilities up to your standards. I greatly look forward to our time together my lady.”

“You don’t have to be so formal,” she assures, and she means it. Maria’s not sure she can take another person bending over backwards to show her courtesy she doesn’t really feel she’s earned.

“If you insist master.”

Well, looks like it’s going to take a little longer to break that habit. She doesn't like being addressed like she is better somehow, it goes against everything she was raised to know and feel about the world. Maria glances up, pausing when she spots Pluma back in human form, tangled against the pillar and Cadeyrn’s back, peering up over the demon’s head to get a better look. She smiles, vividly reminded of the village children she would help look after occasionally.

“Narcissus,” she says, lowering her hands and opening them to reveal the little angel in her hands to inquisitive blue eyes, “meet Pluma, seraphim of stars.”

Narcissus elegantly gets to her feet, dipping into another bow, “An honor to meet my senior seraphim.”

Pluma grins at that, little dove wings ruffling as his tail swishes happily behind him, “Of course!” he nods resolutely, “I’ll be a great senior!”

Cadeyrn makes a tisking sound and shoves the little angel perching on his shoulders, “Don’t talk about being a senior while using me to get a better view, feathers.”

Pluma’s face twists at the indignity of that insult, feather puffing out and tail lashing, “take that back!” he demands, practically pouncing on top of the demon’s head. The sudden shift in weight causes Cadeyrn to stumble a step, almost overbalancing.

“You little-!”

“You’re not getting away this time demon!” the angel declares, in what almost sounds like evil glee, as he detangles himself from Cadeyrn and jumps down, stumbling a step before squaring his feet, “I’m telling on you to master!”

And Maria steps forward, ready to put a stop to this, because it’s obviously gotten serious if Pluma is threatening to tell the God of Fate-

Cadeyrn laughs.

It’s not much of a laugh more of a wheezing snort, but the amusement is hard to hide, nor the relaxed smile that lazily stretches across his face. The demon stares down at the little angel, red eyes glittering in the afternoon light, Pluma looks rather smug with himself even as Cadeyrn looms over him, “You better hope master won’t need a new seraphim when I’m done with you-,”

“Hey!” Maria calls, suddenly feeling extremely out of her element and more than a little baffled at the sudden aggression. The Cadeyrn she had seen was stern and impassive, a good soldier and an obedient servant, it was jarring to see him so emotive, so free. But Maria knew it wasn’t a front, this demon, this man, was the real one, hidden under all the masks imposed on him.

In retrospect she felt silly for worrying at all, she could tell they weren’t entirely serious, (not that she was sure either of them could actually hurt each other even if they wanted to). They were clearly just messing around, and she had just butted in what was probably a rare moment of fun.

Cadeyrn almost looked embarrassed for a moment, before he straightens back out, back stiff as a board, arms crossed, indifferent mask settling back over his face. Pluma sulkily hangs his head, wings folding along his back, and tail curling around his own ankle as he squishes himself back up to Cadeyrn’s side, hiding in the shadow of the demon as if it was second nature. Her heart panged again, she didn’t mean to upset them, nor did she want them to hide themselves away again.

“I didn’t….,” she tries but the words die on her tongue, Cadeyrn is back to watching her warily, and Pluma isn’t looking at her at all. “I’m sorry.”

Neither of them react at all to her words, and Cadeyrn glances pointedly to the side at the winding pathway leading away from the temple. If she was to guess, it was the road back to wherever they dwelled.

She didn’t want to leave things like this, Maria has misstepped big here, and if she wanted any chance of keeping Cadeyrn as a friend she has to act fast.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Thank you,” she blurts, tightening her hands before relaxing her grip, momentarily forgetting the little angel in her hands, “if not for you I wouldn’t have summoned my seraphim.”

“Think nothing of it, Lady of the Spring.”

Back to formal titles again….

“Even if it didn’t mean a lot to you, it meant something to me, and I thank you.”

Cadeyrn looks highly uncomfortable with the formal address, but still nods, accepting the gesture.

“Then if that is all-,”

“Please allow me to offer my thanks as well friend of my master,” Narcissus says, and Maria opens her hands more, cradling the tiny angel as she addresses Cadeyrn, “and pardon me, this form is unsuited for a proper thanks.”

With a soft hop, Narcissus jumps from Maria’s hands. Before Maria can even react -and her first instinct being to reach of the angel and catch her before she hits the ground- Narcissus changes, body growing and shifting before her feet ever touch the ground.

The vines of her body elongating and twisting together until they merge and meld, becoming skin as white as porcelain. The blooming daffodil on top of her head lengthening and breaking until it becomes flowing hair of pale yellow, almost silver. The yellow roses of her dress, twisting and shifting to cover newly expose human skin with a robe of pure white, accented with barely visible yellow flowers embroidered into the sleeves and belt. A tassel of fresh yellow roses mixed with knitted imitations of the flowers (a tassel that matched the good luck charm her mom had made her ages ago for her 10th birthday) dangles from her hip and an elaborate headpiece of fresh and metal daffodils rests on the top of her head. Narcissus smiles, and it softens her new eyes of sunshine yellow, causing the dangling earrings of dandelions to shift as she moves.

In the span of a single breath Maria’s seraphim changes from a small flower fairy into that of a refined woman with three wings of green feathers, still inlaid with yellow petals and decorated with flowering vines that hang across her wings like festive garlands.

Narcissus moves to bow, “Now I can-,”

“Master!?”

Both Maria and Narcissus shift their attention at that outburst. Maria tenses, expecting to see Asterius once more, readying herself for the incoming fight, but finds the Temple of Ascension empty except for them. Pluma’s eyes are wide with confusion and panic, hands tightened into fists and body almost shaking despite how tense he is. His gaze is not focused into the distance but locked firmly on Narcissus.

Before Maria can say anything, Cadeyrn buts in, anger and disgust boiling under his skin.

“No,” he bites, voice more of a growl than he would like, anger tinting his tone and tightening the muscles in body, as if readying for a fight. The magic imbued into his binds flares, suppressing him even as tiny flecks of ice crawl up his arms and chill his hands.

At first glance, the seraphim did bear a very striking resemblance to their god. A painfully easy resemblance; the quiet refined air both of them effortlessly give off, the long silver hair styled with elaborate hair ornaments, detailed robes of pastel colors- a clear imitation of Asterius’s regal form, a pitiful mimicry of the original. But even that offense would not have him as angered as he is now, for all that this new seraphim resembled his god, there was another she more closely mirrored.

Cadeyrn had never met the previous moon goddess, had never been graced with her presence, but he has seen depictions of her beauty, and her image had been burned into his brain. Asterius kept a small beautifully detailed painting in the dining room, most days it was covered with a thick white cloth, as if the Fateweaver could not bear to look at the image, but also could not bear the thought of taking it down. It was the only art the first Asterius had ever hung in their home, since the change more and more pieces decorated the walls, and the mourning cloth had been removed from the single framed painting, making it stand out harshly from the clumsy doodles and scenic landscapes.

It was a family portrait that had been defaced long before Cadeyrn arrived in the home, the whole left side of the painting violently torn from the frame. It is easy to guess what -or rather who- had been removed, Asterius’s hate of his father was no secret after all. Even defaced it was still a beautiful painting, showing what once was a happy family.

Centered in the middle of the portrait was Asterius himself, much younger and smiling brightly, eyes unclouded by fear or hate, lacking the harp edge they had been forced to gain. On either side of him holding onto Asterius’s hands were two matching boys. The only difference in their faces being the color of their hair, one white and the other red, the twin sun gods. Behind them, tall and regal, even inch the queen that she was, sat Luma, cradling a small glowing godling, Ilona, before she took her first form.

He had seen that painting enough over the years to memorize the lines of Luma’s face, the queen he would never know. And that regal untouchable face was looking back at him now in confusion, stolen onto the face of a seraphim.

“Mar-,” and he chokes down her name, Asterius couldn’t bear to hear it anymore, and his god was right, if anyone caught him being so informal with the empress to be, it would Asterius that would have to pay for his mistake, “Bringer of Flowers,” he corrects, he is uncertain if gods keep the monikers of their predecessors, the complexities of the goldy courts and social etiquettes still allude him, but it is not a mistake that would damn him, “what is the meaning of this?”

“I don’t understand what is wrong?”

“Your seraphim,” Cadeyrn bites, not doing anything to hide his bubbling rage, it almost pains him to think of his late queen being dishonored so, “Why does she look like the dreamer of the moon?”

That gets Maria’s attention, head snapping to the side to look Narcissus more closely. Mortals were not privy to god’s names, much less their preferred forms. Even in her mama’s holy texts, the moon goddess only ever appeared as a ghostly, veiled woman.

Narcissus hadn’t been copying the face of a long-dead goddess, no, Maria knew exactly what had shaped her seraphim’s form. For Narcissus carried the face of the entity that had always been with Maria, her fairy, her guardian angel.