In the beginning there is always darkness.
But she, the one they would later call “the Celeste”, was weary of darkness. Despite the angels that circled her realm in perpetual adoration to her, bleakness overshadowed her existence, casting her into a deep despair. She had never known any life, nor held a memory of a time before this service. She was not born into the Heavens of Divinity. She had come in whole, a woman of flesh wrapped in the brilliance of the silver light of the deity.
She was the goddess divine, overseer of all celestial beings and ruler of the five of Seraphim, the highest of all the angels. And thus from her despair did the goddess call upon the Seraphim to help her bring the world into substance. From Katri’s womb was born the world. From Riel’s tears did oceans and rivers thus form. From Tatron’s breath came the seasons and from Phiel’s inner light did the sun thus form.
From the Celeste’s own image was the first castling molded. A soft, delicate creature of flesh and blood she would call Woman. So that her castlings may never feel the loneliness she herself did suffer, she bestowed woman with a mate whom she would call Man. “I shall love my castlings, my children, more than any other,” the Celeste cried through a trickle of tears. “For never was there such a beautiful creature to capture my heart.”
Araqael, jealous of Her castlings, shed a shadow of darkness to blanket the world each night.
“Araqael,” the Celeste beseeched him. “Why have you cast darkness upon our beautiful world?”
“Thou hast forsaken my love for that of your creation!”
The Celeste crossed the distance between them. Her bare feet slipped across the heavens in a melodic shush that echoed in the silent realm. Hair the color of spun gold, a tribute to the light burning within her, flowed in ringlets down to her waist. Skin as white as the light of purity adorned every inch of her body. Breasts, full and round, rose and fell softly with each step. Neither a blemish nor a marking could be found on her flawless form.
She approached Araqael, the youngest of the Seraphim and whom she harbored the most affection for. He was created in full male splendor, a long length of pale, angled flesh with eyes as sharp and clear as a shard of ice. At the corner of his left eye was the mark of the Seraphim, an inverted crescent shape pierced with a thorn.
“Beloved,” the Celeste bid him. “You shall always be in my favor.”
The crystal fire in his gaze burned with a magnificent splendor. He pressed a kiss upon her lips then whispered his dark desires within her ear. “It is not your favor I desire but the whole of your heart.”
“My heart belongs to all of you.” The Celeste took in the length of her beloved. His desire consumed the full splendor of his fair-skinned body. Beneath the brushed tips of his midnight hair, want flushed his eyes, quieting the icy fires and darkening them with a feral cobalt hue. The yearning licked down his body, tightening the muscles on his chest.
“What prideful perversion has claimed you, Araquel, to think that you are so deserving of such affections?” Tataron rose to challenge.
“My love runs deeper than any other.” Araqael extended his hand to the Celeste. “Come, my beloved. Together we can be as one and rule the kingdom of your divine creation.”
The Celeste took a step away, distancing herself from Araqael’s outstretched hand. She could not dare to meet his gaze, for she feared what she might find there. “Remember your place, Araqael, you are not a god.”
“You will forsake my love then?”
“It is you who are forsaking my love.”
Power rippled from Araqael in crashing waves. His aching fury slipped through the Celeste’s body, touching every fiber of being within her so that she trembled from the shiver he pressed beneath her skin. Sickness crept inside her womb.
Dark vapors folded in around Araqael, enveloping him a smoky tomb so that only the fire in his eyes was visible beneath the veil. Eruptions of reddish color flashed within his eyes, drowning his azure irises in a fiery gaze. And just as if his gaze had turned to flames, it bore into her skin, making it burn. “Araqael,” she whispered.
“I shall taint thy beautiful castlings and bring darkness to their hearts just as thou hast brought darkness to thine!”
“Araqael,” she whispered again. A tortuous pain moved slowly across her body, lighting every sense on fire, searing every nerve ending until she feared her body would simply burst into flames. It settled deep in her heart, an ache unlike anything she’d ever known before.
Behind her a charge of energy—raw, world-creating power surged from her Seraphims, their powers combined into a supreme force. It blasted over Araqael, throwing him back so that he tumbled from the heavens.
*
Having fallen from grace, Araqael’s powers had diminished but not yet vanished. And to his shadowed world, he brought with him the Virtues, a once angelic order who were now loyal to their dark Lord. Now referred to as demons, they sought to help him exact his revenge on the divine goddess who had betrayed him…
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