Paradise End

17 - Present

            The silhouettes of cherubim casted by the bright amber glow leading its way down the road sent chiseled ripples across the air. The brisk mountain air whirred around frozen watchful figures standing by behind a silent chimney, on the surface of its moon-painted roof. A pair of hushed demons noticing the presence of angels making their way down the empty wild space before them.

"Dax," The first one breathed, his hoodie reaching over the fringe of his hair to cover secrets stowed in the dark.

"Yup?"

A second of silence passed when Lumen fell still, his hoodie turned directly at the figures below. "I want you to go open the portal now."

Without saying a word, Dax nodded, twisting a ring on his finger the traces of his form adapted colors, shadows, and shapes from all around. A translucence becoming him. "Well, what do you know, it actually worked."

"Good. Now don't waste it. Don't forget, you only have a few minutes."

"And when are you planning on telling me to take off?"

Lumen lifted his chin, turning amid the dark shapes. "I won't need to—you'll see the results." Snow drowned out the fear holding normal wings hostage in the atmosphere. "So, do you know which way you're going to bet?"

"I'm still waiting I think." The sound of a coin flicked up and down into a palm in the brittle frost, "But if I'm honest, my bets?" Dax held the coin up to his face, an eidetic design etched into the metal, "Are on death."

Nothing came from behind the placid features over Lumen's face, his narrow eyes analytical as always, a dark nature forming from the aura around him. "Don't slack off."

"Alright," Dax put the coin in his dress shirt. The tick of a clock lilted away. In a matter of seconds, the boy in the hoodie was gone, a silent whoosh flaring through moon-hiding clouds, another figure leaping off the side of the roof seconds later.

An aliferious sound flushed across air nearby. Razael turned, lifting his gaze towards the rooftops. They'd asked the lantern if it'd prefer them to fly to its end destination, but the lantern had only paused briefly, carrying on. Ambling in sparse leaps. Leading them presumably to say, 'here is where it happened'. What exactly it was, they failed to wrap their minds around but seeing as this clearly was their only lead to the source of Rigel's catastrophe, on and on in lightless dark they followed.

He hated every second they remained strapped to the ground. Especially with...

"Raz, are you coming?" Nashira called, glancing behind her. Momentary intrigue flashed across her face, her arms still by her side. "Yeah, I..."

Razael studied the shadows propelled by the moons transparent light, a delirious tune still there. "I..." his foot shifted, "I'm coming."

He turned, moving onward. Squeak by squeak, the flickering lamplight somehow continued to burn by each step, the snow's gale reduced to gentle thrums in the wind. Falling to the cushioned ground like miniature pieces of clouds.