AZRIEL

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

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AZRIEL

"You seriously told him that?"

"Of course I did."

Julian tipped his head back and laughed as I let out a small chuckle myself. "You're a dick, Az."

"You have to do what you have to do."

Julian and I were sat in the sitting room together, talking over a bottle of white wine with the fireplace raging beside us. It felt like forever since we had an opportunity to sit like this. To talk - not like adults, but rather like friends.

Julian sprawled out his long legs, crossing his ankles over, and let out a deep sigh. The quietness of the Velastillian winter night was enough to put our aching heads at ease. "Do you ever feel like we missed out on a normal childhood?"

I took a lengthy sip of my wine and placed the tall glass back down onto the coffee table in front of me, amused. "Define a normal childhood, please."

"I don't know," Julian merely shrugged his shoulders. "A childhood where you weren't learning how to stab people with blades at four years old."

I breathed a small laugh, running my tongue along my teeth in thought as I slouched back into the sofa. "The truth is, Julian, we did miss out on a normal childhood - for specific reasons. Think about it. I was the son of one of the future Arch Angels and the Prince of Velastille, and you are the son of Velastille's longest serving commander of the army. We aren't normal."

"That doesn't mean we didn't deserve a normal childhood." The ash-blonde angel sat opposite me traced the rim of his wine glass with his finger, his voice low. In all honesty, he was right. We had our joyous childhood activities stripped away from us and replaced with training and learning etiquette. There was no normality in the past life we had lived, and we had been forced to mature a lot sooner than other children our age. With all that taken into account, we both acknowledged we had roles and responsibilities to carry out - we were in these positions for a reason.

"Even the way we met wasn't normal," a smile came to my lips as I reminisced, remembering that day I had come across the ash-haired boy. Julian finished off the remainder of his wine and mimicked my smile, shaking his head as though he could remember everything as vividly as I could. "We were practicing archery that day, if I recall well."

"I had asked you if I was allowed to even stand next to you because I was that shit-scared of being near the Arch Angel's son," Julian folded his arms, "I thought your father would come and sever my neck off."

"Being the Arch Angel's son made me so anti-social. I was probably just as scared to talk to you as you were to me."

"You didn't seem so scared when you pulled that boy's fighting pants down when you saw I was in the process of being attacked," Julian chuckled and I couldn't help do the same as the memory replayed in my mind. "God forbid, I will never steal anyone's food again in my life."

"I was planning on walking away but I'm just such a good person and so naturally, I had to intervene. I wish I hadn't though, because in the dead of the same night your prick-self woke me up and asked if you could stay in my tent so that you didn't get attacked by those boys-"

Julian cut me off swiftly, "Firstly, Az, your tent had a constant burning fire to keep you warm. Secondly, you had guards stood outside your tent day upon night and lastly - you had rugs hand woven to sleep on whilst I slept on grass in my piss-poor tent. Of course I was going to come and hijack whatever the hell you were sleeping in!"