When Angels Fall In Love

Chapter 7: Plummet from the Heavens

Erelah's wings were unsteady. Her initial take off into the sky had been fine but after flying for little more than an hour her strength was rapidly deteriorating. Every flap and strain of muscle pulled at the wound in her side until tears fell freely from her eyes to be whisked away by the wind. The pain was becoming too much for her as panic slowly settled low in her gut. The corners of her vision blurred, shadows creeping in around the edges and threatening to pull her under with every labored breath.

She blacked out.

Seconds felt like hours, Erelah desperate to find the surface as she drowned in pain and darkness. When she came to, only seconds had seemed to pass but instead of looking down at the world below her, dark sky and the moon met her as wind whipped at her unmoving wings. Erelah was plummeting, her wings useless and tired and her back destined to hit the ground. She used the last bit of her strength to brace for impact as her wings wrapped around her in a protective cocoon.

She hit the trees first, limbs ripping unmercifully through her wings and other extremities before finally colliding with the unforgiving forest floor. Her entire body screamed in pain and she screamed right with it...

This was the second time in Erelah's immortal life that she had plummeted from the sky because her wings had failed her...The first time she had been young. Maybe only a couple hundred years old and still stumbling through her angelic duties as she learned how to function in her physical form. She remembered the first time she had ever manifested her wings. They were a far cry from the mighty wings that adorned her back now but she loved them all the same. For angels, their wings were their pride and joy, a younglings first manifestation was a major accomplishment to becoming a fully recognized member of the angelic population. There after you were sorted into your appropriate job and angelic choir lead by the archangels...Michael...It had been Michael, who had caught her.

"You need to be more careful, Erelah," He had said rather softly, a small smile pulling at his lips as he held her close to his broad chest. He didn't catch me this time, no one had...Michael's words echoed in her ears, Erelah had been careful but still managed to make mistakes, mistakes like this one as she laid unmoving against the cool earth. She was still dazed from the impact, her eyes staring blankly at the sky that lightened overhead and hailed the fresh morning to come. Mother moon was still watching over her though, Erelah could see her peaking through the canopy that now had large opening from where she had plummeted and destroyed everything in her violent wake.

Erelah tried and tried to do something, to move, to send a distress signal to her fellow angels, but nothing was working, she was only met with pain and frustrated tears as her bones ached. The bond between Erelah and her angelic siblings hurt to touch, the tether seeming to sizzle inside her spiritual form when she tried to pull on it. Eventually, someone would come looking for her, she still had to give her report but would they make it in time? The venom was still working its way through her, she knew because if it had been flushed out she wouldn't be in this much pain and had already begun to heal. The wound in her side was now the least of her worries. These physical bodies were much stronger than that of the human bodies they resembled but they could only take so much damage, and Erelah already had taken so much. She should have been panicking in that moment, all the odds were being stacked against her but she found herself without a care. What did true death feel like? What did that mean for a celestial being? If this body died with her spiritual form still attached would she return to Heaven and hope to be able to remanifest in another body?

Questions, questions, questions...all unanswered and remain unanswered.

Erelah's head throbbed, her eyes going in and out of focus but at least she was conscious and more or less coherent. Coherent enough to hear the soft footsteps that began to echo off the trees. She was slow to look up and realize what the sound meant but then that familiar scent wafted into her nose and she breathed deep...Her luck couldn't have gotten any better.