Lonely Light

Chapter 1

She was cold. She, from a place where discomfort did not exist. She had been flying in blue skies and sunshine when a giant claw of Darkness had ripped her out of her plane of existence to this... place. At first, she had been confused, but not afraid; she was from a place where fear did not exist. They taught her fear and pain. She whimpered, and they laughed.

She had no idea of how much time had passed – it felt like eternity – but suddenly, the door burst open and a man stepped through. She had a hard time seeing his actual features, the Darkness and Light so vivid within him that they outshone normal vision, unlike the ugly grey within her tormentors. She would never forget the pattern she saw: a column of pure Darkness running down his length, bound by more slender chains of Light twining around the column, both in constant motion. She was almost frightened of him, of that pure Darkness that she had never seen before, but she could not be frightened of him for what he did next. Casually, he defeated her tormentors, whether they attacked physically or magically, though they outnumbered him many to one. He had them all incapacitated, but alive, when he glanced in a corner at the bloody remains of what had been pure white wings before they had been severed from her. Then his face hardened, and the Darkness within him pulsed.

He killed them all then, quickly and without remorse, paying blood for blood. She could see that he drained them somehow as he took their lives, the greyness within them flowing into him and separating into Dark and Light before melding with his Dark core or the binding Light chains. Being who they were and having done what they had done, the men had far more Darkness than Light within them, and the Dark column in the stranger swelled to the point where it appeared it would burst free of the Light. She was a little frightened then, as he finally approached her in a room of now-dead men, a being of almost pure Darkness.

But the Light chains, stretched and thin though they were, never broke. He knelt before her and gently touched her face, the Darkness receding from his hand so that the contact had only Light, only calmness and serenity. She abandoned fear and threw herself into his arms in the unselfconscious way she would at home, absently noting that the Light strands again rearranged themselves so she touched no Darkness. He was warm and comforting, gently stroking her hair until she stopped shaking and lay quiescent in his arms.

Gently, he let her go so that he could take his off his jacket and wrap it around her naked form. It touched the wounds on her back and she shuddered away from the pain. He quickly surrounded her with his arms again. Sliding a hand under the jacket to her back, he whispered words that sounded almost familiar, and the pain stopped. She went boneless in relief, and he caught her up, cradling her as if she were a child. She pressed her face against his chest, content to let him take her away from this place of pain and fear, and not caring where.

* * * *

The Darkness pulsed within him, swirling chaotic emotions chasing each other through his head. He was furious, he was deliriously happy, he was calm and peaceful, he was riled and would never know peace again. It was clear that the magic practitioners he had killed were of the blood sacrifice variety. That they would dare seize an angel out of the upper plane... He wished he could kill them again. It was clear that they had harvested enormous amounts of power by corrupting a Light being with Darkness; he had drained it from them as he killed them, and he would use it to restore her wings. Her wings, their beautiful plumage streaked with blood and lying discarded on the ground, was a sight he would never forget. He was furious.

But she was here. He had been alone for an eon, and had expected to continue that way; his kind did not die of old age. After the fury had abated in the wake of killing and draining the men, after she had thrown herself at him in complete trust as only someone who had never learned to be wary would, he had realized that he was no longer alone. He was deliriously happy, and felt guilty that her pain was cause for his happiness.