Heaven and Hell

ELEVEN

N O T  H I S

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HE HEARD HER before he actually even laid eyes on her.

Lucius accomplished his task fairly quickly, dusting his hands as he stared at his handiwork in satisfaction. With a new burst of sunlight supplied to the plants in the North Garden, they flourished with great beauty, almost dazzling in their own little way. As usual, displaying his magical prowess gave him a great deal of pride. There was only a small amount of other angels that could proudly say that they could manipulate and weave sunlight and Lucius was more often than not described to be the best at it.

Once he was done, he heard a chorus of laughter in a distance. At first, the voices were soft, far too tame for the normal ear to catch unless they strained it. But as the seconds passed, Lucius thought that he recognized the voices that fuelled the laughter, making him spin on his heel in the direction of the noise.

"You are absolutely delusional!" There came the unmistakable voice of Adelia, voice much lighter than usual and filled with bubbling joy.

The thought of seeing the beauty again made Lucius's heart race. In an instant, a smile graced his handsome features as he absentmindedly combed a hand through his pale platinum blond hair, feet hurrying through the grass before his wings spread out to allow him to take flight. He was careful to steer clear of the larger flora, keeping near enough to the ground to spot Adelia's familiar face but not too close that would cause destruction to the plants of the garden.

"I only speak my mind when I am sure of it, Adelia," another voice replied.

Lucius had not even thought that there would be a possibility of there being someone else accompanying the night angel. When he was close enough to see two separate figures, he landed on the soft ground, tucking his wings carefully behind him so as to not knock into the trunk of the towering trees. Cautiously, he peered from behind a bush only to find Adelia's familiar black wings dragging across the forest ground, followed by the majestic ombre wings that belonged to one of the four other angels that worked in the North Garden.

It took no more than a few seconds for Lucius to recognize the man that was walking beside Adelia. His skin, though shades lighter than that of Adelia's, was still dark enough to resemble the night. Yet, his hair was a stark contrast, glistening and reflecting every ray of the sun like the ice crystals during the coldest of winters. When he smiled, Calvin flashed his pearly white teeth, his electrifying blue eyes sparkling with good humor.

"What brings you here today?" He asked her. The both of them had not noticed Lucius yet, continuing on their path and strolling past where Lucius hid.

The day angel did not know what it was that had come over him. On a usual day, he might have already made his presence known, jumping out of where he hid to make a big greeting for the angel that had captured his undivided attention. Yet, today, it seemed as though there was a sliver of doubt that had embedded itself inside of his usually bright heart.

Fear was not an emotion in which he was all too familiar with but it rained down on him like a raging storm that could not be tamed.

"Can I not visit those whom I am closest to?" Adelia simply replied, cleverly evading the question as she waved the matter off nonchalantly. "It felt like it has been forever since we last had a good talk about something other than work."

"I doubt that I was the only reason why you would risk losing your sleep to visit the North Garden. Was it because you knew that someone else would be here?"

Calvin's assumption made Lucius's heart skip a beat. It pounded rapidly against his chest, making his breath clog up in his throat. Why that simple sentence had affected him so, Lucius did not know. Perhaps it was because how his mind immediately went towards the easiest positive assumption and that was that Adelia had visited the North Garden because she had heard news of his presence.