No Wings No Halo

    You have the backstage pass, the camera, the notepad, the phone with Voice Memos at the ready, and the running shoes incase you need to lose the fuzz. An interview with the the biblical legend of rock would make headlines on the tabloids you grovel for a quick buck. Maybe a scandalous photo would give you a front-page promotion. Anything to get yourself more cash in your pocket and compensate for the rent you blew off on the bars in town.
    On stage, beneath the lights, among the guitars and glamour of fishnet decadence, she stands in thick curves with hair spilling over and a voice that took the crowds to the stairway to heaven. "Ms. Riot, Ms. Riot!" You and other reporters call to her after the show, following her to the limo, "Your fans call you America's Angel, why is that?" Shameless with a cocked brow, vivid eyeshadow shimmering around long lashes and a smile decorated in solid black with particles of silver, Riot replies, "I'm anything but an angel."
    The infamous tabloids gave her that title. Fans never called her an angel, but her voice and nature say otherwise. Being a star that made a rocketing shot into the heavens, Riot made good use of her good fortunes. Donations to various charities, an icon for young women, unafraid of stripping off her glam to dig her nails into mud to plant trees, and so much more. Perfect humanitarian, except not entirely human.

   

    In the summer of 1975, God and a long-time loyal angel dispute about her reckless behavior. Lailah, angel of conception, was getting too comfortable around humans and picked up some of their bad habits, especially during a political crisis across the earth. In her rebellion, she falls from the heavens and lives a new life on earth. She adapts to hippie culture and lives life as a mortal in a commune until the war in Vietnam was over. After the hippie age came to a decline, she left the commune. After spending years alone, Lailah regretted her choice and prayed to return to heaven. God would not allow it.
    A year later she fell in love with a mortal. A former hippie named Davis Lamar. Years later, they have Rhiannon in 1997. The family bliss was short lived. Lailah struggled as a mother. Rhiannon, being a nephilim, inherited the Divine Voice, a trait some angels have. This power can be used to manipulate any living thing into the angel's will or repel an enemy by screaming. The child was also diagnosed with high functioning Asperger's Syndrome. As if a powerfully screaming baby wasn't hassle enough. Rhiannon's human genetic imperfections make her sensory and cause temperament issues.
    Davis was a more patient parent than Lailah. Rhiannon was more of an agreeable infant to him than her mother. This fed Lailah's maternal frustrations. When Rhiannon was three years old, Lailah was contacted by her brother, Michael, the arc angel. He was able to provide Lailah a chance to return to heaven. If she killed her child, she could earn her wings again. One night, Davis was on a flight back home from a business trip. Lailah was having a very rough night with Rhiannon's constant crying. She screamed a few times and the force caused one of the shelves to fall. Lailah couldn't take it anymore. Davis had arrived earlier than expected and found Lailah in the nursery pressing a pillow onto Rhiannon's face. He shoved Lailah away from his baby and tossed the pillow at her. They fought each other as Rhiannon caught her breath and began to cry again. Davis ducked out of the way when Rhiannon let out a bellowing scream and sent Lailah through the window. He took Rhiannon and vanished with her. They never saw Lailah again.
    Davis raised Rhiannon like a normal child on a goat farm in Arkansas. They kept Rhiannon's angelic genetics and her mother a secret. He taught Rhiannon how to control her powers and adapt to her surroundings. Having her around animals helped her grow out of her sensory, stress, and social issues as well as learn how to manage her voice. Davis's farm extended to horse ranching and Rhiannon developed an interest in horseback riding. When Rhiannon was seven, Davis was given a wild horse to foster and train so it could be adopted out. It was a local beast called Hell Spawn. A large, heavily built black horse with a monstrous attitude. The horse wouldn't be able to rest easy in a stable so Davis kept him enclosed by the trees in the pasture. The animal wouldn't accept food from anyone except Rhiannon. The horse was instantly taken to her.
    Because of the horse's appeal to his daughter, Davis let Rhiannon take care of Hell Spawn. Eventually, she was able to tame the horse into accepting her dad, later he became very sociable to anything that came within five feet of him. Because of Hell Spawn's bond with Rhiannon, Davis decided to keep him. Hell Spawn adored Rhiannon. Everyday after school, he'd stand at the front of the pasture to watch for Rhiannon's school bus and every night before she goes to bed, she lulls Hell Spawn to sleep in his stable. It almost seemed supernatural that a wild demon of the fields was befriended by a little girl.
    In middle school, Rhiannon started to become a spectacle among three boys that were known trouble makers. They picked on her for her drawings of animals, skulls, mythical creatures, fairies and elven beings, the way she dressed unlike other students in her tie dye dresses and flowers in her thick curly hair. They'd often yank her hair and steal her pencils if they weren't calling her names like "Hippy Trash" and yell on the bus, "Take a bath hippy," or "Suck horse-cock!" No matter how many times the trio was caught and sent to the principles office, they'd still bombard Rhiannon. Until one night, before Halloween on a Saturday.
    Friday, the boys finally pushed too far and dragged Rhiannon to the back of the school and beat her up then tore the pages in her sketch book. She had to hold her mouth closed to keep herself from screaming and blowing the boys into the next town. The trio was expelled from school. Rhiannon got to go home early to calm down. She cried for hours about her sketchbook. Later that night, the three bullies snuck out and on to Davis's ranch to let all the animals loose. Except Hell Spawn, who kept lunging to bite them. They let him remain in his stable. Rhiannon heard some of the horses whinny then looked out her window, watching the goats and horses running amok. She tried to wake Davis but he wouldn't move. Going outside to the porch, Rhiannon was grabbed by two of the boys and dragged to the pasture. They wanted to get back at her for being expelled. The three started to hogtie her before Hell Spawn smashed the gate of his stable and stampeded to the boys with a screeching roar as he bucked around then released flames from his mouth.
    The boys screamed like terrified chickens and bolted for home. Rhiannon struggled in the ropes and kept letting out desperate whimpers. Her face turned red, ready to burst out a scream that'd tear down everything around her. Hell Spawn morphed into what could be a man, heavily cloaked in shadow, and untied Rhiannon before picking her up like a big brother then comforting her. She couldn't make out a face, but she felt safe regardless. He carried the scared child inside the house and placed her back in bed. "Wait," Rhiannon took his hand, "please stay." He looked to the child, the moonlight barely showing lips with a glowing eye, "I'll be here until you sleep." He sat at the foot of her bed as she closed her eyes and curled up in her quilts. Rhiannon yawned before slowly breathing into sleep, "Are you an angel?" The dark figure sighed, "I was once..." Rhiannon sat up, "Did you fall—" then paused when the figure gently brushed his hand over her eyes, causing her to lay back down and sleep.
    The next morning, Rhiannon woke up and went to the window, discovering everything had been put back in place. The animals weren't wandering around the property and there was no sign of the young trespassers. The day was like a normal day. Rhiannon went to Hell Spawn's stable and found it was like no one had touched it ever since she locked it before bed, but the horse inside was different. He held hid head over the gate. He looked a little older, tired, happy to see Rhiannon but he not as vigorous in her presence. Hell Spawn was an ordinary horse. Rhiannon didn't love him any less. Unsure as to how or why, but she understood this change. Rhiannon never spoke of that night.
She was crowned a rodeo queen when she was fifteen. In fact, her exposure to animals became her inspiration for poetry and painting. In high school, she joined choir and the sculpture club. Her poems evolved to songs and her affinity for art won her awards and gigs as a designer for pageant competitors. After graduating high school, Rhiannon attempted college which didn't work out after her freshman year. She was the youngest in her class at age seventeen and struggled a lot. Homesick, missing her dad and the herds of creatures hopping and galloping about, Rhiannon wrote several poems through the year to cope.
    The poems turned into songs which inspired Rhiannon to pursue a career in music. Davis supported his daughter and traveled with her to California to help Rhiannon make her mark in the music industry. It only took one appointment with a producer and he was ballistic to get her on stage, but not just any stage. She was to be an introduction performance before the headlining band at a stadium. Her songs won rebellious hearts. Rhiannon had the audience eating out the palm of her hand, thus earning her stage name, Riot, the Goddess of Glam. Her voice captured the affections of rock lovers and her career took off like a meteor.
    However, Davis didn't have very long to see Rhiannon go farther in her new career. He returned to Arkansas when Rhiannon was eighteen. He started to be too weak to travel with her. Rhiannon would call and send photos of rehearsals to her dad everyday with some money to support his medical bills and help him hire extra hands for the ranch. Davis put all the photos in a scrap book. After Rhiannon turned twenty-one, Davis was diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer and died a few months later. Hell Spawn was aging too. He started losing his teeth and often lagged behind with the rest of the horses. One day in the Fall, Rhiannon found him laying down, later he began to colic. He was too old to have it pass so Rhiannon had to put him down. She still struggles with the losses but keeps the ranch going whenever she isn't booked for a performance or working with a volunteer group. Despite the mourning, Rhiannon lives the perfect life but its not only the ever spying eyes of the press that's been documenting her years.
    One winter, she was helping a volunteer group for an animal shelter gather some stray cats in live traps. A scraggly black cat was the worst. Screaming, he kept rattling his cage. Even reached through openings and clawed at the volunteers. When the group got the cats to the vet, it was decided the black cat should be put down. He was too vicious to help. Rhiannon didn't agree. She risked scratches on her arms and a bacteria ridden bite from the nasty thing but was able to hold him by the scruff of his neck nonetheless. Rhiannon scooped her other arm underneath him and held him close before softly humming to him until he started purring. She let go of the scruff and started petting him, he grew louder like a car engine.
    The cat started nuzzling into her neck with a completely changed demeanor. The vets and volunteers were astonished. "See?" Rhiannon smooched the cat's head, "He was just scared that's all, such a sweetheart." The black cat was neutered, vaccinated, then put up for adoption. A week later, the cat was given a home. Rhiannon just started her shift in the shelter when the new owner was leaving. When she turned to look out the window, a tall man in a black coat with dark hair held the cat in his arms with a harness and leash. It was purring and comfortably making muffins on the coat. Naturally, Rhiannon smiled at the content pet and playfully wiggled her fingers in friendly farewell. The cats meowed at her before flashing red rubies from his eyes. The coated man walked away with the cat. Rhiannon rushed outside to follow the dark man as he crossed the street. "Hey, wait, sir!" She called to him before dodging a mustang running through the red light. Looking up at the other side of the street, the cat and its mysterious owner had vanished.

    Rebel without a cause and condemned to whatever hellish misery, you are not alone and not unloved. Open your ears to the voice. Can you hear? She's calling for you. In the dark that blackens the soul, she can see stars that flicker and glow for billions of years. Strange how even the dark can be illuminating.