After the Fall

“The humans are strangely resilient, milady.” His low, hoarse drawl echoes throughout the dark chamber, a rough caress against her skin. She shivers, her silvery, swirling gaze caught by the looking glass, where thousands of humans had banded together and overcame yet another obstacle the Elders had placed before them. She frowns, a dainty downward turn of her smooth, nearly bloodless lips. She hasn’t fed in a while, and her strength is dwindling. But she has no time now. Not while the Elders were watching so closely. Human sympathizers are thought to be the lowest energy life form of their species, the Deathless Ones, and unfortunately, she is one of the ousted. Her endless optimism for the underdog had not gone unnoticed by those who share her blood, vast as they are. And as such, she is now confined within a dusty old mirror, damned to starve and wither, her skin, once a creamy ivory, now brittle and thin as old parchment paper. While she will never die, her body will decay until all that remains is a husk filled with bone. Already her blood slows, conserving what energy remains.

The Deathless Ones are truly immortal, as they are reborn from the ashes of their formal selves, reminiscent of a burning phoenix. They retain enough of their memory to continue as they had left before. At one point, their human skins were able to withstand the test of time, but since the Industrial Revolution, that had changed drastically. The air quality had worsened quickly as humanity flourished. They are a plague on the natural order. She has seen it, the downfall, time and time again. The bubonic plague centuries prior, followed closely by the great Spanish flu. And somehow, each time, they built everything back up, adapted well to their environments and situational crisis. But this time…

She stares through the opaque glass, nibbling her lower lip anxiously. The area around her is cavernous, filled with stalagmites and stalactites, ready to impale her at a moments notice. The steady drip from the condensation that forms high up in the mountainous region is normally the only company she receives. Except, it seems, for her truly faithful Malakai. She shudders again, heat flooding her chilled skin. A hunger coils deep in her belly as the scent of him permeates the room. Pine, a crisp, sharp scent that embeds itself deep in her chest. She stays perfectly still as he slides behind her, grasping her shoulders with his large, calloused hands. He bends close, burying his face into her locks of white blonde hair, inhaling deeply. “You must feed, Seraphine. Do not continue this. You know the Elders are only trying to protect your species.” He ends on a gruff whisper, his lips tantalizing close to her slightly pointed ear. His breath is hot against her skin and she leans back unconsciously, drawn to his warmth, to his humanity.

“How can I, my love, when you are all that I am able to conjure?” she murmurs, her heavy lidded eyes still captured by the glass. “How can I, when the fate of humanity lies solely within the hands of a monster?” Her tone is bitter, angry. The leader of this particular pack of humans that had survived the initial onslaught of ailment and blasting cold winter has coppery tinted blond hair that falls past her shoulders in soft waves, held back by a simple black and gold band. Her flinty gray gaze can fell even the most chauvinistic male in her group. There’s a long, thin scar from the corner of her eye that dissects her left cheek, down to the chin. The only imperfection that Seraphine can see, at least at a quick glance. Underneath her clothing, though, Seraphine knows there are secrets that the woman, little more than a girl, holds tight to her chest. Such as the wings that she has seen erupt from her back, full, dark feathered wings that beat furiously against the wind. Small horns, very similar to the ones that erupt from Seraphine’s own crown during moments of extreme duress. And crisscrossing scars across her back and abdomen, left over from her time as a slave to those who once held power over the entire human race.

Malakai frowns, his eyes following hers as the woman skewers a dark, billowing being with her sword that was strapped across her left hip. The blade glows a dark indigo, almost aflame, and the Evil One lets out a bloodcurdling shriek as it burns from the inside out. While he knew that most mortals depended on weapons of mass destruction, and had since created bullets that harnessed the same flame within a capsule, the easiest and most effective way to destroy the Evil Ones was the sword she carries at her side, always. The one she has inherited from her father, the shifter, and her mother, the Deathless One. He gently presses a sharpened nail to his left wrist, quickly slicing deep. Seraphine stiffens, her head whipping around to meet his dark gray gaze as his blood drips steadily down, soaking the sleeves of his black crewneck sweater. Such a modern look, she thinks, turning and raising her hand to his cheek. She can see the veins in her hands, a stark blue contrast to the whiteness of her skin. “You will weaken,” she breathes, even as her eyes bleed red. “I have not fed for some time.”

“Thirteen years,” he says softly, before lowering his head, resting his forehead against hers. “You have been trapped here for thirteen years now.” The words are spoken quietly, but she can hear the rage behind them. It has taken her years to reinstate the bond she held with Malakai, a bond that had been nearly severed completely during her Trial, where she had been found guilty of treason to the High Order, the group of Elders that were stuck on the Old Way, where humans were nothing but a source of farming, a pretty skin for their eternal conscious. She turns her face towards his wrist, her nostrils flaring as she lets out a small moan. Before she can think, he presses the wound to her lips, and holds her close. She stills as the first drops hit her tongue, an explosion of flavor and nutrients reawakening her body. Her heart beats faster as she seals her mouth around the cut, drinking greedily.

Malakai holds her against him, burying his face in her hair, inhaling the sweet scent of his mate. It was the only way he had found her in the large, winding mountain range and deep in the recesses of the forgotten caverns, her scent as familiar to him as his own. He had scoured the earth, first in his wolf form, before taking to the skies, a beautiful, barnyard owl, eyes wide and all-seeing. Now, as she feeds on his life-force, taking years from him and rejuvenating herself, he presses his lips to the crown of her head. Anything for her. For them. And for their daughter, who, unbeknownst to all, had corralled the remaining humans back into a semblance of order after the great Melting fifteen years ago, where most of the population had been wiped out throughout various forms of ailments and disease. And now, as Malakai grows weaker, his vision dimming as Seraphine swipes her tongue across the cut, he wishes, not for the first time, that they could have had a different life. A life where Audrienne wasn’t an orphan, a life where his mate was able to walk freely among the sun, her bright face upturned, a wide, joyous grin on her face as they embrace. But their union is forbidden. And if the Elders ever catch on to Audrienne’s true parentage…

Malakai tilts Seraphine’s face up to his, her swirling silvery gaze sorrowful. He presses a feather light kiss to her lips, tasting his own blood. “She is not a monster, my love. Just as you are not. Just as I am not. We are all just different. And, if I recall, our differences drew us together. Our child cannot be a monster.” He smiles, even as his eyelids grow heavy. He must sleep; her feeding has left him exhausted. And now that he has found her again, it can be a restful sleep.

She slowly rises, grasping both of his hands with hers. It is the first time she has moved away from the glass in years. Her bones creak, even as his blood revitalizes her. “But they will not see that, Mal. To them, her differences will mean death. She is different, as different as the real monsters that now scour the remains of this world.” Her voice is breathy, high. The panic is setting in. She remembers the screams Audrienne had torn from her throat as the barbed whips tore through her flesh and the surge of helpless fury she had felt towards the Elders, towards herself, for being trapped here, the only way out through the looking glass that was buried in the rubble of a forgotten town home in the middle of North America. Audrienne was getting closer, her only child, the only one able to reach through the glass and pull her out into the real world. Where she would decimate the Elders for her entrapment. Her fury had known no bounds before, and had grown even more tumultuous since her entrapment.

Malakai leans heavily on her as she wraps her arm around him, leading him carefully to the small, untouched mattress she had been allotted, but had never used. Carefully, she lowers him onto the sheets, pulling aside the comforter. He is asleep almost as soon as his head hits the firm pillows. She gazes down at him, a small smile forming across her red lips, full and tingling from the feeding. She would be able to go for a few more years, at least. She stretches her fingers out, her skin already more supple and firm than it was even an hour ago. For a moment, she is torn between laying with him and falling into the mirror again. But, as it always does, the mirror wins.

With a sigh, she turns back to the greatly decorated, ornate glass, standing in front of the tarnished throne where her crown had once sat grandly. Once, she had been a queen, long standing with the Deathless Ones, ancient and unyielding. Until a lone wolf with strange gray eyes had befriended her on the battle fields during the war with the Fae. A wolf that held the intelligence of a man. Now, she kneels before the glass, placing a fist against its coolness, and waits. She knows that, soon, Audrienne will be here. Soon, the owl will find her, once he has rested, and bring her to Seraphine’s prison. Soon, with their reunion, the world will burn as it has never before, and there can only be one victor. Either the Deathless Ones’ will forever be banished out of this universe…or the rest of humanity, the sliver that had remained and was currently fighting for their lives, would ultimately end. Forever.