The Seraph's Chosen

The sounds of the forest changed as the group walked, the calling of birds and buzzing of insects falling silent as the winds blew through the trees. It seemed that every creature in these woods could sense the approaching storm in the air and was taking cover, leaving the party alone in the dark, claustrophobic woods. Judging by the wind and ever-closer rumble of thunder, it wouldn't be long before the angel-worshippers and their two concerned followers were marching in the rain. Tressor didn't seem to mind in the slightest, assuring his followers that a little rain would be of little consequence to the faithful.

At Nina's explanation of her "condition," Theodosia's eyes widened in shock. She drew back, face turning visibly pale in the torchlight as she raised a hand to her mouth. After a brief moment of staring at her friend in horror, she managed to get some of her composure back, but the tremor in her voice spoke to how jarring the revelation was.

"A...clock gear?" she asked, stepping closer to Nina once more. "Why? Who would do that? What sort of person goes around cutting open unconscious people and putting gears in them? By the major arcana, that sounds awful...I guess it's not the worst thing that they could have done, at least it's not a frog...but a gear! My goodness. I can't believe it. I wouldn't say it makes you especially scary, but it's certainly a scary thought. I sure hope I don't have to worry about anyone cutting me open and putting things inside me when I'm sleeping. Does that make you an automaton? I saw one once at a fair, a tin man that handed out fortunes on cards. My mother told me that there was a demon inside turning the gears and that they were awful machines that put honest, hardworking fortune-tellers out of work. I'm not sure how true that was, but I don't know much about automatons. I don't suppose you've got a demon inside you turning your gears, do you?"

The fortune-teller stopped in her rambling as the first drops of rain began to fall, fat droplets that soaked through her hood and dampened her hair. She grumbled, but her complaints were drowned out by Tressor, who'd begun to speak. His words trailed into each other, turning his impromptu marching sermon into what seemed like an endless monologue.

"I can hear the angel's voice," he said, raising his arms to the sky as he walked. "It's calling me to the holy cliff. My brothers, my sisters, my children. All shall witness, all shall behold. You will see a miracle on this night, my friends. The angel tells me this, and angels speak nothing but the truth. You'll all have your turn, but tonight is mine. Drink in the rain, my friends. Water from the heavens is the purest in all the lands and seas. This I know, this I was told. I can hear it all, all the knowledge of the angels. Oh, if only I'd begun listening earlier. Oh, if only I had opened my ears, my soul, my mind."

A flash of lightning lit up the forest, revealing the silhouette of an imposing sheer cliff up ahead. The angel-touched murmured, pointing and whispering among themselves. It seemed that they'd reached their destination.

At Nina's silent command, Theodosia pulled the scarf over her mouth, the twisting embroidered patterns of golden thread shining in the flickering lanternlight. The rainwater soaking the makeshift mask made it difficult to breathe, but she decided against complaining. She didn't want to succumb to whatever drugs Nina was worried about, after all. The thought of a tiny demon inside Nina's chest cranking away at a gear made her shudder, and she tried unsuccessfully to put the image out of her mind. The looming trees around them suddenly seemed filled with haunting figures clutching scalpels and gears, and she found herself huddling closer to Nina for comfort.

Nina, meanwhile, wouldn't notice anything particularly out of the ordinary in terms of the forest's flora. The plants were unfamiliar, but didn't look especially poisonous. Unless Grey had a particular fondness for brambles and thorn-bushes, nothing here would likely have a place beneath the glass roof of her house. Mushrooms sprouted from the ground and grew upon fallen logs, providing shelter from the rain for at least one small mouse. 

"Drink in the rain!" repeated Tressor, eyes wide as he surveyed his little group. "The angel shall soar tonight, I can feel it. Be strong, my friends, and trust in our faith! The cold is nothing compared to the warmth of the angel's light!"

He turned, pointing towards the cliff. As he did so, the increasingly damp robes clung to his emaciated frame, highlighting exactly how thin he'd become. The wet, heavy cloth revealed two large protrusions rising from his back, like bony nubs rising from his shoulderblades. Theodosia gasped at the sight, nudging Nina and pointing towards the man.

"That's new," she said, clutching Nina's arm. "He certainly didn't have those...things on his back when we were on the ship. Something weird is going on here, and I don't like it."

As she spoke, Tressor finally fell silent and began to walk slowly towards the cliff. The gathered worshippers whispered among themselves, but none stepped forward to stop him.

Theodosia hesitated, then nodded. It seemed like a fool's errand to her, following a madman up an increasingly slippery cliff, but who was she to judge? Nina was the brave and competent one here, she was just around for moral support and because of some misguided sense of guilt and duty. Besides, maybe the mysterious clock in the woman's body would help somehow. How was she to know? She was a fortune-teller, not an engineer. 

"Be safe," was all she had to say before Nina vanished into the darkness, disappearing into the trees. Sighing, Theodosia wandered towards the rest of the crowd, wondering how Nina could possibly be so sneaky. Were all artists always this stealthy? She got the feeling that there was more to Nina's story than she'd told, but now wasn't the time to dwell on such things. Instead, she watched with the others as Tressor made his way towards the cliff, standing beside a skinny man munching on some now-damp seaweed.

By the time Nina stepped forth from the trees, Tressor had already made it to the cliff and begun to climb. His thin, bony fingers found handholds on the slippery rocks, skeletal arms straining as he started to scale the cliff like an overgrown insect. The protrusions at his shoulders seemed larger now, growing by the minute beneath the sodden robe. He didn't notice the young woman striding from the trees, his wild eyes focused entirely upon the climb. He muttered as he climbed, but his voice was drowned out by the boom of thunder and the howling of the wind. Trees bent and bowed as he clung to the cliff, somehow managing to avoid being blown off. Meanwhile, Theodosia shouted from the crowd.

"Nina!" she called, barely audible over the sound of the roar of the tempest. "Don't climb after him! The storm's real bad, I think it's a hurricane!"

Indeed, the storm seemed to be getting more and more severe with every passing moment. The worshippers huddled together in fright, crouching down to the ground and watching as Tressor continued his slow, methodical ascent up the cliff face. 

Theodosia had always hated storms. When she was young, she'd cowered beneath her bed when the skies raged, praying desperately that her home wouldn't blow away. It never had, but that visceral terror of the howling winds and pounding rain had never left her. Some fortune-tellers claimed that they could read the storm, divining the future in its clouds. Theodosia knew better. There was no knowledge to be found in a thunderstorm, nothing but chaos and pain. She hated every minute of it, wanting nothing more than to be home. Perhaps it would have been smarter to have not come at all...but the time for that was long gone. All she could do now was watch and wait, trying in vain to reassure the crowd that Nina was not, in fact, trying to pull their leader off a cliff.

The wind caught Nina's words and whipped them away before they ever reached Tressor's ears, carrying her pleas off into the howling vortex. The man continued to climb, somehow finding handholds on the slick rock despite the pouring rain and darkness. Where words failed, however, Nina's actions succeeded. Her makeshift grappling line whipped around in circles around her, spinning and whirling like a miniature hurricane itself. When she let it fly, the stone sailed through the air, flying perfectly with the wind as it rose towards the self-proclaimed holy man. The nettle cord wrapped around Tressor's thin ankle, catching tight and causing him to slip on the cliff. Catching himself, he finally looked down and noticed Nina. Lightning flashed, illuminating his face and revealing the madman's wild, bloodshot eyes. He stared down at her, but what he saw was anyone's guess.

"You!" he screamed, shaking his ankle in a desperate attempt to loosen the rope. "Release me, monster! You would hold back the holy work of the angel? Hold us down here, away from its glorious light? You're a demon! A hellbeast! Begone, back to the pits of damnation with you! I command you, release me!"

He kicked and thrashed, but was unable to shake the cord loose. Thankfully, it seemed that he still had enough self-preservation instinct left in his head to keep holding onto the cliff instead of reaching down for the rope. Meanwhile, the protrusions continued to expand beneath his robe. The next flash of lightning illuminated Tressor once more, making the shapes beneath the wet cloth more distinct. It was difficult to tell for sure, but it definitely looked as though the man was sprouting a pair of wings, folded up beneath the robe.

Meanwhile, in the clearing, the crowd gasped. They stared and pointed at Tressor, chattering excitedly among themselves. For the moment, their fear of the storm was forgotten, lost in the wonder of seeing their leader in the process of becoming one of the angels he spoke so reverently about. Tressor was ascending...and some woman was holding him back. Theodosia's protests were ignored as the mob took off at a run, charging through the forest towards Nina and shouting at her to let the man go. The fortune-teller ran after them, pleas weak in the face of the crowd. 

Tressor barely seemed to hear Nina's screaming, lost as he was in his own little world of delusions and dreams. His thrashing became more frantic as he desperately tried to shake off the tether, but Nina's rope-making and rock-throwing skills proved solid. The cord remained solidly wrapped around his ankle, preventing him from getting any further up the cliff. He didn't pay much heed to her feigned jerk on the rope, but the angry mob did. They froze in their spots, staring in horror at Nina's threat.

"T-that's murder!" cried the rat-eating man, pointing a shaking finger at Nina. "If you pull him down, he could die! What kind of monster are you, woman?"

At her urging, though, a few more curious members of the group glanced down at the ground. They kicked at the mushrooms, brows furrowing in the sputtering torchlight as they realized how oddly densely populated the fungal growths were. Kneeling down, a few of them prodded cautiously at the rocks littering the ground, suddenly realizing exactly how smooth and white they all were. Gasps and cries of shock spread out across the mob as they suddenly realized the true nature of the field they were standing in: every inch of the mushroom-infested clearing was covered in bones of all shapes and sizes. However, they didn't have long to dwell on this revelation before Tressor started screaming. The holy madman's cries of agony rang out over them all, echoing off the cliff face as he hunched down against the stone, eyes squeezed shut as the growths on his back expanded. The wings tore through his robes, unfurling and expanding like an insect shedding its skin. The crowd fell silent, staring in horror at their leader as the massive wings stretched out. There were no feathers here, no angelic beauty. These were sickly grey fungal growths, their mottled, lumpy appearance highly reminiscent of the mushrooms covering the ground. Letting out a choked cry, Tressor let go of the cliff and fell back, only for the wings to catch the wind and propel him upward. Nina suddenly found herself holding onto a large, screaming kite in the middle of a hurricane, the wind threatening to drag her off her feet. Lightning flashed overhead, backlighting Tressor's unmistakably angelic silhouette against the sky.

"Let him go!" screamed the harried mother, her children clinging fearfully to her skirts. "Let him ascend! You're tormenting him, holding him down to the ground! Release the angel, blasphemer!"

Theodosia, meanwhile, clutched her hands over her ears against the screaming and huddled down at the base of a tree. There were far too many things happening right now, and all she wanted was to be safe, away from the storm. Whispering frantic pleas to anyone who deigned to listen, she prayed desperately for an end to the tempest. It wasn't as though there was anything else she could do, after all.

The mother bristled and sputtered at Nina's accusation of poor parenting, squawking something about Nina not being allowed to comment until she'd had a few of her own. Exactly what she said was unclear, as her voice was drowned out by the frightened wailing of her children, but the general sense of the words was obvious enough. A few of the people began to cover their mouths and noses, but most simply stared in horror at their leader, blowing around in the wind like a macabre kite. His body looked nearly skeletal, a drained husk hanging under massive, bloated wings, but still he screamed. His voice rose in pitch as he blew around, an unearthly howl that pierced through the blowing wind and caused Theodosia's blood to run cold. She looked up towards the sky, face turning pale with fright as she saw him blowing high above the forest floor. Her heavy, hanging jewelry rattled and jangled in the wind, the piercings tugging painfully at her skin.

As Nina scaled the cliff, the tugging on her rope became more forceful. Tressor's wings were inflating, bloating up like drowned corpses and catching more and more of the wind. The sickly-grey fungal skin stretched thin, ready to pop at any moment. Before they could burst, however, Nina jumped. The momentum of falling from the cliff allowed her to pull Tressor down with her, his inflated wings slowing her fall like a parachute as the strong nettle rope bit painfully into her wrist. She crashed in a thorn-filled bush and Tressor fell to the ground beside her, screaming all the way down. His eyes were those of a madman now, wide and unseeing as the thorns stabbed into his flesh. The impact caused the thorns to tear into the wings, ripping massive holes in the parasitic growths. Heavy clouds of black spores burst from the tears, billowing out like smoke and staining the water that pooled on the ground. If they'd managed to burst at the level of the cliff, releasing their deadly spores high above the clearing, inky-black rain would have undoubtedly poured from the sky. As it was, the clouds of spores blew with the wind, making a few of the angel-worshippers cough and raise damp handkerchiefs to their faces.

Theodosia gasped in horror as she watched her friend jump off a cliff. She got to her feet and ran for where Nina had landed, storm forgotten in her sudden concern. Rushing over to Nina, she grabbed her under the arms and pulled, dragging her out of the thorn-bushes and away from the rapidly-spreading puddle of spore-filled water. Her hands shook as she tried fruitlessly to untangle the rope from Nina's wrist. Cold, trembling fingers proved insufficient for the task, and she pulled a curved, heavily ornamented knife from an inner pocket to slice through the tether.

"Come on, Nina!" she cried, biting her lip nervously as she saw the injuries the woman had incurred in the fall. "We've got to get out of here! Hurry, he's still alive! Let's go, he's coming!"

Indeed, Tressor still lived. His wings trailed limply behind his back like empty cloth sacks, their deadly cargo expended. His left leg was twisted at an unnatural angle, the bones shattered to the point of uselessness. The blood dripping from his mouth and seeping from his many wounds was stained black with spores, which splattered onto the ground and mixed with the rainwater. Raising his head, Tressor spotted the crowd of horrified onlookers and began to crawl towards them, dragging his broken leg and useless, shredded wings behind him.

"The...angel's...blessing..." he gasped, voice gurgling and weak. "Feel...its...light..."

The mob of people backed away hurriedly, staring wide-eyed at the broken, drained man as he rotted away before their very eyes. In the brief moments when they managed to tear their eyes away from the sight of their leader, they looked to Nina, silently pleading for her to do something. None took a step towards Tressor, but they didn't seem in any hurry to get very far away, either. They stayed at a moderate distance, giving the man a bubble of space but keeping him surrounded. As horrifying as the sight was, not one of them seemed capable of looking away.

Theodosia stepped back, shocked, as Nina rose to her feet. How was she even standing, much less walking around? That fall had looked awful, and she'd half-expected that she'd have to carry her all the way back to the camp. Was she even strong enough to do that? Probably not, so it was a good thing that Nina was up and walking. 

"Nina!" she blurted, relief evident in her voice. "Oh my goodness, I was so worried. Are you hurt? That was a nasty fa-"

She trailed off as Nina wandered away, heading back towards the thorn-bushes. Perhaps she really was an automaton after all. Maybe she really did have a demon in her heart turning a crank to keep the gears working. Squinting off into the darkness towards where Nina was going, Theodosia spotted Tressor. She hadn't even noticed him before, but the man was somehow still alive. Holding her increasingly soaked skirts in her hands, she bustled over, trying to avoid getting snared by the bushes.

"He's still alive!" she gasped, shocked. "How? He fell so far...but so did you, I guess. My goodness, people are tougher than I thought."

As Nina stepped up towards the stricken man, Theodosia followed. It was ok, she thought. Nina was walking over to help him. She would know what to do, she was a competent person. He was hurt, but he was going to make it. They'd be able to drag the man back to the surgeon, to get him the help he very clearly needed. Things were going to be ok, and the nightmare was going to end. Picking her way carefully around the rosebushes, she made her way over to where Nina was crouching over the man.

"Can you save him, Nina?" she asked, wincing as her skirts caught and tore on the rosebushes. "It looks pretty bad, but if we c-"

She cut off suddenly as Nina drove a thin dagger into the base of the man's skull, killing him instantly. Tressor slumped down to the ground, final words dying in his throat. The color drained from Theodosia's face as she watched Nina slash the wings from the man's back, the hollow growths falling to the ground like empty sacks. Had she really just seen that? Surely she had to be hallucinating. Did she really just watch her friend kill a helpless man in cold blood?

"Y-you killed him," she whispered, voice trembling as she stared helplessly at Nina. "He was alive, and you killed him! W-why, Nina? He was sick...wasn't he?"

She shuddered, trying not to look at the crumpled corpse on the ground. She'd never seen anyone die before, much less in such a cold, callous way. She'd known this man on the ship, seen him walking around and laughing with his friends, and now he was dead, lying face-down in a puddle of blood and rainwater. A sudden tremor shook her body and she vomited on the ground, sickened.

"Please tell me you had a good reason, Nina," she begged, coughing and wiping her mouth with a handkerchief. "Please. I need to know that I didn't just watch you commit a murder for no reason. You wouldn't do that, right? You're a my friend, a good person...aren't you?"