Author's note: This story is dedicated to Shiphappens who read it and thought it was worth it. Beta work by the lovely Inkpot though I lay claim to all mistakes.

Much love to you all

Jane

Fallen

.

Beginning

In the beginning, The Divine made Angels and Demons. The Divine made them beautiful and perfect. It gave the Heavens to the Angels and the Depths to the Demons and took pleasure in their perfection.

The Angels were made of Light. Their eyes were the colour of the white summer clouds, their wings the white silkiness of the dandelions.

The Demons were made of Dark. Their eyes were the colour of the black rich earth, their wings the smooth, dark tendrils of smoke.

They each were perfect, immortal, powerful. Each a testament to the love of The Divine for its children in their strong bodies and beautiful faces and delicate fingers. Each Angel, each Demon perfect. The Divine's finest work.

Then, The Divine made men. They were made wilful and fragile. Breakable. The Divine gave them to the Angels and the Demons, their plaything, their battlefield, their prize. The Divine sighed in contentment and rested.

War

The Divine rested, away from its children, untouched by their perfection. Unmoved. The Angels and the Demons, having lost a creator, looked to their own creatures, their toys, given to them by their creator, those breakable creatures, the lesser children of The Divine, who lived small, effervescent lives, a riddle of colours and sounds neither Angels nor demons could understand in their perfection. Men, mere possessions, were argued, fought and betrayed over. Each soul became a bitter embattlement, each life a bargaining chip. The Angels and the Demons fought each other in their perfection, their immortality, their beauty.

And thus, war between them started.

They fought each other in mighty battles of numbers of bodies and swords and chariots of fire. They fought each other to a death that would not come for either.

Rules of battle were agreed upon by bored Angels and Demons left unsupervised by the slumbering Divine: let each Angel and each Demon do battle face to face

Each battle became a reckoning: an Angel against a Demon. Then, still unsatisfied, they raised the stakes: they took prisoners. They took revenge.

The Divine slumbered.

Opposites

The Demon Regina is summoned to the Throne and handed a lock of hair. The mandate is simple: search, find, imprison. Defeat the Angel it belongs to. The Demon feels the softness of the hair in her fingers, in her soul. Though all her life, all her training command her so, there is no blood lust in her. There is no battle excitement. She closes her fingers around the lock of hair and there is a moment of regret. Her beautiful, perfect dark wings unfurl and she takes to the skies. The air does not move around her body, the light does not warm her skin, the birds do not see kinship in her. She was made for this: to defeat the Angel whose lock of hair is tight in her fingers. As she knows this, so does the Angel. And they both prepare for battle.

The Angel Emma knows the moment a lock of her hair is received by her opposite. In her hand she holds its mirror: a lock of black hair, soft and heavy with the weight of the Demon she is to destroy. The rules of the game are these even if she is reluctant. Her beautiful feathered white wings extend and she takes to the sky. The mandate is simple: win at any cost.

The battle ground is dark and bitter with the blood spilled over the millennia of the war waged between the favourite children of The Divine. The Demon Regina flutters to the ground. Her feet touch it but she wouldn't know if it is warm or cold, wet or dry. In its infinite wisdom The Divine did not give its children the capacity to feel, to taste, to cry.

The Angel Emma touches the battle ground with her bare feet. The heat and the bluntness of the gravel did not touch her feet. They are The Divine's favourite children and, in its wisdom, The Divine spared them the capacity to feel, to hunger, to laugh.

All there is left for Angels and Demons is the suffering they bestow like gifts on each other. Grotesque, deformed gifts. But The Divine rests still from the throes of creation.

They both draw their blades, unfurl their wings and posture. They both threaten and defend as is ingrained in their upbringing. Two perfect beings, immortal, unfeeling. Questioning. For the first time since creation, there is doubt.

The Angel's white summer cloud eyes stop and stare, distracted. The lock of hair in her hand weighs, and the heart beating in her chest rushes. The Angel touches her hand to her chest. She didn't know she had a heart until that moment. Her mouth waters. Her fingers tremble. She can't raise her blade. She can't defend her side.

The Demon's feet tremble, her heart thumps and the blood whooshes in her veins, fast fast fast. She touches her hand to her lips. She didn't know she could breathe until this very moment, the lock of hair tight in her fingers, precious load. She lowers her blade. There is no use for it. She will bring defeat to her side.

The same

The Demon Regina's rich earth black eyes are wide. The Angel had her chance to take the prize, to be a victor but did not move, blade hanging limp from her perfect fingers. Just as the blade in her hand. She should take her victory now. She should—she must—seize the Angel and take her victory. She doesn't. She can't.

The Angel's summer cloud white eyes widen. She reaches out and the lock of black hair falls to the battle ground. She lets go. She can't hold on. A second lock of hair tumbles from uncertain fingers. White hair falls beside the first lock, mixes on the ground and it scatters, black and white, tangled up, in disarray.

The Demon reaches out, takes the Angel's hand and their fingers close around each other.

The first thing the Demon Regina is aware is that the palm touching hers is warm. It is the first time she feels, the first time she understands warmth. And it's glorious.

The first thing the Angel Emma feels is the smoothness of skin on hers. It's the first time she feels, the first time she understands texture. And it's glorious.

The Demon and the Angel step closer and closer until there is no air between them, no light and no dark. They are so close their toes are touching and their breaths are mingling and their wings touch, inadvertently.

They get closer still, pulled into each other by the same force that keeps soil tethered to the ground and clouds hanging in the sky.

The Angel Emma smells the rich scent of the Demon, the scent of the earth and rain and forests and it calls out to her and it brings tears to her eyes in its perfection.

The Demon Regina smells the scent of the Angel, the scent of clouds and sun and birds and it calls out to her and it brings tears to her eyes in its perfection.

In the bitter, bloodied, barren battlefield, the Angel and the Demon sit side by side, and the things that pass between them are silent but speak of an old war that neither understands, that both refuse. The things that pass silently between them speak of imperfection in a perfect existence.

Their fingers are in each other's hand and there is warmth and smoothness. There is breath and heartbeat. There is a rush of blood in their ears that neither has ever felt. That neither ever thought could exist.

The blades lie at their bare feet and each demands blood spilled. Each demands, on behalf of their ilk, suffering, eternal, at the hands of the captor. Neither perfect being heeds the warning.

Neither can see or hear or feel but the other.

Betrayal

The forces in the Heavens and the forces in the Depths feel the blades abandoned on the ground of the battlefield, hear their cry for blood. In their silent, emotionless, monochrome domains, the silent cries of the blades are thunderous. They reverberate on the very fabric of their existence.

And their cry is of betrayal.

The armies spread their wings and ever silently, descend on the battlefield to deal with betrayal. Multitudes of smoke dark wings and dandelion white wings flutter to the ground, a mistake to correct, a betrayal to punish. The silence of the battleground trembles with the threat of the soundless rustle of wings descending upon the sitting, enamoured Angel and Demon.

Never before was there betrayal. The forces of the Heavens and the forces of the Depths do not understand why now. But they know the consequence: punishment. There is a tacit agreement and each army drags its own away.

The forces of the Depths take the Demon Regina, the forces of the Heavens take the Angel Emma. Their hands are clasped as if they had been made so by The Divine. They need not be warned that this betrayal will be punished. They need not be explained that for them, at the hands of their own, there will be only the cruellest, the longest, the harshest of tortures.

They discover defiance.

As they are commanded away by their enemy and their kindred, their fingers tighten around each other, and their hearts beat in tandem.

They are ripped apart. It hurts to not feel the heat and the texture of the other's fingers on their own. It's frightening to not breathe the same air. They discover pain and fear and longing.

The first sound is born then: the Demon Regina screams out for her beloved for that's what they are now.

The Divine stirs from its slumber.

The second sound is heard then: "We will find each other again!" The Angel Emma cries over the deafening silence of the flapping wings of both armies.

The Divine awakens.

Fallen

The games the Angels and the Demons play are cruel, sadistic. Vile. Like chess pieces, they capture one another, each a pawn to be sacrificed to the game of war. They torment their enemy with punishments of their immortal flesh and torture of their immortal soul. Gifted freedom by The Divine, they are the cruellest of its children. But now that they turn on their own, now that they punish their own, they no longer play. They excel at causing pain. The Angel Emma and the Demon Regina are in different realms but their suffering is the same, in their charred flesh, in their broken wings, in their bleeding souls.

The Divine is awake and looks at its perfect creations. He looks at them and it sees them for the very first time.

The Demon Regina frees her body from the shackles that hold her to the ground. The chains slide off easily now that her broken wings were ripped from her. The slickness of her blood running down her back assists with sliding off the indestructible chains.

Her beautiful wings gone, she can no longer fly so she stands and walks. She walks up and up and up from the Depths to the deserted battleground. Her heart calls out to the Angel Emma. I'm coming. We will find each other again.

There will be no more flying for the Angel Emma. Her wings are gone, broken off, ripped away. Blood slickens her skin, dulls her will. Only the promise made keeps her: We will find each other again. There is no dying for Angels or Demons in their perfection but they can lose their minds. They so often do. The Angel Emma is barely holding onto hers.

She tries. She knows that if only she tries long enough, she can free herself from Heavens' chains but even if she did, how is she to walk away from the Heavens?

The Divine sees.

The Demon Regina climbs thin air. We will find each other again.

The Angel Emma crawls to her beloved, inch by torturous inch. We will find each other again.

And then, it's no man's land and the Demon Regina's arms are around the Angel Emma's body and they are tight, so tight that the whole legion of Angels that followed Emma and the whole legion of Demons that followed her cannot separate them.

The Divine observes.

Broken and bloodied, the Demon and the Angel fall. They fall and fall and it seems that they will never be done falling but they are holding one another, their bodies as one, their will the same: together. They found each other.

The Angels and the Demons stare at the empty space, only the shadow of blood of their own left behind.

The Divine sees. And smiles.

Free

The one familiar thing is the hurt. That she understands. From her prone position on the ground, she opens her eyes. It hurts. Comforted by the hand still clutching hers tightly, she closes her eyes again, exhausted.

She remembers the Heavens she came from with a shudder of fear. She opens her eyes and the light hurts but there is a hand, slicked with blood, still in hers and that is all the comfort she needs. She covers her eyes with her free hand, shielding them from the sun shining. She doesn't remember the sun shining in the Heavens. It is always light but there is no sun, just a milky whiteness. This is somewhere new, but she can't stand up yet, not when there is pain, just pain in her. And that hand in hers.

She waits.

The Depths are dark and she remembers them with a shiver of fear. This light warming them up does not shine in the Depths. It is not from the Heavens she climbed up either. The light hurts her eyes but it is neither the Heavens nor the Depths. She moves gingerly because everything hurts.

Next to her, the Angel stares at her. The white of her irises is now colour. She doesn't remember colour. Everything where they come from is either light or dark. The Divine gave them a simple world to live in and understand. But here they are, in pain and the Angel's irises are the thousand colours of the trees and grass behind them. The once white hair… the hair is like the sun hanging in the sky. The Angel looks broken, her perfect, cloud-like wings are gone but she is beautiful, there is so much colour in her now, the deep red of the blood spilled and the green of the eyes and the sunshine of the hair. She moves their joined hands and brings them to her chapped lips. Something in her chest pounds, hard hard hard, and it demands that she kiss that hand.

She touches that skin to her lips and it is cold and soft but it soothes all the aches in her body.

She cries her first tear.

Her eyes adjust to the light and the Demon is the first thing she sees clearly. Her perfect smoke wings are gone, just the red blood slicking her skin indicates they ever were. The eyes that stare at her are no longer black. They are the thousand hues of the rich earth they are lying upon, there are specks of darker earth and specks of bright gold and they are beautiful. The black hair is now brown like the trunks of the trees behind them and it shines, reflects the sun hanging from the sky.

Her beloved pulls her hand to her lips and kisses it and the Angel feels love for the very first time in her oh so long existence.

She smiles her first smile.

They stand, leaning against each other, seeking support and strength. Everything hurts: the stumps of their wings, the hands that held so fiercely to the other, the skin where their own kind drew punishments and screams and horrors.

They shiver and discover cold.

They are barefoot and discover the harshness of this world that is not their own.

They discover that the sun that warms then burns.

They are thirsty.

They are naked.

But here, here where they awoke, there are no furious Angels, no enraged Demons. There is just them. Shivering, they seek the warmth of their beloved's skin and walk into the deep blue water. It's wet. They understand wet now. And cold. They shiver more and more, but the water washes away the red blood, washes away the pain and the fear.

"Regina." The Angel utters, tasting the words in her mouth and the sound in her ears. It does something in her chest, in the pit of her stomach that was not there before. They were perfect creatures as made by The Divine but they never felt. Not like this. Not like this.

Regina smiles. Emma stares. There are no smiles where they come from. Perfection is static, immutable, untouched. Statues all of them, untouched and untouching. This smile of her beloved is beauty.

Regina pulls her under, into the water. They choke because they can't breathe but it's a discovery that makes them laugh even as they hold on to each other to soothe the burn of the cold sea water in their lungs. They cough and splutter and laugh and laugh until they are warmer.

"Come, Emma." Regina pulls them out of the water, clean now, safe now. The golden sun warms them up and the fruits in the trees – red, yellow, green, so much colour - call out to them, to their hunger. The scent of the fruits is enticing. They discover hunger, appetite.

They eat until they are sated.

They yawn and discover exhaustion. They sleep again, bodies entwined, shivering in the chill of the deep dark blue night. They do not part. They can't.

During the starlit night—they have no such darkness in the Depths, Regina thinks—they discover hunger for each other. Their bodies heat up, they touch, tentatively at first and then, having discovered it, with frenzy, with rushed touches and slow strokes and ragged breaths. It sates a different hunger and they smile and laugh as they touch and explore what their now mortal bodies can do in their mortal beauty.

The world is taste and scent and colour and sound. Somewhere in the distance, there is the sound of laughter and closer; closer, the rustling of the waves rushing ashore.

In this world of men, full of men's sounds and men's small, effervescent but beautiful lives, in their mortal, fragile bodies, they are no longer Demon nor Angel. They have fallen, away from the bounty given to their kind. They have fallen for love and freedom. In their helpless freedom, only the first butterfly flying after creation could have seen this world as Regina and Emma do now: brand new, all jagged edges and soft curves, so full of promise and life.

The Divine watches them and listens to their laughter, to the sounds of their love and their life and smiles: It has finally created beauty.