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[b][u][center]Falling Angel, Rising Friend

Part 7

For AkimitsuSevecan

By Draconicon[/center][/u][/b]

Getting fucked by a demon and blown by a mortal that might as well have been a demi-fiend was an experience that Sijashi, frankly put, wasn’t ready for. The angelic lion collapsed for over twelve hours after that, and he woke up only when he smelled the first hint of caffeine in the air. The white-furred lion slowly lifted himself from the couch, groaning at the sudden twinge in his wings, and rolled onto his side to see Lykus combining an energy drink with something else. It looked like a radioactive monstrosity, but it definitely smelled like it could wake someone up. For that matter, it was almost doing that to him from a distance.

The white and black wolf looked down at him just as he was about to take a sip. He waved, grinning.

“Hey, you’re awake! Wow. I was just starting to think I’d need to call Drac or something.”

“Or…something.” Sijashi groaned, rubbing the small of his back as he sat up. “Mmmph…”

“You okay?”

“A piece of advice. If you should ever happen to gain wings, never sleep on them.”

“…Ah. Yeah. That sounds bad.”

“Quite.”

Kneading the middle of his spine with his knuckles, Sijashi rolled his head from one side to the other. Lykus joined him on the couch, offering him the horrible concoction in his glass. The lion declined.

“Where is Azorious?”

“Heh, he’s sleeping, too.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, from what he told me, he’d never fucked an angel before, so, new thing for him, too.”

“…He was [i]very[/i] good.”

“Yeah, incubus, he’s proud of that.”

“He should be.”

“Heh, you should tell him that.” Lykus started to take a drink, then paused. “Actually, don’t. He’ll drive me crazy with that. Talking all about how he made an angel think he was a sex god and all.”

Sijashi smiled despite himself. He didn’t know how long he would be in Caelum after this – probably quite some time, in all honesty – but he would miss the morning banter. He stood up slowly, manifesting some of his clothes to save time –

And then, it finally hit him.

The lion paused, his head cocked to the side as a great sense of something horrific finally caught his senses. He turned around, looking back toward the demon’s bedroom.

There were few things in the world that genuinely appalled him. This might have been the first one in decades to do such, but the fact that it could at all was remarkable, to say the least. He leaned over the couch and toward the hallway, his eyes narrowing as he peered into the dim corridor.

“Sijashi?” Lykus asked.

“There is something…”

“Sijashi? Hey, you okay?”

“A moment…”

It was more than just the feeling of something demonic. He had grown used to that with Azorious’s presence, and demons alone couldn’t give him the horrors on their own. They were still people, still capable of so much good. But this…this was something different.

He felt almost like something had put a leash around his throat and was dragging him down the hallway. Each step was mechanical, feeling like it was happening as a result of the previous one rather than by intent. He rested his hand on the hallway wall, shaking his head as he got closer and closer to a feeling of utter darkness, something that sucked at all the life and wonder around it and pulled in tight, sucking it into oblivion. He didn’t know what it was, but it was beyond mere curiosity that pulled him forward now. It was something deeper than that, something that was bound up in him as an angel. For as much as he looked for the good in everyone, there was still a part of him that understood what else that entailed.

To find goodness was to feel the need to protect it, and something that was this dark, this deep in the horrors, meant that there was something here that needed to be…tended to.

Other angels would have drawn swords, or opened their books to spells of power. Sijashi did neither, but his eyes glowed and his wings fanned out, creating a cloak of feathers behind him as he got closer and closer to the source of the feeling.

Eventually, he reached Azorious’s door, and he paused at the doorframe. After a moment’s hesitation, he knocked. The feeling disappeared almost immediately, followed by the demon calling out.

“What is it?”

“Azorious…There was something, just now,” Sijashi said.

“You sure about that?”

“Please…I do not need lies right now. You know I must have felt that.”

“…Hold on.”

Lykus joined him at the door, the wolf’s head cocked to the side in obvious curiosity. Sijashi gestured for him to wait, and then the door opened.

It was Azorious, yes, but it was also a wave of the darkness that he had sensed from the living room. It all came from a pendant in the demon wolf’s hand, a white stone of Desiderium that was surrounded on five sides by a blood-red crystal. From it hung chains of obsidian, and the whole thing seemed to scream merely from the fact that it existed, cutting at the edges of reality around it. The world shimmered as it swung back and forth on a longer obsidian chain, though that one was smooth, and Sijashi ached looking at it.

“That…What is that?” the angel whispered.

“Azorious? Were you keeping that here the whole time?!” Lykus yelped.

“Yeah, but there wasn’t a problem with that until now.”

“That thing –”

“Is evil. Yeah.” Azorious nodded. “I know.”

“No.”

The two wolves blinked as the lion gestured for the pendant. After a moment’s hesitation, Azorious offered it, and Sijashi took it in hand –

“Hssss…”

It burned to the touch, and he had to force himself to keep breathing as he held the raw pain and anger and hate and so much more between his fingers. Yes, the energies were dark and hellish, coming from a place of such brutality, but there was more than that. There was more than just the darkness that had been clearly sealed behind such binding symbols.

“It is you,” the angel whispered.

“…”

“Azorious. You cut this away, yes?” Sijashi whispered.

“…Yeah.”

“Because you could not trust yourself?”

“Something like that…”

Sijashi nodded. He had known that there must have been a cost for demon wolf to get out of Desiderium and stay up here. There were good demons – he had already established that – but Azorious was something beyond that. He had some of the uncaring pleasure of the demons, yes, but there was none of the dark things that the others were tempted by, that they had to fight in order to fit in.

This was why.

They were inside the crystal and rock.

And they [i]surged.[/i]

Sijashi clenched his hands around the rock and crystal as he felt the power within surge against his fingers. They bit and clawed and cut at his flesh and fur, but he only narrowed his eyes at it in return. His wings flared out, his eyes going to a brilliant white as he channeled his own power back.

“You will not,” he said, his voice quiet and even despite the brilliance of his display.

He could just barely hear Lykus and Azorious talking, questioning, but his attention was already elsewhere. His fingers tightened around the pendant, holding it the way that one would have held a hysterical person to their bed or a screaming patient that had lost control of their faculties. He held it, and he stared into the red.

“You have dreamed a dream too long,” he said. “You have wanted things that were beyond you, beyond the capacity of anyone to give. You have lived a half-life, little thing.

“And yet, you had a place. You were the saving of him, once. You were ambition and want, hate and spite, the things that keep some alive under the boot that would crush them down. You gave what was needed, but you are needed no more.”

He loosened his grip, and the energies within no longer bit at him. He held the pendant in the palm of his hand, the stone glinting as he did. As he curled his wings forward, the light danced between the ends of the feathers, and the soothing blue-white of his power pressed down against the stone.

“There is no-one to hate. There is no-one to fear. That time is done. Your time is done. Let it pass.”

Something stirred in the pendant for a moment, but only for a moment. Sijashi held one wing closer, and as he did, the red crystal shimmered. Something passed through it, moving from the white stone to the shimmering clear-lines of the crystal, and then to one of his feathers. The white briefly turned red, and then faded back to something closer to gray.

And the lion groaned as the remnant of darkness spread through him. It touched him, sought out something to hate, something to hurt, something that deserved the pain that it had wanted to deliver to others…but it never found it. He had never done anything bad that it could hate, and so…it couldn’t hate him.

And it didn’t want to hurt him.

And it didn’t know what to do.

“What did you do?” Azorious whispered.

“In everything bad, there exists something that, at the very least, had once been good. I took the part that needed to heal, and left the rest of you.”

He chuckled, even as he wobbled a bit from foot to foot. After catching his balance, he extended his arm and offered the pendant back.

“I believe that you will find a great deal left in there that you can take back.”

“What – fuck!”

Azorious grabbed the wall, gripping it with such a grip that the drywall shattered beneath his fingers. Sijashi bowed his head as the two wolves grabbed at each other.

“Hold on tight, Azorious. If you can manage it, this will make you as strong as you can be without being pulled back to Desiderium. If you cannot…then you will be pulled back. I cannot help you with this…but I think you can make it.”

Other demons would have scowled, or screamed, or hated him for what he had done. Azorious merely grinned.

Bowing his head once more, the lion turned on his heel and made his way out of the apartment. The two wolves would need to fight through this on their own; all he could do was get in the way. And besides, he had someone else that he needed to thank before his departure to Caelum, and he was going to be significantly more difficult.

#

It didn’t take long to find the Academia Draconis, considering that most people in the city seemed to have heard of it. With his powers back, he could hide his wings with ease, and he didn’t have to worry about anyone ambushing him. Not anymore. He doubted that there were many that would be able to handle him, and those that could would be detectable for miles around. He just had to stay out of their way.

The academy itself was a fairly large one, as far as he understood such things. It covered most of a city block, and it was surrounded on all sides by a wrought-iron fence, with golems of various materials serving as guards at the various gates. He could feel other spells around it, each one potent with both age and skill. While he imagined that he could punch through if he really chose to, it would make such noise and cause such devastation that it was better to follow the gates.

The golems at the north gate – one made of wood and the other of whistling wind, often passing through each other – fixed him with an ephemeral stare. He bowed his head.

“I would like to speak with Draconicon, if I may.”

“[i]Who is asking?[/i]”

“I am called Sijashi. If I may speak with him?”

“[b]About what?[/b]” the wood golem asked.

“I am nearing the end of my stay in this city, and I would like to tell him goodbye before I leave.”

“[i]I will confirm.[/i]”

The wind golem disappeared, phasing out of visible existence. Yet, Sijashi could still feel it, still track it. There was much to be found in this place, he realized; the magic collected in the Academia Draconis was surprisingly vast.

[i]And varied…[/i]

He could feel all kinds of magic whistling about all around him. There were spells of illusion and manifestation, of summoning and binding. There were enchantments being crafted like weapons and tools on anvils of old, and there were whispers of transformation as people changed themselves – and others – for practicality and pleasure. There were all kinds of magical doings going on, and a small part of him enjoyed the symphony of different magical ‘sounds’ that filled his ears.

The wind golem returned.

“[i]The Headmaster will see you. His office is near the middle of the spiral, by the small pool at the center of the academy.[/i]”

“Thank you.”

Sijashi followed the curves of the path leading in, his head turning here and there as particular types of magic held his attention for brief moments. Some of them were new, even to him, and a piece of him stirred with curiosity. Perhaps there would be a time to come back and see how things that were only theory in Caelum were practiced down there.

After all, the mortal world was behind in a great many ways, but they were doing things, while the archives were only records of what had once been done, rather than what was still done. It would be interesting, if only from a historical point of view.

He hummed to himself, padding along until he reached the small office building that had to be Draconicon’s office. Sijashi walked up to the front door and rapped his knuckles against it –

“Come in.”

Cocking his head to the side, he nudged the door open. The dragon was busy, clearly; papers were strewn across his desk, he had his back to the door, and he was not paying particular attention to the angel as he stepped in.

“Already done with Lykus and Azorious?” Draconicon asked.

“…You are strangely well-informed as to my doings.”

“Well, you learn how to feel ripples in the world when you’re worried about things,” Draconicon muttered, turning around. “And you make a lot of ripples with all the power that you have now.”

“I suppose I would,” Sijashi said, shaking his head as he shut the door behind him. “Is that something that I need to be worried about?”

“Not really. But I’m curious why you’re still here.”

“I have said my goodbyes to the wolves, and given them both gifts. I wished to do the same for you.”

Draconicon smiled, but shook his head. The angel, however, was not about to leave it at that.

“You helped when you did not have to. You have a great deal to your name, I am sure; I can see that this place was not built easily, nor was it built with small things in mind. You have plans for the future, and you wish to do great things for those around you. This is all to the good, and to your credit. But that does mean that you have little time for helping others, particularly strangers.

“Yet, you chose to help me. That cannot go unremarked, or unrewarded.”

“Give me access to your archive sometime, and we’ll call it even. Wait.” The dragon held up a finger. “Make sure that I can remember everything that I see and read up there, and we’ll call it even.”

“You have no wish for something more than that?”

“Heh, just because I’m a dragon doesn’t mean that I’m greedy.”

“To ask for a just reward is not greedy.”

“Eh, it feels that way. Besides, I’m no good with gifts,” Draconicon muttered, turning back to his desk. “And besides, getting to know you has been a gift in and of itself. Always been a thing that I was curious about. Angels, I mean. Wondered what it would be like to meet something that was born out of compassion for someone else rather than passion for its own needs.”

The angelic lion shook his head. More than anything, he was getting the feeling that the dragon just didn’t know what he wanted. Which was a pity, considering the fact that he would have liked to have given the other man a gift, but it seemed that access to the archives would have to suffice. He just wished that he could have come up with something more.

He walked across the office until he was able to stand where the dragon could see him again. All across the desk were papers, essays, contracts, and more. Half of it looked like work that students had turned in, while the other half looked like important documents that were involved in keeping the school running. None of it looked simple, either, and he shook his head in sympathy.

“May you find peace, and the chance to do, and be, what you wish to do and be,” Sijashi said.

“Heh. Peace in our time. Not very likely to happen.”

“But with people like you trying, at least possible.”

“That’s giving me more credit than I likely deserve, but thank you.”

The dragon smiled, and the lion smiled back. It was not much, but at least it was something.

They hugged. Not for long, since Sijashi knew that the other realm was calling, but long enough for him to enjoy it. The dragon was a surprisingly good hugger with those broad shoulders and thick limbs.

Then he stepped back, his wings fluttering out. He gave a goodbye nod, turned on his heels –

Shimmer.

Shimmer.

He felt the teleportation just outside the door, but he didn’t have the time to react before the door came swinging in. If it hadn’t been for Draconicon grabbing him by the base of the tail and yanking him back, he would have taken that solid plank of wood right to the face.

“Wait, wait, you can’t go yet!” Lykus shouted, running into the room. “You can’t – mmph!”

Sijashi blinked, staring down as the wolf buried the end of his muzzle in the lion’s chest-fluff. The open robe had been a requirement with how warm it was, but he hadn’t expected that.

Before Lykus could start groping, Azorious reached through the doorframe and pulled him back. The wolves stood beside each other, and the difference could not have been more obvious. All over his body, Azorious was glowing, red veins of power popping out along his skin and fur, getting drawn back in, and then popping out once more. He growled as he flexed his arms, the muscles more obvious and bigger than before, and further down –

Well, that sheath was not going to go unseen, and the shaft inside was oozing some sort of glowing fluid rather than the usual clear pre-cum. Sijashi looked up at the demon’s face again, shaking his head.

“I see you melded with your power. How does it feel?”

“Good. [i]Real[/i] fucking good,” Azorious growled. “Bit of a bitch to keep focusing on staying here instead of popping back, but…I’ll get used to it.”

Glad to hear that the gift had gone over as well as it could have – even if it was completely unplanned – the lion turned his attention back to Lykus. He sighed, shaking his head.

“I am sure that you will miss me, but I will have to go eventually. There is no way that I can stay here, and there are things that simply must be handled back home. So, as much as I will regret departing –”

“I just meant – well – I meant not yet, not ‘not ever’, you know?” Lykus chuckled. “And besides, we didn’t even get to throw you a goodbye party.”

“…A what?” Sijashi blinked.

“Go with it,” Draconicon muttered under his breath. “Trust me, you’ll like it.”

“Yeah! And besides, you’ve been conked out or stuck at home for so long that you’ve never had the chance to see all the cool stuff here,” Lykus said, the white and black wolf bouncing up and down. “Oh, the noodle bars on the bayside, the lounges in the towers, oh, oh, and the game shops that are down all the neon alleys –”

“Not to mention the gym that I’ve been building up, and the exercises we do there, heh,” Azorious said.

“Look. We just want to take you on one last blow-out party,” Lykus said. “Think you can let us do that?”

It was something that he had hardly expected. Not because either of them were less than generous, but because it was…just something that wasn’t done. Not in Caelum, at least; angels were around for forever, so there was no reason to say goodbye. There certainly wasn’t a reason to throw a big party for their departure or anything of that sort. One would merely see them again whenever the time came to see them again.

But a party…

“I…suppose?” Sijashi said.

“Great!”

Without warning, Lykus grabbed him and they were off. The lion could only help as they ran out of the office, barely managing to furl his wings and pull his robe back to where it was supposed to be before they were on the run. He didn’t even know where they were going, but apparently, they were getting there sometime fast.

#

[i]Lykus beat him again.

It was the sixth time that he had lost the same game at the same table, and the lion cocked his head to the side as he tried to understand how he kept going wrong. He tapped the game board, then the cards, then looked back at the various powers he was supposed to have, and then back at the board again –

“Heh, maybe we should have started with something less complicated,” Draconicon said. “I think that the competitive version of Spirit Island was a bit much for someone like him.”

“Oh, come on. He knows the rules and everything. It’s just bad luck.”

“Yeah, bad luck for everyone that’s not a card shark,” Azorious muttered through a smirk. “You playing tricks on us, Lykus?”

“I would never…on someone’s first time…”

“Youuuuu bitch,” Draconicon muttered.

“I believe I understand where I went wrong,” Sijashi finally said. “If you want to play again –”

“Nope.”

“Pass.”

“Uh…how about a different game? There’s hundreds,” Lykus said, gesturing at the wall behind him.

“Pick one that doesn’t involve cards. At all,” Draconicon said.

“But –”

“Come on,” Azorious said, getting up. “You and me, Drac. We’ll pick one.”

“Works for me.”

That left him and Lykus at the table. The smaller wolf opened and closed his mouth before chuckling to himself.

“Heh…sorry. Was that getting too much?”

“Not at all; I have yet to win, admittedly, but there is much to learn in losing a game, as well.”

Not to mention that there was something about this place that was rather enchanting. Starting with their table, seven-sided with a wooden rim that was polished and studded with colored glass, with maps of all kinds of fantasy and sci-fi settings inlaid under resin? It was something else.

The motif of ‘other worlds’ continued throughout the game store, with one of the game shelves shaped like a crashing wave, curved and rolling over the tables nearest to it. Another wall was made of colored bricks, mismatched to form the illusion of a cave with a dragon sticking their head out of it. Still another part of the store was filled with cards hanging from the ceiling like holiday ornaments, looking almost like stars as they turned and spun and reflected light off the holographic fronts.

It was a comfortable place, one that he could see himself and others getting lost in for hours, and he smiled as he took Lykus’s hand.

“Thank you for sharing this with me.”[/i]

#

[i]The whole gym jumped as Azorious dropped his weights. Racks rattled and almost dropped their contents as the steel bar and the massive metal and rubber circles hit the ground, and even Sijashi bounced up as the demon let the massive thing hit the floor.

“Heh, fucking easy, now,” Azorious muttered, the black and red wolf demon shaking his head. “Gonna need to add more to that thing.”

“You must be joking…”

“Heh, go on.” He gestured at it. “Double it for me.”

“…Are you certain?” Sijashi asked. “There’s hundreds of pounds of weight on that already.”

“Go for it.”

The angel hesitated, but obliged. The weight doubled from seven hundred pounds to over fourteen-hundred. It was bigger than anyone else in the red-tinged gym would have been able to lift, he was sure, and certainly more than the average demon might have done. He glanced around, taking in the surroundings.

Just like Lykus’s haunts had been comforting and fun in their way, he had to admit that Azorious had built up something interesting for himself, as well. The walls were as red as the Crimson Halls of Desiderium, but rather than being strewn with chains and other dangerous things, the walls were littered with leashes and harnesses, each one fitted with training weights rather than kinky things. The smell of leather and sweat was strong in the air around him, but it never quite crossed the line from hard-work to kink.

Every time someone got up from a set of exercise, they were met with a roaring cheer, a scream of approval. It was almost like the whole hall had declared war against their own weaknesses, and were fighting every step of the way to leave behind the parts of them that they didn’t want and get the parts that they did. It would have been one thing to hear the screams of one person celebrating, but the whole gym seemed to fill with the war cries of everyone around. Once someone hit their goal, the whole place celebrated.

It was fascinating.

Then his attention returned to Azorious, and he stared as the wolf demon wrapped his fingers around the metal bar. He expected the wolf to tug it and then sheepishly remove a few of the weights, but no.

He pulled.

He strained.

His arms bulged, and his face burned with exertion…

And then he lifted.

For all that Sijashi was used to powerful warriors and great feats of power – both historically and in person – it was still something amazing to watch so much weight be lifted off the ground. He stared, his jaw slowly dropping as Azorious lifted it higher and higher, until he held the steel bar over his head.

“How’s – nngh – that?!” the demon growled.

“It’s…magnificent. Thank you for sharing this with me.”[/i]

#

They bounced all over the city, going from game shop to gym, from a restaurant to a great view overlooking the bay, from a safe point on the Wall to a late evening ride on a boat around the harbor, and even to a small, isolated place of statues and soft grass where Draconicon said that he spent his meditations when he was away from his academy. They were all wonderful places, and he was grateful that his friends were willing to share such places with him.

But all good times had to come to an end, even these. As the sun looked about to set and the three of them were discussing where to go next, Sijashi cleared his throat. The dragon looked his way and nodded.

“Alright, time to say goodbye for now,” Draconicon said.

“What?! But – but we still –”

“Nope.” The dragon picked Lykus up and turned him around. “Sijashi’s been really good and we’ve all had a good time, but he’s still gotta go home. Say your goodbyes like a good boy, and let’s let him go fix things.”

It wasn’t quite like that, and he hadn’t quite meant for things to turn that blunt, but at the same time, he knew that this could just go on forever. And he would be nice enough to let it happen; it was just the way he was. It was too fun to just…stop.

“I’ll miss you,” Lykus said, the white and black wolf hugging him tight. “You’ve been so cool, and so fun, and, and just so great. I’ll call you back as soon as I can. How long? A day? Two?”

“Give it a week,” Sijashi said, patting the wolf on the back. “Then I should have things more or less sorted. More or less.”

Azorious came in and gave him a hug as well. The big demon had to show off, of course, but he didn’t mind. The tight embrace was rather comforting, and grounding.

Then the dragon stepped forward. Their hug was perhaps the most awkward, since they were the least close of the three, but it was warm regardless. And it wasn’t so sad to give, since he didn’t have the same connections. Maybe one day, but not yet, and it was nice to not have the last one make him feel too much.

With a final smile, Sijashi spread his wings. He spread his arms, waved goodbye, and flapped.

It only took one, and he was gone.

[b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]

Summary: Sijashi has a going-away thing with the group.

Tags: No Sex, Post-Sex, Magic, Fixing, Banishing Evil, Angel, Demon, Docetri, Lion, Wolves, Wolf, Draconicon, Dragon, Series, Friends, Good Times,