I Will Follow (open)

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Another new town.
After so many new places, the novelty of a new city had lost some of it's luster. Still, there remained in this undiscovered place a wealth of strange and unexplored possibility, and that was always welcome. There were always new personalities, new faces, new circumstances. Not that they all didn't flow together after enough time; he had memory problems sometimes as a result of the sheer amount of things that angel had seen through those blue-grey eyes of his. All the same, he had been ready for a bit of a change. He was here by heavenly decree, naturally, as there was apparently something of a storm brewing. Where Mercy was called for, Mercy would go.

A canvas bag fell casually over Malachi's broad left shoulder, one large hand clutching the strap there while the opposite one rested comfortably in his pocket. The angel was dressed reasonably well, though in clothes that really deserved a good ironing. Dark grey slacks fell, well-tailored, to his expensive and loved black Armani shoes, which had been bought years and years ago and had been often worn but obsessively cared for. The rest of his ensemble consisted of a light grey dress shirt and a black blazer folded haphazardly over his neutral arm. Chi had always been a good-looking man, and generally had a well-meaning but altogether too casual approach to dressing well. Hence the nice clothes but lack of the pressed crispness that would make him look as sharp as a magazine model.

As he walked along the unfamiliar but not alien sidewalk of this new place, the white angel kept his wings folded and close; no need at the moment for anything but discretion. Not that those with a sense for races, as he did, would be affected by this discretion, but it was always awkward to be stretching a non-visible wing and accidentally bean an unsuspecting human in the face with it. Funny, yes, but still awkward. Malachi's hair blew lightly in a pleasant breeze, fanning the chestnut strands of his hair around his face for a moment until the breeze died and they settled right in his eyes. Chi, not one to take himself too seriously, crossed his eyes to focus on the offending hair and blew at them to remove them from his field of vision; it was a fantastically comical sight, and to make it worse, as distracted as he was with his hair, Chi was too late in his notice of the sudden unevenness in the sidewalk to do anything to avoid tripping over it and falling, completely graceless, on his ass.

"Nice, Chi. How old will we be before we stop tripping over our own feet, eh?" A muttered, sarcastic comment to himself as the angel picked himself off the pavements, and turned to locate the canvas bag containing a few of his effects that had separated from him as he fell.

[aerithderren]

Aerith smiled at the fact that she was given this freedom. She was given the freedom to roam free until the auction. They knew that she would come back, and so did she. With a basket over her arm Aerith weaved her way through the people on the streets trying to find a spot to sell her flowers. She had gone out and managed to find some lovely flowers on the outskirts of town. A little extra pocket money never hurt, and flowers did make the world more beautiful, especially in a time of despair.

As she walked she noticed a man getting up. "Oh my." She picked up his bag. "Are you alright, sir?" She smiled at him and held out his bag. "I believe this is yours." She readjusted the handle on the basket on her arm and pushed a few stray strands of hair off of her face. Unfortunately the breeze displaced them again and she giggled slightly as she tried to get them to cooperate. She soon gave up and returned to look at this victim of gravity.

"You should really be more careful, sir. We wouldn't want to see anybody end up hurt." She tugged at her bow and wondered why she hadn't just gave him back his bag and walked away. Now she felt like she was babbling. Not only that but she was talking to a stranger. This was no way for a slave to behave. She picked a red blossom out of her basket and handed it to him. "On the house." She felt another breeze ruffle the white dress she wore. The weather insisted on pushing more hair out of its place.

[Deleted]

"Oh my."

Oh no! Someone had spotted him eating it on the sidewalk. How embarrassing. Chi glanced up at the speaker with startled but curious grey-blue eyes, a smile quickly spreading across his face as he saw that she was a young human-vampire hybrid, and she had just retrieved his bag for him. He straightened up and began brushing himself off as she offered his bag.

"Are you alright, sir? I believe this is yours."

"Ah, yeah, just fine thanks. I'm just a bit--" He broke off for a moment to make a funny little self-deprecating gesture by indicating with a finger to his head that he was moderately brainless. "--absentminded." All was in good fun, though, as his grin had really never faded. It was those expressive eyebrows that did all the signifying. "And thanks. Very kind of you." Chi would, of course, take the bag off of her hands immediately. It was nothing important or heavy, just some clothes, but he didn't want her to be standing there awkwardly with it for too long.

"You should really be more careful, sir. We wouldn't want to see anybody end up hurt."

He chuckled at that, and looked down at himself for a moment. "Oh, I think I can take a little fall. It's good for the ego. But you're right, I will certainly be more careful now, miss...?" Malachi was obviously fishing for the little hybrid's name. She was a cute little girl, he thought, with her flower basket and her stray wind-carried wisps of hair. It was just this sort of person that he was here to protect, he mused. Yes, best job -ever.-

The girl offered him a flower; could any self-respecting white angel really refuse that? Malachi took the offered red blossom with a glow of appreciation and put it to his nose, savoring the fresh aroma for a moment. In a few thousand years of life on earth, there was still no losing the appreciation of flowers. Chi looked up at his little beneficiary, smile still brightening his face. "Thank you so much! I adore it. It's the simple things in life sometimes, isn't it?" The flower was held close to his chest in a subconsciously protective posture-- if Chi had any instinct, it was to protect what was delicate and beautiful in it's brevity. He shouldered his pack again, left hand now clutching his somewhat rumpled blazer.

[aerithderren]

Aerith grinned at the man. She found his response almost... refreshing. Most people would have just took the bag, nodded and walked away. "My name is Aerith. Aerith Derren." She answered. "Might I ask your name?"

He seemed nice, and she liked the way he hadn't just discarded her flower. She felt drawn to him. Maybe something in his aura. 'No... look deeper.' something inside her whispered. She let something slightly less human come foreward, pushing back a few of the restraints she'd put up, that kept her vampiric side at bay. She quite preffered not having to reject sunshine (not that even with the restraints she could manage, she could deal with overly sunny days.) At that moment, her senses sharpened slightly, she realized that she would soon have to have blood, the sunlight seemed a little more intense, and she saw his wings. This only made her smile further.

"So, you're an angel?" She laughed slightly at herself. Of course he was. The wings said everything. And it wasn't as if she had never seen an angel before. Okay, quite honestly, she had seen an angel before, two actually. But they had only one, dark wing. Not the lovely colour of the ones she'd only just noticed.

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"My name is Aerith. Aerith Derren. Might I ask your name?"

Chi raised an eyebrow as she mentioned her name; to his ear it sounded vaguely familiar, like something he had heard long ago, or a word in an ancient language. Perhaps that was it-- Erith was 'flower' in Hebrew. He smiled at the recognition. She said it a little differently, but that was how words changed over time he supposed. Blithely, he'd continue calling her Erith instead of Aerith because he found it suited her so well.

"Erith? It suits you. My name's Malachi Eleison Logos-- call me Chi, though, that's a mouthful." The angel looked on as she seemed to change herself somehow, though he couldn't tell quite in what way. For the first time she seemed to notice the wings at his back, and they shuffled when he focus turned to them, as a bird might resettle his wings when startled. "So, you're an angel?"

"Yes ma'am, bonafide heaven-sent and older than dirt." He smirked at this, the white of his wings radiant in the day's pleasant sunshine. "And new in town; you're the first person I've met here. If the whole city is full of kind little flower-salespeople such as yourself, this will be the best assignment ever!" A very silly, overexcited grin splashed over his face; Chi had this tendency sometimes to leave his angelic calm demeanor behind and adopt a sort of excited manic energy that manifested in his quick, loud speech and big, happy smiles like this one. He was something of an overgrown puppy at times...at good times, anyway.

[aerithderren]

Aerith blushed profusely. "Thank you, Malachi." She wanted to reach out and touch his wings. Being raised in a church, she'd dreamed of angels like him. And now she was standing in front of one. "I'm honoured to be the first you've talked to. Welcome." She held out her hand with a grin.

The sun brightened as the clouds cleared away slightly and Aerith withdrew her hand to shield her eyes. "Sorry. Sun... in my eyes." She studied him carefully. "You don't look that old. Well, I guess that comes with the job, right?" She chewed on her lower lip and watched him thoughtfully. He definitely wasn't the image of an angel the church had painted in her mind. No, he wasn't glowing in a warm white light, nor could she see any halo hanging over his head. He wasn't dressed in a gown. No, he looked like an ordinary man. And he didn't act particularly saint-like. No, his energy and choice of words were just kind.

If it wasn't for the wings, and the feel of his aura, she wouldn't have believed him had he told her he was an angel. She sighed quietly in relief as a cover of cloud passed over the sun once more and brought her hand down from her brow. "I like your name... Malachi. It's so..." She searched for a good adjective, but was unable to pry one from her vocabulary. Instead she settled for, "You."

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Aww, she was blushing! How adorable. Malachi obligingly took her proffered hand in both of his, a warm embrace of a handshake instead of the aloof, professional sort of gesture that had become commonplace in the last century or two. It was suitable, in his opinion, for greeting men and even some women, but not for dainty girls like this Erith. She withdrew her hand after a moment, however, as the sun broke free from the clouds and jetted right into her eyes. He assumed that would probably make even a half-vampire uncomfortable, and lifted a wing to shade her. "Better? I imagine the sun is still unpleasant even when you're only half allergic to it, eh?" Of course that was how Chi referred to the damaging properties of the sun to those of the vampire race. He wasn't really out to get them; there were some very nice vampires that he'd met over the years, and Erith here seemed to be one of them.

"You don't look that old. Well, I guess that comes with the job, right?"

Malachi looked down at his hands for a moment. He wore the body of a man in his mid-thirties; he had grown to like that a bit better than mid-twenties. People tended to give him a bit more respect and he thought he looked more dashing that way, anyhow. "Oh, God takes good care of his tools. I'm pretty fond of this body, so the big guy keeps it healthy for me as long as I'm a good boy." With a little chuckle, his thoughts drifted momentarily to those who had lost the good opinion of their lord, the angels who have lost a wing and had the other shrivel to black. It was a miserable existence, and the angel pitied them, especially those who repented heartily. It was not nearly as easy for an angel to redeem itself as it was for a human.

He didn't really notice her studying him so intently. His kind had always come to humans, when they showed themselves without manifesting in a human body, in robes. Gabriel's announcement, his staying of Abraham's hand, Uriel guarding the gates of Eden...it sometimes came as a surprise to mortals that they didn't run around in the selfsame robes when manifested in human bodies. "I like your name, Malachi ...it's so...you."

Chi had to grin at this. "Thank you. I had a hard time choosing one; there are so many names for humans! It's Greek, after where I first came here. It means God's Messenger, so that sounded kinda fitting." He gave a pleasant little chuckle, his one wing folding back into himself as the clouds passed over the sun again and Erith put her hand down away from her eyes. Malachi's obsession with humans was beginning to surface in his growing tendency to babble. He loved bouncing ideas off of them, feeding off of their opinions and thoughts and the emotions he could sense in them. How neat, how she responded to him! He put his hands in his pockets, eyes still watching her, fascinated.

[aerithderren]

So he knew she was a hybrid. 'Oh well. I probably should have known.'[/i]

Aerith smiled at him. "Whenever I think of God's messenger, I think of Hermes. But I'm pretty sure that's Greek mthology." It was a pointless comment in her mind, and it suprised her. She wasn't used to having such conversations. Especially with strangers. Let alone an angel. She laughed in her head.

She curiously wondered to herself what he thought of her. She liked to make good impressions. She judged from the way he smiled at her and watched her that she had, and that made her happy. She liked it when people enjoyed her company, it made her feel nice inside. Years in slavery had taught her to leave when people didn't want you there. She didn't feel like he was secretly wishing her away.

So many questions bounced through her head. About Angels. About his job. About this 'assignment'. She wanted to know everything. It was just like her to feel like that. The energy that bubbled inside her when she found out he was an angel was constantly growing. She felt almost as if she might explode. All her life, dreaming about angels and such, and now she was in the presence of an angel who smiled at her and told her to call him by an informal version of his first name! She was radiating joy, but she kept herself reserved outwardly.

"If you don't mind me asking... why exactly are you here. You mentioned something earlier about an assignment." she pasued. "That is, of course, if you are allowed to tell me. I wouldn't want any trouble for you." She couldn't help but look up as she spoke that last phrase.

[Deleted]

"Whenever I think of God's messenger, I think of Hermes. But I'm pretty sure that's Greek mthology."

"Oh, it is Greek. It's all the same, though, really. When I came to Earth, Hellenismos was the dominant religion in the area, so for a time I was a messenger of the Olympians, and Hermes too. Christianity has since taken hold and now I'm a messenger of God. It's funny how little changes, though." Like holidays, he thought to himself. The holidays had hardly changed at all, which was nice. The angel was very fond of the joy and freedom and feasting of days like Christmas and Easter and all the other holidays he knew so well. Still, other things hadn't changed, either. Human nature was the same, and the look of wonder when a human caught a glimpse of his wings. The warmth of a loved one. By extension of being a tool of God, he technically loved everyone, but the combination of the heavenly with his mortal body gave him the ability to love individually instead of holistically, and that was the treasure that kept him on earth, apart from heaven and in constant struggle with his environment.

"If you don't mind me asking... why exactly are you here. You mentioned something earlier about an assignment. That is, of course, if you are allowed to tell me. I wouldn't want any trouble for you."

Honest curiosity was, of course, welcome in Malachi's eyes. There was no injunction preventing him from speaking to people abotu his purpose, so he had no qualms with telling her what he knew. "Mm, not at all. I got word from home-- that is, heaven, that there was some issue here that warranted my help. So, here I am. It is usually vague like that. Communication is sometimes difficult, and is occasionally by word of mouth." He was sent communiques by messenger, of course, but oftentimes there are not angels lounging about in heaven to spare for missives such as his latest one. It had, actually, come from the guardian angel of a newborn he passed in a mall a week or so ago, one who had just been called down out of heaven and was known to be in the area. Heaven, he sometimes mused, had something of a convoluted way of maneuvering.

"If I may ask, how did you come to be here? Have you always lived in this city?"

[aerithderren]

Aerith shook her head. "I... well... I've been a slave for a while now, and my old master recently moved here. He died only a week ago. I only got here about three weeks before that." She remembered how excited she'd been when she'd heard they were moving. She longed to travel. She also remembered the morning when she brought Master his breakfast, only, he wasn't awake. He had died of cardiac arrest.

She pulled the pink ribbon from her hair and looked at it thoughtfully. She squeezed it tight in her hand before she looked back to Malachi. "When I was nineteen, a man my father owed money too sent some collectors. They killed my father when he told them he couldn't pay. They took the only thing of value we had. A potential slave. It's been a bit over three years now." Her voice hitched slightly as she spoke, hinting at a sadness of which she hadn't shown anybody but herself in those three years.

And of course, her eyes gave way. Only to a single tear, but a tear none the less. She wiped it away and shook her head slightly, dropping her gaze once more to the ribbon in her hands. She paused a moment and looked to him once more. She chewed on her lower lip and placed a smile on her face again. "You know... I haven't told anyone that in all these years." And the smiled found it's way to her eyes once more at that.

[Deleted]

Slave? She, this darling little hybrid, was a slave? Malachi had been enslaved once, when he first inhabited his human body; back when they'd called him Apollodorus before he'd chosen his name. Getting out of that without hurting anyone had been fairly difficult, and he'd brought a lot of pain down onto himself in the process. He remembered the collar, the whippings, the jeering and the conditions all quite clearly despite the years that had since passed. He kept the slave-bracelet he'd worn then, immortalized now in gold as a bracer, to remind him of human suffering in case he ever had occasion to forget.

And here was Erith the flower-saleswoman, a dainty young thing and sweet as honey, suffering in those same conditions. And with nothing to save her, no hope for freedom? A righteous anger blossomed in the angel's chest. "So that's it...slavery. That's why they sent for me?" It was just Chi's cup of tea, an angel with experience as a slave. He'd freed slaves before, he could do it again; this whole mad summons made sense now.

"When I was nineteen, a man my father owed money too sent some collectors. They killed my father when he told them he couldn't pay. They took the only thing of value we had. A potential slave. It's been a bit over three years now."

"That's...awful, Erith. I'm so sorry." He heard the hitch in her voice, the tiny outward sign of what must have been quite painful to say. He wondered how they expected him to help, what he was supposed to do. Well, he knew on a grand scale he was the angel of mercy and it was his duty to alleviate suffering, but the specifics sometimes escaped him. He wasn't the most creative fellow. Malachi's observant gaze traced the single tear that graced her face, and the wringing of the ribbon she'd just removed from her hair. "You know... I haven't told anyone that in all these years."

"I'm honored that you told me. I, um, I don't know what to say...I'm floored that this happened to you. It upsets me very much, I..." He pause, awkward and floundering slightly. He was a little flustered and flabbergasted by this whole situation. Chi had worked hard decades ago to put an end to the African slave trade, and he had hoped then that it was the last time he'd have to deal with something so difficult and emotionally (and physically) taxing. This wasn't of the same magnitude, but still, it was hard. "Is there anything I can do to help you?"