Designed to Ensnarl

(NOT A PROMPT)

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“You are a trap,” the demon sneered, “designed to ensnarl the innocent in a trick of the eye and banish them unfairly.”

The angel, in all his heavenly glory, extended a leg as he sat upon a beach rock with a sigh. “I suppose you might think that.”

“I said it, did I not?” One might have sworn the demon was lit with the fires of hell at this very moment given the orange glow of her horns.

“Attraction is different for everyone, so you must think I am trying to lure you.”

Of course, the angel was trying to attract the demon. It was an angel’s duty to ‘vanquish all evil,’ now, wasn’t it? And by all means, Tauni was evil.

Lust, the Council claimed, for the pure and unscathed- for this very angel on a rock. She was thus condemned, stripped of her halo and her luxurious, beautiful wings, and instead given horns and two very nasty scars on her back. If she got into the devil man’s good favour, she’d be rewarded with new wings, ones perhaps even cooler in design than the pesky human-bird’s.

“I believe I remember you,” the angel said, stretching his back and shoulders, while his white wings remained still, as he basked in the hot sun. The Greeks would have called him Apollo, for bathing in his own light, appearing so naturally, yet golden beneath it.

“If not, I might go into grief.”

Tauni could see the riddle playing out in his mind. Clearly, he was lost, navigating his own memories, trying to find where this demon at his feet may have appeared in his life beyond this exact moment.

Something seemed to click as the sun-bathed angel propped himself up on both elbows and said, “You have changed since first I met you.” His head tilted. He blinked. Something about his response was broken, yet the demon continued in her anger.

“So, you do remember.” Tauni gave a snort, one that could have split Earth if she allowed it. And she would have if it weren’t for the red man’s rules. “I regret nothing except trusting my own kind.” The demon grumbled, “What used to be my own kind.”

Apollo bent one leg, laying it against the rock beneath him while the other remained bent, knee up high. His arms were cast behind him, reaching up like a ballerina, but unlike such a careful dancer, Apollo’s arms were placed without thought.

A lazy lounge, on an empty beach, by a specimen designed to deceive.

“You feel betrayed because you are a traitor. How quaint,” the angel laughed, head falling back as he did so. “It is not angels which are labelled so frequently as ‘incubus and succubus.’”

That laugh, Tauni thought, but she couldn’t finish. She wanted to be angry, and so she would pretend the laugh was mocking, not unamused or- or ironic-sounding.

Jaw clenched, the demon crossed her arms. She would be punished for attacking an angel which wasn’t currently being sought after by the Council. Even demons weren’t anarchists, as much as they wished to be sometimes. “You should have fallen too.”

“Is that right?” Apollo licked his teeth, tongue playing with his canines- a taunt if the demon he was speaking to knew anything. “You fell,” Apollo joked, “for me. Do you not think you should have fallen for your lust?” He laughed again at some unseen joke before lifting his head once again to face Tauni. “See, the funny thing is this: You cannot see past your own sins.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

Why did Tauni come here? Why did she find it necessary to confront a former lover when there was nothing she could do about the outcome? She couldn’t touch the angel, not unless she wanted yet another quality stripped from her very self. First her halo and wings, now it would be her horns. Tauni shuddered at the thought of her brain being pulled so cruelly. It wouldn’t kill her; the devil never killed his subjects.

“You see me on this rock.”

“Clear as day.”

“And what am I doing?” Apollo asked, body and wings adorned with beads of water from a short wave paying visit to him. “Besides looking gorgeous, that is.”

Tauni squinted. Was that pride she detected? Apollo sounded rather sure of himself- maybe it was because the demon before him had already blamed her fall on his looks.

“Nothing,” she answered after pause. “Are you trying to tell me you are fallen accused of sloth?”

“Would it be so hard to believe?”

Considering the ring of white light above your head, and those wings you keep against that rock, yes. It is hard to believe.

As the demon said nothing, Apollo told her, “You were late.”

“Late?” Tauni questioned, voice laced with malice, and perhaps a bit of impatience.

But Apollo didn’t say what she was late to. Rather, he corrected her. “You said I am doing nothing,” the angel said, “but I am laying.”

Same difference, is it not? Apollo seemed to know her question, for he cast his gaze away to the continuous sea, pondering.

“You never asked why I am laying here, Tauni.”

The demon’s heart fluttered at the sound of her name. Of course, Tauni knew her own name, but it always sounded so much nicer coming from Apollo’s mouth.

Apollo, she had the decency to think now. That is not his name.

How was it…that simply hearing her own name from an angel she used to love…used to. Who was she kidding? Tauni still loved the angel, didn’t she? She did, or else she wouldn’t be confronting him now.

How was it that hearing her name from the angel she loved made her so…so full of melancholy and nostalgia, want and need, heartbreak and fulfilment?

“Am I supposed to ask now?”

“If you want to,” Apollo answered.

Not ‘Apollo.’

“Why are you laying here?”

Love. I used to call him ‘love.’

The angel nodded, seeming to prepare himself, before sitting up in full- heels finding grooves in the rock so that he could pull himself forward as he straightened his back. He was sat up now, lips pulled into a tight line, eyes and cheeks becoming puffy- viewable even from where Tauni stood.

At first, the demon saw nothing wrong. Her love was as he always was- beautiful, of course. Sculpted. Magnificent. But then...she swallowed as her throat tightened. “You fell.”

Her voice was a whisper, one which the angel couldn’t hear over the crash of another wave- one which thankfully didn’t wash away the wings left behind, flat against the rock he sat upon now. Detached. Useless.

“Why…why did you not say so from the start?”

“You thought I was still an angel,” Apollo said. “I thought it was what I needed- to pretend I was still holy. But I am not, and there is something else I require.”

Say you need me, Tauni thought, so that I can tell you just the same.

“I need you, my paradise.” A pause. “These wings mean nothing if we are forever apart.” The fallen angel painstakingly rose from his rock, placing his feet down in the wet sand as he walked towards his demon lover. Not a demon for much longer. “Take the second plunge with me,” he said. “Without horns, you are human. And as long as I am not found, the devil can never touch me, even with my scars.”

“You want to run from Heaven and Hell?”

“I want to run from them with you.”

But- “We would be running forever.”

“Then it is forever we can be together. Tauni, we can live without disgrace. Flee from the Council and help me flee as well. We can mount my wings like a trophy and put your horns in a display case. We will look rich in the human world and have what we want handed to us.”

She thought about it for some time, considering the consequences of being found, versus the joy of living freely.

Yes, they would run. They would be hunted by the Council, but…it would be worth it. For the two to be together, with any amount of time without consequence, it would be worth it.

“Have the world handed to us, huh? You never did deny being accused of sloth.”

“So, is that a yes?” ‘Apollo’ asked.

“No,” Tauni answered. “It’s a hell yes.”