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"writing": "[b][u][center]Falling Angel, Rising Friend\nPart 5\nFor AkimitsuSevecan\nBy Draconicon[/center][/u][/b]\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIt was a few days later that they all met up again. Sijashi had taken some time to meditate and read through his Book of Memories, going through the records that he had kept and which had been stolen from him. Even though they were repaired, returned to the binding, some of the memories were still unclear. Or, rather, they had been; meditation had helped greatly in figuring that out. \n\nHe sat with the book across his lap in the middle of a warehouse, occasionally glancing up from the pages to look at Lykus and Azorious in one of the other chairs. The wolf and his demon had ramped up their affection for each other since the whole angelic thing had come out, and they were currently grinding away. \n\nFrotting, he believed, was the term. They faced each other, grinding, sliding, the soft squelch sound of cummy cocks grinding together filling the air. They groaned and moaned, growled and huffed at each other. \n\nSijashi didn’t mind. In a few ways, he quite approved; the pair of them were shameless in their affection for each other, and he smiled to himself as he imagined the sort of creativity they probably had in showing that. Some would have judged them for being so affectionate in the open, but not the angelic lion. No, he saw their lust, and their pleasure, and he saw something wonderful. He saw the pleasure that it gave them to be together, the raw, endless joy that just being sensual gave them, and the friendship that came from that. \n\nThey were good. They were very, very good. \n\nHe chuckled as he looked down at his book again, adjusting the spine of the tome so that it lay between his legs rather than against the erection running down his pants. That was inevitable, he supposed; if it wasn’t offensive, then it was pleasurable, though just how pleasurable was always up for debate. \n\n[i]Do I want to join in?[/i] Sijashi considered, then shook his head. [i]Nah. Reading is still a bit better.[/i]\n\nStill enjoyed the show, though. \n\nThe grinding and huffing got a little louder in the background, and he wondered if the pair of them were approaching yet another orgasm. Sijashi was pretty sure that they had already gone over the edge at least once, probably twice since they’d all arrived, but that didn’t seem to stop Lykus. \n\nHe knew it wouldn’t stop Azorious. The denizens of Desiderium were all quite hedonistic in their own way, and he had never met one that could stop going at it once they started, but Azorious was something else. He was fairly certain that there wasn’t an off-switch for the demon wolf, and there was something lovely in that. Someone that could embrace something so shamelessly and so happily was someone that had found a bit of their calling in life. \n\nJust like he had, now that he could remember who he was. Now that he could take steps to make sure that there was never a dismissal like what had happened. \n\n“Nnngh…”\n\n“Mmmph…”\n\nThere it was. He closed the book as the two wolves pressed tighter to each other, their cocks visible despite being very close, indeed. That was probably down to the two of them growing while they ground against each other, twitching and twisting to greater and greater lengths from their pleasure. As it stood, Azorious’s cock topped Lykus’s head by a few inches, and Lykus’s dick wasn’t far behind. \n\n“You may wish to shrink those down a trifle before the chair breaks,” Sijashi said. \n\n“Heh, or I could just make the chair stronger,” Azorious countered. \n\n“Mmmph…almost at my limit with size, Azorious. Let’s shrink it. Just a bit.”\n\n“Heh, since when do you have limits?”\n\n“Most of the time, I don’t. But let’s not break more of Drac’s furniture. He’s already pissed off enough about the laboratory, remember?”\n\n“Hey, that was angel-boy’s fault, not mine.”\n\n“Nevertheless, Lykus raises a good point,” Sijashi said, resting his hands over his book. “Let’s not make our benefactor any less well-disposed towards us, hmmm?”\n\n“Sounds like you’re talking about me.”\n\nAll eyes turned to the warehouse door as it opened and the familiar silhouette of the black dragon stepped through. Draconicon shut it behind him, his gold coat fluttering to sag around as he leaned against the metal door for a moment. Sijashi cocked his head to the side, looking the mage over. \n\n“Are you alright?” he asked. \n\n“Going to be. The number of wards that I had to put over this thing were…draining,” the dragon said, shaking his head. “The last thing I need is for another angelic magic explosion to rip through [i]another[/i] safehouse that I’m renting. Renting. Fucking – do you know how much I used to own back – not important.”\n\nSijashi decided not to pursue that, as interesting as the implications might have been. The last thing that he needed was to make his benefactor annoyed with him, and he could tell that the dragon was already carrying a fair bit of irritation from last time. Not that it had been anyone’s fault, really, but he understood. It wasn’t a pleasant thing to lose something you’d put a lot of time and effort into. \n\nHe would know. He’d lost the Book of Memories for a time, and he had only just gotten it back. \n\nLykus and Azorious disentangled themselves from each other and got to their feet. Lykus flicked a card over him – a fascinating way of using magic, as far as Sijashi was concerned – and cleaned the pair of them up. By the time that the besuited dragon joined them, the room was clean, though not without the scent of sex and musk and a great deal more to fill their noses. Draconicon waved his hand in front of his face. \n\n“And I thought my musk was bad,” the black-scaled mage said, shaking his head. “You two get up to more than three harems.”\n\n“Demon,” Azorious said, shrugging. \n\n“That’s your excuse. But what’s Lykus’s?”\n\n“Demon-touched,” the black and white wolf chimed in.\n\n“…I hate that that tracks,” Draconicon muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. “But I don’t believe for a second that you weren’t a horndog before Azorious found you. All he did was make it more socially acceptable.”\n\n“We’ll never tell,” the pair of them said. \n\n“Right…anyway. Sijashi.” \n\n“Yes. I believe that I owe you all a little more information now that we’ve gathered everything together. I know that it’s been quite a bit of work for the three of you to take care of me and keep me safe, and I cannot imagine that was easy for you. So, first, let me apologize for leaving you in the lurch for as long as I did, and for pushing you to take care of me –”\n\nSqueak. \n\nSijashi blinked, staring at the balloon hammer in the dragon’s hand that had most certainly not been there before. As the wolves bit back giggles, the dragon wiggled it in the lion’s direction. \n\n“Every time you apologize, I’m bonking you with this.”\n\n“…But I am sorry –”\n\nSqueak. Sijashi blinked again, completely at a loss for words at the raw stupidity of the squeak-hammer landing on his head a second time. \n\n“You wanna go for three?” Draconicon asked. \n\n“…Can I ask why?”\n\n“Because we chose to help you, you dingus. Lykus came running for you, Azorious was happy to house you, and I was more than willing to take on a bit of an academic mystery since I had the free time to see what could be done. The fact that you think that you need to ‘apologize’ for all that is just rubbish, and I’m not going to let you degrade yourselves, or us, in the process.”\n\n“…I, um, I see.” Sijashi shook his head. “Well…that will take a little getting used to. In Caelum, the idea of anyone doing something purely for themselves is…well, as you might imagine for angels, something of a paradox. We are, after all, born of the needs of others, and the very idea that we might take someone away from that urge to fulfill their purpose is deserving of abject apology, at the very least.”\n\n“…Sounds painful,” Azorious said. “You’re saying that you guys don’t do a damn thing for yourselves?”\n\n“Well, not quite. There are things that we do that do not require someone else to need it. But the general way of things in Caelum is to pursue the things that better others, that allow them to grow, and to think of ourselves at the end of things, if we think of ourselves at all. Consider it a bit more like…like if there is a surplus, that is what we are allowed. It encourages efficiency, according to the higher-ups in the heavenly realms.”\n\nJust by looking at the wolves and the dragon, he could tell that they weren’t convinced about it. In all honesty, he wasn’t entirely convinced of it himself, but it was the way that society worked in Caelum, and – as an angel that had to live there – that meant that he had to go along with it to a large extent. It would have been nice if he didn’t have to, and it would have been better still if he could have had a life that didn’t involve subsuming himself so much to the greater good, but all things considered, it wasn’t the worst life to live. There were a great many angels that were all living the same way, and the equality made it more worthwhile. \n\n“So, what did you do up in Caelum?” Draconicon asked. \n\n“Why is it Caelum instead of Heaven, by the way?” Lykus asked. “Aren’t angels part of the afterlife?”\n\n“[i]That[/i] would have been rather blatantly unoriginal,” the dragon muttered. \n\n“Pardon?” Sijashi asked. \n\n“Nothing.”\n\n“…I would like to get back to that at a later date,” the angelic lion said, shaking his head. “But yes. We are in a more ‘heavenly’ realm, but that does not mean that mortals are designated to go to Caelum or Desiderium upon death.”\n\n“Wait, what? The fuck – I never heard about this,” Azorious said. \n\n“Some do, of course, and there is the possibility that – due to his bond with you – Lykus will be one that goes down there –”\n\n“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?! All my cards will burn!” the black and white wolf yelped. \n\nThings were rapidly devolving out of control. Sijashi glanced at the black dragon, but the mage was already waving him off. If there was ever a clearer gesture of ‘later,’ Sijashi had never seen it. \n\n[i]Well, this is more interesting by the minute…but best settle this before Lykus freaks out.[/i]\n\n“Ahem. Let’s take this back a step,” Sijashi said, folding his hands behind his back. “Allow me to make a better explanation.”\n\n“Please. I don’t want to lose all my card decks.”\n\n“And Lykus ain’t a bad guy. He doesn’t belong down there.”\n\n“Oh, most certainly, he is not a ‘bad guy.’ I never meant to imply that he was,” the lion said, shaking his head. “And my greatest apologies for even coming close to that. No, no, what I meant was that, due to his association and bonding with you, Azorious, he would be called toward your realm. That does not mean that he has lived a bad life, nor that he doesn’t deserve a good afterlife. It merely means that he belongs with you, because he’s given himself to you. Just as, theoretically, a horrible person could be bonded with an angel, and because of that bond, they would be drawn toward Caelum if they were to die while that bond remained. \n\n“But that does not mean that Caelum and Desiderium are Heaven and Hell. If anything, they are but one pair of many different afterlives, many places that a soul may reside after the end of its corporeal existence. Why, they could live here on this plane, for all that it would be less comfortable. And if there are bargains with those outside of the Cage –”\n\n“Whoa, whoa, whoa, cage? What cage? Are we in a kennel? Did someone put the whole world in time-out? What happened?”\n\nSijashi glanced at Draconicon out of the corner of his eye. The black dragon mouthed ‘I’m so sorry’ at the angel, and Sijashi sighed. \n\n“I…thought that Azorious would already know this. But, ah, how to explain this…If you would, for example, imagine a sphere – the earth – right here…”\n\nHe held his hands up, circling a metaphorical circle floating in mid-air. \n\n“This is floating in space, and on this planet, there are billions and billions of souls. All of which are wonderful, glorious, and represent a power that anyone and anything would want to have for their own. \n\n“Now, out of the desires of these souls, two planes were born. There is the plane of demons and devils, which is called Desiderium –”\n\nSijashi clenched one fist below the imaginary ball. \n\n“And then there is the plane of angels, which is called Caelum.”\n\nHe clenched his other fist over it. \n\n“All angels, demons, and devils are born of the various desires of the mortals that wander around on this wonderful little planet. Demons, like Azorious, are born of the more vague desires. ‘I wish to copulate for all eternity,’ for example.”\n\n“That sounds like me,” Azorious muttered. \n\n“While devils are born of a desire that can be written down and explained, almost like a contract. The important thing is, all things born in Desiderium are born of a desire for oneself, a passion that is fixed on the person that desires it. \n\n“In Caelum, however, we angels are born of the desires for others, and that purpose is what defines and drives each angel up there. But I digress.” \n\nHe extended his fingers, letting them drape over the imaginary planet. \n\n“As Caelum and Desiderium are the closest planes to your mortal world, they form a ‘Cage’ around it, extending up and down over the planet. It’s invisible, and it cannot be flown past by space-ships or other celestial things, but it forms a shield against the other planes that are further away, filled with other, more dangerous creatures.”\n\n“Like, the tentacle things? Old gods and all that?” Lykus asked. \n\n“Yes, like that.”\n\n“Ooooooh…”\n\n“Heh, bet you’d look good with a tentacle up your ass,” Azorious said. \n\nAs the wolves began their debate about the gods and creatures of the outer planes, Sijashi sidled away and over to the dragon. The black dragon looked down at him, side-eyeing him as he got closer. The lion glanced back at the wolves, then at the mage again. \n\n“How do they not know? I thought every mortal did.”\n\n“Every mortal here does,” Draconicon said, shaking his head. “Or at least, most of them do.”\n\n“But they –”\n\n“It’s a thing.”\n\n“But how?”\n\n“You’ll find out, if you keep spending time with them.”\n\n“And you –”\n\n“Trust me. Don’t talk to me too much about it; I try not to remember it most of the time, and things are better that way.”\n\n“Is it a trauma of some sort?”\n\n“Heh…only in the way that giving birth is. Now, leave it alone; they’re almost done with their banter, and you haven’t talked about yourself yet.”\n\n“Ah…”\n\nMore confused than ever – and yet, at the same time, more curious – Sijashi sidled back to his original position. He picked his book up from his chair, tucked it under his arm, and waited for the wolves to be done talking about tentacles, frotting, cumming, milking, and more. \n\nIt took a surprisingly lengthy time for them to finish. By the time they were done, both of them were spilling from their sheaths again. He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised. \n\n“So, what’s your thing?” Lykus asked. \n\n“Do you mean my compassionate purpose, or my job?” Sijashi cocked his head to the side with a small smile. “Because they are quite different.”\n\n“Well, both, I guess.”\n\n“Yes, well, I suppose it is time for you to see. I [i]have[/i] been waiting to show this off.”\n\n“Heh, sorry; I get excited.”\n\n“Yeah, you do,” Azorious muttered. \n\n“Don’t you dare! You’re just as excitable, Knotty.”\n\n“Pot, kettle –”\n\n“Aaaaaaaaaaanyway.”\n\nSijashi clapped his hands together. As he pulled them apart, the warehouse began to change.\n\nAs an angel, magic was part and parcel to his existence. It would have been similar for Azorious, he imagined; being born of a realm that existed from soul bonds, being empowered and shaped by magic, meant that they had a more innate control of it than any mortal. While they might be overpowered by mortals in certain situations, it was rare that anything that could break through could be beaten easily. \n\nAnd Sijashi, now that he had his memories back, was one of the mightier angels that would deign to come through. \n\nThe white-furred lion spread his hands. It was illusion and transformation, fake and real at the same time. His power touched on what the mortals called Perception-magic, but took it further, bringing a taste of the holiness of the other realm with him. He filtered it through what he knew Azorious would be able to take, not wishing to hurt the other wolf, but continued to spread it along the walls. \n\nSteel and aluminum turned to silver and cloud. The rough concrete beneath their feet turned to billowing blue currents, as swift as the angriest stream but as smooth as a windless lake. The air tingled, for lack of a better term, shivering with an untold excitement, as if there was a breathless eagerness waiting to be fulfilled. \n\nEven the dragon stood up a bit straighter as the world changed. \n\nSijashi spread his arms wide, and as he did, the clouds and silver along the walls changed again. Great bookcases and stacks of scrolls began to take shape, rippling out and forming channels in the gaseous white swirls. The silver melted, running in glistening waterfalls down the walls, pooling in decorative containers, only to leap out and twist in unimaginable shapes as it crossed the room. \n\nEven the books were sources of beauty, becoming not merely tomes of knowledge, but sources of art. The bindings on each were written in glistening gold and silver, with pearls and gemstones embedded in the spine and along the front. The greatest of artists were brought in to make pictures for the front and illuminated script through the rest of the gold-leafed and silver-leafed pages. \n\nGhosts of other angels walked about in the illusion that Sijashi created, and for a moment, it almost felt like he had come home, as if he had already ascended to Caelum proper. It struck a chord in him, and he smiled such as he hadn’t since he’d fallen from the heavens. \n\n“This…is amazing,” Draconicon muttered. \n\n“It is. The Archives have always been a pride of mine.” Sijashi chuckled. “I have worked quite hard on keeping them in good shape.”\n\n“You’re an archivist?” Lykus asked. \n\n“Oh, yes. And I am very good at my job, too.”\n\n“…That explains the way that you sorted all the cards that first day.”\n\n“Mmm, yes. Heh. I had almost forgotten. You had quite the mess of a collection before I showed up.”\n\n“I was getting around to it!”\n\n“Were you?”\n\n“…Well, not yet, but soon!”\n\nAzorious and Draconicon laughed as Lykus’s cheeks burned as red as the demon wolf’s fur. Sijashi shook his head with a rueful smile, turning on his heel and looking at the world that he had created. \n\nIt was all so familiar, and yet, still felt so far off. He remembered the day that the silver fountains had come into being, how they were tapped time and time again by students and other archivists as ink to make a quick note or to inscribe something on one of the books that was missing. He remembered the day that someone had come in and pranked the rest of the archives by putting wings on the scrolls and letting them loose for the day, and spending over a week hunting them all down. \n\nThe archives had been his life, and few things gave him as much pride as the good things that he had made part of the archival system. \n\nHe kept staring at the books as they took shape, at the silhouettes of the other angels, and at the shimmering architecture that was at once lively and restful. He knew the crooks and crannies where someone could sneak off to and get a nap when they were having a bad day, and he remembered every last shadowy hiding place where the little birds that came in through the holes in the ceiling liked to make their nests, and the scrap papers that he snuck off to them to make sure that they were properly equipped to raise their children without damaging the books. \n\nSo many things. \n\nSo many memories. \n\n“No wonder your book was so full,” Draconicon said, dragging the angel back to the moment. “Were you making notes from all this?”\n\n“All of it, yes,” Sijashi said, shaking his head and pulling his wings in a bit tighter. “And from the other archives, as well.”\n\n“Other – how many libraries do you have up there?” \n\n“Each archive consists of fourteen libraries, and each Grand Archive consists of fourteen standard archives beneath it,” Sijashi explained. “And I was in charge of one of the Grand Archives of Caelum.”\n\nIt was almost rewarding to hear the dragon splutter. He could hear the hunger, the desperation for that knowledge. Perhaps he could bring the dragon up there one day. Perhaps there would be a way to get a pass or something for him. \n\nBut for now – \n\n“Oooh, are there any books on card games up there?” Lykus asked. \n\n“A few…hundred.”\n\n“GIMME!”\n\n“Later.” \n\nThe more he thought about it, though, the more that he liked the idea of dragging at least Lykus up to Caelum. There was something so intrinsically good about the black and white wolf, something so endearing and enthusiastic and [i]wonderful[/i] that he imagined that the other angels wouldn’t be able to help themselves. They’d find all kinds of reasons to treat him nicely, and that would make the whole trip so much more enjoyable. \n\nWhich would be in direct contrast with Draconicon, who would get along with some and not others, and potential start a fight here and there if there was something particularly egregious to him. And that wasn’t even touching on that ‘original’ comment of his from earlier, which still intrigued the poor lion. \n\nAnd Azorious…\n\nBringing a demon to Caelum was just begging to start a fight, and Sijashi had enough issues that he’d need to sort out in the upper realm before he could even think about bringing guests up there. He sighed. So much work to do, so many things to sort out, so many problems to untangle. \n\n“So…you said that the archivist thing was your job, right?” Lykus asked. \n\n“Yes, that’s correct.”\n\n“So, does that tie into the whole ‘purpose’ thing that you were born for, or…is that something else?”\n\n“I am glad that you asked.” \n\nSijashi turned away from the silver streams and the fluttering books and all the pieces of art that were draped through the clouds, away from the silhouettes of memory, and turned his attention to his new friends. He spread his arms out to the sides, half displaying himself, half shrugging. \n\n“I am…compelled, in a way, to see the best in people.”\n\n“…That doesn’t sound good,” Lykus muttered. \n\n“Oh, but it is. I only use ‘compelled’ because that is the way that I was born, but I would not have it any other way.”\n\nHe fluttered his wings as he walked over to the wolves, taking them both by the hands. He squeezed them tight, looking from one to the other. \n\n“My compassion, my purpose, is to see everything good that nobody else does. I was born because someone, somewhere, needed to know that there was someone that could see the good that they couldn’t. I do not know who it was, I do not know whether they were looking for someone to see them for who they were, or if they knew someone that the world judged wrongly, but they needed this so badly that they created an angel that could do that. They created me, for this one thing. \n\n“And I would not ask for anything different. I can see anyone, anywhere in the world, and I can see what is good in them. I can see the worst art in the world, and I can see the dream that brought it about and why it mattered. I can look at…at the most horrible people, and know that there is still [i]something[/i] in there, something that may one day be redeemed, something that says that there is no all-consuming evil out there. There are only bad choices.”\n\n“…Sounds like a TV show,” Draconicon said from behind. \n\n“Perhaps. But it is my life, and I cannot deny the compulsion of my birth. Nor do I want to. If there is a chance I can show someone that they are not the evil that the world has painted them to be, then I will smile. I will smile knowing that I saved someone from the grip of that lie.”\n\nThe warehouse was quiet after that. Sijashi dismissed the illusion, allowing it to fade away. The loss of even the semblance of Caelum still hurt him more than he expected, and he rested one hand over his heart as the clouds, the silver, and the wonder of the other place went away. It had been a moment of being home, and no matter how wonderful the world below was, it was not home. It could never be, because it was too real, too solid, too conflicted compared to a place where all that mattered was one’s own purpose. \n\nHe took a deep breath, held it, and let it out again. Some of the pain went with it, but not quite enough. \n\nThen Lykus was there. The wolf nuzzled under his arm, pressed his cheek against the lion’s face, and against all odds, Sijashi smiled. He shook his head in amusement, squeezing the black and white wolf in return before turning around. \n\n“Any other questions?” Sijashi asked. \n\n“Just one,” Azorious said. \n\n“Ask, please.”\n\n“So, all you angels are just born from when someone wants something for someone else, right?”\n\n“More or less, yes.”\n\n“Doesn’t that make all of you the biggest bunch of pushovers in existence?”\n\nSijashi blinked, then Azorious smiled. A joke, then. Well, the demon wasn’t the only one that could do that. \n\nSijashi reached into his robe and pulled a pair of spectacles from his pocket. He unfolded them, pushed them up his muzzle, and looked down his nose at the demon. \n\n“Well, ackshually.”\n\n“HAHAHAHA!”\n\n“BWAHAHA!”\n\n“For the love of…”\n\nThe wolves devolved into a pile of laughter on the floor, and Sijashi chuckled as he folded the glasses up again and put them away. With the wolves happily distracted, he looked back at the mage. Draconicon smiled, but he didn’t have the same giggle-fit that his other friends had. \n\nThere was something there, Sijashi was convinced. This little conversation had all but confirmed it to him, and that meant that he needed to do a little digging when he went back to Caelum. There had to be some information there, even if it was buried, that explained some of the comments he made. \n\nTrauma akin to birth. \n\nSomething to forget. \n\nObsession with originality. \n\nBut it was something to dig up later, something that he didn’t need to think about now. After all, he needed to come up with a good plan of action for his return in general. Waving the dragon over as the wolves continued to giggle, he leaned in, whispering. \n\n“I could use some advice.”\n\n“Heh. You, the angel that busted my old laboratory and has more power than I do on my good days?”\n\n“Power is one thing. Proper approaches are another. I was banished from Caelum because someone above me got the wrong idea –”\n\n“Sounds pretty straightforward.”\n\n“In some ways, but not in others. They did follow the proper procedure, after all, and they did get rid of someone that they believed didn’t have the right clearance for the information that they were accessing.”\n\n“Except you did.”\n\n“I did.”\n\n“So, what’s the problem?”\n\n“For all that they did what they believed was the right thing, they likely realized that they overstepped shortly after getting rid of me. If that is the case, then they would have spent the last few days scrubbing as many records of their mistake from the archives as possible. And without proof, I could have a problem returning to Caelum and fixing that mistake.”\n\n“So, you want some advice?”\n\n“If you have any.”\n\n“I may…but I’ll need a little while to confirm it. You enjoy a little more time with Lykus and Azorious, and then we’ll see about getting you back up there properly.”\n\n“I will be in your debt.”\n\n“You already are,” Draconicon said, chuckling. “But that’s neither here nor there. We’ll talk about that later.”\n\nAnd with that, the dragon turned to leave. No goodbyes, no anything. Just…there and then gone. Sijashi watched him go, shaking his head before turning his attention to the recovering wolves. \n\nFor all that he had been kicked out of Caelum, he had gained quite the interesting collection of friends. It would be fascinating to see where that friendship took him in the years to come. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]\n\nSummary: Sijashi recovers enough to talk about things. Time to dig into the nitty gritty. \n\nTags: M/M, Frotting, Teasing, Cock Growth, Wolf, Wolves, Docetri, Draconicon, Dragon, Lion, Angel, Lore, Series, ",
"writing_bbcode_parsed": "
Falling Angel, Rising Friend Part 5 For AkimitsuSevecan By Draconicon
It was a few days later that they all met up again. Sijashi had taken some time to meditate and read through his Book of Memories, going through the records that he had kept and which had been stolen from him. Even though they were repaired, returned to the binding, some of the memories were still unclear. Or, rather, they had been; meditation had helped greatly in figuring that out.
He sat with the book across his lap in the middle of a warehouse, occasionally glancing up from the pages to look at Lykus and Azorious in one of the other chairs. The wolf and his demon had ramped up their affection for each other since the whole angelic thing had come out, and they were currently grinding away.
Frotting, he believed, was the term. They faced each other, grinding, sliding, the soft squelch sound of cummy cocks grinding together filling the air. They groaned and moaned, growled and huffed at each other.
Sijashi didn’t mind. In a few ways, he quite approved; the pair of them were shameless in their affection for each other, and he smiled to himself as he imagined the sort of creativity they probably had in showing that. Some would have judged them for being so affectionate in the open, but not the angelic lion. No, he saw their lust, and their pleasure, and he saw something wonderful. He saw the pleasure that it gave them to be together, the raw, endless joy that just being sensual gave them, and the friendship that came from that.
They were good. They were very, very good.
He chuckled as he looked down at his book again, adjusting the spine of the tome so that it lay between his legs rather than against the erection running down his pants. That was inevitable, he supposed; if it wasn’t offensive, then it was pleasurable, though just how pleasurable was always up for debate.
Do I want to join in? Sijashi considered, then shook his head. Nah. Reading is still a bit better.
Still enjoyed the show, though.
The grinding and huffing got a little louder in the background, and he wondered if the pair of them were approaching yet another orgasm. Sijashi was pretty sure that they had already gone over the edge at least once, probably twice since they’d all arrived, but that didn’t seem to stop Lykus.
He knew it wouldn’t stop Azorious. The denizens of Desiderium were all quite hedonistic in their own way, and he had never met one that could stop going at it once they started, but Azorious was something else. He was fairly certain that there wasn’t an off-switch for the demon wolf, and there was something lovely in that. Someone that could embrace something so shamelessly and so happily was someone that had found a bit of their calling in life.
Just like he had, now that he could remember who he was. Now that he could take steps to make sure that there was never a dismissal like what had happened.
“Nnngh…”
“Mmmph…”
There it was. He closed the book as the two wolves pressed tighter to each other, their cocks visible despite being very close, indeed. That was probably down to the two of them growing while they ground against each other, twitching and twisting to greater and greater lengths from their pleasure. As it stood, Azorious’s cock topped Lykus’s head by a few inches, and Lykus’s dick wasn’t far behind.
“You may wish to shrink those down a trifle before the chair breaks,” Sijashi said.
“Heh, or I could just make the chair stronger,” Azorious countered.
“Mmmph…almost at my limit with size, Azorious. Let’s shrink it. Just a bit.”
“Heh, since when do you have limits?”
“Most of the time, I don’t. But let’s not break more of Drac’s furniture. He’s already pissed off enough about the laboratory, remember?”
“Hey, that was angel-boy’s fault, not mine.”
“Nevertheless, Lykus raises a good point,” Sijashi said, resting his hands over his book. “Let’s not make our benefactor any less well-disposed towards us, hmmm?”
“Sounds like you’re talking about me.”
All eyes turned to the warehouse door as it opened and the familiar silhouette of the black dragon stepped through. Draconicon shut it behind him, his gold coat fluttering to sag around as he leaned against the metal door for a moment. Sijashi cocked his head to the side, looking the mage over.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“Going to be. The number of wards that I had to put over this thing were…draining,” the dragon said, shaking his head. “The last thing I need is for another angelic magic explosion to rip through another safehouse that I’m renting. Renting. Fucking – do you know how much I used to own back – not important.”
Sijashi decided not to pursue that, as interesting as the implications might have been. The last thing that he needed was to make his benefactor annoyed with him, and he could tell that the dragon was already carrying a fair bit of irritation from last time. Not that it had been anyone’s fault, really, but he understood. It wasn’t a pleasant thing to lose something you’d put a lot of time and effort into.
He would know. He’d lost the Book of Memories for a time, and he had only just gotten it back.
Lykus and Azorious disentangled themselves from each other and got to their feet. Lykus flicked a card over him – a fascinating way of using magic, as far as Sijashi was concerned – and cleaned the pair of them up. By the time that the besuited dragon joined them, the room was clean, though not without the scent of sex and musk and a great deal more to fill their noses. Draconicon waved his hand in front of his face.
“And I thought my musk was bad,” the black-scaled mage said, shaking his head. “You two get up to more than three harems.”
“Demon,” Azorious said, shrugging.
“That’s your excuse. But what’s Lykus’s?”
“Demon-touched,” the black and white wolf chimed in.
“…I hate that that tracks,” Draconicon muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. “But I don’t believe for a second that you weren’t a horndog before Azorious found you. All he did was make it more socially acceptable.”
“We’ll never tell,” the pair of them said.
“Right…anyway. Sijashi.”
“Yes. I believe that I owe you all a little more information now that we’ve gathered everything together. I know that it’s been quite a bit of work for the three of you to take care of me and keep me safe, and I cannot imagine that was easy for you. So, first, let me apologize for leaving you in the lurch for as long as I did, and for pushing you to take care of me –”
Squeak.
Sijashi blinked, staring at the balloon hammer in the dragon’s hand that had most certainly not been there before. As the wolves bit back giggles, the dragon wiggled it in the lion’s direction.
“Every time you apologize, I’m bonking you with this.”
“…But I am sorry –”
Squeak. Sijashi blinked again, completely at a loss for words at the raw stupidity of the squeak-hammer landing on his head a second time.
“You wanna go for three?” Draconicon asked.
“…Can I ask why?”
“Because we chose to help you, you dingus. Lykus came running for you, Azorious was happy to house you, and I was more than willing to take on a bit of an academic mystery since I had the free time to see what could be done. The fact that you think that you need to ‘apologize’ for all that is just rubbish, and I’m not going to let you degrade yourselves, or us, in the process.”
“…I, um, I see.” Sijashi shook his head. “Well…that will take a little getting used to. In Caelum, the idea of anyone doing something purely for themselves is…well, as you might imagine for angels, something of a paradox. We are, after all, born of the needs of others, and the very idea that we might take someone away from that urge to fulfill their purpose is deserving of abject apology, at the very least.”
“…Sounds painful,” Azorious said. “You’re saying that you guys don’t do a damn thing for yourselves?”
“Well, not quite. There are things that we do that do not require someone else to need it. But the general way of things in Caelum is to pursue the things that better others, that allow them to grow, and to think of ourselves at the end of things, if we think of ourselves at all. Consider it a bit more like…like if there is a surplus, that is what we are allowed. It encourages efficiency, according to the higher-ups in the heavenly realms.”
Just by looking at the wolves and the dragon, he could tell that they weren’t convinced about it. In all honesty, he wasn’t entirely convinced of it himself, but it was the way that society worked in Caelum, and – as an angel that had to live there – that meant that he had to go along with it to a large extent. It would have been nice if he didn’t have to, and it would have been better still if he could have had a life that didn’t involve subsuming himself so much to the greater good, but all things considered, it wasn’t the worst life to live. There were a great many angels that were all living the same way, and the equality made it more worthwhile.
“So, what did you do up in Caelum?” Draconicon asked.
“Why is it Caelum instead of Heaven, by the way?” Lykus asked. “Aren’t angels part of the afterlife?”
“That would have been rather blatantly unoriginal,” the dragon muttered.
“Pardon?” Sijashi asked.
“Nothing.”
“…I would like to get back to that at a later date,” the angelic lion said, shaking his head. “But yes. We are in a more ‘heavenly’ realm, but that does not mean that mortals are designated to go to Caelum or Desiderium upon death.”
“Wait, what? The fuck – I never heard about this,” Azorious said.
“Some do, of course, and there is the possibility that – due to his bond with you – Lykus will be one that goes down there –”
“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?! All my cards will burn!” the black and white wolf yelped.
Things were rapidly devolving out of control. Sijashi glanced at the black dragon, but the mage was already waving him off. If there was ever a clearer gesture of ‘later,’ Sijashi had never seen it.
Well, this is more interesting by the minute…but best settle this before Lykus freaks out.
“Ahem. Let’s take this back a step,” Sijashi said, folding his hands behind his back. “Allow me to make a better explanation.”
“Please. I don’t want to lose all my card decks.”
“And Lykus ain’t a bad guy. He doesn’t belong down there.”
“Oh, most certainly, he is not a ‘bad guy.’ I never meant to imply that he was,” the lion said, shaking his head. “And my greatest apologies for even coming close to that. No, no, what I meant was that, due to his association and bonding with you, Azorious, he would be called toward your realm. That does not mean that he has lived a bad life, nor that he doesn’t deserve a good afterlife. It merely means that he belongs with you, because he’s given himself to you. Just as, theoretically, a horrible person could be bonded with an angel, and because of that bond, they would be drawn toward Caelum if they were to die while that bond remained.
“But that does not mean that Caelum and Desiderium are Heaven and Hell. If anything, they are but one pair of many different afterlives, many places that a soul may reside after the end of its corporeal existence. Why, they could live here on this plane, for all that it would be less comfortable. And if there are bargains with those outside of the Cage –”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, cage? What cage? Are we in a kennel? Did someone put the whole world in time-out? What happened?”
Sijashi glanced at Draconicon out of the corner of his eye. The black dragon mouthed ‘I’m so sorry’ at the angel, and Sijashi sighed.
“I…thought that Azorious would already know this. But, ah, how to explain this…If you would, for example, imagine a sphere – the earth – right here…”
He held his hands up, circling a metaphorical circle floating in mid-air.
“This is floating in space, and on this planet, there are billions and billions of souls. All of which are wonderful, glorious, and represent a power that anyone and anything would want to have for their own.
“Now, out of the desires of these souls, two planes were born. There is the plane of demons and devils, which is called Desiderium –”
Sijashi clenched one fist below the imaginary ball.
“And then there is the plane of angels, which is called Caelum.”
He clenched his other fist over it.
“All angels, demons, and devils are born of the various desires of the mortals that wander around on this wonderful little planet. Demons, like Azorious, are born of the more vague desires. ‘I wish to copulate for all eternity,’ for example.”
“That sounds like me,” Azorious muttered.
“While devils are born of a desire that can be written down and explained, almost like a contract. The important thing is, all things born in Desiderium are born of a desire for oneself, a passion that is fixed on the person that desires it.
“In Caelum, however, we angels are born of the desires for others, and that purpose is what defines and drives each angel up there. But I digress.”
He extended his fingers, letting them drape over the imaginary planet.
“As Caelum and Desiderium are the closest planes to your mortal world, they form a ‘Cage’ around it, extending up and down over the planet. It’s invisible, and it cannot be flown past by space-ships or other celestial things, but it forms a shield against the other planes that are further away, filled with other, more dangerous creatures.”
“Like, the tentacle things? Old gods and all that?” Lykus asked.
“Yes, like that.”
“Ooooooh…”
“Heh, bet you’d look good with a tentacle up your ass,” Azorious said.
As the wolves began their debate about the gods and creatures of the outer planes, Sijashi sidled away and over to the dragon. The black dragon looked down at him, side-eyeing him as he got closer. The lion glanced back at the wolves, then at the mage again.
“How do they not know? I thought every mortal did.”
“Every mortal here does,” Draconicon said, shaking his head. “Or at least, most of them do.”
“But they –”
“It’s a thing.”
“But how?”
“You’ll find out, if you keep spending time with them.”
“And you –”
“Trust me. Don’t talk to me too much about it; I try not to remember it most of the time, and things are better that way.”
“Is it a trauma of some sort?”
“Heh…only in the way that giving birth is. Now, leave it alone; they’re almost done with their banter, and you haven’t talked about yourself yet.”
“Ah…”
More confused than ever – and yet, at the same time, more curious – Sijashi sidled back to his original position. He picked his book up from his chair, tucked it under his arm, and waited for the wolves to be done talking about tentacles, frotting, cumming, milking, and more.
It took a surprisingly lengthy time for them to finish. By the time they were done, both of them were spilling from their sheaths again. He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised.
“So, what’s your thing?” Lykus asked.
“Do you mean my compassionate purpose, or my job?” Sijashi cocked his head to the side with a small smile. “Because they are quite different.”
“Well, both, I guess.”
“Yes, well, I suppose it is time for you to see. I have been waiting to show this off.”
“Heh, sorry; I get excited.”
“Yeah, you do,” Azorious muttered.
“Don’t you dare! You’re just as excitable, Knotty.”
“Pot, kettle –”
“Aaaaaaaaaaanyway.”
Sijashi clapped his hands together. As he pulled them apart, the warehouse began to change.
As an angel, magic was part and parcel to his existence. It would have been similar for Azorious, he imagined; being born of a realm that existed from soul bonds, being empowered and shaped by magic, meant that they had a more innate control of it than any mortal. While they might be overpowered by mortals in certain situations, it was rare that anything that could break through could be beaten easily.
And Sijashi, now that he had his memories back, was one of the mightier angels that would deign to come through.
The white-furred lion spread his hands. It was illusion and transformation, fake and real at the same time. His power touched on what the mortals called Perception-magic, but took it further, bringing a taste of the holiness of the other realm with him. He filtered it through what he knew Azorious would be able to take, not wishing to hurt the other wolf, but continued to spread it along the walls.
Steel and aluminum turned to silver and cloud. The rough concrete beneath their feet turned to billowing blue currents, as swift as the angriest stream but as smooth as a windless lake. The air tingled, for lack of a better term, shivering with an untold excitement, as if there was a breathless eagerness waiting to be fulfilled.
Even the dragon stood up a bit straighter as the world changed.
Sijashi spread his arms wide, and as he did, the clouds and silver along the walls changed again. Great bookcases and stacks of scrolls began to take shape, rippling out and forming channels in the gaseous white swirls. The silver melted, running in glistening waterfalls down the walls, pooling in decorative containers, only to leap out and twist in unimaginable shapes as it crossed the room.
Even the books were sources of beauty, becoming not merely tomes of knowledge, but sources of art. The bindings on each were written in glistening gold and silver, with pearls and gemstones embedded in the spine and along the front. The greatest of artists were brought in to make pictures for the front and illuminated script through the rest of the gold-leafed and silver-leafed pages.
Ghosts of other angels walked about in the illusion that Sijashi created, and for a moment, it almost felt like he had come home, as if he had already ascended to Caelum proper. It struck a chord in him, and he smiled such as he hadn’t since he’d fallen from the heavens.
“This…is amazing,” Draconicon muttered.
“It is. The Archives have always been a pride of mine.” Sijashi chuckled. “I have worked quite hard on keeping them in good shape.”
“You’re an archivist?” Lykus asked.
“Oh, yes. And I am very good at my job, too.”
“…That explains the way that you sorted all the cards that first day.”
“Mmm, yes. Heh. I had almost forgotten. You had quite the mess of a collection before I showed up.”
“I was getting around to it!”
“Were you?”
“…Well, not yet, but soon!”
Azorious and Draconicon laughed as Lykus’s cheeks burned as red as the demon wolf’s fur. Sijashi shook his head with a rueful smile, turning on his heel and looking at the world that he had created.
It was all so familiar, and yet, still felt so far off. He remembered the day that the silver fountains had come into being, how they were tapped time and time again by students and other archivists as ink to make a quick note or to inscribe something on one of the books that was missing. He remembered the day that someone had come in and pranked the rest of the archives by putting wings on the scrolls and letting them loose for the day, and spending over a week hunting them all down.
The archives had been his life, and few things gave him as much pride as the good things that he had made part of the archival system.
He kept staring at the books as they took shape, at the silhouettes of the other angels, and at the shimmering architecture that was at once lively and restful. He knew the crooks and crannies where someone could sneak off to and get a nap when they were having a bad day, and he remembered every last shadowy hiding place where the little birds that came in through the holes in the ceiling liked to make their nests, and the scrap papers that he snuck off to them to make sure that they were properly equipped to raise their children without damaging the books.
So many things.
So many memories.
“No wonder your book was so full,” Draconicon said, dragging the angel back to the moment. “Were you making notes from all this?”
“All of it, yes,” Sijashi said, shaking his head and pulling his wings in a bit tighter. “And from the other archives, as well.”
“Other – how many libraries do you have up there?”
“Each archive consists of fourteen libraries, and each Grand Archive consists of fourteen standard archives beneath it,” Sijashi explained. “And I was in charge of one of the Grand Archives of Caelum.”
It was almost rewarding to hear the dragon splutter. He could hear the hunger, the desperation for that knowledge. Perhaps he could bring the dragon up there one day. Perhaps there would be a way to get a pass or something for him.
But for now –
“Oooh, are there any books on card games up there?” Lykus asked.
“A few…hundred.”
“GIMME!”
“Later.”
The more he thought about it, though, the more that he liked the idea of dragging at least Lykus up to Caelum. There was something so intrinsically good about the black and white wolf, something so endearing and enthusiastic and wonderful that he imagined that the other angels wouldn’t be able to help themselves. They’d find all kinds of reasons to treat him nicely, and that would make the whole trip so much more enjoyable.
Which would be in direct contrast with Draconicon, who would get along with some and not others, and potential start a fight here and there if there was something particularly egregious to him. And that wasn’t even touching on that ‘original’ comment of his from earlier, which still intrigued the poor lion.
And Azorious…
Bringing a demon to Caelum was just begging to start a fight, and Sijashi had enough issues that he’d need to sort out in the upper realm before he could even think about bringing guests up there. He sighed. So much work to do, so many things to sort out, so many problems to untangle.
“So…you said that the archivist thing was your job, right?” Lykus asked.
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“So, does that tie into the whole ‘purpose’ thing that you were born for, or…is that something else?”
“I am glad that you asked.”
Sijashi turned away from the silver streams and the fluttering books and all the pieces of art that were draped through the clouds, away from the silhouettes of memory, and turned his attention to his new friends. He spread his arms out to the sides, half displaying himself, half shrugging.
“I am…compelled, in a way, to see the best in people.”
“…That doesn’t sound good,” Lykus muttered.
“Oh, but it is. I only use ‘compelled’ because that is the way that I was born, but I would not have it any other way.”
He fluttered his wings as he walked over to the wolves, taking them both by the hands. He squeezed them tight, looking from one to the other.
“My compassion, my purpose, is to see everything good that nobody else does. I was born because someone, somewhere, needed to know that there was someone that could see the good that they couldn’t. I do not know who it was, I do not know whether they were looking for someone to see them for who they were, or if they knew someone that the world judged wrongly, but they needed this so badly that they created an angel that could do that. They created me, for this one thing.
“And I would not ask for anything different. I can see anyone, anywhere in the world, and I can see what is good in them. I can see the worst art in the world, and I can see the dream that brought it about and why it mattered. I can look at…at the most horrible people, and know that there is still something in there, something that may one day be redeemed, something that says that there is no all-consuming evil out there. There are only bad choices.”
“…Sounds like a TV show,” Draconicon said from behind.
“Perhaps. But it is my life, and I cannot deny the compulsion of my birth. Nor do I want to. If there is a chance I can show someone that they are not the evil that the world has painted them to be, then I will smile. I will smile knowing that I saved someone from the grip of that lie.”
The warehouse was quiet after that. Sijashi dismissed the illusion, allowing it to fade away. The loss of even the semblance of Caelum still hurt him more than he expected, and he rested one hand over his heart as the clouds, the silver, and the wonder of the other place went away. It had been a moment of being home, and no matter how wonderful the world below was, it was not home. It could never be, because it was too real, too solid, too conflicted compared to a place where all that mattered was one’s own purpose.
He took a deep breath, held it, and let it out again. Some of the pain went with it, but not quite enough.
Then Lykus was there. The wolf nuzzled under his arm, pressed his cheek against the lion’s face, and against all odds, Sijashi smiled. He shook his head in amusement, squeezing the black and white wolf in return before turning around.
“Any other questions?” Sijashi asked.
“Just one,” Azorious said.
“Ask, please.”
“So, all you angels are just born from when someone wants something for someone else, right?”
“More or less, yes.”
“Doesn’t that make all of you the biggest bunch of pushovers in existence?”
Sijashi blinked, then Azorious smiled. A joke, then. Well, the demon wasn’t the only one that could do that.
Sijashi reached into his robe and pulled a pair of spectacles from his pocket. He unfolded them, pushed them up his muzzle, and looked down his nose at the demon.
“Well, ackshually.”
“HAHAHAHA!”
“BWAHAHA!”
“For the love of…”
The wolves devolved into a pile of laughter on the floor, and Sijashi chuckled as he folded the glasses up again and put them away. With the wolves happily distracted, he looked back at the mage. Draconicon smiled, but he didn’t have the same giggle-fit that his other friends had.
There was something there, Sijashi was convinced. This little conversation had all but confirmed it to him, and that meant that he needed to do a little digging when he went back to Caelum. There had to be some information there, even if it was buried, that explained some of the comments he made.
Trauma akin to birth.
Something to forget.
Obsession with originality.
But it was something to dig up later, something that he didn’t need to think about now. After all, he needed to come up with a good plan of action for his return in general. Waving the dragon over as the wolves continued to giggle, he leaned in, whispering.
“I could use some advice.”
“Heh. You, the angel that busted my old laboratory and has more power than I do on my good days?”
“Power is one thing. Proper approaches are another. I was banished from Caelum because someone above me got the wrong idea –”
“Sounds pretty straightforward.”
“In some ways, but not in others. They did follow the proper procedure, after all, and they did get rid of someone that they believed didn’t have the right clearance for the information that they were accessing.”
“Except you did.”
“I did.”
“So, what’s the problem?”
“For all that they did what they believed was the right thing, they likely realized that they overstepped shortly after getting rid of me. If that is the case, then they would have spent the last few days scrubbing as many records of their mistake from the archives as possible. And without proof, I could have a problem returning to Caelum and fixing that mistake.”
“So, you want some advice?”
“If you have any.”
“I may…but I’ll need a little while to confirm it. You enjoy a little more time with Lykus and Azorious, and then we’ll see about getting you back up there properly.”
“I will be in your debt.”
“You already are,” Draconicon said, chuckling. “But that’s neither here nor there. We’ll talk about that later.”
And with that, the dragon turned to leave. No goodbyes, no anything. Just…there and then gone. Sijashi watched him go, shaking his head before turning his attention to the recovering wolves.
For all that he had been kicked out of Caelum, he had gained quite the interesting collection of friends. It would be fascinating to see where that friendship took him in the years to come.
The End
Summary: Sijashi recovers enough to talk about things. Time to dig into the nitty gritty.