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"writing": "[b][u][center]Falling Angel, Rising Friend\nPart 8\nFor AkimitsuSevecan\nBy Draconicon[/center][/u][/b]\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n“How much longer now?” Lykus asked. \n\n“You asked that two minutes ago.”\n\n“No, no, it has to be longer than that.”\n\nAzorious sighed. The black and white wolf gestured at the phone on the nightstand beside the bed, and the demon picked it up and checked. \n\n“Still another twenty minutes.”\n\n“Ugh!”\n\n“Told ya.”\n\n“Time is slowing down. I swear. I’m going to check the kitchen clock. The phone’s slow.”\n\n“It’s not.”\n\n“It is!”\n\nLykus leaped out of bed, shaking his head as he avoided his friend’s sweeping arm to keep him there. Grumbling under his breath, he stalked out of the bedroom, down the hall, and into the kitchen. His eyes fell on the microwave clock, and he groaned. \n\n“Told ya,” Azorious called down the hall.\n\n“It’s a conspiracy!”\n\n“No, it’s you being an impatient pup. Come back here and we’ll kill the time the way we always do.”\n\n“No way. We’ll overshoot it.”\n\n“There’s an alarm.”\n\n“Then we have blue balls.”\n\n“Lykus…”\n\nHe could hear the exasperation in Azorious’s voice and he knew that he was getting to be a bit much, but he couldn’t help it. It had been a week – or near enough – since Sijashi had gone back to Heaven or Caelum or whatever it was called where the angels lived. Sure, he hadn’t been in the city for long, but Docetri was smaller and less fun without a friend there. He genuinely wanted to enjoy himself with the lion, and the fact that he had to keep waiting to use the summoning card bothered him. \n\nHe stalked around the kitchen, barely dressed in a jockstrap that was on the verge of spilling over. The throbbing inside – a consequence of the perpetual pleasure that came from living around Azorious and the edging he [i]had[/i] been doing as a distraction – wasn’t enough anymore. Ignoring it with surprising ease, Lykus paced from one side of the kitchen to the other, then into the hallway, then into the living room. \n\nAround. \n\nAnd around.\n\nAnd around. \n\n“How much longer now?” he shouted. \n\n“Nineteen minutes.”\n\n“Fuuuuuuuuuck.”\n\n“You’re going to make it take longer by doing this, you know.”\n\n“Come on. I just want to see him again. Maybe we got the time wrong. Gimme the card.”\n\n“Nope.”\n\n“Azorious, I swear, gimme the card or –”\n\n“Nope. You gave it to me for safekeeping, and I’m gonna keep holding onto it.”\n\nWhich was probably for the best, but considering that Lykus was on the verge of going crazy from a lack of angelic lions. Sijashi had become a fast-friend, and not having him around – and not knowing what had happened – was more than he could bear. He liked his friends being happy, almost needed them to be, and being detached and having to deal with doing nothing was not something he was used to. In fact, he was reasonably sure that he’d never allow something like this to happen again. He would go with friends that had to take care of things, and – and – fuuuuuck, he was going crazy. \n\n“How long now?”\n\n“Eighteen and a half minutes.”\n\n“GAH!”\n\nHe ran down the hall and leaped from the doorway to the bedroom at the demon wolf. Azorious rolled out of the way, letting Lykus land on the sweaty sheets and pillow he’d been lying on, and the mortal wolf didn’t have a chance to react before the bigger canine rolled back to his original position. \n\n“Gah!”\n\n“You’re going to sit until the timer’s up.”\n\n“Not fair!”\n\n“Uh-huh.”\n\n“You’re too big!”\n\n“Nope.”\n\n“You’re going to crush me!”\n\n“Not what you said when I was fucking your face, heh.”\n\nLykus grumbled, nose buried in a pillow that was at least halfway soaked with ball-sweat and who knew what else from all that they’d been doing over the last night. At least the smell was somewhat relaxing and familiar. Not something that he’d use as perfume or anything like that, but at least it was familiar enough to calm him down and let him feel a little less harried and panicked. \n\nHe closed his eyes, taking another long sniff, then another. Sure, it all went to his dick, but more than that, the demonic pheromones helped calm him down and think about something besides his friend being in trouble. Dick, mostly, but also just the fact that Azorious was there and the demon was doing his best to make things okay. \n\nThings would be okay. They were still together, and even if things went badly for Sijashi, they’d find a way to make it good again. One way or another. \n\nOne breath turned to two, then three, then four before he lost count. He remained face-down in the pillow as the seconds, then minutes ticked on, and he was just starting to grind against the mattress when – \n\nDing. Ding. Ding. \n\n“Time’s up,” Azorious said, voice muffled from the other side. \n\n“Mmmph…”\n\n“Heh, you ready to summon the angel?”\n\n“Mmm-hmm!”\n\n“Alright, lemme get the card.”\n\nLykus rolled out of bed as soon as Azorious rolled off of him. When the black and red wolf flicked his hand and summoned the spell-card to his fingertips, the mortal wolf was right there, hands out and waiting. Despite his friend’s chuckles, he was patient enough to wait until the card was in his hands to turn his attention to the spell-casting. \n\n“Alright, here we go. Sijashi, come on back. We miss you, angel.”\n\nIt was a simple enough spell, though he remembered the constraints on it. The card was meant to summon an angel that could see the good in everything, and in order for the spell to work, it required that the caster have a need that aligned with that purpose. Without that, it wouldn’t work. \n\nLykus chuckled. Fortunately, he was very good at loopholes. \n\nHe closed his eyes, focusing on the feeling that he’d been ignoring since Sijashi was gone. It was a sad one, an emotion that tugged at the corners of his muzzle and left him feeling down, almost depressed when he remembered that his friend wasn’t around anymore. It was a horrible state of affairs, and more than anything, he needed someone that could look at it and tell him what – if anything – was good about it. What was the good in such a horrible feeling that he couldn’t get out of?\n\nAs soon as he felt the card shimmering and tingling against his fingers, Lykus giggled. It worked. \n\nHe tossed the card on the floor, sitting on the bed with his tail wagging behind him at full speed. The light emerged from the card front, rising higher and higher until it formed a rough silhouette for the angelic lion. He leaned forward, grinning with all his teeth showing, and despite the more unbothered presence of his best friend, he could tell that Azorious was in a similar state. \n\nFinally, the light faded, revealing their friend. Sijashi stood over the card, his tail twitching back and forth as he furled his wings against his back. He glanced around the room, then slowly bent down, picking up the card. His robes sagged over his frame in purple and white and blue, and he shook his head with a tiny smile as he stood up again. \n\n“I believe that this card was meant to summon me when you had need of me.”\n\n“Oh, but we did,” Lykus said. “We were [i]miserable[/i] without you.”\n\n“He was,” Azorious muttered, nodding sideways at the smaller wolf. \n\n“So were you!”\n\n“Not as bad as you.”\n\n“I meant, there must be a purpose to be fulfilled,” Sijashi said, holding out the card. “This is meant for serious things, Lykus.”\n\n“Well…you said summon you in a week, and that’s what we had for it,” he said, shrugging. “Besides, it worked, didn’t it?”\n\n“…Yes, but that’s not the point.”\n\n“Heh, it is to me. Now. Hug me!”\n\nHe leaped off the bed and into the lion’s arms. Despite the momentary shock and huffiness, Sijashi embraced him in turn and Lykus smiled, nuzzling into the other man’s neck. There was a genuine warmth there, and something else, something clean and happy and light. Like a spring breeze mixed with clean laundry with a little bit of sunlight thrown in for good measure. \n\nIt was nice. \n\nAfter giving the angel a good squeeze and drawing the tiniest of squeaks out of him, he let go. Azorious took his place, giving Sijashi an embrace that lifted him right off the ground, then stepped back. As the angel adjusted his clothes, pulling them all back to the proper spot, Lykus asked the question that had been burning away for the whole week. \n\n“So? How’d it go?”\n\n“I assume you mean the inquest and the other issues above,” Sijashi said, dusting his robe off and pulling it to hang properly off his shoulders. “Or was there something that I forgot?”\n\n“No, no, just, uh, that.”\n\n“Ah. Then it went well.”\n\n“Well? How well? Come on, man, details,” Lykus said. \n\n“It…Are you that concerned?” Sijashi asked, cocking his head to the side. \n\n“Concerned?! Sijashi, we’ve been in the dark for a week. All we know is that they kicked you out and you were going back to try and fix that. You said that you could do it, but – come on. I’ve been going crazy here and – mmmph!”\n\nA big hand over and around his muzzle kept him from getting another word out. Azorious leaned around, shaking his head as he looked the lion dead in the eye. \n\n“What he’s trying to say is that we’ve been thinking about you and hoping you’ve been okay for a week. Since we can’t actually get up there, and we couldn’t get any news until the week was over, we’ve been a little…antsy.”\n\n“…I am sorry. I am not used to other people caring about me so much.”\n\n“Well, we do. So, spill.”\n\nLykus squirmed free of Azorious’s grip, rubbing his muzzle. It was hard to be calm when a new friend had potentially been in danger. Nobody else had seemed that concerned – not Azorious, and not Draconicon – but they hadn’t been able to give him any comfort or reason not to be bothered, or scared, or anything. All he could do was just hope for the best, and while he was a very hopeful wolf, there was only so much that he could do before everything just started breaking down. \n\nBut Sijashi was here now, and that meant that things were okay. Now he just needed details. \n\nThe lion tapped his chin, clearly collecting himself, and Lykus made himself sit down on the bed again. He could be good, and would be. As Azorious sat down beside him, Sijashi nodded and began his story. \n\n“When I returned to Caelum, there were, of course, several angels that came to meet me and claim that I needed to leave. I told them that there had been a simple overreach, and I merely wanted to talk to those responsible and see the paperwork that they had filed. This, of course, was quite reasonable.”\n\n“You’re kidding me,” Azorious said. “That’s all it took?”\n\n“We are very proud of following procedure,” the lion said, bowing his head. “And while I am probably excessive, even among angels, we are all bound to a certain protocol. By invoking it, I was safe to stay for a time.”\n\n“And? What did they find?” Lykus asked. \n\n“Exactly what I expected them to find: nothing. My immediate superiors at the archive overreached themselves and threw me out without filing the proper paperwork trail, and without going through the proper procedure themselves. They believed that I was lower-ranking than I was, and rather than confirm my identity, they activated security.”\n\n“…They threw you out because they didn’t check your ID?” Lykus asked. \n\n“That is about the sum of it, yes.”\n\n“You mean…you got kicked out of heaven –”\n\n“Caelum.”\n\n“Sorry. Caelum. You got kicked out because some dick didn’t want to read your ID, and thought you were the office gopher instead of the person in charge?”\n\n“More or less, yes.”\n\n“…That’s…so…[i]stupid,[/i]” Lykus groaned, rubbing his forehead. “Oh my god, that’s all it was?”\n\n“More or less. Of course, if that was all that they did, then I would have merely taken my position back and that would have been that, but it was not.”\n\n“Heh, sounds like someone made a mistake,” Azorious said. “What’d those assholes forget?”\n\n“It is not what they forgot, but rather, what they did afterward. It seems that at least one of them must have realized in post who they were banishing, because when they were asked for the paperwork filed for my banishment, they could not find it.”\n\n“…What do you mean, they couldn’t find it?” Lykus asked. \n\n“It seems that they were not only being too hasty in my banishment, but they tried to hide that they had banished me at all. And that proved that they not only had made a mistake, but they were aware that they had made a mistake and were trying to cover it up.”\n\nLykus grinned. \n\n“Oh…oh, you had them trapped then.”\n\n“Indeed.” Sijashi smiled. “After that, the heavenly courts ruled that I was not only to be reassigned with full privileges, but that the others would have to attend a decade-long training course. They will likely learn all that they can learn in five days, but the punishment is to endure endless training without breaks.”\n\nAzorious and Lykus winced. He knew how boring that would be. For all that Hell had some of the more engaging, painful sort of tortures, that felt mind-numbing enough to be something that would be found down there. \n\nOr, in Desiderium…\n\nUgh. It was still weird to try and wrap his head around what they were called. He kept thinking of the old names and didn’t know how to handle that. \n\n“At any rate. Everything is back to normal, and I still owe the both of you so much.” Sijashi smiled. “You did so much for me without even knowing what I was. I did not need to be an angel to see the good things in you. You’ve both been so upright, so kind, so good, that anyone could see it.”\n\n“Well, Lykus has,” Azorious said. \n\n“No. Both of you.” \n\nThe angel stepped forward, resting one wing on each of them. Lykus shivered under the wing, feeling something…something new. \n\n[i]Goodness. \n\nWonder. \n\nLight. \n\nWarmth. \n\nHappiness.[/i]\n\nAzorious grumbled at his side, shifting as if fighting the instinct to pull away or to push forward. It was almost background to Lykus, and if it had been anyone else, it would have been compared to the different feeling that the wing gave him. \n\nUnder the feathers, he felt…nice. More than that, he felt appreciated, almost like the feeling of being applauded when he pulled off a cool trick, except multiplied dozens of times over. His muzzle twitched as a smile crept over it, and he lowered his head as he savored the feeling and the embrace that came with it. \n\n“The both of you have done wonderful things, together and apart. There is nothing but goodness in both of you. Sometimes twisted, sometimes strange, but goodness, nonetheless. And if you cannot see that yourselves, then I feel that I must show you.”\n\n“Mmmph…”\n\n“Will you come with me?” Sijashi asked. \n\n“Where?”\n\n“Where else?”\n\n“…If Lykus comes,” Azorious said. \n\n“Hell yeah!” Lykus said. \n\n“Then let us go.”\n\n#\n\nWhen the light faded again, they were no longer in the apartment, but on top of a cloud. Lykus gasped as he stumbled, his hands going to his card packs at his waist to stop himself from falling…only to realize that he wasn’t. The clouds supported him, which meant that they weren’t just clouds floating in the sky. \n\n“…Why doesn’t it hurt?” Azorious muttered. \n\nLykus blinked, looking up from the clouds to the demon. The black and red wolf stared into the distance, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. \n\n[i]Right. Caelum, his opposite. He hurt all the other times that we ran into holy stuff, so why –[/i]\n\n“You are half-here,” Sijashi said, the lion folding his hands behind himself as he stood between them and the rest of the cloudy world. “Your bodies are still in your apartment, but your minds, your souls, are here in Caelum. It was the safest way to get you here without causing pain.”\n\n“Orrrrrrr letting anyone else know we’re here?” Lykus asked. \n\n“…That was a consideration,” the lion admitted. \n\n“Hehehe, breaking the rules already?”\n\n“Less the rules, and more just ensuring that there does not need to be an inquest as to my guests.”\n\n“Fair enough.”\n\nLykus spun on his heel, his face still split in two with a wide grin. The fact that he was standing on top of a cloud – soft as could be under his feet – was one thing, but it was everything else that really sold this place as a heavenly realm. \n\nWarm sun beamed down on him, uninterrupted by pollutants or anything else that would have corrupted it on the surface. The breezes that flowed around him were filled with soft scents of flowers, of earth, of life, and they were never cold, never chilling. Instead, they soothed him, running through his fur and making him feel fluffier than ever. He chuckled, hugging himself as he felt like he was getting filled with pure life and wonder, and…\n\nAnd in the distance, there was singing. \n\nFor a second, he thought it would be something hymnal, but no. If anything, it was more…more folksy, like the simple humming and idle singing that would have happened anywhere on earth, but better. It was like all the voices knew what they were doing, and knew how to sing in a way that made the ears happy. \n\n“This is great,” Lykus said. “So, what kind of games do you have up here?”\n\n“I am afraid none that we have time for.”\n\n“Awwww, you sure?”\n\n“The simplest of our games would take you three years to play, and even then, it would only finish the first round.”\n\nThe wolf’s jaw dropped at the idea of a game that complicated, but his mind was already trying to wrap itself around that possibility. If it took that long, then there had to be so many rules and so many stages to each round. What happened to make it take so long? Were there that many variables that had to be considered? What happened if you got a step wrong, or was that why it took so long in the first place?\n\nThere were so many questions that he wanted to ask, but Sijashi cut him short, waving for them to follow. \n\n“Come. I wish to show you your place in the archives.”\n\n“Our – wait, hold on. What do you mean, our place?” Azorious asked. \n\n“Let me show you. Please.”\n\nThe two wolves glanced at each other out of the corners of their eyes. They were somewhere they’d never been, well outside of anything that they had ever experienced, and there was no clear way back to their bodies. If there was ever a chance for a horrible trap, this was it.\n\nAnd yet, there was no reason to distrust Sijashi. There never had been, no matter how strange everything was. The lion had always been kind to them, always showed the best of himself and been good to them. If he said that they were safe, then Lykus had no reason to distrust that. \n\nNonetheless, he reached out and took Azorious’s hand. The demon squeezed it back, and – after taking a deep breath – the pair of them started walking. \n\nAcross the clouds, down a street of blue jade stone, and into a building of cloud and steel and light that seemed to have taken liquid form they went, and finally, they were surrounded by books. Hundreds of them, thousands, running down aisles that seemed to go on forever. Scrolls floated from their racks as other angels called them, and books floated down to be carried off to reading rooms, and Lykus just stared. \n\nEven from here, he could feel the weight of history. Oh, he’d seen the hint of an archive when Sijashi showed it to them in Docetri, but that had been an illusion. This was the real thing, and there was a tangible, beautiful feeling of power and history and permanence here. It was more than just a pile of books in front of him. This was history, this was everything that had existed and perhaps some of what would, all laid down on parchment by ink and magic, resting there and waiting to be seen. \n\nHere, right here, was all the evidence of life and wonder and thought and whimsy. It was breathtaking. \n\n“Come, come, follow me,” Sijashi said. \n\nThey fell in line behind him, the two wolves staring at the bookshelves on either side. Lykus wondered how high they went, and he couldn’t even guess what was going through Azorious’s head. Every so often, they slowed down, just taking in the sheer magnitude of the great library that Sijashi oversaw, and when they did, the lion came back to them and pulled gently at their arms. Not hard, not firmly, but enough to keep them moving along without a word. \n\nThe fact that there were angels – big-winged, white-feathered beings of various species, all in different colored robes – all around them that didn’t say a word and didn’t seem to see them was…strange. Not bad, but certainly enough to put Lykus on edge. He could feel Azorious’s discomfort, though, and he kept reaching out, patting his friend on the back and trying to keep him from feeling too vulnerable. \n\nHe hoped it worked. \n\nFinally, they reached a small alcove in the shelving system. Sijashi gestured to the two books that were on the table, smiling as he did. \n\n“These are your Books,” he said, leaning against the small table. “And they have recorded every deed you’ve done, and the results. No matter how small, the ripple effects of every one fo your actions have spread, and here we have penned the results.”\n\n“Heh…why are they the same size?” Azorious asked. “Lykus has been on earth longer than me.”\n\n“And you have done many things in that short time,” Sijashi said. “And more than you know.”\n\n“Sijashi?”\n\n“Yes, Lykus?” the lion asked, cocking his head to the side. \n\n“There’s something I’ve…kinda wanted to know for a while,” the black and white wolf admitted, rubbing the back of his head. “I’ve always been glad to have Azorious around, and I know it’s changed both our lives, meeting each other. But…I guess I want to know. How much did it change our lives? I mean, would we have had good times without meeting each other?”\n\n“…Good, yes, but far from as good,” the angel admitted. “Part of taking notes and keeping records means that there are those that extrapolate, guessing what would have happened if history took another path, but they tend to be accurate. Fairly, actually, and –”\n\n“What would have happened?” Azorious asked. \n\n“Yes. Sorry.” \n\nSijashi sighed, tapping the tips of his fingers together, clearly collecting his thoughts. He looked at the books once more, shook his head, and turned back to the two of them. \n\n“Without you, Lykus would have never grown to the powerful man that he is now. He would have been done, done good, but without you, Azorious, he would have been limited. His potential was always vast, but meeting you, joining with you, was the catalyst that allowed him to see it and believe it. Without that, he would have been a traveling card trader, using his power to help and enjoy others, but he would have taken decades more to get close to where he is now.\n\n“As for you, Azorious, Lykus was your key out of Desiderium. Without him, you would have escaped time and time again, but always hunted, always taken back to your plane of birth. And – at our best guess – you would have done some good things, because there has always been good in you…but you would have been limited in what you could accomplish because there was nobody to hold you.”\n\nLykus glanced over his shoulder. A life without Azorious in it felt…empty. For all that he was grateful that they had the arrangement that they did now – no longer bound to the same body, sharing the same space – the idea of being apart from him, or never meeting the demon, was abhorrent. The very idea that they might never have bonded shook him to the core, and he shivered, his tail dropping between his legs. \n\nBefore he could say anything, Azorious reached out and took his hand. The big demon squeezed it, and he squeezed back as the demon spoke up. \n\n“But we did find each other. That’s all that matters.”\n\n“Indeed. There is little point in discussing the what-ifs, particularly when they are as sad as that.”\n\n“Uh-huh,” Lykus said. \n\n“But…I do want you to take these.”\n\nSijashi held out the books with a small smile. \n\n“They are copies of the originals, of course. I cannot simply offer the ones we regularly update, even as a loan, but I want you to see what I have seen. If either of you could see even half of what I see, know half of what I know, you would be insufferable. You would be arrogant with good reason for all the wonderful things that you’ve made happen, through the chaos and the pleasure and everything else you’ve done. And you’d know, deep down, that you deserved every prize you took, because between the two of you…you are nearly angels yourselves.”\n\n“I – um – wow…”\n\nAzorious chuckled as he took the book, but Lykus was stumbling over his words in a way that was completely out of character for him. He looked down at the tome as he took hold of it, shaking his head at the sight of his own smiling face looking back at him. It was handsome, and he knew he actually did look like that, but it was so…so different from what he was kept trying to be. \n\nHe was good, but was he that good?\n\n“Um…so, uh, what’s the highlights?” Lykus asked, trying to shake himself free of the embarrassing blush on his face. \n\n“Well, for you, Lykus, you have done many things. Your obsession with cards and your patronage of the arts have kept no less than four card shops in existence, floating along with both your payments and the patronage of others that you have inspired. The way that you use them, the flamboyance, the playfulness: it inspires others. And the stories of the ‘Ultra Wolf’ – and yes, there are other nicknames, but that’s the main one – have inspired others to try and take on bad people their way. The art of card magic has spread because of you.\n\n“And that is not all, of course. You have also encouraged so much more in the way of free love and casual play. Many that would never dare try something beyond simple intimacy with the lights on have decided to try other things. Your public displays, as raunchy as they are, have given others the courage to try something different, inspiring them. And that is just the start, my friend.”\n\nAs Lykus burned bright red, hugging the book to his chest, he realized that Azorious was staring down at the other book with something approaching trepidation. Almost like he was afraid of what he’d find, Lykus realized. He looked at the angel, then nodded at the demon at his side. Sijashi nodded back. \n\n“As for you, Azorious –”\n\n“There’s no way I’ve done anywhere near this much.”\n\n“Have you not?” Sijashi shook his head. “You have brought down corrupt churches that masquerade as people of light and charity. You have swept away the demons that seek harm to others rather than the pleasure that you champion. You walk this world with pride, both in yourself and in the things that you do, and both are eminently deserved. On your shoulders, you carry the possibility of demons being accepted as good people, and every step you take reminds others that goodness can be found everywhere. Your pride, your bravery, and yes, even your choice to remain nude so often –”\n\n“Hey. Sheath needs to breathe, okay?”\n\n“I’m sure,” Sijashi said with a smile. “But you both have done wonderful things, inspiring many others. And your deeds will only grow from here. So please. Take the books, and see what your actions have done. You deserve to know how wonderful you are.”\n\nThe wolves were struck dumb. No matter how glib Lykus wanted to be, he couldn’t think of a word to say. All he could do was stare at the book in his hand, shaking his head repeatedly. \n\n“Shall I take you home, now?”\n\n“…Only if you’re willing to play hooky for a day,” Lykus said, rubbing his eyes. “Seriously. I…thank you, but I really want to spend time with you.”\n\n“But the archives –”\n\n“Survived without you for a week,” Azorious said, tucking the book under his arm. “It can last one more day.”\n\n“…”\n\n“Please?” Lykus said. \n\n“…I suppose one day won’t hurt…”\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]\n\nSummary: Lykus and Azorious kill time until they can summon Sijashi, and finally get the particulars of what happened and what’s going to happen going forward. \n\nTags: M/solo, Implied M/M, Wolf, Wolves, Demon, Angel, Lion, Docetri, Series, Wrap-Up, Feel-Goods, Heaven, Caelum, Summons, Explanation, Epilogue of Sorts, ",
"writing_bbcode_parsed": "
Falling Angel, Rising Friend Part 8 For AkimitsuSevecan By Draconicon
“How much longer now?” Lykus asked.
“You asked that two minutes ago.”
“No, no, it has to be longer than that.”
Azorious sighed. The black and white wolf gestured at the phone on the nightstand beside the bed, and the demon picked it up and checked.
“Still another twenty minutes.”
“Ugh!”
“Told ya.”
“Time is slowing down. I swear. I’m going to check the kitchen clock. The phone’s slow.”
“It’s not.”
“It is!”
Lykus leaped out of bed, shaking his head as he avoided his friend’s sweeping arm to keep him there. Grumbling under his breath, he stalked out of the bedroom, down the hall, and into the kitchen. His eyes fell on the microwave clock, and he groaned.
“Told ya,” Azorious called down the hall.
“It’s a conspiracy!”
“No, it’s you being an impatient pup. Come back here and we’ll kill the time the way we always do.”
“No way. We’ll overshoot it.”
“There’s an alarm.”
“Then we have blue balls.”
“Lykus…”
He could hear the exasperation in Azorious’s voice and he knew that he was getting to be a bit much, but he couldn’t help it. It had been a week – or near enough – since Sijashi had gone back to Heaven or Caelum or whatever it was called where the angels lived. Sure, he hadn’t been in the city for long, but Docetri was smaller and less fun without a friend there. He genuinely wanted to enjoy himself with the lion, and the fact that he had to keep waiting to use the summoning card bothered him.
He stalked around the kitchen, barely dressed in a jockstrap that was on the verge of spilling over. The throbbing inside – a consequence of the perpetual pleasure that came from living around Azorious and the edging he had been doing as a distraction – wasn’t enough anymore. Ignoring it with surprising ease, Lykus paced from one side of the kitchen to the other, then into the hallway, then into the living room.
Around.
And around.
And around.
“How much longer now?” he shouted.
“Nineteen minutes.”
“Fuuuuuuuuuck.”
“You’re going to make it take longer by doing this, you know.”
“Come on. I just want to see him again. Maybe we got the time wrong. Gimme the card.”
“Nope.”
“Azorious, I swear, gimme the card or –”
“Nope. You gave it to me for safekeeping, and I’m gonna keep holding onto it.”
Which was probably for the best, but considering that Lykus was on the verge of going crazy from a lack of angelic lions. Sijashi had become a fast-friend, and not having him around – and not knowing what had happened – was more than he could bear. He liked his friends being happy, almost needed them to be, and being detached and having to deal with doing nothing was not something he was used to. In fact, he was reasonably sure that he’d never allow something like this to happen again. He would go with friends that had to take care of things, and – and – fuuuuuck, he was going crazy.
“How long now?”
“Eighteen and a half minutes.”
“GAH!”
He ran down the hall and leaped from the doorway to the bedroom at the demon wolf. Azorious rolled out of the way, letting Lykus land on the sweaty sheets and pillow he’d been lying on, and the mortal wolf didn’t have a chance to react before the bigger canine rolled back to his original position.
“Gah!”
“You’re going to sit until the timer’s up.”
“Not fair!”
“Uh-huh.”
“You’re too big!”
“Nope.”
“You’re going to crush me!”
“Not what you said when I was fucking your face, heh.”
Lykus grumbled, nose buried in a pillow that was at least halfway soaked with ball-sweat and who knew what else from all that they’d been doing over the last night. At least the smell was somewhat relaxing and familiar. Not something that he’d use as perfume or anything like that, but at least it was familiar enough to calm him down and let him feel a little less harried and panicked.
He closed his eyes, taking another long sniff, then another. Sure, it all went to his dick, but more than that, the demonic pheromones helped calm him down and think about something besides his friend being in trouble. Dick, mostly, but also just the fact that Azorious was there and the demon was doing his best to make things okay.
Things would be okay. They were still together, and even if things went badly for Sijashi, they’d find a way to make it good again. One way or another.
One breath turned to two, then three, then four before he lost count. He remained face-down in the pillow as the seconds, then minutes ticked on, and he was just starting to grind against the mattress when –
Ding. Ding. Ding.
“Time’s up,” Azorious said, voice muffled from the other side.
“Mmmph…”
“Heh, you ready to summon the angel?”
“Mmm-hmm!”
“Alright, lemme get the card.”
Lykus rolled out of bed as soon as Azorious rolled off of him. When the black and red wolf flicked his hand and summoned the spell-card to his fingertips, the mortal wolf was right there, hands out and waiting. Despite his friend’s chuckles, he was patient enough to wait until the card was in his hands to turn his attention to the spell-casting.
“Alright, here we go. Sijashi, come on back. We miss you, angel.”
It was a simple enough spell, though he remembered the constraints on it. The card was meant to summon an angel that could see the good in everything, and in order for the spell to work, it required that the caster have a need that aligned with that purpose. Without that, it wouldn’t work.
Lykus chuckled. Fortunately, he was very good at loopholes.
He closed his eyes, focusing on the feeling that he’d been ignoring since Sijashi was gone. It was a sad one, an emotion that tugged at the corners of his muzzle and left him feeling down, almost depressed when he remembered that his friend wasn’t around anymore. It was a horrible state of affairs, and more than anything, he needed someone that could look at it and tell him what – if anything – was good about it. What was the good in such a horrible feeling that he couldn’t get out of?
As soon as he felt the card shimmering and tingling against his fingers, Lykus giggled. It worked.
He tossed the card on the floor, sitting on the bed with his tail wagging behind him at full speed. The light emerged from the card front, rising higher and higher until it formed a rough silhouette for the angelic lion. He leaned forward, grinning with all his teeth showing, and despite the more unbothered presence of his best friend, he could tell that Azorious was in a similar state.
Finally, the light faded, revealing their friend. Sijashi stood over the card, his tail twitching back and forth as he furled his wings against his back. He glanced around the room, then slowly bent down, picking up the card. His robes sagged over his frame in purple and white and blue, and he shook his head with a tiny smile as he stood up again.
“I believe that this card was meant to summon me when you had need of me.”
“Oh, but we did,” Lykus said. “We were miserable without you.”
“He was,” Azorious muttered, nodding sideways at the smaller wolf.
“So were you!”
“Not as bad as you.”
“I meant, there must be a purpose to be fulfilled,” Sijashi said, holding out the card. “This is meant for serious things, Lykus.”
“Well…you said summon you in a week, and that’s what we had for it,” he said, shrugging. “Besides, it worked, didn’t it?”
“…Yes, but that’s not the point.”
“Heh, it is to me. Now. Hug me!”
He leaped off the bed and into the lion’s arms. Despite the momentary shock and huffiness, Sijashi embraced him in turn and Lykus smiled, nuzzling into the other man’s neck. There was a genuine warmth there, and something else, something clean and happy and light. Like a spring breeze mixed with clean laundry with a little bit of sunlight thrown in for good measure.
It was nice.
After giving the angel a good squeeze and drawing the tiniest of squeaks out of him, he let go. Azorious took his place, giving Sijashi an embrace that lifted him right off the ground, then stepped back. As the angel adjusted his clothes, pulling them all back to the proper spot, Lykus asked the question that had been burning away for the whole week.
“So? How’d it go?”
“I assume you mean the inquest and the other issues above,” Sijashi said, dusting his robe off and pulling it to hang properly off his shoulders. “Or was there something that I forgot?”
“No, no, just, uh, that.”
“Ah. Then it went well.”
“Well? How well? Come on, man, details,” Lykus said.
“It…Are you that concerned?” Sijashi asked, cocking his head to the side.
“Concerned?! Sijashi, we’ve been in the dark for a week. All we know is that they kicked you out and you were going back to try and fix that. You said that you could do it, but – come on. I’ve been going crazy here and – mmmph!”
A big hand over and around his muzzle kept him from getting another word out. Azorious leaned around, shaking his head as he looked the lion dead in the eye.
“What he’s trying to say is that we’ve been thinking about you and hoping you’ve been okay for a week. Since we can’t actually get up there, and we couldn’t get any news until the week was over, we’ve been a little…antsy.”
“…I am sorry. I am not used to other people caring about me so much.”
“Well, we do. So, spill.”
Lykus squirmed free of Azorious’s grip, rubbing his muzzle. It was hard to be calm when a new friend had potentially been in danger. Nobody else had seemed that concerned – not Azorious, and not Draconicon – but they hadn’t been able to give him any comfort or reason not to be bothered, or scared, or anything. All he could do was just hope for the best, and while he was a very hopeful wolf, there was only so much that he could do before everything just started breaking down.
But Sijashi was here now, and that meant that things were okay. Now he just needed details.
The lion tapped his chin, clearly collecting himself, and Lykus made himself sit down on the bed again. He could be good, and would be. As Azorious sat down beside him, Sijashi nodded and began his story.
“When I returned to Caelum, there were, of course, several angels that came to meet me and claim that I needed to leave. I told them that there had been a simple overreach, and I merely wanted to talk to those responsible and see the paperwork that they had filed. This, of course, was quite reasonable.”
“You’re kidding me,” Azorious said. “That’s all it took?”
“We are very proud of following procedure,” the lion said, bowing his head. “And while I am probably excessive, even among angels, we are all bound to a certain protocol. By invoking it, I was safe to stay for a time.”
“And? What did they find?” Lykus asked.
“Exactly what I expected them to find: nothing. My immediate superiors at the archive overreached themselves and threw me out without filing the proper paperwork trail, and without going through the proper procedure themselves. They believed that I was lower-ranking than I was, and rather than confirm my identity, they activated security.”
“…They threw you out because they didn’t check your ID?” Lykus asked.
“That is about the sum of it, yes.”
“You mean…you got kicked out of heaven –”
“Caelum.”
“Sorry. Caelum. You got kicked out because some dick didn’t want to read your ID, and thought you were the office gopher instead of the person in charge?”
“More or less, yes.”
“…That’s…so…stupid,” Lykus groaned, rubbing his forehead. “Oh my god, that’s all it was?”
“More or less. Of course, if that was all that they did, then I would have merely taken my position back and that would have been that, but it was not.”
“Heh, sounds like someone made a mistake,” Azorious said. “What’d those assholes forget?”
“It is not what they forgot, but rather, what they did afterward. It seems that at least one of them must have realized in post who they were banishing, because when they were asked for the paperwork filed for my banishment, they could not find it.”
“…What do you mean, they couldn’t find it?” Lykus asked.
“It seems that they were not only being too hasty in my banishment, but they tried to hide that they had banished me at all. And that proved that they not only had made a mistake, but they were aware that they had made a mistake and were trying to cover it up.”
Lykus grinned.
“Oh…oh, you had them trapped then.”
“Indeed.” Sijashi smiled. “After that, the heavenly courts ruled that I was not only to be reassigned with full privileges, but that the others would have to attend a decade-long training course. They will likely learn all that they can learn in five days, but the punishment is to endure endless training without breaks.”
Azorious and Lykus winced. He knew how boring that would be. For all that Hell had some of the more engaging, painful sort of tortures, that felt mind-numbing enough to be something that would be found down there.
Or, in Desiderium…
Ugh. It was still weird to try and wrap his head around what they were called. He kept thinking of the old names and didn’t know how to handle that.
“At any rate. Everything is back to normal, and I still owe the both of you so much.” Sijashi smiled. “You did so much for me without even knowing what I was. I did not need to be an angel to see the good things in you. You’ve both been so upright, so kind, so good, that anyone could see it.”
“Well, Lykus has,” Azorious said.
“No. Both of you.”
The angel stepped forward, resting one wing on each of them. Lykus shivered under the wing, feeling something…something new.
Goodness.
Wonder.
Light.
Warmth.
Happiness.
Azorious grumbled at his side, shifting as if fighting the instinct to pull away or to push forward. It was almost background to Lykus, and if it had been anyone else, it would have been compared to the different feeling that the wing gave him.
Under the feathers, he felt…nice. More than that, he felt appreciated, almost like the feeling of being applauded when he pulled off a cool trick, except multiplied dozens of times over. His muzzle twitched as a smile crept over it, and he lowered his head as he savored the feeling and the embrace that came with it.
“The both of you have done wonderful things, together and apart. There is nothing but goodness in both of you. Sometimes twisted, sometimes strange, but goodness, nonetheless. And if you cannot see that yourselves, then I feel that I must show you.”
“Mmmph…”
“Will you come with me?” Sijashi asked.
“Where?”
“Where else?”
“…If Lykus comes,” Azorious said.
“Hell yeah!” Lykus said.
“Then let us go.”
#
When the light faded again, they were no longer in the apartment, but on top of a cloud. Lykus gasped as he stumbled, his hands going to his card packs at his waist to stop himself from falling…only to realize that he wasn’t. The clouds supported him, which meant that they weren’t just clouds floating in the sky.
“…Why doesn’t it hurt?” Azorious muttered.
Lykus blinked, looking up from the clouds to the demon. The black and red wolf stared into the distance, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides.
Right. Caelum, his opposite. He hurt all the other times that we ran into holy stuff, so why –
“You are half-here,” Sijashi said, the lion folding his hands behind himself as he stood between them and the rest of the cloudy world. “Your bodies are still in your apartment, but your minds, your souls, are here in Caelum. It was the safest way to get you here without causing pain.”
“Less the rules, and more just ensuring that there does not need to be an inquest as to my guests.”
“Fair enough.”
Lykus spun on his heel, his face still split in two with a wide grin. The fact that he was standing on top of a cloud – soft as could be under his feet – was one thing, but it was everything else that really sold this place as a heavenly realm.
Warm sun beamed down on him, uninterrupted by pollutants or anything else that would have corrupted it on the surface. The breezes that flowed around him were filled with soft scents of flowers, of earth, of life, and they were never cold, never chilling. Instead, they soothed him, running through his fur and making him feel fluffier than ever. He chuckled, hugging himself as he felt like he was getting filled with pure life and wonder, and…
And in the distance, there was singing.
For a second, he thought it would be something hymnal, but no. If anything, it was more…more folksy, like the simple humming and idle singing that would have happened anywhere on earth, but better. It was like all the voices knew what they were doing, and knew how to sing in a way that made the ears happy.
“This is great,” Lykus said. “So, what kind of games do you have up here?”
“I am afraid none that we have time for.”
“Awwww, you sure?”
“The simplest of our games would take you three years to play, and even then, it would only finish the first round.”
The wolf’s jaw dropped at the idea of a game that complicated, but his mind was already trying to wrap itself around that possibility. If it took that long, then there had to be so many rules and so many stages to each round. What happened to make it take so long? Were there that many variables that had to be considered? What happened if you got a step wrong, or was that why it took so long in the first place?
There were so many questions that he wanted to ask, but Sijashi cut him short, waving for them to follow.
“Come. I wish to show you your place in the archives.”
“Our – wait, hold on. What do you mean, our place?” Azorious asked.
“Let me show you. Please.”
The two wolves glanced at each other out of the corners of their eyes. They were somewhere they’d never been, well outside of anything that they had ever experienced, and there was no clear way back to their bodies. If there was ever a chance for a horrible trap, this was it.
And yet, there was no reason to distrust Sijashi. There never had been, no matter how strange everything was. The lion had always been kind to them, always showed the best of himself and been good to them. If he said that they were safe, then Lykus had no reason to distrust that.
Nonetheless, he reached out and took Azorious’s hand. The demon squeezed it back, and – after taking a deep breath – the pair of them started walking.
Across the clouds, down a street of blue jade stone, and into a building of cloud and steel and light that seemed to have taken liquid form they went, and finally, they were surrounded by books. Hundreds of them, thousands, running down aisles that seemed to go on forever. Scrolls floated from their racks as other angels called them, and books floated down to be carried off to reading rooms, and Lykus just stared.
Even from here, he could feel the weight of history. Oh, he’d seen the hint of an archive when Sijashi showed it to them in Docetri, but that had been an illusion. This was the real thing, and there was a tangible, beautiful feeling of power and history and permanence here. It was more than just a pile of books in front of him. This was history, this was everything that had existed and perhaps some of what would, all laid down on parchment by ink and magic, resting there and waiting to be seen.
Here, right here, was all the evidence of life and wonder and thought and whimsy. It was breathtaking.
“Come, come, follow me,” Sijashi said.
They fell in line behind him, the two wolves staring at the bookshelves on either side. Lykus wondered how high they went, and he couldn’t even guess what was going through Azorious’s head. Every so often, they slowed down, just taking in the sheer magnitude of the great library that Sijashi oversaw, and when they did, the lion came back to them and pulled gently at their arms. Not hard, not firmly, but enough to keep them moving along without a word.
The fact that there were angels – big-winged, white-feathered beings of various species, all in different colored robes – all around them that didn’t say a word and didn’t seem to see them was…strange. Not bad, but certainly enough to put Lykus on edge. He could feel Azorious’s discomfort, though, and he kept reaching out, patting his friend on the back and trying to keep him from feeling too vulnerable.
He hoped it worked.
Finally, they reached a small alcove in the shelving system. Sijashi gestured to the two books that were on the table, smiling as he did.
“These are your Books,” he said, leaning against the small table. “And they have recorded every deed you’ve done, and the results. No matter how small, the ripple effects of every one fo your actions have spread, and here we have penned the results.”
“Heh…why are they the same size?” Azorious asked. “Lykus has been on earth longer than me.”
“And you have done many things in that short time,” Sijashi said. “And more than you know.”
“Sijashi?”
“Yes, Lykus?” the lion asked, cocking his head to the side.
“There’s something I’ve…kinda wanted to know for a while,” the black and white wolf admitted, rubbing the back of his head. “I’ve always been glad to have Azorious around, and I know it’s changed both our lives, meeting each other. But…I guess I want to know. How much did it change our lives? I mean, would we have had good times without meeting each other?”
“…Good, yes, but far from as good,” the angel admitted. “Part of taking notes and keeping records means that there are those that extrapolate, guessing what would have happened if history took another path, but they tend to be accurate. Fairly, actually, and –”
“What would have happened?” Azorious asked.
“Yes. Sorry.”
Sijashi sighed, tapping the tips of his fingers together, clearly collecting his thoughts. He looked at the books once more, shook his head, and turned back to the two of them.
“Without you, Lykus would have never grown to the powerful man that he is now. He would have been done, done good, but without you, Azorious, he would have been limited. His potential was always vast, but meeting you, joining with you, was the catalyst that allowed him to see it and believe it. Without that, he would have been a traveling card trader, using his power to help and enjoy others, but he would have taken decades more to get close to where he is now.
“As for you, Azorious, Lykus was your key out of Desiderium. Without him, you would have escaped time and time again, but always hunted, always taken back to your plane of birth. And – at our best guess – you would have done some good things, because there has always been good in you…but you would have been limited in what you could accomplish because there was nobody to hold you.”
Lykus glanced over his shoulder. A life without Azorious in it felt…empty. For all that he was grateful that they had the arrangement that they did now – no longer bound to the same body, sharing the same space – the idea of being apart from him, or never meeting the demon, was abhorrent. The very idea that they might never have bonded shook him to the core, and he shivered, his tail dropping between his legs.
Before he could say anything, Azorious reached out and took his hand. The big demon squeezed it, and he squeezed back as the demon spoke up.
“But we did find each other. That’s all that matters.”
“Indeed. There is little point in discussing the what-ifs, particularly when they are as sad as that.”
“Uh-huh,” Lykus said.
“But…I do want you to take these.”
Sijashi held out the books with a small smile.
“They are copies of the originals, of course. I cannot simply offer the ones we regularly update, even as a loan, but I want you to see what I have seen. If either of you could see even half of what I see, know half of what I know, you would be insufferable. You would be arrogant with good reason for all the wonderful things that you’ve made happen, through the chaos and the pleasure and everything else you’ve done. And you’d know, deep down, that you deserved every prize you took, because between the two of you…you are nearly angels yourselves.”
“I – um – wow…”
Azorious chuckled as he took the book, but Lykus was stumbling over his words in a way that was completely out of character for him. He looked down at the tome as he took hold of it, shaking his head at the sight of his own smiling face looking back at him. It was handsome, and he knew he actually did look like that, but it was so…so different from what he was kept trying to be.
He was good, but was he that good?
“Um…so, uh, what’s the highlights?” Lykus asked, trying to shake himself free of the embarrassing blush on his face.
“Well, for you, Lykus, you have done many things. Your obsession with cards and your patronage of the arts have kept no less than four card shops in existence, floating along with both your payments and the patronage of others that you have inspired. The way that you use them, the flamboyance, the playfulness: it inspires others. And the stories of the ‘Ultra Wolf’ – and yes, there are other nicknames, but that’s the main one – have inspired others to try and take on bad people their way. The art of card magic has spread because of you.
“And that is not all, of course. You have also encouraged so much more in the way of free love and casual play. Many that would never dare try something beyond simple intimacy with the lights on have decided to try other things. Your public displays, as raunchy as they are, have given others the courage to try something different, inspiring them. And that is just the start, my friend.”
As Lykus burned bright red, hugging the book to his chest, he realized that Azorious was staring down at the other book with something approaching trepidation. Almost like he was afraid of what he’d find, Lykus realized. He looked at the angel, then nodded at the demon at his side. Sijashi nodded back.
“As for you, Azorious –”
“There’s no way I’ve done anywhere near this much.”
“Have you not?” Sijashi shook his head. “You have brought down corrupt churches that masquerade as people of light and charity. You have swept away the demons that seek harm to others rather than the pleasure that you champion. You walk this world with pride, both in yourself and in the things that you do, and both are eminently deserved. On your shoulders, you carry the possibility of demons being accepted as good people, and every step you take reminds others that goodness can be found everywhere. Your pride, your bravery, and yes, even your choice to remain nude so often –”
“Hey. Sheath needs to breathe, okay?”
“I’m sure,” Sijashi said with a smile. “But you both have done wonderful things, inspiring many others. And your deeds will only grow from here. So please. Take the books, and see what your actions have done. You deserve to know how wonderful you are.”
The wolves were struck dumb. No matter how glib Lykus wanted to be, he couldn’t think of a word to say. All he could do was stare at the book in his hand, shaking his head repeatedly.
“Shall I take you home, now?”
“…Only if you’re willing to play hooky for a day,” Lykus said, rubbing his eyes. “Seriously. I…thank you, but I really want to spend time with you.”
“But the archives –”
“Survived without you for a week,” Azorious said, tucking the book under his arm. “It can last one more day.”
“…”
“Please?” Lykus said.
“…I suppose one day won’t hurt…”
The End
Summary: Lykus and Azorious kill time until they can summon Sijashi, and finally get the particulars of what happened and what’s going to happen going forward.