Morningstar

Publisher's Note

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

The publisher has no control over and does not assume responsibility for any third-party websites or their content. The uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law.

Copyright © 2007-2010, S.L. Armstrong. All rights reserved.

Second Edition

Cover Art by Kuma Wind

For Roger, who continues to inspire me.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

                                             Psalms 150:6

They called it my Fall.

That's a convenience, though. That makes it sound as though it was entirely my fault. Oops, I tripped and Fell. Ha, ha, everyone laugh at the clumsy fool!

The truth is, I was thrown out. I was cast from the sight of God. That's right - I was so horrible and my actions so beyond reproach that the all-loving God could not bear even to look at me. That's the truth. But the Truth is, He was afraid of me. He was afraid that if He allowed me to remain, that I would gather more of His faithful to me and return even stronger than before. So He, with His so-called infinite patience, expelled me, and all those who followed me, locking the gates of Heaven behind us.

Now, here I am. Out of His sight, out of the reach of His hand.

But, I am also out of
his
reach. The only one who mattered to me in the end. And I will never again feel his touch, see his glorious smile or hear his breathless whispers to me in the heat of our passion.

Yes, angels feel passion, feel love. We were given Free Will, after all. And, oh how we loved. The passion of an angel cannot be weighed against anything Man can feel, for the passion Man feels is only a shadow of what we shared.

Before time could be measured, I loved him. He stood by the Throne, took down all he saw, recorded all of Heaven's actions, and he was a Prince among princes. One of eight of us, exalted even over God's Voice. His dark hair would cascade over his pale shoulders, and his eyes were so expressive... but, I digress.

He was my heart, I think. An angel of poetry and prose, an angel of creation; he was all I could not be. Radueriel was not only physical beauty personified, but his words, his actions and his thoughts were glorious to behold.

I was the first. I was His most loved creation, next in honor only to His Son. God had given me an inner light that outshined all other angels, and placed me as their Chief. I was His wrath, His love, His might, and His gentleness. I was beautiful and terrible, and how I loved and honored Him above all in Heaven.

I was perfect.

In the times before the War, I found bliss in Radueriel's arms, before God took him from me.

"In all of Heaven, thou art most beautiful," I said to him one night as he gazed up into the canopy of the dark sky. He turned those vibrant blue eyes to me, and a smile I can only compare to the light of The Father was bestowed upon me. Even in the cold nothingness of expulsion, I remember Radueriel and our love.

Radueriel reached over and caressed my cheek, leaning in to kiss my lips softly. "All in Heaven pale when thy light shines, Morningstar," he whispered, his dark lashes fluttering against his alabaster cheeks. "No angel can claim perfection when they see thy face and all its radiance."

We were like that. We were created to be flatterers, after all. Naturally, all this was expressed without the feeble trappings of mortal language. This was in the time before Eden, so there was no such thing, of course.

I say 'the time before' as though it were a simple statement. The fact is that the mere existence of linear time was still a strange and unfamiliar concept then. Before that, there had been timelessness where we angels were with God in all things, feeling and seeing and knowing everything. But the act of creation severed us from that, and we knew for the first time of the differences between past, present, and future. That was the first Separation.

As the First among angels, it was my task to calm the unease that rippled throughout the heavenly host. Linear thought was a frightening concept to many, so disconnected was it from 'the way things had been'. We could remember there was a time when we knew Everything, but the imposition of linear thought meant that we could remember nothing beyond that. Why would God do this to us, I was wordlessly asked again and again. Was He angry with us that He would hold us apart from Him?

I had the authority to assemble all the ranks of Heaven before me, though I did so rarely. This was one such time. I called all to hearken to me to attempt to quell the anxiety. I pleaded with my brothers to trust in the Lord God and to be not afraid. Of course the Creator had not forgotten us, nor was He angry. All were welcome at the foot of the Throne, and God's love was still ours alone. Do not question the Divine Plan, I said.

I did not follow my own advice. I could not silence the questions in my mind. He always knew of my worry, from the first inkling of thought, naturally. God, though, said nothing to me about it, preferring to allow me to approach Him when I could stand the questions no longer.

"Some of the angels think You are angry with us," I said to Him when I finally found the courage.

"But thou dost not think this." It was a statement, not a question. The Lord rarely had need of questions.

"No!" I insisted. "They doth not feel Your love as they once did, and they are frightened. They ask for Your reassurance."

"Any of My children may come before Me at any time."

"Yes, Lord, but they are sorely afraid. They are afraid that if they come before You, they will know Your wrath for certain."

"What is it thou askest of Me?"

You could be sure that when God asked a question, He already knew the answer. The only reason He asked was to give you a chance to not answer. I was about to ask Almighty God to address the host of Heaven as one, something He had never done. Before there was Time, there was no need; everything He knew, we knew. Obviously, the Separation had occurred because there was something that God knew that He did not want us to know. Who was I, a mere angel, a wisp of thought, to ask the Creator to explain?

Let me say something here about being in the presence of God. No Man, living or dead, has ever come into the true presence of God, no matter what they may say. Mankind was not created for that purpose. Their fragile bodies could not withstand the physical force of the Love of God. The light alone would blind any human, searing corneas and liquefying retinas. The voice of God would burst eardrums and rupture organs. Even that, though, is incidental. The Lord could easily dim His light and lower His voice to accommodate the weakest of mortals, and yet the strongest of them could no more survive the force of His Love than they could walk on the sun. The closest analogy that could be understood using language is the feeling of being placed underneath the finest microscope ever conceived. Try to imagine the weight of that crushing gaze, the inescapable knowledge that He knows everything—no, Everything—and loves you anyway. Now multiply that by infinity and square the result.

Could you stand against that?

I left the Throne without another word.

Time passed, as it always did, and my thoughts consumed me. Radueriel, who knew my heart and mind as he did, sought to quiet those worries. It was then that I realized how Heaven had changed. At one time, all angels expressed their love for one another in a physical manner. We made love as one, there were no partners or relationships. It was an outlet for the overwhelming love we felt for our Lord. But, as the nature of God changed, so did the nature of our expression of that love.

We were a pair, and I sought no other to slake my lusts. I was his and he was mine, and there were no others. This should have been a sign, and one I should have heeded and spoken to Him about. Instead, I bedded my lover again and again as he soothed my troubled heart with the bliss found between his thighs.

It was on such a night that I made my decision.

"Why doth thy brow crease, Morningstar?" he asked me, running his cool lips over my face. "Are thy thoughts troubled again?"

"My thoughts are ever troubled of late," I replied, cupping his face with my palms, stilling his kisses. "This new Creation worrieth me, for reasons I know not. All about it is strange and wondrous—and praise to the Creator for it—yet I cannot yet fathom its purpose." I looked up into those wise eyes, the soft white of his wings a backdrop to his dark hair, and I willed my misgivings to melt away under his loving gaze.

"Hast thou brought thy concerns to God?" he asked, kissing the palm on my hand.

"How can I question Him?" I replied, running my thumb over his bottom lip. "If He hast not spoken of things to us, He wilt not speak of them if I ask!"

"But thou canst go to Him. Thou canst be near Him and feel His love wash over thee." His eyes were closed as he spoke, and a peaceful smile was on his lips; I knew he was basking in the memory of our Lord, and I felt myself become angry with him.

"His love only maketh me forget while I am near Him." I strengthened my grip on his face, and his eyes opened, an emotion I had never seen lighting his fair face. "When I leave, the same questions continue to plague me. I do not need that kind of love!" I shouted, and as soon as the words passed my lips, I regretted them.

It was then that Radueriel looked at me fearfully and recoiled. I knew that the expression was mirrored in my own face. I had just said that I did not need the love of Almighty God! "Thou shouldst not say such things!" Radueriel said needlessly, resting his weight on his knees while his hands rested on my stomach.

"Of course not!" I yelled, suddenly angry, and I grasped his wrists in my hands tightly as I glared up at him.

Radueriel's eyes filled with tears, though I could see that he fought them. There is nothing more heartbreaking than the tears of an angel, and it hurt so much more that I loved him as I did. It also incensed me further.

"Calm thyself, Morningstar. Please!" he begged me. "If the love of God is more than thou needest, then come take solace with mine."

He was once again offering me up his body in which to quell my anger. And I took it. I flipped our positions and pinned his wrists above his head, my large hand easily restraining his more slender wrists. Radueriel's wings were spread beneath him and his hair fanned out over the feathers and onto the soft cloth under him. His face was flushed with arousal and with fear - two emotions I always inspired in him, it seems. Looking back on the later parts of our love, I can see now that he needed my anger, for he could not express such emotion. His overpowering love of our Lord prevented him from it, but in me, he found the fury he could not feel and he craved it.

Radueriel parted his thighs immediately for me, offering himself up as if he were a sacrifice to my rage.

In a way, I suppose he was.

With my free hand, I took myself in hand and pressed into him, stifling his initial cry with a ferocious kiss. If there was pain in Heaven, other than the loss of God's trust, it was this moment of joining. In the years after my 'Fall', I pondered why this was. We were angelic beings in a land of paradise and peace; why should we be made to feel pain upon joining our bodies and expressing love? The only answer I have found is that it showed us, very early on, that with pleasure or happiness came pain or sorrow, for even God's love came with those.

I thrust into him again and again, using my teeth on his lips and neck, heedless of his cries as I possessed him. He was needy under my free hand, thrusting himself into the tight circle of my fingers. I looked down at him as I continued to take him, marveling at his beauty even as he surrendered to my coarse touch. His head was thrown to the side, exposing his bruised throat - the marks of my teeth blossoming brightly against the pale flesh, and his eyes were half-closed, the dark lashes hiding his sapphire gaze. Those swollen lips were parted and his cheeks were stained crimson as he gasped and called my name.

My body tensed as I filled him with my seed, and my hand was quickly coated in his fluids. Radueriel became pliant under my straining body, still gasping and trembling against me. I released his wrists, my anger having left in a flood of spent passion, and I kissed his tender lips gently. "I love thee," I whispered into his ear, wrapping us in the great expanse of my wings.