One

Gray. Dreary. Wet. Perdition is always the same. Voices echo almost mournfully down the roadways, shadows creep along the edge of light, threatening to swallow whole any who wander into their slavering jaws. Small lesser demons skitter in alleyways and fight amongst each other, toppling over rusted trashcans and tearing apart plastic and paper discarded to the streets by those who lord over them. Perdition is far from a proper place for an angel to be.  

Yet it is still home.  

Nothing rings truer for Arkiel, who is fragile in body yet strong in spirit and mind. The darkness and lack of sunlight sap the fledgling of the proper nutrients he needs to grow. It causes his horns to become brittle, easy to snap off should one grasp them hard enough. Mangled wings refused to straighten and regrow properly, causing him pain he has long since learned to bear. None of it phases him, neither the creeping melancholy of this realm nor the jealous and often hateful gazes burning holes into his back. He is...content here. This realm is his own, and just like his parents it acknowledges him. The rain does not wet him, nor do the shadows nip and tear at the light he bears.  

He knows that if he were stronger, if he were anything like the siblings who took after their Father or inherited their Mother’s strength and resilience that he would be mantled as a guard of Perdition’s gates. For his weak body he is grateful, he is allowed to roam as he please drifting along as if pushed by a breeze. The less anyone expects and acknowledges him the better. He wishes to grow strong in peace, to save up his energy for the day he will break free of his Father’s shackles and never turn back.  

Despite the wreckage of his wings and porcelain like fragility of his body he knows he will soar free like the birds his Mother often sings of.