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akystaracer22 · 6 months

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All right I'm going to go insane if I don't do this. So everyone here's the first instalment of my Archangel series. Keep in mind I am literally copy pasting what I wrote in my doc so this includes assorted HC's relevant to the fic, the plan, and a couple of snippets of conversation:

Always Four - Could Never Be Three

Estarossa had gotten captured by the four (now three) archangels, set to be executed for the crime of killing the fourth and arguably most powerful archangel. Sitting in a prison cell, he couldn’t help but notice how… familiar, everything looked. He didn’t think the architecture of the goddess realm would instil a sense of wistfulness (of home) in him more than the dark halls of the demon realm ever felt after he killed that archangel.

He also didn’t expect that watching each of the four (not four three now because he killed-) break apart in front of him would send a rush of panic and desperation he hadn’t even felt with the commandments. He didn’t expect for their animosity and vitriol to sink deep into him like longswords instead of being barely noticeable like toothpicks.

He didn’t want to care, but his heart – his thrice cursed heart that couldn’t seem to understand he was a demon – didn’t heed his desire to remain apathetic in the face of his execution.

[Part 1 of the Archangel series]

Note’s:

I’m giving archangel’s seraphine wing’s (credit to Blue Heart on Tumblr I'm in love with their wing shapes) because it creates a lot less clutter than what the fuck they have now. Also, anatomically correct wings for the goddess race. Just normal non high up goddesses have normal bird wing’s. In their baby stage the feathers are colourful, but they lose colour over the moults until they become pure white. The lighter the feathers of a goddess, the older they are.

Normal goddesses have one pair or normal wings, the archangel’s have one pair of seraphine wing’s, Elizabeth has two pairs of normal wing’s, and the Supreme Deity has two pairs of seraphine wing’s.

The Supreme Deity cares about her race, maybe not the other’s and certainly not the demon’s but her own? Of course.

The spell prevents everyone from remembering Mael too closely, but they still remember him.

Estarossa doesn’t know how he killed Mael, just that he did.

Estarossa still has his wing’s, they’re hidden with magic so while they’re invisible unless you make a magic check, they’re still there physically, he just subconsciously accounts for them.

Archangel’s promise: No matter what happens, we’ll find each other again. If one of us is captured, all of us will do whatever it takes to get them back, even if we have to fight the Demon King himself to do it.

I’m also giving Estarossa a different hairstyle to Meliodas because that hair does not flatter him. His hair is a lot longer, and for the most part he ties it back using whatever he can, scraps of cloth, vines, or sometimes even bits of leather. Whenever he tries to cut his hair his hand’s shake and he feels like he’s making a grave mistake.

Essentially, the curse doesn’t stick as well as it should. There are still bits of Mael peeking out through Estarossa and even with the dark magic infecting him it’s not enough to protect him from the demon realm. In combat against the Goddess Race, Estarossa tries to get through killing only the necessary, and mercy killing the prisoner’s.

Mael’s nicknames include Little Sun, Little Sunshine, Sunny, Sunshine, Sparrow, Sunbeam, Chickadee, Eyas, Fledgling, and more!

Mael is still a fledgling by goddess standards, as they measure age more by their wing’s than actual years, making the Archangel joining the front line’s the single most controversial decision the Supreme Deity has ever made.

Sunshine stubbornly clung to Estarossa until he was sealed with the demon race.

In order to kill a member of the goddess race, you have to slice off their wing’s and pierce their heart.

Part 1: Ludociel of Flash

Ludociel visits Estarossa before the scheduled execution, a private event because as much as he wants his brother’s killer to die, having anything related to his brother dragged out into anything resembling a celebration – like the execution of demons often are – sickened him, so after a request granted by the Supreme Deity, Estarossa’s death would be witnessed only by the royal family and her highest soldiers.

The three archangels.

Which felt like a raw wound ripped open.

So Ludociel visits Estarossa, ready to tear into the demon, and finds him staring at the ceiling of his cell. Having not noticed the archangel yet for some reason. Ludociel watches him stonily as Estarossa stares at the ceiling with an odd look in his eyes until the demon notices his presence at last. Jerking before his expression morphs into a scowl and the demon closes off.

So Ludociel starts ripping into the demon prince, now that he has the man’s attention. However, it quickly goes south for the archangel because now he’s just inviting more memories of his little brother to come back to the surface. Ludociel begins to spiral because holy shit his little brother is dead and gone and he has absolutely not coped well at all. This man just spent the entire eight months since Mael’s death on a fucking warpath alongside his fellow archangel’s to bring Estarossa to justice but now they have him and Mael’s still gone and it’s just going to shit for him emotionally.

Then Estarossa breaks the silence by saying “Nice weather we’re having by the way, really appreciate the sun on my skin.”

It breaks Ludociel from his grief and the archangel snaps that as a custom of mourning, the clouds have stayed overcast and will remain so until after Estarossa’s execution.

Without saying another word, the archangel turns around and leaves.

Part 2: Tarmiel of Ocean

Our three headed fuck visits after Ludociel, seeing how shaken up their leader was from the visit. He visits in the night when he knows the demon should be awake.

Except Estarossa is dead asleep on his stomach, snoring quietly and head turned away from the entrance of the cell.

Tarmiel is flabbergasted because he knows for a fact that Demons are for the most part nocturnal, to the point where even Meliodas, powerful as he was, could often be seen taking naps through the day when he could afford it.

So a demon just crashed out at night was unheard off.

But hey, Tarmiel’s emotional, Ludociel looked miserable, and Estarossa’s the guy Tarmiel’s gonna take his anger out on.

He raps harshly on the cell bars, waking Estarossa up and startling the demon off the bed. The demon scowls tiredly at the archangel, and Tarmiel in response scowls back and uses ocean to dump a bunch of water on Estarossa’s head.

The demon prince asks what the divine being’s problem is, and Tarmiel yells at him for both killing Mael and for making Ludociel sad. Estarossa bristles and snaps at Tarmiel that he wasn’t exactly intending that, but the idiot was getting all worked up over his brother and Estarossa just made a comment and that was it.

Tarmiel doesn’t believe him.

They both get in a shouting match with each other that results in Tarmiel leaving strangely hurt and Estarossa soaked and fighting a rising headache.

Part 3: Sariel of Tornado

Sariel notices shit. A lot of shit.

He spends the last few days before Estarossa’s execution watching the demon prince when he can. He notices a lot of things that don’t add up with Estarossa, thing’s that shouldn’t be the case.

Estarossa sleeping in the night from what Tarmiel told him wasn’t a fluke, the demon wasn’t nocturnal like his brethren. But he also stared at the architecture of his cell with something akin to fascination.

The prince also wasn’t exactly hostile, he was snarky, and bitter, and infuriating, but he wasn’t hostile. He made small talk with the maids that delivered his food while he ate, randomly added into conversations the guards had with each other without a thought. So hostile? No.

He also slept on his stomach or on his side, something demons just didn't do. They didn’t have to, and it was uncomfortable for them to do so because of their seven hearts.

Estarossa also never noticed him, his presence never seemed to trigger any sort of response. That was something he would have expected from Commandment to Commandment, like what Zeldris and Meliodas used to have, or Derieri and Monspeet. It was an implicit type of trust that allowed Sariel to be in Estarossa’s space without so much as making the demon twitch.

Sariel just spends some more time observing him, and concludes that beyond all odds, Estarossa seems to be remarkably kind for a killer.

Sariel can admit that, if nothing else and as much as Sariel hated him, Estarossa’s allegiance would have led to the swift defeat of the demon clan.

Shame the prince had to kill one of the few members of the goddess race Sariel cared about.

Part 4: Elizabeth of the Goddess Race

Elizabeth goes to Estarossa’s cell with the intent of learning more about him through conversation. She knows there is no way that she’d be able to convince her mother or the archangel’s to spare him, and Mael was her friend as well. She wants to find closure and to know who Estarossa is before he dies.

Estarossa is unusually calm, and when she asks why he just shrugs and say’s “I’m going to die, no other way around it. I’m not going to run; I’d rather just sit here and admire the architecture.”

He mentions how it’s funny that he’s so calm because he always thought that it’d feel worse than the demon realm to be in a place that’s supposed to kill him. Instead, it feels nicer than the sickly oppression of the demon realm. Here, he can breathe.

He tells Elizabeth that the demon realm is suffocating, and he’d had breathing issues that kept him off the front lines for a lot longer than they should’ve, however once he was in the war his breathing cleared up. After that his power accelerated quickly allowing him to eventually kill Mael.

The Supreme Deity’s daughter asks how he did it and Estarossa scoffs, telling her that he just defeated and killed the archangel, that simple. She asks him to elaborate because Mael was powerful, very powerful. It shouldn’t have been an easy fight.

Estarossa opens and closes his mouth a few times, struggling to come up with a satisfactory response. He doesn’t remember. He doesn’t remember how he killed the Sunshine archangel, just that he did it.

Elizabeth takes his silence for refusal and switches topic, asking Estarossa where Mael’s body is. The demon prince is confused, and the goddess reveals they never found the body, they only heard about Mael’s fall and when he didn’t return… and then Estarossa announced he was the one who killed the archangel.

Estarossa think’s back to the day, the morning was blurry, but he knows he met with Gowther after the fight, and he thinks the demon mage took care of the body. He voices as much, and Elizabeth looks bitter.

Estarossa apologises on reflex, confusing himself just as much as the princess. As an explanation he just says, “I killed him, he was my enemy, but he was your friend.”

Elizabeth leaves with more questions than answers, but Estarossa’s apology helps ease the pain of Mael’s death.

Part 5: Estarossa

Day of the execution! And Estarossa rises nice and early, the execution is scheduled to happen at midday, so he has time to wait. Once again he just chooses to spend the time staring at the architecture of the cell and thinking back on his life.

Then Ludociel shows up at his cell and Estarossa stands up and holds out his hands for the shackles. He accepts them without a word and it’s a silent affair out of the dungeons. He stops for a second to admire the castle before he’s dragged along by the older man. He mumbles under his breath that Ludociel wasn’t lying, the sky really was clouded.

He’s taken to the room he is to die in, the throne room, where he sees the supreme deity for the first time.

She’s wearing her battle adornments, her silver gauntlet’s gleaming in the light of her halo. More than the archangels, more than her daughter, she bears two pairs or seraphine wings which are spread wide in a show of strength. Pure white feather’s marking her age better than anything else could have.

Estarossa has to force himself not to bow, which is something that he didn’t think he’d have trouble with considering that not even his own father could get him to bow half the time, yet here he was, trying to remind himself that this was the enemy even if his heart screamed that he needed give her a proper bow.

Somehow, he also could see through the halo. To see her cold golden glare framing her iridescent silver locks. To how her rage presented itself on her face instead of the rest of her because it was the safest bet.

How she called for his blood as much as Ludociel or the other archangels.

Somehow the thought was comforting to him and gave him the strength to keep his head held high, kneeling for the execution.

Sariel hands Ludociel Mael’s sacred sword, which is set to fittingly be the weapon to end Estarossa. Something in the demon stir’s and whisper’s in relief “So it did get home.”

The prince doesn’t have the time to think about it, as the Supreme Deity starts talking.

She asks if he knows why he’s here, and without his voice wavering in the slightest he answers in the affirmative. She then asks him what he has to say for himself, and he pauses. Thinking his words over, before stating that he doesn’t regret his decision. He knows he’s going to die, and he has made peace with it.

The Supreme Deity makes the call, and Estarossa closes his eyes, despite the hostility in the room, he feel’s secure and comforted in his death.

He feels a force hit his neck, and for a moment it burned before nothing.

He knew theoretically what death should feel like. This wasn’t it.

He snapped his eyes open to stare in unfiltered shock, for the first time in he didn’t know how long he let the dark magic tainting his eyes black bleed away, revealing the blue of his eyes as he turned around and gaped openly at Ludociel, who was standing too close to his back for comfort.

“What in Chaos' name was that.”

Part 6: Iana, The Supreme Deity

Mael’s blade strikes Estarossa, and it doesn’t kill or even leave any injury. Naturally Iana is pissed because since when the fuck does that happen. That was Mael’s sword it doesn’t fail to kill. It just doesn’t.

Angry and thinking magic is at play, the Supreme Deity essentially cast’s a powerful version of Detect Magic on Estarossa to try and find the source.

The answer she gets is simultaneously the best news she could get at the moment and at the same time the absolute worst.

A haunting pink magic she had only seen once before has itself wrapped tightly around Estarossa, forming shackles and bindings and chains, and pinning something to his back.

That something being his wing’s.

The wings are straining against the magic bindings and quivering against Estarossa’s back, and even from here she can see and most importantly recognise them for what they are, for who they belonged to.

Because those were Mael’s wing’s, and that was Gowther’s magic suffocating him.

The Supreme Deity doesn’t ask questions, she act’s immediately. Casting her magic and knocking out Estarossa. The governor of the goddess race, much calmer than she feels and just barely keeping her sheer horror out of her voice and expression, instructs the archangel’s and her daughter to leave the room for a little bit, as she needs to confirm some thing’s.

Hesitantly and with a hint of panic, the room is vacated, and she is left along with the unconscious prisoner. Carefully, she begins to work. She works at the magic binding his wing’s in an attempt to free them, to see for herself and hoping it’s just some sick joke.

With an angry hissing crack of white and pink magic clashing, Estarossa’s wings are revealed to the world after months of being bound. Feather’s in disarray after being neglected for all that time. Light but not white, still speckled with copper and pale grey. There was no mistaking the youth of Mael’s wing’s.

Iana’s breathing shudder’s and she reinforces the sleeping spell, there was no more doubt in her mind now, Estarossa never killed Mael, he couldn’t have because as long as Estarossa breathed, Mael lived.

Thinking about it, Iana can concede, albeit bitterly, that it made sense. Her daughter managed to cause the demon clan’s greatest combatant, Meliodas of Love, to turn traitor and side with Stigma. It would be cruel irony for the Demon clan to attempt the same. Though they managed it through cruel and destructive means, tearing the young goddess who still hadn’t lost all colour in his wing’s from his home and chaining him to stay in a land slowly killing him. Forcing him to fight against his people.

The Supreme Deity has to take a moment to calm herself, and takes Estarossa to a side room, dispelling her magic and prompting him to wake up.

The goddess turned demon wakes up and scarcely registers the wing’s on his back, instead going on the resigned defensive and asking if they found a way to kill him.

Instead, the leader of the Goddess Race asks him questions.

“How many of my subjects have you killed.”

“How long have you been involved on the front lines.”

“How did you kill Mael.”

“How much contact have you had with the Commandments.”

“Why do you accept your death so easily.”

Estarossa, much to Iana’s chagrin, answers honestly and as easily as he did when he was himself.

“Seventy Six.”

“Approximately Eight Months, though I spent a week in the demon realm after killing Mael recovering.”

“... With my magic and a strategy.”

“Limited, Aside from Zeldris and a few other's, I was never inclined to be around the other commandments for long, especially after I killed Mael.”

“Why should I not? There’s no way I’m surviving, is there.”

Iana puts Estarossa to sleep again and puts together the timeline.

The battle that Mael was send to deal with was a trap likely laid by Gowther in order to isolate him and strike hard and fast to incapacitate the goddess. Then it was just a matter of keeping the archangel down while the demon mage worked his twisted magic.

After that he was kept in the demon realm to try and corrupt him further to darkness, however seemed much less successful than they likely hoped for, seeing how the fledgling still seemed at ease and his breathing slow and steady and strong in the goddess realm.

She has to fight to keep the image of Mael suffocating in the miasmic decay of the demon realm out of her head, that’s not what she needs to think about right now. Right now, she needs to focus on unravelling the magic holding her archangel in chains of shadow.

Doesn’t mean that she has no plans to keep Mael safely in the Goddess realm until he fully recovers and by no means is the archangel ever having a solo mission again in his life.

After destroying a few more fragments of Gowther’s magic the familiar orange/gold of Sunshine flicker’s along Mael’s feather’s.

Iana pauses and gingerly reaches out to the fragment of her own magic, only for it to shy away in favour of seeking something else out, she watches it clash with some other unknown darkness seeping out into her archangel’s wings and feels ice in her veins.

Estarossa of Love they called him.

Holder of the commandment that once belonged to Meliodas.

Mael is not free of the darkness and try as Sunshine might as strong as it once was Gowther’s magic weakened her own and allowed a commandment to take root in the Fledgling.

And even if she wants to, with such a delicate operation not even she is capable of simultaneously disentangling her chosen from both Gowther’s magic and a commandment.

She calls Elizabeth back into the throne room and takes her to where Mael is, explaining the situation much to the princesses mounting horror. She demands to know how that’s possible and Iana grimaces and explains that Gowther’s particular brand of magic is one seldom used, the ability to twist minds and alter memory.

Elizabeth is 110% ready to help any way she can, and Iana guides her into isolating the commandment while the Supreme Deity works of destroying Gowther’s magic. Elizabeth wonders aloud if Meliodas could help and Iana scoffs and explains that giving any demon a commandment is a recipe of disaster, in situations of crisis the Demon King could track Mael through it as it is and if the connection if strong enough, control him to some degree. Luckily for them, Mael still has Sunshine running interference and the Goddess Realm itself obscuring Mael from prying eyes.

Just a little more work and they’re both greeted by a searing headache, and the Supreme Diety knows immediately that this is the crux of the curse, she breaks this, and the rest will fall apart. She warns her daughter to be ready to extract the commandment.

Go.

Iana’s magic cracks against the curse and at the same time Elizabeth pulls at the commandment with her ark, and Gowther’s magic finally snaps.

Part 7: Mael of Sunshine

Mael wakes up in the castle infirmary and is immediately confused seeing as he was not in the goddess realm last he checked. He goes to turn over and sit up when someone moves and his eyes snap towards the waking shape of his brother, who immediately drags Mael into a death grip hug. The archangel awkwardly returns it, asking what got Ludociel so worked up, it’s not like Mael hadn’t been injured in fights before.

The archangel of flash stills before asking with a quiet voice what Mael remembers of the past eight months.

Then said past eight months come rushing back and Mael jerks against Ludociel’s hold, eye’s wide with terror as the horror at his own actions kick in.

Ludociel keep a steady grip on his little brother as the fledgling trembles.

The door to the infirmary opens and both of them turn to look at Sariel and Tarmiel standing in the doorway, staring in visible shock at the brothers.

Cue group hug.

Pulling away from them, his feather’s ruffle as he admits that on that day he didn’t think he’d get the chance to do that again, hug them that is.

Sariel in an attempt to lighten the mood, asks what it was like in hell.

Mael laughs at the dumb joke and answer’s that the Supreme Deity’s description was aptly fitting. Perhaps to a member of the Demon race it would be more hospital, but he wasn’t a demon was he.

The four go quiet before Tarmiel apologises for dumping water on his head. Twice.

Mael shakes his head and says it cleaned him up, so no harm no foul.

Eventually the elephant of the room has to be addressed, what happened that day.

Mael goes silent before starting his recount of events. He’d arrived on scene to be greeted by none other than Gowther the doll. He’d gotten cocky, so used to being able to go toe to toe with Meliodas himself that he just rushed into the fight to get it over and done with.

Then an invasion arrow struck him in the neck and the doll pushed him to the ground. The demon mage himself was revealed to have fired the arrow and before he knew it the arrow turned into chain’s, shackling him, and preventing him from moving. They were especially tight around his wing’s.

The archangel fluffs out his wing’s just to prove to himself that he could.

He finishes by saying that funnily enough he woke up in the Demon King’s infirmary and his breath was a rattly wheeze, the most terrifying part looking back was the way the apparent breathing problem didn’t concern him at all. He just thought it was normal.

That and the commandments, that was also terrifying in retrospect.

Ludociel apologises quietly for attempting to kill him and Mael startles before shouting that Ludo didn’t know. It wasn’t his fault. If anything, it was Gowther’s fault that this happened. Not only that but Mael himself didn’t even remember, how could they have.

“I’m your brother, I should have recognised you!”

“…oh. So that’s what this is about.”

“… Mael-”

“I think you did, at least subconsciously.”

“Mael-!”

“No no no guy’s let me finish! I think all of you, at least to some degree recognised what was going on. You three could have easily killed me on that battlefield. I’ve seen what Ocean, Flash, and Tornado can do together; I should have been torn apart that day. Even with Sunshine I should be dead. But I’m not! And I was in possession of the commandment of Love, a commandment that, as a professional at dealing with said commandment, decrees that anyone who holds hatred in their heart will be unable to afflict harm on anyone else.”

“Our graces-”

“Are supposed to protect us from the commandments yes, but I myself was afflicted with the commandment, which means that it was probably able to adapt over the months to be able to effect even you guys. Deep in your heart you knew I was still in there under that curse. And in the end you saved me!”

“That’s a little wishful thinking there sunshine.”

“Probably, but it’s a nice thought. Especially since if you left it too late I could have still died.”

“…”

“I was slowly suffocating to death from the demon realm, if the war continued, I could have either died from being in the demon realm for too long, or one side would’ve won while I was still on the wrong team. You three saved me that day.”

“But-”

“You fulfilled the oath.”

“…what?”

“The oath, you know: no matter what happens, we’ll fight the demon king and anyone else to save each other? You guys technically fulfilled the oath without even knowing it. So what it was a little unorthodox.”

“… I can’t believe you.”

“Me neither.”

Then the door opens once again, and this time Iana and Elizabeth both arrive, immediately Mael bows as best as he can while bedridden. The familiar action soothing something inside of him that wanted to do so in the face of his own execution.

Iana’s feather’s settle when she sees him, and Mael relaxes minutely at the Supreme Deity’s relief.

She expresses her gratefulness that it seems Sunshine was able to do the rest of the work she needed it to, burning out the remains of the dark magic well enough.

Mael just blurts out “I never bowed” which confuses everyone prompting him to elaborate.

He explains that during those eight months, he never bowed to anyone. Not the commandments, not to his “superiors” and not even to the Demon King. None of them could get him to bow. He laughs bitterly and finishes by stating that even if he forgot who he was, he still somehow knew where his loyalty laid.

Iana shakes her head and explains that the heart forgets thing’s much harder than the mind, something Gowther was never able to understand. Perhaps if the demon mage was more empathetically inclined, the man’s ruse would have never uncovered. Luckily that was not so.

Mael spreads one of his wing’s and winces as the dull pain that accompanies the movement, he mutters mournfully that the wing binding still had an impact on him. His wings are dangerously weak and haven’t been preened in eight months, something members of the goddess race have to do twice daily.

He huffs a sad laugh and surmises he’ll be grounded until his wings can recover at least.

Elizabeth points out he’ll be grounded for a lot longer than that all thing’s considered and Mael winces.

#seven deadly sins #worldbuilding #writing #sds mael #ludociel #sds #sds sariel #tarmiel #sds elizabeth #supreme deity #archangel series

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