The Snake And The Angel Story

[Angel Nicholson]

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Prologue:

Kaylin stared into the river beneath her feet. Her reflection stared back at her and she examined it intently trying to show she was ignoring the girl beside her. Her skin was covered in tiny green scales, her eyes were bright glowing yellow and her hair was thick and navy blue. She pouted and pulled up the white linen of her robe to try and hide her bare chest a little better. The girl next to her sighed and she turned her head to take in her appearance once more. Her hair was long and blue-black, her eyes bright gold and her skin was human and tan. She clenched her jaw. There was no way they could be related, much less sisters. Half as they may be, she hated it.
“Kaylin, when's my mom coming back? When are we going to find her...?” the girl said quietly breaking the silence between them. The serpent skinned girl looked back down at her feet.
“I...I don't know, Lilly...When we do find her, she won't be able to be your mom...But it won't be long...” she replied. No matter how badly she wanted to, she couldn't hate the girl herself.
“What do you mean...?”
“Your mom will be different when we find her...She died, but she's the fallen angel that just keeps falling...She could very well be a baby when we find her and she probably won't recognize you for many years, but she will and she'll know exactly who you are...Don't worry, Lilly. Dad will be here to get you soon, I've done all I can for you.”
“What does Dad look like, Kay?”
Kaylin smiled. “Well, he looks like me.”
“How much like you?”
“You'll see, hun.”
They sat the next few moments in silence listening to the water in the river flow and splash against the bank's edge. The leaves near them rustled in the breeze and the moment stayed peaceful like this until they heard someone treading the grass behind them. Kaylin turned around to look her father in the eyes.
“It has been a long time, Kaylin.” he said with a soft smile. Lillian turned around to look at him and shock racked her little body. He was identical to Kaylin, he was tall, thin, had the same green scales, the same yellow eyes and the same long, thick, navy blue hair tied up into a messy ponytail.
“D-Dad...?” she spat out. He smiled.
“That is my name, now isn't it?” he said. “I haven't seen you since you were a baby, Lilly. Come, and I will explain.” Lilly hesitated, English didn't seem to be his first language.
“E-explain what? Kay's already told me-”
“Come, I said, and I will explain. I wish for you to know everything. About me, and your mother. Your sister, too.” he added towards Kaylin with a quick wink.
“But...”
“Come, come. Listen and I will tell you.”  

[Angel Nicholson]

Chapter 1:

Dawn shielded her eyes against the sun coming in her open window. She groaned. She hated dragging herself out of bed every morning. Slowly, she slid out from under the covers and crawled over to the basket of clean laundry in her room, flicking her tarnished, silver halo back into place. She dug around in it looking for her pants. She found her navy jeans and a black t-shirt. She changed out of her nightshirt and into her clothes and looked around for her shoes. She found her red heels and slipped them on. She found her brush on the floor behind the basket and brushed her hair, making her way to the bathroom down the hall to brush her teeth. Suddenly she heard yelling from the downstairs.
“And that's my cue to leave.” she whispered as she snuck back to her bedroom. She pushed the window open and in no time had climbed down the trellis and onto the little yard. She stretched towards the sky and breathed in the fresh air. Sighing heavily, she looked around her. The scene was just the same as it was yesterday. And the day before, and so on. The garden was falling apart, but her family just didn't have time to tend to it anymore. She started down the path that lead out of her neighbourhood and into the market. It wasn't long before the familiar smells of the cafe's and flower shops filled her nostrils.
“Hey! Dawn!” a voice called out. She turned to look behind her and smiled once she saw who it was.
“Kaida, I didn't expect to see you this early. What's up?”
The serpent boy grinned widely, showing his tiny, pointed fangs. “Nothing has changed since last night. You ready to move in yet, or not?” he asked wide-eyed. “Dad said your room is ready, Karin is letting you use her stuff if you want, she can't wait til you come. Mom says...”
Dawn stared at him as he babbled on. He was always like this. Bubbly and happy. His face seemed to sparkle with happiness. His whole aura was like that. He looked so happy all the time. She had noticed though, that there was a bit of sadness in the bottom of his heart that loomed over his head. He never let it get him down, he always rose above it and moved on with his life. She admired him for that. Though she never assumed she'd find out what made that black sadness inside him, she knew he'd be alright.
“I'm almost ready. We've pretty much just gotta sneak my stuff out tonight. Not like mom'll really notice that I've left.”
Kaida's expression saddened a little. “Don't be like that, Dawn...” he said. “Whatever, you'll have a much better time with us! 'Kay, I'm starving! We can go back to my place to eat, I just came here to pick up some stuff for lunch. Mom sent me with a list.” he said, reaching into the pockets of his white linen cloak. The way it moved revealed more of his scaly green chest for a moment before hiding it again once he got what he needed from his pocket. Everyone in his family wore one of these, it was green trimmed. Every clan in his species wore a cloak, they had different patterns for each individual family within the breeds in the species. Kaida's family was the leader in the hierarchy, whatever they said went and even being the youngest of his family, he could easily tell an elder of another clan what to do and expect them to do it.
“I need to get six apples...four...fresh...a bottle of milk...one...three loaves of bread and...two salmon.” he mumbled while staring at the list as they headed for the nearest shop.

“Really, Dawn, we should have done this before. It would have been better for you.” Kaida's mother said as she dragged a suitcase down the hall to Dawn's new bedroom.
“Yeah, but tonight was the soonest opportunity that I had. I couldn't leave while there were people still at home, you know they'd try to stop me.” she replied as she lugged another suitcase up the last three steps to the upstairs. Once at the top, she stopped and leaned against a wall. The wall was cool against her back.
The mansion the Ryujin clan lived in was really just a bunch of rooms carved into the side of a mountain overlooking the village. Some walls were stone, others of dirt, some of clay. There were random plants and weeds sticking out of the floor near the few windows the place had and the doors often needed to be pushed back into place on the top floor.
“Good lord, child. You have so much stuff!” his father exclaimed as he dumped a bag on the top step. Karin, Kaida's sister, put her hands on her hips.
“She's a girl, Dad, she's going to have a lot of stuff. That's what girls do.” she snapped. Dawn didn't particularly like her, but she didn't have a problem with her.
“Okay, I'm sorry, but I have a lot of crap, we're almost done though. I just want to go to sleep soon, I'm dead.”
Kaida was already at the end of the hall at her bedroom. He opened the door, disappeared inside for a moment, then reappeared with a smile. “Okay, Dawn. We can do anything else that needs to be done tomorrow. It's bedtime now.”
His mother, Kara rested her forearm on her forehead, looking exhausted. “Yes, we'll finish this tomorrow.”
Dawn finished dragging her stuff to her bedroom. Kaida smiled widely as she entered the room and sat down on her bed. She had spent so much time here that it didn't seem strange that she was officially living here. The room didn't feel distant at all, it felt like home.
“Is it not weird?” he asked.
Dawn looked over at him and smiled. “No, I was just thinking about that. It's not weird at all.”
Kaida sat down on the bed beside her. She noted how he was slightly taller. He was also very thin. His scaly skin wrapped tight around his ribcage and stomach. It clung to his shoulders in a way that was almost sickening. His legs, however, had some meat to them. It was simply muscle, though and he needed it for walking, running, and even thousands of years ago, he would have needed them for attacking. Still, he was considered slightly overweight for his species. Not more than fifteen pounds though.
“W-what are you looking at?” he asked. She looked away, she knew when she watched him he felt self-conscious.
“Nothing,” she said, his beauty captivated her like nothing she had ever seen before, “you're beautiful.”
Kaida smiled. She said this quite often, but he never tired of hearing it. “You're more beautiful.” he said simply. With that he stood up and kissed her forehead. “You need sleep. We can talk in the morning.” he said as he walked to the door. Closing it, he bid her goodnight and she watched him disappear behind the wood. She sighed and flopped onto the bed. In all the years she had known him, he hadn't aged. Not one day. In almost twenty years, he never aged. He never looked or acted any older. His species lived a long time. She smiled at how old Kaida actually was, and how he didn't act any older than fifteen. His kind aged so slowly. Physically, and mentally.

Kaida stood outside her bedroom door. Something squeezed his heart a little. He didn't know what to think of it. He didn't know what he was feeling, but he felt as though he shouldn't be. He looked down at his hand and brought it up to rest upon his heart. “Maybe...this is where the feeling is coming from...?” he whispered. He immediately knew what it was. “I can't love her...” he muttered. “I am far too old...and I am not human...I'm not good enough for her...a hundred and two is too old for any human...but too young for any of my kind...”
With that, he walked away. He didn't know what he was going to do now, but he had to get his mind off this feeling.
He was about halfway down the hall when he heard a loud noise. A moment later there was another, it was louder and the floor beneath his feet shook with this one.
BOOM!
“s**t!” he yelped. His parents came racing back up the stairs, Karin not far behind them. Dawn flew out of her bedroom and saw the panicked expressions around her.
“WHAT THE HELL IS THIS, MOTHER?!” Kaida screamed as he ran towards her. The sounds were becoming louder and closer together. The ground shook more underneath them and the walls were starting to crumble a little. Dawn ran for Kaida, his frame shaking in his mother's arms.
“Katashi!” his mother shouted at her husband. “What's going on?!”
“Kara, take the kids down to the basement. You will be protected down there. Just RUN!” he yelled at her.
Kara did as she was told and rounded up Dawn and Kaida, but her daughter was nowhere to be seen. “KARIN!” she called out. “KARIN, C'MON! PLEASE, KARIN!”
Still, her daughter didn't respond.
“Get those two and I will find Karin!” her husband shouted. “I will be down there soon!”
BOOM!
And the far end of the hall was blasted out.
“NOT HAPPENING!” a voice shouted over the noise.
They all froze at the familiar voice behind them. Slowly they turned around to see Karin standing at the far end of the hall, her clothes and hair flowing madly in the wind.
“KARIN!” Kara screamed at her. She began to run towards her daughter and Katashi stopped her.
“There is nothing you can do, love!” he told her. “She has chosen her path, you knew as well as I do, this would be it!”
Kara looked as if she were about to lose it. Tears streamed down her green cheeks and her eyes were wide with fear, worry and confusion. Kaida grabbed Dawn by the wrist and pulled her to the stairs away from the scene.
“Not so fast, little brother!” Karin shouted. Dawn looked up at her, her face was beautiful as ever even though her features were twisted.
Dawn yanked his wrist so that he was pulled out of the way as a large boulder hit where he had been standing. He stood there, frozen with shock as his mind registered what his sister had done.
Katashi ran at her full force, dodging whatever she threw at him. Kara took this as her chance and she grabbed both Kaida and Dawn and ran down the stairs with them at her heels. She stopped quickly when Kaida stumbled down the last two steps and she flew around the corner and down the hall to a doorway which she threw open. She pushed the two inside and closed it behind her. She locked it and ushered them down the flight of stairs. Dawn had no idea what was going on.
“Kar-”
“Shh, I'll explain once we get to the bottom.” she hissed. The three of them kept walking and Dawn noticed that the walls went from dirt to metal. Solid, cold metal. The staircase was long, at least three flights worth of normal staircases in length. Finally they reached the bottom and Kara flicked on some dusty old lights. She pointed to a table in the corner where the two of them sat, waiting for Kara to explain. Kaida's face had shock, fear, worry and sadness etched into the features. Suddenly, he burst out into tears.
“Mom, what's going on?!” he begged. “Please I don't know what happened! Why is Karin like that?!”
Dawn watched as Kara walked over to him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. He stood up and she held him close to her. She whispered for him to calm down and ran her fingers through his navy hair as he calmed to a soft hiccup.
“Honey, I can't tell you why she did this...it was her choice...but tonight was not her fault. There are some people out there that...they just want to get you, Kaida.” she told him, his grip on her tightened and his face twisted into fear again. As Dawn watched this, she felt useless.
The sounds outside continued, they listened as buildings crumbled, and houses blew up. People screamed, rain beat upon the land and clouds loomed overhead, as some strange group of people destroyed their village.  

[Angel Nicholson]

Chapter Two *Sorry for the length*

Somehow, Katashi had managed to repair the Ryujin home. None of them knew how he did it and he'd claimed it was his “little secret”. As soon as they were allowed out of the basement, Kaida had ran straight for his bedroom and refused to come out. Three days had passed and the three remaining members of the family were starting to get worried.
“Tashi, I don't know what to do with that boy...” Kara said as she worked on repairing a window. Okay. So Katashi had fixed most of it. He pretty much just got the walls back up with the outside of the mountain looking as normal as it ever had. Kara wiped a bead of sweat off her forehead and looked behind her to see that Katashi was crouched down, examining a small moth on the ground beneath him. His wife was instantly angered by this.
“KATASHI! I WAS TALKING TO YOU!”
Dawn watched as he jumped about a foot in the air and pouted like a child. Katashi was fairly childish most of the time. He calmed down and turned around to look at her. “What?” he asked innocently. Kara sighed heavily.
“I want you to talk to your son.”
“I have tried, love! He just does not listen, he just lies there like he is dead!”
Dawn watched as Kara's eye twitched dangerously.
“I-I can try...” Dawn stuttered as she set down some tools she was fixing a doorway with. Kaida's mother looked at her and smiled.
Katashi's face lit up. “Oh yes! You could go talk to him, Dawn!” he said. “Go, go. Shoo!”
“Actually, I think that may be even better. While you're in there, grab one of his cloaks. You're officially a part of the family now, you must dress like it.” She paused to yank a particularly stubborn nail out of the window frame and looked back at her while ignoring her husband's remark.
“B-but I-”
“Well, you do need an excuse to get into his room. Tell him I sent you. If you tell him it was his father he'll just ignore you. Me on the other hand, is a different story.”
Dawn stood up. “O-okay. I'll see what I can do to get him out of there.”
She turned around and walked down the hall. She reached his door and hesitated. Should she knock? She never did before. Even if he was naked, it wasn't a big deal to either of them, he didn't have exactly human anatomy. In the end, she decided to open the door slowly.
“Kaida...?” she whispered as she peeked in the room. He was lying on his bed with his back to her and he grunted to show he had heard her.
“What?” he snapped.
“I-you-I was told to get one of your cloaks.”

He looked over his shoulder at her and his heart skipped a beat. He laid back down on his side and waved his hand over at his dresser. “They're in there. The one on the far left should fit you and I never wore it much so it's still good.” he told her. He looked away from her as quickly as possible and tried to ignore the feeling.

Dawn smiled and shut the door behind her as she slipped over to the armoire. She pulled the doors open and looked at all of the items hanging on the metal bar that went across it. She never knew Kaida had this many clothes. He never wore a shirt with his cloak and rarely wore anything other than the cloak and four pairs of pants she'd seen since she met him fifteen years ago. Of course they'd probably been replaced, but he hadn't grown out of them because he hadn't grown. She pulled out the white linen that he had pointed out and lifted it to examine it. It certainly looked like he hadn't worn it much. It was shorter than the ones he normally wore, she assumed it had to have been about fifty years old since he'd been this height for at least thirty years. She smiled. It's funny how things had changed. He used to babysit her, then he was like a mentor, someone she looked up to and now, he was her best friend.
“Is that all you wanted?” he asked once she pulled it over her shoulders, tipping her halo back into position. She often forgot about it.
She shook her head and closed the doors of his armoire. “No, silly. I've missed you. You've had yourself locked in your room for forever now, I wanted to talk.”
“Did my father send you in here...?” he asked suspiciously.
Dawn sighed. “No.”
“Oh, ok-”
“Your mother did.”
“I knew it was something like that.” he muttered. The girl rolled her eyes and plopped down on Kaida's bed beside him.
“I offered to come in here, though. You've been emo these past few days.”
Kaida shot her a glare. “Why the hell wouldn't I be? There's some sort of gang hunting me because I'm the heir to the throne and my sister runs off with them killing half the people in our village in the process!” he spat at her. “You're lucky your family wasn't hit!”
“You know why she did that, Kaida!”
“I don't care why she did it, it was just wrong!” he shouted sitting up.
“She did it to protect you!”
“Oh yeah, and protecting me included destroying everything we've created! Dawn, I'm a hundred and two years old, I've seen this place grow! I've built this village for you!” he told her. She hesitated and he stood up off the bed leaning towards her, his face only inches from her's. “How the hell do you think it grew so much in twenty years?”
Dawn took a step back as tears welled up in her eyes. Kaida froze and relaxed a little, sighing heavily. He ran his hand through his hair and shook his head a bit. “Look, I'm sorry. I'm just frustrated with Karin.”
Dawn stared into his eyes and glared the best she could. “All I did was care about you enough to see if you were okay.” she said as she spun around and left the room. She slammed the door behind her and glanced at Katashi and Kara as they stared at her with blank faces. As she turned to go downstairs, she heard Katashi say to Kara;
“Well...that...did not go so well, did it, love?”
Dawn growled. “No, it didn't.” she muttered.

Kaida stood behind his bedroom door. He didn't understand why he yelled at her like that. In all the years he'd known her, he'd never yelled at ********...” he mumbled. He pushed the door open and saw his parents staring at him like a deer caught in headlights. Clearly they were surprised that he was leaving his room. “Give it up, I had to come out sometime.” he told them as he shifted the cloak on his shoulders. He closed the door behind him and followed Dawn's footsteps to the main floor where he found her sitting on one of the bar stools in the kitchen.
“Dawn?” he said quietly.
“What.” she snapped.
He walked over to where she sat on the bar stools at the island and reached out to smooth some of the wrinkles out of her new cloak.
“I-I'm sorry...”
“She was only trying to protect you, Kaida. And you know it. Who cares about the village? At least the people are alright. No one died, Kaida.” she said. “Karin couldn't kill someone.”
Kaida sighed a little and sat down beside her. “I-”
“If you had've come out of your room instead of being emo then you would have known that everyone was okay. We checked everyone, the village people are fine.”
“Okay, I get it. I'm sorry.”
“Hmph.”
“Well, I don't know what we're going to do, but we can't just sit here, Dawn. Now that I'm not 'emo' anymore, we need to get to cleaning this place up.”
“What do you think I've been doing. Kaida?!” she snapped. “I've been doing my share and part of yours of the work!”
“Yeah, I know, and I'm sorry -again- but we need to get it built up as soon as we can so that we're done, c'mon.”
Dawn rolled her eyes and looked over at him. Her heart squeezed. He was just perfect. His eyes were closed as if he were thinking, and his lips were shiny, parted just a little.
“So what are you thinking about, Dawn...?” he asked without opening his eyes. He did this sometimes, he just seemed so calm, so peaceful.
“I-I was thinking about-...I-”
“You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I was just wondering. You feel jittery all of a sudden.” he told her, he reached up an tapped her halo so that it was straight again. He'd never tell her because she hated it, but he found it a beautiful thing.
“I-I see. Let's get back upstairs, we've just got the two windows and my bedroom door left to repair. It won't take long.”