A Day Late

[Pocky]

The question at the end about who he sacrificed had him ruffling his feathers.

"Don't you remember the rule?" Adagio snarked. "Even the mudders on this planet got it right; you are not the one who is allowed to judge. That falls to your leader alone, the one who rules our world and wishes to also rule this one."

Breathing heavy and heart pounding in his chest, Adagio had more to share. "The ritual that made me what I am is one from an Earth-born civilisation. I didn't create this corruption, I used the tools left over. Condemn me if you wish but then you must condemn every soul on this wretched globe."

Moving closer and no longer afflicted by the opposing force that light and dark manifested--perhaps because he'd been healed by this one--Adagio finished quietly. "My heart was filled with light until I fell. The darkness in me now is not a choice but necessity for survival. Would that I have been killed an angel, I would have suffered less."

[Ehcorn]

Adagio moved closer but Remi stood his ground, squaring his shoulders and tilting his head to glare up at him.

"Not a choice? Not a choice? There was always a choice, Adagio! You were made mortal when you fell. You didn't need the darkness to survive on this plane, you needed it to extend your life beyond theirs, to make you more powerful than them. You could've filled the hole in by living out an entire life without hurting anyone, but you chose to sacrifice an innocent because you couldn't cope with being less than."

He breathed a laugh and ran his hand through his still damp hair. "Do you even want to become fallen again? Or did you tell me what you thought I wanted to hear so I'd spare you?"

[Pocky]

“What do you know of falling?” Adagio shot back. “I died that day. No friends, no family, an outcast from my home because I dared to brag! Falling rips away everything and everyone you’ve ever loved. Becoming mortal was like being deaf and blind in a world I didn’t understand. I was scared, alone and grieving, I only lasted two days before I sought out something better. There was no choice! Nobody would choose to live in confusion and fear!”

Adagio spun away, his fingers clutching his freshly washed and brushed hair and elbows covering his face. The sea wind tugged at him, salt and sand mingling in the air with each crash of the waves. After a moment he released his hold and lowered his arms, facing Remiel once more. When next he spoke it was in a softer tone, one of persuasion.

“I understand this world now. I can try again. Falling now would be a choice.”

[Ehcorn]

The hand he'd put through his hair went to his face next. Remi scrubbed at the side of his nose, under an eye, and then down and across his mouth, groaning as he did so.

"Your second chance," he finally said, referencing the conversation they'd had earlier while Adagio had knelt in the ocean and he'd stood behind him, carefully untangling his unkempt hair.

"Alright. Fine, but I want you to know something." He dropped his hands to his sides and looked searchingly at Adagio, trying to get a read on his expression as he continued. "I don't hate you. I hate what's happened to you. I hate what you've done. But I don't hate you."

He sighed. "It'd be easier if I did, though."

[Pocky]

Adagio puffed short breath with relief etched deeply on his handsome face.

"That makes two of us," he said after a moment, looking to the side towards the middle distance. "You should know, guilt and self-loathing are not absent in our species. I act and am rewarded with an intensity of power and when it subsides I feel remorse. It is a pattern I find difficult to break." He gave Remiel a twist of the lips in a parody of a smile. "Looking at you is bittersweet. You remind me of what I have lost but you also--" he faltered in his sentence, expression shifting as he considered his next words. "You also remind me of how far removed I am from myself. Does that make sense?"

[Ehcorn]

"I think so," he said after a stretch of time spent pursing his lips and narrowing his eyes and fidgeting with a few damp coins in his pockets. "You weren't all that different from me, once, but it's easy to forget when no one is there to remind you."

Maybe that's all he'd ever needed. The reminder. Not banishment. Guidance.

"I want this to work," he said abruptly, and with enough adamance that his voice carried easily over the endless sound of crashing waves. "I want to help you fall and I want to go back and show them that it can be different. That we don't have to kill each other." The tinking of coins stopped and he smiled wistfully. "Wouldn't that be something? You and me, putting an end to a war that's been waged for millennia?"

[Pocky]

A quizzical tilt of Adagio's head was quickly followed by a toothy smile. The mauve-winged angel nodded at Remiel's words. "Our world is hanging on the balance of your success," he said before laughing soundly at the sky.