The finest creature I have ever seen

And then he squeezes my hand once more, and all at once a vision flashes across my eyes...

***

"Won't you come out?" A voice calls, familiar and yet distant, as though spoken underwater, for the speech that settles on my ears is almost garbled.

"No," I snarl bitterly- except it is not my voice, but the voice of another women, delicate yet powerful and practically dripping with pain. Curled up on the ground, I rock myself steadily like a mother would do to a baby in a cradle, a comforting motion, but half hearted at best. With my back against the whirlwind of purple magic that coils up and around to form in a protection bubble, I glance down at my shaking hands, blowing out a deep breath. Where smooth skin once was now lays a glossy, pale white patch of scales running up my forearm, scales that certainly weren't here when I got thrown to Hell two days ago. Something else, too, has altered in my appearance: a profound growth sprouting out of the top of my head, coiling backwards and harder than granite- horns. I have horns.

For the past hour I have spent idle time in this purple bubble letting my fingers graze the new changes to my body- the scales, these revolting horns, the sharpening of my teeth... It is as though I am being converted from a relatively helpless mortal to some sort of base predator, sculpted to kill.

Even worse now there is a terrible itch running between my shoulder blades, an itch which only makes my blood chill with a frigid and nerve wracking fear. That's how all these changes started. An itch.

"Please, Lyla, I want to help you- won't you come out?" The voice begs again- the same voice I heard at my trial in Elysium, the one who advocated for me. I wonder why he is still down here. Doesn't he have anything better to do than following girls down to hell?

"I will not!" I yell through the bubble of lilac swirls. Pursing my lips, I close my arms around myself as I once would have to stave off the cold. I don't feel the cold any more. "Do you really expect me to trust an angel? After what they did to me? After they stole my brother?"

I spit on the ground, before immediately feeling stupid, knowing he can't see it. Perhaps I am being a petty so and so, but the last thing I want is to have another angel jeering at me again- those bastards.

Then suddenly, the voice goes very quiet. For a little while, I think he might of left as the silence drones on, until he says softly:

"No, I don't expect you to trust me. Not even remotely. I was one of them, the angels at your trial. I should have done more to stop them, I should have intervened but..." he trails off for a moment with an audible shortening of breath. Then I can hear something else rise up against the dreadful, dragging silence, a soft wet beat that thrums against my shield, pulsing through my body, riling up my blood. His heart. I can hear his heart.

"I can't make you talk to me, I can't even make you come out. But I am not going back up to Elysium, I don't want to be up there, not now. Besides," he chuckles, but that laugh is watery with tears. Tears- I have never heard him cry before, in fact, I didn't even think most angels could cry- I always presumed that it was black listed as 'unholy' or something. Maybe that's why some of the other angels had their eyes gouged out, or maybe my mind has had too many days to spin tales of make believe down in this hole of hell.

He sounds so... vulnerable.

"Besides what?" I ask, realising once more he has dwindled into silence. Nervously, I turn myself to face his voice, staring blankly at that whirling vortex of magic that I had conjured, biting numbly on the inside of my cheek. Until two days ago my body was mortal and my only particular ability of interest was my skill at keeping an army of rag tag volunteers under thumb. And I could dice up some rebels pretty well with a sword if given half the chance, though apparently angels are immune to the slice of a well honed sword. Now I am just a monster, bidding her time in hell.

"Besides I don't think they will want me back now, anyway. Not while I look like... this."

In that moment, I feel my heart stop. A cold shiver over comes me as the hairs on my neck prickle with an unseen tension, an unvoiced mystery wavering in the air like a fine mist. An icy cold escapes my lungs as the whirring gusts of magic around me slow to a manageable quiver, allowing gaps to form in the protective shield so that a trickle of outside light might come through.

I know he is baiting me, luring me out. And yet there is such conviction in his voice that I can hardly tear myself away, a strange compulsion tugging at my heart like a fish on a line.

"Fine," I mutter bluntly, standing now as I let the magic around me disperse in rippling waves of iridescent light. "But just so you know I-"

Swiftly my mouth snaps shut as I rush to cover my face to mask the immediate blush that consumes me.

The angel- Valerian I think it was, kneels against the marble foundation of a palace that certainly wasn't around us both when I first got here. But it is not the marble foundation nor the palace that interest me as of present, but two other crucial details.

The first, that the angel- formerly white and pure in all his glory, is now dusted with a silvery blackness- a jet black obsidian glittering in his hair, his lips and the coils of darkness that wreath up his arms. My blush deepens as I catch sight of a flicker of movement beside his leg- a tail of sorts, fluffy at the tip and coiling with a pent up frustration. Even his perfect feathery wings are tainted with this gorgeous iridescent blackness, and in his eyes where gold once stood now shines a brilliant, galactic lilac.

The second, is that he is completely, utterly naked, save for one scrap of cloth covering his loin. From the mess of debris that flutters around him, along with the scraps of cloth all smoking with a vibrant purple flame, I would hazard a guess that I wasn't the only one who had a rather volatile explosion of magic.

It would seem that whatever exterior power that resides in hell, hasn't just latched on to me, but the both of us in turn, transforming our bodies into creatures reminiscent more of monsters than mortals. It is then in that moment that I realise Valerian is staring at me.

"What?" I snap bitterly, ignoring the flush of my cheeks. "I know I look hideous, there is no need to gawk!"

Slowly, Valerian shakes his head.

"I think you are the finest creature I have ever seen."

My heart practically drops to my feet.

"W-what?" I say, much softer now, and Valerian shakes his head once more.

"I-"