There was forbidden fruit and sin, and it was them that brought it to the mortal world. Chastity who had listened to Timothy (they called themselves Lucifer and Eve back then, but she much preferred their new names), and Alice who had listened to Chastity. The fruit, Chastity decided later, wasn’t even that great. So, yeah, she brought all the demons into the world the first time around, but it was Alice who had opened Pandora’s Jar (or box since that was modern day mortals were calling it.) The only reason Timothy had even stayed in the box as hope (it was really hilarious to see the devil reborn as hope, and she had never let him live it down since) was because Chastity had blackmailed him into it.
They never died, and that was the real punishment. Sin was sexy, and everyone wanted monsters under the bed. They were immortal, and Chastity wanted nothing more than to die.
Right now, they were glorified librarians. That said, they ran the library of all the stories ever including their own and controlled the threads of fate. Best part? The wings. Her own wings – the night sky glittering with exploding stars threaded into pale gray feathers – were fluttering uncontrollably because she was so done.
“I’m going to kill some mortal,” Chastity said through gritted teeth, thudding another book shut. “And it’ll be one in your section,” she yelled over to where Timothy was idly glancing over some lingerie models.
“I don’t care,” he said, not tearing his eyes off, and the thing was he didn’t. Whatever.
“You’ll care when I burn the skin off that pretty nymph you keep chasing.” It was rather Zeus of Timothy, but she didn’t really care for his romantic entanglements.
“You’re too much of a coward to,” He sneered, but she didn’t miss the momentary shudder of his heartbeat any more than he missed the taste of the lie between her teeth.
They glared at each other, and she would have enjoyed the hot eye shagging if it wasn’t for the fact both of them rather wanted to kill each other.
“What the hell happened anyways?” He asked, more out of curiosity than consideration.
Chastity fluttered into the sky, the dark tips of her wings brushing over her books as she settled into a ledge. “Something changed in a story,” she said in frustration. “Big enough for me to feel it. My stories are fixed. They don’t change.”
That was just the way it was. Timothy’s wing of the library was changeable, stories that were more chaotic than order. All the screwy darkness and chaos of the world into one wing, and he wasn’t exactly below interfering. She had to have a lot of sex with Alice to even convince the blonde pixie to help her kill Hitler.
(It wasn’t the gasped sighs or the lips on skin they exchanged that persuaded Alice – it was the young bright-eyed soldier who flirted with Alice, the one who had been unwritten from the stories. Chastity didn’t know where Rocky Walker was, and they never talked about him, but she knew Alice had saved him when they had to set his world on fire, and she knew that the Rocky Walker she knew would have never forgiven Alice for that.)
“So?” Tim shrugged, but he didn’t get it. Alice wouldn’t either. Her stories were the cold kind, the ones that could be changed but didn’t matter. Her stories lacked heart, and they were the stories of winter nights and sinners. Some love stories too, but there was no such thing as happily ever after.
“So,” Chastity said, “they’re fixed. I don’t screw with them. You two don’t screw with them. They’re moments in time that have to happen.” Her green eyes lifted, and they skimmed the library, this life. She memorized the sprawling shelves like she had the constellations in her wings, knew each story like it was her own bleeding tale. Even when Alice had changed the viewing mode to strip club, Chastity had known each glittering light and, well, stripper.
It was kind of hot, but Chastity preferred dealing with the books.
Timothy considered this, and something changed. His wings darkened from the pitch black they already were, and she could taste the grit of death in the air. He just about thrust her a book before he shot off.
Chastity furrowed her brows, but she pressed her fingers to the cover. Her other questions could wait.
Two sisters, born of royal blood, their hands entwined. They laughed, they talked, and Chastity remembered the story of Arendelle. Of the two sisters who raised the kingdom to heights, of the dancing and the air swollen in love. Chastity remembered that this was one of the stories with happily ever after.
Except it felt so cold.
This was wrong. It was achingly wrong, and Chastity still couldn’t put a finger on what. Unseen to the mortal eye, she strode down the village. There was a flutter of warmth in the capital city, and the sun gleamed overhead. All felt well, so what was wrong?
She snapped her fingers, and the sun had bled into the moonless sky. The same day but hours later when the sun had sunk into the mountains. She shivered, resisting the urge to add a star to fix the symmetry. She was sure that Beckett (aka God) would be a little irritated if she added a star into a world because she wanted to, but unlike her co-workers, she didn’t like irritating the boss.
Oh, what the hell. A star glittered weakly in the sky, and she decided she could name the constellation later. She could even shift around the stars into the TARDIS. Seriously, the Doctor deserved some credit, and even Beckett liked the Doctor. It might have been because he actually listened to her rules of time most of the time, but what did she know? Oh, yeah, everything and nothing all at once.
Green eyes tracing the stars, it shot her like a bullet would, straight to the chest. A gasp burst from her lips, and she fell to her knees, skin against ice. Her gaze fixed forward on – oh, Seren. The girl, the one Ariel (in some stories, she went by the Reaper) had crafted herself. She was composed off blood, stardust and sunshine. The girl with a frozen heart.
How the hell had Chastity let this happen? Arendelle was the land of no magic. There was a twinge in her guts, and her eyes flickered to the little girl next to her sister, terrified as she clung to her mother’s arm. Tatiana, born of sunshine and – oh, shit. That flower from Corona. Chastity had given Ariel a few petals of that pretty shiny gold flower because neither felt like using sunshine twice. She screwed up, and now Tatiana had magic in a world where it was feared not revered.
It shouldn’t be cold though. It shouldn’t be dark, cold and stammering in Tatiana’s chest. Something else had happened. She pressed her fingertips to her forehead as she watched two girls, their fates stolen away from them, vanish into the dark. She didn’t move when a doe-eyed Frankie (he was a favorite of hers, the flower child) and his goddamn reindeer (she had to admire the resourcefulness of this boy who should never have been an orphan, who was missing a sister he would never knew he had).
The whole world had been turned upside-down, and she wasn’t all to blame.
So she had to find out who else was and then kill them. Also fix this mess, but Chastity had her priorities.
In their time, three weeks had gone by. Twenty one days, three hundred thirty six hours and immeasurable minutes and seconds. That wasn’t true, not strictly, but time always felt immeasurable to Chastity. She couldn’t recognize time, couldn’t recognize mortality or age. She was jealous of it, yeah, that part of her that starved for a beginning and ending. That didn’t mean she understood it though.
Chastity was no longer in the forest, but she preferred the taste of life and the swaying branches over this overwhelming feeling of death. It didn’t take her more than one of their seconds to know what had happened. The doors were shut. This should have never happened, and the feeling of wrongness jarred her bones, clenched her heart.
She was in Tatiana’s room, considering the child as the child considered her bare hands. This wasn’t something she liked to do, but right now, it was something she had to do. She peeled of the invisibility and stepped forward before she knelt to the ground, head bowed, “My Princess.”
The child gasped, eyes widening. “I… you have…” She composed herself quickly. “You have wings. What are you?”
A pixie was what Chastity called it, but she didn’t believe this world was familiar with such stories. “I am at your service,” she let out a soft snicker. “I guess that’s one way to put it.”
The princess considered it. Placing one hand on each hip, she asked, “Are you my guardian angel?”
“Yes.” The moment the word left her lips, she regretted it. That had been her excuse once, and she hated it. She hated that she had to care, that she had to keep them safe. That wasn’t her role in the story, the big story. She kept the stories flowing. If this had been Tatiana’s destiny, this tragedy and sin, Chastity wouldn’t have cared enough to do a thing about it.
Chastity’s job wasn’t keeping people safe.
With sudden fervor, Tatiana demanded, “Where were you?” Her voice was strained, but it didn’t break. “Where were you when I needed you?”
How the hell was she supposed to answer that?
Grief was choked into her words. “I command you to tell me.”
Chastity stiffened, cold and hot all at once. Her wings spread out in a burst of feathers and stars, and Tatiana couldn’t even manage a gasp before Chastity pinned her to the wall. “You don’t order me, my Princess. You don’t command me.” She had played games of chess with God and with Death. Her heart was a world, and her lungs held the oxygen of thousands of burning Romes.
Tatiana wasn’t afraid, and this annoyed her. Then it clicked, and Chastity realized this was a sad little girl, a sad broken girl. That it was her fault, at least partly, and that this kid didn’t know better. “Where were you?” She repeated, and the tears that slid down her face were frozen.
Chastity dropped her, letting her to her feet gently with a flicker of her wings. Her mind spun, and she said, “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you. I’m sorry I couldn’t save her. I’m sorry – “ She cut herself off before she could say that she was sorry Tatiana was so goddamn cold. After all, it was a lie. Chastity didn’t know how to feel sorry.
“I forgive you,” the girl said after a decisive moment. “I’m sorry too. That was… unkind of me. Unfitting of a princess.” Shyly, she reddened and said, “Your wings are beautiful.”
It had been a long time since she had heard that. A few centuries of mortal time, but as far as Chastity’s timekeeping skills went, it could have been a millennium for all she knew. “Well, thanks.” She winked. “Cute of you to say.”
“I am very cute,” Tatiana smirked. Ah, was Chastity getting to be a bad influence already?
Chastity reached out to take the girl’s hand in her own. She instantly recoiled, eyes widening and staring up at Chastity, afraid. Terrified. She ripped away from Chastity. “No.”
“I’m your guardian angel,” Chastity said when the pieces fell into place, and she realized the monster Tatiana feared was herself. “I’d be a pretty screwy one if I couldn’t deal with a bit of ice.” The girl remained unconvinced, and seriously, did she really have to do this? Except even the best and worst of them had to deal with kids, and Chastity was both.
“Check it out,” Chastity flicked her fingers, and ice whispered out from her palms, twisting into the air.
“Like mines,” Tatiana breathed out, eyes following the wisps of blue-white. “What else can you do?”
She had an urge to please this mortal child. It had been too long since someone look at her like that, hoping, believing. Not like she was a god, not like she could strike them down with lightning – like she could protect them even from themselves. “What do you want?”
Tatiana bit her lips, and Chastity could hear the words even when she didn’t say them. Those desires, the darkness in her that wanted power and then the light in her that wanted this ice to just go away. She didn’t ask for either, “Gloves,” she said, voice soft. “I want gloves.”
“Oh, I can do gloves,” she twisted the ice into slender threads, weaving it together. She was relieved the child didn’t ask for anything more. Ice wasn’t her strong part. Alice was great at it though, and Tim wasn’t half bad.
“Thank you,” said Tatiana. She slipped her hands into the gloves, curling her fingers in and then out. She sighed and then reached out her hand to Chastity.
Chastity took the hand, thumb tracing a circle into the fabric, reaching for the tinge of warmth beneath the fabric and beneath the skin. This was no gesture of affection. She needed to read her pulse, and this was the only way she could do it when so much ice clenched the girl’s heart. “Did you see anyone else when Seren was hit by ice?”
She whispered. “No. No one.” There was no acceleration of pulse, on skip of the heart. She was telling the trurth.
Chastity let go. “I’ll guard you. You won’t see me, but I will be here for you, Tatiana. I will not fail you again.” Another lie, but it would explain why Tatiana might not see her for what would feel like years in her life when it would only be seconds in Chastity’s.
A sweet smile. “You never failed me to begin with.”
Tatiana’s pulse didn’t spike, but Chastity decided that the girl could lie quite well.
chaste euphemisms 