I sprint across streets, cross roads only when necessary, sticking to shadows and darkness, adapting to my surroundings. When I get to the edge of the park, I stoop down in the dark to feel for the loose wire that makes up the fence, and lift part of it like a flap, and slink through with the stealth of a cat.

I walk on north of the fence for three minutes, not needing to use my eye sight, and feel for a still growing ash tree and turn east of that tree until I feel the core of a thick Oak tree. I feel for the marks, the four Greek symbols for the four seasons; the first one is spring which the Greeks believed came first. This mark is called Eiar. The second is the symbol for summer, and the mark is called Theros. The third is the symbol for fall and is called Phthinoporon. The last is the symbol for winter and is called Cheimon – my favourite season.
I pause my fingers on the Cheimon symbol, reminiscing a time when everything was so different, when someone's arms close around me in a cocoon. Anyone else would have struggled or fought, but the feeling of this person is too familiar to even consider it, the way his arms hold me tight but gentle, the way his breathing is controlled and even, the way that my forehead comes up to his nose, the way we fit together like the Greek Ying and Yang; the Ouroboros, him the head and me the tail – Xander.

I bring my arms around him, clinging, tight. "What did you see?" I ask, and that's all it takes for him to start shuddering. I hold him tighter.

"You were leading an army of Fallen Angels, I was at your side. You command the army to halt as another army halts at the other end. The commanders of that army were my father and... yours."

I couldn't believe this. Shock ripples through me like the epicentre of an earthquake. He was meant to be dead, my father, the brave hero who died saving a court full of Higher Angels and Gods. The father who said I will always be his daughter, and that I was his little angel. The father who said, no matter what, he was always on my side. My arms slump down to my sides as I lean against the Great Greek Tree, and slump down it. Xander sits next to me.

"I know. I know." But I didn't say anything, and maybe I didn't need to, because we were the Ouroboros symbol, linked together for eternity. But that's what my father said, didn't he?

"Do you think it'll come true?" I breathe out, unsure of what the future may hold.

"Don't kill me when I say...yes. When my mother had visions, no matter how big or small, they would always come true." And I remembered, that when his mother said that my dad would disappear, not die but disappear, came true. I reached around my neck for the necklace I wore; a pair of silver wings. I wear them as a reminder of the results of my failure, of my mistakes and bad judgement. I will never be seen as weak again, I must rise out of this. I must show them their mistake. And then it hit me.

"Wait, Xander, your visions came back!" I erupted and stood up, pulling him up with me. "I thought that Fallen Angels were to become powerless when they Fall." Xander looked at me, eyes as wide as ping pong balls, and the biggest grin spread across his face. I looked at my palms, remembering all that we were able to do up in heaven, all the amazing powers that only Angels could muster, apparently Fallen Angels could too.
"Try something...a...a...a close visionary of...of your house." Xander urged and I concentrated imagining and visioning me above the world, letting my mind become afloat and light, until my senses zoned into my house. I could see Kilian and Clarissa, snuggling on the coach in the front room when I willed my eyes to look closer. I willed my eyes to come back to my surroundings, and shook Xander's shoulders.

"It worked, Xander! What does this mean?" Xander face looked as if he was contemplating all that he thought he knew, so I kept quiet until he spoke.

"Honestly, I don't know. But if my visions came back, maybe something will come to me, we'll just have to wait."

"We need to see what else we are able to do, if we have our senses back, our glow...if we can fly!"

"We can meet here tomorrow and test it out-"

"But-"

"No buts, Xena. It's not safe here, now. We'll have to go futher away. You have to wait...okay?" I sigh, feeling too full of energy to just go home and sleep , but Xander is wise, no matter how stubborn I am. "Okay."

"I have to go now. We'll go out of town to test them out then."

"Okay." And we run off in different directions, the head and the tail.

                                                                  ☾. °.‑‑‑‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑

A feral laugh. "She may be your daughter, but she is useless. You can be promised a life of honour and acknowledgement without her dimming your glow." A voice I know all too well; Xander's father. "What do you mean by "dimming my glow"?" My father. He sounded apathetic, but his voice had an edge of  inquisition that worried me. I was standing near the back of the room, behind the wall that connected the front entrance and the sitting room we used for important guests.

"My wife, Areya the Oracle, has had a very disturbing vision."

"That concerns my daughter?"

"And my son, Xander. She had it yesterday at sunrise. It was about war, Fallen Angels against Angels of Heaven. Your daughter was leading it, with my son at her side." Silence, until my father breathed out a sigh of utter shock, you'd think someone had struck him with an arrow lined with star-dust.

"It can't be. My daughter? She is so good, so kind. An - an angel if anything. And your son? Even more unbelievable. Are you sure-"

"Are you questioning my wife's abilities?" Xander's father sounded vexed.

"No...yes...I don't know what  to think."

"Well neither did I. But if they do betray the Higher Order, we will be punished as badly as them,and I am not going to put everything I have worked for at stake because my SON is doing Lucifer's bidding!" His voice rose as the words rushed out of his mouth, such an evil mouth for an angel.

"So what do you propose?" Anger and rage, and a little uncertainty.

"A plan. To throttle theirs, to rid them of power, to rid us of them. Do you agree thus far?" A question, a challenge. Hands clasp together, strong.

"I accept."

My eyes snap open and a tear slips out. I failed my father. I wipe at my eye ferociously, not accepting the truth, not being able to. I look at my alarm clock, 6:00 am. Time to wake up and get ready for university. I go through the motion of showering and dressing and slip out the house by half past, not hungry after my memory recollection. I go through my dream, how my father's voice sounded, if there was even a hint of regretion when he accepted what Xander's father had proposed. There wasn't.

Xander's father. Hatred swirled inside me so deep and so great that my hands started to burn. The burning sensation continued, and so I looked down at my palm, and saw a flame of fire erupting out. At least I know that I can summon flames. A feral grin spreads across my face. They will regret what they did dearly. I enter the grounds of the campus. My flames disappear.

☾. °.‑‑‑‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑

I walk out of physics class, my thoughts adrift between one place and another. A familiar hand tugs mine and I follow until we are sitting under a tree on one of the many fields. Silence, until it is broken.

"Aren't you excited?" Xander sounds so happy, excited and just all round afloat. I can't break that, but all the more, he needs to know, deserves to know.

"I had a dream last night. I know a part of the reason why we were banished from Heaven." A statement, flat, still, a test. I don't know how Xander will react to this, he can be very angry, or he can be the calm as I have always known him to be. But people aren't always as they seem. The thought nags at me.

"Tell me." Calm.

"I overheard my father and your father conspiring against us. Your mother had the vision that you did, before we were banished. Your father told my father...he was shocked, but that didn't stop him from agreeing with your father. They didn't want us thwarting what they had worked hard for their whole existance." I breathed out, long and shaky and faced Xander. His shoulders sagged. Seconds, minutes passed. Xander sat up straighter.

"I saw that coming. But even then, I can never forgive him, or her." He faced me, a puzzled look across his face. "But how did it come back?"

"I don't know, maybe you're vision triggered it, maybe it was our poweres coming back...Do you think they blocked it in the first place?" The thought worried me, what else had they conspired under our noses? "No, that would be dark work...unless the Higher Court saw it as an assist to the Greater Good."

"So they have all been against us? Our own kind, our parents?" And I don't even know anymore, don't know what to think, what to say or do. I'm exasperated. I feel shallow, weak, as if a tsunami has washed away all I have ever known, leaving me a mess in it's wake. Water, shaped to show an angry fleet of angels float before us. Our powers have really returned. Xander starts to laugh. I follow in the trail of his calm, the calm after a storm.

The bell signals the end of break, and I scramble up with Xander, hopefully we can scramble higher together.

A/N: it may be slightly cringe but just bare with sknfkenfdkisjfkr

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it.

Stay safe 🖤✨