FFM 2024 3: A Quiet Moment

No prompts used. This is a continuation to FFM 2024 1: Arrival at Ink Town.

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Ria watched as Unar kept sleeping long after she had woken up. The little inn room brought a sense of domesticity that she had thought she would get upon falling. If she wanted to, she could trace the scars on the exposed arm and wonder where they had come from; Unar had already had them back when they had met at the ruins she had originally landed to after being cast out from the City. The most terrifying part of that was that Unar, who knew full what she was capable of, had grown to trust her so much that he would not even mind if she did touch him just because she wanted to while he was dead to the world. Did she deserve trust like that after betraying everything she had once stood for?

Now that she thought about it, the first weeks as a fallen angel felt like an eternity away now even though it had been mere moons ago. For the first time since starting over as Unar’s travel companion, Ria found herself wondering how Destaia was doing. Had she found a man who she fancied and who fancied her? Did she ever think of the angel who fell in love with her and fell because of it? Or had Ria faded from her mind, much like Destaia had started to fade from Ria’s?

Would Ria ever be able to tell herself that none of that mattered? Although her fall was her own fault and no one else’s, Destaia had been the first note in the ruinous melody, a vital instrument in the song about her losing everything she had had. That mattered, even now when she was doing something else that was meaningful, something she could have never done as an Angel of the City — helping a human master an old magic-augmented sword so he could save his village from a ghoul.

Perhaps the feathers plucked from the Feathermane that had attacked them and the inkling ink gathered for dyeing the feathers would create the second step in putting all of her past behind.

However, for now, she could just sit and enjoy the quiet moment, knowing that she had a friend by her side — a person who had come to her with a sword in hand, ready to fight an enemy, and chosen harmony over violence in the face of a fallen angel in the middle of a hurtful spell.