Chapter 3: THE BEAST AND THE FALLEN
Arella stepped out of the shimmering portal, holding just a small travel case in her hands. She had been dropped off in the middle of a forest. All around her was green, green, and more green. The air smelled damp and earthy. In the distance she could hear the chirping of birds and the occasional rustle of leaves. She turned back to the shimmering portal. It had already began to close.
Castiel's eyes on the other side were drooping down at the sides, and his lips were pursed in a very straight line. "Take care of yourself sister, I will try to appease mother..." anything else he might have said was muffled, as the golden glow of the portal slowly closed in front of her.
Arella gripped tightly onto her travel case, and slowly turned around. Her boots squished into the soft muddy ground. She looked down at her muddy shoes. The mud was so deep it almost seemed that she had been dropped off in a swamp.
"Fantastic," she muttered to herself. Digging herself out of the mud, she dragged herself to harder ground. She brushed dust off of her robe although it did little for the mud stuck to her shoes and to the hem of her clothes. "banished to the human realm, and they do not even have the decency to drop me off somewhere civilized."
The human realm had not changed in her opinion. When she was a low tier one angel she had been dispatched to a rural village in the human realm. There she had been hailed as a saintess and had spent a majority of her time healing illnesses and making holy water for the sick. It had not been her favorite experience, but it was all part of her job.
The human realm, as always, was far too humid for her liking. The trees stretched up towards the sky in an uneven patchwork of green. A cool breeze brushed her cheeks and she raised her hand to pat her already sweaty cheek. It was peaceful for sure, but it was not enough of a distraction from the fact that she had been banished down to earth.
She looked back, fluttered her wings, before tucking them neatly behind her.
"Well, Arella," she spoke up to herself, "time to figure out where civilization starts."
As she trudged through the forest, dodging low hanging branches, hopping over roots and slashing some hanging vines with her long sword, her thoughts churned. Her mother had not just sent her to the human realm as punishment, it was a demotion. To angels, ranks and reputation meant everything, and her exile was a clear declaration to all that she was a failure.
The unfairness of it all burned her chest. Her mother was very unfair. It was not like she had meant to set Gariel's wings on fire. It was not also like she had wanted to set flame monsters on them. She blamed it all on Abaddon and his stupid face.
Even if her temper occasionally got the better of her, her actions had always been driven with good intentions.