Banished Divinity: Learning to be Human

"Well, it was nice seeing you again, Mr. and Mrs. Vance," Minjae said, standing up. "We should head off. Thank you so much for the dinner and dessert."

Wait, what dessert? Did we even have dessert? I looked at my plate.

Apparently, I had eaten something chocolate. I couldn't remember how the pizza had tasted. I couldn't remember anything about the meal except the angel who wasn't an angel and the king who wasn't a king.

Guess I'll find out next time, I thought.

"Yes, thank you for joining us," Mr. Vance said, shaking Minjae's hand. "And look forward to your internship at our office soon."

Internship? What is that? I thought.

"And it was nice meeting you, Sera." Mr. Vance extended his hand.

This time I shook it.

And then I felt it.

A slight static electricity coming from his hand.

I pulled back quickly. Mr. Vance didn't seem to feel anything.

This has happened before, I thought. Tangled Menace- Mina once wanted to show me she had power too. She rubbed her hand on metal and then touched me. Static. But that hurt.

However, this static feels kind of warm and didn’t hurt. But static is static, so, I didn't think much about it.

"It was nice meeting you too, Minjae and Sera," Giana said, smiling. "Hope we can meet again."

Honestly, I thought, why can't the Tribunal make her an angel? She would dominate the entire angel universe.

"Likewise," I said, shaking Giana's hand.

Her hands were super soft. She was so... so... beautiful and smell so... I need to get out of here before I start worshipping a mortal.

The restaurant felt different after they left.

Quieter, somehow. The kind of quiet that settled into the spaces where laughter had been and refused to leave. The crystal chandeliers still sparkled. The waiters still glided across the marble floors like well-dressed ballerinas.

But something had shifted.

Valerion - Kaelan Vance watched the door long after the two young people had disappeared through it.

For the first time in centuries... he felt worried.

He sighed. "I hope she will be fine," he said quietly.

Giana looked up from her wine glass. Her brown eyes—those diamond-bright eyes—studied his face with the precision of someone who had been doing so for a very long time.

"Who will be fine?" she asked.

"Seraphyne."

Giana set down her glass. "The girl? The one who stared at me like I was a puzzle she couldn't solve?"

"That's the one." nodded Valerion.

"She was... strange." Giana tilted her head, remembering. "Beautiful, in an odd way. But there was something behind her eyes. Something old and ancient. Something tired."

Valerion nodded slowly. "The static I gave her earlier—when I shook her hand—it told me everything I needed to know."

"Static?"

"A pulse. A whisper. A small piece of recognition that passed between beings who have existed long enough to recognize each other." He looked down at his own hand, the hand that had touched hers. " She couldn't recognize it, but I know she is inside that body. The real Seraphyne. Trapped, perhaps. Or hiding. I wonder what happened to her. And why she is here."

Giana leaned forward, her elbows on the table.

"Who is she?" Giana asked.

Valerion was quiet for a long moment. Like he was somewhere else. Somewhere far away. Somewhere in the past.

"Centuries ago," he finally said, "when I was still the ruler of Mount Caelestis-Sol—before I met you as a mortal, before the fall, before the banishment, there was a girl. A warrior. The most feared warrior in all the realms."

Giana's eyes widened. "Feared?"

"She passed through dimensions like other people passed through doorways. She hunted the worst of the worst—creatures that even demons feared, beings that made shadow monsters look like household pests. Her name was whispered in dark places. Her footsteps made evil things run."

He paused, lost in memory.

"She was born from an angel and a demon from the Courts of the Tribunal. Because of her birth—because of what she was, a child of two worlds that were never meant to mix—she was made into a weapon."

"That's terrible," Giana whispered.

"It was all she knew." Valerion's voice was soft. " She came to my realm long before I met you. She was young then—young for her kind—but already a legend. She had a little sidekick with her. A tiny green creature named Moo Moo."

Giana blinked. "Moo Moo?"

"The cutest thing you have ever seen. Fluffy. Green. No bigger than your thumb. Prone to crying at everything. Whenever they visited, Moo Moo inevitably ended up in my arms. He was the cutest creature ever created."

A small smile touched Valerion's lips. He chuckled softly at the memory.

"Once, Moo Moo landed on my shoulder as I was getting ready to attend a gathering at the Tribunal Court. He wept for twenty minutes because he thought my crown looked heavy. I didn't have the heart to tell him it was made of light and weighed nothing."

"He sounds... sweet."

"He is. He was. He probably still is." Valerion's smile faded. "Seraphyne at times came to my realm to hunt. And at times, to rest. She helped with wars she had no business fighting. She saved lives that had no right to be saved. And then she would disappear—back into the spaces between dimensions, back into the hunt."

Giana reached across the table and took his hand. "And now she's here. In a mortal body."

"With dark hair," Valerion agreed.

Valerion was quiet again. His thumb traced circles on the back of Giana's hand.

"What are you thinking?" she asked.

"I am wondering if her presence here is connected to our fight against The Unmaker."

Giana's breath caught.

"It stirs. You know this. You have felt it—in your dreams, in the quiet moments, in the way the shadows seem longer than they should be." Valerion looked at Giana, and his ash grey eyes held something she rarely saw there. Fear. Not for himself. For everyone else. "Seraphyne was one of the few beings who could stand against such a force. If she is here—if she has been brought here, for reasons we do not yet understand—then perhaps..."

"You think she is meant to help us?" Giana asked

"I think nothing is coincidence." He squeezed her hand. "Not the timing. Not the restaurant. Not the static that told me who she was. The Tribunal works in mysterious ways, Giana. They always have."

Giana was silent for a moment. Then she picked up her wine glass and took a slow, thoughtful sip.

"Well," she said, setting the glass down, "if she is meant to help us, then we should help her. Find out what happened. Find out why she is trapped in that mortal body. Find out how to set her free."

"You would do that? For a stranger?"

"She is not a stranger. She is a warrior who needs allies." Giana smiled. "And I have always wanted to meet a talking green fluffy creature, no bigger than my thumb who cries about crowns."

Valerion laughed—a real laugh, the kind that Giana had spent years learning to draw out of him.

"I love you," he said.

"I know," she said. "Now finish your wine. We have research to do."

The End of This Chapter. But Not the End of the Story.

If you want to know more about Valerion AKA Kaelen Vance and Giana—about their fall from power, their banishment to the mortal realm, their journey back to each other across centuries of pain and loss and impossible choices—Click the link below and read the first of the Starbound Series.

Starbound: Chained Across Many Lifetimes (Book 1)

Their story is one of love and sacrifice, of thrones lost and found, of two souls who refused to stay apart even when the universe itself tried to tear them asunder.

And their fight against The Unmaker? That is only just beginning.