The Land of Angels

Part 5

I wake up in the morning to the smell of eggs. A lovely smell to wake up to. I roll out of bed and walk out of the room. Damien's wearing armor now. Functional but also protective. It's made of dark blacks and browns and a little dark blue. 

He has even more knives now and a matching sword across his back.

"Ohhh," I say, "It was a set of two."

They both turn to me. 

"She's funny." The guy says, "I'm Maximus by the way, you can call me Max."

"No you can't." Damien says roughly.

"Ignore him, you want some eggs." Maximus asks.

"Sure thank you." I say. 

He serves me a plate and I sit next to Damien at the table. I eat it and say, "Wow, that is delicious, thank you."

"Well it's nice to be appreciated for once." He says biting into his own eggs.

"She's nice to everyone." Damien grumbles.

"Is somebody jealous?" Maximus teases. 

Damien draws one of his swords and growls, "Shut up Maximus."

My eyes are wide, Maximus laughs and grabs a sword from his wall. Damien swings towards his head, Maximus easily blocks. I watch in amazement and shock as their swords clash together, Damien swings across to his head, it would slice his head off if he didn't duck down, "You've gotten worse." Maximus says.

"I'm holding out." He murmurs, in a flash he hits the very point where the handle and the sword meet pulling it out of Maximus' grip. He hits the sword mid air and it flies into his hand. He presses the sword in his right hand onto Maximus' throat, not cutting him open but forcing Maximus to put his hands up in defeat. 

Maximus laughs and says, "There he is, you could always kick my ass in a fight."

"That wasn't a fight." Damien says, "That was a playdate."

He passes Maximus his sword back and puts his own back in it's holder. I'm sitting there still shocked. I choose not to comment and finish my food. I would usually question but I think that was a friendly fight. 

I finish my breakfast and Maximus asks, "Hey do you want some more suitable clothes?"

I glance at Damien and he says, "Thanks Maximus."

He returns not long after holding a pile of clothes. I go into the bedroom and change. I look down at myself. It's leather dark brown. Conventional pants and boots, with a skirt/dress around them with a big slit down the side to make it moveable. A cloak lies over my shoulder with a big hood which hides my face. A belt which goes twice around my waist. 

I step out of the room and say, "I don't know... what do you think? Am I even allowed to wear pants?"

Damien turns and even his face changes for once, he looks surprised, he quickly stones up his face and says, "No, it's perfect, how much do I owe you?"

"Nothing," He says waving goodbye, "Visit again soon if you're still alive." 

We go back out into the dark hallway and the moment the door shuts I realise what Damien's about to do, "Don't you dare."

"It's a long walk," He says, "You weigh nothing and it'll only slow us down me holding your hand and making sure you don't bump into anything."

I sigh as I'm lifted up and lazily thrown over his shoulder.  

I lie there for a while and ask, "What's your job Damien?"

"I was an assassin." He says bluntly.

"WHAT?" I yell at him.

"No I was a pastry chef." He says sarcastically, "What did you expect?"

I blink a few times even though it doesn't affect my view, "Who taught you?"

"I got sent to a boarding school," He says, "That's where I met Max, there teaching methods were brutal but they worked, not everyone came out of that school alive."

"Is that what happened to your back?" I ask quietly.

His steps falter, and he says, "No, but they did break a lot of my bones."

We're silent for a while. I can't help but wonder where he got the scars on his back. 

"Hey where are we going?" I ask realising I never asked. 

"We're going to go to an underground bar, they have rooms there." He says.

"Why don't we just go to wherever they live and kill him?" I ask, "I mean why do you need to go through the mountains of monsters?"

"Because they're not home." He says, "They're currently fighting with the Kingdom of Day over the Land of Angels. So we're going there."

"The where?" I ask confused, "That's not on a map."

He sighs and says, "It was a land where Angel like beings lived, there were very few of them and they couldn't reproduce, the land is very beautiful and rich in material because the Angels looked after it so well. They've been fighting over it for centuries."

"Where are the Angels?" i ask.

"Dead, when the Akeirie found out how strong they were, they got jealous so they teamed together and killed them off."

"Why would they do that?" I ask. 

His steps tell me he turned a corner, "Akeirie, especially royalty get very jealous of things stronger than them so they lock them away in cages and pretend they don't exist. There were only female Angels but they lived forever and they said the God's made it so they couldn't reproduce in case people tried to breed them. Only the queen herself could pass on her gift. She could choose to either heal herself and keep living on the run after all her citizens died or she could pass on her gift. She died so for a while they thought she passed on her gift, but when no one for a hundred years showed any sign of possessing the gift they assumed she lied. Maybe there is someone out there, but they'd be about 400 years old now."

"Wow." I murmur, "What would they do if they found her?"

"Well the Day Kingdom would probably have her killed if they could, remember it took two of the strongest armies with hundreds of thousands of warriors ever to kill the 15 of them, and the fatalities were enormous, they hated doing it but they could kill thousands with the click of their fingers, or at least the queen could." He says.

"So wait, they're fighting over the land?" I ask.

"Well yes but no, they're not having a war but they are fighting over it, they can't decide what to do with it, the night court want to preserve the land but the day kingdom want to use it to increase wealth." He says. 

He puts me down and says, "We're here."