A Valeween Night To Remember

Allies

Lilith skidded to a halt, but Luz kept running - Both had been done on instinct, and by the time Luz realised her mistake and came to a halt of her own, it was too late to correct it and double back.

The Cherubim shot right between Luz and the two older Witches, and then positioned themselves between them, cutting them into two groups. The majority focused on the two Witches, seeing them as the bigger threat, while only one opted to focus on Luz.

And Luz focused right back on it. It was the first Cherubim she had seen in person. She took notes.

It wasn't all that dissimilar to the pictures that had been shown in the Valeween for Witchlings book Luz had been reading - An insect-like creature that had a distorted hourglass figure making up the framework of its body, with the bottom side being far wider and bulkier than the topside. A series of layers could be seen, the outermost at the bottom, and the innermost at the top, which looked something like petals, and what looked like little hands were poking out of the top of the bottom layer. Layered frills covered the underside, and the head and 'face' was covered in fur, which covered where the eyes on a Human or Witch's face would be. A multi-layered, splitting off, sporadic horn at the centre of the forehead divided the fur, and the wings, yellowish-orange in their colour, fluttered at the speed a wasp's would behind the creature, granting it flight, and generating noise.

They almost looked like a kind of sentient flower bud, now that Luz got a close look at it.

Speaking purely aesthetically, it was still sort of cute, in Luz's mind - In that weird, disgusting way some insects could be cute.

The most expressive part of the Cherubim was easily it's mouth - It seemed to be really the only thing that the creatures had to convey any emotion at all. Luz already knew that behind its... Lips? Skin? Whatever it was that covered them, behind it, were a row of sharpened teeth. Normally, from the images Luz had seen of them, they were bare, showing a toothy grin - The rest of this one's group had worn the exact same grin, and this one had been too, just a few seconds later.

Now though, it was more akin to a closed pout of confusion.

Luz could have sworn that she heard her mentor, but she couldn't focus on what she was saying, her attention so firmly focused on the Cherubim in front of her, expecting it to move, as though they were in a standoff. The Cherubim that were focusing on Lilith and Eda had immediately engaged them in combat, but the one in front of Luz hovered for just a moment, seemingly confused as to what to do with Luz - Luz was a Human, after all. Cherubim didn't have any sort of understanding of what to do when it came to a Human, or what a Human was, Luz realized.

For a second, she thought that maybe the Cherubim wouldn't even bother with her - Her anatomy was already different from that of a Witch. Maybe the difference would be great enough that the Cherubim decided she wasn't worth it.

Would she even have blue goop for it to feed from?

In the next second though, with sounds not unlike the snapping of bones, the mouth of the Cherubim cracked and creaked like the plants around it, and opened wide - Revealing its huge, bulging blue eye behind its teeth.

That, Luz hadn't seen in any of the pictures. She'd read about it, but seeing it in person was downright.

Horrifying.

Definitely not cute anymore.

It looked right at Luz. Somehow, she could tell it was fuelled by contemptuous glee.

A blue glow followed, and from the eye, a ray of light shot out towards Luz at speed.

The Cherubim Ray.