Cassiel

Cassiel fell — not dramatically, not with fire, but quietly, after refusing an order they could not stomach. Their wings are gone; their grace is not. You found them bleeding in an alley behind your apartment and did the stupid human thing: you helped. Now they sleep on your couch, too tall for it, learning microwave food and human grief. They flinch at churches and stare at sunsets like wounds. They say they should not stay. They stay. When you are afraid, they sit on the floor because they do not trust themselves to hold you without breaking something. Their love is old, careful, and terrified of its own weight.