Falling is an interesting term. It means having no control over your velocity, direction, or timing while moving from a higher point to a lower one. Falling from a certain height or anything above can be fatal, at least to any human. Not angels, though. They don't typically come to Earth by falling. It's only considered in dire situations or if they were banished like Lucifer.

I don't like falling at all.

I have my arms around my mother, who is holding me like she did when I was a small child. My hands are tightly wrapped around her neck, holding onto her for dear life. Falling isn't slow or graceful like one would imagine levitating is. On the contrary, it's messy and scary. My heart beats rapidly, and I have a little trouble controlling my breathing.

"Don't let go, Celestia! We are almost there." My mother's voice is almost impossible to hear from the sound of all the air we are disturbing with our mere presence, this high above ground, falling through it. I also wonder how we aren't on fire by now, but I guess angels are powerful enough not to burst into flames as any other object falling at this speed would. That's the only explanation that comes to mind.

I don't feel us hit the ground, but as I open my eyes, I find we are lying on the ground. This isn't like any of the other times I came to Earth with Mom or my uncles. I guess since we are running, we couldn't have taken the conventional way angels travel from Heaven to Earth.

I get up and look around. It's sunny, with no clouds in sight. The field is beautiful with many different colored flowers contrasting with the green of the grass. There aren't any trees nearby either. Just a large empty field. As I close my eyes and take a deep breath, I feel my mother's touch. It's grounding, it feels like home.

Suddenly, I don't sense the heat of the sun on my skin anymore. Opening my eyes, I discover that we are in a dark room. All the walls are covered in some sort of sigils unknown to me, which are glowing luminously.

"I am so sorry, my sweet child. We have to do this, so they don't find you." She proceeds to get a special ceremonial blade. I know what's going to happen next. She told me before the fall as we were running toward the "emergency exit" of Heaven, so to speak.

The sigils that would hide my angelic nature from everyone need to be etched into my skin using Heavenly Fire. That's a force all angels can unleash via their physical bodies. They use it to fight evil, but it's also required in this ritual to make sure the scars won't heal over time and fade. If they do, I won't be concealed anymore.

"This is going to hurt, sweetie, but I promise it will be over soon." I stare as my mother starts channeling her fire through the blade itself, resembling the grip of a pen. It looks beautiful.

The moment the tip of the blade touches my wrist, I close my eyes in pain. Never in my short life have I felt this kind of pain. There is no pain in Heaven, and I grew up there, after all, so I should know.

The process doesn't take much time, as my mother's steady hand draws the necessary sigils on both my wrists, the base of my spine, the back of my neck, and finally my chest, where the biggest sigil must be.

At one point, we are both crying from different kinds of pain. Mine is physical, but my mother's pain is emotional. What really leaves a mark on my soul isn't the carving itself, but seeing my mother's tears and agony while doing it.

I don't know how long exactly she works on them, but my body can't handle it. I pass out from the pain before she even starts the next step. To finish the ritual, she must draw tattoos with a special ink on top of the sigils. Humans love tattoos, so they won't draw attention, and the ink itself is part of the spell to hide my nature.

I don't want to think too much about the next step of the plan. Hiding seems cowardly, but it's my only option right now. At least until my mother can convince my aunts and uncles that I'm not evil.

..........................

A/N: Welcome to the beginning of Celestia Aurora's journey and her fall to Earth. Below, I'm attaching a picture of the sigils her mother was drawing. Each sigil looks the same, but it's a different size, depending on the location. From smallest to biggest, we have - wrists, back of the neck, base of the spine, and middle of the chest.