"What's the Age of Aquarius?" Bonnie asked, looking between the three men in an attempt to garner some knowledge. "Apart from a song in a musical."

"It's an era of time that lasts thousands of years," Kimaris explained with a frown. "It's meant to bring change, and disruption, and—"

"And it's not meant to happen for at least a thousand years," Gremory interrupted, his face twisted. "Even if it did happen, we really don't have to worry about it right now. There are far more important things—"

"If it was happening, wouldn't you know?" Kimaris spoke above him, eyes trained on Eyael, who still stood silently. "We're in the Age of Pisces, surely that means you should know?"

Eyael ignored his question and turned to Bonnie, offering his arm to her. She took it gently, in awe of how soft the material of his sleeve was.

Slowly, he brought her to the edge of the water. The other pairs of eyes followed them silently.

"Miss Lawrence, what have my brothers actually told you about our world and what they're searching for?"

Bonnie almost scoffed at the question, and Eyael saw it in her eyes—the look of knowing barely anything.

"I see," he continued when she failed to respond, casting a disapproving glare over to the men who stood behind him. "I'd have thought—seeing the way they've so recklessly dragged you into this—that they may have divulged the important information to you, but clearly I expected too much."

"That's not entirely fair," Gremory objected, a whine to his voice. "There's no need for her to know too much. It's not as if it would change anything."

"No?" Eyael's brow raised. "Are you sure about that? Because I heard a strange rumour..."

His glowing eyes rotated to Bonnie, a steady flame lit behind them. Her chest rose as she tried to take a breath, but it shuddered within her. The wind blew through her hair, lifting it from her shoulder.

"Is it true you killed a demon, Miss Lawrence?"

Their faces dropped. It was as if time had stopped, the rushing of water the only sound to be heard. Bonnie looked towards the two men who had frozen, their skin twitching with thoughts that she couldn't know. Eyael watched her, unblinking as the seconds ticked by.

"Yes," she finally answered shakily. "I used one of Kimaris' arrows, but Gremory was holding onto me so... it could have been that?"

By the look on Eyael's face—it certainly wasn't that.

"How did you know that?" Kimaris' voice was lined with suspicion as Eyael turned to look at the water again, humming softly as he bent down and touched a finger to it. "Only Bifrons was there."

"Because I hear all the whispers of change, even the ones that you deem to be unimportant." Eyael's words were soft, but brought something hard into the pit of Bonnie's stomach. Under his touch the ripples in the water moved outwards, getting larger and further apart. "There is no change that is truly insignificant, nor person. No matter how mundane they appear to be. Surely you know that from the trail of bodies you've been following?"

She had to admit; it was nice to not be the only person in the group receiving revelations and not knowing the full story. For once, the boys were out of the loop a little too.

Gremory held up a hand, staring at Eyael's back as though he could see his face through it.

"Sorry, you've been watching us? Why haven't you done anything to stop it then?" There was an anger in his voice that came out with every punctuated vowel he spoke. "Why have demons been trying to kill people who are—"

He stopped. His confusion slipping into realisation. "Because they're not looking for people who are forgettable. They're looking for something else."

"Looking is a strong word." Eyael stood up from his crouched position, rubbing a wet hand across his forehead and sighing at the sensation. "Wiping out a possibility would be more fitting."

Gremory and Kimaris share a look as though they'd just discovered the world wasn't flat, and both began to mumble to themselves, the rapid movements of their hands making Bonnie's head spin. While they dazed in their own worlds, she felt her reality crumbling yet again.

"Wait, wait," she said, pulling Eyael's attention to her. "What are they trying to wipe out?"

Eyael offered her a gentle smile before lifting his head to the setting sun, watching as a flock of birds passed by. Clearly it was a habit of angels to monologue and take the long way in answering questions, despite her desire to know.

"Do you know much religious history?" She shook her head. "How about Gnosticism? No? Well then, perhaps I should start simpler... You know the astrological signs, yes?"

"You mean star signs? Of course," Bonnie replied, unable to stop the unsure smile from gracing her lips. "Are the demons finally ridding the world of Gemini's or something?"

While his mouth twitched at the joke, Eyael shook his head and waved a hand over the water below them, changing the light blue colour of it to a dark navy that reminded Bonnie of a night's sky.

"The signs were created to allow the deities to each look after pieces of the world, to guide them in enlightenment and help them understand themselves. In doing so, they marked each segment with stars, so that they would have a connection to humanity, and humanity to them. Faith is much stronger when these kinds of things can be seen." He tapped and slowly small dots of light began to sparkle, perfectly formed and creating shapes in the rippling water. "The deities shaped the clusters, each choosing to honour something they believed to be the most important. Some chose pieces of themselves—like Virgo, the maiden. Others dedicated their symbols to people they loved—like Sagittarius, the archer. And then there are those who picked virtues of themselves, represented in an image. Like Pisces—the fish."

The dots began moving, turning into the shape of fins and scales that swam towards the two of them before leaping out of the water and over Eyael's outstretched hand. Bonnie had never seen something so beautiful, it was truly like magic.

"I loved fish as a child, being born in the water most likely encouraged this, but from a young age they fascinated me," Eyael murmured, twisting his wrist from side to side, letting the creatures loop around it. "I thought they were so elegant, so beautiful, so resilient against the changing tides, knowing when to follow them and when to swim straight through. They live in the darkest corners of the earth, or the shallowest ponds. There's no place they can't reach in water. I used to watch them swim in shoals, the way they moved together in synchronisation as if dancing, so aware of each other. It's something I always admired about them, the ability to work together so naturally, to know what was best for all of them sometimes meant sacrifice. The group was more important than the individual, they look out for one another. That's why I chose them to be in a pair; after all, no one should ever truly be alone."

Bonnie looked at the man who was smiling with so much warmth, his fingers ghosting over the string of fish as though he could touch them. With his arm outstretched, his sleeves fell back, and the intricate designs on his skin glittered. They all looked like old designs of fish, basic in lines but appearing to move through the waves that stretched along them, as if swimming up a stream.

"You're the protector of Pisces," Bonnie whispered, remembering the words she had said to summon him here. "You're one of the twelve deities."

"Yes, I am," Eyael smiled, guiding the conjured images into the water where they swam back into the shape of the constellations, fading into only specks of light. "And I have been watching over humanity for a long time, protecting those that believed, and trying to build a world as bountiful and resilient as the fish that I adore."

He moved his fingers again, and the flecks changed, now just showing the one constellation, which Bonnie knew to be Pisces.

"The stars weren't only for the humans. They were also for us to watch and observe without being physically here, as well as being markers for when different Ages were being ushered in." The colour of the water changed, a small ball of light rising and lighting the surrounding space. "Most know the morning star, but the constellation it is in changes. You see as the sun comes up, there is one constellation in the sky, but you cannot see it as the sun is too bright and human eye would not cope. However, there is one day that it can be seen—The March Equinox. Although, in the southern hemisphere it is the September Equinox, it is the same thing. This is the point in which the sun crosses over from the Northern hemisphere to the Southern, or vice versa. When the sun reaches its vernal point—the moment it crosses—the constellation it resides in can be seen, and this tells what Age the world is in."

The Pisces constellation shone once more before it faded back into water as if it was never there. Eyael continued to watch, a tilt to his chin.

"The Ages last thousands of years, all intent on doing something different to the cosmos. Humanity has been in the Age of Pisces for quite some time now, and it has been my duty to watch over."

Bonnie had never given much thought to astrology. Of course as a teen she'd invested time into learning the traits of her star sign and defining her negative qualities by the powerless nature of what star she was born under. But she'd never thought that they were truly watching—that this whole time there had been a deity guiding humanity in every day that it thrived.

"So, you've been in charge of it all?" Bonnie asked, thinking of all the changes that the world had circled through. "All the bad and the good? Does that not mean you could have stopped the awful things? Could you not have saved innocent lives, or prevented famine or disease from obliterating civilisations?"

Eyael frowned, his shoulders widening against the question as he stood, casting his eyes down onto her.

"No."

"No?" Bonnie repeated, gobsmacked at how bluntly he had answered. "What do you mean—no?"

Eyael looked away from her. "I mean I could not prevent the things that happened, I could only watch over to make sure that there was balance when it was time, and that they weren't influenced by forces greater than themselves."

"That's bullshit!" Bonnie exclaimed, rising to her feet, and ignoring how Kimaris and Gremory were now coming over to them. "Did you not just spend ten minutes telling me you were the Protector of Pisces? How are you protecting anyone by not doing anything?"

Eyael spun around, his kind expression gone from his face and his glimmering eyes now molten, burning with rage. He was still smaller than Bonnie, but it was as if he was growing, determined to be taller than her and heard.

"I said that I could not prevent things from happening, not that I did nothing," he clarified, his lip curling into itself. "Just because you did not see them does not mean that they were not destined to happen. I stopped disease from ravaging the entire world when it was cast upon it. I halted the endeavours of legions and daemons who wanted to use humanity for their own agenda. I worked against my fellow brothers; I begged for them to spare lives and allow freedom to you all. And what do you do in return? You pollute, you kill, you tear down trees and rip up sea beds. You became your own plague."

Bonnie swallowed her fear, straightening up to stare him straight into the eyes that threatened to burn her.

"So what, you feel you've done enough?" she hissed, the memory of wrinkled hands clasping hers for one last time flashing across her vision. "You think we should honour you because without you things could have been a lot worse, is that it?"

"Bonnie," Gremory's low voice warned as he reached a hand out to her, shaking his head softly. "Maybe just—"

Kimaris cut off his words by grabbing his arm and pulling him, his stern expression unmoving from Eyael and his shaking figure.

"Don't touch her or the summoning will end, you know that."

"But she's—"

Kimaris held a hand up, silencing him as Bonnie turned back to Eyael, who was watching her with a steel gaze that she could almost feel poking at her skin.

"I thought that I'd found out about the most amazing thing in the world when I was told angels were real, that there were truly beings that wanted the best for us," she said, her voice shaking with the emotions piling onto her. "But you're just like every other human who expects the world to be exactly how they imagine, especially after they've suffered. Life is unfair, surely the angel who looked over it saw that."

Kimaris' hand twitched as Eyael laughed, bending towards her with a terrifying sense of power. The whites of his eyes were blinding but she kept her own open, unafraid of his glare.

"And you are just like every other weak human—desperate for someone else to have a solution to your problems, always blaming your hardships on others. Tell me this, Bonnie Lawrence—if those things were all so bad, then why did humanity do it, hm? Why did your armies fight, why were thousands of innocent lives lost to men's egos or land that never belonged to them in the first place? Why was the earth that provided life to you used as a dumping ground, or a place to commit atrocities that are unspeakable? Why is it that even when warned of an outcome—like your home slowly dying for example—but told you can save it, that you choose to ignore? Why is it you think humans deserve grace that you have never shown to anything else?"

Bonnie could feel her heart in her throat. It felt as though every breath had been pulled from her and straight into Eyael's mouth, his voice echoing around them, ringing in her ears. She couldn't answer, because a part of her knew he was right.

The anger within him faded as he moved away. He was no longer seething with spite, letting it flow over him like a river on rocks, splashing over the side. Instead he was calmer, letting it bubble gently below the surface.

"Humanity is so selfish. You think you are the most important creation, above the sand, the sky, the sea. But you're not. You're the mistake. Everything lives together in harmony, but humans? They take relentlessly. They afford nothing the kindness that they want for themselves. I thought for so long that you would see the light, that I could help you all to live a better way. But it soon became clear that it was an impossible endeavour. A god that controls is not a gracious one, and a species only thrives when left to its own devices. You are your own downfall."

She could not argue. Had she not already given up on humanity and what the world had to offer? Is that not why she was in this situation in the first place? How could she try to argue for humans when she knew how awful they could truly be.

"Is that why you're not stopping it then?" Kimaris' voice was hard and cold as it touched their ears, his figure coming into view as he stepped up to the man that called himself his brother. "Is that why you're allowing demons to kill without restraint?"

Eyael shifted, his brows pulling together in an almost pained look.

"As a said, there are things I cannot prevent," he murmured, his hands twisting together. "One of them is the dawn of a new Age, and the change that it brings."

"But the changes aren't set in stone," Kimaris continued, pushing his voice to be heard. Eyael shrunk, but Kimaris grew—stepping up as though he was preaching to a crowd, and not just one figure. "Even the prophecies and ancient relics depict figures that can influence the change. Who is to say that you're not one of those figures?"

The wind blew. The water rushed. Words remained missing for ten beats of Bonnie's heart.

Then Eyael finally looked at him. Staring up, his mouth slipped into a sad smile, the edges of it barely lifting. His eyes dimmed.

"Because deep down, we all truly know the power we have. And the power that we do not. There is nothing quite as clear as when your time is ending."

Kimaris had no response. His frown only grew, and she saw the same sadness reflect in it that shone in Eyael.

"And that's what the demons are trying to wipe out?" She asked after a moment, breaking through the wall of whatever moment the two of them were having as they stared at each other, calculating. "The possibility that someone has the power—to what—stop the change?"

When Eyael turned to her again, his kind eyes had returned.

"Yes, Bonnie Lawrence." He brushed over her knuckle gently. "Our scriptures are old, and tales have changed throughout time, bending to the will of others and the influence they have. Few have remained the same, but they are thought to be the truth for this reason. They provide the road to follow, the key to changing the course. They are the fated predictions, the ones that can be ignored, but will always come true. Some are objects with the power to break the course depending whose hands they are in, and some...are people."

He squeezed her hand, and something in his eyes made her still. She could almost feel him peering into her thoughts, sifting through them to find the one that connected to his words. It was as though fingers were trailing up her spine, bringing her to a conclusion that flashed lit signs showing her the way.

Bifrons deep voice filled her ears.

"The Scarlet Woman."

Immediately Gremory and Kimaris intervened, their heads shaking almost automatically as Eyael smiled, finally letting go of her. Both boys looked at Bonnie as though they couldn't believe the words that had left her mouth.

"What did you say?" Kimaris checked, his voice crackling.

"Bifrons said it to me," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "He asked you if I was one of them. And then when I killed the demon..."

She could picture his astonished expression shrinking below her, the true look of anger and fear that followed them as they flew from the cave. She'd thought it was just a phrase or insult that she did not understand, but by the reactions of the men around her, it clearly meant more.

"Bonnie isn't a Scarlet Woman," Gremory stated, disbelief still shaking his head. "There's no way that she could be."

"Why not?" Eyael questioned, looking at him for the answer. "Does she not have the power to summon, and to kill a demon. Is that so impossible to comprehend?"

"Well, no," Gremory muttered, blinking a few times too many. "But she can't be. The Scarlet Women are chosen from a young age and show signs of... well signs of everything as they grow. They're stuff of legends, meant to change the fabric of the universe. Bonnie doesn't have that kind of power, she's just ordinary, she's just—"

Realising what words he had said, Gremory looked at her with wide eyes, his head now shaking for an entirely different reason. "No, Bonnie. I didn't mean—"

She held up a hand, stopping him from continuing as she tried not to let tears come, instead pushing them down with the insult that had jabbed into her heart. She knew he hadn't meant it in that way, but it was hard to not feel as though it was the truth.

"But what do they have to do with the Age of Aquarius?" she asked, proud of her voice for not breaking as she focused back on Eyael, who was staring up at the sun as it shone its last rays of light.

"They are pieces of Babalon—always present in times of change and there to usher in the new Age that follows. They influence the tides like the moon, pulling them whenever they desire." He offered her a small smile. "You must have shown true power for Bifrons to call you one, it is not something we say lightly."

The feeling of not being good enough was dripping out of her. She had never seen herself as having power, but a deity had just said the words. That surely meant there could be some truth in it.

"That's what the demons are looking to obliterate," Kimaris' rough voice spoke, but it was as if he was a thousand miles away. "The vessels that could be used by the Scarlet Women."

Eyael did not confirm the statement. Instead, he turned from the men and walked back over to the summoning circle, his robe dragging on the floor behind him. The swirling colours across it looked like seaweed tilting in waves, and Bonnie wondered if it was on purpose. He glided over the grass, his bare feet curling into the blades.

"Our time is almost over," he pointed out, staring at the candle which was almost burnt to the ground, the green wax in a pool below it. He looked up at the waterfall, taking a deep breath. "Thank you for bringing me here. It has been a long time since I've tasted waters so sweet, and it truly is one of my most favourite places in the world."

He turned to look back at the two men who were standing by the water's edge, thoughtful expressions lining their faces.

"I know I have you two to thank for that, so thank you my brothers. For remembering."

"Wait Eyael," Gremory jumped forward, his arm reaching out with pleading eyes. "I need to ask if you know—"

"I do not," Eyael interjected, a pitying light to his eyes as Gremory stilled. "I wish I could tell you more. I of all beings have seen how you have struggled and what you have attempted to get him back. But it is unclear. My time watching earth means my eyes cannot cast to the other realms. And some things, I am never meant to know."

Gremory fought with himself for a moment, debating on whether to try again, but he chose instead to nod his head only once, and then grasp his brother's hand with a fierce shake. As he let go, it was hard to miss the heartbroken lines of his face.

Kimaris moved behind him, taking the hand much less enthusiastically as he stepped forward. However, Eyael grabbed on tight and pulled him in closer, their heads almost touching.

"Fear makes you doubt yourself Khem-our, just like when we were children." It was unclear whether the words were chastising or teasing, his face gave nothing away. "Believe in yourself. What you search for can be found. Some of us do have the power to change things."

Kimaris stumbled back, his long body tilting as though it had been knocked over by a gust of wind. Gremory steadied him as he came to a stop, looking back at Eyael curiously.

The angel turned to Bonnie last, his hands reaching out to her for one last time as the sun set behind the top of the waterfall, and the flames dwindled to a barely there glow.

"And you, Bonnie Lawrence. There is much you do not know, and you need to find the will to search for it. There is no need for you to have given up on life in the way that you have. We are all only as powerful as the will we give ourselves, don't forget that."

He looked up at the sky, the wind billowing his clothes as he smiled. "I truly love this spot, how different things can be when you only change your location. You forget the magic that certain places hold. How powerful they can be."

Letting go of her hands, he stepped back from them all, casting a warm smile over the three. Bonnie blinked a few times, trying to figure out if her eyes were playing tricks on her or if the outline of his figure was becoming more blurred. It was a though waters reflection was showing through him, fading him into the air.

"It truly has been good to see you brothers, I wish our paths were entwined differently." He cast his gaze over to Bonnie as the colour on his robes faded. His mouth split into a grin. "And should you want to know more about the Scarlet Woman, Miss Lawrence, then I suggest you call on Manakel next. My brother should be able to help you with how to do that, after all he knows him best of all."

He did not wait for a response. As if he had merely been a projection all along, Eyael faded into the night, with only the sound of his tinkling laughter remaining after he had gone. But soon, it too disappeared into nothing and the candle went out, the smoke lifting like a trail showing his route.

Bonnie stared at the spot where he had just been, her head filled with questions and ideas that she could barely piece together let alone figure out.

Words of fate and history and myths that were carved in truth. Of changing times and people with the power to control the direction they went. It was as if this path was never ending, and she had no idea what was waiting at the end.

Nobody did.

Except maybe Eyael, and he wouldn't tell a soul.

Kimaris let out a sigh. "What a dick."

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AN:// Hopefully I've written all this in a way that is easy to follow and uncomplicated. Please let me know if you have any questions or want clarification because I'm happy to help (as long as it's not spoilers hehe).

I love you all as always, and thank you so much for reading! Next upload on Friday x 

Ellis x