Fallen: A Chaos of Angels
By ZeldaraRain

The world was grey. Just grey. A huge grey rock hung over a grey abyss, beneath a grey sky. The top of the rock was a flat grey plain, cracked and dry, but also shrouded in a low grey mist. The grey world was the very defintion of desolate. And into this greyness fell a creature that was entirely black and white.
It slowed as it fell, landing with a gentle whump! in the centre of the small plain, the mist being driven away by the air pressure at the point of impact. It lay there, perfectly still and the mist slowly crept back, like a pack of curious cats. Soft grey tendrils curled slowly over an angular, fine boned face, over long white hair and slender body. The creature was a human male, young, about seventeen or eighteen years of age, and uncommonly handsome. Actually, he was too pretty, too effiminate to be handsome. The word beautiful seemed to fit better. He was clothed all in black and white, black trousers and short sleeved tunic, with a longer sleeved white shirt underneath, black boots. Black leather gloves fitted over his hands, the fingers cut away to expose the long, slender digits. His nails were painted, or maybe dyed, black. Black lines also encircled his seemingly angular shaped eyes. The lines seemed to be tattoos rather than any kind of make-up. His skin had a strange, layered quality; if one looked closely, for a moment it seemed as though there were feathers beneath the skin, pressing upwards. He did not appear to breathe.
As the mist slid slowly over the boy, three shadowy figures appeared at different edges of the plain, walking quickly towards the fallen boy. Hooded and cloaked, the three figures stood close to the lifeless boy, their hooded heads inclined downwards towards him. "Well?" said one, the one who stood on the boy's right side, in a voice that was neither male nor female, but somewhere inbetween. "What are we to do with him?"
"Do with him?" said the figure standing on the boy's left. It's voice was also sexless. "What do you mean? He is the god's cast off. We should just leave him here in the Place That Is No Place. His body should crumble in time. Most mortals tend to do that."
"I am not so sure..." said the first figure. "He smells... strange."
The second figure sighed. "His... smell nonwithstanding, there is nothing unique about him."
"He smells of greatness."
"He smells of secrets," the other protested, "and of the residue of gods. He will be trouble."
"Secrets are interesting. We have not enjoyed ourselves in some time, you know..."
The third figure, one at the boy's head, had yet to speak.
After who knows how long of bickering, the third figure seemed to decide something and crouched down, it's hooded head obscuring the boys face, as it seemed almost to kiss his pale lips. As it pulled away, the boy's chest heaved, and he began to breathe, a soft flush of color briefly flowing across his pale face, the only color at all in that monochromatic world.The color ebbed quickly, leaving the boy as pale as before, but now he breathed, now he existed in a more natural sleep than the one he had been in before. Now he was alive.
The figure bent again, sliding skinny -- yet surprisingly strong -- cloak enshrouded arms beneath the boy, lifting his slender frame as it stood. "I will take him," the third figure, the third Fate, said, it's voice as sexless as the other two and dryer, more dispassionate, "put him where he will be of use. He cannot stay here, he would pollute the balance of this place with his corrupt human heart, even if he was dead. I do not want him to crumble here, for the the dust that was his body to add to the plain and transmute it. We worked too hard on this place for me to ever want to destroy it with folly. Perhaps the dragons would find a use for him."
"But wait..." said the first Fate. "He has the stuff of angels in his blood and heart. Wouldn't he be of use to us if we kept him?"
The third Fate shook it's cloaked head. "The god cast him out. It must have been for a reason. He can redeem himself in the mortal world."
The Fate turned and walked away, stepping of the edge of the small world and vanishing, the boy lying limp and still in it's arms. With soft sighs, the other two Fates followed. Neither noticed the small, dark creature that followed after them, a low moving shadow chasing after the boy, whether to hurt or protect, who knew?