Chapter Text
Tallulah would always remember the first time she laid eyes on Sarah Alder. She remembered the way the screams of the newborn had bounded through the heavens. How her wings shivered at the power in that voice. The goddess had smiled at the way her youngest angel had reacted to the new noise. Flinching at the volume, brown eyes wide in wonder as brown wings furled open in curiosity. The goddess had motioned for her youngest and last, and Tallulah had joined the mother. Brown wings pulled tightly to herself, red tresses long and soft down her back.
“Look my dearest one, that sound you hear. It is a witch baby my love, one so powerful she summons the heavens to her side.”
One look, that was all Tallulah needed. One look into the small cabin, where a mother, father and sister were staring at the newborn. One look at those blue eyes as they opened slowly. “That one’s mine mama. She is mine.”
And from that moment, Sarah was hers. Guardian angels were rare enough as it was, the goddess assigning them only on the rarest of occasions. Yet Tallulah had claimed Sarah in a way no other guardian had. Untrained, yet so reverent that the goddess could not say no to her favorite child.
As Tallulah trained, so did her Sarah. But while Tallulah trained her grace and weapons for heavens centuries, Sarah trained her song for earth years. It was no surprise to any of the heavens people that Sarah slowly became the most powerful witch to walk the earth, not when the goddess’ favorite child had claimed her. Not when Tallulah too became the most powerful of her own kind.
And then something terrible happened, a darkness seeped through the earth. It blinded the guardian's from their charges. It blinded Tallulah from her Sarah. The goddess from her creations, from the witches as a whole.
Years passed on earth, centuries in the heavens. When it finally lifted, Tallulah went in search of her Sarah. But her Sarah was no where. Her mother and father and sister had perished. Yet not Sarah. Tallulah could not find her anywhere, not even with death himself, though her mother was furious that Tallulah had looked with him.
Sarah Alder was simply gone from sight of the heavens. The most powerful guardian angel in history was left without her chosen charge. Left to grieve.
Until one day, Tallulah was taking a moment to look upon her newest charge. A young woman named Lydia, kind and sweet but not hers. Not the way Sarah would always be. She watched from the heavens as Lydia was bound to an odd darkness. It did not feel cruel, so Tallulah did not feel the need to confront the binding. She watched in confusion as Lydia aged before her eyes. Willingly taking someone else’s years, she realized.
She watched as the darkness around Lydia’s bound faded and the newly young face came into focus. Her Sarah. Alive and on Earth and alive. No longer a blind spot because her newest charge was now bound to her Sarah. Freeing her from whatever darkness had shrouded her for so long.
She flew to her mother, her golden heart beating quickly. Her grace felt overpowered with her joy as though it were to explode like a super nova at any moment.
But her mother wouldn’t let her go to her Sarah. “Sarah Alder has made many choices my dear one. Some bad, some good but they have taken her from you. She can no longer have an angel as her guardian. It is why I believe she is blinded from us.”
Tallulah couldn’t have that, not now. She just got her back. “Then I shall join her on earth. As half witch. Please mother.” Her mothers face fell, but she did not argue, never would. Not with Tallulah. “Only you my dear one can make that choice. Yet I fear that it will only cause you pain. Please stay Tallulah. You may not be able to return.” Her mother pleaded with her to stay, the other angels pleaded with her to stay.
Yet they could do nothing but watch in shock as the youngest angel, the strongest angel flew herself to Earth. They could only flinch as she took her sword and with precision only a warrior trained in the heavens had, sliced along her back.
They could only echo her screams as she removed the soft, glorious brown wings that tied her to the heavens, bleeding gold where scars would form. They watched as their favored sister was bathed in the light of grace as she was changed to that of a newborn witch, the only evidence of her past in her the locked away grace and memories only time would return. Her skills, her knowledge. A blessing from the goddess that she be able to have them returned. Until then her brother Theliel would assure her safety. Assigned her guardian by their mother. A role he would take seriously.
He took her to a small compound in California, laying her on the front mat of a lonely woman chosen by the goddess herself to care for the favored one. There she would be safe. And maybe someday, she could earn her place back in the heavens once more.