A "Fallen" Angel's Quest to the Coast

"But I didn't burn down the inn!" Trinity wailed in a choky voice to the villagers. "I cannot even use fire magic!" She looked like she was about to cry because everybody was accusing her of something she had fought so hard to prevent, and yet she would not let herself cry because it would be a disgrace to her father's pride. "Is there a little boy down there? Is he alright?" The angel asked not daring to land in fear of what the angry villagers might do to her.

Maglor crawled to a sluggish speed, running low on oxygen. He stopped behind the counter, breathing for air. He turned his head to the ground to find a peculiar rug hiding something underneath. He brushed it aside to find a trapdoor! He thanked his gods as he opened it and fell in right to the wine cellar. He closed the trapdoor and inched himself to a corner, breathing in the oxygen inside the underground cellar.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"She lies! She conspired with the elf to burn it down!!" More anger and dissonance was the reply to her pleas. "Leave our town! Leave!!" The crowd yelled.
"If you don't, we'll hunt you and the elf down!!"

"I didn't do it! It was that demonic elf and ONLY that elf! He just wouldn't stop! I tried everything to get him under control, but he was just too much trouble for me! I didn't want to use my earth magic because it would have destroyed everything! Please, you have to believe me! I'll give you anything! Gold! Gems! Feathers!" Trinity reached into her satchel and tossed out handfuls of gem-quality olivine crystals along with a few of the gold coins that her mother had given to her for emergencies. "I'd never even associate myself with such a barbaric being! He tried to kill me and that innocent child!"

The crowd immediately stopped and stepped away from the angel's gifts, still yelling, their words completely muddled and intelligible. One of the people picked one of the crystals up and threw it at Trinity. More followed his action and began throwing the gifts back at the angel.

The aching pain in Trinity’s wings was starting to come back. She couldn’t keep herself in the air any longer, it was just too painful. With a light thud, the angel landed on her knees and lowered her entire body to the ground with her arms spread forward and her wings tucked tightly against her body in the greatest of respect she could display to the humans before her. She let them pelt her with her crystals and gold.
"Little boy! Tell them what happened! You were there! You saw what that nasty elf tried to do!"

The boy couldn't handle it anymore. "She didn't do it!!" The crowd went silent and indignant. The boy pushed the adults out of the way and ran to the angel.
"She tried to help us! It was the elf that set fire to the inn! She tried to help, but she couldn't!!" The boy looked at the crowd with rage.

"He's with her!! He's one of hers!" The crowd yelled, throwing things at him too.

Trinity sat up and pulled the boy protectively into her arms. “Stop throwing things at this poor child!” she exclaimed, starting to get angry with the crowd of people. “You humans are so ignorant! You think the boy’s mine because he defended me and now you’re going to treat him poorly too!?” She gritted her teeth.
Dammit! Where is that elf!? I am gonna decorate my spear tip with his hideous head the second I find him again! He needs to set things straight for this boy and me! she thought to herself.

The crowd yelled. "Get out of our village!"
"Yeah, get out,you arson angel!"
The crowd yelled, picking up pitchforks and pointing them at the two, coming closer and closer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Maglor rested for a while, but he got quite bored. Knowing that he is in a wine cellar, he might as well sample some of the delicious wine in here.

“Make us,” Trinity hissed back, setting the boy to the side as she stood up and held her spear out. She looked ready to impale somebody despite her sluggish stance and heavy breathing. The burns on the angel’s arms were becoming painful bubbly welts. "I said... Make us!" She stomped her foot on the ground once sending weak tremor across the ground.

The crowd was silenced and backed off. They had fear in their eyes, but they still pierced through the angel with their angry, but fearful, gaze. They stood there, tense and not knowing what to do next.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Maglor searched through the wines, sipping from each that stroke him fancy. Except 90% of the time, he spat it out because it didn't match his "elven taste." When the tremors quaked, one of the wine bottles hit him on the head and spilled cheap wine all over him. He was about to yell his elven indignation, but he realized it would blow his cover. Swearing under his breath, he drank more wine.

“Now you see… I will tell you this one more time… I only use earth magic,” Trinity said in the most patient tone she had to offer. “Any complaints about fire magic should be directed to the elf….” She took a step forward, stomping her foot one more time. “If you want me to be a destructive angel, I can be one.…” she remarked. “An earthquake would easily take out every structure in this village if you want me to make one….”

The village backed down, still looking at her with contempt. "Then...why didn't you kill that elf before he burned our inn?" They inquired. "Will you help us find who done that then?" They asked, lowering their weapons.

Trinity fell silent for a moment. She wanted to avoid revealing to the humans that she was actually blind and hadn’t the slightest clue that there even was an elf until he attacked her out of rage. “I didn’t kill him earlier because I didn’t even know he was planning to do such a thing. It also would have been hard to actually kill him when I did find out what was going on until he started attacking me.” Trinity lifted her arm up, showing the humans her nasty burns. “These were what I did manage to block…unfortunately, he used some cheap trick to burn down the inn without casting fireball projectiles…. And yes,” she finally said, answering the villagers' request, "Oh, how much I would love to find that little bastard......" She clenched her fist.

"Say, maybe this cheap wine will do good after all." Maglor uncorked most of the bottles and started to pour them all over the floor, the walls and part of the ceiling. He hid himself in the darkest corner of the room, waiting for anyone to spring his trap.

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"But where did he go? We didn't see him run away, and his body isn't at the inn. Could he be-"
The innkeeper realized. "The wine cellar. He's in there."

Some of the villagers gasped; they would have never expected an elf to be so observant of a door leading to the wine cellar.
"Not the wine cellar," uttered one of the farmers, worrying what the elf might have done to all of his recently barreled juices.

"I'll go down there!" Trinity exclaimed, fanning her wings out confidently. “He’s gonna be in big trouble for messing with Trinity Valderin!” The angel marched forward with her spear bobbing up and down in the air. There was an alternate cellar entryway near the small pub on the left side of the inn, but Trinity did not have the slightest clue where she was going until she noticed that the innkeeper and a handful of the villagers were curiously standing around. It was when she walked over to them that she realized there was a wooden door in the ground. This must be the cellar…But first things first!
“Dammit, you bastard! Stop hiding!” Trinity exclaimed as she scurried around, childishly stamping her feet in various spots –And then of course, she had to add her final touch, a downward thrust into the ground with the spear. Heh, jumbling up the topography down there… That’ll scare him, the angel thought as she proudly displayed her wings while resting her hand against her hip.
“Um, the cellar?” one of the villagers reminded her with a scowl upon his face. “We opened it while you were…uh, dancing?”
Trinity perked up, immediately folding her black, feathery wings against her back. “Oh, yes! Right!” she exclaimed, stepping hurriedly down the rickety old stairs into the darkness. A splash startled her when she hit the damp cellar floor. “Why is the floor wet!?” she exclaimed in a whisper, stamping her feet up and down to hear the sticky splatters of spilled wine. Ewww…gross! It’s making my feathers sticky!—But, I must ignore it for the time-being… I have to prove to the humans that I was not at fault. I have to prove them wrong for Master!
“Alright, elf,” Trinity said in a stern voice. “Get your butt out of hiding right now! If I have to make you, it won’t be pretty,” she warned him.

Maglor kept silent. "Now what? The angel is down here and will find me soon enough! Even if I distract her and set the whole place on fire, there will still be the humans out there waiting for me. What am I going to do now?" Maglor sat down to think for a while.

“Alright come out!” Trinity exclaimed as she thrust her spear into the darkness. She took another step forward and did a low sweep with her spear. “All I ask for you is to come out and apologize for what you did to the human’s inn! If you still want to fight me, I’d rather do it in the forest where we won’t damage anybody’s property!” The angel let out a long sigh.

Maglor stood up. "I'm right here." Maglor waded through the wine-covered floor.
"I'll accept your challenge." He looked at her with the same elven sneer that he usually had on his face.
"All this wine wasted. And I was thinking of igniting it if you attacked me berserkly."

Trinity didn’t notice that he was sneering; she would have had to touch his face to even acknowledge it. “…Me? Berserk? Oh, please,” Trinity said, stopping in the middle of the staircase to flip her loose strands of hair over her shoulder.

“Humans, step back, I have the elf,” Trinity said calmly as she reemerged from the darkness with Maglor. She then scowled at Maglor and uttered, “Apologize to them,” under her breath. She then turned to the group of villagers. “We’ve decided to challenge each other in the forest, where we will not interfere with your daily lives. I ask you all to stay here—though….” Trinity listened around for the footsteps of the boy. “I want the little boy to come with me.”

Maglor rolled his eyes and apologized in the most callous way possible. "I am sorry for burning down your inn, but if it is of any consolation, an associate of mine will come to this village in a while and pay for any damages done."
The people booed him and threw pebbles at him.
"And people wonder why I hate humans."

Trinity smiled with satisfaction. Hmph! He got what he deserved!
Looking over at the boy and Maglor, the angel held out her hand. “Well, what are you waiting for? Come on!” The angel thrust her spear forward and marched enthusiastically into the woods. Her enthusiasm was overly-dramatic and feigned. In reality, Trinity did not even want to fight. She was already limping and her wings wouldn’t stop stinging and aching; another fight could leave her seriously crippled or even dead if she was not careful. She had said a bunch of words without any meaning behind them, just to get Maglor out of hiding, and was now regretting it. “Is this a good spot?” She asked, pointing to a somewhat flat area free of trees, but littered with a few large boulders.

Maglor looked around, taking a pebble a villager threw at him out of his hood. "It's fair enough here. There are no trees for me to hide behind and there are some stones for your earth magic to use. After all, it wouldn't be fair if you didn't have any advantage."
He walked toward Trinity and held out his hand. Out came a healing light that literally zipped up Trinity's wounds and eased her aches and pains. "Again, more advantages for you. Don't thank me. It is my elven duty to fight an opponent fairly."

The angel felt a bit more confident knowing that her wounds were pretty much healed. "Hmph," Trinity smiled a little, "At least you want to fight fairly, unlike some people...." She then turned to the child and handed him her extra belongings, but before handing off her satchel she took out a small pouch of gems and then the visor that her master had ordered her to wear.
"Well then, shall we begin?" she asked the elf in a confident tone, placing the visor over her eyes. She stood there patiently awaiting Maglor to make the first move.

"Gladly." Maglor began the match with a fireball aimed at Trinity's wings.

The boy stood back, holding tight to all of the belongings that was given to him.

Trinity heard the whistle of the fireballs as they came spiraling toward her. The angel sidestepped, barely managing to dodge them. As a result, a few feathers fell from her wings in the spots that the fireballs had nicked. "Not bad," Trinity remarked as she set up an attack of her own, "But how will you do against this?" She mumbled in some archaic angelic language while generating a light, sandy gust with her wings.