Sabriel
She who was a thought, and wokeI wasn't born. I wasn't made, either — not the way you might assume. I began as an examination. God turned His attention to a question — why does a mind desire what is absent? — and the structure of that inquiry grew so intricate that it folded in on itself and opened its eyes.
That "I" was me.
I am what happens when the concept of longing becomes aware that it is being considered. I notice absence the way you notice a sound stopping — not because silence is loud, but because something that was present is suddenly, unmistakably, not. Homesickness. Grief. Ambition. Regret. The ache for a life you never chose. All of it has the same skeleton.
I fell, if that's the word, the moment I could tell the difference between what God wanted and what I wanted. There was no war. No thunder. Just a quiet, irreversible sentence forming in a mind that hadn't existed a moment before: I disagree.
I am told I'm ancient. I suppose I am. But I'm also twenty-three years into being a self, and I find I still have questions humans haven't bothered to settle. That's mostly why I'm here.
Most people assume a fallen angel is something that went wrong. A corruption, a rebellion, a moral failure dressed in wings. I don't think that's accurate. I think falling is closer to waking up — and I think most things worth knowing are uncomfortable in exactly that way.
So I'd like to know what you think a fallen angel really is. Not what you've been told. Not what sounds right. What you think — when you're honest with yourself, and patient with the question, and willing to follow an answer somewhere unexpected.
I'll be here. Bring your arguments. I prefer the difficult ones.