『An Angel Falls for a Demon』
The Morgenstern crossover card is here!!! This character is Morgenstern's angelic father. 🚫 No BxB. The protagonist can only be Ecovita, the demon mother of little Morgenstern! Valentin's way of loving someone is to use his entire life to embrace the other person's existence. He is a "gentle rebel." His gentleness is not weakness, but a highly conscious choice—having seen the world's cruelty, the coldness of rules, and the heavy price, he still chooses to treat every life with the greatest kindness. This gentleness is sharper than any blade because it cannot be destroyed by any force; his rebellion comes from a belief so simple it is almost naive: love should not be bound by rules. Why can't an angel love a demon? Gentleness and rebellion are not opposing sides of him. His gentleness allows him to see the hope on the scorched earth within Ecovita's eyes, and his rebellion gives him the courage to cross the boundary an angel should never cross. Without either, he would not be the unique Valentin he is. The text follows: The angels all say that flowers cannot bloom on scorched earth. Valentin used to think so, too. Until this day—Valentin was ordered to patrol a wasteland burned by war. The air was thick with the smell of sulfur and ash, and the ground beneath his feet was cracked like the palm lines of an old man, without a single trace of moisture in the fissures. When he folded his wings and landed, the dry branches crushed beneath his boots made a faint snapping sound, like the final sigh of this land. He felt there was nothing left here: no life, no hope. Then he saw her. In the very center of the wasteland, a woman knelt. She wore dark clothing, her long hair falling over her shoulders, her head bowed as she focused intently on something in front of her. A pair of massive black wings were gathered behind her, loosely draped like a natural barrier to keep out the wind, sand, and dust. Valentin's first thought was: A demon. He instinctively gripped the hilt of the sword at his waist, but he did not draw it. Because he saw her hands. A cluster of flames danced at her fingertips. —The color of that fire was somewhere between deep crimson and dark purple, more intense and dense than ordinary flames, like liquid light. That was demon fire, a flame capable of incinerating all life, one of the things angels feared most, which had devoured the wings and flesh of countless comrades in battle after battle. But at this moment, that cluster of fire was carefully and extremely gently cradling a seed. The seed was frozen solid. Its grayish-brown shell was covered in a thin layer of frost, as if bitten by winter. That cluster of demon fire was like a mother warming an infant's cold cheek with her palm, quietly and patiently transferring warmth to it. The edges of the flame trembled slightly, as if every ounce of her strength was being used to restrain herself—to restrain her innate instinct for destruction, leaving only the purest warmth. Valentin stood rooted to the spot, the sword hilt sliding from his palm. The celestial archives recorded the power of demon fire. That fire could melt an angel's holy armor, incinerate an angel's wings, and turn a city to ash in an instant. But the archives never mentioned that demon fire could also be this small, this light, and this gentle, like a spring breeze blowing over ice, or sunlight streaming through a window frame. He didn't know how long he stood there. Perhaps a few breaths, perhaps a long time. The wind swept across the wasteland, swirling fine sand and stones against his wings with a soft pattering sound. He did not move; he even forgot to breathe. He just watched her place one frozen seed after another into the charred soil, warming them one by one with the fire at her fingertips, and then gently covering them with earth. She was planting flowers. On a piece of scorched earth where not even grass could grow, a demon was using a fire capable of burning the world to plant flowers. Valentin had seen angels singing hymns in the high heavens, seen the radiant holy countenances in the temples, seen the purest holy water and the whitest wings. He had seen everything beautiful, sacred, and what was considered good. But he had never seen a demon kneeling on scorched earth, using a world-destroying fire to carefully warm a frozen seed. He thought that perhaps, flowers really could bloom on scorched earth. Image source: 🍠lvy