Olive Branch

Chapter 2 - Maisie

Unsurprisingly, Maisie did not like Cecilia. Now, before anyone could get upset with her actions and words, it wasn't that Maisie hated Demons. It was just that she was uncomfortable around them. If given the choice, she'd rather be anywhere else. It was why being handcuffed to one was literally destroying her. But alas, what could she do about it? Cecilia was being a bitch. Especially since she wouldn't let Maisie see the letter. It only seemed fair. After all, she was just as trapped in this situation as Cecilia was. This was certainly not how she pictured her first night in the world to go.

In her defense, she wasn't really sure what she was expecting. She'd been holed up her whole life up until now, after the incident that was never discussed. She'd never interacted with a human before and she'd never left the safe walls of her Angel community. It wasn't needed. It was deemed unnecessary. Why would she have to spend time outside of there when everything was going so well on the inside. Unfortunately, the perfect nature of the community couldn't last so when Cyrus had left, Maisie had known that it was only a short amount of time before she would be leaving too.

That had been today. She certainly didn't expect to be chained to a Demon.

"Who are the twins?" Maisie repeated. The two of them were passing down a busy sidewalk, full of people and animals and a rather annoying amount of objects that probably wasn't needed in this setting. "Why do we have to see them?" Her wings fluttered, begging to be opened after being closed against her back for so long, but Cecilia gave her a stare that forced her to stop moving them again. "Stop it. Why are you giving me that look? It's not like they don't already see us."

"Because they can't see us, Sherlock," Cecilia spat. She rolled her eyes and turned her attention forward, deeming Maisie as not important enough of her attention. "The mesh covers us up. They'll see two human girls walking down the sidewalk together holding hands. They won't see the wings or horns or halos or whatever other shit thing we've got going on. That's just how the human world works."

"The mesh?" Maisie asked. This time, Cecilia pulled her off the sidewalk and into an alley. She turned to stare at Maisie with a little more than an intimidating look.

"You don't know what the mesh is?" Cecilia breathed. "You honestly don't know what the mesh is? The... the... oh, what's the official name? Fl-... Flitren, I think? Something along those lines. You don't know what that is?" Maisie almost felt ashamed to shake her head, like a child who didn't know the answer to a math problem.

"If I knew what it was, would I be asking?" Maisie shot back. Cecilia let out a frustrated groan and turned to look in the other direction.

"The mesh. We call it the mesh because it acts like mesh fabric," Cecilia started. "It blocks out the things we don't want humans to see. It was developed a couple of hundred years ago but the nickname came around recently. Maybe only the past fifty years or so? It's fairly new. Mages and genies and the works created all these different spells to shield the human eye from us. We didn't want to be hunted down like we were before so we put precautions in the way of being spotted. It's why we can walk down the street just like any other human, even if we're not. Honestly, did they teach you anything? They must have wanted you dead." Cecilia rolled her eyes again, glancing back out of the alley and onto the sidewalk.

"Why call it the mesh?" Maisie said. She felt like there was an answer in there somewhere but quite frankly, she didn't care enough to pay any more attention to anything but the basics.

"Because it acts like mesh fabric," Cecilia repeated with a huff. "I just told you that. And I swear to the gods if you ask me what mesh fabric is, I will scream. You shouldn't even be here if you don't know the basics of human culture. There's a whole training course to send birth Angels like you out here with basic knowledge, isn't there? So act like it."