The leaves were gently rustling in the breeze, the warm sunlight of dusk painting the sky a golden yellow. She sat on a park bench, shoulder to shoulder with her newest date, his arm wrapped around her, her palm enclosed in his. She snuggled close into him, sighing contentedly, watching as a flock of pigeons landed in front of her, scouring the ground for some evening snacks, perhaps...

Without notice, she felt an extradimensional weight press upon her being. Hurriedly, she shifted into the astral sight, where she saw a raw, searing ball of light nestled in the breast of a pigeon. Sensing her attention, the pigeon lifted its head, and fixed his monocular, unblinking gaze on her.

"Hello, unworldly abomination."

"Hello, self-righteous vermin. Come to steal my date?"

"Hardly. I'm here on official business. At this very moment, ten of my brethen have already snuck up on you, well positioned to deal a killing blow. I just thought it was courtesy to inform you, before we annihilate you and scatter your ashes to the winds. Any last words?"

"What-" She broadened her perceptions to conduct a quick scan of her surroundings.

"Ha! Made you look."

An involuntary scowl formed on her alien face, and with her many eyes she affixed a nasty glare at the pigeon.

"If you need some ideas for entertainment, go grab a mortal or two instead. Shoo. Stop invading my privacy."

The radiant pigeon stared back mutely, its rays still.

"Well, go on then. Go somewhere else, or I'm going to have to kick you."

"How about ... no?"

She glared harder at him, but inside she knew that it was utterly unreasonable to make such a request of him. He was assigned to watch and counter her, and duty-bound as he was, he would never, ever leave.

"..."

"You're so annoying."

It's dusk, and a couple still sits on the park bench, shoulder to shoulder, his arm wrapped around hers, her palm enclosed in his. Her other hand is stroking a common pigeon, its feathers as white as snow, its gaze somehow piercing.

The trappings of this mortal disguise does nothing in the way of true subterfuge, not for otherworldly beings such as them. She feels his essence under the soft downy feathers, feels the weight of years - oh how has it stretched their souls! Countless memories are summoned, unbidden, into her mind. No one asked them before assigning them to the roles of "unworldly abomination" and "self-righteous vermin", roles that could not be laid down, for fear of breaking the balance of the world. Yet they are real troupers, sworn to see through their story to the very end...

Tears fill her eyes without warning, and though she is still pampering the pigeon with rhythmic strokes, she is wracked with quiet sobs. Her lover looks on, concerned; he whispers to her promises that it will be all right, squeezes her hand in an effort to comfort her. He implores her to share her sorrows, so that he can take a share of her burden, but she shakes her head, and gives no answer.

“So… must thy have one self righteous vermin as I say it?”

The “human” snarls and whispers something unnatural under their breath. People nearby all hold their heads in pain besides the “humans” date who is currently reading his menu. The “human” noticing this regains their composure. Everybody continues eating as if nothing happen.

“Vile vermin, why must you tarnish my evening.”

“I will say it then.”

The Pigeon Smirks

“Tis only a child compared to such an ageless being… or should I say horror itself? Why accompany yourself with such a youth, Ageless Horror?”

The Pigeon chuckles to themselves while ruffling their feathers. The “Human” begins to heat up with a seething anger. The Pigeon is unaffected and still laughing. Just before the “Human”’s chair succumbs to the heat, they hear a voice directly in front of them. The “human”’s date puts the menu down and looks visibly alarmed.

“Um, Stacey?”

The “Stacey” perks straights up and smiles at their date.

“Uh… yes… dear?”

The “Stacey” looks visibly uncomfortable.

“Is it just me or is there’s a pigeon on your shoulder?”

The “Stacey” briefly panics before improvising a reply.

“Uh… lunch for later. Want to share?”

The “Stacey” smiles in a unflattering way. The Pigeon stops laughing and frowns. The date looks at The “Stacey” and warmly smiles.

“I’d like that, you’re sweet. You know that?”

The date picks up the Menu. The Pigeon gags.

“Thy make me want to vomit…”

The “Stacey” smirks at pigeon”

“You know nothing and will never know of the primal feeling and deep intrinsic pleasures of the earthly realm of “dat-thing”(Dating). Let it make you suffer for all eternity as your punishment for ruining my “dat’s” (date’s). Late evening reading.”

The pigeon flys over to the dates menu. The Pigeon returns to perch on The “Stacey” shoulder looking visibly confused.

“Why does the youth continue to read only the kids menu?”

The “Stacey” thinks and immediately frowns. They call over a waiter while packing their belongings.

“Possibility succumbing to madness.”

The date gets up and starts screaming in unspoken tongues.

“Definitely succumbing to madness. Dates over then. That was an… okay 1 minute and twenty seconds.”

The “Stacey” looks visibly bummed out. The Pigeon stops and thinks. The Pigeon halo’s appears on his head as soon as he gets and idea. The Pigeon turns into a beautiful blonde male human.

“So….”

The “Stacey” is already paying for their check and leaving. She gives one last look and says:

“Just… no dude… Won’t like, what, your dad will get mad?”

The “Stacey” laughs off in the distance while The Pigeon stands there dumbfounded in his human form while the whole restaurant begins succumbing to madness this date has ensued.

The end!

We stared one another down, neither of us blinking for some time. The angel's beak finally twisted as it smirked unnaturally for its disguise of choice. "Cousin! Tell me. How has it been?" I sighed as I stared off towards the bathroom where the young woman had gone some time ago, almost an hour by their measurements.

"I think my date ditched me." I sighed. "Oh, well. It's not like it was going very well anyways." I raised my hand to the waiter for the check. "Let me pay for this and we can go somewhere private to talk." The bird twittered happily as the poor deluded bastard hopped around happily on the open window sill.

After I paid I left the restaurant, my heavenly cousin flittering onto my shoulder to sit. I received some odd looks from the people passing by but I ignore them. I walked from the restaurant, down the road a ways and turned towards the entrance to the city's only patch of nature amidst all the gleaming metal and glass.

"So, talk. Angels don't take the form of birds for no reason at all." My cousin sighed and flew from my shoulder to a table in a secluded hollow. When it reached the plastic lattice work its form changed from a bird to that of a beautiful woman casually tossing a rush of long blonde hair over her shoulder.

"Fine. Down to business then. We need you to leave." I balked at her.

"Excuse me? I've been here for less than a week! And that's after my hiatus from the last time you bureaucrats kicked me off of this rock! Now you're demanding I leave again?" The air stilled around us as I flexed my already limited power to freeze the flow of time around us.

"Yes. You should know, better than any being, that your very presence upsets the balance of this universe. We work very tirelessly to maintain everything from the inertia of the cosmos to the inner workings of cells, constantly! And after the last war with the demon children of Lillith our numbers took another huge hit. We cannot afford to have something as chaotic and unbalancing as a horror walking about in the skin of a human!" The angel sighed and shook its head. "You were told this last time by Gabriel."

"I am not unbalancing anything and you should watch your tone with me, or you'll find out how Detriel felt when I incinerated him." The angel bristled.

"Just leave. Or else." I shook my head.

"You half-breed upstarts haven’t the authority nor the power to evict me. I left last time as a courtesy. Now, I'm staying. Whether you like it or not." I turned to leave, the angel's mouth hanging agape. "Oh, and tell Metatron that he still owes me a rematch on our chess game." Then I left the park, leaving the angel sputtering after me. I took a deep breath and unleashed the full extent of my influence on their precious cosmos, smirking as the sky began to darken.

"Let's have some fun."

Edit: spelling and slight sentence rewording

The dating scene of the modern era can be an eldritch being on its own, and yet one finds themselves in a mediocre coffee shop far overpriced for tobacco stained water. The meeting was due at six, and the rotation of the planet only crept further into the chill darkness before calling a day, packing an item or two of food and leaving the rest with a wad of the implied valued paper.

The breeze was firm as the water fell politely upon the clothes and mask, a thin mist that was almost as enjoyable as watching people cower under cover to hide from it. The park deemed a wonderous place to breathe after being surrounded for too long, silently nodding to oneself at the idea. One hand would extend to take a abandoned, incomplete cigarette from a tray when a voice would call out "Hello, abomination"

The seemingly ordinary woman would hault, looking around to find a pidgeon, wet and cozy enough in the shelter of a barber shop window sill, a soft gold highlighting it from signs left on inside. The individual gave a wave back, a smile tugging at the corners of a false mouth. "Hello, self righteous vermin. What "rule" have you come to enforce?"

The bird would blink, clouded eyes weaping into the wet feathers. Angels had such slow replies, pre-approving every word. "Humans are under the care of us." it would coo, fluffing and shaking off to dry. The humanoid would scoff and laugh. "Tell J-ovva they can tell me themselves. The cosmos is not to claim by a singular."

A moment of silence as the message was passed on, shoes beginning to clack away on pavement, expecting nothing but another rejection. The phase would only repeat with emphasis. "Humans are under our care." it would repeat, plopping down onto the pavement and speeding behind as another person left the bread store across the street, cussing a storm at the weather.

"Why are you here?"

The two would silently walk down the street. An answer would imply there was a reason to begin. People would pass them. A family rushing into a car, a couple would giggle past in a rush. A mother keeping the child dry while talking on the phone. They paid little to no mind to the duo, living their lives. Unknowing.

"I enjoy watching them." The horror would reply. The angel would pidgeon coo in approval. Out would extend the human arm as a gesture of a carry, the true form moving beneath. "Come watch them with me for an hour."

"No." Was the reply, rejecting the offer of the carry, pointing the slightly too large head upwards in a snobbish fashion. "Not with you. I can watch you for their safety."

A disgusted, unintelligible sound escaped the throat as the offer withdrew. "Self righteous, as always. I'm going to find bread and throw it at you." Joked the eldridge

"Kindly do not." Requested the angel, hearing food crunch in the jacket pockets, finding the company of each other not all that unpleasant.

"You are banned from this realm, abomination. I demand you leave at once by order of He Who is Most High," the angel-pigeon demanded of the disguised horror.

"Listen, errand boy, I didn't listen to "God" when he told me I couldn't come into his realm that mom gave to him for his birthday and I'm sure as shit not going to be ordered about by one of his little sycophants. Piss off," the eldritch one dismissed the angel-pigeon summarily and went back to playing Flappy Bird on his (or its?) phone. The angel-pigeon was having none of it.

"I am the Archangel Michael! Saint Michael the Taxiarch! He who threw Lucifer from heaven! I will have respect from one who is not of this world and has befouled it with your invasion, Francis!" Pigeon-Michael huffed. It was rather unintimidating as he was just a small pigeon. It would have made Francis the Elder God smirk except he hated being called Francis. He much preferred Frank.

Frank glared for a moment before deftly putting away his phone. This would not stand. Then, like Darth Vader before him, Frank the Elder God held out his hand and telekinetically and spiritually choked the shit out of Michael.

"You little winged rat! I will-"

"Franky! Sorry I'm late, love, traffic was awful," a young woman, clearly out of breath said as she ran up and hugged her boyfriend Frank, the eldritch monstrosity. This distracted him enough to lose his grip on the Archangel Michael who hastily flew off.

"That little vermin got away!" Frank moped. The woman looked confused.

"Were you having a staring contest with a pigeon?"

"It's a long story but that winged rat is my little brother's pet. I hate those things," Frank told his girlfriend. It was all true but he didn't elaborate all of the details for fear of driving his mortal girlfriend to madness. But hey, just one of the hassles of dating, right?

Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

Reminders:

>* Stories at least 100 words. Poems, 30 but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* See Reality Fiction and Simple Prompts for stricter titles >* Be civil in any feedback and follow the rules

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