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The art of forging a Halo was beget at the time when no Angel had sires but the creator of chaos. All participated in its making and the art was known to all of the sect for there were not yet elder experts of this nascent craft. It was the craft of the whole creed.
The gleaming material that sprouted up from undertalon was extracted with reverent care. It was their harvest, their blessed crops. Bequeathed specifically for them at the beginning, the manipulation of it was their chimed calling. Bent into shape, energy coursing to make the course, perfect circles were carefully hewn into being, one for each Angel of the sect, of each Angel of the sect. From stalks of twisted yellow from the land of Eden to rings that were both weapon and their insignia—that was their work.
And so for this work they became named the Halo sect. Their name was made so by the first of them, the first makers of their namesake. Against the curved range of absolute mountains, they of the made, made themselves and those that would follow. Those of their sect, with their matte baize feathers, were thus known for the ring of shining yellow crafted and held high: their Halos.
Time being time, it passed. Life being life, the Halo Angels changed while the land made for them remain unchanged. None remained of those who came first. Many generations had passed, the numbers of their sect had grown, yet the Halo rings remained. Neither changed nor completely unchanged they were—the art had evolved as had the sect. Pride became standard and the sect of forgers became the sect of the forged. The art of Halo forging became truly known only to few. Once of all and for all became of the few but still for the all.
Still the Halo gleams against dark, light, and the fallen. The shape and calling of it endures.
Against the edge of Eden we dwell, dark against our backs. Immersed willfully amongst sprawling green, we lurk amongst the dark of our calling, ready for the hunt. Gazing out at shale trees and twisted spires, we bide.
Bide we do until that which we seek creeps under cover of light. A skittering mass of fur bolts across our vision, stubby legs and primal instinct driving it forward. It knows its end by us draws near.
Fast as it tries to be, we are faster. Running across the ground made even by prior hunts, we exercise our right. Slashes of dark strike true and rend the creature unmoving and dead.
Our talons snatch it up to drag it back to whence we came. Black feathers unsullied by the hunt, we return to our edge, our dark domain with our take.
Anchored above the end of our lands, eternal in nature, is the light of Eden. Angled to spread its rays against the land, diminishing in the realm of the dark, it blesses us the most of all with a form of our charge. Light is our charge, our gift, our right.
Light that is our weapon and tool to cultivate our world as we see fit. Cultivation to production, we make our own prosperity. Light to nourish the ground to beget our crystalline crop:
Crystals of chalky green, less inorganic than organic. Patches of it erupt from the rough sands. Appreciated, consumed, shared, and suitably honored.
Crystals of humming blue, both soft and decorative. Draped along our edges of Eden, it flows in the wind. Our garb it becomes and radiant it remains.
Crystals of burning red, warming and potent. At the highest points, after sand is burned with light, do they form. From the ashes, fire they form for us.
Crystals of translucent form, but enduring white. Creeping up from the loose sands, anchored in our earth. Power stored, power through, power from, power of. Our tools are chiseled from it and of it.
From dune hills, we keep our watch over our shining land, our crystalline production, and we exercise our right to continue it. We bring the light and, from that, all else we need.
From the outside, our land is a prison. Walls of mountains surround us, keeping us in. Just as it is that, it is also our sanctuary. Gray rocks and jagged peaks are our borders, a line between the non-fallen and we, the fallen forsaken. Even without that, the non-fallen would hardly dare to come into the land of the forsaken.
And we the same to them.
For our part, it is due to the shame of our beginnings and of the ascendatory pride of our new fallen beings that that shame begets. Diminished in some ways, superior in others, but equal nonetheless. Lest we all forget, there are four parts to Eden—four parts, four sects, and we fallen are one of them.
One that comes from the rejection of others. Borne from decrees, the command of an Archangel upon one of their ilk. To be sent away from their birthright and to be reborn as fallen—that is the common past of all of us, new and old. That is the source of the rejection of others and the shame and pride of we fallen.
Sent away we fallen are, but then too are we welcomed openly into a sect of many shapes. Our kinship is based on experience rather than of blood.
In echoing forests new kin arrive, cool mountains behind them, into their new homeland. The past forgotten. The future—awaiting.
Featherless we are but not without future. A future we can mold for ourselves. It began with condemnation, but it need not end that way.