23.3

 

She is becoming something in-between Famine and Roisin; something that stands between them; a bridge, just as the Nephilim suggested. A bridge between the human life she built and the cosmic identity she abandoned. The Nephilim’s awareness presses gently against her mind, not pushing her forward, not pulling her back but simply reflecting her.

She sees herself the way it sees her; as a being who once held balance the balance of the world but stepped out of the role in order to hide the charges she thought unjustly condemned to death, and though she has lived as a human she was never fully human herself, only the echo of Famine hiding amongst the shadows of mortality, afraid to confront the truths she had hidden from the human part of herself.

What the Nephilim is showing her is a revelation. She has been living in a shape too small for her

She is not human in the way she believed. She can live as one, love, suffer setbacks and losses like one, enjoy the highs and terrors of being one, but never again will she be one, not like before, for knowledge, once gained, is engraved upon the soul. Neither is she Famine. She may still be an angel (and her mind desperately wants to insert the word ‘fucking’ here) because the Horse is gone, the hunger is gone and the Nephilim now carries that part of her that is the cosmic memory. As Famine she could see and name every microcosmic speck of soul matter, but as a human she only remembers her birthday by the date on her medical card.

She is no longer the force she once embodied but she is not free of it. She has become the echo of a horseman but one who is so much more than that. She can not only remember the Four bur the Four as one; the archangel Araksiel. She is not human, but she can also remember what it is to be human. She is the only mortal being alive who can speak to a Nephilim without being shattered by the experience.

She is the echo of a Horseman and the bridge between what is and what is coming.

The realisation terrifies her, but beneath the fear is something steadier, older, and impossibly calm. She has a renewed sense of purpose. She doesn’t have to become Famine in order to help the mortal world by fighting the angels; nor does she have to see the destruction of it. She can accept the mantle without losing her humanity. Inside this mortal frame she can hold all there is to hold: a sense of alignment, of recognition, of rightness.

She whispers, barely audible: “…I’m not becoming Famine,” and for the first time, she understands why she cannot step away. She is not being held. She is arriving.

She’s a fucking angel.

Roisin’s hand trembles as she reaches out into the Nephilim. She can feel the mantle there, its weight draped neatly over the soul and bones of the Nephilim like a robe made for a much larger person; it’s heavy, but it makes the Nephilim look like a child carrying it’s parent’s toolbox, the weight of it bearable but uncomfortable. It is more than the Horse; it’s history, pain, and power woven into a single thread of consciousness. As her acceptance closes around it, a sharp sting shoots through her; the echo of every sacrifice made by those who bore it before her.

Pain blossoms in her chest, raw and unyielding, a fierce reminder of the cost she is about to reclaim. It is the ache of loss, the burn of responsibility, and the cold shadow of doubt. Yet beneath it all, a fierce ecstasy surges—an intoxicating rush of purpose and belonging that floods her veins. This is what Joan d’Arc held when she saw how to defend France and what Hercules referred to as ‘The Golden Hide.’ They had both touched something directly made by the Creator, and it had given them everything they could hold in their mortal fames.

Her breath hitches, caught between a sob and a cry of triumph. The mantle is hers again, and with it, the promise of rebirth and reckoning. The world seems to tilt, the air thick with the electric hum of destiny fulfilled. She can feel her body changing as the mantle begins its final journey back into her, transforming her once more from mortal to Horseman. In that moment, Roisin is both broken and whole, the pain and ecstasy entwined like twin flames, lighting the path she was destined to walk from the first time she left her mother’s breast.