Canrie finds the farm around midday. She registers the general shape of the barn, the fence around the pasture, the skeleton of a cow. Rot half-covers all of it, fetid red flesh-creep which has caved in the barn roof under its weight and leaves only patches of golden grass exposed. The sky is roiling grey and the wind is cold and heavy with smoke.

Around her neck, her collar of silvery light warms.

There’s less meat growing over the hills, wide swathes of golden grass free to bristle in the wind. A few scrawny trees even stand here and there. Meanwhile the hills roll on and on, towards the gunmetal swells of the cloudy horizon. Far in the distance a few specks of color dot the land. Houses, perhaps? She wonders if anyone still lives in them. Maybe they’d help her look. Maybe they’d have food that isn’t tins of cold rations. Maybe...

Sometime later Canrie comes upon an abandoned trench lining the top of a hill, the barbed wire tamped down by the rot and mud collapsed onto the walkway in places. She climbs down into it, eats a tin of cold salted beef and mashed potato with a piece of hard tack, washes it down with a swig of lukewarm water from her canteen. She has two tins left. Water, at least, has not been an issue. Her mistress sees to that.

Canrie’s body is stiff from days of wandering. She allows herself a moment to rest, before doing a sweep of the trench. There’s not much to it, the duckboards overgrown and half-flooded with rain, most of the dugouts collapsed. The air within trenches feels different. Thicker with an aura of filth and illness. Like the ghosts of the soldiers who’d died here are still engulfed in the mud, reaching out for help that will never come. Finding nothing, she emerges and takes another look over the ruin below.

Canrie backs away towards the trench. The throne is far away down the hill, enough that it likely hasn’t seen her. It’s still close enough that she can smell the meat burning beneath its red-hot treads.

Canrie turns and runs. Within moments the dirt starts to tremble beneath her boots as it closes in. She slides back into the trench and crams herself up against the forward wall. The wheel rumbles closer, then stops with a grind and clatter of shifting metal and an impact of heavy limbs on the earth above.

She keeps still, the pistol clutched to her chest. The throne looks around, body creaking. She’s right under it. But fear gnaws at her chest but holds no real sway over her. She knows she is protected. It hauls itself across the trench, swinging its head around to scan the passages. Its body is too wide to fit in the passages, arms splayed out, but it could still snatch her in its long talons.

Her hand slips from the duckboard and claps into the murky water collected beneath it.

Canrie’s head darts up. Down the communications trench before her, the throne looks back. Its face might be human were it not a gnarl of scorched flesh and blackened fangs dripping clear accelerant.

Still Canrie doesn’t fear. There isn’t a need to- isn’t time to. Up in the clouds, a spot of gold flashes in the grey and swells, flooding light over the trenches. Then a crash of thunder, filling the skies. The throne is obliterated, upper body blown apart as if struck by artillery and tail flailing away.

The light softens as its source descends towards the trench, details materializing through the corona. Vast wings, six of them gleaming with silver feathers. Luminous armor, warming the air with its presence. A helmet with two metal wings folded over the eyes and a single golden point of light beaming in the forehead. An ornate shotgun veined with gold, a pair of spent shells leaping from the breach as its wielder reloads it.

Miss Vaschael touches softly down on the duckboards, single golden star of an eye peering down on Her servant. She surveys the throne’s corpse. “Was there only one?” She asks, Her voice as deep and soothing and rolling with power as the ocean on a calm day.

Satisfied, the angel returns Her weapon to the leather holster on Her hip. Then She kneels with Canrie, still looming over her even in the same position. “Are you well, Canrie?”

Miss Vaschael’s light dims until Her wings dissolve into mercurial haze and the gleam of Her gold eye fades. Slipping off Her helmet, She sweeps her long auburn hair back from Her statuesque face. Cupping Canrie’s chin, the angel looks over her with kind auburn eyes. She grants Canrie a smile, full of fondness and care. Elation floods Canrie. “I’m glad,” She says, brushing a slick of dirt from Canrie’s freckled cheek with Her thumb. “What would I do without my loyal Little Hound?”

Somewhere in this blighted world, several of Miss Vaschael’s sisters have fallen. Canrie’s mission is to help find them. The angel searches from the skies, while the pup sniffs through the ruins below for any smaller hints.

Canrie’s bliss falters. “I haven’t, Miss. No sign yet.”

“I-I saw some houses earlier,” Canrie begins, anxious to be of help. Anxious to remain obedient. “They were far away, so I didn’t go to them, but maybe—”

Canrie melts a little, her mistress’s touch pure euphoria, so consuming she can’t help a happy little whimper. The stench of the rotting world, the throne’s broken remains, the proximity of death just moments ago, all of it is already falling from her mind. Pup. Canrie has come to like that. It was a little embarrassing at first, she supposes. She’s a woman grown, twenty years of age, not a dog. But her name- Canrie- does mean “dog”. Little Hound in Old Scodian. Miss Vaschael told her so. It might have been decided in the Heavens the day she was born, that she is to be Miss Vaschael’s hound, helping in this divine mission. Her collar, that silver halo around her neck, fits so perfectly it might have grown there like skin.

Canrie perks up. Eyes big with their own adoring light, a grin of simple puppy bliss on her face, abuzz at another chance to be of use. She and Miss Vaschael typically search separately to cover more ground, with the angel checking in throughout the day. “Yes,” she says, nodding. “Yes, Miss, let’s.”

***

Before long, they spot a boxy silhouette perched atop a hill ahead. Some kind of manor, perhaps. It’s hard to say if this is lucky. Getting closer, they find glistening flesh-growth has crept up much of the building’s sides, devouring it by inches. The door remains uncovered, however. The rain is getting heavier and the night is getting darker, and the Host are always hunting. Miss Vaschael wraps an arm around Canrie, pulling her up against the reassuring warmth of Her armour. They hurry to the porch, where an overhang shelters them from the rain.

Miss Vaschael considers this. But with the rain hammering the roof and the night closing its dark, icy jaws around them, there’s little else to do. The angel’s wings dissipate, leaving the bright golden eye of Her helmet and the silver glow of Canrie’s collar their only light. “Stay close to me, Little Hound,” She whispers, more to calm Canrie than to instruct. Leaving her mistress’s side is always a sorrow. Tonight, it might be suicide. Then She ushers Canrie behind Her, draws Her shotgun, and nudges the door open to lead them in. Canrie follows with pistol drawn.

Fortunately, they never find any. Afterwards Miss Vaschael breaks apart a chair in the dining room and stacks its remains in the fire place, igniting it a shower of sparks from striking Her bracer against the edge of Her spear. Canrie’s wet uniform is laid out on the floor, the pup having found a bathrobe in a wardrobe upstairs. It hangs a little loose on her, as she’d lost weight in the trenches. She finds a bit of solace in how this lets her bunch it up around herself as she sits by the fire, holding the extra fabric close like a blanket.

In Canrie’s dreams, phantom hands caress her. Icy fingers, tracing along her limbs and the fine details of her face. It’s not a rare dream, though one she keeps to herself. It troubles her, but has no bearing on the waking world. So, she sees no reason to trouble Miss Vaschael with it. Still she gives a little whimper.

A rotten face hovers over hers, pitted with shadow and pale orange in the dancing light. It was human but is now so decayed that she can tell little more than that. The burnt meat and old oil reek of it hits her nose.

Panic seizing her, Canrie tries to scream but the thing slides its wet hand up to block her nose. She tries to thrash free but the other hands weren’t part of the dream either, they pin her limbs to the floorboards.

Finally Miss Vaschael looks over- and with a gasp leaps up, snatching Her spear from the wall before descending on the thing like lightning. It hasn’t even time to face Her before She decapitates it with a quick slash. It grip loosens as its body sloughs away, letting Canrie gasp for air and scramble up onto her knees. She glimpses a long metal spinal column of a body twisting and thrashing, its length lined with too-human arms in a parody of a centipede.

Canrie needs a moment to breath. Needs to wipe the cold muck from her face. “I...” She stutters, nodding. She has faith that her mistress will protect her. This doesn’t make such a brush with death any easier. “I’m—”

Canrie throws out her hand. “Miss, behind you!”

Canrie’s fear is muted by duty. Her mistress needs help. Diving towards her uniform she snatches her pistol from its holster. Miss Vaschael grunts- a pained sound, lancing pain through Canrie’s heart in turn. She hurries into position, aiming from an angle to hit the lurker as her mistress tries to shove it off, and fires. A pop of oily blood erupts from its eye and its coils and limbs all spasm in unison, then the thing goes limp.

Dropping the pistol, Canrie scrambles to her mistress’s side, slips an arm under Hers to try and help Her stand. But the angel is steel, a tower that should be eternally sturdy collapsing. All Canrie can do is help her mistress down to lay by the fire. Pungent sweat glistens across Her flawless face, Her eyes pinched shut.

“What do I do?” she asks. “M-Miss, how do I help?”

Canrie stuffs her hand into the pouch and pulls out a small vial of a thick amber liquid, drinking in and amplifying the fire’s glow.

She realizes she could not do this. She could not give Vaschael the vial. She could just set it down, put her uniform back on, and wander off alone. Maybe even find whatever that distant something was.

Canrie could just walk away.

She returns to the moment, with her mistress laid low, black tendrils starting to spread beneath Her skin from the sting. She uncorks the vial and sets its mouth between Miss Vaschael’s lips, watches the ambrosia drain from the glass as her angel drinks it.

It takes Miss Vaschael a moment longer before She gives a weak nod. “I should be alright now,” She whispers, a little resonant strength back in Her voice. “I just need to rest.” She lifts a hand to Canrie’s cheek, twirling Her thumb lightly on the soft skin. “Thank you, Canrie.”

Calm settles over them again. Canrie lays with her mistress, setting her chin protectively on Her breastplate, a guard dog on alert. Miss Vaschael strokes her hair a while, until Her hand comes to rest on the back of Canrie’s neck just over her collar as She finds sleep. They remain this way until dawn.

The next night they find a small temple in a shallow river valley, the building untouched by the rot choking the river and its bank. Vaschael refills Canrie’s canteen from the river, then grips it with both hands as they glower with scalding light, boiling the water to a drinkable state. Once inside, Canrie lays on one of the dusty wooden benches arranged around the hearth at the temple’s center, just glad for the moment to get off her aching feet. Ash and charcoal fill the hearth and half the benches are missing, perhaps broken up by the last people to take shelter here to start a fire. Canrie has an inkling to do the same. She knows Vaschael won’t allow it, however. This is a holy place.

The girl hugs her arms tight around herself, her ratty uniform doing little to keep out the cold. Really, what would she have done if she’d let Vaschael die? Then she’d be alone out here. Exhausted, rations low, lost in enemy territory. She wouldn’t have lasted a day.

As she shifts on the hard wood, trying to get comfortable, Canrie’s hand grazes her collar. It sparks against her skin, prickling just on the edge of pain.

Vaschael’s armor tinkers as she sits down. Stone scrapes on metal as she sharpens her spear, the divine steel humming softly with each stroke.

None, says a stewing, angry voice deep in Canrie’s chest. None at all. It isn’t about that. Vaschael is some kind of pervert. Putting pretty girls in collars and making them dogs. Abusing holy power to indulge sick fantasies. But then again, Vaschael has never touched her, not in anyway like that, at least. Maybe it is, in a way, more innocent than that. Maybe humanity is nothing more than a pet to the divine. Canrie curls up tighter.

Canrie isn’t. Her chest is thrumming with it, her head is full of it like the cold fetid mud has flooded into her skull. She has to make her case that she can’t help the angel, that her mistress should just let her go.

Canrie considers deflecting. I’m just cold. I’m just tired. But Canrie cannot hear that voice and respond with lies. “Miss Vaschael,” she begins, trying to muster her voice. “I feel lost. I wonder why you need men, and I...” Now that she’s speaking to them- even some of them- Canrie feels the emotion welling up her throat. “I doubt, Miss. I doubt that you need me. I’m confused, and scared, and...”

A manipulation. Isn’t it? Canrie tries to hold onto that but finds it draining. Even more work she wasn’t prepared to do. “It is,” she confesses. “It’s so hard, Miss.”

“I can’t stand it sometimes, Miss.” Canrie’s lip twitches. Where to even begin? Even talking about it feels like drowning. “It’s so much.”

Canrie remembers well. She remembers how she considered not doing that and leaving. But she had helped. All of a sudden her mind seizes on that. She had helped, as she was supposed to. It’s a thought she can grab onto, use to pull herself out of that mire in her head. She’s good. She’s obedient, as she’s supposed to be. Even if she doesn’t want it. “I did,” she confesses, nodding a little. “Yes, I did.” She said she wanted to help, didn’t she? When she first met Vaschael? This thought hangs in her mind like the farm and the ghosts in the trenches.

Canrie tries to fight the bashful smile creeping across her lips. She loses. A blush rises in her cheeks as the angel’s praise washes over her. “I’m happy to help, Miss.”

The smile hangs on Canrie’s face. “Miss...?”

Canrie’s memories begin the first time they’d sang together. It was in a temple like this one, just after Vaschael had saved her. The memory is bright and effervescent, yet some anxiety coils just beneath the joy. She only knows it was just after Vaschael had saved her- and that she’d said she wanted to help- because the angel had told her so.

“Yes,” she says. “I’d like that, Miss.”

Canrie does. Six strong wings wrap around her, their light strengthening to near-blinding brilliance. She relaxes at once. Nowhere in this blighted world is safer than within this silver veil. Even that cold mire in her own head can’t touch her here.

Radiant visions swim in her eyes, cast into them by her angel’s light. Clouds like quicksilver swirl in a methodical dance above her, entwining upwards into the gold-and-azure eye of a clear sky. The Silver Heaven, open to her. High in the mercurial folds, more angels hover and watch, calling her up to them. Divine aura tingles against her skin and through her hair like sunshine and static, a soothing breeze wrapping around her and massaging her tired muscles in the cocoon of her angel’s wings. Pain and exhaustion and fear blur into abstract things, artifacts of some darker world far below. Here in the hymn, there is only this comforting radiance. Canrie’s smile becomes genuine again as she lets it swallow her.

Home. Cows grazing from yellowing grass in a modest pasture. A cottage, wherein heavyset man with a sandy brown beard chops up carrots in a small kitchen, while a girl with big green eyes and a messy black ponytail helps him by peeling a potato. Odd trips to a bustling marketplace. Weekly congregation at the church by the creek, led by a kind-eyed priestess with dark curls. Home. All of this, seething just behind a misty golden veil filling Canrie’s mind. The veil solidifying by the moment, the images fading behind it. Anxiety spikes into terror. Canrie tries to reach for them. Starts to whine and squirm. Home, please, let me go home—

And it’s gone. Canrie is still and calm, the little puppy grin returning to her face as radiance devours her.

Miss Vaschael chuckles. “My,” the angel says, “you truly were troubled, weren’t you?”

“Of course, sweet pup.” The angel plants a light kiss atop her head, tingling in Canrie’s hair.

She’s only half-aware of Miss Vaschael lifting her up in Her arms then, as if Canrie were a bundle of sticks. Only half-aware of Miss Vaschael perching on the bench and settling Canrie down in Her lap, Her wings cradling her in place. Their light fades to a glow, but they remain as warm and soft as before. Not too soft, however. The strength in the angel’s arms and solid surfaces of Her armor assure the pup that she is safe here. She curls into the fortress of her mistress’s body. Utterly docile. Utterly content in being so.

“Your Little Hound,” Canrie mumbles back. Now that her head is silent and her purpose is clear, she can just let this serenity carry her away. She floats in it a while, knowing only easy contentment.

Canrie blinks, struggling to wrap her bliss-addled mind around the question. “Miss?”

Deep down in Canrie’s gut, a cold pinprick.

“No, Miss,” she answers, letting her head settle against the angel’s armored shoulder. “You’re wonderful to me.”

“Mmm.” Canrie’s eyes grow heavier by the moment, the fatigue of the mission pressing down on her now that she has a chance to rest- really rest, safe in her mistress’s arms. “You’re welcome, Miss.” A thought crosses her mind. She asks in turn, “Am I good, Miss Vaschael?”

Elation flows warm and heady through Canrie, sinking her deeper into euphoria. She’s good! What more could she need? “Thank you, Miss,” she coos, voice fading as sleep begins to coil around her.

“Yes, Miss…” Canrie barely gets the words out before a long puppy yawn follows. She lets her heavy eyelids close, and allows sleep to pull her down into its dreamless depths. The last thing she sees as her eyes flutter shut is Miss Vaschael’s immaculate face watching her, melting back into that too-human weariness.