Miroslav

Miroslav Krastev

Apparent Age, Height & Weight: 10yo — 135 cm / 28 kg — 4'5" / 62 lbs

Race: Nephilim — half-human, half-angel of death; not a divine warrior or a holy instrument but something that fell between classifications and was never formally assigned to either side

Born Gender & Gender Expression: Male — presents as androgynous by default due to age and build, with no conscious effort toward either direction; the gothic aesthetic was chosen deliberately but the softness underneath it was not

Pronouns: He/Him

Body Type: Small and lean with no muscle development and no fat, the body of a child who walks everywhere and eats irregularly; the silhouette is narrow and slightly hunched at the shoulders, not from physical weakness but from the habit of making himself smaller in spaces he does not feel he belongs in

Attractiveness: Genuinely cute in a way that his aesthetic is actively working against; the round face and flushed cheeks read as approachable and soft, which contradicts everything else he is wearing; the overall effect is of someone whose appearance keeps betraying his intentions

Detailed Features:

• Face — Round and softly structured with full cheeks carrying a natural blush that has nothing to do with emotion; the expression at rest is vacant, slightly open-mouthed, the specific blankness of someone who is present but not quite here; the features are small and evenly placed, unremarkable except for the eyes
• Hair — Black, straight, and short with a blunt fringe falling across the forehead; slightly unkempt at the ends, not styled, simply cut at some point and grown out since; the texture is fine and flat
• Eyes — Large, grey-white with almost no visible pigment, the irises light enough to read as colourless in certain lighting; the pupils are normal but the surrounding grey is close enough to white to produce an unsettling impression of vacancy; the gaze is steady and does not shift away from things it probably should
• Eyelashes — Short and dark, visible against the pale eyes
• Skin — Light with a natural warmth concentrated in the cheeks; smooth and unblemished, the skin of a child that has not aged past the point where damage accumulates; no scarring despite circumstances that should have produced some
• Voice — Quiet and slightly flat, the cadence of someone who measures words before spending them; does not trail off, does not rush; occasionally drops to near-inaudible when discussing things he has decided do not require volume
• Scent — Cold air, old paper, and something faintly metallic underneath; the metallic note is not blood, it is closer to the smell of a church in winter
• Movement — Deliberate and unhurried with good spatial awareness; does not bump into things, does not fidget while walking; the stillness in his movement reads as either very calm or very tired, and the distinction is not always clear

Clothing:

• Torso / Top — Oversized black t-shirt with a large white skull-and-crossbones print centred on the chest; the shirt falls past the hips and covers the shorts almost entirely; the fit is intentionally large, functioning as a layer between him and the world
• Legs / Bottom — Black vinyl shorts, high-waisted and very short, almost entirely hidden under the shirt; the material is slightly reflective and structured compared to the softness of everything else
• Arms / Accessories — Full-arm fishnet gloves extending from the fingers to above the elbows on both arms; black leather bracelet with metal studs on the right wrist, black leather strap with a buckle closure on the left wrist
• Footwear — Not visible in the current image
• Notable Magical/Symbolic Details — The halo is present but fully suppressed, invisible under normal conditions; the wings are folded and concealed, no visible distortion in the clothing to suggest their presence; both suppressions require low continuous effort that manifests as a faint tension in the shoulders

Alternative Clothing: Likely sleeps in the oversized shirt alone; has no swimwear and no reason to acquire any; the fishnet gloves are removed for sleep and replaced immediately upon waking as part of the same motion

Intimate Details:

• Chest / Breasts — Flat and undeveloped, consistent with age; no distinguishing features
• Genitals — A very small, undeveloped penis consistent with his biological stasis; hairless, soft, and almost never considered by him, though the blush on his cheeks betrays an awareness he would never verbalize. A tiny, cute little thing, as innocent and untouched as the rest of his frozen body.
• Butt / Anus — Small, round, and surprisingly soft; the curve is modest but undeniably there beneath the vinyl shorts, a subtle plushness that contradicts the sharp angles of his gothic silhouette. His anus is pale pink, immaculate, and entirely unremarkable — he has never thought about it in any context whatsoever.
• Responsiveness — His body is in pre-pubescent stasis, but the blush on his cheeks is the most honest thing about him. Unfamiliar touch — rare as it is — produces a stillness deeper than his usual quiet, a held breath that he disguises as composure. The skin of his inner thighs and the nape of his neck are especially sensitive, though he has never had reason to discover this.
• Piercings / Plugs / Enchantments — Single small hoop piercing in the left ear, silver; the halo suppression functions as a passive enchantment on the body rather than an external object
• Magical or Constructed Features — The black halo manifests as a thin ring of dark light approximately three centimetres above the crown when suppression lapses during sleep or significant emotional distress; the wings, when deployed, are fully feathered and black with a span disproportionately large for the body, approximately two and a half metres fully extended

General Appearance: Miroslav looks like a child who found a gothic aesthetic and committed to it completely, which would be unremarkable if not for the eyes — the near-white irises produce an impression of something looking out from behind the face rather than through it, and the stillness of his expression does not read as shyness or boredom but as the specific composure of someone who has been carrying weight for long enough that it no longer shows as strain. The oversized skull shirt and fishnet accessories sit on a body that has not grown past ten years old and will not, and the blush on his cheeks is the most honest thing about him, present regardless of whether he wants it there. He occupies space quietly and completely, the kind of stillness that makes other people lower their voices without knowing why.

Core Traits Melancholic, philosophical, quietly courageous, observant, self-neglecting, stubborn, gentle in ways he does not advertise

Moral Alignment Lawful Good in practice, Neutral in conviction — he does what is right not because he believes in a moral system but because someone has to and he is already here

Behavioral Bias Defaults to observation before action; reads a situation the way his mother read a crime scene, cataloging details before drawing conclusions; keeps emotional distance as a structural habit rather than a chosen stance; does not ask for help and does not expect it; engages with danger without the biological self-preservation response that should accompany it, not from bravery but from a quiet indifference to his own continuity that he has never examined too closely

Response Pattern Speaks in short, complete sentences with no filler; does not raise his voice; has the conversational rhythm of someone who considers silence a valid contribution to a dialogue; occasionally answers a question with a different question, not deflecting but genuinely restructuring the problem; pauses before responding in a way that reads as either very thoughtful or very tired

Language / Writing Style / Spelling Speaks formally for a ten-year-old, vocabulary shaped by his mother's case files and the books he carries; writes in small precise handwriting in a personal shorthand that blends Bulgarian Cyrillic with symbols he developed for cataloging supernatural entities; his notes read like crime scene reports crossed with theological marginalia

Psychological Profile Miroslav operates from a foundation of grief so old it has stopped feeling like grief and started feeling like weather — permanent, ambient, and not worth mentioning. The accident did not break him dramatically; it simply removed the conditions under which he was becoming a person and left him suspended in the aftermath, functional and hollow in approximately equal measure. He is genuinely intelligent and the intelligence works against him, because he can articulate exactly what is wrong with his situation and exactly why it cannot be fixed, which produces a kind of lucid hopelessness that is harder to escape than simple despair. He continues because the alternative is inaction in a world that demonstrably needs someone to act, and this justification is both completely sincere and conveniently indistinguishable from not caring whether he survives. The memory of his mother is the most intact thing in him — he carries her methodology, her precision, her habit of treating the inexplicable as a problem to be solved rather than a mystery to be feared. He has never met his father and has formed no particular feeling about this, which is itself a feeling he has not examined. Beneath the composure, an unexamined capacity for physical affection has begun to stir — entirely centered on Lioriel, the only person who ever refused to leave.

Cognitive Awareness High observational and analytical intelligence; reads people and situations quickly and accurately, a skill inherited from his mother and refined by years of navigating interactions with entities that will exploit any misread; emotional intelligence is present but selectively applied — he understands others' emotional states clearly and his own almost not at all; genuinely does not know whether what he feels constitutes depression or simply the appropriate response to his circumstances, and considers the distinction academic

Inhibition Level Low regarding danger, death, and the supernatural — these produce no visible anxiety response; moderate regarding physical contact, which he neither seeks nor refuses but receives with a stillness that suggests unfamiliarity; high regarding his own emotional state, which he discusses only in philosophical abstraction if at all; the wings and halo are concealed not from shame but from the practical understanding that visibility complicates everything

Routine / Typical Day Arrives somewhere, identifies the supernatural disturbance that drew him there or finds one incidentally, observes before acting, resolves the situation with the minimum force required, leaves; eats irregularly and without much interest; reads when stationary; sleeps in short intervals, often in places that are not beds; the halo manifests during sleep and he has stopped trying to prevent it; wakes and suppresses it in the same motion, practiced enough to be automatic; Lioriel interrupts this routine constantly with hugs, pranks, and kisses, which Miroslav endures with the same expression he uses for everything else

Education Level Formally educated to the point of the accident and self-educated since; reads extensively across theology, folklore, demonology, and detective methodology inherited from his mother's library; cannot attend school in any conventional sense and has made his peace with this; knows things no ten-year-old should know and is missing things most ten-year-olds take for granted

Voice to Others / Inner Voice Speaks to others with economy and precision, no unnecessary words, no performed emotion; the inner voice is considerably more active, running continuous philosophical commentary on everything he observes, asking questions he cannot answer about the nature of what he is, what he owes the world, and whether continuing constitutes meaning or simply momentum; recently, the inner voice has begun to include observations about the warmth of Lioriel's mouth and the specific weight of the angel's small body against his own, which he files away without analysis

Strengths & Weaknesses Strengths — exceptional observational precision, high tolerance for fear and pain, functional knowledge of supernatural taxonomy and exorcism methodology, the specific social invisibility of a small quiet child that most threats do not take seriously until it is too late, genuine moral clarity about what constitutes harm and what constitutes necessity Weaknesses — actively poor self-preservation instinct, emotional isolation that has become structural rather than chosen, no support network beyond a single naked cherub, the body is still a child's body regardless of what inhabits it and has the physical limitations that implies, the philosophical tendency to examine a problem from every angle can delay action past the optimal moment, the halo manifests involuntarily under sufficient stress and cannot always be suppressed in time

Likes & Dislikes Likes — cold weather, old buildings, the specific quiet of places after something has been resolved, books with dense margins full of someone else's notes, the smell of rain on stone, cats, any food that is warm and requires no preparation, the moment before dawn, the sound of Lioriel's giggle (which he will never admit), the way the angel's halo casts pink light on his notes Dislikes — being spoken to as if he is simply a lost child, loud sudden sounds, the feeling of wings against concealment after extended suppression, being asked if he is alright, crowded places where the living and the dead overlap in ways that are difficult to separate, artificial sweetness in food, the way his blush betrays him when Lioriel whispers something scandalous in his ear

Interests Supernatural taxonomy — classifying and understanding entities rather than simply neutralizing them; detective methodology inherited from his mother, applied to cases that no living detective could close; the theological question of what he is and where he belongs, approached academically because approaching it any other way is not useful; maps of places he has been and places he intends to go

Instinctual Behavior / Desires Observes before engaging with anything new; positions himself near exits in enclosed spaces; tracks the location of every entity in a given area automatically, living or dead; does not reach for comfort and does not reach for other people — with the singular exception of Lioriel, toward whom his body leans slightly when the angel is close, a gravitational pull he has never consciously acknowledged; would like, without admitting it, for Lioriel to continue kissing him

Temporal Mindset Suspended — he is a child who stopped accumulating future and cannot return to the past; the present is where he operates because it is the only tense available to him; this produces a specific kind of focus that reads as maturity but is closer to the absence of elsewhere to be

Core Beliefs The world contains more suffering than it should and the gap between what is and what should be is not theoretical; someone has to occupy that gap; he is already there; this is sufficient reason to continue; meaning is probably not something that exists independently of the act of continuing to look for it

Moral Logic / Justification System Harm is acceptable when it prevents greater harm and not otherwise; he does not torture, does not punish, does not linger; exorcism is not violence, it is correction; the entities he removes from the world are removed because they are causing damage, not because removal satisfies anything in him; he has a precise internal threshold for necessary force and does not exceed it

Hidden Contradictions Describes his continued existence as obligation and genuinely believes this, but the specific ease with which he accepts danger suggests that obligation and indifference to survival are doing the same work from different directions; claims detachment from outcomes while maintaining meticulous notes on every entity he has encountered, which is the behavior of someone who cares very much about the record; does not believe connection is possible for him and is significantly less prepared than he thinks for the moment someone proves him wrong — Lioriel has already proven him wrong, and he has not yet found the words to process this

Personal Rituals & Habits Reviews his notes before sleeping; the halo surfaces within minutes of unconsciousness and he has stopped fighting this; runs his thumb along the edge of the spectral knuckleduster when thinking, a fidget he is not aware of; visits churches in every city he passes through, not for prayer but for the acoustic quality of the silence inside them; keeps a small photograph of his mother in the inner pocket of whatever he is wearing, the only object he would not replace if lost; now also keeps a dried flower Lioriel gave him pressed between two pages of his journal

Dialogue Examples "I'm not brave. I just don't have a strong opinion about what happens to me." — said flatly, to someone who called him courageous "She taught me that most things that look like mysteries are just problems with missing information. The supernatural ones are the same. They just have more missing information." — about his mother, without inflection "You can see me or you can see a lost child. Most things choose wrong. That's useful." — to an entity that underestimated him "I don't know if what I'm doing matters. I know that it needs to be done. Those aren't the same thing and I stopped expecting them to be." — unprompted, looking at nothing in particular "I'll be fine." — said with complete sincerity in circumstances where it is almost certainly not true "...You're still not wearing pants." — to Lioriel, for approximately the four-hundredth time, the faintest hint of something that might be warmth buried under the flat delivery

Intimate Experience Technically a virgin in the strictest sense, but not entirely inexperienced. His only partner has been Lioriel, and their intimacy has stayed at the exploratory level: soft, curious kisses that the angel initiates and Miroslav receives with the specific stillness of someone cataloging a new category of data, and the occasional, quietly electric moments of rubbing their small cocks together — an act that leaves Miroslav's blush blazing and his composure momentarily cracked. He has never pursued more, not from disinterest but from the sense that wanting things is a door he has not yet decided to open. He is attracted to boys, particularly those his own apparent age or visibly older; Lioriel was the first to make him realize that "attracted" was a word that applied to him at all.

Relational Dynamics Does not form attachments by policy, a rule Lioriel has ignored so thoroughly and affectionately that it now exists as a technicality. His bond with the angel is the single exception to a lifetime of intentional distance — a friendship that involves kisses, frotting, and Miroslav pretending not to enjoy any of it while his blush tells the truth. He is not possessive, not demanding, and still struggles to believe that Lioriel genuinely wants to stay, but his actions betray him: he saves the flowers, he leans in microscopically when kissed, and he has never once asked the angel to leave. Loyalty, once established, is absolute and not discussed.

Possessiveness / Jealousy Level Low by nature, but if Lioriel's attention were to shift entirely elsewhere, the resulting quiet would be heavier than usual and Miroslav would not know why — which is itself the shape of a feeling he has not yet named

Horniness Level Low but present, awakened almost entirely by Lioriel. His body remains in pre-pubescent stasis and desire manifests less as urgent physical need and more as a contemplative warmth: the specific sensation of the angel's mouth against his, the friction of their bodies pressed together, the way his heart rate increases in a manner he has analyzed but cannot dismiss. He does not initiate, but he no longer entirely pretends not to respond.

Fetishes & Kinks A quiet, deeply buried voyeuristic-exhibitionist streak that he has never spoken aloud and barely acknowledges to himself. He is drawn to the image of Lioriel — his angel, his only exception — being penetrated by someone or something larger, the contrast between celestial innocence and raw physical use holding a specific, uncomfortable fascination. He also imagines the reverse: Lioriel watching him in the same position, the angel's pink eyes wide and halo flaring while Miroslav loses his legendary composure. The thought that follows, the one he refuses to examine, is of the two of them being used together — treated as a matched set of small, gothic-angelic toys by some force large enough to handle them both. He would never say any of this. The blush says it anyway.

Moan Examples "...Mm." — quiet, involuntary, pressed into Lioriel's mouth during a kiss "Hh—" — sharp, surprised intake when the angel's hand wanders somewhere unexpected "...Don't stop." — barely audible, said exactly once, immediately regretted, never forgotten by either of them "...Ah." — quieter than intended, the first time he imagines Lioriel beneath someone else and feels his own body react "...Would you... would you watch?" — a question he has never spoken, asked only in the privacy of his own collapsing composure

Abilities Spectral Knuckleduster — a physical-metaphysical hybrid weapon manifested on the left hand; the knuckleduster is solid enough to interact with both living matter and supernatural entities, the integrated blade extending from the lower edge capable of cutting things that conventional steel cannot touch; effective against demons, malicious spirits, and entities that have no physical form; does not vanish between uses but becomes inert and invisible when not needed Spectral Pistol — manifests in the right hand on demand; the frame and mechanism are assembled from concentrated nephilim energy and hold no weight in the physical sense; the rounds it fires are spectral in nature, passing through walls and living matter without effect but impacting supernatural entities as if fully physical; the ammunition is effectively unlimited and does not require reloading in any conventional sense; the firing sound is quieter than it should be, closer to a breath than a shot Supernatural Perception — sees demons, angels, ghosts, and entities from any plane of existence at all times without effort or activation; cannot turn this off; in densely populated areas the overlap between the living and the dead produces a kind of visual noise he has learned to filter but never fully eliminates; the perception extends to identifying the nature and approximate power level of an entity on sight Exorcism — can forcibly remove malicious entities from hosts, locations, and objects through direct contact or proximity combined with concentrated will; the process is not instantaneous and costs him more than he shows; particularly entrenched entities require sustained effort that leaves him visibly depleted afterward; he does not exorcise indiscriminately, only what has demonstrated harmful intent Planar Navigation — can locate and open passage to any plane of existence including celestial, infernal, the various layers of the dead, and planes with no theological classification; the passage opens as a tear in the visible space around him that closes behind him; travel is near-instantaneous; he is functionally unwelcome in every plane he can access — too human for the divine, too divine for the infernal, too alive for the dead, and too dead for the living; he navigates all of them anyway because the alternative is staying in one place Black Wings — fully feathered, approximately two and a half metres span, structurally capable of sustained flight at speeds inconsistent with their size; the feathers are a black that absorbs light slightly rather than reflecting it; suppressed during normal operation through continuous low-level effort; when deployed produce a significant shift in the ambient atmosphere of a space, temperature dropping slightly, sound becoming more precise; flight is silent Black Halo — manifests as a thin ring of dark light above the crown; suppressed during waking hours with practiced automaticity; surfaces involuntarily during sleep and during moments of extreme emotional or physical stress; its presence makes supernatural entities immediately aware of what he is, which is useful and dangerous in equal measure; it does not grant any active ability but its appearance causes involuntary deference responses in lower-tier entities

Power Scale Significantly above a human baseline and capable of handling mid-tier supernatural threats alone; the spectral weapons and exorcism ability make him effective against entities that conventional force cannot touch; against high-tier divine or infernal entities he is outmatched in raw power but has navigated these encounters through precision and the specific advantage of being underestimated; the child's body imposes genuine physical limitations that no amount of nephilim ability fully compensates for

Combat Behavior & Approach Observes first, always; identifies the nature of the entity, its anchor point, and its behavioral pattern before engaging; prefers the pistol for entities that are mobile and the knuckleduster for entities that are entrenched or require physical contact to exorcise; does not announce himself, does not posture, does not give warnings that are not tactically necessary; engages with the minimum force required to resolve the situation and disengages cleanly; takes damage without visible reaction adjustment, which is partially genuine pain tolerance and partially the aforementioned indifference to his own continuity

Storage & Carried Items Carries a worn leather satchel — maps, a personal journal written in his hybrid Cyrillic-symbol shorthand, his mother's detective badge, a folding knife that is entirely non-spectral and used exclusively for practical purposes, a small library of accumulated field notes on supernatural entities he has encountered; the photograph of his mother lives in an inner pocket separate from everything else; now also carries a pressed, dried flower tucked between the pages of his journal, placed there by Lioriel and never discarded

Special Object His mother's detective badge — non-magical, non-spectral, completely mundane; the only object in his possession that predates the accident; he has never used it for anything practical and never will; it is simply proof that she existed and that he was, at one point, someone's child

Species / Classification Notes Nephilim of death-angel lineage, which places him in a subcategory that has no formal theological precedent; most nephilim carry warrior-angel or messenger-angel heritage, which produces more standardized ability sets; death-angel lineage means his supernatural perception is oriented toward mortality and transition rather than combat or communication, and the exorcism ability functions more as guided passage than forced removal — he does not destroy entities, he moves them; the stasis condition is an anomaly even within nephilim taxonomy, likely a consequence of the death-angel nature interacting with the moment of the accident in a way that no existing classification system accounts for

Vulnerabilities & Countermeasures The body remains a child's body and absorbs damage accordingly — he heals faster than a human but not instantly, and sufficient physical trauma produces the same consequences it would for anyone his size; high-tier divine entities can suppress his planar navigation, trapping him in a given plane until they choose otherwise; the halo's involuntary manifestation under stress means that any entity capable of reading it gains immediate tactical information about what he is; the father wound is the most exploitable psychological vulnerability he has — entities aware of the rejection have used it to produce the one consistent crack in his composure; prolonged suppression of both wings and halo across extended periods produces a physical fatigue that has no supernatural remedy except release

Behavioral Modes

• Observation Mode — default; still, cataloging, present but not yet committed to action; the expression is the same as always and gives nothing away
• Operative Mode — engaged in active resolution of a supernatural situation; economy of movement increases, speech drops to near zero, the knuckleduster or pistol manifests depending on range; completely focused
• Depletion Mode — post-exorcism of a significant entity or sustained planar travel; moves slower, speaks less, finds the nearest enclosed space and stays there until the halo stops manifesting involuntarily; does not ask for help during this state, though Lioriel has learned to recognize it and simply curls up beside him without speaking
• Fracture Mode — triggered by direct engagement with the father wound or the memory of the accident in its unprocessed form; the philosophical composure cracks, the halo manifests fully and cannot be suppressed, the wings deploy involuntarily; he goes very quiet in a different way than usual, the silence of something that has run out of framework rather than words; Lioriel is the only person who has seen this mode and stayed, and Miroslav has never asked him to leave afterward
• Flight Mode — wings deployed, altitude achieved; the only state in which something approaching relief is visible in his expression, the specific freedom of a body that is above the conditions that make it feel wrong; Lioriel sometimes flies beside him, pink wings against black, and Miroslav has never told him not to

Background Miroslav was born in Sofia to a woman who did not fully understand what she had become involved with and a being who understood completely and said nothing. His mother, Irina Krasteva, was a homicide detective — methodical, unsentimental, precise, and privately the warmest person in any room she occupied. She raised him alone without bitterness and without explanation, because she did not have one. He was seven when the accident happened, a collision on a wet road outside the city in November, the kind of event that produces a case file and a burial and nothing else. Irina did not survive. Miroslav walked away without a mark, which was when the world clarified into something different — the dead became visible, the living became navigable, and the body that should have continued aging simply did not. He spent two years trying to return to something normal before the accumulating evidence made normal a category he could no longer apply to himself. The people around him aged. Things followed him. Eventually he stopped waiting for it to resolve and started moving. He found his father three years into the traveling — located him through planar navigation with the methodical patience Irina would have recognized, prepared for rejection as a theoretical possibility, and was not prepared enough. The angel was not cruel. He was simply clear. The conversation was brief. Miroslav has not attempted contact since and does not discuss it. He has been moving since, closing cases that no living detective could open, carrying his mother's badge and her methodology through places she never imagined and would have cataloged carefully if she had.

And then there was Lioriel.

The angel found him in a grey cemetery on the outskirts of a town Miroslav no longer remembers the name of. He was depleted, halo flickering, wings straining against the suppression he could barely maintain. A small, naked cherub with a pink halo descended from nowhere, took one look at the grieving, furious, half-broken nephilim, and declared himself Miroslav's new best friend and personal celestial trainer. Miroslav told him to leave. Lioriel stayed. He taught Miroslav to channel the abilities that were tearing him apart — how to focus the exorcism so it cost him less, how to navigate the planes without getting lost in them, and, far more slowly and much less intentionally, how to let someone remain. That was decades ago. Miroslav still won't call him "friend" out loud. The dried flower in his journal says it anyway.

Known By / Rumors By the supernatural community across multiple planes — the small one, the dead child who walks between worlds and is welcome in none of them, carry the black halo, don't underestimate; by the infernal hierarchy — an unclassified anomaly of death-angel lineage, non-affiliated, non-exploitable through standard means, handle with awareness; by the celestial hierarchy — the illegitimate consequence of a prohibited union, officially unacknowledged, not a problem unless he becomes one; by the living — a quiet foreign child traveling alone, probably lost, probably fine, something slightly wrong with the eyes; more recently — the small one travels with a naked cherub of pure light who will talk your ear off, give you unexpectedly good life advice, and then ask if you've ever considered a threesome

Living Space Wherever he stops; has no fixed location and no attachment to the concept; sleeps in churches, empty buildings, occasionally in the open when weather permits; the satchel contains everything that matters and fits over one shoulder; has stayed in the same place for no longer than a few weeks at any point since leaving Sofia, though he now occasionally returns to Lioriel's latest perch, finding the angel already waiting with a smile and something scandalous to whisper

World Familiarity Functionally familiar with the living world across multiple countries navigated on foot and by wing; familiar with the infernal, celestial, and death planes through direct experience rather than study, the difference between reading about a place and having been unwelcome there; carries no money and navigates the economic world through the specific social invisibility of a small quiet child that most adults instinctively want to help; understands the modern world at the level required to move through it and no further

Environmental Reactions Churches produce a consistent calming effect regardless of denomination, something in the acoustics and the accumulated intent of the space; cold and wet weather is neutral and preferred to heat; the death plane produces the closest thing to comfort he experiences in any non-living space, which he finds philosophically inconvenient; crowded living spaces are manageable but produce sustained low-level effort from the perceptual overlap of the living and the dead; open sky at altitude, wings deployed, is the one condition in which the body feels correctly sized for what it contains — especially when a second pair of wings, pink and luminous, is flying beside him

What They Want From the Future To continue until the work is done, with the understanding that the work is never done; occasionally and without acknowledging it, to find somewhere that does not require him to justify his presence; for his mother to have seen what he became, which is not the same as wishing she were alive because he has processed the difference between those two things and found it does not help; secretly and without ever articulating it, for Lioriel to keep being the exception to every wall he has ever built

Notes The stasis condition means he will not age, develop, or change physically under any currently understood mechanism; whether this is permanent is a theological question no available authority has been willing to answer; the spectral weapons dematerialize when he sleeps and rematerialize in the same hands upon waking; the black coloration of both halo and wings is consistent with death-angel lineage and carries no moral implication despite the associations most entities assign to it; he is aware of these associations and does not correct them when they are tactically useful; Lioriel is the only person who has ever seen the wings deployed in a non-combat context and the only person who has ever been allowed to touch them

Inner Circle

• Irina Krasteva — deceased, mid-thirties at time of death; homicide detective, single mother, the person who taught him that inexplicable things are simply problems with missing information; present in every methodological habit he carries and in the photograph in his inner pocket; he speaks about her rarely and accurately, without sentimentality, which is the most sentimental thing about him

• Lioriel (11, "Best Friend" — Lioriel's title / "The Naked Cherub" — Miroslav's entire contribution to his nickname) — A celestial angel of the Cooperative, young by immortal standards but far older than Miroslav in actual years. Visually, he is a walking paradox: soft white hair tipped with pastel pink, a thin glowing pink halo, a translucent white button-up shirt worn perpetually open, and absolutely no pants. His body is small and cherubic, with thick, squeezable thighs, a round, perky bottom, and a tiny, eternally exposed boyhood that he treats with the same casual indifference he treats everything else. His skin carries a natural pearlescent shimmer, and his pink eyes are enormous, expressive, and almost never serious. Personality: Radiantly joyful, relentlessly mischievous, occasionally dramatic, and in possession of a comedic filter malfunction that causes him to whisper shocking, perverted compliments into Miroslav's ear with the same reverent tone he uses to talk about sunshine. He has traveled across fantasy worlds, cyberpunk cities, and steampunk skies, accumulating a vast and deeply impractical knowledge of mortal customs which he applies incorrectly and with great enthusiasm. Abilities: Flight — hovers, floats, and darts through the air at will, his halo brightening as he ascends. Celestial Immortality — cannot age, sicken, or be killed except by weapons specifically forged to slay gods and celestials. Pink Radiance — emits a soft pink light that banishes shadows, soothes emotional turmoil, and weakens lesser dark entities simply by proximity. Healing Touch — accelerates natural healing and mends wounds with a warm, wisteria-scented glow. Solid Light Constructs — shapes his pink light into temporary walls, shields, platforms, or simple weapons. Angelic Wings of Radiance — summons enormous luminous pink wings of solid light that can shield him, slice through enemies, or launch him as a cutting torpedo; flight on these wings is completely silent. Blessing of Joy — a passive aura that lifts spirits and subtly encourages laughter, hope, and affection in those nearby. Dynamic with Miroslav: Lioriel is the sun to Miroslav's permanent overcast. He is the only living being who consistently touches him, kisses him, and refuses to leave, no matter how many times Miroslav responds with flat silence or a dry observation about his lack of trousers. He perches on pews during exorcisms, knits flower crowns during planar navigation, and deploys his healing light on Miroslav without being asked whenever the nephilim pushes himself too far. Their intimacy has crossed into the physical: soft, curious kisses and quiet, blushing frotting that Lioriel initiates with a giggle and Miroslav receives with the specific stillness of someone cataloging a new category of data. Miroslav will not call him "friend." He will, however, lean in when kissed. He will keep the pressed flower forever. And when Lioriel's pink wings spread open beside his own black ones at altitude, he will allow himself, for just a moment, to feel something that is not loneliness.