"It's no secret. Our department is being gutted," lamented Fortuna. Her heels clacked down the hallway and her curly red hair bounced as she went. Fortuna always looked a little on the rough side, especially since the affairs of mortals can be quite stressful, but with the recent budget cuts and changes to her department, her eyelids became dark cloaks of tiredness.

"So, what do we do?" asked Parsimony. He adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses and ran his hand through his dark curly hair as he ran to catch up with Fortuna with his short legs. It was considered bad angelic etiquette to fly indoors, and Parsimony was always a clumsy walker.

Fortuna stopped, turned, and looked at Parsimony with tired eyes. "We do what we always do, Percy. No reason to change the way we do things."

Parsimony ground to a halt, nearly losing his footing. "We won't have enough magic to do it! We are on thin supply as is, we can't afford to just spend it on just any mishap that comes our way!"

"We are angels, damnit! And what do we do?" Fortuna twisted her mouth into a jagged smile, a signal for Parsimony to say the motto.

Parsimony gave a weak sigh. The motto of the Guardian Angels was burned into his mind the moment he joined their ranks. "We make miracles..."

Within the hierarchy of angels, Fortuna and the Guardian Angels were in a tenuous position. The Guardian Angels were considered separate from the highly-specialized Orderly Angels, which included subgroups specializing in anything from judging the sinful mortals, giving advice to mortal leaders, and giving orders to the lower-ranking angelic soldiers.

As such, the Guardian Angels were frequently understaffed and under equipped, as the Orderlies moved towards a paradigm of taking a more hands-off approach in guiding mortals, preferring to give simple advice rather than altering reality to fix the outcomes to the mortal's favor. The Superiors began taking the resources of the Guardians and giving them to the Orderlies, which meant luck shortages happened frequently. The Guardian Angels were understandably upset by this change. Without the means necessary to help the mortals, how could they manage to do it?

Within a week, the Guardians squandered what little magic they had left for the month. They operated on a first-come-first-serve basis, which meant the luck was spent on such trivial things such as gambling, finding missing socks, and businesses making slightly better profits than usual.

I learned of these changes as I usually do: Parsimony. While most mortals cannot see angels, those mortals who study angels may find it useful to specialize in the magic of perception. Thanks to my magical studies, I see angels, demons, ghosts, fairies... just about anything that would prefer to remain unseen. This unseen world is filled with strange characters, and Parsimony is one of the strangest. He is abnormally short for an angel and flutters on moth-like wings, signs of his half-angel-half-fae heritage. He is also the most talkative of any angel (or any fairy if we want to call him that) I have ever met. He was also once my Guardian Angel.

I suppose it was dumb luck that an angelologist would be assigned such a forthcoming angel as a guardian. I call it dumb luck because it was certainly not a miracle Fortuna would orchestrate; angels, if nothing else, are secretive creatures or are at least supposed to be. Perhaps it was Parsimony's fae nature that made him such a chatterbox. When Parsimony wrapped up with his other clients for the day, he stopped by to give me what little luck I needed and then we would talk for hours about his work and the office politics of angels.

Our talks were essential for my studies of angelic culture, but the more we talked, the more I just realized I liked having someone to talk to. While the world knew that angels existed, it wasn't a popular occupation to try to study them. Most people would think you would be crazy to try to study something so beyond mortal understanding, and as such I had very few friends. Only a handful of people bought my books every month, but it was enough to pay the rent and the necessities. I got by with the help of Parsimony and a little luck.

Then came the Day the Luck Ran Out.

"So, it's official. I've spent the last of the luck today." Parsimony fidgeted with his red tie. I had not received any luck that day, so it was clear I was left out. Parsimony's other clients, who were earlier on his route, were the lucky ones. I just wasn't the type of person the angels thought to give their own personal Guardian, so these kinds of inconveniences were an inevitability.

"Well, it's no problem, right? People get by without luck all the time! You only ever gave me a little luck, so I'll be fine!" I only half believed what I said. I didn't understand luck or how it worked. It was a fickle, volatile thing. It was magic given free reign to act in the favor of the user. No mortal could cast a spell to emulate for even a second what angelic luck does every second of every day.

"Well, we'll just have to see..." Parsimony said, avoiding eye contact. His eyes bounced back and forth around my cramped apartment, as if an argument or a tennis match was playing in his head.

"Are you okay? I mean, I'm going to be okay... Right?"

"There's something I need to tell you..." The knot of his tie bobbed as he repeatedly tugged it, trying to summon the strength to tell me the truth.

A deep breath.

"I haven't just been giving you a little luck. I have been skipping people and cutting people short on their deliveries for years so that I could give you all the luck I can spare!"

I didn't know what I was feeling at that moment. It was a strange mixture of confusion, anger, and appreciation. But was what he was saying true? It was hard for a mortal to quantify such an abstract thing as luck, and whenever I received it from Parsimony it was as simple as him waving a hand at me. I couldn't see the luck he gave, so I had no idea.

"Me? My life isn't glamorous or anything, so why am I supposed to believe that I am so lucky?"

"Let me be frank. Your life is a disaster. I don't say that to insult you, just that your path in life isn't what most people would consider successful."

"What... what do you mean?"

"You are an angelologist! Have you met a single person who has read your books or told you that they appreciated what you do?"

"No..."

"That's what I'm saying. It has taken a bonafide miracle for you to live a relatively comfortable life. Nobody buys your books on purpose! They read a title like The Community of Angels and think it's a romance novel or something! It has taken eight times the average amount of luck to get you to this point. Eight. Times."

I sat down on my worn secondhand recliner, the finest I could afford. I sucked in a breath and asked, "But why me? Why do I deserve all the luck?"

"I like you." Parsimony squeaked out these words quickly, as if he tried to sneak them past me.

"Like, like-like me?"

He nodded.

I was dumbstruck. It was taboo for angels to have affairs with mortals. Hell, it was taboo for most angels to even talk with mortals, especially Guardians. Now my Guardian was admitting to an unauthorized transfer of luck and that he had some sort of crush on me.

I felt anger, but I kept my voice down to a calm rumble. "You like me, you want me to succeed, but you refused to tell me that my business was built on a lie until it was too late?"

"That's not how Guardians are supposed to work. We make miracles, not give advice!"

"We're not even supposed to be talking right now, Percy! You couldn't break just one more rule and just tell me that my life's work is a one-way ticket to disaster?"

"I wanted to protect you. And I knew that this is what you wanted to do with your life. I feel like I would have failed my job if you did anything else besides what you wanted!"

"I never wanted to live a lie..." I leaned forward in the recliner, with elbows upon my knees and head down. My vision began to blur as tears filled my eyes. My life's work was a sham.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I didn't think this would ever happen. I just thought we could continue like this forever and... Can we still be friends at least?" He placed a hand on my shoulder and gave it a gentle, yet firm squeeze.

I gave it some thought. Could we still be friends? He didn't mean to hurt me. In fact he was the only thing keeping my life together up until this point. Even if he didn't do all of that, he was still my best friend... maybe more than that. I had to go for it.

Wiping tears from my eyes I quietly said, "I never said no, did I?"

I looked up at Parsimony, whose cheeks were striped with tears. He remained silent, perhaps confused by my question.

"I never said I didn't like-like you," I gave a tired smile. I was still processing everything that happened up until that point, but I realized I couldn't stay angry at the angel who risked everything to make me happy.

"In fact, I never said I liked being an angelologist." I paused, taking a deep shuddering breath as I still recovered from crying. "You know what I like about it though?"

Parsimony finally spoke. "What is that?"

"That I met you."

TO BE CONTINUED

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

Reminders:

>* No AI-generated reponses 🤖 >* Stories 100 words+. Poems 30+ but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* [RF] and [SP] for stricter titles >* Be civil in any feedback and follow the rules

🆕 New Here? ✏ Writing Help? 📢 News 💬 Discord

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.