zophiel

zophiel does not believe the war will end.

she has no frame of reference for it, can’t remember a heaven not scored by shelling and smelling of the pyre. “before the war” is nothing but a story her brothers tell each other with their bellies deep in mud, a sweet lie to warm their wings—this thing that began must have an ending, we need only live to see it.

(her wings smelled of iron before she knew what they were for; the harps were long ago unstrung, sword-calloused hands not knowing how to hold them. there is no before, not for her, and not after)

heaven is battlelines and mud, and hell is fire; all else is vacuum, and darkness, but zophiel survives, and she is glad, glad, glad.

For centuries after the Fall, Gabriel believes that Lucifer—Lucifer will come back. He could. He might. One day he will simply walk back through the gates, laughter on his lips, as though nothing has transpired. The Father will forgive him—the Father always forgives, and Lucifer was loved so well. It is only a matter of time.

(It isn’t until the first of their brothers falls to Lucifer’s war, until Gabriel sees the bloody feathers, the ribcage opened up and the organs spilling out like magician’s scarves, that Gabriel realizes there can be no homecoming for their prodigal brother.)

Raphael is more realistic. Raphael only believes that Lucifer will return for a few decades, a quiet hope that mostly takes the form of letters written and left unsent, letters that say come home the flowers are in bloom ramiel is learning to fly michael is miserable and taking it out on the fledglings he misses you gabriel keeps asking when you’re coming back I miss you I miss you come back come back.

(Then, Azazel falls. His is not a flood of quintessence and fury—Azazel is only a cherubim, not the Morningstar—but a quieter leaving, a sudden absence and a hastily scrawled note: He promised me more than Heaven. Then, Raphael knows. All that is good in Heaven could not bring Lucifer back to them.)

Michael never believed. From the moment Lucifer laughed that cold, mirthless laugh, from the moment he refused to kneel—Michael knew.

(Michael still never got to say goodbye.)

raphael and uriel

Oh, raphael is there, but raphael is god-who-heals, gentlest of the cardinal four, and the war appalls him—michael had to beg him to captain the field hospital, had to go to him on his knees, and michael does not beg. It is a sign of how badly the war is going that he dared approach raphael at all.

but raphael is skilled in healing, second only to the father himself in the laying of hands, and so raphael does his duty, washes the blood from his brothers’ bodies and amputates broken wings and prays over the dying and slowly a cavern opens up inside him, filled with blood and things that cannot be mended.

(he flinches at the sound of distant shelling now, growing thin beneath his robes, dull-eyed and desperate to be anything but this—

so he runs to earth, runs to gabriel, who lets him mope around for a century or two before saying, if you’re staying, at least make yourself useful—there’s a kid called tobiah who needs help catching a fish.)

(humanity is a species made of porcelain and spun sugar, surviving on scar tissue and stubbornness. raphael loves them for it, learns again how to heal.)