milo / mary

I really wanna try to actually get some pieces done but Man, life has been draining with work and moving back into my apartment :')

The angel looked out onto the waves, a churning feeling embedding itself in his chest. 

“Do you.. do you ever wish, if you were to get the chance, that you could go back and change the outcome?” His voice was quiet, barely audible over the roiling ocean. The machine beside him whirred, her wings flitting briefly before settling against her back again. She glanced shortly at him before turning her head away again, focusing on the scenery in front of them.

“I think… I think I wouldn’t, even if I did get the chance. The outcome would never be different, no matter how hard I would try. So, I’ve made peace with the fact that I was always meant to end up like this.” Her voicebox crackled, betraying the ageing of her components more than her plating or mannerisms did. V2 had been here far longer than Manadel had, after all. V2’s shoulders curled in slightly, elbows resting on her thighs as she leaned forward. 

Turning to look at Manadel again, her voicebox crackled to life. “Do you wish to ever go back? Even if you knew that things would always be the same, would you still go back?” 

Would he? 

Manadel curled up further, wing drooping as he mulled over the question. There was nothing he wanted more than to see his siblings again, to see his home and bask in its simple glory. But, even the memory of it had been soured over time, tainted by the betrayal of the Council and subsequently Gabriel. He knew nothing would be the same, even if he could live his life in blissful ignorance.

(And he had. The entirety of Heaven had after the Father’s disappearance. They had eaten up every  word, every lie told by the Council, believing it to be the final verdict of the Father. They had been led astray like lambs to the slaughter, too coveted and too prideful to realize the truth.

And once they had, it had already been too late.)

“I don’t… I’m not sure. There’s nothing I want more than to get the chance to redo it all, but it wouldn’t help. All of us had been doomed even before the Father had left. We were all beyond salvation far before we had learned the truth.” 

Something in him stung as he replied after a long moment of silence. Despite all the time that had passed, it never became easier to turn his back to the lies he had been living in. Right up until his death, they had been all he knew. They had been his entire life until those fateful last moments when everything had come crashing down. 

Manadel had been among the few of his brothers who hadn't wanted to believe that the Council had been treacherous all this time. Gabriel leaving Heaven only served to amplify the hurt that Manadel felt, almost driving a wedge between him and the last of the angels he still held close. Journeying down into Hell had been their last resort to regaining some semblance of normalcy, yet it had all been for nothing.

He still didn’t remember all of the events that had led up to his death, it felt as though a fog had settled over his mind even before he had left Heaven. Most recollections came in the form of flashes, of vibrant blue and the sound of ricocheting bullets, nails embedding themselves into his flesh as that.. that thing had ripped away everything Manadel had held close to his heart. His brothers, his mentor, his life. All of it was taken away in an instant before he could even think of escaping. He remembers the gut-curling terror as he faced off against an opponent who had outmatched him in minutes. 

Manadel hadn’t even been given the chance to process what had happened before he found himself here. 

In this state of not-quite dead but not-quite alive either. And ironically, with the one soul in existence that bears almost an identical resemblance to the one who stripped Manadel of his life. 

“Hey, what’s going on in that head of yours? You’ve been awfully quiet.” V2’s voice interrupted the angel’s train of thought. He lifted his gaze again to look at the machine, his wing curling to almost embrace her.

V2 tilted her head to the side, her gaze somehow seeming worried. Manadel shrugged and reached for her hand, momentarily marveling at the difference in size. Her hand was almost engulfed in the palm of his gauntlet, the gold contrasting nicely against the vibrant red of her plating. She laced their fingers together, firmly holding onto the angel’s hand.

“I was simply thinking about how I ended up here. It’s something that crosses my mind a lot, I have to admit,” he replied, voice quiet. It was something that had weighed heavy on his shoulders for what felt like ages. The shame and guilt of allowing his siblings to be slaughtered like they barely mattered. Of how he had gone against Gabriel’s teachings and ignored all the warning signs.

He tried not to think about it too much, but he was certain Gabriel would be disappointed if he knew what Manadel had become. 

“I regret ever leading my siblings down into Hell. After what had happened to the Council, we were advised against trying to find our mentor, but I foolishly ignored every order,” Manadel continued, pausing to swallow the growing lump in his throat. “And because… because of that, almost all of us ended up dead. Because of my foolishness.”

The pair sat quietly in front of the waves, allowing the silence to stretch on. Manadel absentmindedly noted the dark clouds rolling in over the far horizon, almost blending into the violent waters.

“...For a long time I blamed myself for the death of Mankind.” V2 spoke up softly. She shifted closer to Manadel, her hold on his hand tightening minutely. “My only objective was to help maintain the peace after the war, and for a while I did succeed in doing my job. I suppose it’s like you mentioned, we were all doomed before the departure of your god.” 

“How do you deal with it?”

“Deal with what, exactly?” V2 knew she didn’t have to ask the question, they both knew the answer to it all too well. Still, it brought her some peace of mind to be able to pinpoint what exactly was troubling her companion. Even after all this time, she was still surprised over how well she and the angel seemed to fit together, over how easy it was to grow comfortable with him despite everything.

She had spent what felt like years trapped in this cruel mockery of an afterlife, if there was such a thing. Several others had come and gone, yet Manadel was the only one that had permanently stuck around.

(One she could never bring herself to forget was the picturesque copy of her predecessor, her kind words and touch still lingering even after all this time. V2 wouldn’t let herself forget the feeling of gentle hands cradling her in her final moments, or the sound of waves crashing against the shore as her final moments were spent in the first embrace V2 would dare call kind, loving even.)

Manadel was a lot like her in many ways. 

“You seem so… at peace with everything that happened,” her companion explained, voice a meek whisper over the swelling waters. “I know you still feel guilty, but how do you live with the guilt? With the knowledge that there might’ve been something to be done differently, even if the outcome would’ve still been the same?”

“It’s something that never really disappears,” she began, turning to look at Manadel as he shivered. The distant rumble of thunder rolled over the horizon, but V2 didn’t pay it any attention. “It’ll always be there, and some days it’s easier to deal with. You just have to accept that you did everything you could. You have to forgive yourself, I had to forgive myself too.” 

“What if– If I can’t forgive myself, what then? It feels like it’s suffocating me more and more every day that passes!” Manadel exclaimed, distress coloring his voice no matter how much he tried to suppress it. “I can’t seem to- to accept that it was out of my control. Gabriel would’ve— He would’ve known what to do! But I didn’t, and it resulted in the worst mistake of my life! Not only that, it cost everyone else—” 

V2 cut the angel off before he could spiral further, loosening her grip on his hand to cradle his helm instead, pressing herself flush against his front. “Listen to me, Manadel. You are not Gabriel, you did what you thought was the best thing at that moment. You can’t keep comparing yourself to others, and how they might’ve acted. I’m certain your siblings wouldn’t blame you for how you decided to tackle the situation.”

Manadel shuddered out a sob, wing pressing itself flat against his back. He leaned desperately into V2’s touch, afraid that she too would disappear if he were to open his eyes. The machine stroked her thumb over the gold adorning the jaw of his helm, a faint, barely-there touch. 

“It’s painful, and there are days where it feels pointless to continue after everything. I had someone help me reflect on all that happened before I passed, and at the time it felt as though I couldn’t possibly even begin to understand the scope of what had happened.” Her voice was delicate as she briefly pressed her bezel against his helm. Manadel’s hands came up to cradle her wrists, anchoring her touch. 

“I’m not going to lie to you and say that it doesn’t impact me on a daily basis, but I have to remind myself that what’s done is done. There’s no use lamenting over what could’ve been.” She leaned back, settling down onto Manadel’s lap as the angel trembled. 

The thunder rumbled again, carried over the ocean as the pair sat on the pier. It wasn’t easy facing their collective guilt, of the hurt that they may have caused to prevent what they feared the most.