#&(michael)

The Oracle had woken up in a sweat, but what she had seen pertained to the past rather than the present. The past of less than 24 hours ago. The Dahlia were well, healed from the Labyrinth and without any casualties. They’d all been through worse and it had taken no time at all to reassure them and make sure that they were well enough for her to leave the House for a few hours. So, afterwards, it was almost in a daze that their Sovereign took her car to the city and parked near a certain bar. Her mind was on a panicked, angry autopilot that Vivianne rarely ever experienced.

“I need to speak with you.” It was the only thing Vivianne said as she passed Michael by the front of the establishment. She promptly invited herself into the building and walked through to what she assumed was his office. Then she set her bag down and turned to face Michael as he followed her in. “Mercuralia. You weren’t there,” she observed calmly. It wasn’t that they’d ever made plans to see each other, it surely wouldn’t have been a point of annoyance or Vivianne. It wasn’t until she spoke next that her expression took on a hint of anger, as well as her tone. “Where were you, Michael?”

What the Senate had decided was a hopeful development, hopeful in that there was finally a chance to do more with the combined strength and ability of dozens of supernaturals fighting for one cause. The Seraphim had been weakened but Robin was under the impression that The Eye were going to do right by their word and stop the poisoning. Dealing with preventative matters for the future of all of that would need to wait - battle was ahead. And if the Blessed were to be stronger once more, they could not stand behind and watch. This would not be interfering in affairs that had nothing to do with them, this would be lending their strength to the very cause they were here on this earth to do. It could not have been more obvious that Uriel would hope to bring his three siblings into the fray.

“Could you tell me more of the battle preparations?” 

Light, light made the night time day where the Aspect had made her stand in Rome. Tonight she was not a healer, for she had so much more she needed to do. She had made a wall, a golden wall that reached towards the skies and cascaded down with light. Within it, a pocket of Rome that Clara continued to grow with each block that she was able to completely rid of danger. Surrounding her were cages of the very same light where the ravaging vampires were kept while she ushered the humans to safety behind her walls, lighting up pathways for them to follow into streets and buildings that were now under Clara’s protection. Anyone not clearly crazed or otherwise not fortunate enough to be caught in her cages was put down with little more than a thought. She had fought time and time again before, but always in hiding, always holding back. For once in her life, Keket did not hold back. The only people who would make it past her and into the safety of her walls were those who were running and in need.

She knew Seraphim; she had encountered Fallen before. This was not one of them. Michael, as she knew. He wouldn’t need safety, and she had no intention of letting a warrior into the temporary haven she had created. “You’re not needed here. Leave.”  

For now, Vivianne still lived in the Dahlia House when she wasn't staying at Michael's place. She would always have a room within her coven but home was now too far outstretched past the coven. When once they had been her only family, now she had Alastor and Cain outside the house, her three niblings, and she had August. She had Michael and Nate. The demigod had eyes on buying a home very nearby but she took her time, helping Abel adjust to what would be his new routine as Sovereign. Unlike a lot of the other demigods that had suffered a greater being consuming their body and mind, Vivianne was a little more used to coping with greater uninvited presense. Nothing had compared to Demetria, nor the things that Vivianne had done with her own hands and power while the Goddess had taken over. But the trauma also didn't compare to her new reality, one that was filled with hope and promise. She'd survived worse and hadn't always had this peaceful reprieve after.

Michael's loss was not something that Vivianne would forget anytime soon. She tried instead to think of their reunion, how she'd ran towards the seraphim and she couldn't seem to let go even when their embrace broke. Her hand in Michael's; she'd been afraid he'd disappear again. For 5 years, Vivianne had tried to help keep Nate safe and her promise true to Michael but they'd proven to be fine with or without her, thank the Fates. Michael's son had proven even more canny and capable than Vivianne could have imagined. Now they were safe, Michael was safe, her friends, her nephews, niece, everyone. Everyone except August. Safe in body, perhaps, but Vivianne wouldn't let him fall into the same fate of her father and spend the rest of his life rotting away in a mental institute.

So when Vivianne wasn't Googling prime real estate in Rome near the Dahlia House, it was obscure magical and medical mental treatments. The living room was dark except for the light of her laptop and a small lamp by the couch she was seated on when she heard footsteps. She was tabbed out of Zillow and now had some healing myths of South America opened up. Marisol had taught her spanish. Marisol. "... Oh no, don't look at me like that," Vivianne murmured in the dark, half teasing, half apologetic. "Did I wake you up?"

In all his years, Uriel hadn’t experienced anything like this. Some grimy cell was where he found himself, and it was a hole that he had to crawl through to get to this larger cell space. Mindless, faceless prisoners stood still or walked aimlessly around in circles. Uriel could feel the considerable amount of power that had been taken from him too recently, and he felt that such a thing couldn’t have happened at a worse time. A moment before he’d been calm and watchful at Mercuralia, but now he was uncertain and even afraid as he wondered about his other 3 Blessed siblings who had come to this world with him, and as he wondered most especially about Logon.

He spun around at the sound of a door opening. But then he let out a sigh of relief as he saw Michael, the eldest. Nettelia’s words echoed in his head, but he didn’t let that trouble him just yet. Michael was here, and surely he understood more about how to leave this godsforsaken place. “Brother,” he greeted, cautious as suddenly he glanced around at the sound of his own voice. None of the faceless prisoners seemed to note them, or maybe they couldn’t hear them. So Uriel looked back at the other seraphim. “Is this the work of the Necronomicon? What have they done?”

They did not need to speak to Death, for they would always do what was needed. Pestilence had already been ordered to destroy what they could, indiscriminately. War had been sent to be more methodological in their destruction, and it is to them that Conquest looked as they disappeared into the next room with their Seraph Blade appearing in hand. Michael had been asked to be the backup to the four, but to what now Uriel did not know.

This was all wrong.

He turned away as Azrael disappeared, eyes alight with calculated rage at all the uncertainty that they had encountered. “Leviathan expected an assault... Or they expected us,” he said. Though it was to no one in particular as he finally turned around to face Michael. They would not run from this - they came to do what was needed and they would not leave until it was done. “We find the Necromonicron first.” It was only logical - the cursed booked had become the source of great power to their sibling. To weaken them first would be ideal... to let them watch as their empire fell piece by piece to the Blessed.

​He made himself at home. What was his was Michael’s, and what was Michael’s was his. At least that’s how he saw things in the divine realm among the Seraphim. Though he hadn’t been with Michael for so long, his brother still remained his brother. So, he figured he wouldn’t mind the curiousity. Uriel had always been far too curious, far too nosy. When he could not find his brother immediately, he asked for his office’s location. When they told him he could not enter, he assured them he was Michael’s family. When they asked for proof, Uriel instead spoke into their head to ask ‘what proof do you wish’ and that had scared off the poor employee very well. So now he sat upon the owner’s chair and spun to look around the walls, undisturbed until Michael himself opened the door.

Uriel cringed when he saw him walk through, giving Michael’s vessel a quick once over and scoffing. The face was recognizable and bothersome. If the idiot first man had not been so unappealing and vexing, then perhaps he might not have driven his two wives to such dramatic lengths of escape. “... I almost forgot you chose Adam’s face, brother” he said in lieu of greeting. “You make him look less pompous and more somber. It’s a surprising improvement.”