#angelsweek2022

The gardens were all wrong, too. Serafina had only caught glimpses so far, but the fauna seemed shrivelled compared to what she remembered. She had spotted Joshua tending to the plants, digging some up to presumably relocate them... It was all rather puzzling. Even the fauna seemed confused, some creatures watching curiously while others were digging along with Joshua, as if trying to help.

It had been a long time since Serafina had seen any of these creatures, and she realized with a start that she didn't recognize them all. She also suddenly remembered that the words flora and fauna were meaningless distinctions here in Heaven, where everything was so interconnected that it was difficult to say where one being ended and another started. Everything was alive here, including, in a sense, the Heavenly Edifice. And, through the connection with everything else, pretty much anything she saw was also sentient, to a degree.

It had been too long since she'd been home.

“Some of them almost looked like tiny dragons,” a voice suddenly said behind her, followed by a more booming, powerful voice – an angelic voice.

“They're similar in appearance to certain nudibranchs.”

“Slugs, huh,” the first voice said. It was tiny in comparison, though talking loudly – while the angelic voice had been very soft, almost a whisper.

Serafina turned around. The Viceroy of Heaven was walking towards her, stooping to talk to... a human?

“Oh. Hi,” the human said, waving when he saw her. As they drew nearer, Serafina realized that this wasn't just a soul – which would already have been more than unconventional in this part of Heaven – but an actual human body housing a soul. A full, complete human.

A living human.

Coming to a stop before her, Michael took her in with some of his eyes. Most of them stayed fixed on the human, though. “Serafina,” he addressed her, to her shock. She had not thought that the archangel Michael would remember her. “It has been a long time.”

“Wait, Serafina?” The human looked between Michael and her. “You're the one who's with the Biblical Adam?”

Serafina felt her form stiffen, some of her eyes glaring at the human. “Yes,” she confirmed tersely. Really, she wasn't ready to talk about Adam, or in what way she was with him, in front of the Viceroy of Heaven.

How did this human even know?

“My name is also Adam,” the human said, smiling. “Adam Milligan. Hi.”

Serafina just nodded – or tried to before she remembered that her True Form didn't have a neck. So instead she kind of shimmered, her grace pulsing in polite agreement. It had been so long since she'd been in her True Form, not squashed into a human body. It was a little disorienting.

“I've been showing Adam around,” Michael said lightly, as if they were humans at a cocktail party, just making conversation. And his voice was so soft – no doubt for the benefit of Adam, who might have been hurt by the full volume of his True Voice. Normally, even other angels trembled before the mighty Viceroy and his commanding tone.

Or at least they had, back in the day.

“I see,” Serafina said, just to say something.

“We just looked at the gardens,” Adam continued, beaming. “They're so cool! Well I guess they'd just be normal to you guys, but there are so many different creatures! And even the plants are creatures! We saw some of the vine unstick from a wall and migrate along with a swarm of those nudibranchs.”

“They're not actually slugs, you know,” Michael said, not chastising, just correcting. Still with most of his eyes fixed on the human. “It's just the closest equivalent from Earth I could think of.”

“Yeah, I know. But it fits.” Adam smiled at him, or at least at some of his eyes. Angels didn't exactly have a face, and if they did, it would definitely be too big for a human to take it all in at once.

If at all. That a human was looking at an angel's True Form and didn't have their eyes burnt out was extremely rare, to begin with.

Her Adam could do it, of course. Back when he had been created, there had been no vessels yet. But modern humans just weren't built for it anymore.

Except this one, apparently.

“Hey, can we go to the ocean to watch the real nudibranchs? Not right now, but when we get back to Earth.”

One of Michael's wings spread behind Adam's back. Since it was bigger than the human himself, it could almost be mistaken for a kind of shelter for him. “Of course,” Michael said, his grace swirling joyously.

Serafina stared at him. She had never before seen Michael this openly happy, showing such little restraint. Of course, she hadn't actually spent that much time with her family the last few thousand years, and had never been close to any archangels. But still.

Could it be that things had changed? Actually, truly changed? Not just in a 'there's a new management but they'll do the same as the old management and just give it different names' kind of way?

She'd been told that things were different, now, but she hadn't really believed it. Times might always be changing, but Heaven – and angels – were immutable. Or at least so she had thought.

“Michael.” Another angel had walked up behind them – another archangel, in fact. Raphael held themself as impeccably as ever, the perfect picture of a (co-)ruler of Heaven. But Serafina was shocked to see them stoop a little, in something almost like a bow, when they saw the human. “Hello, Adam.”

“Hey Raphie. How's it going?”

Raphael seemed thoughtful and, without even so much as mentioning the nickname, responded: “Quite well, I think. We haven't had a general meltdown about our democracy in a few weeks, the new Heavens are coming along, and Gabriel promised not to set anything else on fire, so all in all we're good.”

“What did he set on fire?” Michael asked, frowning.

“The throne. And the throne room.”

“Ah.” Michael nodded, as if destroying their father's throne was an understandable, or at least expected thing for Gabriel to do. Maybe nowadays, it was, Serafina thought.

“Admittedly, Gabriel had the backing of several other angels, so you could say he was just acting in his role as a council member. At least that's the excuse he uses. We decided no more fires unless it's a mutual decision by the council, though.”

Serafina's mind was swirling, trying to catch up. Council? Democracy? What was going on?

“I think we're losing Serafina,” Michael said, making some of her eyes snap up to him. While most of his eyes were still on Adam Milligan and on Raphael, some were watching Serafina intently. “There have been quite some changes. I'd say you'll get used to it, but even I still haven't quite adjusted yet.”

“And you're not even living it every day.” Raphael sighed. “One does get used to it, somewhat, but there are still moments when I wonder what in the world we're even doing.”

“You're building something new. That's always hard,” Adam said kindly.

It seemed presumptuous, a human offering an archangel kindness – as if Raphael needed Adam's absolution for their feelings. But instead of righteous fury at the mere indication that they might be equals, Raphael smiled.

It wasn't an actual smile in the human meaning of the word. Angel true forms did not have mouths. But still, the angelic equivalent of it was both fascinating and shocking to behold it on Raphael, of all people. And directed at a human!

Things truly had changed.

“It is,” Raphael said.

Only now did it occur to Serafina that they were all speaking Enochian, including Adam. Thought the language was never meant to be spoken by humans, it was definitely possible for them to do so. Usually, they had a very pronounced accent, though.

Adam didn't. He spoke fluently, flawlessly even, as if it was his native language.

“I didn't know humans are allowed in Heaven now,” Serafina spoke up, breaking the companionable atmosphere. But this matter was too pressing, too weird and confusing to ignore. “Another change?”

Michael's wings twitched, the one around Adam folding partly around his front. Like a shield.

“It's still uncommon,” Raphael told her. “But, if we want to see Michael here at all, there's hardly any other way.”

Rolling several of his eyes, Michael huffed. “You're exaggerating. I've been here without Adam before.”

Again, the equivalent of a smile – it seemed a little sly this time. “Yes, and you moped each time about getting back to him. So this is the perfect solution.”

Michael grumbled in discontent, but Adam just laughed, reaching for his wing. “Aw, you're sad when I'm not there?”

It wasn't possible for angels to blush. There was no blood to their true forms, nor, as stated, did they have an actual face that could change colour. But the way Michael shifted, he was definitely embarrassed.

“We'll talk about this later,” he muttered, his voice so small it almost sounded human.

Raphael's grace was sparkling in amusement, but soon they shifted their attention from Michael to Serafina. “Has anyone shown you the plaza yet?”

“The what?” Serafina didn't remember anything even barely resembling a plaza in Heaven. How much was being changed?

“Ah. You might like it. See, we abolished some departments – we don't have enough angels to staff them all, anyway, and this cleared up some space, so we've carved the middle of the Edifice out to create a plaza.”

They had carved- what in the world-

“We lost her again,” Michael said.

“Babe... you could stand to not point that out every five minutes,” Adam chastised him. “Let her be confused, it's only normal with everything that happened.”

Only later would Serafina realize what kind of endearment Adam had used, and suffer another spiral of absolute shock and confusion.

But right now, Raphael was reaching out gently with one of their wings. “Let me show you. It's become quite beautiful, really. Gabriel designed it and Anael helped with the decorations...”

In her daze, Serafina let Raphael guide her down the corridor.

“There was quite the disagreement about the fountain at the core of the plaza, but after we made a model, we all just felt it was right. It changes its design every now and then, depending on the day, but the basic layout is-” As Raphael prattled on, clearly excited about all of it, Serafina wondered if she had ever seen them – or any angel, for that matter – this happy. Probably not. It had been one of the reasons she had decided to stay on Earth, since humans, while often plagued by negative emotions, were also far more fun and affectionate.

The thing about time is he could not get it back. 

He mourned the vain effort he poured into remembering what once was, when his grace was just a forethought, as he waned on the edge of consciousness, when he only knew of faith. Before his wings unfurled and allowed his brethren homage, before he learned of the fate he would never outfly, before he was more than the dust of a seething star, and even long before he had become blinded by devotion. 

He had drunk the sun, allowed the molten intimacy of eternal love to scorch his wings – he had never asked for flight, so why should he worry about the charred soot that lined his feathers? God was the knife he turned inside himself, and his pain, his suffering, was all the love Michael could bear to show in return. And so even if God did not love him in a way he could understand, if he may have feared the confession of unceasing adhesion, he never felt a trough in his fertile faith, as his love would become his religion, something he would beg to be martyred for.

He knew well of what it was like to reside inside a cage, but one made of his own form.

Michael’s faith had no beginning, and he would allow it no end. He was the eternal flame, where Lucifer could be extinguished, he would not. As existence had first begun with light and darkness, it was no surprise that Fate would act so coyly to copy it again. But, at times, while sitting with his grief, his flame would come to burn him, leaving singes of doubt. He would watch as it caressed his siblings, warming them with similar feelings of uncertainty. 

Gabriel had been most affected by the heat, he had no strength against it. All he knew was his mundane existence, so his locked knees stumbled when it breached upon the creation of failure, something incomprehensible to the dutiful Messenger. Michael hoped Father would understand the adoration he had for his brother, that even before Gabriel betrayed his given role of devotion, Michael had already forgiven him. He knew brothers made mistakes, and while some could not be forgiven, he did not have the strength to create another cage, to break off another of his brethrens’ wings. So when he flew from the nest, Michael turned his gaze away, as he loved too much. And that would frankly be his undoing.

He again stayed silent at Raphael’s gradual decay; he had no power to judge. All he could do was offer the value of his faith, and for her, it was of no worth. She, clouded in her pessimism, lacked belief in the promise of God’s return. Even as he allowed her to be ambitiously unfaithful, he made sure the bad apple did not ruin the bunch. It was his obligation, with the absence of God, to sustain the devotion of Heaven, what the very foundation had been built upon.

The absence of his father gave him a cruel truth; for when he became free of duty, he begged to become a prisoner again, as he found comfort in the lacerating duty of failing. Now that he was free to be himself, who was he? There was no way to know, as the concept had all but obscured itself to him. His age did not allow for comprehension, the understanding of why his conviction, his love, was not enough for forgiveness.

His God did not reward futile devotion, He only found worth in success that uplifted Him. His father’s absolution required sacrifice – so when his beloved brother’s wings shall drip scarlet, he will smile and allow his father to heal his regret, as Michael would bear any command of God, for all he will wish in return is forgiveness. He would allow himself no pride in the task, as he saw Lucifer once before bare himself to the barrel of Pride, with such a brazen stride, allowing the thought of consequences to escape his grasp. Michael was the dawn of creation, pure of sin, victorious of the divine test, and he would allow himself no such mistake.