#[ic] - [ The Tears of the Fallen Legion

[timelostobserver]

@cast-you-dxwn | “Lord, child. Let me look at you, what did they do to you?”

What had they done?

What hadn't they done...

Those were the questions that churned in Azrael's head. He was dizzy, disoriented from his Fall. His body was wrapped up in bandages, tended to by the Goetia. He was squinting, everything burned, everything hurt.. He'd lost so much of his golden blood that the avian demons tending to him were shocked he wasn't passed out.

Thus no doubt spoke of the fortitude of Angels, they weren't human after all. Something like blood-loss wouldn't take them down.

The fact they'd let anyone in the room at all was nothing short of a miracle. But it was on Paimon's orders.. rather for the staff to get OUT of the way of Lucifer's 'Knight' charging in.

Then again, it wasn't every day an angel fell, especially an Archangel.

Azrael's condition wasn't.. ideal, however. Sure they had bandaged him up, but there were glaring, open wounds on his back from where four of his six wings were torn out. Cuts that spoke of shattered glass scoured his body, arms and legs burnt from the fall, and a face that showed that he'd yet to stop crying...

He'd only just run out of tears left to shed.

He couldn't even look up at the one speaking to him, red eyes blurred with pain focused on the floor as his remaining pair of wings lay slumped at his sides. Burned of the raven black feathers they once sported, held together by a burning red membrane much like a bat. His halo.. gone, shattered upon impact, a crown of horns now instead took their place.

"Sera... she.." He barely managed to cough out. Azrael's voice was hoarse from his weeping.

"She kept.. she kept overruling me. S-she kept changing my verdicts.." Azrael's body shook.

"First Adam.. he w-was meant to go to Hell. But.. she said no." The newly Fallen Archangel crossed his arms, hands grasping into his bandaged forearms.

"T-then Abel.. poor sweet Abel.. She tried to say he did something t-to cause his murder.. Then Cain.." A hiccup.

"It kept happening. She kept.. she kept trying to do my job.. Th-the job I was made for." Everything he was. The very thing Father created to oversee the necessary evil of Creation.

Death.

An angel created to bring it upon the living, to keep balance in creation. To ensure life ended, and started anew. In a never-ending cycle. To act as the judge and jury of souls into the Afterlife.

"I.. I had enough. I was sick of her taking my work away from me.. I.. I bit her. I lashed out." On the table next to the newly fallen's bedside were two curious objects. A set of golden, radiant weighing scales.. and a black book with a golden skull and motifs.

"She attacked me, tore out four of my wings... cast me out in anger. I took my treasures with me... I wouldn't let her have them. Sh-she would abuse them. She would abuse the tools F-Father gave me." His voice petered out into a whimper at this point, Paimon looking on from the door-frame.

'.. Says his name is 'Azrael'...' He spoke quietly, mainly for Michael's ears. 'The rumored 'Angel of Death'. To think Sera would stoop as low to cast out Death itself from Heaven.'

[timelostobserver]

❝ I was praying. ❞ (from fallen mike) @cast-you-dxwn

"For what purpose?" Confusion coated his words, looking over his current stack of paperwork to come eye to eye with his elder brother.

Such a silly thing, prayer. Something tied to Father so intrinsically that Azrael, now Hades.. felt little reason to resort to. The question of why rattled around in his head, surely.. Michael was not showing regret in siding with those still in Heaven?

Not after everything he's seen, everything he's witnessed.. and knowing Heaven and Sera's lies.

"It won't 'fix' anything.. He won't fix any of this." Because Father would have done so already if that was the case. Sera wouldn't have been able to cast them out for standing up for what they believed in. Wouldn't have cast out the more prolific figures in Heaven for questioning HER.

"That's been loud and clear for eons." He set his papers down, then turned to grab his coffee mug. A simple polished black surface that looked like a skull, but hallowed out to hold the fragrant black liquid.

"Sometimes I wonder.. if He's abandoned us, or meant for this all to happen."

[timelostobserver]

@cast-you-dxwn - ”Have you ever had thoughts of fatherhood?” (Fallen boys?)

There was an incredibly long, and awkward pause. Hades was just... staring at Michael. His mug of coffee in one hand, and a stack of papers in the other.

What sort of question was that? Well, sure, he'd just got done judging a few souls of.. well they were children, he didn't want to sugar coat it. Another disaster, this time human made. Buildings collapsing from shoddy construction, crushing the lives out of so many.

But he wondered if that was the reason for the spurred question.

"If you were to ask humanity, I'd have children. Considering they loved to fabricate even a 'wife' for me in their tales." He sighed, taking a sip from his mug. Ah yes, the tale of 'Persephone'. Such a person never existed, the Lord of the Dead never had anyone get close enough for them to even touch him.

Not counting his brothers.

"But I see no reason to do so. I don't care for the act that makes one a 'father', nor do I care for the aspect of having to raise a child. I already have to deal with workers, and that's enough stress for me." Hades grumbled, setting his mug down on his desk.

"Why.. have you, brother?"