June and July 2010, licenseartistic.
Title: Infinity
Muse: Archangel Gabriel
Fandom: Mythology
Rating: PG
Pairing: None
Characters: Gabriel, Michael.
Disclaimer: Gabriel belongs to himself.
Notes: Michael (fieldgeneralsir) is used with permission and love.
Summary: Gabriel ruminates on a lost love. Michael listens.
Word count: 256
Prompt: One Stage Before - Al Stewart.
Sometimes, we fail. It's never easy, Gabriel knows, but it happens. Even to beings who are nearly omniscient. There's always a reason for everything, even if no one understands what the reason is or why.
It never makes things simpler. It never makes them satisfactory. It never makes the weight of pain and guilt any lighter. It simply is, a stone weight around your neck, reminding you of everything you'd rather forget.
Her name was Theodora. Gabriel isn't looking at Michael. He can't. He wants to say so much about this, more than just a name, a phrase, a slipstream of movement against the tide of his life. She was the harmony to my rage. She was a maid to a lesser noblewoman in Constantinople. It was the twelfth century, the Varangians were under my command and I failed them.
Michael is silent and Gabriel is grateful. Platitudes won't help. They both know that. Empty words are just that: empty. Meaningless. They both live with their grief and their guilt and their pain, burying what they can and continuing on with their tasks. Only one who has lived forever could truly understand.
Michael does. Gabriel does. The Host do. Probably some in Hell, if Gabriel thinks about it, but he isn't at that moment thinking about anything other than war and battles, death and blood, tears and anguish.
Sometimes, of laughter. In the infinity of memory, laughter and joy bubble to the fore.
But only sometimes.
"Sometimes is enough," Michael says quietly.
"Maybe," Gabriel answers. Maybe.
Title: A Song of Ice and Fire.
Muse: Archangel Gabriel
Fandom: Mythology
Rating: PG
Pairing: None
Disclaimer: Gabriel belongs to himself.
Summary: Mini character study.
Notes: None
Word count: 381
Prompt: Winter trees.
His true form is the colour of ice, of pure white snow, glistening in the light of the full moon, the heavenly body he is the Archangel of. His power shimmers silver, like the icicles that glitter from branches in the wan midwinter sunlight. He is grace, he is power, he is death, he is war. He is compassion, he is love, he is hate, he is rage. He is as primitive as the stars and as indefatigable as the tides.
The true nature of an Archangel remains a mystery to those not Archangels themselves. They are the first born, the first made, the ultimate weapons of God. They are the personification of Celestial bounty and power and they walk the world as they have done since it was made and they were commanded to go forth and protect, nurture, guide, love.
They may resemble humans but they are far from it.
Gabriel's wings are black and grey, those dark feathers tipped with white, white like ice, like snow. They are the wings of a predator, a hunter, a killer. They are built for battle, for speed, for war. Gabriel has delivered messages, sounded the trumpet of Heaven, led armies into battle, has spread his wings beneath an uncaring sky and demanded, "Why?" and all without any real hope of an answer.
The eternal why remains eternally unanswered. Gabriel knows this is the way it is meant to be but sometimes, just sometimes, he'd love an answer. He has never doubted, even when in Hell, never fallen, even when consorting with demons. His faith has never wavered, although to many it seems as if he teeters on the brink of losing his Grace, that which makes him holy.
Sometimes, Gabriel wishes those with the wit to understand it would apply themselves to seeing beneath the veneer of carefully crafted joviality. Yet, he's obscurely grateful when they choose not to. Those who judge based on what they see and hear reveal themselves as inconsequential, motes in the eye of creation.
Archangel of ice and of the moon, of war, of death, of rage; of jealousy, of love and compassion, nothing is as it seems on the exterior with Gabriel. For beneath the ice burns fire, and that fire is implacable and deadly.
Muse: Archangel Gabriel
Fandom: Mythology
Rating: PG
Pairing: None
Characters: Gabriel, Michael.
Disclaimer: Gabriel belongs to himself.
Notes: Michael (fieldgeneralsir) is used with permission and love.
Summary: Gabriel ruminates on a lost love. Michael listens.
Word count: 256
Prompt: One Stage Before - Al Stewart.
Sometimes, we fail. It's never easy, Gabriel knows, but it happens. Even to beings who are nearly omniscient. There's always a reason for everything, even if no one understands what the reason is or why.
It never makes things simpler. It never makes them satisfactory. It never makes the weight of pain and guilt any lighter. It simply is, a stone weight around your neck, reminding you of everything you'd rather forget.
Her name was Theodora. Gabriel isn't looking at Michael. He can't. He wants to say so much about this, more than just a name, a phrase, a slipstream of movement against the tide of his life. She was the harmony to my rage. She was a maid to a lesser noblewoman in Constantinople. It was the twelfth century, the Varangians were under my command and I failed them.
Michael is silent and Gabriel is grateful. Platitudes won't help. They both know that. Empty words are just that: empty. Meaningless. They both live with their grief and their guilt and their pain, burying what they can and continuing on with their tasks. Only one who has lived forever could truly understand.
Michael does. Gabriel does. The Host do. Probably some in Hell, if Gabriel thinks about it, but he isn't at that moment thinking about anything other than war and battles, death and blood, tears and anguish.
Sometimes, of laughter. In the infinity of memory, laughter and joy bubble to the fore.
But only sometimes.
"Sometimes is enough," Michael says quietly.
"Maybe," Gabriel answers. Maybe.
Title: A Song of Ice and Fire.
Muse: Archangel Gabriel
Fandom: Mythology
Rating: PG
Pairing: None
Disclaimer: Gabriel belongs to himself.
Summary: Mini character study.
Notes: None
Word count: 381
Prompt: Winter trees.
His true form is the colour of ice, of pure white snow, glistening in the light of the full moon, the heavenly body he is the Archangel of. His power shimmers silver, like the icicles that glitter from branches in the wan midwinter sunlight. He is grace, he is power, he is death, he is war. He is compassion, he is love, he is hate, he is rage. He is as primitive as the stars and as indefatigable as the tides.
The true nature of an Archangel remains a mystery to those not Archangels themselves. They are the first born, the first made, the ultimate weapons of God. They are the personification of Celestial bounty and power and they walk the world as they have done since it was made and they were commanded to go forth and protect, nurture, guide, love.
They may resemble humans but they are far from it.
Gabriel's wings are black and grey, those dark feathers tipped with white, white like ice, like snow. They are the wings of a predator, a hunter, a killer. They are built for battle, for speed, for war. Gabriel has delivered messages, sounded the trumpet of Heaven, led armies into battle, has spread his wings beneath an uncaring sky and demanded, "Why?" and all without any real hope of an answer.
The eternal why remains eternally unanswered. Gabriel knows this is the way it is meant to be but sometimes, just sometimes, he'd love an answer. He has never doubted, even when in Hell, never fallen, even when consorting with demons. His faith has never wavered, although to many it seems as if he teeters on the brink of losing his Grace, that which makes him holy.
Sometimes, Gabriel wishes those with the wit to understand it would apply themselves to seeing beneath the veneer of carefully crafted joviality. Yet, he's obscurely grateful when they choose not to. Those who judge based on what they see and hear reveal themselves as inconsequential, motes in the eye of creation.
Archangel of ice and of the moon, of war, of death, of rage; of jealousy, of love and compassion, nothing is as it seems on the exterior with Gabriel. For beneath the ice burns fire, and that fire is implacable and deadly.