"She has a rather spotty record when it comes to predicting the future." Gabriel hasn't the best of faith in his elder sister's gifts.
Fault Lines: flashback, pre-humanity, add on to S2E12
It is late in Heaven.
The skies are a burnished yellow and in the distance the pink, rolling hills of the ever after shift in an early evening breeze. Though the air is as warm, Michael has started a fire in one of the many rooms of their Father's palace. To the north the fourth wall was absent, leaving only an open expanse of beauty interceded by billowing gauze curtains. The warmth of the air and the heat of the fire mingled, and the flames cast the room in a strange orange glow. Raphael pauses by the door, allowing the heat to roll over her skin. Her feet are bare, the tiny pitfalls of naked skin against hard stone are the only indicators that she has entered the room.
Michael lifts his head from where it lay lolling over the end of a plush sofa, smiling crookedly at her though she does not acknowledge the gesture. Instead she walks forward, quietly and assuredly as she does all her tasks, coming to stand beside the couch Uriel lay on. Her sister reached out a pale hand, clasping Raphael's much darker one. No words were shared for they needed them not. Sometimes touch was enough for two beings who would be joined for all of eternity.
Uriel shifts, tugging on her sister's sleeve to pull the much smaller angel down beside her. Raphael lets her fuss over her appearance, allowing her twins hands to flutter over her damp dress, tutting all the while. Though her face was impassive, she felt an intense happiness. Her twin spent so long with Michael and Gabriel that often Raphael felt neglected. As Uriel's small hands found their way to her wings, smoothing over the white feathers, she sighed in content, a rare smile gracing her features.
As usual, Gabriel is the first to speak. His voice is slow and arrogant yet there is a thaw in its chiselled ice, a rare softness.
"Sister." He greets, simple and short.
Raphael's eyes, milky white and unseeing from birth roll over his general direction.
"Why are you not celebrating with the other Higher Angels?" she asks, not bothering to respond to his greeting.
Like her demeanour, her voice was quiet; a soothing monotone. Uriel smiles at its sound, closing her eyes at its familiarity.
Raphael can practically feel the smirk in Gabriel's voice.
"Because the Lower Angels rarely throw good parties."
Her hair, black with a few flyaway greys, shifted slightly as her wings twitched in annoyance. She opened her mouth to speak when the sound of a page turning caught her attention. Clearly she had not assessed the room properly. Though she rarely saw anything, the glare of the Morning Star would always be visible to her. Apart from Uriel and their Father, his light had been one of the first she had ever seen. It was that light, mingled and made stronger by their Father's that she used to pull her and Uriel out of the darkness when they were created.
She squints against the golden glare, blinking at its sudden brightness.
"That isn't very nice."
The voice of their elder sibling was low. Beautiful and powerful it commanded attention.
He rose slowly, making his way to where Raphael and Uriel sat, long legs propelling him forward far more quickly than they should. His wings, a deep black, swayed lazily behind his back.
When he reached Raphael he crouched beside her, offering his face to her hands. When she was born the darkness lingered yet Lucifer had given her his face, so that she may form an image of him in her mind. For Uriel and their Father that was never needed. She would always know what they looked like. Their images would be burned into her mind for all of time.
Now she reaches out her hands in greeting, smooth fingers trailing over her brothers cheeks. She felt him smile at her touch, opening his mouth to playfully nip at her right index finger.
"Sometimes the truth isn't nice." Gabriel retorted, watching his sister and his brother greet one another. Though he rolled his eyes at their affection he could not stop his small smile at the sight.
Lucifer paid him no mind. His eyes, a strange shining blue, roamed over Raphael's face, nose scrunching periodically as he smelled her.
"You've been at the Waters today, haven't you?" he murmured, large hand coming to smooth over her still damp hair. "You smell of salt."
"That salt will make your hair dry." Uriel cut in, hands still grooming her sister's wings.
"They help my visions." Raphael defended, frowning slightly. "I still have…trouble."
Michael, who had been content to silently bask in the voices of his siblings sat up, righting himself on the chair he lay over.
"Did you have a vision?" he asked, arms coming to rest on his thighs as he lent forward.
Raphael's hands slipped from Lucifer's face, as though she had forgotten that they existed. He caught them in his hands, holding them together in some concern.
Nodding slowly she frowned, while her lips come together to form a hard line. For a while she did not speak and when she did her voice was faraway.
"Yes…No. I'm- uncertain. It was unclear. I meditated for the whole day but-" Here she turns to Gabriel, pink tongue darting out to wet her bottom lip.
"When next you do battle, wear a pauldron on your right arm. I know that it makes you uncomfortable but-"
"If you tell me so, I shall do it, sister." He said, cutting her off, his tone serious for once.
Raphael tugged her hands out of Lucifer's grasp, feeling suddenly hot. She attempted a smile at Gabriel but from the tightening of Uriel's hands on her feather's, she believed the expression to be closer to a grimace.
.
Every time Gabriel screamed, Raphael would jump.
She stood alone outside the infirmary, pacing bare-foot. The sound of her footfalls lost amongst the flurry of movement behind the closed doors and-
Gabriel screams again.
She pauses, gulping against the guilt and worry. It was her fault. She was wrong and now he was paying for it. What good was the gift of sight if it didn't work to save the ones she loved?
The heavy stone doors of the Infirmary opened and Lucifer's golden light entered her murky vision. Her hands wound around one another, twisting and twisting until the flesh grew hot and agitated.
Lucifer sighed, walking towards her slowly so as not to startle her. His armour clinked together in odd places, as though he had taken half of it off and now the other half rubbed together imperfectly.
Bending his head down he took her worried hands, placing her hot palms against his slick cheeks. Raphael didn't want to know whose coppery, bitter blood now coated her fingers.
"Will you come?" he asked, pulling away, still holding her hands as though she may bolt.
It was strange to see his younger sister so out of sorts. Of all his siblings she was the most practical. The most likely to stay calm. He can count on his hands how often he had seen her so distressed.
After a beat she nods, allowing him to pull her into the infirmary. He walks slowly, so that she may become accustomed to the new room. Her blindness was strange for an Archangel, but she had been alive for so long that she had learned every room in the Palace enough to navigate them unhindered. The Infirmary was strange though. Of all the places this was where she had come least. She did not like that it was so dark, so damp and isolated. This was where many of her failures had taken place.
Gabriel roars again and she can hear Michael fretting over him. Her stomach clenches.
The infirmary was large and dark. Its high walls and a glass ceiling, did nothing to dissuade its claustrophobic feel.
Raphael hadn't even reached the bed before Gabriel started.
"Right arm?" he exclaimed, sucking in a lungful of breath as he shifted badly against his injury. "Right arm?"
Raphael gulped. Not being able to see him clearly- her mind making up images too horrible to describe was making her guilt worse. "I'm sorry, brother. I'm so sorry I-"
"Honestly, Raphael. Right arm?"
She opened her mouth to respond, to belt out apologies for eons but there was a laugh in Gabriel's voice, beneath the pain. As Archangel's were siblings, it was always easy to tell what the other was thinking and Raphael reached out then, towards Gabriel. Though he felt pain and annoyance, none of it was directed at her.
"Of all the things, sister, my right arm?" he asked again and she could feel his smile, his forgiveness.
Her hands were shaking within Lucifer's but there was a smile in Gabriel's voice and that same softness. That fragility he reserved for his siblings was still there. Tentatively she smiled back inclining her head towards where she knew his left arm had been torn off.
"It might grow back." She murmured, with a nervous grin.
"Might?" Gabriel boomed in slight panic, "Might?!"
Though the mood had been lifted slightly, Raphael tilted her head up towards Lucifer, whose hands still held hers assuredly. She gave him a strange look, blind eyes seeming to lock onto his. Lucifer frowned and his smile wavered slightly.
"Of course." She responded, and though she was jesting, Lucifer could feel a peculiar seriousness to her voice. She was speaking to Gabriel yet still she looked at him and a strange finality settled over her words. "You're immortal."
Author Notes:
Little bit of allusion to Lucifer's ultimate demise at the end there. Poor baby.
You might be wondering, if there were no humans yet, who the angels were fighting. I took a little creative license and went ahead and assumed that there were demons on Earth.
In my verse, Raphael is blind. I thought it to be a weird sort of poetry where she is gifted foresight yet denied eyesight.
I have SO MANY head canons for Raphael it is unreal. Will hopefully be uploading them all soon. They'll probably be like this- little ficlets. I think Raphael has a very strained relationship with Gabriel and Michael present-day. A lot of resentment for Uriel and a lot of unresolved love/guilt/anger for Lucifer.
I just really love Raphael, ok? And she's not even in the show yet ahaha.
If you can, leave a review to let me know what you think. Thank you for reading and have a good weekend!
#RenewDominion
- Aobh x (: