It had been flying, not falling.
The wind whistling around her face, the hurtling brightness of her grace as it was torn from her chest and ripped away from her, those last few moments of knowledge before the blessed bliss of humanity… it had been painful, yes, but she was finally free.
Those first few years of humanity, though her angelic memories had been hidden in the back of her mind, were a rebirth in a way she had never experienced, a blossoming of mind and movement beyond all comprehension. Her Father's great love of humans was something she had never quite been able to understand, that was one of her chief motivations for falling in the first place. She wanted to know, above all other things, even above her own brothers, what made those scrabbling monkeys so much better than great beings of celestial intent and might.
In hindsight, foolish human instrument that it is, she had found the answer: in her foolish mortal "parents" that had died so needlessly, the humans who had been foolish enough to take in a red-haired baby and call her their own. She had finally comprehended a tiny, insignificant fraction of her Father's infinite love.
Those memories of human love were a mere echoing now, and yet as she had watched her brother Castiel falter in his righteous assurance, as she had watched the Winchesters blunder their way through Heaven and Hell and everything in between, she could not help to recollect the sheer force of that love that bound each of the fragile humans together. Once, it had bound her together, too, no matter how much of an imposter she had been on earth.
Now, standing alone in the wind, she could see the guilt in Castiel's eyes: he was helpless in this as much as she. She felt surprise, recognizing it as useless nd turning her eyes skyward. They would take it from her, the minute understanding she had of her father's love, they would strip her down to her very essence of obedience. She would be a cold, war-like creature once again, so like the one she had been before the fall.
She had experienced much on the earth and beyond it, she had led a garrison of angels across an incorporeal plane of glory to do battle with endless roiling demonic forces, she had giggled as a human baby at the silly faces of a parent, she had been with the Righteous Man himself in the most biblical sense. She had been through endless car seats and school buildings, asylums and churches, Heaven and Hell, and now it would be gone.
She screamed as they reverted to their true forms, bursting through Heaven's gates with enough force to turn what would be heads, if angels had tangible form. It was a place of light, and now it was blinding, blinding, burning, eradicating the memories and emotions that she had clutched close to her chest for so long now.
And then, it was over, it was done.
She slumped to the ground, tears drying on her cheeks. Shifting her shaking right hand, she placed it on the ground, feeling the rough sting of gravel with a certain kind of sweet recognition that this was Earth. She tentatively stroked her own cheek, surprised to find them wet with tears and… human?
The crunch of footsteps caught her attention, and she looked from polished shoes to neatly pressed pants and well-trimmed fingernails to a crisp tie to the cold, dark face of Raphael.
His deep voice resonated through the very essence of her grace, shaking her vessel in her slumped crouch. "Are you again ready to serve, my sister?"
She lifted her head, shaking the long, limp red hair out of the way, and staring into his eyes with a faintly malicious smile. "Tell me what is to be done," she all but snarled, barely registering a spark of protest seeded deep, deep, deep down within her grace.
"Kill the vessel. Scatter him. Ensure he is not found."
She bowed her head again, staring down at her knees. With a flutter of wings, Raphael was gone.
She straightened, moving with the accustomed rigidity of an angel of the Lord.
There was work to be done.
Well that was short. Ah well. I can't seem to stop writing Anna, for no reason. She's not even my favorite character by far.
Title from the Killers song because why not.