Sometimes he dreamed.
Angels don't dream, but his vessel had, and they'd been together a long time, long enough for tiny scraps of personality and disposition to seep through, and sometimes, just sometimes, he dreamed.
Always it was the same.
He was home.
Bathed in light and grace and in the presence of his brothers. The love that radiated from them made his whole being swell and in that dream state he would go to them and fall to his knees and beg them to forgive his cowardice, to bring him home to them, to father.
He would see Michael and Lucifer embrace, Raphael stood with them, full of youthful energy that crackled about him like a long awaited summer storm.
And then Father.
Surrounded by love, peace, the overwhelming feeling of belonging, of being home….
And then he would wake up…. And curse the universe for pulling him so far from all he loved.
"Loki?"
Her voice pulled him back and he turned to face her.
In the dark, and fogged with sleep, her eyes were deep, lightless wells. Not Demon eyes, there was nothing demonic in her, they just seemed to absorb the light.
He kissed the top of her shoulder.
"Go back to sleep."
With a tiny moan, she moved closer to him and he wrapped his arms around her, letting her body warm him, taking comfort from the heaviness of her limbs against his.
"Bad dream again?"
"No. It's nothing. Sleep."
She was already starting to drift off again while he absently ran his fingers through her thick, black hair, gently stroking her, more for his comfort than for hers.
He loved her.
In some sort of almost mortal way, he loved her, he wanted to make her happy, wanted to stay with her always.
The battle field they had met on should have had one of those stupid romantic comedy soundtracks playing in the background. That's what it felt like to him now when he recollected their first meeting.
How many years before Christ had it been?
He honestly couldn't remember. The older he got, the faster decades, centuries even, swept past.
She was glorious, stood surrounded by humans, chanting wildly in their fear at her presence, their voices swelling and ebbing as they tried desperately to take back what had been done..
Sarvama?galama? Galye sive sarvarthasadhike . sara? Ye tryambake gauri naraya? I namo'stu te.
O? Jayanti mangala kali bhadrakali kapalini . durga k?ama siva dhatri svaha svadha namo's tu? Te.
He had watched her throw back her head and laugh at them as they grovelled at her feet, weapons thrown down, no longer fighting each other now that the mighty Goddess of death stood among them.
It had been he who had made them summon her.
Had smiled and cajoled and convinced the pompous and arrogant Maharaja that with Kali Ma on his side, what could possibly go wrong?
He had watched the fat fool consider this, watched the greedy glint in his eye at the idea of controlling a God, and it had appealed to his ego.
But they had not been prepared for what Kali would think of this.
They soon found out though.
She lay waste to the whole battlefield with a flick of her wrist and her eyes shone with amber fire. An inferno raged about her, sweeping across the land until not one tent, not one carriage, not one human, was left standing.
If he was honest, he'd never been so turned on in his entire life.
He had walked over to her in the aftermath, stepping neatly over the charred remains of the soldiers, applauding, smiling widely.
"You're no mortal?" She'd straightened her posture, and curiously, it was both aggressive and defensive at the same time.
He held out his palms and bowed a little at her. "Apparently not. I'm a trickster, a mischief maker, and that stinking pile of charring fat and flesh over there was foolish enough to think he could control a Goddess. You corrected him though I see. And so thoroughly!"
They both looked then at the charred ground, the trees aflame, the sun blotted out with thick black smoke.
"You are a superior being O Kali the destroyer. And I should like to know you better."
She frowned at him. "I yield to no one. Man or God."
"Lucky for me then that I'm neither, but even so, I wouldn't dream of trying to tame your talents."
He held out his hand to her and, surprisingly, she had taken it.
And now she was here besides him, and had been, on and off, for centuries.
Her temper was quick and hot and his instinct was to run, always to run, to never deal with anything head on. He'd lie to himself, say that he did it to give her time to cool off, literally and figuratively, but if he was honest, really honest, he just couldn't handle it.
The emotion, the anger, the tiny cracks that were made in someone's heart every time they fought.
His flippancy frustrated her and she wasn't stupid, she knew it was a cover.
That he was hiding something from her.
But he couldn't tell. Not even her.
How could he tell her that he wasn't Loki, he wasn't a trickster.
How could he even begin to explain his origins to her? The old Gods feared and hated his Father and all associated with him. So how could he look her in the eye and tell her he was Gabriel, an archangel.
So he played his tricks and acted the fool and ran. Always ran.
But every time he stopped running he would find his way back to her and she always let him. Opened her arms and let him fall into her, she'd sooth him, with words and kisses, wrap herself around him.
Those that thought her a Goddess of evil destruction didn't understand. In the Death she brought to the world, new life bloomed, new ideas formed, new allegiances were made.
And a heart could be put quietly back together.
This would be the last time though, he'd already decided that.
He'd known it when he found her again, known it the moment he saw her and as she took him to her bed he'd known that he could never go back to how it was.
But maybe he could make amends.
Feeling her underneath him this time, he took special care to soak her all in.
From the arch of her cheekbones, the curve of her lips and the way they moved as she slowly parted them. The way her hair lay spread out behind her on the pillows, fluid and silky, an inky cascade.
He worked hard to burn into his memory the taste of her skin and the scent that radiated from her. And her eyes.
Her terrible eyes, that flickered open at that point of no return, as she arched her back and her breath caught in her throat, she clung to him and looked deep into his own eyes with hers.
The fire that rolled behind them had nearly pulled him in, pulled him too close, and he had to turn his head from her, bury his face in the crook of her neck and let his lips and tongue rest there as she coasted down to finally still under him.
And now she slept and he was awake.
He never could sleep after a dream.
Quietly he un tangled himself from her limbs and slipped from the bed, pulling his clothes on and stepping out into the garden.
Gabriel was never sure exactly where in the world this place was.
It was warm and the moon seemed larger here than in other places he'd been. The soft light bathed the garden in silver, giving what was already a beautiful spot an almost transcendent beauty.
He sat on a bench and listened to the cicadas singing to each other.
It really was beautiful.
He was going to miss earth. This earth.
Sometimes it was hard to remember why he had come, but the pain it brought him to think of his brothers fighting each other, of the final outrage of Michael locking Lucifer in the cage like some dangerous animal, it physically hurt him to remember. Like a knife left in his side to be twisted again and again.
"You're leaving."
Gabriel didn't bother to turn around at first. He felt if he could postpone the moment he had to meet her gaze, then he could just hold onto this peace for a small while longer.
"Please talk to me Loki."
He turned then.
Kali.
His Kali, stood barefoot in the garden, the bed sheet wrapped loosely around her, moonlight picking out blue black highlights to her hair.
He would like to say she'd never looked more beautiful, that she'd never been as lovely to him before as she was right now, this very second.
But it would have been a lie.
His kali, he would always remember her triumphant, her hair blown about her head by the wind whipped up from the fires she had set, her eyes blazing, her mouth twisted into a bloodthirsty smile as she laughed with cruel delight at the punishments she mete out.
This Kali stood before him, she looked tired, resigned and a little defeated.
He wished he'd just gone. Not lingered here in this garden.
"Yes. For good, probably."
He thought he saw her take a measured inhalation, and he wondered if maybe she'd try and kill him. For all the times they'd shared together, she was still a Goddess, and a brutal one who specialised in handing out justice.
Instead she just pursed her lips slightly and nodded. The tiny glimmer of amber in her eyes faded and he was never more sorry of anything in his entire life.
"I never meant for any of this to happen, I never wanted to hurt you."
She laughed harshly at this and her eyes hardened.
"I think I gave you enough time to open up to me, trickster. I have let you walk in and out of my life for hundreds of years and I've always known you weren't telling me everything. I bet you're not even a real trickster. You may call yourself Loki, but I don't believe you are, not really. Maybe you're something else in a vessel that used to be Loki? After all, even gods can be killed. The right blade, the right incantation, the right combination of blood and luck. But you know what? I didn't care."
She looks away from him now, all the fight draining out of her and he can't stand it. Everything in his heart tells him to go back to her, to forget the rest and just stay with her till the end.
"I loved you Loki. But if you go now, I can't let you back."
He nodded. "I am sorry."
But Kali was already gone.
In the middle of the desert he stood to face the rising sun.
He felt the warmth creep across the land and slowly he unfurled his wings.
Although not physical in the sense that they were part of the vessel, they were still a part of him. A part that he had hidden for many, many centuries.
The wings caught the first rays of the sun and he spread them as wide as he could, feeling the strength flood back into them, the tips quivering with the power that radiated off them.
It was time to stop playing.
He wanted to go home.
And if that meant letting Michael and Lucifer fight like rabid dogs all over this world, then so be it.