faith
Gabriel was fuming as he separated himself from the metaphysical lines of Heaven, sinking just a little faster than necessary through Earth's atmosphere (fast enough to cause some upper-clouds to curl in on themselves and rumble with thunder) and down toward Israel. It took a lot of effort not to air the uncharitable thought that he wished Zachariah had Fallen.
Michael's orders, indeed. Those cherubs are mine, the bastard,he growled internally, deep within his Grace where no one would be able to read it, and didn't even feel guilty. Gabriel, too busy to give orders to his own messengers? Only because Michael and Raphael weren't doing anything themselves.
It was lucky for Zachariah Dad had Called him, then, or his little brother would've found himself on the other side of the cosmos. It had been a long time since Dad had asked Gabriel for anything, and for that, the archangel was willing to curb his ire. Even still, he was irritated enough that when he zipped across the desert his Grace breached into the physical world and tossed up a few minor sandstorms. He came to Nazareth and slowed, his wings stilling, letting his being sink into the town so he could look for—
One of his many wings brushed something that tingled against his Grace like static, and he was so startled that a whirl of sand briefly gusted across the outside of the town. He gathered himself to where it was, making himself as compact as possible, and saw ... her.
Mary. Physically she was a tiny slip of a girl, with long tumbling hair under her veil and the sun-burned complexion of a people who lived in the desert. His accidental gust of wind obliged her and her friends to gather their veils tight to them to hide from the dust, and when it had passed they shook off the sand and laughed at one another, and continued down the road with their baskets in their hands.
That wasn't what Gabriel was seeing. It was her soul; her soul was so bright as to eclipse all that. There was belief there, and certainty, and the strange kind of gentleness that came from both. Staring at her wasn't like looking into a sun or a comet; they were just dust and gas and heat. It was like looking into the fabric of Creation, where Dad sat. Pure white light. Mesmerised, Gabriel stretched forward one wing to brush her again, to compare the two, and against the frustration still in his Grace Mary's soul was the brighter. She jumped and looked around self-consciously and he drew back again.
This was the woman who'd bear Dad's Son, and she was one of the most beautiful things Gabriel had ever seen.
Egypt. Egypt and he'd screwed up because the wise men couldn't follow directions, and Dad hadn't said anything at all. Gabriel wasn't sure what he was meant to do about it, but the burning resentment in him bade him do something. Which was why he was here, right now, because even though these two people were the ones he'd nearly failed the most at least he could be there in case something happened. Egypt didn't have a good history, after all.
He sank into the fabric of their tiny house, little more than a hole in the wall of a bigger dwelling. The Enochian wards imbued into it on the metaphysical plane still glowed strong; he let them be and peered into the room.
Mary and Joseph's souls were different than they used to be, when Gabriel had first gone to them in their dreams, but they were older now, and had experienced a lot. Before, they had been wild with possibility and joy. Now, they were tempered—like light placed on a forge. More compact, but all the brighter and hotter for it.
They were talking. For a moment Gabriel debated eavesdropping and between letting them talk, and then decided, with a self-bitter twist in his Grace, that he had better just in case something had happened, because Dad wasn't giving him explicit instructions. He phased just enough into the physical to catch the sound waves.
"—should stay home," Joseph was saying, glancing through the sole window and trailing after Mary as she cleaned the tiny home, carrying a sleeping Jesus against his shoulder, one absent hand on the little boy's back. The Son of God was so bright that Gabriel's own gaze skirted around Him. "It isn't safe. Egypt ... isn't safe."
"I'll be all right, Joseph," Mary said. "Gabriel will be watching over us. He warned us to flee here, didn't he?"
"Yes," Joseph admitted, and Gabriel saw the tightness in his soul relax, felt the thrum between their souls and his own Grace that was their faith. In him. The one who'd made it necessary for them to flee at all.
He recoiled from the house so fast that sand gusted down the streets around it, his guilt so sharp it was almost physical. With a few wings he softened the breeze he'd caused, and then made to leave. And hesitated, glancing again at the house below him, the one whose walls were vibrating with light not caused by him or his wards but the purity of those inside. Of people who trusted him.
They shouldn't. They have no idea.
Yet the archangel settled back down again and turned his gaze outward, his many wings closing protectively over the house.
~ finis
