AN: As some may have noticed, the length of the chapters change quite a bit, and there's one quite good reason: I didn't write the story for others to read; originally I didn't plan to put it on , so there were no chapters originally, only one long, long piece of text. I'm currently carving it up, cleaning it up for the most irritation mistakes, so please bear over with me.

Un-brit-picked and un-betaed, as so often before.

Disclaimer: Do not own, I'm just playing a bit with the characters.

She quickly had them put to good use; nearly sealed them all in the library in periods, watching them consume knowledge, practise language with Daisy and a few other visitors. In the first few weeks Lily taught them the practice of flying and the nature of the Waves, but she didn't learn them about the practise of using the Waves. Unfortunately, she had to let Daisy take care of a rather large amount of the more active teaching; such as helping them understand what they read in the books. But she where there when all the big events happened, such as the flying, the first full conversation at their new language, and when they realised they didn't have to sleep anymore, but her work kept her away most of the time, leaving only a few afternoons to tea and coffee. It was one of these afternoons she finally told them her plans for their nearest future.

"We're going on a fieldtrip." Tosh and Owen, which had been discussing biology, silenced.

"A field trip?" Owen turned slightly to look more directly at her, formerly having been turned toward Tosh.

"A field trip, yes. You've all been her for half a year already; and I haven't let you walk outside the temple just yet. It's time to drop the books and go see what you can't learn by reading. Rakelion has a population at about one billion and approximately seven billion lives at different planets all over this universe, but the former head archivist wasn't very productive and haven't registered all the new Angels, and neither did he registered those whom choose to pass away. So I am going on a trip around this universe, and as my trainees, you're all coming with me. It's a nice chance for you all to learn to travel through the Time Vortex and the universe. We're leaving this evening, I'll bring what we need, and you'll just have to bring yourself. Oh, and please wear some decent cloth, Owen." Lily had given him some decent cloth, but he had refused to use it, wearing only what he had as a human. Tosh had gotten used to wear dresses, she had trousers as well, but skirts and dresses were quite nice to wear, and Ianto whom already had a good sense of style; Lily had given him cloth in the same style, but she had somehow managed to keep the colours in black, red and white, all beautifully matching his dark red wings.

At sunset, Tosh, Owen and Ianto walked into the garden, to find Lily waiting for them. For once, she was dresses in her red and golden dress, only used when she had official business. She had worn it the day she transformed them, but they had soon learned the importance and meaning of that dress. Tosh had found a whole book explaining the thousands of small signs woven into it, the meaning of each and every thread.

"Oh, you're here. I hope you're all ready, it's going to be a rather long trip."

"For such a long trip, you aren't bringing much luggage." Lily nodded at Owen.

"It may seem so, yes." She pointed at her handbag; a simple black silk.

"This one contains everything we need. It's so much bigger on the inside." She smirked, she had a love for Time Lord Technology, and this one had to be her favourite.

"Now, let's go, we have a lot of worlds to visit, but first, we have to make an official visit in a nearby town. My expertise has been requested." She pulled a leather pouch out of her handbag, snapping it open to reveal a piece of paper.

"Physic paper." She said, pointing to the four lines of text on it.

"Date of dispatch, place, name and request. All requests to me are written like this." She handled it over to Tosh, while she checked her handbag to see if she had forgot anything.

"'3th March 2001, Zephyranth, Aster, you're service is required.' This doesn't say much." Owen looked over her shoulder.

"And isn't the date wrong?" Tosh asked, handling the pouch to Ianto.

"Yes and no. It's the third day, third month of the first year of the new era. The old era was getting a bit long to write down, so we made a reset when I took seat at the throne. I'll love to stay here and lecture you all, but we'll have to take it while travelling to Zephyranth." Flexing her wings, she stretched them out, before taking to the skies, soon to be followed by Tosh, Owen and Ianto. Flying over the city and towards the mountains in the far horizon, she kept the other close; aware their wings weren't as strong just yet.

"This is going to be another you-are-no-longer-at-earth-lecture: you should have learned a day equals 20 hours, nine hours with light, nine with dark, and two which reminds of sunset and dawn on earth. There goes 20 days to a week, five weeks to a month, in other words 100 days to a month, and ten months, 1000 days, on a year, called a Rake. You've all been here a bit more than half an earth year, actually precise two months, 200 days. Well, it's been 200 days since you awoke; a bit more since you arrived." She lowered the speed a bit, soon standing still in the air like a hawk on a hunt.

"As you may have realised; this is not a planet. There's no sun but plenty of stars. This whole universe, this reality, is sealed in an ever expanding bubble. This world is placed in the membrane keeping this reality together, no, this world is the membrane, keeping the universe from floating into the void between the different realities. I really hope you have had time to read up on this."

"This world keeps all other worlds in balance, stabilises The Wave flow and keep the Time Vortex in place, populated by a race called Angels, by some called Guardian Angels, or Angels of Time, for their role as cleaners and guardians of The Wave. There's no race as mighty as Angels." Ianto closed the small note book he had gotten for habit of writing in. Lily smirked, but it didn't reach her eyes.

"Again; yes and no. You must have found a book by Daisy's father; he was rather egoistic, or maybe just proud of being an Angel. Yes, we are the guardians and cleaners of this universe, but we aren't the mightiest race. Everything, every race, element, every single thing, has a counterpart, even we. They only different is; they died. Or most of them died; there are a few individuals left. They became victim to their own egoism. They thought themselves too mighty and forgot their counterpart and died of that mistake. But that's a story for another time, now, let's go, I have a job to do."

They soon arrived at a small town at a lakeside in a mountain valley. It was a small town, only a few houses and a few boats at the lakeside. The valley was filled with flowers; no fields had destroyed the natural beauty of the valley. They landed by the lakeside, and were greeted by what seemed to be every citizen of the town. No one cheered, and the air seemed strangely stiff.

"My service was requested." Lily had an official air around her; neither of her trainees had felt before.

"I thank you for coming, milady Rakelion." A woman stepped out from masses.

"I, Aster of Zephyranth, request your service." Aster bowed.

"Have you thought properly about this decision?" The question seemed automatic, a procedure nobody really cared about but had to be done.

"I have milady."

"Then I ask you to take your finally goodbyes. You have five minutes." She turned around, heading to her trainees, stopping in front of them.

"I realise I have forgot to tell you something about the Angel race. Since our sole energy intake comes from The Waves and our bodies are made of clean matter, they don't decay. We can't die the natural way, even if your body is broken apart, cut up in thousands and thousands of small pieces, blown apart, or any other possible horror, it will reconnect in a matter of minutes. The only way is to cut the line to The Waves and dissolve the matter, and only I can do that. Requesting my service means to ask me to help them die. It can be a bit hard to take in, I know, and you don't need to see this. You can all go down to the lake and wait there for me." Without waiting an answer; as so often before; she turned her back to them, walking back to Aster.

"Are you ready?" Aster nodded.

"Then kneel." Aster kneeled down, as did Lily in front of her.

"Aster of Zephyranth, do you accept the ending of your contact and contract with The Waves and Rakelion as you requested?" Lily took her hands in her own, keeping them close.

"I, Aster of Zephyranth accept and voluntarily give back what I was granted at my birth and wish for eternal sleep in The Rakelion." A weak light emerged from the base of her wings, slowly dissolving her into a fine dust.

"Your wish is granted." Lily whispered, seeing the matter dissolving in front of her, forming lines before weaving into her own feathers, cleaning the matter before they completely dissolved, leaving back a small seed where Aster once had been. Lily picked up the small seed and handled it to her family.

"Please, handle it with care. You would know where to plant this." Receiving nods and muted answers, she beds her farewells and walked away. Much to her delight, or should she maybe be concerned, her trainees hadn't left. Without a word, she took off to the sky again, Tosh, Owen and Ianto soon to follow her.

They flew for a long while without speaking; first over the lake and the mountains, before Lily changed the direction to fly directly toward the sky. They felt a faint tickling over their skin when they flew through the thin membrane separating Rakelion from the universe. It was no real atmosphere, just a thin membrane. Entering the vast space they quickly picked up speed and soon Rakelion was just the black sky behind them sprinkled with small dots of stars they already had passed by.

"Lily, can I ask you a question?" Tosh said, breaking the silence. As there was no air in the vast universe between planets, it were second nature for an Angel to use telepathic instead of actually speech, but it sounded just the same.

"Just one?" Lily didn't look back, but a small smile was playing at the corner of her lips.

"I might have quite a few."

"I thought so. Feel free to ask, we have quite a lot of time on our hands right now."

"You, being what you are, is it part of your contract?" Tosh wasn't entirely sure on how to form her first question.

"Okay, we don't have that much time. You'll have to break your question up, otherwise are we never going to get through it." She slowed down a bit and turned around to face them, flying backwards.

"Is your ability to kill other a part of your contract?"

"My ability to release others of their contract: yes."

"Are your position as the Rakelion a part of your contract?"

"Yes."

"The Rakelion is the highest being in Rakelion."

"Yes?"

"Then, if you are the highest being, who binds you to your contract? You said the Rakelion is Rakelion in every sense of the word; the keeper, the soul and the pillar of that world, once. Who can bind you in a contract?" Lily went quite for a while, amazed by the brilliance of Tosh, while wondering how to explain her reasons, without telling the whole hidden story.

"And, when you bound us to our contracts with you, you used a book with writings on; writings neither us can read. Why isn't it in the language of Rakelion?"

"One question at the time please; I'll have quite a bit of explaining to get it all, and it's quite a long story. I won't tell you everything just yet, neither of you has the clearance for that. The Rakelion is the oldest being in the world of the Rakelion, there by the name. The world Rakelion is named after an old friend, my old friend. I am as old as Rakelion itself, I named it and helped it into existence. I am bound in a duel-contract with a different species, and as long as both species comply by our vows, and keep ourselves alive, we can both exist. If either of us ceases to exist, the contract will go back, and we will die as well. The book is as old the contract, and it is written in a long forgotten language. It contains only the contracts written directly to the Rakelion, those that answer to me and only to me. The Lords, or head of the different families, have a changeable contract with me of a different kind; it's in another book if you should wonder." They all went silent for a bit of time, processing the new information while Lily was lost in memories of times long gone. Owen soon brought her attention back to the presence.

"If you are as old at Rakelion, how old are you then?"

"Older then I want to remember. The Angels is one of the oldest races in this universe. I have to admit, I haven't been awake all the time; it gets boring being around for too long, so I take a nap now and then, once in a while to my own regret. In my last nap, I missed some rather important events." She turned around gracefully, lost in thoughts.

"Will you tell us about it?"

"Someday I might, but not in the near future."

AN2: As any fangirl/-boy knows: reviews are love and fuel for any -writer.