Chapter 14. Reunited
Tyrael and Atsaelle looked at Michael as he left.
"Amazing how I can bear the sight of the full light of an Archangel now," she said.
Tyrael turned to her, smiling and his eyes sparkling, literally. She could see through the light they were diffusing, now, and she knew his eyes were blue. It was strange, after all these years, to see his uncovered face again, his young features, as she had aged so much and, in a way, still felt old, even if her body had been turned back to what she must have looked like during her adventures after the Wanderer.
Tyrael did not hide his joy that she was there, and the smug pride that it was Michael's doing, that he did not lift a finger in the whole matter, and that the angelic Council might be incensed at the intervention, or maybe not, but he would be beyond any reproach.
"You're gloating, sir preaching Archangel," Atsaelle warned.
"I am! I will have a sin to confess for the next judgement," he exclaimed happily, and he floated to her suddenly, his wings folding up around her and curling with her own wings. She felt his exuberance, and she shivered at the new feeling of their wings touching.
"We must leave the mortals' plane," Tyrael said. "We must not disturb further the Zann Esu… my love."
She felt his uncertainty, his hesitation to call her that, unsure of what she would wish now that it was possible to choose to envision the future together or apart, and their respective responsibilities to Heaven.
She touched his cheek, although she wore the black gloves gifted to her by Michael. He closed his eyes to her touch, a touching expression of tenderness filling his face, as he acknowledged her renewed love for him.
"You are forgetting your hood, my love," she said, waving tentatively her wings to try to catch it. Her wings collided awkwardly with his neck, which made him laugh, but she managed to put his hood on. Then, she used her hands, which she had not forgotten how to use, to put her own hood. "I am shy," she stated, when it was time to go out and face the assembled Zann Esu.
"Be proud," he answered, smiling through all his senses.
She laughed. He opened the door and got out, floating out and expanding his wings to the utter awe of the assembled Sorceresses. Then Atsaelle followed, feeling embarrassed to face her friends, her family with a hood and to go forever. But she had already said her goodbyes in the last few days.
She felt that Makiri recognized her cape, and knew it was her. She projected her indecision to Tyrael. He stopped, and turned slowly to the young sorceress.
"Atsanit is no more," he stated. "The Archangel you see beside me is Atsaelle, the lady of Pandemonium."
Then he told Atsaelle in his inner speech to begin to fly up, and helped her with mental instructions as she was having a little of trouble with this other novelty, but nothing human eyes squinting in their light and in the sun could notice.
THE END
