Watching the Prince, the Commander, in the heat of battle was mesmerizing. He burned bright with his grace, leaving behind him a trail of light as he danced around to a mastered dance that only he knew. He burned bright and he burned hot. Everything he touched was left scorched by the heat he released; rocks, grass, skin, everything came away black and burnt.

He was like a ball of fire swirling around the bodies littered through the garden.

His expression was even, stoic, like it had been during the war. He fought with strength and power and skill.

She watched him twirl and slash and hack and move as fluidly as water through the rocks of a stream, from where she had hidden in the hollowed out tree. The attack had been a surprise, on their day of rest, but the attack on the Garden was even more so, it was where they sent the young ones when the gates were overthrown and the siege into the inner realm successful.

They had all converged on the Garden as soon as their enemy did and the young ones ran and hid away wherever they could manage. She heard a soft rustle from above, too soft to be a stealthy attacker, and she looked up at the nobs and breaks in the hallow trunk, climbing up as silently as she could. Breaking through the top, she carefully kept her head down, she spied the source of the soft rustle from the other branch.

Sasha was hugging himself close to the trunk, perched precariously on an overhanging branch, trying to stay as hidden as he could among the leaves and branches. But the limb he sat perched on was thin, it was dying, the tree ready to start over in its lifecycle, and she held a hand out to him frantically. He shook his head in fear, not wanting to leave his spot until the danger was passed, but he didn't have much of a choice in the matter should the branch snap from under him.

"Sasha!" she whispered urgently, "Take my hand! Come on! It's gonna snap!"

"I can't!" he called back just as urgently, "If I move it'll break!"

"If you don't move it's still going to break!"

"I'm too scared to move!"

"I know!" she reached out further, as much as she could without revealing herself, "I'm scared too but you have to move!"

He finally nodded, uncurling from his place on the branch, away from the thick trunk, and leaned forward to take her hand.

Then the branch snapped.

He fell.

Their hands met and locked.

And she was pulled over the edge.

Dangling from the broken limb of a tall oak tree was not what she had thought would be happening today. She was just going to play with her big brothers, listen to them tell stories, perhaps have to suffer through some attention being paid to her belly. Yet, here she was dangling half way out of a tree, over Michael's head, with Sasha hanging freely between them.

The Archangel looked up at them quickly, his eyes widening in shock, and turned back to the battle at hand. His eyes took on an orange hue, flames licking up his arms, and he clapped his hands together in front of him. A bright wave of flames swept through the gathering horde of demons, they screamed as they were burnt alive, stumbling over each other in their attempt to get away. He quickly turned back to them, lifting Sasha up from the bottom, enough that he could crawl up into the nook that his own little fledgling sat in hiding.

"Keep quiet."

They both nodded and disappeared within the hallow trunk, crawling back to the nob hole to watch from their safety, as the Commander burned his way through the hordes effortlessly, ensuring that none got a hairs inch too close to their hiding spot.

The battle raged on well into the night, until the hordes of demons finally stopped coming at them, they slowed to a stop, and with their end came the finish of the battle.

Michael took in the damage done to the Garden, nodding guiltily to the Gardener as he too took in the damage, but was waved away "It can be fixed." And it left him the time to walk over to the hallowed tree and kneel before the cracked opening.

"It's safe, now, you can come out."

The two of them crawled out from under the crack, both hugged him in thanks, before Sasha let him go to run into the arms of his own guardian. Akeelah hugged herself close as he lifted her from the ground.

"That was scary."

"It was."

"Thanks for saving us."

"Always."