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A Hundred White Feathers
006. Hours

Heaven was slowly recovering from the battle. Everybody was now so well that the healers, even Raphael, were also considered fully recovered. Of course, had it not been for Gabriel, Raphael would have put off his own recovery until the last scratches and bruises were taken care of, but fortunately the healer had a responsible lover. And a responsible little brother-of-lover, too; whenever Gabriel wasn't around, Aziraphale was there to keep an eye on Raphael and make sure he wasn't exhausting himself too much. The young warrior made his big brother especially proud by not letting Raphael heal him, preferring to use his own recovery skills and let the healer save his strength for what it was really needed for.

Michael was proud of him as well. Even though he had lost many of his forces -- it seemed that warriors made up the majority of the Fallen, being naturally more ambitious and inclined to pride than other angels -- it seemed like the best remained. Many of his generals were lost, and this was the first time ever he had to lead the Heavenly Army alone without Lucifer by his side, but with generals like Aziraphale on his side, he was sure he'd succeed. The new warriors he was training now would be the best ones ever.

While Michael and his generals were busy training both old and new warriors to get the Heavenly Army back to shape after the losses of the war, everybody else was also returning to their old business. Once everybody had recovered and a health balance was thus reached, Raphael's work now consisted mostly of coordinating the lower healers. It was enough work to keep him occupied, but not enough to exhaust him -- which of course made Gabriel very happy. The Messenger himself was rather busy, trying to keep up with all the changes in Heaven and informing everybody about everything important, and thus he rarely saw his lover nowadays. Of course, that made them cherish even more the few moments they could steal just for each other. And they did see each other at work, too.

Nobody knew what Uriel was doing. Nobody asked him, either. It wasn't that they weren't interested or didn't care what was happening to him; they just figured he would prefer to be alone. While Heaven may have mostly recovered, despite the deep scars that were bound to stay for a long time, the other archangels knew that Uriel was far from being over it. And they would respect his wish for loneliness.

Of course Uriel wasn't exactly lonely. There were often other angels around, and especially much he seemed to be drawn to Aziraphale. The two never talked to each other about anything, though, just like neither of them talked to anybody else about anything connected to the Fall. They preferred silence, but as it seemed to help them in some way, the others were not overly worried.

So, Heaven was getting back to routines. They weren't the same as before -- the warrior training in particular was quite more intense -- but for the most part, everything seemed more or less familiar again.

And then, one day, a Voice said, "Let there Be."

Angels had no idea of time -- absolutely understandable, considering that there was no time yet to speak of when they were created. To them, some things happened before others; they did have a continuous line of events. However, one angel might take the same space in this line for blinking once as two others took for a lengthy conversation, and nobody thought anything about it. It was just normal.

Therefore, for some time they were all quite confused about what had happened. Suddenly everybody seemed to be late as something they'd thought wouldn't take long had actually taken that. Before, they had lived rather freely; after agreeing on a meeting, the members of a group of angels could first do about anything they wanted, or go to the meeting place right away, and all would still arrive almost at the same time. Now, however, some came significantly later. And it was becoming a problem.

Gabriel was especially stressed about it. It wasn't that he had any problem keeping up with time; however, whenever others had problems, one way or another it seemed to end up being his problem. The only one who had adapted to the new kind of existence almost naturally was Uriel. He had always preferred to do only one thing a time anyway, so it wasn't any problem for him to be unable to do several things simultaneously anymore.

Of course, Michael was almost always late. He maybe was a great warrior, leader, and teacher, but punctuality apparently just wasn't one of his talents.

However, Michael always showed up eventually, as did everybody else. And so, the rebuilding of the Golden City could go on, even if it wasn't without some difficulties.

Next Prompt: Days