Gabriel
The Lone Angel
Gabriel travelled the Earth's home galaxy, searching for something - anything - of interest. The past few millennia had been mostly tedious. With his elder brothers away, he had been forced to act as Father's messenger, relaying his orders to the seraphs, all of whom were a thoroughly dull bunch with about as much personality as a rock. And not a particularly interesting rock, either. Father's orders to them were not too taxing or complex. Mostly he wanted things doing outside the Earth's solar system; a few planets aligned here, a comet's path adjusted there... child's play. At least, child's play to an arch-angel. For the seraphs and their lower angel minions it was more difficult, and they actually had to expend real effort to achieve results, but Gabriel rarely paid attention to the particulars.
Right now, Michael, Lucifer and Raphael were back in Heaven, reporting to their father. They came back every few thousand years, with updates on how their worlds were progressing. It had been amusing to listen to their reports the first few times, because Lucifer and Raphael appeared to be having a competition to see who could complete their world first, only Raphael was trying to pretend that he wasn't competing at all, and Michael was purposely working slower than the other two just so one of them wouldn't have to finish last. Michael was selfless that way.
Now, however, Gabriel found their reports dull. Too often he was ignored by his brothers and their father as they talked about their new worlds, comparing their progress, sharing their findings. Too often he felt like the odd one out, the observer who could not participate because he lacked understanding and experience. So caught up had his brothers been in their conversation that none had noticed when Gabriel had slipped out of Heaven and gone wandering to find his own entertainment.
Unlike his brothers, he didn't get lonely. He was too good at amusing himself to need constant companionship, and he knew it was what made him different to the rest of his family. Usually, Michael and Lucifer spent time together, and Raphael hovered around Father. Or sometimes, when Father and Lucifer went off on their own business together, Michael and Raphael took the opportunity to reminisce about the past. Gabriel had listened to their stories once, but he didn't know whether to believe them. Michael claimed that the Earth had once been a barren, burning ball of molten rock, with no plants or animals or oceans. It sounded too incredulous to be true, but then again, Michael didn't really have that much of a sense of humour, and he lacked the imagine to invent such a wild claim.
Though usually more than capable of entertaining himself, he now found that he was bored with it all. He'd seen enough suns forming to know how they worked, and he'd even destroyed one or two, when he thought his father wasn't looking. Out of curiosity he'd peeked into a black hole, but had seen nothing of interest on the other side. He'd broken a planet down into an asteroid belt and styled a dust nebula into the shape of a tree. When you factored in that for the past millennia he'd had nobody but father and seraphs for company, was it any wonder he was tired of the stale ennui?
With nothing better to do, he returned to Earth, where something caught his attention. There were angels on the edge of the huge continent, standing beside the shore of a shallow lagoon. Why, he wondered, had they come here? Very few seraphs had been instructed to carry out work on the Earth, and though nothing was stopping angels from visiting the planet, most of the time they preferred to stay in Heaven. They weren't particularly creative things, angels, and they tended not to do too much thinking for themselves. Besides, no other angels knew about the importance of the Earth, yet. Curious about their presence, he teleported to the planet's surface, and appeared before them, shining brightly beneath the pale light of the lone full moon.
There were three of them on the shoreline, angels of the smallest variety, with not a seraph amongst them. As soon as Gabriel arrived they looked wary, and a little guilty, and they started to draw away from him. Their actions made him sigh with frustration. He knew that they had been made to fear and obey arch-angels, but he suspected they'd never even seen one before. Angels of their generation received their orders directly from seraphs, and if they witnessed an arch-angel it was only in passing.
"What are you doing here?" Gabriel asked before the three could disappear. Now that he had asked them a question, they were bound by the laws of Heaven to stay and answer him.
One little angel stepped forward, a fearful look in his eyes.
"We were just looking. I promise, we didn't touch anything."
"Where is your seraph?"
"In Heaven. He... he said we were not needed at present. He didn't say we shouldn't come here."
"Then why are you acting so guilty?" he asked.
The angel cringed at the question, and a second angel stepped forward to reply. "We just wanted to look at the animals," he said. "Our seraph said nobody was to interfere on Earth, but we aren't interfering if we're just looking."
"Perhaps," the third angel said thoughtfully, "there is some way we can serve you, arch-angel. In... ah... return for you not mentioning this to the seraph."
Gabriel studied the three little angels more closely. He'd never really looked at other angels before; they were so small, their light so pale compared to that of his father and brothers, that they had always seemed the same, to him. His father had created them from a template, after all. But now he saw that even though they were the same type of angel, there were minor differences between them.
The last angel who had spoken was the largest, and the light of his body had a faint sky-blue tinge to it, as did his eyes. The second angel to have spoken was the smallest, with a body and eyes that were a dazzling shade of silver-white. The first speaker was between the other two in size, and though his body was white, his eyes shone more gold than silver. There also seemed to be some small differences in their personalities; golden-eyes, mentally termed 'cringer' by Gabriel, appeared to be the most scared by the arch-angel's presence. The white-eyed one had been clever enough to spot a loophole and brave – or foolish – enough to stand up to an arch-angel, whilst the angel with blue-tinted eyes had made a sly suggestion, reminding Gabriel of the clever ways in which Lucifer often spoke.
"Do you have names?" he asked them. He knew the seraphs had names, but he rarely needed to remember more than a dozen of them.
"My name is Inias," said the golden-eyed angel who had spoken first.
"Castiel," said the second.
"Uriel," added the largest of the three.
"Is this the first time you've come to the Earth?" he asked.
"We've watched it from Heaven several times, but we've never walked its surface before," Inias assured him nervously.
"Well, let me give you the grand tour," he offered. He gestured behind, at the mass of the continent. "Over there we have some mountains and trees and rivers." He then pointed towards the vast expanse of water. "Here is the ocean with some animals in it."
"What's that?" Castiel asked, pointing to a fish that was lurking near the surface of the lagoon.
"That's an animal," Gabriel said patiently.
"But how did it get here? And what does it do?"
"Father put it here. As for what it does... it's a fish. It mostly swims around, eats things, and makes more fish."
As Castiel wandered closer toward the water of the lagoon to look more closely at the fish, Uriel approached Gabriel, with Inias loitering not far behind him.
"What is our Father like?" the larger angel asked Gabriel.
"God? Well, he's... our Father." Gabriel frowned at his own lack of words. Nobody had ever asked him to describe God before. It wasn't an easy thing to do. "Mostly he just bosses us all around."
"Will we ever see him?"
"I don't know. Maybe, if he wants you to see him."
"Why doesn't he speak to us himself?"
"I don't know! Why do you ask so many questions?" he said in exasperation.
"We asked questions of the seraphs," Castiel said, looking up from his observation of the fish. "They told us not to ask any more."
Gabriel felt a moment of sympathy and pity for the tiny angels. They reminded him a little of himself, when he had asked questions of his brothers during their debriefings to their father, and had consequently been ignored.
"Well, the seraphs are mostly jerks," he said. "Hey, do you want to see something cool?"
Before the smaller angels could reply, he snapped his fingers and a shower of meteors began raining through the upper atmosphere, burning out in beautiful, fiery glory, each one making a hissing noise as it disintigrated. The three angels watched, surprise and awe in their eyes, and Gabriel allowed a self-satisfied smile to play across his face. Finally, he had found beings who were both impressed and appreciative of his skills.
One of the meteors made it through the atmosphere and hit the continent a few hundred miles away. There was a minor tremor through the earth upon its impact.
"Ah... are you supposed to do that?" Inias asked, looking at the rising smoke cloud in the distance.
"Sure," Gabriel said with a shrug. "I can do whatever I want. I'm looking after the Earth for Father, whilst my brothers are busy elsewhere."
"Can we help?" Castiel asked immediately.
"Why would you want to help?" The small angel's words confused Gabriel. Looking after the Earth was a chore, one that he did not particularly relish. Nothing exciting ever happened to it.
"He likes the animals," Uriel explained, and Castiel looked slightly embarrassed by his larger brother's words.
"I like them too," Inias said, jumping to his brother's defence. "My favourite are those ones with the curly round shells. What do you call those?"
"Well, Father calls them nautiloids. They're one of his favourites, too," Gabriel said.
"I like this one," said Castiel, pointing to the fish. Gabriel glanced at it, but it didn't look particularly interesting. Like many of Father's inventions, it was starting to try and make its way to land. Its pectoral and pelvic fins had become longer and more supportive, allowing it to crawl its way along the bottom of the muddy lagoon, and its lungs were capable of breathing in atmospheric oxygen, as well as oxygen derived from the water. With each generation, the fish was becoming more and more amphibious, but its body was quite plain and dull, nowhere near as visually appealing as the nautilus shells.
Perhaps, Gabriel thought, he could make use of these angels. They could watch the Earth for him, giving him free time to do as he chose. Father need never know that he wasn't the one observing the Earth directly, and the angels would probably be more than happy to get away from their seraph. But just as he was about to take them up on their offer, Michael appeared, arriving on the Earth in a flash of bright light. The three small angels shielded their eyes, whilst Gabriel fought back his irritation.
When Michael stopped shining so brightly, the other angels looked up at him, as fearfully as they had looked at Gabriel. Michael ran his eyes over them, but didn't look at his younger brother yet.
"Don't step on that fish, Castiel," Michael said to the smallest angel. "We have big plans for that fish." Castiel immediately left the shoreline, joining his brothers, possibly believing there was safety in numbers. But Michael ignored them all as he now turned to Gabriel. "Father wants to see you, Gabriel."
This could not be anything good. That Father had sent Michael to personally return him to Heaven suggested he was going to be in trouble for something. He just wished he knew what. He'd done everything Father had asked of him; passed messages to the seraphim, watched the Earth, carried out the orders the seraphim and angels couldn't handle... perhaps, he thought, God had found out about that star he had destroyed a few centuries ago.
"Probably just wants to give me some new orders," Gabriel said casually to the angels, as much to reassure himself as them. "See you around, little ones."
He teleported back to Heaven, and Michael followed him, official escort to Father's summons. Together they went to the place where Father resided, right in the middle of the Heavenly garden. No angels or seraphs ever came here; they knew better than to seek out their creator. Only the arch-angels, the beloved sons of God, came to this place. And when Gabriel arrived in Father's realm, he found both Raphael and Lucifer waiting for him, neither of them looking pleased. It was a testament to how bad the situation was, that the brothers weren't arguing as usual.
"Gabriel," Father said, without preamble, "it has come to my attention that angels have been visiting the Earth."
"I was going to tell them to return to Heaven," Gabriel lied guiltily.
"This isn't the first time angels have walked upon my creation, and in the past I have always been content to ignore their intrusions, for they usually keep their visits brief and they do not cause too much interference in my plans. However, in light of recent events, I am forced to take a firmer hand."
"Your meteor storm wiped out three species of plant and two species of insect," Raphael said in a tone of disapproval. Gabriel looked to Lucifer for support, but his brother's eyes were cold.
"I'm sorry, Father," Gabriel said, genuinely remorseful. It was bad enough that Father was angry with him, but now his brothers were displeased, too. He hated displeasing his brothers. "I didn't mean for that to happen."
"I know you didn't," Father said patiently. "But you must learn that your actions will always have consequences. From this moment, angels are forbidden from visiting the Earth, unless they are ordered there by an arch-angel. And an angel sent to the Earth may not affect it in any way; they may only observe what happens. And until I say otherwise, Gabriel, you are not to return to the Earth yourself. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Father," he said contritely.
"Good. Now, your brothers have to return to their tasks. I'd like you to stay in Heaven for the moment. I have orders for you to convey to the seraphim."
Gabriel watched as his brothers teleported away. Michael gave him a fleeting expression of sympathy before disappearing. Alone, he turned to God.
"Father, I truly am sorry," he said. "If I'd known that the meteors would wipe out some of the species, I never would have brought them to Earth."
"But you did," Father said with a sigh. "I know you intended no harm, but harm was done. You are a powerful being, Gabriel. You have to learn that with your power comes a responsibility to use it wisely. You can't just do whatever you want, because there will always be repercussions."
"I understand."
"I hope you do. For the moment I have work to do. You may leave, but return when I call for you."
Gabriel obeyed, teleporting from his Father's presence to some other place in Heaven, where he could be alone. Now he knew why Raphael and Lucifer were so cross with him. Whenever they returned home they liked to visit the Earth, and see how it had changed. Now, thanks to Gabriel, they wouldn't be allowed to travel to it and affect it in any way. He had essentially revoked their rights to influence the tiny planet's future. He just hoped that, in time, they would forgive him.
o - o - o - o - o
Descent from the Trees
As it turned out, the Earth – when not being interfered with by angels – did alright for itself. For millions of years Gabriel watched as the planet developed. Marine animals became fully amphibious, and then terrestrial, hauling themselves out of the shallow seas and onto land. The conditions – warm and humid – favoured one particular species that had evolved, and reptiles proliferated across the continent. Some of them grew so big that they rivalled an angel in height, though none evolved to be as tall as a seraph or an arch-angel. And not all of them grew big; some remained small enough to fit in the palm of an angel's hand, had angels been allowed to go to Earth and hold them.
The planet itself continued to change. It was a dynamic thing, powered by its own internal heat. The great continent was eventually split apart by shifting pockets of molten rock in the mantle, forming several smaller island-like continents which drifted slowly away from each other over the course of eons. The reptilian creatures continued to thrive even when they were separated by ocean, filling every ecological niche, until it seemed they were set to become the dominant, successful end to Father's great experiment.
Unfortunately for the reptiles, it wasn't meant to be. A large meteor, far bigger than the ones Gabriel had burnt up in the Earth's atmosphere, was on a collision course for the planet. Forbidden by their father from interfering, the angels could only watch as it impacted the Earth on one of the continents. The devastation was wide-spread. Everything on the same continent as the impact site was killed, vapourised by the explosion or by the ensuing shockwave. A cloud of thick dust was thrown up into the atmosphere, blocking out the light of the sun. Plants died and the reptiles starved or suffocated. As conditions on land became more and more hostile, some of the animals returned to the water whence their ancestors came. Reptiles became more amphibious as they sought refuge in the rivers of the slowly dying continents. Another of the animal groups, the small furry mammals, made their way back to the ocean, their limbs evolving into fins and tails so they could compete with the fish which had never left the sea in the first place.
Over time, the planet settled again. The dust cloud slowly dispersed and the barren Earth was once more colonised by a multitude of plants. The animals evolved more tentatively this time, as if afraid of what might happen if they repopulated the planet too quickly. Because conditions remained much cooler than they had been during the reign of the giant reptiles, the lizards and amphibians of this new era found it harder to compete. This time it was the birds and the mammals which took to the stage, evolving to specific roles. Though it took millions of years, the planet teemed with life once more, and this time it was far more diverse. The death of the lizards had left vacuums which new species attempted to fill.
As naturally happened every so often, the planet began to cool further, and ice formed at its poles. Great white glaciers spread south from the north of the planet and north from the south pole, extending to the edges of the tropical zones. Then, as the ice began to recede at long last, something new happened. One of the species of ape which lived in the habitable zone of the frozen planet climbed down from the trees and began to migrate. It followed the ice, and as it followed the retreating glaciers its intelligence seemed to increase exponentially. Apes had always used primitive tools, but now their tools became more advanced. They figured out that friction caused heat and eventually fire, and armed with their new ability to create a warming flame, they spread out, no longer held prisoner by the ice which had caged their ancestors.
The apes adapted faster than any other species that had been seen on the Earth so far, and different species began to emerge, interbreeding, fighting with each other, until, ultimately, one came out on top. Father seemed pleased by their emergence, and he called them 'humans'. God spent a lot of time watching them, and when the humans started developing intricate rituals to worship what they perceived to be god-like creator spirits, Father finally decided they were advanced enough to know more. He called his sons for a meeting in Heaven.
"I am pleased by the progress the humans are making," said God to his four children. "I've decided to lift some of the restrictions on angels visiting the Earth."
"Good!" Lucifer proclaimed with a smile. "I've missed being able to walk on its surface. Cimmeria is developing well, but it's a just pale reflection of the Earth."
"I'm lifting the restrictions," Father said, "but I'm not removing them entirely. Unfortunately, an angel's true form is dangerous to humanity. My children are simply too powerful to be beholden by human beings; it would kill them to see you as you are."
"Then how are we to visit the planet?" Michael asked, frowning.
"I will create vessels for you."
"Vessels?" said Raphael. He did not look pleased by the idea.
"Into some of the humans I will place a tiny piece of the celestial spark innate to all angels. The humans who carry it will not be aware of it, and it will not change them, but it will mean that they can hear you speak, and some may be able to look at you safely. You will be able to converse with them, and speak to them of their creator, and of Heaven. Through them you will be able to perform miracles."
"What do you mean, 'through them'?" asked Lucifer.
"If you wish to take any action on the Earth, you must enter one of the vessels, and use its body to interact with other humans."
"But... why? What purpose will it serve?"
"I wish the humans to know of me. I would like to offer them a place in Heaven."
Lucifer narrowed his eyes, clearly not keen on the idea of sharing his home with a bunch of smelly, hairless apes. Gabriel sympathised with his brother.
"You want to bring humans here?" Lucifer asked. "How are they to survive, if our forms are dangerous to them? And what will become of Heaven, when it's full of... of... animals? All they do is eat and fornicate and fight with each other. They sound more like Leviathans than angels."
"I have to agree with Lucifer," Raphael said, albeit with great reluctance. "Father, what will be gained from bringing humans here?"
"The human bodies will not come here," Father replied. "Only their souls, when they die."
"Souls?" Gabriel interjected. "What are they?"
"They're the part of the human that tells it what it is and dictates its behaviour," Father explained. "The humans developed souls some time ago, but none of you noticed because you didn't know what you were looking at. The humans have crossed a threshold; they perceive themselves as "I". Each one of them is individual and unique. I created the Leviathans with individuality, and I created you, my children, to be individuals too. But so far, humans are the only other species to have developed this self-awareness, and they did so without my input. It is their souls which make them unique and self-aware, so souls are precious things that I want to preserve. When humans die, their souls will come here. They will continue to exist in Heaven."
The four sons were stunned into silence. Heaven was where angels dwelt, and for as long as any of them could remember, only angels and the plants of Father's garden had lived here. For Father to offer a place in Heaven to the souls of a child-species was almost beyond belief. Gabriel knew that his own concerns were duplicated within his brothers. At last, Michael spoke up.
"Father... I am not sure the other angels will accept this knowledge easily," he said. Gabriel nodded in agreement.
"They will," Father said. "They were designed to obey. They might not like it, but they have no choice in the matter. You will tell them of my plans for the Earth and for the humans. Michael, you yourself will call an assembly and bring this news to them."
"Yes, Father," Michael said, bowing to Father's command. "I will see to it immediately."
"Before you go, there is one other thing." God waited until his sons were all listening fully. "I will create vessels for you... for all angels... on Earth. But the humans have grown beyond being simple animals, now. They are sentient beings. If you want to use one as a vessel, you must first obtain its permission."
Lucifer scowled, and Gabriel could almost read his thoughts. Arch-angels were the most powerful beings in creation. They did what they wanted – as long as it wasn't in opposition to God's wishes – and gave the orders to everyone else. They did not ask permission, especially not from some dirty animal.
Michael seemed to sense his brother's displeasure too, for he teleported himself plus the other three arch-angels away from Father's residence, and rematerialised them atop his favourite hill, beneath the redwood tree. Lucifer was the first to vent his frustration.
"Can you believe Father?" Lucifer demanded. "Telling us to ask permission, like some lowly servants?"
"I will not be visiting the Earth, if it means explaining myself to some hairless ape," Raphael agreed. "As much as I love Father, I cannot imagine bringing myself to request permission from an animal just to walk the Earth."
"Maybe it won't be so bad," Gabriel countered. His two brothers glared at him, and he leapt to his own defence. "I mean, it could be interesting, to witness the Earth from the human point of view. Besides, you heard Father, he wants us to tell the humans about him, and offer them a place in Heaven."
"He didn't mean us specifically," Raphael replied. "That's what the lower angels are for. Let them be the ones to prostrate themselves on the ground in front of humanity. I will not lower myself to such actions."
"Nor will I," said Lucifer. "What do you say, Michael? If we all stick together, if we agree to send only lower angels to the Earth, Father will change his mind about this whole 'permission' thing, I'm sure of it."
Gabriel looked to his eldest brother, and saw the indecision warring in his silver eyes. Michael was torn between obedience to his father and love for his brother. At last he nodded imperceptibly, and said, "Very well. Unlike you and Raphael, I have no burning desire to return to the Earth again. I've cared for it, but it means far more to the both of you than it does to me. I am content to stay away, and send only lesser angels to do Father's bidding."
All three brothers turned to Gabriel.
"We can only change Father's mind if we all agree to this together, Gabriel," said Lucifer.
Gabriel hesitated. As much as he disliked the idea of having to ask a hairless monkey permission to do anything, he didn't think the situation was as dire as his brothers were making out. It might even be fun to see what it was like inside a human. But the last thing he wanted to do was argue with his brothers; for better or worse, they were his family. They'd always looked out for him in the past, and he owed them this.
"Alright," he agreed. "I won't go to Earth."
"Then it's settled," said Lucifer. "We will remain in Heaven, and Father will see how strongly we feel about this. I have to return to Cimmeria now, the planet's ready to develop weather, but Gabriel, keep our agreement in mind whilst we're gone."
"I will," he sighed.
o - o - o - o - o
How to make friends and influence vessels
Of course, no plan was ever that simple. The agreement the brothers made was easy to execute in theory, but difficult in reality. Not long after the three eldest arch-angels returned to the cultivation of their own planets, God summoned Gabriel and told him there was a task to be carried out on Earth. Gabriel hesitated, but what could he do? There was no way he could disobey Father even if it meant breaking the agreement he had made with his brothers.
With great trepidation he travelled to the Earth, seeking out a vessel. It wasn't all that difficult; the vessels each possessed a tiny spark of celestial energy easily detectable by an angel, and Gabriel selected one of the strongest vessels to approach. Unfortunately, he underestimated the power of his own life-force, and as soon as he manifested on Earth the vessel was killed, its eyes burnt out of their sockets and its fleshy brain liquified. Perplexed, he returned to Heaven, to seek further instruction from God, but God was not there. Most likely he'd gone on one of his tours around the universe, which didn't help Gabriel at all.
When he realised he was in over his head, he began looking around for help. Somebody in Heaven had to know how to get into one of those fragile little vessels before it could drop dead; after all, angels had been carrying out Heaven's orders on Earth for a couple of hundred years by now, so it had to be possible. At first he considered asking one of the seraphs for advice, but quickly dismissed that idea. Arch-angels were supposed to be all-knowing, and he would never live it down if he had to ask a seraphim for help.
Then, he recalled the time he had last walked on Earth, and the three little angels he had met there. They had been so scared of him at first, that he suspected he could easily cow them into telling him what he needed to know, and threaten them with death by firing if they told anyone he had asked them for help. Remembering their names, he mentally summoned the three angels to Michael's hillside, and waited.
They appeared promptly, looking surprised by the summons. The angel with the gold-tinted eyes – Inias, Gabriel recalled – stepped forward first.
"Gabriel, we came as soon as we heard your call. Is there... some way we can serve you?" he asked nervously.
Perhaps, Gabriel thought, as he watched the three small angels, he wouldn't need to directly ask for their help, and threaten them with death. They didn't have to know what this summons was truly about.
"As a matter of fact, there is," he replied, confident now that he had a better way of extracting the information he needed. "You three have been working on Earth, haven't you?"
"A little, yes," the smallest angel, Castiel, replied cautiously.
"And how's that going?"
"We made our reports known to our seraph. Has he not told you of our progress?"
"I don't want to talk to your seraph," Gabriel said impatiently. Why did they have to be so cagey? "I want to talk to you. I want to hear what you think about the humans."
All three angels looked at each other as if they didn't understand the question, or feared to give a wrong answer. He could see it in their eyes; they thought they were being tested. They didn't know how honest to be. Finally, the largest angel, Uriel, spoke up.
"They are animals with some small amount of intelligence. Nothing more, nothing less."
"And you've been using them as vessels?"
"Of course," said Inias immediately. "We were present during Michael's assembly. We know that we can only carry out our orders by possessing humans as vessels."
Gabriel felt like screaming in frustration. Did these angels have to be literally hand-walked to the answer he sought? But he told himself to be patient. They were just children. They didn't know why he had truly brought them here. He had to tease the information from them, not bludgeon them to death with questions.
"How many humans did you kill before you figured out how to possess them?" he asked.
"One or two," Castiel admitted. "But we have the hang of it now."
"So how does it work for you little guys? I assume it's quite different to how seraphs and arch-angels possess vessels?" he prompted with as much patience as was left to him.
"I think it's much the same. Very few vessels can tolerate seeing us completely. First we speak to the vessels without manifesting fully, to slowly get them used to our presence. Sometimes we appear to them in their dreams. Only when we have obtained their permission to use their bodies do we manifest fully, and it's brief exposure for the vessels."
Of course! Why hadn't he considered it sooner? Speaking to them without manifesting completely, or speaking to them through their dreams, would circumvent the whole 'liquified' problem. Now that he had been given the answer, it seemed so obvious. So simple.
"May we enquire what this is about, Gabriel?" asked Uriel, that familiar calculating glint in his blue-tinted eyes.
"No you may not," he replied. Now that he had his answers, he needed the angels no further. "You will now return to whatever task you were performing before I summoned you. You will tell nobody that we spoke, and that includes the seraphs. Do you understand?"
They confirmed that they did, and then they disappeared. Hopefully their absence had gone unnoticed, but if not, what they told their seraph was their own problem.
Armed with knowledge, Gabriel's second attempt at taking a vessel went much better than his first, though it seemed to be a pointlessly time-consuming process. When he was finally able to gain permission from a vessel, though, he found the experience fascinating. The whole thing could be likened to a clay cup holding an entire ocean. Gabriel's presence was so overpowering that he was barely able to leave the vessel's body alive, once he had finished the task God had set him.
It should have ended there, but of course, that would have been too easy. The next time Gabriel's brothers returned to Heaven, Father told them that they, too, would have tasks to complete on the Earth, and told them that Gabriel would show them how to approach vessels, since he seemed to have mastered it quickly.
Lucifer was furious and refused to speak to Gabriel for centuries. Raphael wasn't pleased either, but he followed Michael's lead and finally sought out Gabriel, asking him for advice on finding and possessing a suitable vessel. Under the guidance of the three arch-angels, their seraph servants and the angels who did most of the work, humans were slowly taught about God, and about their future home in Heaven. Lucifer was the only arch-angel who did not partake in Father's orders; he simply returned to Cimmeria, and spent his time sulking.
o - o - o - o - o
Division within unity
When the humans had finally started to flourish, turning away from their pritive cave-dwelling hunter-gatherer lifestyles and learning how to build proper homes for themselves, God called his sons to Heaven. Even Lucifer, who had spent the past thousand years moping around Cimmeria, arrived promptly. It was the first time the family had been together since the argument, and Gabriel hoped that finally his brother would come to accept that Father's orders were not the terrible tragedy he imagined them to be.
"You've done well, my sons," God said, once they were all present. "I have made a place in Heaven for the human souls to exist. Or rather, a lot of places for them to exist. Each one will have its own little reality, separate from our Heaven, but still a part of it. Soon it will be time to bring some of them here. But before that happens, there is another announcement I want you to make together to the rest of the angels."
"What announcement?" asked Raphael. Gabriel could feel his brother's reluctance. The last announcement hadn't gone down too badly, but there had been minor dissent in the ranks before the seraphs had stamped it out. Now, all angels accepted the situation with the vessels, but asking them to accept the human souls sharing their home was another matter entirely.
"The humans are my most treasured creation to date–"
"I thought we were your most treasured creations?" Lucifer interrupted.
"You are my most perfect creations. You are beautiful, powerful and obedient. But the humans possess something you cannot. They have souls. They have free will and imagination. And they will continue to grow and change, evolving over time. I want all of my children to love them as I do. I want my children to care for the humans, and love them even more than they love me."
"Father, you ask too much!" Lucifer said. Gabriel's mind was still reeling from his father's words. "How can you ask us to love those animals? They are small, and weak, and flawed. They kill each other, murdering out of greed and anger."
"Some of them, yes," Father agreed. "But they have the capacity to be more."
"How can you expect us... expect any angel... to love humans more than they love you, Father? They are just animals, and you are our creator."
"I expect you to do it because I have ordered it so," Father said. "The four of you will call an assembly of the host of Heaven, and you will tell them of my proposals. My children will love humanity. The souls of humans will come here when they die, and angels will care for them in Heaven."
"Yes, Father," Michael said. "We will see to it immediately."
Gabriel felt himself teleported by Michael, and all four brothers materialised on the hillside beneath the redwood tree. Lucifer turned to his brother immediately.
"Michael, you cannot do this!"
"I can, and I will," Michael replied calmly. "They are Father's orders, and I will not disobey."
"I don't understand!" Lucifer cried, in genuine distress. "How can you accept that humans are more perfect than we? That Father cares for them more? That he expects us to care for them more than we care for him!?"
"I accept it because I have to," said the eldest arch-angel. "I don't need to understand Father's order to obey them."
"But you don't have to obey them!"
"Yes, I do. And you do, too. We all do." Michael turned to address Raphael and Gabriel. "We correct disobedience amongst the lower ranks. Do you think Father would let us get away with what we punish in others? We must serve. We must be obedient. You know what happens to those who are not."
Gabriel shivered. Leviathans. His brothers had told him stories about them, and every angel had heard whisperings from the upper echelon. The Leviathans had been disobedient and destructive, so Father had imprisoned them in a place where they could do no harm.
"Raphael," said Lucifer, imploring his brother to hear him. "You dislike the humans as much as I do. You see them for the petty, murderous creatures they are. We do not have to follow Father's orders. Not this time. If we stand together, Father will see that he is wrong to ask this of us. He will change his mind."
Raphael looked at his older brother, speculation in his silver eyes. Then he shook his head sadly. "I don't believe he will, Lucifer. He asks us to love the humans more than we love him, and he asks the humans to love him more than they love each other. Does it not seem that he is testing us, testing our obedience, and our love for him?"
"Father has no need to test us! He made us. He knows that we love him unconditionally."
"If that is true, why is it so hard for you to follow his order? I may not like the humans, but if Father asks us to care for them, to tend their souls, to love them more than I love him, then I will obey to the best of my abilities. I will try. If I fail, it will not be through disobedience."
"And you, Gabriel?" Lucifer asked, turning to his youngest brother. "Will you stand with me? Or are you, too, going to crawl on your belly in service to the humans? Are you going to pick them over your own Father? Over your own brother?"
"I don't want to pick anything over anything else," Gabriel replied. There was an uneasy feeling inside him, a knot in the centre of his stomach. He tried to reason with his brother. "Dad wants us to do this, Lucifer. Why don't we just give it a try? Maybe it won't be so bad."
"Fine," Lucifer said, his silver eyes full of cold anger. "You do whatever you want. Call your little assembly. Tell the host of Heaven that they're now second-class citizens, subservient to a race of animals. When you're done, I'll call my own assembly, and I'll tell them how it really is."
"Lucifer," Michael pleaded with both his voice and his eyes, "please do not do this. Father will not stand by and let you risk all that he has worked for. I do not want him to lock you away, like he did the Leviathans."
"Then stand with me!"
"I can't. I have a responsibility to Father. To Heaven. To our brothers and sisters. If Father sees us disobeying, he will lock us all away, or he may simply get rid of us and start again, like he did when the Leviathans almost destroyed the Earth."
"I would rather be destroyed than live as a slave to a race of vicious animals."
With those final words, Lucifer teleported away. Gabriel looked to his brothers, hoping for guidance. But Michael looked sad, and a little angry, and Raphael looked worried.
"What should we do?" he asked the older angels.
"Now," Michael said, turning his gaze away from the spot where Lucifer had been standing, "we call an assembly."
A/N: Hey, thanks for reading. It's not finished yet. When I realised I was marching towards 9k words, I decided to split the last chapter. Gabriel's chapter technically ends here (sorry about the length) and the last chapter will be told from the perspective of all the arch-angels, to bring it all together. Questions, comments, criticisms... you know what to do. Catch you next Friday for the end of this tale.