A/N: Please take a moment to look at this: lunissa. deviantart. com/ gallery/ #/ d4iuw7s
Thank you.
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Third Interlude
Mercy
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It was a miserable thing, truly, to hate the work of one's own hands.
Regret, remorse, were not feelings that Azrael was used to dealing with. And why should he be? From the moment that the first woman and the first man had set their teeth in the fruit, his work had begun. An unpleasant task in the eyes of many, but an essential one, and one that had always afforded him a sense of profound fulfilment.
What many humans did not, could not, or would not see, was that life and death were two halves of an eternal, unerring cycle, by which balance was preserved in the world.
Birth.
Life.
Death.
Rebirth.
It had always been so beautiful in Azrael's sight, so utterly perfect. And with every string he cut, at its appointed time, early or late, he knew he was contributing to, was maintaining that beauty, that perfection, and his contentment had been complete.
The Grim Reaper, he was often called, but he was not grim, and he reaped only those souls whose moment had arrived.
His scythe had claimed them in countless different ways. Countless different shades of death. The peaceful passing away of old age, the lengthy, lingering extinction by illness, sudden death by accident, brutal murder, more brutal suicide, even the merciful, early end for those bodies born too weak to sustain life for long. And sometimes, but very, very rarely, the glorious, awe-inspiring sacrifice of one life to save another, something the angel of death had always admired, even though it would always briefly pain him to cut off souls so brave.
Briefly, never for very long.
And then a young boy and an even younger girl had stepped right into the midst of busy traffic, and had forced Azrael to do something that, even now, he could hardly bear thinking about. And they'd even thanked him for it.
His Lord and Lady.
For every living thing, the moment of death was determined at the moment of birth. Whether or not that death was by choice, it was foreseen, fixed, could not be changed.
They, however, and they alone, had been free. Free to choose the hour of their own passing, to summon him, as it were, at a time appointed by themselves, and by no other. Chosen and summoned, they had. Soon. Too soon. And for what? To aid in the redemption of a being trapped within himself for millennia, and for the salvation of another, whose heart had died by his own hand.
They had seen what was to be done, and, without hesitation, without question, they had done it, out of a compassion so great that any angel would have been at a loss to comprehend it.
Any angel, that was, except one.
And as Azrael watched him, as he always did, walking up to the door of the block of flats where he lived, face wholly impassive and eyes hidden by black sunglasses to mask the endless, shrieking agony behind and within, he, figurative heart filled with pity, looked at his own skeletal hands and the innocent blood thereon, and shuddered.
He reached into the air in front of him, and took hold of a shining piece of white string, heartbreakingly beautiful as the soul of the one whose life it measured. Although, perhaps, 'measured' was not the right word, since it was all connected, no beginning and no end.
He gently closed his fingers round it, and vanished. Azrael was one who kept his promises, and who always, always carried out his orders to the letter.
Even if those who had given them were dead.