Waiting for the End
BEGINNINGS
The Itch

His vessel had a parasite.

Yes, he had known going into this venture that there may be a problem here and there. Forcing a bloodline to come to fruition early always caused a side effect or ten, but this was necessary. Father's plans had been changing rapidly, and he had to scramble to put together a form that would last long enough to accomplish everything that needed to be done.

He had been half expecting the vessel to be born female, instead of the male vessels he'd worn since the days of Eden. It had been entirely expected that one or both of her parents would die soon after her birth in order to prevent him from simply waiting for another child. He had expected the weakness, the frail and delicate constitution. None of this would matter once he was wearing her, but it meant that there was a higher chance of her dying before he could get her permission.

There was nothing, however, that could have prepared him for what he found once she had been of age to be of use to him. Of all the problems and side effects that had been predicted, finding a pagan's divinity using his vessel's soul as a blanket had not been one of them. He wasn't even sure how it had happened. The pagans had their own bodies, ones that had been handcrafted or born of other pagans. There was no reason for divinity to be hiding in a mortal soul in a mortal body. Especially not one that had been made for him.

He had called himself Fárbauti, introducing himself as a wandering healer who had heard tale of the weaver Laufey. She was weak and ill, but her wares were some of the highest quality in the region, and so he was not the first to come to the door and see if he could heal her in exchange for a new cloak. He had been allowed into her home, and until he had looked directly at her he had not been able to sense any of the divinity hidden within.

Once he had seen her, it was obvious. Her eyes were a luminescent blue, the only place where the divinity obviously shone, and her hair a bedraggled mess of blonde curls. She was the day to his night, tiny and frail compared to his current vessel's height and broadness. It had felt strange to settle her back onto her bedding, pressing two massive fingers to her forehead and knocking her out before he attempted to find out just what the hell was possessing his vessel.

His Grace enveloped her, pressing in to heal the soul and brush away the divinity. Curiosity rippled through him as the divinity tried to bury deeper, but he wouldn't allow it to escape him. Before he realized what was happening, however, the pagan divinity lashed out, raking tiny thorns across the edge of his Grace.

It hurt.

The damage done to his Grace was minimal, hardly even worthy of being called injuries. Just shallow cuts, like a cornered kitten reacting in fear; it stung just the same. Gabriel tilted his current vessel's head, seeing only as an Archangel could see, though none of his curiosity filtered through to his vessel's face.

Again he reached out with his Grace though this time he did not try to touch either divinity or soul. This was an examination, an attempt to find some way to separate divinity and soul from one another. On this second pass, he realized that the divinity was acting less like a parasite and more along the lines of a symbiote. The divinity had grown through rents and tears left in the soul by Father only knew what, filling in the gaps that would have otherwise destroyed the soul.

The divinity was also damaged, though not as much as the soul, given how it had regrown. He wasn't as familiar with divinities as he was with souls, so he couldn't say for certain what it was that had happened to it, or even how it was rebuilding itself, but it was obvious that the soul was sheltering the divinity. It should have been obvious in how he hadn't been able to sense it until he was looking at Laufey.

The angel drew back, removing his fingers from the vessel's body and releasing her from unconsciousness. It took the woman a few moments to draw herself out of the darkness of her own mind. A hiss of pain accompanied the opening of her eyes.

"Be still, Laufey," his current vessel's voice was a low deep rumble, like thunder in a dark night. He rested a palm on on her forehead, only the barest of pressure needed to keep her from rising up from her bedding.

"Fárbauti...?" her eyes were hazy and clouded with confusion. She felt... strange. There was a bone-deep wariness suffusing her that had not been there before, and she couldn't help but wonder if this was yet another fraud who had come to her. There had been far too many men and women who had claimed that they could heal her sickness if only to be lying in the end.

As though he could hear the thoughts as they came, the stoic giant of a man bowed his head. "I am not able to heal you as you are."

She closed her eyes, having expected litt... wait. "As I am?" the other healers had always claimed that they had some herb or stone that would be of aid, but never before had someone dared claim that she was the problem. The goal was to get something out of her for free, after all, and it would not do to anger her.

Fárbauti folded his hands in his lap. "I have a request of you, Laufey. It is not to be taken lightly."

Ah, here it comes. He will want a blanket or a cloak or some other piece of her work before he begins. She was a bedridden woman, not a fool. "A... request."

"Your body was created to house the power of an Archangel, Laufey daughter of Nál. Instead, something else has taken up residence in it, something that is making you ill. If you would grand me permission to wear your form, then I will purge this illness from you."

That was nothing like what she had expected. There was shock and a thrill of greater purpose running through her, and she found thoughts stumbling over themselves. What was an archangel? What did it mean that he would wear her? She was created? By the gods? Like the gods?

"Not quite." she startled as Fárbauti answered her very thoughts. "You are still a mortal woman, not a god. I am an Archangel; to see my natural form, your eyes would be burned from your head. To hear my voice, your ears would bleed and you would hear no more. It is because of this that we ask mortals to bear our power, our Grace, so that we may interact with this world. Your lineage was carefully chosen so that you, Laufey, would be the perfect vessel to host my power."

She licked her suddenly dry lips. "And... of the man that you are... wearing now?"

Gesturing to his borrowed body, Fárbauti sighed. "At the very best, this form only as a few months to it. My power will begin to eat away at the body until it falls apart. Your body, however, could host me until I complete my mission and return to Heaven."

"And this... this will heal me? Entirely?"

"It will."

Laufey stared down at her hands. She flexed her fingers, but it was getting harder and harder to do every day. She had not been able to flex her toes in months, her legs all but useless for longer still.

She closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.

"Then... yes. I give you permission."

Gabriel doesn't sound like Gabriel because this is the Gabriel before he left Heaven. a+ explanation is a+

(...why do I keep writing prompts for Perdition is for Pagans when I'm not going to post them until Waiting for the End and Paved With Good Intentions are done?)