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[Guten tag, Adstringendum. Today's daily dose of lineface angel starts off with fog, fog, and more fog, with Raphael's shape only just emerging through the haze. As muted as she normally is, there's something different today- almost constrained, wilted, a little too tight and a little too quiet. She's sitting on what appears to be the bottom of a set of steps- when the fog clears just a little it's obviously stone steps, like a pyramid or a very tall dais.]

There is a glut of idiocy this week.

[She gestures and the PCD rises, turning to face her at a slightly different angle. Behind her, it shows the stone dais- for that's exactly what it is, large steps of a massive grave, consisting of the huge dais leading to an enormous figure seated in a vast marble throne. The grave is impressive, to say the least. The carvings on it, just visible over her shoulder, are all in a mix of Enochian and Hebrew, including the Hebrew inscription of God's own name.]

It is astounding that any of you can survive on your own in this place, if this is how you handle anything new. [Then her expression tightens more, if possible, something dulling in her eyes slightly.] If you cannot learn for yourself, then know this: the graves should not be destroyed.

[Trust her. It isn't worth it. Her mouth presses into a thin, tense line before the feed cuts out altogether.]

[OOC: she's sitting at the base of fake-God's throne/grave in the middle of a ring of archangel graves, including her own, a destroyed Gabriel statue, a Lucifer mausoleum, and a smoking crater where Michael's used to be. Come bother her, bros.]

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I do not care.

[Go deep-throat a knife.

Or whatever. Raphael doesn't really care right now. ._.]

[A little sternly:]

You should understand it better. It is your curse to bear, after all. Angels are not given to short lives and need no understanding of what mortality means.

[That was how it used to be. How it's supposed to be.]

[By the time Thomas comes into the edge of her considerably heightened sight, Raphael is on her feet as steadily as if she was always standing, almost guarding at the base of the impressive tomb. As before, the sense of darkness from him chafes oddly at the evil clinging to her own Grace, it's at once uncomfortable and unpleasantly easy to be near.]

Such stupid questions when you already know the answer.

[Moving forward, closer to Michael's demolished grave. She feels instinctively that he shouldn't be near it alone. It isn't right.]

I wouldn't think that the flower would want to reward people for desecration...

That is the worst of your problems?

[ :| ]

You find aggressive visions of the dead to be rewarding.

Strange, but if that is fun to you...

[He's already tense, so tensing up doesn't do him much good, but his grip on the saber tightens, just a little. Even so he manages a tight, nearly belligerent smile.]

Oh good. You aren't a hallucination. Any hallucination of mine would have had a better comeback.

You misunderstand. That's not what I was saying. It makes sense that there would be consequence to destroying the graves. It'd be stranger if you were given something nice for it.

[Raphael's normally swift response delays a few seconds when her eyes linger on a hand clawing its way out of the crater- a hand she knows to be illusory, but none the less distracting.]

You would enjoy Uriel. I am told he was the funniest of his garrison.

Nothing about this has been "nice."

[Raphael reacts with immediate suspicion, getting to her feet in one impossibly quick, smooth motion. One hand clenches reflexively, wishing she had her sword out but knowing it's useless. She's too tense, immediately too stiff and, with no eyes on her, too impossibly sad. Something in her eyes is just a little dulled in a way they've never been before- the dim heaviness of knowing this won't end.

The event will end, surely. But even if Michael returns from the Wastes, nothing will change. She will burn until she goes insane and becomes like Lucifer, or until they break free and she has the freedom to return home and labor towards a fruitless goal that will get her nothing but death or an eternity alone. This hallucination, this repeated vision of her brother come back to taunt her is just the latest visual aid. Her tension is twofold, emotional and practical: the last two times she saw Michael, the phantom attacked her with surprising strength, cracking the wall of Lucifer's mausoleum. She isn't surprised that it's speaking to her, only that it is greeting her.]

Stop.

Well, I don't know about that... It was nice seeing some of the markers from my earliest assignments as a ferrygirl.

[Thomas idly kicks another clump of dirt into the crater. Whether it's because he's trying to bury the hallucinatory hand or because he just likes to kick things, hard to say.]

Funnier than Gabby? That I find hard to believe.

Well, I'm blind, I'm not going to be affected by the ambiance.

Well, I suppose so.

[The sternness surprises her, and she curtsies.]

I meant no offense, Lady Raphael. Nor did I mean to imply that Angels of the Lord should need such understanding. Please, forgive me if I have done so.

Regardless of our understanding, you are right in that we should not destroy such monuments. To desecrate a grave is most disrespectful.

T-think you that all the graves for mortals here are true, Lady Raphael? That the dates inscribed are truly the dates at which we will go either to Heaven or to Hell?

[Not that she's sure she wants to know, but if anyone in this place would know the truth of such things, it would be an Archangel.]

Heh.

-=Because, seriously, Raphael. She's acting more human than she'd probably like to admit. The Homonculus had a tendency to do that too, on occasion.=-

Raphael. Focus. Look beyond what you can see.

....There's something behind me, isn't there?

[...He's always wanted to say that and he feels no shame in it. Sadly, however, he doesn't sound nearly as thrilled as he'd like to be. He knows he's not going to like it.]

Knowing they were nothing but illusion?

Yes. [She looks away from it with some difficulty. It is only an illusion.] And no.

If you find something about this funny, I invite you to share.

Clearly, you have nobody worth mourning.

[As Raphael is certain the hand belongs to Michael, who Thomas has never met, she would be very surprised if he could see it.]

Gabriel was never in any garrison.

[The hand turns to an arm, turns to a dirt-streaked face emerging from the crater. Michael, climbing from the remnants of the grave, making grunts of effort and kicks only she can hear.]

He was a leader before abandoning his post to live with the pagans.

[That's the thing, though: the illusions trick her mind, as well. They seem to be tailored to her unique senses.]

Prove yourself.

[And no, interacting with her won't do it. The illusory Michaels have slammed her against walls before. She can't trust her own senses.]

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