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Entry tags:
accidental video -> text; sunday morning
[The video clicks on softly, with little static or feedback normally associated with angels. It's broadcasting from a rooftop, pointing off-kilter slightly to take in the panorama of Adstringéndum's horizon in the early light of dawn. The sky is striped and bright, the sun only just peeking over the distant horizon to paint the city and Wastes with vivid pinks and oranges that chase away the dusty blues of night. In this beauty sits Raphael, turned so far from the PCD that only a sliver of her face is visible over her shoulder.
Raphael is, rarely, sitting on an actual chair, leaning heavily on one elbow braced against her knee, the picture of peace. Not that she's usually a party animal, but there's something different about her, something more poised than arrogant, for once. There hasn't been room for arrogance these past several days; for the first time in her life she has absolutely nothing to be confident in, no future or present certainty to inflate her pride.
The result is a look that's almost a little deflated, if a person knows her very well. Most don't. She prefers it that way. It will be easier.
There's a kind of easy insecurity and nervous assurance in knowing that she's going to die. The curse now eating away at her for six days has only worsened, her dread simply crystallized when Severus Snape told her what that curse does and what it's doing to her. Everything else has fallen away: old grudges, past motivations, future plans are all meaningless with this encroachment of her apparent mortality. Raphael has died once before, in her home world, but there she had less than a minute to realize she was well and truly done for. She has been alone with her thoughts for over three days. Raphael also knows how impermanent death can be in this place, but she has seen people die here and never return. She has no home or life to go to; once Tom Riddle's curse takes the last of her life, she will be utterly gone unless the Animus see fit to restore her.
She hasn't even told anybody. If you asked her, Raphael could not tell you why.
The angel sits there, skin lit up in pinks and white shirt soaked in vivid orange, and watches the sunrise for a long time. At one point she breaks the silence with something that literally nobody has ever seen the archangel do- she coughs slightly. Only someone paying very close attention would notice the tiniest, briefest glow of dim white light on her hand as she coughed on it. That unnoticeable blink of light is Grace, bleeding out in a slow trickle since the week's start, foreshadowing the inevitable supernova that will announce her end. After at least five minutes, she turns her head very slightly (not enough to see her face properly- good, because it's pale, wan, eaten around the edges by parasitic rot with dark circles under her eyes) and seems to notice the camera. With a snap of her fingers the video shuts off. Then she decides to post something purposeful; her mind is roiling and lost, too many unfamiliar and intimidating thoughts filling that vast consciousness.]
[Filtered from Tom Riddle and Morgana]
What would you think of the chance live forever?
There are those who would seize such an opportunity.
There are those who would refuse. Why? [She hesitates in typing the next part, reluctant to let slip any notion of uncertainty, but her need for answers compels her. For once, archangels are not the wise ones here. These ridiculous, limited, idiotic humans earned their mortality and their Knowledge of good and evil, she may as well hear what it has to say.] How many years of life is enough?
Raphael is, rarely, sitting on an actual chair, leaning heavily on one elbow braced against her knee, the picture of peace. Not that she's usually a party animal, but there's something different about her, something more poised than arrogant, for once. There hasn't been room for arrogance these past several days; for the first time in her life she has absolutely nothing to be confident in, no future or present certainty to inflate her pride.
The result is a look that's almost a little deflated, if a person knows her very well. Most don't. She prefers it that way. It will be easier.
There's a kind of easy insecurity and nervous assurance in knowing that she's going to die. The curse now eating away at her for six days has only worsened, her dread simply crystallized when Severus Snape told her what that curse does and what it's doing to her. Everything else has fallen away: old grudges, past motivations, future plans are all meaningless with this encroachment of her apparent mortality. Raphael has died once before, in her home world, but there she had less than a minute to realize she was well and truly done for. She has been alone with her thoughts for over three days. Raphael also knows how impermanent death can be in this place, but she has seen people die here and never return. She has no home or life to go to; once Tom Riddle's curse takes the last of her life, she will be utterly gone unless the Animus see fit to restore her.
She hasn't even told anybody. If you asked her, Raphael could not tell you why.
The angel sits there, skin lit up in pinks and white shirt soaked in vivid orange, and watches the sunrise for a long time. At one point she breaks the silence with something that literally nobody has ever seen the archangel do- she coughs slightly. Only someone paying very close attention would notice the tiniest, briefest glow of dim white light on her hand as she coughed on it. That unnoticeable blink of light is Grace, bleeding out in a slow trickle since the week's start, foreshadowing the inevitable supernova that will announce her end. After at least five minutes, she turns her head very slightly (not enough to see her face properly- good, because it's pale, wan, eaten around the edges by parasitic rot with dark circles under her eyes) and seems to notice the camera. With a snap of her fingers the video shuts off. Then she decides to post something purposeful; her mind is roiling and lost, too many unfamiliar and intimidating thoughts filling that vast consciousness.]
[Filtered from Tom Riddle and Morgana]
What would you think of the chance live forever?
There are those who would seize such an opportunity.
There are those who would refuse. Why? [She hesitates in typing the next part, reluctant to let slip any notion of uncertainty, but her need for answers compels her. For once, archangels are not the wise ones here. These ridiculous, limited, idiotic humans earned their mortality and their Knowledge of good and evil, she may as well hear what it has to say.] How many years of life is enough?
voice;
You look awful.
[ it's the only thing he can really manage. he's not had the time his siblings have had, to set aside all the resentment and anger. it's still fresh in his memory, and bleeds into everything he does. ]
text/private;
What, no answer to my question?
text/private;
text/private;
We were both denied the privilege of contemplating our own deaths. Tell me, Balthazar, I am curious. A child named Hermione would rather die before growing weary of long life. [And they both know that every angel yet living is defined by weariness. An exhaustion that would send gods to their knees sobbing: Raphael cannot remember a time when she wasn't defined by it. Michael and Raphael tried to end the world from it, in fruitless search of succor.] Imagine having that chance. A real moment of choice.
Do spare me the illusion that what we had was worth living for.
[On her end she stops, surprised at herself. It's the most blatantly despairing thing she's ever said, and honestly, she has no idea where it came from. Surely that can't be how she feels. No- thinks, how she thinks. That sentiment is pure melancholy, an emotion borne of weakness. No, she thinks restlessly, it is the curse's influence corroding her spirit and strength. For Raphael is an archangel, strong and monumental, and does not know the feeling of stripped inhibitions, nor the wildness that comes on the brink of oblivion.]
offline;
that provokes him enough to spread his wings and appear before her, several paces away, easily out of arms' reach. (balthazar has ever stood out of arm's reach when speaking to raphael.) it is something new, seeing his brother like this, teetering on the edge of death, for that is what this is, or what balthazar thinks it is.
he doesn't know what he would do in her situation. falling on one's sword has more appeal before actually dying by it. ]
Since when do you speak so freely of choice, Raphael?
[ castiel had spoken of it. balthazar remembers it well, of his little brother extolling the virtues of free will and choice. but raphael was another story all together. ]
offline;
Do you think I have done nothing in six months but sit and contemplate the sky, Balthazar? There is no Heaven or hierarchy in Adstringéndum.
I speak of choice since it has been thrust upon us. I was speaking hypothetically.
offline;
If I had any choice in the manner of my death, I'd have preferred to fall upon my sword at a time of my choosing. I imagine I would have grown bored with all the diversions humanity had to offer me in time.
[ and he'd never intended to return fully to heaven's ranks. he would have stayed at castiel's side as long as his brother had needed him, oh yes, but afterwards, he'd ever intended to return to his chosen lifestyle. a fool's dream, perhaps, but still. ]
no subject
If you had choice. And what of a life not dependent on humanity's limited imagination? Would you grow "bored" with all that life has to offer.
I am sure you would think that a legitimate excuse for accepting your death.
[The belitting accusation is really a question. What if she is weary of anything and everything life has to offer? Is that a legitimate reason to lay down and die? But how cruel, when the death is not guaranteed to be permanent.]