dribble from angelican scriptures mythos
2 more dribbles from the AS mythos, specifically, 10,001 and The Songs of Haniel
enjoy.
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Azrael appeared at his side, looking over his shoulder at the younger
angel's scribbling. "Something is on your mind, little brother," he said.
Sheol sighed, shaking his head as he turned to keep prying eyes away.
Azrael laughed and tussled his hair before standing up straight. "I see how it is,"
he grinned. "You've got that look on your face again."
"I've got no look."
"The one you wear when you are deep in thought."
"I wasn't-"
"No. But you were writing it, which is just as bad," he replied,
snatching the scraps of paper from the younger and holding them above his head
teasingly.
"Give it!"
"Not until you tell me what is wrong."
"Az, this isn't funny! Give it back!" he snapped angrily.
With a smirk, the elder gave him back the scraps. "And so with a single
phrase and a slight inflection of the voice, the truth comes out." He shook his
head and gently placed a hand on Sheol's shoulder. "It is the text again, isn't it?"
Sheol looked away, trying to keep his composure. "I don't know what
you are talking about."
"The throbbing. The constant beating inside your head. You are so
young..."
At last, Sheol began to relax, leaning back against the rock. "I wish I
were as strong as you and the others."
"You are strong, in your own ways. Where we have become weary
from age, you are resiliant and youthful. Curious and bright."
"But I do not have the strength to quiet my thoughts as you so easily
can. I fear the things I have read. They are too much... I cannot shut them out."
"The sacred book has been given to man many times in our long
history together. Raziel gave his great work to Adam and Eve after our Father
expelled them from Eden so that it could guide them back to Him."
"But I am nothing like Adam," he said, staring down at his hands.
"That is what Noah said the day Raphael was charged with giving the
book to him. Each who reads Raziel's words finds that spark of inspiration, that
spark of genius that lays dormant in all of man. It allows him to see without
seeing, and know without knowing. And I see that now, in you, young Sheol."
He shook his head. "Pardon my ignorance, elder brother, but how can
such things as anger and rage inspire? Do they not destroy?"
Azrael smiled. "Yes," he said. "I suppose they do. Yet you must
always remember that from darkness light springs. And from destruction, life
begins fresh and new." He laughed, draping an arm around the younger angel's
shoulders. "Anger has its uses, rage too. As you watch over man, you will see the
best and the worst of them, little brother. But take note of what you see. Not all
anger is negative. A great deal of it brings about change that otherwise would
never have come."
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"In the name of the Lord our Father, I cast thee out, Morning Star!"
Michael shouted, waving his flaming blade about. "And all who have followed
you! Never shall you cross this gate and look upon the might and the glory of
Heaven!"
The world shook, and chaos spread across the heavens as angels
began to fall. Sinking, at first, through the war-torn gardens of paradise. Then
down... deeper in the sky. Their cries became the thunder of the great storms
across the earth. Their wings beat futilely against the air, becomming the powerful
winds that ripped across the world.
"Sheol!" Haniel cried, diving after his beloved, reaching out to grasp
his desperately outstretched hand.
His face contorted in agony as he began to rise once more. Haniel was
hit, crying out in pain as he began to fall.
His fingers grasped the general's hand, clinging to it as if he had the
power to stop it.
"Haniel," Sheol said, looking up at him. Those brilliant eyes, as blue as
the Heavens themselves, burned into his memory. "Let me go."
"No! I won't! Not you! Come on! Beat your wings harder!"
"You can't!" he shouted back. "Let me fall!"
"I will carry us both!" he cried as his lover's fingers slipped through
his.
Azrael swooped in, grabbing Haniel by the arm. Grunting, he hoisted
him back up, back into the sky. Haniel wrapped his arms around him, sobbing
into his cloak of eternal night.
When next he looked up on his lover, his loyal and foolish Guardian,
the earth so far below opened wide to take him and all those who struggled against
the fall into her bosom.
The angels' flight was rough against those howling winds, the cries of
their lost brothers. A sudden anger fueled the wind, threatening to pull the two
back down. But Azrael pushed as hard as he could, and at last brought Haniel
back into the skies of Heaven.
The anger of the wind became a flash of lightening rage. And Lucifer's
voice boomed out defiantly across the kingdom of Heaven.
"Is is better to reign in Hell!" he screamed. "Than to be a slave in
Heaven!"
The Kingdom of Heaven shuddered at the sound of his voice, and
broke apart as he turned from his struggle to rise, beating the air with his wings as
proudly retreated into the abyss of the earth to join his Legion and his generals in
their eternal prison beneath the world of man.