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The first topic of conversation, after pleasantries and noting their various assignments from their Father, is always how the night is misnamed. There are four of them. All of them have served their Father well. And yet, for his service, for the epic breaking of him, the name of their gathering remains.
Gabe reminds them of all the messages he’s carried for Dad and how he’s dealt with the most notable leaders of mankind.
Raph reminds them of how he helped to spread the arts of healing to mortals.
Uri tells them how predictable they are. And Michael? He sits, drink in his left hand, smirking at his brothers and offering comments that leave them chuckling for days afterward, even if they would never admit it. Uri grumbles as Michael checks him. Uri almost always wins when it comes to chess, but that almost keeps him coming back time and again.
No one else ever beats him.
For all of their boasting, the night is still called Michaelmas. Time shakes out differently among the planes. It speeds by in Hell. It crawls in the Silver City. Among the in between spaces, it twists and turns erratically. Regardless, once a year, they all come together. Prayers travel through the skies, through the planes, and they decide on a place. The angels come to Earth.
They’ve lit upon different locations throughout the years. Together, they watch the stars forming in a clear, new sky as they drink moonlight from perfectly clear vessels. They sit together cross-legged on a planet just sprouting vegetation. In the early days, it has no name. It is nothing more or less, than seven siblings enjoying the newness of the universe.
Then, the battles start. The creeping things rise and break through, and likewise…. Michael breaks. His battles too hard-won, he changes. He stops smiling. Samael stops coming. Orphiel is slain by Beliel. Samael rebels, and he falls.
Still, the Archangels do their duty. When Eve and her children come down to the Earth, they move their gathering likewise. They dine on roasted goat as a doomed tower is built brick by brick, nibble on honeycakes as their mother’s tears drown hundreds of people and animals, sit and drink wine with the inauspicious scent of ash in the air at Pompei.
Yofiel, their wise sister, disappears. Remiel scents her blood in a human structure, with the remains of some kind of ritual and several human corpses that have been dead quite a while scattered about the floor.
Their dinners after that grow solemn for quite some time. It becomes burdensome overseeing humanity as it shifts and changes and grows and regresses. Only four of them left.
They discuss confronting Lucifer regarding the excess of demons walking the Earth in human corpses, doing who knew what. They speculate regarding the shifting global trends. Uri swears up and down that none of it is surprising to him, and Gabe tells him not to be tedious. Michael makes them all shake helplessly with laughter.
None of them spend much time with him outside of their gatherings anymore. His jokes have grown too bitter, along with the rest of him. But still… Who can resist one of his impressions of their siblings? Even Uri, with his limited sense of humor, occasionally gets a chuckle. It’s hard for him, when he knows the punchline. But sometimes, Michael catches him by surprise.
Years later, after eons of meetings, their prayers and footsteps reach a wooden area just outside of L.A. Their feet barely graze the ground as the three of them circle around freshly dug earth and each of them stares with dry eyes at the generously-sized plot.
“Welp. Four down. Three to go,” Michael says dryly.
“Stop it,” Gabe scolds. “He was our brother.”
“He’ll always be our brother,” Raph mutters, his voice heavy with unshed tears.
“He’s not anything now.” Michael circles around the grave and snorts. ”You think Samael dug this himself?”
Raph bows over, covering his mouth with one hand fiercely.
“We should take that blade from Lucifer before he makes his next move,” Gabe says, ever planning. “And use it on him, the psychopath.”
“You just don’t want to have to pay him back.” Michael says nothing for several moments, then crouches down to the grave, his right leg trembling as he does so. “You were truly stupid, Uri.”
He brushes his fingers over the wet dirt. “Who am I gonna play chess with now, huh?”
Raphael’s fingers glow as he holds his hands out. But his powers, like all of theirs, are impotent in the face of this. They could not save Orphiel, nor Yofie, and try as he might, Raph could never unbreak Michael.
“I did this.”
Raph and Gabe stare at Michael, and then look to each other. Michael’s voice sounds unfamiliar to their ears, and it isn’t something they want to hear. It should be wry and nasal, not high and brittle.
“Let’s go.” Gabe shoves his hands in his pockets and grimaces. “I could use a drink.”
Michael stands and unfurls his wings, which hang as crookedly as the rest of him.
Raphael gapes. “You have to come with us.”
“Why bother?” Michael snaps. “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t enjoy your own company better.”
“Of course, we would.” Gabe shrugs. “But it’s not Michaelmas without Michael.”
“Then call it something else.” Michael keeps his eyes on the grave. “If he finds the rest of that sword, you know I’m next. That’s what… Uri was afraid of. Another war. One we’d lose.”
Gabe’s eyes glint a malice-filled gold. “Did you use your power on him, brother?”
“Don’t even say that!” Raph says.
“Believe what you want. Go have a drink at Lux.” Michael’s feathers ruffle and he twists his shoulders around. “Tell Mom I said hi.”
As he takes off, two black, shining feathers flutter to the ground. Raph kneels to pick them up and pockets them, keeping the divine close as a last ditch remedy, should they ever need it.
“And then there were two.” Gabe shoves his hand in his pockets. “What do we do now?”
“Let him grieve.” Raphael lifts his head and wrinkles his nose. “And I vote doughnuts over drinks. Uri didn’t really like alcohol.”
“Nope. Uri’d never willingly have fun.”
Raph bumps Gabe’s shoulder with his and leads the way back through the woods.
“He has to come back, right?” Gabe asks.
Raph takes Gabe’s hand and just hopes. He hopes their family can drift back together as surely as they drifted apart. And he hopes Michael’s fears are wrong, and he won’t find himself on the other end of Lucifer’s blade one day.