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Azazel had noticed the patchiness around certain areas on Gabriel's wings as they measured him, but didn't particularly bother commenting on it.
Gabriel, however, caught how their brow wrinkled in concern, and just smiled at them, telling them he was just fine. A lie slipped from him, and he simply stated that he'd been a bit too overzealous in preening.
Azazel had simply blinked, before huffing. Azazel tended to not talk much, instead communicating in grunts and keeping their sentences short and to the point. There was a comfort in that familiarity, Gabriel had noticed.
Whether or not they believed it was another matter entirely. But also not entirely his problem, given that Azazel gave the same treatment of keeping their sentences as short as possible to everyone else. It included him, and he was at least somewhat thankful that he was being treated as just another angel.
"So, is there an estimated time on how long the repairs will take?"
"One day, three if you badger me."
"Thank you." Gabriel dipped his head in a small bow towards them.
"Will let you know if it changes."
There was a comfortable silence.
Azazel looked back up to him. "Some areas need reinforcement." They point at him, though it's not intended to be rude. "Should consider upgrading to leather. Or silver."
"Cloth allows me to be stealthy if I need to be."
"...Could at least reinforce the majority, provide a moisture-wicking layer for sweat." They pause, squinting at the blueprints to the clothing. "Linen is pain in tuckus to repair."
"I'll let you get on with that, then."
Azazel looked up at him again. "D'you need bandages?"
He was already gone before they could get the sentence out. They grumbled quietly to themself, before picking up a needle and some white thread. Getting the thread through the eye of the needle would be a nasty piece of work for most angels, but Azazel was mostly used to it. They were used to the pricks and accidental stab wounds that came with being one of the angels that knew how to sew, and therefore, how to repair clothing. Azazel never bothered with using a thimble.
A pity that Gabriel had left, though, they thought to themself. They wanted to at least provide some form of assistance regarding the odd patches on the Judge's wings.
Virgil cocked his head as Gabriel approached, evidently a little bit curious as to why his superior was coming to him. He didn't say anything regarding his curiosity, though, instead simply bowing in greeting.
"Greetings, Gabriel. Heading back down to oversee Hell, I take it?"
"Yes. The Council wants me to be on guard in the Gluttony layer, no breaks between shifts."
"Nothing that the Judge of Hell can't take, 'ey, Golden Boy?" From beneath the helmet, Gabriel could hear a smile in the way Virgil spoke. A slightly rougher voice to go with a beefier guardian angel. The nickname was due to how the light from under his helmet had shined, and how he'd excelled at anything the Council had set him to.
As Gabriel turned to leave, though, Virgil called his name. Or, well, a diminuitive shortening of his name. He spun on his heel to look towards the guardian, confusion evident in the way he tilted his head, crossing his arms in slight annoyance at the shortening of his name (Gabe was not his name, it was Gabriel), though not bothering to comment on it.
"You ain't been plucking yer feathers again, 'ave you? 'Ere, let me see." An outstretched hand moved to Gabriel's shoulder.
He flinched back, wings raising. "What? No, I'm perfectly fine."
"Lies are a sin, y'know." The guardian huffed, before circling around Gabriel to get a better look at his wings.
"It's not a lie if it's true." The Judge responded, wings still flared out for all to see.
Virgil squinted from underneath his helmet, evidently unhappy with the explanation. "You've got scabs in a few areas. At the very least, make sure to patch them up if you're going t' pluck at yer feathers. Wouldn't want 'em getting infected."
It took a moment for Virgil to turn his attention to his inventory, as he tried to grab some bandages from a pocket under his armor. Usually the guardian would keep some patterned bandages for the younger angels whenever they got too rough with playing or tripped up, but Gabriel was an adult now.
The Judge teleported out of Heaven in a blinding flash of light, leaving nothing but golden particles. Virgil stared from his spot, before grumbling and placing the bandages back into his pockets.
"That boy's going to end up plucking 'is flight feathers one o' these days."
Raphael glared at the kneeling angel, stationed in front of the Council. He evidently wasn't fit for being the Judge of Hell, and even less so to have the Holy Light within him.
Loose feathers fell from quivering wings as Gabriel pleaded his case.
Plucking was done if an angel was stressed. Every single one of them had a similarity to birds in that regard, however, if Gabriel was stressed due to his role, then, in Raphael's opinion, he was not fit for being the Judge of Hell.
Plucking meant that Gabriel was weak. It meant that he could not handle the workload assigned to him.
Regardless, he had failed the Council, and failed God Himself. Raphael called it for what Gabriel was saying: Heresy. Something unspeakable.
The rest of the members of the Council agreed with him.
The Judge of Hell was not to fail. And he had failed regardless.
The case took less than five minutes. A verdict, decided. His Light would be severed. Twenty four hours on the clock for Gabriel to right his wrongs, to unmake his mistakes.
Raphael would have argued that he didn't deserve a second chance if he couldn't take care of the task, but Gabriel was one of their better warriors. He'd dispatched both the Sisyphean rebellion and the King of the Lust layer near effortlessly.
Screams rang out in the auditorium as the connection was cut. Holy hymns blocked them out.
The machine found feathers within the layer of Heresy.
A brief curiosity spurred them to pick one up.
A light blue, edged with gold. It looked like one of Gabriel's, its mind running through previous footage of the time it had bested the Judge of Hell.
His wings had been blue then.
They filed away this information for later. There wasn't any use in doing so, but any weakness in relation to the Judge of Hell would help.
He was waiting for it, at least one floor down.
Perhaps the wings could be used as a weak point.
It took the processors on its motherboard a millisecond to decide on this, before it simply flicked the feather away from itself, and sprinted to the next room.