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In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth.
He said: "Let there be light”, and there was light.
God separated light and dark, the seas and the skies; He created plants and beasts and within seven days, creation was finished.
At least that was the tale mankind told.
The elder angels had taken to telling it to the younger angels as well, to those who had been created long after He had left Heaven, in order to preserve their sense of wonder and awe for their father, as they were unable to see the marvel of creation themselves.
But in the end, man’s story was nothing but that: A pretty tale. A crutch. A poor substitute.
The truth was, that the world had not been created within seven days but a single moment. There had been Nothing and then there Was.
Even Sera, the oldest of the Seraphim and one of the first sentient of His creations had difficulties imagining it, but that was how He had told the story.
What followed were days, weeks, years of labor.
First he had created the Angels: The Thrones, the Principalities, the Powers, the Dominions and the Seraphs. Among the oldest of them, they didn’t know which one had been created first and were unsure if they had ever known and forgotten, the High Throne’s Zadkiel’s theory, or had all been created at the same time, the belief that Sera herself held.
In any case, there had never been a doubt that they were the firsts and therefore the ones that had taken responsibility for those that had come after them. As their numbers grew, so did His wish to look after them, to guide them and help them and so He took a small part of Himself and formed it into something new. Someone new. Although the Speaker had technically been created after the oldest angels, they all deferred to her, for as His Speaker She had always known more than them.
Together they filled the great vacuum of the universe, with matter: Beautiful nebulae, stunning dark matter… and stars.
Sera put the white top hat back on the shelf to its twin.
It had been a long time since she reminisced about the beginning. About the world before Earth, before the Garden – before his fall. Her hands balled into fists and she willed herself to take deep calming breaths, fighting against the tears threatening to spill.
She couldn’t allow herself such weakness.
She had to be strong, for all of Heaven but especially for Emily.
She had failed her stars, she would not fail her little joy bringer.
Feeling somewhat composed she restored the wards around the hats with a wave of her hand.
Lucifer’s daughter was so much like him. No doubt, there was also much of Lilith in her, so much so that Sera was almost glad Adam had been as opposing to the young princess as he had been. Still, her spark? The way she pleaded for them to see her dream of a better future, to listen to her hope of change?
That was all her Morningstar.
And if it hadn’t been for those undeniable demonic eyes, that faint stank of sulfur, Sera would have taken the girl and swept her away. Locked her up somewhere bright, somewhere safe, somewhere she would find peace and not risk ruining herself.
Absentmindedly she wiped away the tears that were flowing freely after all.
That’s what she should have done with her stars. Lucifer mainly, but Michael too. Keep them safe, keep them together, protect them, even from themselves.
But she hadn’t.
She had not known better.
And then, when everything came crushing down around them, when from one day to another their world had shattered, she had frozen.
She had been shocked and scared and she had not known better but neither had her little star and she could still hear his screams when the mob descended upon him-
The seraphim fell to her knees, openly sobbing in her hands curling her wings around herself in a mockery of a hug.
At least she had protected Michael. Had hidden him in her wings, shielded him from what was happening around them, kept him away from his brother’s screams. He hadn’t even fought her. Not back then.
Why would he have? What reason did he have to believe that their siblings would hurt Lucifer?
Violence had been such a strange and distant concept to the twins. They had never fought the roots, had never needed to be warriors, Father, she wasn’t even certain they had known what pain was at that point.
Michael hadn’t fought her. He hadn’t heard his brother’s screams, neither those of pain nor his pleas for help.
She had failed them both, yes, but at the very least she had made sure of that.
Not that it had done much good. Whatever pain she had spared Michael that day was inconsequential to the damage the war had left on him later. On both of them.
Lucifer was the name she had given him. It had been his duty, his essence: To be their lightbringer.
When he fell – was cast out from their home, banished from Heaven’s light - the first voices rose that demanded to strip him of that name as he had failed their father and should not be considered worthy of his divine name anymore.
But only after the rebellion, only after his fight with Michael, had his name truly disappeared from Heaven.
Only after her little evening star had stopped calling Lucifer by name, had everyone else followed.
Something had broken in Michael that day and she had long given up trying to repair it. He hadn’t wished for her to do so. Even fought her on it. And so she had stopped.
She had told herself time after time that she merely respected his wishes. That it was Michael’s right to demand of her to stop prying, stop meddling in his life; That he was all grown up and deserved to make his own decisions.
But deep within her she knew that it was a lie. That she hadn’t given him space in order to respect his decisions. But because she had simply hadn’t had the strength to keep fighting for the ghost of someone who’d never return to them.
So instead she clung to all that was left of the bright lights she had helped bring into the world. The small angels she had helped create and that she had so terribly let down.
She kept the top hats, warded them against time and decay and prayed to a Father she hadn’t seen since before the first sin, that one day she would find the strength to try and mend that which she had broken.
After the rebellion and the angelic war, a new order had been installed in Heaven. Where there had once only been only one heaven, then two, now there were seven heavens. Each guarded by one of the Firsts that were now called the High Ones; each tended to by one of the newly formed virtues.
And Sera? The High Seraphim, the one who had once been closest to their Creator?
She had been named the leader of all of Heaven, put in charge of all the other angels, of all the human souls and the strenuous relations with Hell.
It had been so much, too much, and it still was.
The Speaker rarely appeared these days, rarely gave advice and never answered her questions about her little stars.
Only once had She directly spoken to Sera.
Sera slowly opened her wings and once again tried to take deep breaths.
In and out. In and out.
It had been the Speaker who reminded her that Sera was one of the few angels in Heaven that new how to form life the way their creator had. It had stung at first, as she believed it to be a reminder that she was at least partially to blame for all that had happened.
After all, she had been the one that messed up His last angelic creation.
She had only wanted to watch. To observe the creation of who was supposed to be the last Seraph, their youngest, their brightest. Their little star.
But her Father encouraged her to finish the creation. Gently guided her through the process but something had gone wrong, for from the life matter that was meant to become one angel, two had emerged.
Michael and Lucifer.
Her little stars. Her impossible miracle.
So whenever Lucifer simply didn’t fit, whenever he brought them an idea, a dream, so far removed from His vision that they couldn't possibly integrate them, she had felt responsible. If she hadn’t made a mistake, if Michael and Lucifer had truly been one, she was sure, that single angel would have fared better.
After all, where her Morningstar was brave and impulsive, so eager to start anew and welcome change, her Eveningstar was analytical and stoic, preferring to watch first and make his decision after.
But, in the privacy in her own mind, that idea scared her more than anything else. Because no matter what had happened, no matter how much she wished she could change the past, could prevent herself from making the mistakes leading to Lucifer’s fall and everything that came from it, she could admit that their creation was the one mistake she would never want to fix.
She loved them both dearly and she would never wish to completely erase them for whatever angel their Father had originally intended to be born that day.
And maybe, just maybe, the Speaker agreed with her. Because it had never been Her goal to admonish Sera that day, but to remind the struggling woman that she didn’t have to bear all of the burden on her own. That she could create a new seraphim, someone to take care of the billions of human souls in her domain, someone who could help her heal that hole in her heart, even if they could never fill it.
The day of Emily’s creation had been the only time she had been allowed in the first Heaven since it had been sealed the moment Eve took the apple. For here, at God’s throne, the matter He had used to create new life was the richest.
Something had gone wrong again.
Sera had no idea why, had been sure that she had followed the instruction He had taught her, to the letter! But then again, she had thought the same thing during the twin’s creation.
At first she had been distraught as she was holding a little babe in her arms instead of the young woman she had intended to make. But that baby, her little bundle of joy, she had helped her so so much, even though she had meant more work for her in the beginning.
But to care for Emily, to watch her grow and feel her joy and curiosity! It had reminded her of the beginning.
Of a time when her family had been whole and the world was young and full of potential.
She had allowed the roots to infiltrate earth.
She had stood by and watched a war unfold among her kin, among her family.
She had failed her stars. But she would not fail Emily!
She would not allow her little joy bringer to fall and she would not allow another war to tear them apart!
So she authorized the exterminations.
So she shut down the rebellious woman before she could poison Emily the way her mother had poisoned Lucifer.
And so she would not stop Adam from attacking that hotel.
Because although it was tearing her apart to shut down her star’s bright child, although the knowledge of the yearly massacre she allowed weighed her down, she would not fail again.
She would protect Emily. From the roots, from the fall, from Charlie Morningstar and from Emily herself!
Even if she was angry at Sera, even if she despised her, it was Sera’s cross to bear and she would do so happily.
As long as Emily was safe and sound in heaven, Sera would shoulder any load in order to keep it that way.
