He had never seen Sazzi's colors run together the way they were now, like a watercolor painting in a dishwasher. There was no mistaking the outrage running wild through her.
"Raven!" she shouted, clenching her fists, her halo flashing dangerously.
He knew from the moment he made this decision that he was in for a world class chastising from these two, but he was ready for it,...he hoped.
Sarai, who had been sitting on the floor the whole time, rose in a slow, deliberately threatening manner. Her halo poured from her like a distant conflagration, a city on fire. When her eyes began to smolder, he knew to expect the worst.
"This is entirely unacceptable little bird," she said, in a voice as severe as her posture.
"I won't allow it Raven," Sazzi added.
He remained seated, strangely composed considering the bomb he'd just dropped on these two.
"I'm not asking," he said in an even tone. "There isn't anything you can do about it, and you know it." He came to his feet, and walked over to Sarai. Standing face to face was painful, her halo was overpowering, and anger flowed through it like Niagara Falls. Even so, backing down was not an option. Their ire was not unfounded, they were in a fight for the coherency of his soul, and what he'd suggested was not compatible with those ends.
"This is not going to happen," she hissed through clenched teeth.
"We aren't going to have another debate about freewill are we? I'm really getting tired of having to defend myself on those grounds. Besides, you never win."
Sazzi's eyes narrowed. He reconsidered the comment, it didn't come off quite right. "I meant no disrespect, but arguing freewill is a roller coaster ride that always returns to the same place,...it's MY choice. And whatever that choice may be, I'm fully accountable for it."
"Raven," Sarai began carefully. "I can't believe you've considered this thoroughly. The casting of shadows is a dangerous practice, one that corrupts your soul permanently. There's a reason rites such as this were hidden, forgotten, and forbidden. I have no idea who might have revealed this to you, but it was ill considered. You can't expect us to simply stand by and accept such a reckless act."
"I expect you to do as you've always done," he sighed. "To offer me every alternative in your power, and then stand back and watch me fall while I make my own choices." They hated it when he did that, and he did it all the time. He was forever using freewill in it's most literal sense as a trump card in debates. But he was right, and it infuriated them both no end. More than once, they'd felt that he knew the rules a little too well for comfort.
Reaching through Sarai's halo was painful in the extreme, her anger was putting up a barrier. Centering on her, he found her heart. A few well chosen words whispered to her soul, and he moved his hand up to touch her face lightly. Her halo flickered like candle in a breeze, and fell back to it's base frequency and colors as she crumpled to the floor. He knelt beside her. He couldn't remember ever seeing her cry, and it was more painful than he would have imagined.
"You can't protect me anymore Sarai," he said gently. "There isn't anymore need for it. I can do it for myself now."
"What do you mean?" she whispered, looking into his eyes.
He had come to many realizations in the past several hours, a lifetime's worth,...literally. One of them was just how much this dark angel meant to him, and how much he owed her. If not for her, he would never have lived to fulfill his vow to the one. Her's was the hand to turn certain death into a second chance on countless occasions. He understood what that meant on the other side of reality, what she herself was risking each time she stood between him and Azriel, the angel of death. Her apparent hatred of him had served several purposes. It had forced him to ultimately look deep into his own soul and find the root cause of many of his own problems. It also kept him from seeing her true feelings, as well as keeping her at a distance. This gave her the freedom to protect him without being suspect.
"It must have been terribly painful for you to believe that I hated you for the way you treated me, not to mention being so hard on me for so long."
She hung her head, draping herself in silence.
"Sarai, you and I have much in common. You were the perfect choice. I see much of myself in you, even when I loathed the thought of it, I couldn't help but see it. In accepting myself, and all I've done, I've had to accept you as well. In truth, it was easier to accept you." He stood up, turned, and walked over to sit atop a broken pillar.
Holding his wings like a pair of cupped hands, he leaned back slightly and brought up his halo. Strands of light, like liquid spiderwebs, began to flow from him. Spiraling and blending together, he spun a large, translucent sphere around himself. But these weren't stands of light, they were strands of time. By the colors it was displaying, they could tell this was his timeline.
~...It's our turn,....~
~...So it would appear,...~ Sarai replied.
The center of the sphere folded in on itself, as if being sucked into it's own core, creating an opening to the past. Thousands of threads continued to be drawn into the sphere from the past, reinforcing the temporal structure. He was leaving nothing untouched, no fact unrevealed. With crystalline focus, and an absolute dedication to purpose, he pushed.
The resulting rush of memories was almost overwhelming even for them. Months passed by in seconds. The sensation of time itself was quickly outdistanced by the crush of thousands of accelerated experiences. He had essentially loaded an autocannon with his past, and was firing it directly at both of them. At the core of this memory maelstrom he sat with an eerie calm, every fragment of concentration being applied to this single effort.
Sazzi suddenly dropped to the floor as a series of memories hammered at her already over stressed guilt. Sarai was in a an equally devastated condition. He had missed nothing, no memory was left to find, it was all there. The veil had hidden them almost completely over the years, and as well revealed all they had done once it lifted. They both knew this day would come, there was no way around it. But they also knew this was the reason for accountability, to temper the 'freedom' that freewill provided. Now they would pay the price of that freedom. There was no stopping the deluge, not even a moment to catch a breath as they were not only pulled under, but deeper as well.
Then, as fast as it had begun, it ended. The sphere spun apart, briefly throwing streaks of light in all directions. Sazzi sat on her knees, with her face in her hands, trying desperately to hold on to a small fiber of control. It was hopeless, she knew. There was no possibility of it at this moment, and not likely in the near future. A secret she had held from him for years had just ripped through her like a chainsaw, making a bloody mess of her conscience. At this point, all she had left was her faith in his ability to understand why she did the things she did. Somehow, that just didn't seem to be enough.
Sarai had stood at the bridge for centuries, fearlessly guarding the pathway between light and dark. But this was something entirely different, and she found herself falling apart with each passing second. It wasn't that she lacked faith in him, it was the degree of her guilt over her actions that was so tormenting. Even if he should be able to find it in himself to forgive her, she wasn't sure she'd ever be able to do the same for herself. Guilt was a horror in it's own right, and a relentless hunger that was all consuming.
"Raven," Sazzi choked through tears. "I,...I just,..." Every attempt at an explanation escaped her, words weren't ever going to be enough to ease her guilt. She couldn't even look into his eyes.
"Anastasia," he said, kneeling in front of her. "Do you think I've come so far only to lose my understanding in the process?" Placing a finger under her chin, he lifted her head to face him. "Of all that you've done for me, this was easily the most influential. Had I never met Destiny, I may have gone years longer without understanding things the way I did. You were the one who showed me what was really possible, how many doors I had access to, and what lay behind them waiting for me. You brought elements to this life that no one else ever had, or ever could have. You were the wild magic in my life, and you lit a fire that still burns in me. I loved Destiny in more ways than I would ever have thought possible. And I still do."
"But I hurt you terribly when I left you,..." she whispered through the flowing tears. "And when the baby died,..." She collapsed again, it was all too much.
"You knew that child was never meant for that world Sazzi. Somehow, I knew it too."
"Neither was I," she said. "I wanted to be a part of you,...different than here. I wanted to be able to touch you,...to really touch you. But I knew that once I did, I wouldn't be able to let go."
"That's where the cancer came in," he said, looking away for a second. She nodded. "It gave me a way out, but I kept pushing it into remission, giving myself more time. And all I was really doing was hurting you more. The only thing it really accomplished was to force you to watch me die slowly,...I can't ever forgive myself for that, it was cruel and selfish." He remembered the moment she died in his arms like it was happening all over again. The feel of her body as it slowly slipped away from life took something from him that he had no way of understanding at the time. But what she'd given him in return was beyond measure.
"No," he said quickly. "I could have walked away. I didn't have to stay as long as I did, but you meant more to me than that. I would have gone through anything to keep you. Tell me that isn't selfish."
"It's human," she said, turning her eyes down again. "I wasn't. Unlike you, I knew who and what I was. What I did, I did with full knowledge of both sides. All you had to go on was instinct, and feeling. Hardly the equivalent."
"I loved you as Destiny, that's all I needed to know then, and I don't need anymore than that now." He brushed a few silvery strands of hair away from her eyes. "If it makes any difference to you,...I'd do it again. The dreams you spun for me still run through my mind everyday, and much of what I became in this life was because of you. Sazzi, you were the first gate."
Tears ran down her shimmering face like liquid pearl. "There were times when I thought if I could just hold you long enough, it would last a lifetime," she confessed, trying to steady her voice. "We were good together,...weren't we?"
"How could we have been anything less," he replied with a smile. To see such a powerful being as this reduced to a childlike state by such a simple need was somewhat ironic. The endless struggle for spiritual enlightenment, to transcend the physical, was looked upon by many as the ultimate expression of evolutionary development. But nothing on their side of reality could ascend to one of the most basic human necessities,...the touch. There was a reason for the flesh, and Sazzi was a perfect example of the driving need for it. It had seduced angels to physical form for centuries, and he didn't think that would ever change. As children of twilight, angels were closer to humankind than the other tiers of the hierarchy, and constantly tempted by what it offered. Even those as high as Sazzi were not completely immune to it's lure. There was a time to rise above, and a time to fall.
She took his hand in hers, and ran a finger over the simple woven bracelet she'd given him 21 years prior.
"I've worn it all this time, and I'll wear it until my last day," he assured her. She finally smiled, but the pain reflected in that smile was as unmistakable as it was contagious. He touched her face once more, kissed her on the forehead, and rose to his feet. Sarai remained silent and motionless.
Taking a seat on the floor in front of her, he stretched his wings full length to either side. Resting them flat on the floor, he studied her for a few moments before speaking. "And you belladonna, my beautiful destroying angel. I owe you my life more times than I ever realized. Without you, I would have failed in my promise by the age of 17, and many times after that." They both knew that was the absolute truth of it. At 17 he'd taken enough of a deadly toxic drug to drop a horse dead in it's tracks. His heart had almost literally exploded in his chest before it finally stopped beating. "You were the figure at the bridge, the one who sent me back."
"I couldn't let that happen,...you were so young, and had so much more to do,...I just couldn't." Her voice caught in her throat, and broke apart as she spoke.
"You did something else when you sent me back too,..." He wasn't asking a question.
"I had to, the drug you took did so much damage that it wasn't enough to simply send you back," she explained. "You destroyed the temple, so to speak, so I had to rebuild it."
"You did more than that. Years later, when life fell apart for me and I turned to the shadows, I could never understand how I was able to take such insane amounts of drugs without suffering the way other people did. And when I finally turned away from all that, there was no withdrawal to speak of."
She nodded. "The human body is easy to repair, but isn't so easy to permanently alter. I knew I would only have to be absent once for you to destroy yourself, so I made some changes. They wouldn't stop a bullet, but they would keep you from a self-inflicted chemical death unless you took it beyond extreme. Unfortunately, to maintain a workable system balance, I had to make certain concessions, the results of which you've been dealing with ever since. I'm sorry about that part, but I did what I believed I had to. How I went about it is inconsequential. The fact is, it kept you alive in spite of yourself."
"That you did anything at all is far from lacking in consequence," he corrected. "You may have protected me in some ways, but the changes you made caused serious problems in their own right. Not only physical problems, but emotional as well. That emotional distress was shared by many others over the years who saw first hand the effects of your tampering." She sighed again knowing he was right. She had gone to great lengths to protect him, stepping over many lines repeatedly. "So you kept me alive, but then you took it too far. You went on to punishing people for hurting me, destroying lives in my name. There was never a need for that. How many people did you send down a destructive path after they had hurt me in some way? It reached the point where I expected it. Every time I was hurt, someone's life went straight to hell,...some never recovered. It was one of the most consistent patterns of my adult life. It was so obvious that other people saw it as well."
"I have no defense for my actions," she whispered. "But I couldn't tolerate seeing you hurt by anyone. I suppose it all stems from my own treatment of you, and the fact that it couldn't be changed until you learned. I detested what I was called to do, even though I understood the need for it."
His expression softened. "You've done harm to yourself, and to others to protect me. What could I possibly do to live up to that?"
"It was my choice, not something you took part in directly. That frees you from any responsibility for my actions." He shook his head at her. "I call it guilt by association. I do have a functional conscience, though some might argue otherwise."
"You have an over active conscience," she replied quickly. "I was fully aware of what I was doing, and willing to take the consequences whatever they may be. For you, or anyone else, to feel any responsibility for anything I've done is completely unwarranted. You need to ease your mind little bird."
"And you don't?" She was devouring her own heart, he could feel it like standing in front of a blast furnace.
"I will,...when, and if, I can."
He looked pensive for a moment before speaking.
"Ok,...Lily."
Her head snapped around to look at him as if someone had hit her in the jaw. He could feel her smiling behind the curtain. "You didn't really think I'd miss that did you?" he asked, almost playfully. She said nothing, so he continued. "I had just been in a fairly rough street fight, when I went into a small bar to clean myself up. It was dark, even for a bar, and when I finally found the restrooms, there was a breathtaking woman on a payphone in the hallway."
"You didn't even seem to notice me at first," she said.
"Well,...I was bleeding from a knife wound, and leaking all over the floor is no way to introduce yourself."
"No, I suppose it isn't," she replied.
"Anyway, you asked me if I needed help as I was leaving." He drifted away briefly in deep thought. "That was a Friday night. You ended up taking care of me for the entire weekend."
"Do you know why?" she asked, tilting her head a bit.
"I was just thinking about that," he said. "The wound was really nothing compared to some I'd had at that time, so I don't think it was that,...exactly."
"Partially," she said. "The knife blade was tainted with a virus. You'd have ended up with a fatal case of hemorrhagic fever if left to yourself. You would have considered it nothing more than a bad flu bug, and since you refuse to go to a doctor, it would have been a matter of days before you were beyond help." Then she quickly added, "And no comments about my bedside manner or I swear I'll throw you over the balcony."
He smiled, suppressing a laugh. Her bedside manner left nothing to the imagination. Which, in this case, was a very good thing. "I have nothing but good things to say about that green eyed woman who took care of me for two days, then vanished forever,...with the exception of the vanishing part." He fell silently into the past, remembering.
"You know I couldn't have stayed anymore than Sazzi could have. Even 48 hours was pushing it." She moved over to him. "But you should also know that it was all I wanted at the time. Any longer, and I would have stayed, no question about it."
"It showed,...in every way," he said, looking up at her. "And I know you couldn't have stayed, but that doesn't keep me from wishing." She could only nod, being a bit overcome by the memory of it herself.
Sazzi had moved over to the opening in the wall, and was staring out at the darkest night she'd ever seen. No stars could penetrate the thick, smoky cloud layers, and there was no moon. She could have shifted her vision in order to see, but felt more comfortable with the darkness at the moment.
"We haven't missed your point child," she said over her shoulder. "Even we aren't perfect. We've made decisions based on purely personal reasons, knowing full well the payment such motivations often incur. We may have been wrong. We may have acted irresponsibly. But we always knew that we would be held personally accountable for our actions." She turned to face him across the room. "That's what you're telling us. But that doesn't mean we have to agree with what you're doing." she finished.
"No, it doesn't," he said, as he stood up. "We're constantly being tested, and sometimes we fall,...but it's up to us. My choice is made, it's my turn to fall." With a single statement, he had once again ended another debate. Reluctantly, she conceded.
"I can't watch you do this to yourself, but before I go, there's something I need to know," she said, moving up to him. "Sarai and I have been with you since you were nothing more than a mote of light that had sparked consciousness when the light told us to watch over you, for one day you would walk among them. Over the centuries, we've seen you in love countless times, watched you go to inhuman lengths, and make unimaginable sacrifices for it." She pressed against him, looked straight into his eyes, and lowered her voice in a deadly serious manner. "But never once have you considered something so dangerous for it." She hesitated for a heartbeat. "Who is the one that you would do this for her? She isn't just another kindred spirit, or we'd be aware of her from your past."
He'd been waiting for this question, and was fairly surprised that it hadn't come up sooner. Sarai even looked up at him in expectation.
"When was the last time you looked at her?" he asked. They exchanged glances, then looked back to him. "Not since the veil has been lifted I'll wager. I thought you might look closer when you were looking at her lifeline."
"I never thought to look for any difference in her," Sazzi replied, looking at Sarai. She shook her head, there hadn't been anything to suggest that the one was anyone other than the woman they had been seeing. Physical appearance was transitory with the soul, it changed from one life to the next as was required. Looking beyond that to the soul beneath was usually done only when necessary to devine a true identity, which seemed to be the case now.
With a sudden urgence to know, Sarai lifted from the floor. Motioning with her hand, she called up a misty sphere that expanded until it was roughly his height. The center boiled with a mass of blurred colors that slowly came into focus as she fine tuned the frequencies.
Color and form came to a sharp focus, and they stood looking at the one. She sat quietly, one leg pulled beneath her as she often did, watching something on TV. Although it was comedy show, somehow she couldn't find her sense of humor. Her look was far more distant than her immediate surroundings.
The view rotated slowly around her,...and she began to change.
Her hair darkened, and cascaded over her, growing longer by the second. Her eyes brightened to an intoxicating jade green, lashes grew thicker, and longer. The lines and curves that described her face reformed until they lacked nothing for perfection. Sassi's eyes widened and her mouth dropped open as if the Lord of Hosts himself stood before her. Speech and understanding bypassed her completely. She could do nothing but stare in disbelief. But there was no mistaking that face.
"Never would I have thought,..." Sarai breathed, managing a single comment before returning to silence.
"This should explain a few things," he mused. "...a few. As for the questions it raises,...well,...I have no answers."
He looked once at the entrancing beauty held within the vision, caught his breath, and walked out of the room. Any image of the one was torture right now, and he needed to keep his thoughts clear for what was to come.
"This is beyond me Sarai. I had almost dared to think that we might have a clear view of this now, but I can see that I was sadly mistaken."
"Our view is clear enough as far as most of this goes. But you know how things are with Raven, there's always something just behind the next shadow. The veil has done some serious work here as well, hiding his own nature from him, hiding us from him until recently, hiding many things from us, and giving all of us false impressions when necessary. I don't think I've ever been directly involved in a more complex cloaking."
"I'm sure I haven't," Sazzi stated, still shaken. "Do you think there may be more between the three of us?"
Sarai shook her head. "You know how impossible that question is to answer. There isn't any way to know when the veil has run it's final course."
"Just looking for hope I guess," Sazzi sighed. Sarai nodded her complete agreement.
A few silent moments passed between them before she spoke again. "Sarai, I know very little about the casting of shadows I have no first hand experience with it, and it terrifies me to think of Raven doing this alone." Sarai gathered her into her arms to comfort her. "I know most of the ritual, and I have no intention of allowing him to do this without my being there. It requires absolute focus, and unbroken concentration, or he may as well pick out a stone at the Stand." She felt Sazzi go weak at the mention of the Stand, and held her tighter. "For you to be with him at such a time might prove more dangerous than not. You know he's worried about the way we're taking this, especially you. It just isn't enough to keep him from it."
Sazzi nodded against her chest. "One thing to consider here," she went on. "If his knowledge is enough to allow a casting, he may know things that I don't. Possibly enough to reduce the risk. He may be reckless at times, but he isn't foolish."
"No," Sazzi whispered. "Just hyper emotional."
"That's the truth of it," she agreed. More silence passed before she spoke again. "There's a question on your mind Anastasia. I'd like to answer it for you." Sazzi pulled back a bit to look at her. She never called her by her full name.
"The child?"
"Yes, that's the question." She released Sazzi and stepped away.
"Are you the one who took her?"
"I didn't take her Sazzi, I returned her. As you and Raven both knew, she was not meant to be. Her soul responded to the call you sent. Your need for her was overpowering, but she belonged elsewhere, and I had to return her."
Sazzi closed her eyes tightly and hung her head. She knew Sarai was right. She had called with the voice of Virtue, and she was undeniable. Raven wanted that for her as well, and although he had no idea of his angelic nature at that point in his life, he still called with the voice of an angel. Between the two of them, there was no chance that a soul wouldn't respond. But this child's path was to be born to parents that were human, not ethereal. She suddenly looked at Sarai with an odd mix of expectancy and the shock of sudden awareness. "The child in the alley?"
Sarai smiled behind her mask. "Yes,... even to the name she was true. That's why she could see Raven as he is. At one time, he was her father. She's a wonderful child, and belongs to a loving family."
"Do you think Raven knew?" she wondered, trying not to burst into tears again.
"You heard what he said to her didn't you? The part about faith and light equaling hope, and giving it to the world? Why the veil didn't hide her from him, I have no clue. But you can be sure that he knew her for who she was. Did you by chance read the label on that bottle she gave him?"
"No I didn't," Sazzi admitted. "It was covered with melted wax." Again, Sarai smiled. "Does the word "WindSong" mean anything to you?"
Now she couldn't help but fall into tears. "It's the title of the song Raven wrote for her when she was born. It was beautiful."
"I put that bottle there, and made sure Faith saw it," she explained. "I'm so sorry about all that Sazzi. It did unimaginable harm to me to take her from you, I could only hope that you would ultimately understand why."
"I understand Sarai. I knew I was wrong to do what I did, and I knew I wouldn't have her long. I'm glad she found her way." She fell back into Sarai's arms.
"I should be getting to the Gate Sazzi. I'm sure that's where he'll go to cast his shadow."
"Yes, I was just thinking about that. Please call me when this is over,...and keep him safe Sarai."
"That's been my cause all along," she said as she burst into shower of light.
