Winter's Tears

He woke as he felt her slipping from his arms. The sensation enough to bring a fierce rage that simmered through him. He had lost her again.

Sitting up, wincing as he stretched out his wings. Snapping them out, letting the very tips of the end feathers brush against the interior walls. Letting the burn of his unused muscles become his focal point for his deranged thoughts.

Winter, the name she had been given in her new life. One that fit her appearances in a way, although to her he looked like light itself. Her skin the colour of the most luminous of ivories. Her hair, so pale it was almost white. And her eyes, her beautiful eyes, that seemed almost the colour of pearls encased in diamonds, but if you looked closely they held rivers of the deepest sapphires with a tiny slithers of purple.

An appearance he hadn't seen her in for decades.

Raking his hands through his hair, almost clawing off his skin as desperation filled him. The desperation opened the hole, a gaping scar that brought him such grief and pain it consumed him. He couldn't reach her, the laws of the Seven blocking her from his reach.

Just as they had done for centuries.

Blocking him from the one creature that held his entire existence in the palm of her hand. He felt his shoulders hunch forward as the weight of the desperation filled him once more. Being torn from his consort was agony. It hadn't lessoned over the centuries, if anything each day it intensified.

He had searched the world looking for an escape from the pain, for her. But just as he got close she was torn away from him again. He braced his elbows on his knees as he buried his face in his hands, his jaw clenched as the emotions hit him with a wave. His breathing haggard, each intake was an agony The Seven couldn't grasp.

Each of the Seven Archangels had a consort, an Archeiai. The female equivalent to an Archangel. An Archangel was nothing without his Twin Flame, his Consort. The Archeiai were gifted with the same gifts as their Archangel mate. The two of them two halves of a whole, if one was to brake or fall the other would be shattered, nothing more than a shell of their former self.

He had lost his Consort, the other half to his very essence. His hands became iron fist in his hair as he bit his bottom lip against the emotion that threatened to over take him.

To take away ones Consort was perhaps the heaviest punishment for a crime the Cadre could give. Death would be mercy, losing ones other half was Agony.

Rahmiel had been the Archangel of Mercy and love. They had other names for him, Zadkiel or Rachmiel it depended on which culture was describing him. But he went by Rahmiel, or he did. He rarely spoke of his former self. Rahmiel and his Consort had held perhaps the most sacred and important of all the positions in the Cadre. They were the closest to humanity, gifted with the emotions humans were gifted.

In loosing both of them they had lost the ability to connect with humanity, loosing the precious connections needed to protect them.

Rahmiel couldn't help but let a cruel smile lace its way across his lips as he thought of this. They had shattered any chance of gaining an insight into humanity. Humanities connection with the divine lost.

The burn of the angelic filled the room, the blinding brilliance of glory washing over him as he found himself no longer alone. The Glory and energy that simmered through the room was a tangible thing, he could feel it across the very fibres of his being.

Rahmiel's posture didn't change, he remained hunched by the weight of the punishment that hung over his love and himself. His wings tucked behind his back, their arch a familiar weight to his broad shoulders. His eyes remained focused on the contours of his hands as the scent of a green field rich with spring foliage and the hidden notes of life and the newly born washed over him.

Rapheal the archangel of Healing materialized in front of him once more. But he wasn't alone.

No another scent quickly filled the air, one of spring, or ripened fruit and sweets. With notes of fresh picked flowers. The sweet notes rolled across his tongue, leaving a bitter sweet tang to his lips.

Chamuel the Archangel of love and adoration stood before him, a brother he hadn't seen in centuries also. He could feel the glow of Glory as their combined presence washed over him, evoking memories he had long since buried.

"Why?" He half spat at his brothers, he made no effort to meet their gaze or stand beside them. He hadn't stood beside them since she fell and he wouldn't do so again until she stood at her side.

Chamuel looked over his brother, a brother that had once stood by his side. His onyx hair lay tousled against his scalp, the shade silky and somehow still luminous, an angel effect. But something in his core had broken, something the Seven hadn't realised would break once they had dealt her punishment. Chamuel could see the love binds that bound humans, binds he would never himself brake.

Those binds didn't or shouldn't exist amongst the Archangels and their Archeiai. Binds that were of no comprehension to mortals, bound the two of them together, they were together because they had no choice but to be. As two halves of the same core.

But with Rahmiel and Winter it was different, love bound them together, yes they were two halves of a whole but as unique and individual in themselves.

"Because we're worried about you brother." Rapheal's voice crossed the room, the tone as fluid and rich as any other Archangel, the tone alone would bring a mortal to his knees.

Rahmiel lifted his head up a fraction, just high enough so he could meet his brothers eyes. Chamuel was taken back by the anguish and pain that swirled in their depths. It was only eons upon practice that his features remained neutral. Rahmiels grey eyes were a storm of pain, they swirled with a knowledge few true immortals could grasp.

'We have made a terrible mistake to unleash that pain on one of our own Rapheal' Chamuel spoke to his brother's mind.

It was a moment before he spoke back, 'No. We did what was expected of us, if the Cadre is weak our kind is weak.'

Chamuel's voice dripped with ice as he spoke back. 'At what expense to our brother Rapheal?'

'Whatever is necessary.' Rapheal's voice was neutral, and Chamuel flicked his eyes to the Archangel's face. His golden skin, rich and warm. His molten eyes on Rahmiel's would appear like warmth itself to anyone who didn't know an Archangel. Because there was a coldness to the edges, a frozen fire.

Rahmiel had remained silent, his eyes on his brothers. Watching the silent exchange. He hadn't seen Chamuel since the day he turned his back on the Cadre. He remained as aloof as always, the Archangel of love who didn't feel love himself. It triggered the most ironic of smiles to pull up at the edges of his lips. A smile that was dripping with ice.

"You lie brother." A simple statement but one, one couldn't ignore. As the Archangel of mercy he was exposed to all truths.

Rapheal's eyes looked over him with precision. "No, I do worry about what you've become. I worry that you will become the fallen."

Rahmiel's cold laugh washed through the room, dripped from the walls and washed over the two creatures before him. Chamuel watched his brother with new found respect. Rapheal's words were a ruse nothing more, anyone could see the glory that hung from Rahmiel. Even with the darkness that surrounded him, he had chosen light.

Rahmiel rose. Uncurling his body to stand at his full height, he was perhaps one of the tallest amongst our kind, with a statue like composure that was as hard as marble. His wings that were the shades of dawn were a brilliance that framed him.

"The fallen no longer see light brother. I see the light, I see it every time my lids draw to a close. I see the light in every breath that crosses my lips. I see the light because of my Consort." His words shook the walls around them, the timbre ringing with both truth and defiance.

Both Archangels looked upon him with an expression that gave away nothing, but it was Rapheal who spoke.

"You see the light in a creature who betrayed us all?" His words calculation.

Rahmiel's eyes narrowed into slits as the muscles in his shoulders rolled and bunched in anger. "I see the light in a being who had the strength to stand against her own."

Chamuel placed a hand on Rapheal's shoulder, a silent warning. One he disregarded.

"She was foolish and she payed her price. You are just as foolish to love a creature who stood against you also." Rapheals eyes gleamed with rage as they looked upon Rahmiel. But Rapheal shook his head, shaking away the rage before he looked onto his brother with pity before he faded from the room.

His presence dissolving and moving on.

Chamuel looked at Rahmiel, his eyes looking over the angel of Mercy. "You have been wronged, I see that now."

Rahmeil's eyes flicked to his, and he witnessed the subtle change in the storm that brewed in Rahmiel's grey depths.

"You don't lie." His words cooled, and slightly confused.

Chamuel gave his brother a sad smile, as he too began to fade from the room. The Cadre was meeting and he was being called. But just before he faded, he let his voice wash over his broken brother.

"I have no reason to lie, I see love and in love I see truth."