{Every time I take your lead, feels like a curse

[shadowthief]

Who: Inej + Various / Kol + Various
When: Month of January
Where: Cadens / Thorne + the Horizon
What: Various threads through the month
Warnings: Kol: a history of child abuse; violence, torture, murder, death; foul language; alcoholism; general hedonism; manipulation; heavy trust issues; paranoia. Any/all of these may come up at any given time within a thread with him, and most if not all of it will be referenced rather casually by Kol. Inej: stealing; murder; descriptions of touch aversion, anxiety, depression, PTSD; heavy trust issues, paranoia; mentions of past instances of prostitution, slavery, and sexual assault. Everything will be clearly marked if-when it comes up.

And every time I try to stop

it feels even worse

Comments

[familysucks]

Rude is just part of the package when dealing with archangels. Michael in particular has met vanishingly few individuals who had the authority or power to correct him. He doesn't consider this particular infiltration rude, anyway. If she wanted privacy, surely she would have kept this part of her domain behind a locked door.

He nods at her answer, approving. The angel perspective on work doesn't exactly line up with the human one, but as acquainted as he is with the burden of responsibility, Michael can appreciate the appeal of work that's fulfilling.

"You're fortunate to enjoy it, then. Duties are not always pleasant," he says, quieter now that she's nearby. "Is this how you make a living here, in Abraxas?"

[shadowthief]

She doesn’t mind the company. There’s always something a little starstruck and reverent about her with Michael, though. If the Divine deign to make time for you, you do not refuse.

“I did audition and get a smaller part in the circus in the Free Cities, but with Thorne’s attack on Libertas, it’s been on hold.” She shrugs. “But I also have a courier job at city hall.” That’s the one she actually counts as her job.

[familysucks]

Truth be told, there's very little divine to Michael's purpose these days. No Heaven to run, no demons to drive back into Hell, no God to issue to commands—and no guarantee he'd bend the knee even if there were. He'll take whatever veneration she cares to show him anyway, same as he takes the Solvunn natives' awe in stride.

"Ah. That is unfortunate." He has few connections in the Free Cities, so the attack on Libertas had meant little to him outside the opportunity to prepare supplies within Solvunn. It's more regrettable now, knowing it has robbed someone he knows of something they enjoy.

He waves a hand at the nearby seats, inviting Inej to join him. If she's not going to head back up onto her platform to continue the routine, she may as well sit.

"Life here has demanded adjustments from all of us. What's the day to day of a courier like?"

[shadowthief]

She smiles and climbs into the stands to sit with him, one row below, back turned to the stage. "Libertas is an arts city, once it's possible, I'm sure it'll pick back up," her faith extends to all things, a hope and optimism that there was a time she wouldn't have thought she might have found her way back to. She wouldn't have, if she had never escaped Heleen's grasp, she's certain of it.

"True," she nods her agreement, then shrugs. "Pretty boring, honestly. I just deliver mail, really. But it's something to do, and it pays decently enough." She has no idea what they're saving for, at this point. The sake of having it, mostly, she supposes. No talk of renting any space or buying someplace has come up so far, they're sitting pretty at Mag's for the time being.

She leans back carefully, keeping her balance steady, "What about you? What do you do to pass the time?"

[familysucks]

Michael gives a small nod of acknowledgement. He lacks Inej's optimism, but he lives on a longer timescale than most. From observation, given time and materials, humans will always choose to build.

"A shame that I'll never be able to visit Libertas, even after it's rebuilt. The human passion to create art is compelling." Music in particular intrigues Michael, but humans have an urge to create works of all sorts—a desire that most angels lack. They're second only to God himself in that capacity.

He considers her question, expression pensive. His daily routine is rarely more exciting than mail delivery, but there is a novelty to the experience all the same.

"That depends on what the natives need most on any particular day. Solvunn is very community-minded. I assist some of the locals who were supportive when I first arrived: farm work for the most part, tending fields and animals," he says. "I never much interacted with humans prior to arriving here. It's very different from what I'm accustomed to."

[shadowthief]

"Angels don't make art?" she asks curiously, tipping her head to the side. She still learning about them. Her own Saints were from all walks of life, she can't fathom there being no artist among them.

She nods a little. She wasn't there long, but it seems some things remain true no matter what. "It's good to experience things you're not familiar with. It helps you understand the world a little more, I think."

[familysucks]

What she's liable to learn about angels from Michael is the ideal standard more than the current reality. The other two here, Castiel and Lucifer, haven't been good examples of what a proper angel is in a few years (a few millennia, in the latter case).

"Not under normal circumstances, no." Michael can't rightly say he's never made art, anymore. Thanks to Jo, he'd found himself coaxed into putting pencil to paper on their recent diplomatic cruise. "We're soldiers. We don't have leisure time, and we don't spend time on Earth unless there is a duty to carry out.

"That is how it used to be, at least. There's no Heaven for us to occupy, here. Perhaps with enough experience, I'll understand why I was summoned here in the first place."

To aid Solvunn, as per the ones that dragged him out of the water, but why the summoning ritual caught onto him in particular is a mystery.

[shadowthief]

Soldiers. It makes her think of the Second Army and she isn't sure how to feel about that if she's completely honest. "Was there a war in Heaven?" her questions are always genuine, only wanting to understand more of the life Michael had once lived in a place she can't quite fathom, but is curious about all the same.

"I'm not sure any of us are meant to understand that," she admits with a thoughtful frown. "But if you figure it out, will you tell me, too?"

[familysucks]

"We may not share a common purpose here, but I will," he says, and gives a short nod.

It's good to have friends from other parts of Abraxas, as he's coming to learn. The mysteries of the Singularity and the summoning ritual are perhaps not ones that can be understood from the perspective of any one single faction.

Michael's expression tightens at her question. His siblings' inclination for infighting is not a topic he cares to discuss in detail.

"Being a soldier is about discipline and order more than it is making war. We weren't conceived to fight one another, if that's the idea you're getting." Which isn't to say that there'd never been conflict in Heaven, just that the parts most aptly described as a civil war didn't happen under his watch. "Most of my time in Heaven was devoted to protecting my Father's creation."

[shadowthief]

"Thank you," she smiles, a soft, reverent thing. A promise from the Divine is the most precious thing she could ever receive.

Inej doesn't miss the pinched expression, and she matches it with a frown of her own at his first statement. "In my experience, soldiers are always made for war," Ravka had been war-torn for longer than she'd been alive, and it wasn't any better in this world, if you asked her.

"How do you protect everything without interfering?" That sounds like a nearly insurmountable task to lay at anyone's feet.

[familysucks]

Oblivious to the significance his agreement carries for Inej, Michael barrels on. He lifts his eyebrows a hair at her remark.

"And how many of the soldiers you have known have been angels?"

A soldier is a soldier, but an angel is not a human being. For all that he couldn't trust his younger brothers and sisters to keep their blades out of each other when he wasn't around, his and Raphael's command of the Heavenly Host had been near absolute. There had been no wars without his say-so.

"With minimal interference," he amends, then motions between the two of them. "These days, with direct and frequent interference. Though we may not be speaking of the same protections. It was never my job to defend humans from one another."

[shadowthief]

"None, I suppose." At the very least, none she'd known of. But she seems to accept that for what it is. She isn't meant to understand the workings and designs of The Divine, and that's okay.

"Did you prefer it the other way? When you had the distance." she's just curious. Michael is such a...stern sort of- well, man? person? are they even the right words? She's not sure. But he's got a very no-nonsense sort of vibe, which she supposes might clash with plenty of other people, Angels and humans alike.

She considers it for a moment and hums softly. "I think I understand...?" but the way she says it lends to the idea that she could still be wrong, and is fine with it if that's the case. "Your job could never be so simple as that. I know as a whole, we tend to think of ourselves as the most important, but everything means... everything. Humans are only a spec inside the wider universe."

She tips her head to the side as she considers him for a long moment. "I can hardly fathom the burden of the pressure laid on your shoulders." There's only so much the human mind can even really conceptualize, and she knows it doesn't end there. There are so many things they still don't know the answers to. But someone like Michael would hold all of that in their hands and have to choose when it was best to wield it or share it. Fate of some era or other of the world in his hands.