Midway through arranging the death of a child who shouldn't have been born in the first place, Fate felt the twinge of a planned death being narrowly averted. She finished up quickly and disappeared, reappearing in the middle of a crushed elevator shaft. She expected to just have to finish off the anomalous survivor... but no one was there. Atropos opened her book, frowning, to see who was supposed to be there, although she did have bigger concerns at the moment than one more-or-less trivial survival. After seeing the human's name, though, she couldn't let it lie. Balthazar.
Time rewound, Atropos watching events in the elevator unfold backward to find their root. The elevator fell up four or five stories. And two figures appeared. Her fists clenched. Azrael and Balthazar. No. Azrael and a human who looked like Balthazar. And apparently was named Balthazar. And then they were kissing and the human had his hands entrenched in Azrael's wings and Atropos had seen enough.
How dare he? How dare he?! Furious, she followed the traces of Azrael's flight to the seventh floor of the building. Time stood still as she appeared at the end of the hallway, striding towards the two of them, though the human was frozen in place. "Is this some kind of joke to you?!" she fumed at Azrael. "One moment you're doing what you're supposed to, and the next, you're trampling over the order of things to save your pet human. You're worse than Balthazar -- the actual Balthazar. At least he's consistent, if nothing else."
Azrael was not pleased to feel the pressures of time stop around him and everything freeze. Atropos had caught on and he was already feeling terrified. Hell hath no fury like a Fate scorned. His stomach twisted itself into knots, not wanting to deal with the Moirae’s annoyance at the moment and he just allowed her to stomp up to him, guns blazing in frustration. Azrael merely sighed and opened his book up to the page of Balthazar Novak and indicated to a list of four other potential causes of death.
“Atropos, you know as well as I do that every human being could die at any second of every day.” It seemed that the angel of death had opted to pull at one of the many loopholes he had noticed through out time in order to justify saving Balthazar just now. “I have examined paths, just like you have, with various cases, and found that no matter when or how it happens, if it is one of the potential deaths listed in my book, the path remains in tact.” He took a deep breath, feeling as if he was explaining a poorly written essay to a strict teacher, in hopes that his reasoning could be justified. “There are several other ways that Balth could die, that would not interfere with your plans, and I just opted to remove him from one cause of death.” Azrael felt himself exhale after this lengthy explanation. And as correct as it might have been…it didn’t really stop him from internally acknowledging that he had really saved the other man because—god forbid—he was developing feelings for him.
Atropos did not at all seem placated. She barely glanced at the page Azrael indicated. She already knew this human — she wouldn’t call him Balthazar if she could help it — wasn’t a particularly important one. He wasn’t tied into any significant events, and his exact time of death was not the sort of thing she was most worried about at the moment. There were still a painful number of events that needed to be repaired after her temporary loss of control over destiny. But, they could wait. Right now, she needed to make something very clear to her fellow agent of death, and this was the perfect opportunity to do it.
“You’ve really gone way too far this time, Azrael,” she growled. “You’re pulling out all these excuses, all these justifications, but you don’t actually believe what you’re saying. You’re just telling me whatever you think will save your little paramour. And that is what I can’t abide.” Rescuing this human was only the latest in a series of blatant rebellious acts by Azrael, and those had to stop. Now. “You’re letting your petty attachments to these mortals affect the carrying out of your duties.”
“I would just like to point out,” Azrael said, his tone sounding a bit more stern than it ought to. “That he is the only human who I have personally gotten attached to that I have saved. The others have been people whose lives just don’t require death at the moment.” He sighed, head shaking. “I firmly believe what I’m saying, I’m not saving anything. I’m just preparing myself for the lecture that I almost always seem to know is coming when I speak to you.” He shook his head, holding his book to his chest, in far too feminine of a gesture.
He shifted somewhat uncomfortably now, and glanced at the frozen human version of Balthazar behind him. “I can stop the other acts of postponing death, and I will apologize for those. I’ll even kill them now if I have to—” A pause as Azrael drew in a breath, and looked at Fate head on. “I…I won’t apologize for saving him, though.”
Atropos had her best penetrating gaze fixed on Azrael, sizing him up, judging his sincerity. In a way, she figured, this was the best possible outcome. Azrael wholly willing to refrain from his sporadic abandonment of his purpose. All she had to do was make a meaningful threat and leave. She'd overlooked small things like this before. Her mind flashed momentarily to a waterlogged cat in an angel's arms. A human, though, was a different matter than a cat. Her gaze slid over to the human in question, and it took on a calculating air. For a long moment, she weighed the consequences, her mind skipping ahead through the winding paths of cause-and-effect.
It would be worth it. She kept her expression closed, as she looked back at Azrael. "You will do that. You will stop slacking on your job. You will clean up those messes which are your fault. But, don't bother apologizing -- that would be utterly meaningless." She turned to leave, then glanced askance over her shoulder. "Oh, and never try to fool me again," she warned, in a tone that promised pain and suffering if crossed.
Time began again as she departed.
kaledo-art
yousharknotpass
turnnoffyourmind
jbbartram-illu
snowghoul
annaxmalina
ellievsbear
prguitarman
