@meansman prayed to saint michael: Adam had been grieving over the loss of his son, Abel. Not only had Abel died in life, but died again, killed by the last extermination. He had tried to talk to Abel previously out of this, upset that the exterminations were even a thing in the first place, but also not wanting to wake up again to find him dead, again. Abel of course, dismissed it and was angry that his dad would even dare to voice his concern in the first place, calling him weak, a beta-male and other such words to tear Adam down. In spite of everything, Adam still loved his kids. All of them, directly descended or not, regardless of how he was treated by them. Even if he wasn’t the best father in life, he still tried, many years later. Now Adam was planting and tending to the garden he made as a memorial to the fallen commander. He loved gardening and especially loved planting things that reminded him of his family and past loved ones. Butterflies, bees and hummingbirds flew around the flora, pollinating them while the First Man continued his work. He hummed a tune he once sang to his first sons when they were babies, tears streaking down his face as he did so. Once he was satisfied with one part of the work, he sat down and took a breather, panting as he did so. Perhaps his son was right, even if his words were cruel, Adam needed to get back into shape. Hearing perked up at the sound of wings and footsteps in the garden, startling the First Man, his wings ruffled in surprise. So deep in his work, however, he relaxed at the sight of a familiar face. His face softened to a tired smile and wings smoothed out. “Ah, Michael, I apologize for not recognizing you. I was just…taking a break here.” He gestured to the large plot of Abel’s memorial. “What can I do you for?”
THE SCENT OF EARTH WAS FRAGRANT THERE, loam and the faint sweetness of sap bleeding from tender stems, crushed petals, an aroma of something tended with LOVE , rather than commanded into being. the archistrategos paused on the garden's edge, vast wings half folded, their umbral sweep like an eclipse dimming the sun; this place was like a memory brushing his cheek: the first man's first grief now shaped into flowers, his own eden rising from loneliness and LOSS. (adam planted things now, because he could not get back what he loved.)
he found adam kneeling in the cradle of soil as he did in the very beginning, hands dirt-stained, shoulders dipped beneath invisible burdens, cheeks streaked with drying tears; butterflies drifted around him in gentle orbit, like dust motes in sunlight, and there was something in the sight that disturbed the archangel's immaculate composure. (a father's unique pain, carried through death and afterlife both, shaping his posture as surely as clay once shaped his flesh;) he stepped closer, each footfall sinking into warm tilled earth, and the air shifted with the deep exhale of something primordial, the caged storm of his grace withdrawing enough not to crush the life at adam's knees. the first man looked up at him, smiling with that tired, aching gentleness michael remembered from before the exile and bloodshed. his words a humble offering, worn thin by mourning, and the apology sat awkwardly on him, as if he expected reprimand for tenderness.
"you need not apologise. this garden …" his gaze swept over the memorial, the blooms with their trembling stems and fragile defiance, the hovering insects at work, the painstaking care of it all, and the life coaxed forth from grief - something in him tightened with an ache not entirely divine; "--this memorial to abel, it holds more devotion than half the altars in heaven."
he moved nearer still, until the arc of his enormous shadow fell across the blooms, heavy yet protective; his voice was a gentle resonance when he addressed the clay he once watched over.
"I heard your son was cruel in his parting words." a statement carved with bleak understanding, spoken by one who has delivered more deaths than can be tallied; "...cruelty is the currency of those whose fear outweighs love. it's a high price you pay."
a thick, weighted silence breathed between them for a moment, like gauze drawn over a wound; adam's breathy exhaustion hung in the air like a petition michael could not deny, and driven by ancient affection, he reached out to set a hand upon a bowed shoulder; his expression softened behind the iron of his composure.
"tell me what you need, and I will see it done."
for in this small, sun-dappled corner of sorrow and soil, standing beside the man shaped from dust and divinity, michael remembered the echo of a DUTY older than any army: to protect what the father loved into being, the first child to learn what SUFFERING is, to hold death in his arms. even now, centuries and ascensions later, that lineage of sorrow clung to him like a second skin.
