Juvenile Orion Fan Fiction ❯ Fallen ❯ Sire ( Chapter 9 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: DesertIllusion 
The mother would not rest until her Heavenly children found peace and was thus doomed to live forever.
Anime/Manga: Juvenile Orion Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Drama | Type: Divergence | Uploaded On: 07.23.2007 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.6K | Visits: 309 | Status: Work In Progress
The mother would not rest until her Heavenly children found peace and was thus doomed to live forever.
Anime/Manga: Juvenile Orion Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Drama | Type: Divergence | Uploaded On: 07.23.2007 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.6K | Visits: 309 | Status: Work In Progress
I wanna be the very best
That no one ever was
To disclaim is my real test
To borrow is my cause
The lowest position for an adult angel in the social hierarchy is that of a nurse. The position requires the least amount of power and as a result usually contains the lesser angels. However, due to the common belief that nurses are inferior, nurses are able to get away with certain behaviors that would result in the disgrace of a higher-ranking angel, but only to a certain extent. As a result, nurses tend to have longer life spans than average. Many also learn to speak the same language as the meliads they tend and oftentimes they are asked to oversee the development of cherubs that higher ranked angels hatch. Though considered socially inferior, the nurses form the base of the colony’s survival and possess more knowledge than any of the other ranks. It is no surprise then, that some angels choose the path of a nurse despite high power level.
Fallen
Chapter 9
Sire
By Illusion
Since Iblis’s disappearance from Heaven, Gabriel spent the majority of his time in the nurseries, wandering from orchard to orchard. He occasionally met with a nurse but avoided contact with other angels. Several meliads acquainted themselves with him and would greet him with outstretched branches.
“When do you return to the fleet?” Rayyu asked when the two stumbled across each other.
“Two suns,” Gabriel said.
“Iblis was exiled.”
“He fled to Hell, I believe. It is the closest place he is allowed in.”
Rayyu stared at Gabriel for a moment. “You were very attached to your commander.”
“He was a powerful angel. I admired him greatly.”
“Is that all?”
Gabriel looked at the nurse suspiciously. “Iblis was my high commander. That merits the greatest respect and admiration, does it not?”
Rayyu bowed his head. Gabriel was still the more powerful angel and could easily defeat the nurse for simply irritating him.
Still eyeing the other angel suspiciously, Gabriel made his way out of the orchard. He launched into the air and directed himself toward his barracks. Not wanting any contact with other angels, Gabriel spent the next sun brooding in his nest, only emerging five times to feed.
Was what he felt for Iblis truly just admiration and respect? He had never considered otherwise until Rayyu questioned him. In the fleet it was Iblis, the most powerful angel present, who chose to protect and monitor him, a low-level missionary who had sought him for punishment. He had always wondered why the high commander chose to spend his spare time with Gabriel. Was it because he believed the missionary had great potential? Instead of squashing possible threats to his power and authority, the commander strangely encouraged his subordinates to reach their full aptitude. However, if he had taken Gabriel under his wing for that reason it would have been more likely that he would choose Israfel, who possessed a reservoir of untapped power yet still exhibited cases of extreme strength. No, it was something else. Something unique about Gabriel must have caught Iblis’s attention.
He caught sight of the feathers he sat on. After Iblis’s escape Gabriel had mixed his commander’s feathers in with his to make the nest more comfortable. Suddenly he needed to get out. He couldn’t think properly. He slid the door to his nest open and peered out. A sixth of a sun has passed since the last meal and most angels would be in their nests. As Gabriel dropped to the floor, wishing to avoid attracting attention, he pondered the areas where he was least likely to meet another angel.
The mess hall? Angels dined at different times and many cherubs demanded more frequent meals. The platforms? They were commonly used as training and dueling grounds when the mess halls were not suitable. The nurseries? The last thing Gabriel wanted was an encounter with a nurse.
His feet touched the floor lightly. He began walking slowly with no destination in mind when the site of his interrogation flashed through his mind. Quickening his pace, Gabriel made for the deserted Old Colony.
He entered the area cautiously, drinking in the ornate carvings in more detail than before. There were no definite pictures or symbols he could distinguish, but the designs curled around the tops of pillars and snaked up along their sides. The unknown metals gleamed curiously as Gabriel walked past them staring in unmasked awe. As he entered deeper into the Old Colony, the designs became more pictorial and the pillars started connecting to form constructions. He passed the structure where he and Iblis were interrogated and plunged deeper.
He wanted to lose himself in Heaven’s forgotten beauty and delicate strength, its decorative simplicity and soft warmth. Could stone and metal be this warm? He didn’t know and he didn’t care. What did the how and why matter if the time to enjoy the moment was so short and unpredictable?
The designs had disappeared and were replaced by images depicting the angels of the Old Colony. Gabriel stared in fascinations. He had only seen portrayals of angels in human foundations and those were most often grossly inaccurate with the species’ overactive imagination making unnecessary embellishments. His eyes moved across pictures of angels dueling, steering early ships, and hatching eggs. Each structure he wandered into showed various images of angelic daily life.
Gabriel vaguely noted the path of the structures he walked through wound in a steady spiral leading him towards the center. The became larger and more grandiose as he progressed until one large building loomed ahead of him. Like the others, pillars flanked its sides and supported the heavy stone ceiling. The entire structure seemed to be carved from one piece of stone as each section blended into the next. Light reflected off the smooth surfaces despite the darkness and danced on the walls, the floor, and the pillars.
Gabriel entered the building apprehensively, feeling as though he trod on sacred ground. Light and shadows fluttered under his feet as he stepped towards the wall behind the pillars and he chose to ignore the multiple doors leading inside, already feeling as though he intruded a place he was not worthy of being. One hand on the stone, he walked around the structure, noting the shape was that of a circle and the wall a gigantic mural. His eyes glanced off looming portraits of majestic angels and their various battle stances. He stopped at the face of one familiar angel in shock.
Strong silver eyes burned into him and beside the portrait the same angel stood with all six wings unfurled as he held before him a staff with a praying angel embellishing its tip. His pale blond hair was bound in a loose ponytail and several strands fell over his shoulders and chest.
Gabriel whipped his head back to the other angels he had passed before backtracking, staring into each angel’s face intently. As he approached each angel he felt an echo of his presence. His pace quickened and soon he was trotting beside the mural. Gabriel would have sworn the angels were there; thy were watching him as he studied their faces and when their eyes began following him he realized they were alive.
Before him were the gods. Their souls peered at him from the smooth stone that could become warm and liquid and radiate aura.
“Our mother’s bone.”
The stone–no, the Old Colony–was alive and teeming. The angels’ planet, the ultimate mother, had not died. She continued to live through the efforts of her children and watched in anguish as they tore each other apart and their blood soaked her bones. The mother would not rest until her Heavenly children found peace and was thus doomed to live forever.
Gabriel tore his hand, which had remained on the wall, away from the mural and sprinted toward the nearest building, passing another two portraits, which emanated similar auras.
Once in a separate structure, Gabriel’s wings thrust him upward and guided him towards the edge of the Old Colony. He spotted the building where he and Iblis faced interrogation and glided inside. The two crude seats remained as Iblis had formed them and Gabriel coasted to a halt, dropping down before them.
He placed shaky hands on the smooth stone and unsurely asked them to allow him control. As he gently pushed down, the stone yielded to his touch and sank back to the floor with hardly a ripple.
As he stood his mind wandered back to the last two portraits he had passed at the mural of the gods. The two had strikingly similar features. Probably a sire and cherub. Even their auras had been similar.
His and Iblis’s auras were similar.
“You were very attached to your commander.”
“He was a powerful angel. I admired him greatly.”
“Is that all?”
Gabriel turned and walked out of the building. His wings pushed him into the air and carried him out of the Old Colony.
Angels flocked passed Gabriel to their various destinations as he glided without aim or purpose. His mind remained blank as his body mechanically prepared for the return journey. The passengers would only include himself, the messenger whose pod had been stolen by Iblis, and a handful of cherubs to replenish the fleet’s ever dwindling population.
Iblis had tried to decrease the mortality rate by altering the dueling regulations.
Gabriel paused, his hand going still from striking in the attack sequence he had been practicing.
If Iblis was truly his sire, it would explain why their auras were similar and the treatment he had received from the high commander. Though he had never exclusively claimed to, Iblis had held certain human values in high regard.
Such as family.
And emotions.
He still had a twelfth of a sun remaining before the ship departed for the blue planet fleet. Abandoning any mere attempts to train, Gabriel made his way to the nurseries. Once in the vicinity he flew towards Orchard C and quickly scanned the orchard for auras as he passed rows upon rows of meliads, finally landing in front of 36.
“Where is he?” he asked. “I need access to the breeding records and he is the only nurse I know to be reliable.”
A slight rustle.
“Of course; I don’t understand you. I should have listened closer as a cherub.” Gabriel approached the meliad hesitantly. “You keep secrets because most angels can’t understand you, but may I ask a favor of you?”
36 parted her branches and beckoned him towards her trunk. Gabriel glanced around briefly before stepping into her shade. Her branches fell thick behind him like curtains, shielding his actions and words against any angels and surrounding meliads.
“You probably already know why I seek Rayyu,” he said softly. “Why else would I want to access the breeding record?
“I think Iblis is my sire, but I am not absolutely certain. That is why I need to check. Our auras are similar enough and now that I have realized that, I am beginning to see the resemblances in our physical appearances as well. Green is not a very common eye color after all.
“But what if he is my sire? As an angel that means nothing more than the fact that I may possess some of his strengths and weaknesses and as a shaytan, I will never see him again.” Gabriel stopped at the feeling of soft delicate leaves trailing over his cheeks.
“It would… only hurt more if I know he is my sire, wouldn’t it?” He raised a hand to touch the vine-like branches and smiled. “Perhaps it is better if I do not know. Not yet, at least. Maybe in another thousand years, when Heaven has changed.”
Another caress, this one through his hair. Gabriel leaned into the meliad’s soothing touches as she comforted him with steady, gentle strokes. He shifted slightly when she pulled his hair up into the ponytail he always wore it in as a cherub.
“You realize I will be forced to take it out once I leave,” he said, feeling the flexible branch being used as a ribbon to hold his hair in place.
36 merely tightened the ponytail. He smiled.
“Do not tell Rayyu what I confessed?”
She passed her leaves lightly over his eyes.
“I am grateful. Until I next return to Heaven.”
Gabriel held up a hand that 36 quickly took. Her vine uncoiled from his slender fingers as he stepped out from the shelter of her branches. He turned his head at the presence of another, making instant eye contact with Rayyu.
“There is not much time left.”
“I know.”
They continued to stare, each waiting for the other to blink first.
“You seek something?”
A moment’s hesitation.
“No. I have to go.” He began walking down the row. “Will you… see the ship off?”
“I have to check the meliads.”
“I understand.”
“They seemed healthy enough last time….”
“You do not have to.”
“None of them are due for another moon at least. It really is pointless to check their daily progress.”
“As you wish.” He took off without turning around, but the sound of another pair of beating wings behind him made his chest squeeze just a little. Yes, only a little.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
And so the healing process begins. For those of you who read the trailer for The Red Scent, I made one for Fallen. Why? Because I don’t think the summary really shows what I want to show and it was fun making the trailer. It contains a few tiny spoilers (as do all trailers) but nothing that will ruin the story for you. Besides, you all know how this story is going to end, or at least how it’s going to end from Israfel’s point of view. You can find the trailer through my homepage.
I apologize for the last few chapters seeming very filler-ish. Instead of thinking of them as fillers, try seeing them as insights into angel society and reasons why Gabriel and Israfel flee to earth.
Allusions and Explanations:
Feeding Five Times: Five small meals is the healthiest eating habit according to my health teachers.
A meliad’s branches can be hard and sturdy, and can also be flexible; it depends on how old the branch is. When the tips of branches begin growing, they can be picked like hair, but once they are in place long enough, they become more like a nail, then finger, and eventually a limb. Thus the branch holding Gabriel’s hair is one of the earlier tips.
Posted: 23 July 2007
Next Post: 6 August 2007
That no one ever was
To disclaim is my real test
To borrow is my cause
The lowest position for an adult angel in the social hierarchy is that of a nurse. The position requires the least amount of power and as a result usually contains the lesser angels. However, due to the common belief that nurses are inferior, nurses are able to get away with certain behaviors that would result in the disgrace of a higher-ranking angel, but only to a certain extent. As a result, nurses tend to have longer life spans than average. Many also learn to speak the same language as the meliads they tend and oftentimes they are asked to oversee the development of cherubs that higher ranked angels hatch. Though considered socially inferior, the nurses form the base of the colony’s survival and possess more knowledge than any of the other ranks. It is no surprise then, that some angels choose the path of a nurse despite high power level.
Fallen
Chapter 9
Sire
By Illusion
Since Iblis’s disappearance from Heaven, Gabriel spent the majority of his time in the nurseries, wandering from orchard to orchard. He occasionally met with a nurse but avoided contact with other angels. Several meliads acquainted themselves with him and would greet him with outstretched branches.
“When do you return to the fleet?” Rayyu asked when the two stumbled across each other.
“Two suns,” Gabriel said.
“Iblis was exiled.”
“He fled to Hell, I believe. It is the closest place he is allowed in.”
Rayyu stared at Gabriel for a moment. “You were very attached to your commander.”
“He was a powerful angel. I admired him greatly.”
“Is that all?”
Gabriel looked at the nurse suspiciously. “Iblis was my high commander. That merits the greatest respect and admiration, does it not?”
Rayyu bowed his head. Gabriel was still the more powerful angel and could easily defeat the nurse for simply irritating him.
Still eyeing the other angel suspiciously, Gabriel made his way out of the orchard. He launched into the air and directed himself toward his barracks. Not wanting any contact with other angels, Gabriel spent the next sun brooding in his nest, only emerging five times to feed.
Was what he felt for Iblis truly just admiration and respect? He had never considered otherwise until Rayyu questioned him. In the fleet it was Iblis, the most powerful angel present, who chose to protect and monitor him, a low-level missionary who had sought him for punishment. He had always wondered why the high commander chose to spend his spare time with Gabriel. Was it because he believed the missionary had great potential? Instead of squashing possible threats to his power and authority, the commander strangely encouraged his subordinates to reach their full aptitude. However, if he had taken Gabriel under his wing for that reason it would have been more likely that he would choose Israfel, who possessed a reservoir of untapped power yet still exhibited cases of extreme strength. No, it was something else. Something unique about Gabriel must have caught Iblis’s attention.
He caught sight of the feathers he sat on. After Iblis’s escape Gabriel had mixed his commander’s feathers in with his to make the nest more comfortable. Suddenly he needed to get out. He couldn’t think properly. He slid the door to his nest open and peered out. A sixth of a sun has passed since the last meal and most angels would be in their nests. As Gabriel dropped to the floor, wishing to avoid attracting attention, he pondered the areas where he was least likely to meet another angel.
The mess hall? Angels dined at different times and many cherubs demanded more frequent meals. The platforms? They were commonly used as training and dueling grounds when the mess halls were not suitable. The nurseries? The last thing Gabriel wanted was an encounter with a nurse.
His feet touched the floor lightly. He began walking slowly with no destination in mind when the site of his interrogation flashed through his mind. Quickening his pace, Gabriel made for the deserted Old Colony.
He entered the area cautiously, drinking in the ornate carvings in more detail than before. There were no definite pictures or symbols he could distinguish, but the designs curled around the tops of pillars and snaked up along their sides. The unknown metals gleamed curiously as Gabriel walked past them staring in unmasked awe. As he entered deeper into the Old Colony, the designs became more pictorial and the pillars started connecting to form constructions. He passed the structure where he and Iblis were interrogated and plunged deeper.
He wanted to lose himself in Heaven’s forgotten beauty and delicate strength, its decorative simplicity and soft warmth. Could stone and metal be this warm? He didn’t know and he didn’t care. What did the how and why matter if the time to enjoy the moment was so short and unpredictable?
The designs had disappeared and were replaced by images depicting the angels of the Old Colony. Gabriel stared in fascinations. He had only seen portrayals of angels in human foundations and those were most often grossly inaccurate with the species’ overactive imagination making unnecessary embellishments. His eyes moved across pictures of angels dueling, steering early ships, and hatching eggs. Each structure he wandered into showed various images of angelic daily life.
Gabriel vaguely noted the path of the structures he walked through wound in a steady spiral leading him towards the center. The became larger and more grandiose as he progressed until one large building loomed ahead of him. Like the others, pillars flanked its sides and supported the heavy stone ceiling. The entire structure seemed to be carved from one piece of stone as each section blended into the next. Light reflected off the smooth surfaces despite the darkness and danced on the walls, the floor, and the pillars.
Gabriel entered the building apprehensively, feeling as though he trod on sacred ground. Light and shadows fluttered under his feet as he stepped towards the wall behind the pillars and he chose to ignore the multiple doors leading inside, already feeling as though he intruded a place he was not worthy of being. One hand on the stone, he walked around the structure, noting the shape was that of a circle and the wall a gigantic mural. His eyes glanced off looming portraits of majestic angels and their various battle stances. He stopped at the face of one familiar angel in shock.
Strong silver eyes burned into him and beside the portrait the same angel stood with all six wings unfurled as he held before him a staff with a praying angel embellishing its tip. His pale blond hair was bound in a loose ponytail and several strands fell over his shoulders and chest.
Gabriel whipped his head back to the other angels he had passed before backtracking, staring into each angel’s face intently. As he approached each angel he felt an echo of his presence. His pace quickened and soon he was trotting beside the mural. Gabriel would have sworn the angels were there; thy were watching him as he studied their faces and when their eyes began following him he realized they were alive.
Before him were the gods. Their souls peered at him from the smooth stone that could become warm and liquid and radiate aura.
“Our mother’s bone.”
The stone–no, the Old Colony–was alive and teeming. The angels’ planet, the ultimate mother, had not died. She continued to live through the efforts of her children and watched in anguish as they tore each other apart and their blood soaked her bones. The mother would not rest until her Heavenly children found peace and was thus doomed to live forever.
Gabriel tore his hand, which had remained on the wall, away from the mural and sprinted toward the nearest building, passing another two portraits, which emanated similar auras.
Once in a separate structure, Gabriel’s wings thrust him upward and guided him towards the edge of the Old Colony. He spotted the building where he and Iblis faced interrogation and glided inside. The two crude seats remained as Iblis had formed them and Gabriel coasted to a halt, dropping down before them.
He placed shaky hands on the smooth stone and unsurely asked them to allow him control. As he gently pushed down, the stone yielded to his touch and sank back to the floor with hardly a ripple.
As he stood his mind wandered back to the last two portraits he had passed at the mural of the gods. The two had strikingly similar features. Probably a sire and cherub. Even their auras had been similar.
His and Iblis’s auras were similar.
“You were very attached to your commander.”
“He was a powerful angel. I admired him greatly.”
“Is that all?”
Gabriel turned and walked out of the building. His wings pushed him into the air and carried him out of the Old Colony.
Angels flocked passed Gabriel to their various destinations as he glided without aim or purpose. His mind remained blank as his body mechanically prepared for the return journey. The passengers would only include himself, the messenger whose pod had been stolen by Iblis, and a handful of cherubs to replenish the fleet’s ever dwindling population.
Iblis had tried to decrease the mortality rate by altering the dueling regulations.
Gabriel paused, his hand going still from striking in the attack sequence he had been practicing.
If Iblis was truly his sire, it would explain why their auras were similar and the treatment he had received from the high commander. Though he had never exclusively claimed to, Iblis had held certain human values in high regard.
Such as family.
And emotions.
He still had a twelfth of a sun remaining before the ship departed for the blue planet fleet. Abandoning any mere attempts to train, Gabriel made his way to the nurseries. Once in the vicinity he flew towards Orchard C and quickly scanned the orchard for auras as he passed rows upon rows of meliads, finally landing in front of 36.
“Where is he?” he asked. “I need access to the breeding records and he is the only nurse I know to be reliable.”
A slight rustle.
“Of course; I don’t understand you. I should have listened closer as a cherub.” Gabriel approached the meliad hesitantly. “You keep secrets because most angels can’t understand you, but may I ask a favor of you?”
36 parted her branches and beckoned him towards her trunk. Gabriel glanced around briefly before stepping into her shade. Her branches fell thick behind him like curtains, shielding his actions and words against any angels and surrounding meliads.
“You probably already know why I seek Rayyu,” he said softly. “Why else would I want to access the breeding record?
“I think Iblis is my sire, but I am not absolutely certain. That is why I need to check. Our auras are similar enough and now that I have realized that, I am beginning to see the resemblances in our physical appearances as well. Green is not a very common eye color after all.
“But what if he is my sire? As an angel that means nothing more than the fact that I may possess some of his strengths and weaknesses and as a shaytan, I will never see him again.” Gabriel stopped at the feeling of soft delicate leaves trailing over his cheeks.
“It would… only hurt more if I know he is my sire, wouldn’t it?” He raised a hand to touch the vine-like branches and smiled. “Perhaps it is better if I do not know. Not yet, at least. Maybe in another thousand years, when Heaven has changed.”
Another caress, this one through his hair. Gabriel leaned into the meliad’s soothing touches as she comforted him with steady, gentle strokes. He shifted slightly when she pulled his hair up into the ponytail he always wore it in as a cherub.
“You realize I will be forced to take it out once I leave,” he said, feeling the flexible branch being used as a ribbon to hold his hair in place.
36 merely tightened the ponytail. He smiled.
“Do not tell Rayyu what I confessed?”
She passed her leaves lightly over his eyes.
“I am grateful. Until I next return to Heaven.”
Gabriel held up a hand that 36 quickly took. Her vine uncoiled from his slender fingers as he stepped out from the shelter of her branches. He turned his head at the presence of another, making instant eye contact with Rayyu.
“There is not much time left.”
“I know.”
They continued to stare, each waiting for the other to blink first.
“You seek something?”
A moment’s hesitation.
“No. I have to go.” He began walking down the row. “Will you… see the ship off?”
“I have to check the meliads.”
“I understand.”
“They seemed healthy enough last time….”
“You do not have to.”
“None of them are due for another moon at least. It really is pointless to check their daily progress.”
“As you wish.” He took off without turning around, but the sound of another pair of beating wings behind him made his chest squeeze just a little. Yes, only a little.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
And so the healing process begins. For those of you who read the trailer for The Red Scent, I made one for Fallen. Why? Because I don’t think the summary really shows what I want to show and it was fun making the trailer. It contains a few tiny spoilers (as do all trailers) but nothing that will ruin the story for you. Besides, you all know how this story is going to end, or at least how it’s going to end from Israfel’s point of view. You can find the trailer through my homepage.
I apologize for the last few chapters seeming very filler-ish. Instead of thinking of them as fillers, try seeing them as insights into angel society and reasons why Gabriel and Israfel flee to earth.
Allusions and Explanations:
Feeding Five Times: Five small meals is the healthiest eating habit according to my health teachers.
A meliad’s branches can be hard and sturdy, and can also be flexible; it depends on how old the branch is. When the tips of branches begin growing, they can be picked like hair, but once they are in place long enough, they become more like a nail, then finger, and eventually a limb. Thus the branch holding Gabriel’s hair is one of the earlier tips.
Posted: 23 July 2007
Next Post: 6 August 2007