“Yes,” Yah answered.
“Someone works against us, then. Someone seeks the end of days we so diligently hope to avoid,” Luce murmured thoughtfully.
“Or someone seeks to keep heaven and hell completely separate,” Yah responded, looking over then at Lucifer. Their perfect opposite. The other side of them. The first and last piece of themselves; the piece they missed and yearned for the most.
“Oh, Yah,” Luce sighed, reaching a hand out but stopping before they could touch.
“Letting souls join with their missing pieces—it is closing the cracks. It is making it easier to be here, as well,” Luce added, and Yah noticed the pain on his face.
Easier, perhaps, but the devil did not belong in heaven, and it was painful for Lucifer to be here. Yet he always came. He had always come. Yah knew he would always come, even if it tore him asunder.
Who will be next?” Luce asked. “Kushiel has suffered long enough from being in between, I think. Perhaps we can throw him in the way of the missing piece of his soul. He, more than any other angel, has sacrificed much for this existence.”
“Although,” Luce continued, “it might be wiser to search for who works against us. I would hate for Kushiel to lose his chance because of someone’s machinations against our plans.”
“Arioch, then,” Yah answered. “Vengeance and chaos shall be needed to unearth a traitor in our midst, and it has already been set in motion. His mortal soul already seeks vengeance for being misled.”
Luce nodded once, then stood to leave.
“It may not work,” Yah whispered. It pained them to admit it, but since they had formed this plan, the future was… hazy. They had given up much to allow mankind free will, and they were no longer the infinite being that existed before time itself. All-knowing and infallible became problematic when one attempted to circumvent one’s own plan.
Luce merely smiled at them. “Ah, my love, have faith in yourself. I have faith in you. I always have.” With a last look of longing, Luce was gone, and Yah was alone again.
They could hear the calls of angels and mortals, and they knew there was work to be done. So much work, always.
But perhaps, if all things went according to plan, they would not always bear the burden alone.
With that thought, Yah looked again at Gabriel and Asmodeus, who appeared to be having lunch now. They sat behind Gabriels’ desk, their knees pressed together, sharing a sandwich. They talked and laughed, casually touching one another on the arm, the knee, anywhere really. Their faces were calm and filled with love. Between them, Yah could see a bright shining light where they had joined together. They had chosen one another, and Yah could see their souls bound together in that choosing.
Free will. Such a tricky thing.
Yah sighed, and made a motion in the air to call forth the archangel Gabriel. There was a message to be delivered.
It was time for Arioch to be put in the path of free will.
