God.
My choir we're, we're, we're not good at being helpless. I mean I guess nobody is very good at being helpless, not really, I'd worry if they were but we have to do something. We expecially gotta keep moving gotta keep trying gotta keep on just keep on keep on.
It's all over now, isn't it?
Isn't it?
I tried to stop it all. Would it have changed if I'd stopped it all? Could there have been any other outcome? In a car I was face to face with a Prince and didn't feel any fear. No fear. He had a gun. He wasn't using anything but his gun. I'm not sure why. He could have. Should have. Shouldn't have, but could have. All I knew is that there was a girl under me and unconcious and they tell me she wasn't real, not really real, not really, but she'd been moving on, going on with her own life for a long time, hadn't she? Mariel and Raphael. A human girl. She was still human, I think. Maybe not. Maybe he could have hurt her like that and it wouldn't even be dissonant. But it doesn't matter. It didn't matter. She had a name. And family. And dreams, God, she had dreams. A smart student. Very forgetful. Smart. She was crying when they tied her to that altar. Raphael wouldn't have cried, Raphael was Elohite. Mariel wouldn't have cried, Mariel was Djinn. That girl was crying. She was herself. Her own person. I wanted to save that, I think.
So I was on top of her. She, unconcious. Scared, I think. She saw people die before she was knocked out. I wonder if she'd ever seen people die before. It was a party, she'd wanted to have fun. How is this fair? I went after her. I had to try. Face to face, eye to eye with a Prince and for the first time in the last *month* I wasn't scared. Not of anything. Maybe for the first time in my life. Eli left when I was so young. I can't remember not being scared, even if not as much as this last month.
I didn't know it was a Prince until I hit him and the bottle shattered on his face. He bled. He bled. Bled redly like the rest of us. He threatened me with death, finality, and I still didn't die. I felt like I couldn't. I felt like God was looking at me for the first time. His gun jammed and I had to keep moving. Had to keep going. The sensation of his frustration and the gun bouncing off me. Harmless. At least a minute had passed and I wasn't dead yet, and the girl wasn't dead yet. I wasn't scared, though I knew I had to die soon. I remember him hitting me, before that. I should have been dissonant, I don't know why I wasn't. I'd sat against the wall and just not moved, my jaw aching from a Prince's anger. And here he was, shooting me, hitting me, and it barely hurt. I barely felt it. I wasn't scared. So I Sang. Sang Motion, because it's what I know.
He actually flickered, you know. I did that much. Almost got her out of the car and I figured we'd die - not going too fast, only 30 MPH, but Vessels are weak and I was already thinking how I'd fall. Under her. Trying not to roll. Hoping I could keep her safe. And then he was back and I pulled and I was in the road, rolling and rolling with a scrap of cloth from each of them in my hands. With a little blood from a Prince's gashed nose (and wrist, I got his wrist too while trying to pull her away) on my shirt, red.
The taste of dust and grit and blood in my mouth, lying in the road, not able to change things after all. God.
Had to keep moving, though, you know, had to keep moving. Ariel was Attuned to her, found that they'd gone to Babylon. Eli sent us there. I wanted to stay a little longer. I know that's bad. I know it'll go down on the record the next time Judgement comes around. But I wanted to stay with him a little longer, touching him, feeling safe. Wanted to feel that *safety* again, safety that vanished with her.
We saw ghosts, there. Running. Screaming. In a city below Babylon. Everyone froze. They said they'd heard the first Trumpet. I hadn't. The end of the world is coming and I couldn't even hear it. I couldn't eve. Will it sneak up on me? I feel small and slow. I can go so fast but events are moving faster and I reach out but can't touch, can't catch, can't go at their pace, can't move separate from them, swept along, swept along, going too slowly.
I count my age in decades. I don't want it all to end just yet! I know that'll go on my Judgement record too.
I'm scared again.
We found her in a stadium. They'd tied her to an altar. Alaemon was there, and that Balseraph (who I made dissonant! I have to have to have to remember the little victories, don't I?) too, and the Balseraph fought with Rafiq, who was as alive as ever.
And the girl woke up and Ariel, sweet Ariel, she went down there. I'd known things wouldn't go well, you know. As soon as we got to Babylon, I knew, because I hadn't kissed Eli goodbye when I'd had the chance. My goodluck charm, his mouth. I hadn't gotten to kiss anyone because we all had to move with the events which were going faster than an Ofanite ever could. She started going down the steps and I called her name, I remember I called her name, because I wanted to kiss her. Again. I'd only kissed her once. I wanted to love her more. I wanted to kiss her again, pass on whatever good luck was in *me*. It had worked once. I'd kissed her, and the blade that was meant for her went into me instead. I'd called. But she didn't stop. She moved down the steps. My mouth aching. Scared. There was nothing I could do nowhere I could move no way to act. No place for an Ofanite, no place for Creation, no place for love.
Rafiq bleeding like he'd come apart at the seams. Ariel trying to comfort a crying girl who wasn't an Archangel or a Prince, though everyone thought she was. Alaemon, trying to take the girl away. And Beth standing like she needed to do something (God, Fire, BURN, move, passion, God, *move* Beth, move!), and Aaron (Wind! Aaron of the Wind, too playful, he's older than me but too young, younger than me, I want to cover his eyes, I want to send him home to play, can't play here, want to wrap my arms around him and just cry as if that would help) running into the stands to talk to a ghost that doesn't react to him, the ghost of a Princess who doesn't see a human either, who sees a body that could be hers.
I know then that there's no choices anymore. Not for us. Not really. Not for little Michele, a human girl crying on an altar. The most we have is Oblivion or Knowledge and I look into the stands and that might be Knowledge, the one who isn't Oblivion. It's better than nothing. If I can at least help there, I-
So I go, because I can't help Michele. Because I can't help Ariel. Because I can't help Rafiq. I go to what was and might be Raphael. And I talk. I say: There are stories, we tell, of two Elohim in love, a quiet pale love, a love that runs deep but careful, a love that is not meant for my Choir, Lady, but a love that amazes and moves and overpowers me nonetheless, because it was so deserving.
And I speak and I speak and I speak and it doesn't change anything.
Not a thing.
Nothing in her eyes. Nothing in her ears. She can't hear me. I'm speaking air. I keep talking because otherwise I'm doing nothing. Unable to do anything. Dissonance pressing in on me, not reaching, not yet, but I can't choose to do nothing but there's nothing I can do. Helpless. Please, Lady, I can't help the others. Hear me, at least. Hear me at least.
Alaemon's scream of fury, Beth dashing to meet him, getting flung back, she herself helpless at that moment, passion, God, I know how she feels and I rage at Alaemon. I wish I raged at Alaemon. I felt quiet instead. Helpless. Still. Please, God, never again, never put me in a place I can't move again. Please, God.
And, like I knew: A blade.
It sinks into her and she falls.
Raphael rises in Michele's body, wearing her body, and leans, pressing quiet lips to Ariel's lips, bloody, not warm anymore. Kisses her, takes whatever's left inside.
I know, somewhere, in some part of me, that there must be something of Ariel left in that shining figure. That there must be something of Michele. I know it with my head.
My lips are cold.