Note: I recognize that David probably wasn't attuned to who I said he was attuned to in this fic. However, as a Cherub Archangel, he was likely Attuned to someone, or several someones, so why not this person? I figure, before the Fall, that person's Word would definately be one that a figure of devotion, solidity, and steadfast support could respect and love.

David was in the midst of battle - slow, lumbering, his paws almost seeming leisurely but unstoppable as he swung, ursine, smacking aside snarling non-angels as they piled on him - when he felt his Attunement snap.

It was like getting kicked in the stomach - that sudden hollow windedness of it. He staggered back and several of the things-that-were-not-angels piled onto him, cutting. It did not hurt as much as the emptiness where the path of love should have been.

One can Attune without the subject ever knowing, particularly if one has an Archangel's ineffability to mask it.

And so as, elsewhere, Andrealphus wept over two different Cherubim, as he twisted inward, outward, into something wrong, David felt it, felt the betrayal betrayal betrayal and then silence.

It took him a long, silent moment of pain for it to really sink in and then he roared. He had fallen to all fours but rose again, roaring, flailing, flinging the things away, into each other, massive paws hitting bone with the sick hollow sound of crunching.

He had seen Uriel change and had resolved not to do likewise - While both served Words while given to force, Uriel was something sharper, even a blade while an angel of Truth. David was devotion, the steadfastness of stone, solid, and had not intended to change.

David rose from his crouch, black wings flaring as he stood on two humanoid legs and swung a massive hand in an arc that cracked bone as well as a paw did.

Betrayal. Betrayal. Betrayal.

Everywhere he looked, he was presented with the corruption of honour, the sheer disgusting violation of everything that Heaven stood for. The rage welled up in him like lava, his devotion warring with the fury at the sick rape he saw before him, tectonic.

He had cleared a circle around him in less than a minute, as bodies dissolved back into the wailing anguish of the Symphony.

David curled his arms around his middle and attempted to find a balance in himself. He could not. The pressure too intense. He shook like the Earth in the beginning.

But he only had so long before the next wave would hit, so he forced the pain down, hard, stomped on it as something to examine later, and straightened.

It was then he saw them - six of his own angels, his children, raised by him with love and steadfastness. A Seraph, three Mercurians, an Ofanite, a Cherub. They huddled together, crying. Nearby, an angel was falling under the weight of a non-angel and though the six were nearest, they did not move to help, merely wailed. He strode, pulled the non-angel off and ripped it, then helped the Mercurian who had been attacked up. The Mercurian exhaled and gave David a salute, eyes hurt but determined.

David loved him, patted him on the back, sent him off to fight more, because that was what must be done.

Then he turned to the six. "Why did you not help?"

"...scared..."

"Why did you not help your brother?"

"...hurts..."

"Endure the pain!" David demanded. "Your bretheren are dying, your bretheren are twisting, your bretheren need your aid!"

"It's no good," the Ofanite wailed. "It's no good!"

"ENDURE," David roared. "Protect your brothers and fight."

"No," one of the Mercurians said.

"I can't," another said.

"I won't," the third said, and turned his face away. "You preach endurance - let them endure alone. We cannot fight. We will not fight."

Alone.

David grabbed them and dragged them, his rage warring with love, warring with love. "YOU WOULD LEAVE THEM TO SUFFER ALONE," he bellowed. "You would betray your Archangel, your Word, your people in this manner!" He threw them down. "Go forever from my sight! Let me never see you again or you will be treated as those who violate the Symphony must be treated!"

One of the Mercurians screamed with the tears that had overtaken her. The Seraph wrapped around her and soothed, quietly.

David turned his back and walked away.

Later, when the blood had settled and the combat died down, when the Rebels had been cast from Heaven, when the rage settled to a bearable point, he would think back on this and repent. At any other time, he would know, he would have turned back, been patient, let them have time to come to grips with what was occurring. He would know that as he responded with rage, they had responded with grief, with fear. With an unwillingness to act in violence instead of support, but an inability to support the horror of the Fall, and so remain inert, inactive. And then, he would solidify, the pressure would press in until something pure came out of the pain, until an oath was sworn, to himself and to them. To him, his oath to never attack except to defend charges or in response to violence would be an assurance that he would never make so grave a mistake as to tear the community away from his angels, even should the angels deny the community. And to them - he hoped they would hear of his oath and hear his apology, his admission of mistake. They would not return, and he would never know if they had heard, or if they had not.

But for now, he had pain to endure and angels to protect, and did not have time to think of such things.