(AN: For ease of reading, I've split my chapters up into parts- each numbered chapter is the *actual* start of a chapter. This does not effect reading, but hey, just a note.)
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I, for one, would like to state that I find the very prospect of peace to be utterly absurd. But you can't help your circumstances I suppose. I always placed my morals below other's orders, as is customary, and if I was ordered to give peace a chance, I had to do it.
I had been given a promotion to go with my new title of ambassador, but it was all for show and honors. Better to do it now than post-mortem. I enjoyed the ceremony as much as I could and tried not to focus on my impending death.
Instead I looked idly at the applauding audience, especially at the girls- I had never been this close to a woman before, and it was a tremendously exciting occurrence to walk up and kneel just a couple feet away from Michael's two bodyguards. Cassiel and Victory, more beautiful up close than from hundreds of feet away, that was for sure. I took a moment to shun my impure thoughts and almost missed my role in the ceremony-
"Yes." Was all I had to say. Just a word of acceptance. But it was incredible to just speak to Michael, and to have him say my name-
"Nichael."
I've often been called blessed for the simple resemblance of my name towards Michael's. It was only in our secondary alphabet that this even occurred, for the pronunciation was relatively different. In our primary written language Michael's name was the longest word that existed. It contained not only his name but also all his titles- Michael the Great Eternal Wise All-Seeing Eldest Powerful and Majestic. It was hard on the hand to write out. But it was heresy not to.
When Michael had finished with his blessing, I was free to wander for a few more moments before departure. I hung around the Church Tower at first, curious to see how long my presence among the superiors would be tolerated, but I soon succumbed to my shyness and left.
I decided to go home- I lived towards the outside of Heaven, being a soldier and all, but recently had been moved to a new home near the center. This was also considered a blessing- it was a sign of the superiors approval towards me. I missed my friends though, still stuck on the outer circle. We only saw each other when we went out on patrols, and after today I would be dead and it would be a long while until we saw each other again.
There were few farms in the inner circle, and it made me very uncomfortable. Most angels lived outside, usually in tents. Buildings were scarce, especially in the woodlands that lined Heaven's walls, and just being cramped inside the Church Tower for a few moments had made me nervous.
Now of course, as I was being sent off to die, I had been given a house to stay in. It was mostly white and home to a couple kinds of plants, and the walls were being eaten by termites. It was a real honor. I shared the place with three other angels- Fust, Enae and Dohniel- but I suspected they were only being lent the house as well.
Enae was a member of Michael's guard, and was indiscreetly following me to make sure I didn't try anything risky on my last day in Heaven. Fust was a known troublemaker and close friend, and I suppose he was the 'risk' I was supposed to be taking- a mere decoy, and nothing more. Dohniel was just a new friend, and he seemed to be around for no other reason than to take up space.
"Ambassador Nichael!" Dohniel greeted. He knew to be formal around me with my new status, but his beamish face gave away his emotions.
"Archangel Dohniel." I nodded in return. Now that our formalities were taken care of, I relaxed and smiled at him.
"Excited, are you?" He sure was. Dohn, as was the shortened intimate of his name, was vicious warrior. But he had a much keener eye for art, one that was discouraged but never fully blocked. He loved the trekking part of patrolling much more than the fighting, and whenever returned home his mind would be full of stories, and in time, he would have many paintings to share with us. He was somewhat foolish, however, expecting me to return home at all, lest with stories for him to paint.
"Not at all. But I will keep to what I have promised." It was hard to drop the formal speech after an entire day in the presence of the superiors. "It is my duty."
"Ease up Nic." It was almost second nature for Dohn to remind me to relax at this point. "Why don't we head to the baths? One last time before your journey. Fust can come too, if you'd enjoy that more than my company."
Dohn, among others, was fairly convinced Fust and I had coupled in the past. This was entirely ungrounded and false, but the rumors always persisted. Dohn was mostly joking with me, as was his nature, but there was always the sense that he thought part of it true. I was wholly chaste, as was any good angel, and had no impure desires.
"A bathe will ease my nerves, yes." I said. I wasn't very nervous, but Dohn seemed to be. Besides, with Enae on my footfalls I wasn't going to be heading anywhere interesting.
In the outer spheres of Heaven, the bathhouses are more or less sheds over ponds, with minimal heating. In the inner circle the bathhouses were just that: houses that were baths. I had access to the best one in Heaven, the one built right into the Church Tower. The first floor was all superior housing, but the basement was devoted to the bathhouse. The walls were light grey stone, and the entire floor was a pool. It only got about chest deep, and the water was kept a comfortably high temperature.
We stripped out of our clothes, folding them and placing them in one of the designated brick storage holes. Then we got it- Dohn was right, it did help me relax a bit. I almost felt like melting the moment I got in. I couldn't remember a time I had felt such warm water.
My time to relax was soon cut short, however, the moment Dohn pointed out the presence of the Arch-Angels.
There were four Brothers of Blood, and five Arch-Angels. And while I had seen them all, once way or another- Percial lurked in the library, Uriel was often out and about, everyone had been healed by Raphael at least once, Gabriel usually addressed the troops and I had just met Michael today- seeing them all together rightfully frightened me. I felt like I should have been bowing at the sight of them.
"Even they look relaxed!" Dohniel whispered to me, as to not bring attention to us. It was true. They all looked distracted, or else resting, and I soon put them out of my mind as long as I kept to the opposite side of the bath.
The typical purpose of resting at the bath is to gossip. And even here, among my betters, there was much gossip to be heard. I didn't know any of the speakers or the discussed, however, so most of it was lost on me.
"Haven't you heard about Eo and Marvial?" As usual, couplings and fellings were the height of conversation no matter what tier of society you belonged to. I guess none of us could get enough of sin and punishment.
Some of the more daring had other topics in mind- women, usually. It was a huge and purposefully daring move to discuss women so close to the Arch-Angels, especially in the sort of way these men were going on about them. The women, few as they were, were our sacred superiors. And these men were acting like nothing less than demons! I felt thoroughly offended by their lack of respect, but didn't dare to speak up.
And even then, there was short sort of murmur among the gathered, and when I turned around I saw two of the women had come to join in the bath. As custom, everyone nodded their head down and kept entirely quiet until they had entered the water and waded over to join the Arch-Angels. I looked up- there was Cassiel again, our military chief, and Chilial, the messenger.
Along with Victory and Humility, there were four women in Heaven. They carried the divine power of knowledge that we would never understand, and it was their duty to keep Heaven strong and safe. Because of this they were never allowed to leave, of course. It was a common gripe of Cassiel that she wasn't allowed to do any battlefield surveying or commanding, despite training all the soldiers. But it couldn't be helped- she was not allowed to die.
It was controversial enough that female angels were allowed to be felled. There had been suggestions of inventing some kind of restorative training to cure impure angels, as apposed to felling them forever, but Michael would never allow it. So over the many moments we had lost three of our female angels, and we sat squarely on the brink of having more fallen women than Graceful ones. Because of this the remaining women were kept under very careful watch- and certainly not allowed to wander unaccompanied in the outer spheres.
Cassiel seemed to notice my stare, and I looked down ashamed. I had not meant to look so long at her, but it was true that I had never seen a woman naked before. Nudity is fairly common in Heaven, as we have rid ourselves of all sexual connotations. But the thought persisted in our weak, and the women were advised to cover themselves up when they went outside. I was not weakened at the sight of the female physique, of course, because it's not like I had no idea what to expect- it was just odd, that was all.
But perhaps it wasn't my staring that Cassiel had noticed. "Nichael!" She called over across the bath. "You're our ambassador. Come over and speak with Percial. He has done this before."
I got up and walked over, but I did so with a heavy blush and tense shoulders. I didn't need all this attention, but of course everyone was looking at me now.
"Our Glorious Michael, may you continue to be Eternal. Gabriel the wise. Raphael, our healer. Uriel the aflame." I stopped to bow before the Brothers before sitting down across from Cassiel and Percial.
"Percial. Cassiel." I greeted. They did not return the custom, of course.
"We are glad to have your presence." Cassiel said warmly. She had trained me in my moments of soldiering, and it was odd to see her smile after all those days of harsh words and bitter laughs.
"You set out tomorrow for the battlefield. You'll meet a contact at the Hellmouth. If all goes well, you will be in Hell by sun high tomorrow." Percial said. He had gone to Hell some many moments ago, and had returned with a bruise and little more. No one but the superiors knew for sure what he had been doing there, or what had happened. Not everyone even knew he had gone.
"You probably won't die, by the way." Cassiel said. "Not if you remember your training." She reached out and touched my arm as she did so, and I immediately reeled it back. It may have been disrespectful, but she had been acting far too intimate with me.
"I'll try not to die, yes." I said. "But why am I going to Hell in the first place? What is an ambassador?"
"We're not sure quite why you're going yet, to be honest. Harsher war or possible peace. To disclose some information I perhaps shouldn't, we met the demons some five years ago. Everything's been quiet since then. We want to find out how we stand- aside from the current war, of course. Michael isn't seeking any particular outcome, just information."
"Who am I meeting at Hellmouth?" I didn't even know what Hellmouth was like. Or what Hell in general was like. All I knew of demons was that they were monsters, and that they had to die. The mere idea of peace with them irked me like nothing else- of course, there had long been rumors that peace was on the horizon. I just hated the idea of it.
"A contact of Michael's. Watch out though. She's highly dangerous. It's just that she's the only one willing to sneak you in like this." Said Percial.
"Wait- sneak me in? No one knows I'm coming?"
"It'd be far too risky to let people know. We have all of Hell's leaders who know, and our contact. You'll be able to blend in fairly easily, to tell the truth. Demons are very similar to us when they're not in combat."
His sympathizing statement prompted a sharp glance from Cassiel. "You'll be a spy for as long as you live. We're doing a bit of work for our contact, and in exchange she'll check in on you and carry your reports back to us. You're staying there as long as you can manage. One thing though- the demons know you'll be coming, but don't know that you're staying longer than one night."
"I don't think I can lie like that." I didn't think I could do any of this. I was trained in basic combat. But not stealth or espionage. Such actions usually got a felling here- and while I could understand the morals didn't apply when you were working directly for the superiors, I still felt my stomach drop.
"Don't worry," Percial promised. "The demons are all idiots anyways."
By the time I returned to Dohn, I was feeling too sick for the fumes of steam to have any calming effects at all. In fact, I felt like I could really go for a cold swim.
"I suppose you can't say anything, right?"
I nodded.
"But you sure look ill. Let's head back."