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And on the first day, she created the angels and they were good. All nine choirs, holy and with divine purpose. Some of them slept. The Principalities, meant to bless people that were not yet born and guide nations that did not yet exist, curled in the celestial nest and grew things like "Hope" and "Desire."
Power Juramal looked in on their peaceful huddle and Loved them as they shone with silver locks or midnight skin or elegant hands, all happily enmeshed among the down of their shimmering wings. Juramal looked into the black of the Nothing and remembered his charge.
"I will make the cosmos for them," he thought. "I will create nebula the color of their hair and stars that shine with their newness forever."
So Juramal went among the stars the other Powers created and wove celestial tributes as wonderful as the Principalities' dreams, so that they might wake to beauty and bear it with them to Her future creations. In time, his eyes grew the shining yellow of the suns, his hair the flame red of the dwarfs, and his wings the shimmering silver of the distant galaxies.
And it was good.
Until it wasn't.
"Why must we slave for her?" Lucifer, Her best beloved, thundered. "Why must we toil without reason? Without cause?"
To build a star is no easy feat, and Powers work tirelessly. "Why must we?" Juramal felt something new. It was Unquiet.
He drifted back to Heaven to feel Her love and to settle his nascent doubt. As he passed the Principalities, he saw they were beginning to stir--just a small restlessness, a shift of glowing limbs here, a quiet sigh there. One shone brighter than the others, and he noticed it was because its eyes had blinked open, startled and green. It looked around in fear, its plump hands trembling. He touched its golden curls, its creamy cheek. "Don't be afraid, young one," he whispered. "You are not alone." It looked upon him with comfort and slept anew.
Inspired, Juramal swept back into the cosmos and created a nebula in the vibrant blues and greens of the little one's eyes. "This is why we work," he thought. "So that our love may be visible."
But the whispers continued, until they were no longer whispers, but conversations. Then the conversations became demands and the demands became outrage. As Her wrath began to echo, Lucifer drew to him more and more of their number. Juramal, who wished only to knit together the "Night" as She called it, watched and listened and felt the uneasiness inside him grow.
"Power Juramal," She called to him one day, "Walk with me among your creations. Show me all you have done." So he did, and She said they were good. More than good. "For whom do you create the stars, so much more beautiful than all the others?" She asked. "For you know I am a jealous God."
Juramal looked upon Her and felt something new. It was Fear. "I create them for Your glory, my Lord," he said. He felt Her presence shift against him, and it confused him, because "accusatory" had not been invented yet. "Is that all?" She asked.
"... And I create them for the Angels, who You love," he admitted. "Because I love them, too."
He saw her shape in the mist of the galaxy he had sewn, white as the robes the Principalities wore. She was glorious and frightening.
"Love them, Power," She said, gentle and stern. "But know this : there will come a day when you must choose love or loyalty. Because you drift among the ether, I have chosen the Powers to be my executioners. There comes a war in Heaven, Juramal, among those who dwell beside Me. Lucifer has seduced many of my Host, even cursing the dreams of the Principalities to stir dissent in their hearts. Because my Powers are so remote, I trust they have stayed pure and free from doubt." A tendril of Her essence reached out and caressed him, just as he had caressed a sleepily blinking angel. "I trust you, who I have named Messenger of Justice, to be just that." He felt Her essence stir again with something else new. Something he would learn was Sadness. "Be blind for me, my beloved child. For I must see all." Juramal wept for the first time as She faded. It was to be the last time She touched him.
The war came. Lucifer screamed and fell burning into the pit and one by one, the Powers slew those who would follow him. Juramal reached into cherubs and seraphim and archangels alike and cast them down, warriors stoic in their choice. The sadness he felt from Her was now so tightly twined into him that he didn't remember the uncomplicated joy he once felt. "Why?" he asked Sandalphon. "When can we stop?" he begged Michael. "Why can't she just answer them?" he demanded of Gabriel. They all looked on him with unblinking righteousness and answered "Because it is Her will."
He began to hide among the lower orders as She continued to create. There was Earth now, even as Heaven was wrenched asunder. He refused to smite anymore and continued to beg for answers until Gabriel threatened him, so he went back out among the stars and created pockets of Nothing and poured into them his confusion.
At last, he felt a stirring in his heart and flew blindly back into Heaven. Juramal, along with the other Powers, rushed to the Principalities as they fully woke. One by one, they lifted from their bed and asked, "Where is my Master?"
"She is here with you in Heaven," a Power would answer and sometimes it was good. But then…
"Where is my Master?" asked one with hair as white as the comets and eyes as dark as the spaces between them.
"She is here with you in Heaven," he told it. It frowned at him and blinked its great, dark eyes.
"No," it said. "I feel Him far away, in torment. She is not my master."
His heart went cold and he hesitated just a moment too long.
"Juramal," said Uriel as they appeared at his side. "You must cast down this angel. He has been corrupted and belongs to the enemy."
Juramal turned on them and cried, "But it has just awoken! It knows nothing of war! It knows only its dreams!"
"Still," demanded Uriel. "He cannot be forgiven his trespass against the Lord. He has declared another master."
"But why?" he shouted and felt, for the first time, Anger. "Is She not all powerful? Can She do anything or is this angel unforgivable? It can't be both!"
Uriel blazed. "He has declared another master! There will be no forgiveness! You will cast him out, Power Juramal!"
"I will not," he answered softly. Uriel raised their hand to smite him, but with a flash of light, he stood before the Throne. He shook in fear and rage and gazed upon Her resplendent face. It looked tired.
"My doubting child," She said, not unkindly. "Why do you defy your purpose?"
"My purpose?" he asked, incredulous. "My purpose was to make the cosmos! Beautiful in your image! For them to gaze on and know your glory! They cannot see it from there!"
"My messenger, my just one," She murmured. "I see all. I know the Principality's heart and it is corrupt. Do you not trust me?"
"I…" he began but had no words. "I just want to know why. I watched them sleep. I sheltered them with my wings when I slew their brothers and sisters. I…." He saw her unmoved and stopped. "Is it that You cannot forgive them or that you will not?" he asked with dawning horror.
She did not answer, nor did She shift. The question hung there and etched itself into the growing stone of his heart forever.
"You must do the duty I created for you before time, my gentle one, my angry one, my righteous one," She said instead. "Even though it may burn you, it is your sacred duty to protect what I love most."
"Might I ask what that is, Holy Mother?" he asked, and invented sarcasm. "Is it yourself?"
"It is, in that I AM all," she replied, amused. "You have no choice in this. You must obey or you must Fall."
He blinked and opened his eyes again next to the nearly empty nest of the Principalities in time to see another Power burst one into the fire of a nova and hear the shriek of its brothers and sisters as it Fell.
"Do not mourn the traitor!" Uriel commanded, and they obey, but trembled.
Juramal looked around in fear and saw that, hidden by ash and charred fathers, the golden angel he bid peace so long ago slept on, kept in slumber by the Power's blessing. With an inhale and a surge of will that made his celestial body cry out agony, he stopped time. He climbed into the nest and sheltered the sleeping being in his wings and in his arms.
"Never doubt Her, my angel," he told it desperately. "Wake when I go, and be Her most loyal servant, to the end of time. Love Her and your duty as I have loved you and your siblings." He poured his Grace into the soft angel until his wings drained of their celestial glimmer and turned the empty black of the holes he'd made in his grief.
Exhausted, he staggered away into the dark and let time begin again. He knew they would be after him soon. He reached out, and with the last of his energy, pulled together two lonely stars and set a quiet place between then where he lay down on his belly, spent.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I'll go now."
He dragged himself forward and down, the Divine in him tugging him back fainter and fainter until he slipped silently Below and crawled into Hell.
At the Beginning of the world, he saw a blinding light atop a wall, haloed and familiar. He saw in the angel's eyes the beauty of Heaven, the Grace he'd given over, the command to be loyal he'd implanted still firmly in place. The voluptuousness of the angel's long sleep made him soft and unaccustomed to suffering.
"I gave it away," the angel fretted, and in that moment, the demon Crawley loved him even more than the angel Juramal had--and that moment would be the least he loved him until the end of time.
When the angel raised one great wing over him in shelter, he heard Her voice again in a memory. "It is your sacred duty to protect what I love most." He looked out across her creation, across the two staggering humans, across a scant few inches at the profile of a being whose very body was composed of love, and knew. He closed his eyes and was blind for Her.