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In a time before Latin had been conceived, three archangels stood witness in a burning copse of trees where twin girls had just been born. The mother lay still but fiercely alive on the floor of the makeshift shelter, curled around the elder of the infants, willing a prayer into the very air around them; A prayer that she did not know had already been answered.
The angels waited patiently as the flames drew closer, merely watching over the mother and newborns in their moments of weakness. Raphael pulled the child unceremoniously from its mother and burned the infection from her lungs. A low despairing wail sounded from her sister in Gabriel's embrace. Silently, carefully, Raphael took the second baby and clasped it to his breast, rocking them both to sleep as he strengthened their existence with his own.
The first edge of the sun rose over the horizon, signaling morning through a break in the trees. Two healthy cries greeted the smoke-harried dawn. A teen mother sobbed in relief.
It was done.
With unerring timing, the nearest wall of foliage collapsed inward. Michael pushed through the wreckage and held the burning branches as an archway for his fellow archangels and their human charges. Gabriel carried the young mother over the threshold and out into the early morning sunlight. An entire village had gathered there, all eight inhabitants coming near to witness the spectacle.
As God's messenger, the youngest of the angels stood in front of his brothers and called out to the humans in a voice made of bells and light. “Behold,” he tolled softly.
“Behold,” he said again, in human tones, striding forward to place the young woman in her even younger husband's arms. So young, Gabriel despaired, too young for this life. Twins? How can they even survive the coming drought, and on this barren continent? Only by God's Will....
He pushed aside his thoughts and met the brown eyes of the completely ordinary man he was condemning to fatherhood. “I bring you great tidings,” he said, believing the words literally but not with the fervor he affected them with. “You have been blessed with twins. Twin girls.” The man's legs quivered but a steadying hand strengthened him in more ways than one. “It is a gift. A blessing. Take your girls and go, boy, and love them with all that is in your heart. Do not ever let them go.”
Raphael gave the squalling infants to the kindest and the most joyful of the villagers, the only two not trembling with the thought of filling two more bellies, and healed them all of the damage from smoke inhalation. Michael, his part complete, had already left. “Jabril?” Raphael called to the youngest.
Gabriel waited until the young father met his eyes again, waited longer until the despair had fled him and the man had gained all the truth he could from the archangel's eyes.
Then the angels fled and left hope behind.
~*~
Michael and Gabriel waited in the distance. They watched as the young family was helped, at first, and then shunned by the villagers. “I can only hope that you are correct, Michael, and that Father would have wanted this," Gabriel whispered.
“Father will provide us with all that we need.” Michael nodded slightly, conviction evident. Gabriel lowered his eyes.
They watched as the young family left and began anew, meeting an older couple on the road and joining them in their travels. The messenger's feet shifted restlessly, twitching his body toward the humans. He wanted to warn them. He refrained. Instead, he spoke again.
“We need a leader, Michael. Father has provided us with you.”
In a human, Michael's expression would almost be a frown. In an angel, it was censure. “Father also provided us with a duty elsewhere. A duty that Labbiel,” Raphael, “serves faithfully while you neglect it in favor of fancy.”
They watched as sickness claimed first the young mother and then the older woman, and then watched death unfolding its blossoms inside the elder man.
Gabriel bowed his head. It was true, after all. But he did have a duty here, as well, or else they would not be having this conversation. “Why did you not have Raphael return for them?”
For once, Michael turned from his duty to address his companion fully. “You are the Messenger, Jabril." Gabriel cringed at his own name. "Not I. But have you ever attempted to learn the lesson you are told to Speak? You profess our Father's teachings so well and yet all you ever speak to me of is doubt: In every thing you say, in every thing you do, there is an echo of what happened before. The past should not concern you any more than it concerns me. Before you ask me to lead you, why don't you find yourself something to believe in now.”
“I believed in you, Michael.” Gabriel's posture stiffened imperceptibly. He frowned at his own words, catching the mistake. “I still believe,” he said quietly, and then again, with fastidious conviction, “I will always believe in you.”
The promises of a child, Michael thought, but he nodded in agreement anyway. "Endeavor to show it in the future, Jabril." With that, Michael let his expression smooth to blankness once more, faint disapproval evaporating from his mien as he turned back to watch the humans flounder.
Both men lived, as did the younger daughter.
But the first true vessel died.