“So I guess you know why I came to see you then?” Azrael nodded, glancing every now and then at the objects on the shelves. There were thousands upon thousands of hour glasses, half a metre tall, all at different stages of sand fall, the noise of which made the place sound like it was filled with a thousand people whispering.

“I had guessed your scouts might of picked certain things up, you always pick the more observative Angels,”

“Yes, I had two come back this morning, telling me they had come across what seemed like a Demon attack, yet there were no traces of ice or Hell Fire. It was almost like the humans entire nervous system had burnt up but by something that left no trace. The humans did not survive,” Azrael acknowledged Raphael’s words, seemingly thinking about something else.

“Yes, I saw that one, very strange. Maybe I should talk to Metatron about this, she has some contacts in Hell that could be useful, tell us if Lucifer is planning anything,”

“I have a feeling it’s not Lucifer, he hasn’t seemed to have done anything in the past hundred years. Something happened to him, something that has apparently broken the King,” Azrael stopped, checking on a newly filled hourglass, the sand barely filling the bottom half of the timekeeper. Nodding to himself, he continued walking again.

“I heard about that too. Very strange, though no one found out what has caused such a lax in passion in our fallen brother. Perhaps he has simply come to terms with his fate. Though I very much doubt that, Lucifer was far too passionate and clever to just give up. Something must of happened to him, something bad. I just wish he would talk to us. We are still his family,” Raphael shrugged and pulled on the cuff of his white shirt in a nervous manner.

“I don’t blame him for not wanting to talk to us, we did throw him out of Heaven,” Azrael tutted, though didn’t really seem visibly annoyed

“We didn’t throw him out, Father and Michael did that. I argued against the decision. You were too young to remember,” Raphael chewed the inside of his lip slightly. He remembered Lucifer, brilliant, passionate Lucifer, who seemed to burn with Holy Fire like an eternal star. He had loved his older brother, though Azrael was right, he had been too young, too young to remember much about the Fall. He just remembered the hatred in Michael’s eyes, a look that had scared him. A look that was probably the spark for Raphael’s dislike of the other angel.

“Why did you argue against it though? He went against Father,” The corner of Azrael’s mouth twitched up slightly into a wry smile. He looked at Raphael and placed his hand on the younger angels shoulder.

“Once again, you were too young to remember, but Lucifer didn’t believe Father when he said humans were important. Father was right of course, but it was all a shock when Father announced these mammals, creatures we watched evolve from tiny creatures from the oceans, would eventually be very important to our planet. We were here first, I could understand Lucifer’s anger. We thought we might eventually have the planet itself to live on, but it turned out our job was to be the caretakers. I don’t mind, as it gave me my calling,” Azrael paused to sweep a hand around the limitless room filled with hour glasses, then looked back to Raphael, “But Lucifer, Lucifer wanted to fight for our rights to live on the planet too and not just be caretakers. He argued with Father for hours. All through Heaven there were murmurs, other angels agreeing with our Morning Star. Michael, who had always felt like he was in Lucifer’s shadow, took this as an opportunity to get into Father’s good books and went against Lucifer. Michael was the one that pushed Lucifer into the war, Lucifer never really wanted any Angel on Angel fighting, but when it came down to it, and Michael won, Father gave him permission to cast Lucifer out, along with his closest generals. Those who argued against the decision were given a choice, follow Lucifer to Hell or stay put and shut up. I had too many friends here, and in the end, I didn’t like the way Lucifer’s hatred had developed into something almost evil,” Azrael sighed and rubbed at his eyes, with his forefinger and thumb. Raphael felt sorry for the older angel, he could see this history was hard on him and wanted to reach out and comfort him but he held back, knowing it wasn’t the right thing to do. Before he got a chance to speak words of comfort a noise came from back towards the office area, a chiming. The sound of a door being flung open rung out through the halls and a sing song voice called out.