Gabriel was laughing as he drew a card and flipped it around to show Skul the nine. "My luck's running wild with the big fish this morning. That's this round to me." Of course he was going to take the opportunity to tease Skul's objection to the naming theme. Of course. Gabe started picking up the cards to shuffle back into the deck and turned to China.
"It wasn't, no," he said, and although the smile and humour written all over his face didn't show it, he was choosing his words carefully. "Skulduggery wasn't attached to an Isthmus Anchor the way the Faceless Ones were, so he got a bit lost after going through the portal. We met in another dimension."
Let China think that it was because Gabriel had always had the power to travel other dimensions. Well, he had, technically speaking. He just hadn't known.
Skul and Valkyrie's continuing argument attracted his attention again and he grinned, throwing in a few teases of his own. China's working her magic slipped completely under his radar. He wasn't used to having to be on guard around humans, and he had a headache, and this place was built from China's own wards. Amidst all that, he missed the signs of sigils activating.
"We first met when I taught him to make rosaries," the Archangel continued, his hands not exactly a blur because he didn't have the dexterity right now, but still with the motions of a master. He cut the deck, shuffled again, and then began dealing. "Of course, back then I wasn't letting on that--"
A fission ran through his being and the Archangel stopped short, his face going so abruptly blank that it was frightening. Very quietly he put down the cards and turned to look at China, and as their eyes met she stepped into his soul.
She hoped she'd come out somewhere useful. There was nowhere useful. Not for her. He could see in her how she'd been thinking of this, how she'd visualised it, and if she weren't already entrenched he might have laughed at how ignorant it was. China was viewing him as a sponge she could manipulate, one containing nothing more than the waters of its limitations.
She would have done better to imagine herself as trying to absorb an Olympic-sized swimming pool with it. And China herself was the sponge.
The first thing she'd feel was the surface tension of that pool--his pain. The dull throb in his head, the ache in his body which curtailed his movement, the sharp rivulets that ran down his wings whenever he tried to move them. A dash, a surprise, for someone who wasn't expecting to leap so fully into the deep end. A cold shock, followed by the sudden pressure and weight of water, the inability to breathe, the bottom too deep to touch.
Aeons upon aeons were under that surface. A timelessness, a knowledge that he would exist for always or until his Master bade him not. The whisper of billions upon billions of voices, of humanity's prayers. A connection to the lifestream, to every atom and particle around him--separate for now, but so potentially present if he only wished to be part of them. Not just on Earth; that connection was depthless, extending far into the outer reaches of spaces, to an edge of the cosmos humanity couldn't conceive.
And there was more. Behind Gabriel, like a swimming-pool built on a rocky shore and cordoned from the sea by nothing more than a wave-washed wall, there was a greater presence. If China was a sponge to the unreachable depths of Gabriel's pool, Gabriel was only a pool with a barely-discernible bottom to the crushing pressures of an ocean.
For only a moment, Gabe let her remain. An infinitesimal moment, a fraction of a second, which to China would feel like a lifetime.
no subject
"It wasn't, no," he said, and although the smile and humour written all over his face didn't show it, he was choosing his words carefully. "Skulduggery wasn't attached to an Isthmus Anchor the way the Faceless Ones were, so he got a bit lost after going through the portal. We met in another dimension."
Let China think that it was because Gabriel had always had the power to travel other dimensions. Well, he had, technically speaking. He just hadn't known.
Skul and Valkyrie's continuing argument attracted his attention again and he grinned, throwing in a few teases of his own. China's working her magic slipped completely under his radar. He wasn't used to having to be on guard around humans, and he had a headache, and this place was built from China's own wards. Amidst all that, he missed the signs of sigils activating.
"We first met when I taught him to make rosaries," the Archangel continued, his hands not exactly a blur because he didn't have the dexterity right now, but still with the motions of a master. He cut the deck, shuffled again, and then began dealing. "Of course, back then I wasn't letting on that--"
A fission ran through his being and the Archangel stopped short, his face going so abruptly blank that it was frightening. Very quietly he put down the cards and turned to look at China, and as their eyes met she stepped into his soul.
She hoped she'd come out somewhere useful. There was nowhere useful. Not for her. He could see in her how she'd been thinking of this, how she'd visualised it, and if she weren't already entrenched he might have laughed at how ignorant it was. China was viewing him as a sponge she could manipulate, one containing nothing more than the waters of its limitations.
She would have done better to imagine herself as trying to absorb an Olympic-sized swimming pool with it. And China herself was the sponge.
The first thing she'd feel was the surface tension of that pool--his pain. The dull throb in his head, the ache in his body which curtailed his movement, the sharp rivulets that ran down his wings whenever he tried to move them. A dash, a surprise, for someone who wasn't expecting to leap so fully into the deep end. A cold shock, followed by the sudden pressure and weight of water, the inability to breathe, the bottom too deep to touch.
Aeons upon aeons were under that surface. A timelessness, a knowledge that he would exist for always or until his Master bade him not. The whisper of billions upon billions of voices, of humanity's prayers. A connection to the lifestream, to every atom and particle around him--separate for now, but so potentially present if he only wished to be part of them. Not just on Earth; that connection was depthless, extending far into the outer reaches of spaces, to an edge of the cosmos humanity couldn't conceive.
And there was more. Behind Gabriel, like a swimming-pool built on a rocky shore and cordoned from the sea by nothing more than a wave-washed wall, there was a greater presence. If China was a sponge to the unreachable depths of Gabriel's pool, Gabriel was only a pool with a barely-discernible bottom to the crushing pressures of an ocean.
For only a moment, Gabe let her remain. An infinitesimal moment, a fraction of a second, which to China would feel like a lifetime.
Then, quite unceremoniously, he tossed her out.