A Trickster's Daughter

Chapter 3: Whatchu Talkin' About Willis?

Gabriel tries to keep calm. Really he does. He tries to reason with himself that if Joshua knows about the thing currently growing inside him, and didn't outright try to stab him in the back, and wants to talk more, he probably won't alert the rest of the Host. Hopefully. On a normal day he'd probably be able to take on most of the Host, because, hello! Archangel! But in his current condition? That's pretty iffy.

Gabriel reaches the other exit from the Garden and has to take more time to calm his freaking nerves. He still has to stealth(ie: don't-mind-me-just-another-generic-angel-nothing-suspicious-here) a little ways towards the Archives. Once again none of the other angels took notice of him, and neither of the remaining archangels were anywhere to be seen.

Reaching the entrance to the Archives Gabriel pokes his head in through the large, heavy, ornate doors. Much like the Choir/Music room the room he entered was cavernous in its enormity with rows upon rows of shelves that reached high into the dizzying heights of the ceiling, only dwarfed by the sheer enormous spaceof this room. You could look down one row of bookshelves and not actually see where it ended. Gabriel could hear the faint echoing flutter of wings within the stacks, but just the one pair.

Gabriel's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Wasn't there supposed to be more than one angel looking after the entirety of the Archives? With how far the pair of wings was, from how faint the echo was it was safe to assume the angel was in some far corner of the Archives. It was unlikely that they would run into each other. Now on to the problem at hand, finding a book on sealing grace. He could only be thankful that there was a book directory. Unfortunately it was in the form of the largest book and thickest book ever created, with very small print; and pages that seemed too fragile and thin to be turned without ripping.

Gabriel makes his way over to the podium with the directory and about to turn the pages to where the book he has in mind should be listed when he remembers what Joshua had told him. Curiosity surges and he turns the pages to where books on nephilims might be. He carefully reads over the different book titles till he finds some on nephilims. There were a couple and Gabriel is unsure which one Joshua was referring to. Noting the titles and their locations he makes his way further into the stacks of the Archives.

In a far off corner of the Archives was where he found himself, seemingly in another forgotten corner of Heaven. Gabriel could tell by the conditions of the books that none of them had been touched for a very very long time. As he reaches one section of the book self he finds the first of the handful books on nephilims. Grabbing the first one he skims the book to find it is a brief history/origin story of nephilims.

"Nephilims were the offspring of the sons of Heaven and daughters of Adam, most forcefully sired by the Fallen angels that had followed the Morning Star in his rebellion against God..."

"...unfortunately for the time period, when a child was born out of wedlock, and the mother having always died from childbirth, leaving the child at the mercy of..."

"...most of these children grew up unloved, unwanted, and fell prey easily to the sins Lucifer unleashed upon mankind, the predominant one being hatred for those who wronged them..."

"...when they were fully grown and their grace fully developed and cultivated did the hatred for those that wronged them was acted upon. They turned against humans and unleashed horrible destruction or forced their way into power to subjugate..."

"...God saw His creations' distress and had ordered Michael to take Heaven's Army and destroy the tainted nephilim. They obeyed, and slaughtered blindly."

Gabriel paused after reading those last two sentences. A feeling of dread curled inside him. He remembered the order having related it to all of Heaven, but he hadn't participated in it. He remembered when the soldiers came back they were filled with pride for fulfilling their Father's request. He also remembered his Father hiding His sadness behind closed doors. At the time he thought it was because those nephilim had caused His human creations such pain and strife.