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I have to go collapse for the night, but I thought I'd at least get this off my harddrive. Not the continuation, as such. Set before Running Games, I think. Draws strongly from the ficlet series, particularly Lie and Indurate.
Title: Judgement
Rating: Light R (for concept, not graphic)
Fandoms: Supernatural, Norse Myth
Continuity: See above
Characters/Pairings: Hel, Gabriel, Loki, Fenrir, Jor, Lucifer, Michael, mention of Yahweh. Gabriel/Loki, poss hints of Michael/Lucifer
Summary: Hel promised, over Gabriel's slain soul, that someone would pay for what was done. Hel, like her father, keeps her promises.
Wordcount: 2708
Warnings/Notes: doesn't line up well with S6, maybe. And, um ... dark. Black as a very black thing. Loki's family isn't nice
Disclaimer: Not mine
Title: Judgement
Rating: Light R (for concept, not graphic)
Fandoms: Supernatural, Norse Myth
Continuity: See above
Characters/Pairings: Hel, Gabriel, Loki, Fenrir, Jor, Lucifer, Michael, mention of Yahweh. Gabriel/Loki, poss hints of Michael/Lucifer
Summary: Hel promised, over Gabriel's slain soul, that someone would pay for what was done. Hel, like her father, keeps her promises.
Wordcount: 2708
Warnings/Notes: doesn't line up well with S6, maybe. And, um ... dark. Black as a very black thing. Loki's family isn't nice
Disclaimer: Not mine
Judgement
Gabriel had been the most hesitant of them, in this. Her father's archangel, their archangel, but an archangel nonetheless, and the archangel who had loved his brothers the longest and most equally, who had died rather than hurt them. Gabriel was the most hesitant in this. But debts were owed, for a death other than Gabriel's own, and there not even he would gainsay her. There, he did not even want to. Lucifer was his brother, and Gabriel loved him. But Hel's father was Gabriel's god, and between them his choice was always sure.
For that alone, she would strike Morningstar down on his behalf. For that alone, she would avenge their archangel, his life weighed beside their father's and counted worthy. But too, she loved him. For Loki. For her brothers. For the way he did not flinch from the sight of her, did not shy from her touch. For Gabriel, who was of her family.
She had sworn to herself, over his slain soul, that she would avenge the insult. And Hel, like her father, did not break her oaths.
They stood five strong before the path to Hell, the way opened to them by Death and her domain. Though Niflheim was not Muspelheim, though her realm rejected the touch of fire, denied it as it had done since Ginnungagap and that first coupling of inimical force, still the walls beyond death were thin enough, and narrow enough, that she could walk where she chose under her Patron's gaze. And Yahweh, though it was in His power to forbid this, though she could sense the vastness of His sorrow as He waited in the spaces between, ever-watching ... Yahweh, First-Father, did not stay her hand.
It was time, and past time, for this to be done.
Still, Gabriel hesitated. Still, Gabriel flinched. As she stood beside her brothers, as they waited, patient as Death, as the Sea, as savagery bound, Gabriel stood on the edge of Hell, and hesitated. Until her father. Until Loki stood forward beside his mate, his love, his angel, and rested a small fist on Gabriel's arm. Their archangel turned to him, face curled around the desolation in familiar eyes, and met her father's ferocious gaze.
"I walked with you into Elysium, and we were slain," Loki murmured quietly, a darkness in the Halls of Death, and smiled a chill smile. "Walk with me into Hell, Gabriel, and we shall do the slaying. Walk with me, and we shall repay what was done. No more, no less. Walk with me, and we shall make it right."
And humour fled from Gabriel's pale, sly face, and pain, and fear, and what appeared in its place was the creature who had once walked softly among giants and whispered of their deaths, the creature who had stolen her father's flesh, the brother betrayed, the son abandoned, the Judge and Trickster and foe. What appeared was her father's eerie mirror, Loki's pain in Gabriel's face, and Hel felt her heart shudder at the sight of it, and harden against the price.
Gabriel was the first through the portal. Gabriel was the first into Hell. And her father walked beside him, as Gabriel had walked within him to Odin's killing field, and their hands were tight against each other.
Hel watched them go, a beat, a moment, and raised her eyes to her brothers. Saw the cold triumph in Jormungandr's soft, human eyes, her brother clothed in pale flesh to stand beside them. Saw the savage understanding in the curl of Fenrir's lips. Felt, in her own gaze, the chill, black glow of justice, of death. And between them, they three, monsters, children of Loki, they smiled. They smiled, and turned to follow their father and their archangel into First-father's Hell.
---
The cage waited for them. Once, her father would have flinched from it, from these shackles beneath the earth that held souls in agony. Once, her brother would have backed away, from the memory of a ribbon and a sword that had bound him. Once, they would have gazed at it in dismay. But this was not the punishments meted out against them simply for their natures. This was a cage that bound their father's murderer, their archangel's killer. This was the cage that bound Lucifer Morningstar, and there was naught but satisfaction as they looked upon it.
Hel had no care for virtue here, no concern for good or evil or the vagaries of First-father's war. She cared only for justice, and the redressing of wrongs, and the balance of the crime done against her family. In this, in death, she was perfectly content.
There were two souls within the cage. Two souls to wait for them. Two archangels. She did not know what had happened to the others, to those who had been vessels, as her father had been for Gabriel. She did not know, and did not care. But the second archangel, the second soul who waited ... Something flashed in her father's eyes as he looked upon Michael, something old in Loki's gaze, his hand tightening around Gabriel's, and Hel nodded silently to herself. Yes. Perhaps it was just as well there were two, and not one, to greet them.
Gabriel stood first. Stood forward between them as old family and new glared at each other, and the archangels slowly stood. Gabriel stood forward, and watched his brothers cleave together. Watched Lucifer stand and sneer, watch Michael, battered and pale and strangely light, strangely content, move to stand beside him. Watched mercy and love between two brothers who had been enemies, and remembered the blade that had been his only reward for wanting the same. Gabriel looked on his brothers, and his eyes froze cold and blank as the ice upon her Gates.
"Hey, bro," he murmured softly, false brightness, and smiled a slanted smile through the bars. "How's things?"
"Gabriel," Michael answered quietly, soft and confused, defensive, looking between them as Lucifer only sneered, and Gabriel smiled her father's smile. "I heard ... I thought you were dead?"
The smile flashed into a grin, rich and deadly, and Gabriel waved a hand lightly, dismissively, waving Death away with ease. Beside him, Loki curled his lips around the darkness of his smile, and wrapped an arm around his archangel's waist, curled close and rested his fist above the scar on Gabriel's chest. Hel leaned forward savagely, sensed her brothers prowl closer behind her. Sensed them join her in her private hunt.
"Oh, you know," Gabriel smiled, light and bright. "Easy come, easy go. Had a little help. Family. You might remember that, Mikey. Or not." His smile dimmed, anger flashing forward for a second, sorrow behind it, before the mask slipped back on. Before the Trickster smiled once more. "Probably not, all things considered ..."
"Did you have a reason for coming here, brother?" Lucifer interrupted, cold and sneering despite the bars that caged him in. Proud as the day he took her father's life, even still, and the arrogance in his eyes as he raked them over them, over her father, her brothers, her ... Hel felt her face freeze silently, felt the power and dignity of Death fall around her to hide the seething rage beneath. To hide the hate. "Because if you didn't, I'd prefer if you kept your vermin where they belonged. Hell has enough rats of its own, without yours tracking snow in around."
Fenrir lunged. Her brother snapped, savage and furious, and threw himself against the bars. Through the bars, the force of will and angelic construction fading before him, around him, and rebuilding firm behind him. To bind archangels, not wolves, not jotun, not gods. To hold their enemies, and never them, so long as Gabriel set no foot inside. Hel sneered for First-father's foresight, and watched her brother fling a monster across his prison.
Gabriel twitched, reaching out automatically, but her father stilled his hand, held him close, and he made no further move. Abandoned his brother to his fate. Michael, though, was not so calm. Michael was not so distant. And Michael, general and warrior, Heaven's protector, swung to Lucifer's defense, and raised his Grace against her brother.
That was not allowed.
She flowed forward, moved silent as shadows past her father and her family, and gestured for Jor to join her, to precede her. Gestured for this, her strongest brother, to show Gabriel's lost family the error of their ways. Behind them, as his three children entered the cage, Loki watched with glittering eyes.
Fenrir snarled between the archangels, Lucifer before him, already bleeding from his teeth, Michael at his back and his flank, snarling with rage and weaponless, though fighting nonetheless. Hel caught his arm, caught hold of heat and fire and grace and pain, and pulled him back through his confusion. He lashed out at her, struck a glancing blow across her cheek with all the strength of archangels, and then Jormungandr was there. Then her brother caught him, caught Michael between his arms and cast him to the ground, put hands upon his shoulders and pressed him into the rock. Michael struggled, bucked, but Michael rested now in Hell, and was beyond the aid of his Father's might. And her brother was not the fatal youth he appeared, but the Serpent of Midgard, whom Thor himself could barely stir, and for the bruise upon her cheek, he showed no mercy. No remorse. Michael was pinned, and stayed pinned.
And Lucifer too, as she turned. The Morningstar, exhausted and faded from his long Ragnarok, cast back in defeat, proud and defiant yet but no longer strong. Too tired now to be strong. Against the fiercest of her brothers, he had fared no better than his own. Against Fenrir, he had fallen even as Michael had, pinned to the rock by savage claws, staring up at her in brutal, impotent rage. Lucifer, who had slain those dear to her.
"Hey, Lucy?" a soft voice called across them, gentle and dark from beyond the cage. She looked back across her shoulder, followed the Morningstar's bitter, hateful gaze, and saw Gabriel standing at the bars. Close enough to almost touch them, to almost be lost behind them, her father at his side. Gabriel, with pity in his eyes, and no mercy to be found.
"What?" Lucifer snarled, proud, so proud, the depths of his hate a fascination, the savagery of him a brutal mirror of the wolf ranged above him. Fenrir, looking down at him, grinned in black amazement.
"You know how Dad's mellowed a little lately, on that whole 'eye for an eye' thing?" Gabriel said softly, into his brother's hate. "How most of them can't do to you what you do to them, anymore?" He shook his head, a bright flare of pain as his hand reached for his chest, and then there was only the smooth, sneering smile of the Trickster, as he curled into her father. "Well ... Some of us, we're not so good at that. Some of us ... are perfectly happy to be old fashioned about things."
And he turned his head, looked at her with pale and shattered eyes, and nodded. And Hel, Goddess of the Dead, Maiden King and Vassal to the Last Power ... she nodded back, cold and calm, and turned to the finishing of her oath. Turned to the price and promise of her duty.
Lucifer glared at her as she knelt beside his head. Lucifer snarled and spat, a bright king of bright power, a pulse of light beneath her hands. He froze her, froze them, burning not hot but cold, cold as the depths of her realm, of Niflheim, but he was not of her kind. His cold was not of that source. His cold was the cold as he drew all heat into himself, the cold as he desperately drew what warmth he could to feed the pillar of fire inside himself, the hate and passion and glory and grace. Lucifer Morningstar burned, with everything he had, and left those around him in the cold.
But she was Hel. She was Loki's daughter, and the ruler of the Halls of Niflheim, and the servant of the oldest cold, the first cold. What rested inside her was not a burning flame, but a seeking, hungry void, a leeching power, a quiet pool. What rested in her, white as hoarfrost, black as the shadows, was the final power, and it was with that that she touched him. It was with that that she reached down, and pressed cold lips to his snarl, and touch the pillar of fire inside him. Touched it, held it, and slow as dying, smothered it as he screamed, as Michael roared and fought against her brother behind them. Smothered it, leeched his life into her quiet, laid her cold atop it, and drove the Morningstar into himself. Shattered his heart as he had shattered Gabriel's, slew him as he had slain her father.
When she pulled back, when she let him go, he stared up at her, eyes dull and shuttered, all hate, all passion locked away beneath the film of death, and though he continued, though his thread remained uncut, though his soul still pulsed ... never more would he be Lucifer. Never more would he be the Morning Star. Never more would he threaten what was hers.
"Be still," she told him softly, told the remnant beneath her hands. "Feel no more fear. No more pain. No more rage. Be quiet. Ever more. Be quiet, Lucifer." Her hands touched his forehead, his cheeks, achingly gentle. Remorseless pity, as she cradled him. "Rest. I have you now."
"Hel ..." Gabriel breathed, voice hollow and so deathly soft, his eyes blank and broken as he looked at her. His love in his eyes, for his brother, for her. His grief, an endless sorrow, a wild pain beneath his chest. "Hel," the archangel whispered, and her heart staggered once again. Her heart flinched. But he did not look away, not from the monster she could be, not from the justice she commanded. Gabriel, the broken judge, met her eyes, and for all the sorrow of his gaze, there was not one scrap of mercy, or of fear.
"What have you done?" Michael whispered, still in Jormungandr's arms, face white and sheer, eyes black pools of shock and loss. "What have you ... what have you ... I just got him back!" He struggled, rose to his knees, tears streaming as he screamed at her. "What have you done!?"
"Paid his debt," her father answered coldly, lifting his head from Gabriel's shoulder, his lip curling in contempt as he looked at the brother who had let all his family fall, as he looked at Michael, who had allowed Gabriel to die. "Blood for blood, life for life. The Morningstar killed our family, and more besides." He sneered, blackly vicious. "You should count yourself lucky we got to him first. Kali would not have been so ... gentle."
"Loki," Gabriel murmured softly, tugged her father close, tugged the bitterness in Loki's expression around and buried it against his chest, against his heart. "Hush," he whispered gently, and her father, stiff and savage, quieted against him. Gabriel's expression shook, as he looked down at him, looked down at the god who had almost been lost for his mistakes, and when he looked back up, looked once more at her, there was no more doubt in his eyes. No more hesitance. Love, and grief, and endless pain, but no more doubt. As he reached out a hand, as he called them to him once more, his children, Loki's children, his family as it was hers, there was only the sad determination of the broken judge.
"Brother," he said softly, the four of them ranged behind him as he looked at what had once been his family, as he looked at Lucifer's quiet form, and Michael's savage, desperate features. As he looked at the hollow of what had been the brightest of brothers, and the rage of what had been the most loving. "Brother," he said, echoing a Message he had given aeons before, echoing the first moment of his grief, and the first shadow of their loss, the first fracture of their family.
"Brother," Gabriel said, and she echoed him, "You are cast down."
Gabriel had been the most hesitant of them, in this. Her father's archangel, their archangel, but an archangel nonetheless, and the archangel who had loved his brothers the longest and most equally, who had died rather than hurt them. Gabriel was the most hesitant in this. But debts were owed, for a death other than Gabriel's own, and there not even he would gainsay her. There, he did not even want to. Lucifer was his brother, and Gabriel loved him. But Hel's father was Gabriel's god, and between them his choice was always sure.
For that alone, she would strike Morningstar down on his behalf. For that alone, she would avenge their archangel, his life weighed beside their father's and counted worthy. But too, she loved him. For Loki. For her brothers. For the way he did not flinch from the sight of her, did not shy from her touch. For Gabriel, who was of her family.
She had sworn to herself, over his slain soul, that she would avenge the insult. And Hel, like her father, did not break her oaths.
They stood five strong before the path to Hell, the way opened to them by Death and her domain. Though Niflheim was not Muspelheim, though her realm rejected the touch of fire, denied it as it had done since Ginnungagap and that first coupling of inimical force, still the walls beyond death were thin enough, and narrow enough, that she could walk where she chose under her Patron's gaze. And Yahweh, though it was in His power to forbid this, though she could sense the vastness of His sorrow as He waited in the spaces between, ever-watching ... Yahweh, First-Father, did not stay her hand.
It was time, and past time, for this to be done.
Still, Gabriel hesitated. Still, Gabriel flinched. As she stood beside her brothers, as they waited, patient as Death, as the Sea, as savagery bound, Gabriel stood on the edge of Hell, and hesitated. Until her father. Until Loki stood forward beside his mate, his love, his angel, and rested a small fist on Gabriel's arm. Their archangel turned to him, face curled around the desolation in familiar eyes, and met her father's ferocious gaze.
"I walked with you into Elysium, and we were slain," Loki murmured quietly, a darkness in the Halls of Death, and smiled a chill smile. "Walk with me into Hell, Gabriel, and we shall do the slaying. Walk with me, and we shall repay what was done. No more, no less. Walk with me, and we shall make it right."
And humour fled from Gabriel's pale, sly face, and pain, and fear, and what appeared in its place was the creature who had once walked softly among giants and whispered of their deaths, the creature who had stolen her father's flesh, the brother betrayed, the son abandoned, the Judge and Trickster and foe. What appeared was her father's eerie mirror, Loki's pain in Gabriel's face, and Hel felt her heart shudder at the sight of it, and harden against the price.
Gabriel was the first through the portal. Gabriel was the first into Hell. And her father walked beside him, as Gabriel had walked within him to Odin's killing field, and their hands were tight against each other.
Hel watched them go, a beat, a moment, and raised her eyes to her brothers. Saw the cold triumph in Jormungandr's soft, human eyes, her brother clothed in pale flesh to stand beside them. Saw the savage understanding in the curl of Fenrir's lips. Felt, in her own gaze, the chill, black glow of justice, of death. And between them, they three, monsters, children of Loki, they smiled. They smiled, and turned to follow their father and their archangel into First-father's Hell.
---
The cage waited for them. Once, her father would have flinched from it, from these shackles beneath the earth that held souls in agony. Once, her brother would have backed away, from the memory of a ribbon and a sword that had bound him. Once, they would have gazed at it in dismay. But this was not the punishments meted out against them simply for their natures. This was a cage that bound their father's murderer, their archangel's killer. This was the cage that bound Lucifer Morningstar, and there was naught but satisfaction as they looked upon it.
Hel had no care for virtue here, no concern for good or evil or the vagaries of First-father's war. She cared only for justice, and the redressing of wrongs, and the balance of the crime done against her family. In this, in death, she was perfectly content.
There were two souls within the cage. Two souls to wait for them. Two archangels. She did not know what had happened to the others, to those who had been vessels, as her father had been for Gabriel. She did not know, and did not care. But the second archangel, the second soul who waited ... Something flashed in her father's eyes as he looked upon Michael, something old in Loki's gaze, his hand tightening around Gabriel's, and Hel nodded silently to herself. Yes. Perhaps it was just as well there were two, and not one, to greet them.
Gabriel stood first. Stood forward between them as old family and new glared at each other, and the archangels slowly stood. Gabriel stood forward, and watched his brothers cleave together. Watched Lucifer stand and sneer, watch Michael, battered and pale and strangely light, strangely content, move to stand beside him. Watched mercy and love between two brothers who had been enemies, and remembered the blade that had been his only reward for wanting the same. Gabriel looked on his brothers, and his eyes froze cold and blank as the ice upon her Gates.
"Hey, bro," he murmured softly, false brightness, and smiled a slanted smile through the bars. "How's things?"
"Gabriel," Michael answered quietly, soft and confused, defensive, looking between them as Lucifer only sneered, and Gabriel smiled her father's smile. "I heard ... I thought you were dead?"
The smile flashed into a grin, rich and deadly, and Gabriel waved a hand lightly, dismissively, waving Death away with ease. Beside him, Loki curled his lips around the darkness of his smile, and wrapped an arm around his archangel's waist, curled close and rested his fist above the scar on Gabriel's chest. Hel leaned forward savagely, sensed her brothers prowl closer behind her. Sensed them join her in her private hunt.
"Oh, you know," Gabriel smiled, light and bright. "Easy come, easy go. Had a little help. Family. You might remember that, Mikey. Or not." His smile dimmed, anger flashing forward for a second, sorrow behind it, before the mask slipped back on. Before the Trickster smiled once more. "Probably not, all things considered ..."
"Did you have a reason for coming here, brother?" Lucifer interrupted, cold and sneering despite the bars that caged him in. Proud as the day he took her father's life, even still, and the arrogance in his eyes as he raked them over them, over her father, her brothers, her ... Hel felt her face freeze silently, felt the power and dignity of Death fall around her to hide the seething rage beneath. To hide the hate. "Because if you didn't, I'd prefer if you kept your vermin where they belonged. Hell has enough rats of its own, without yours tracking snow in around."
Fenrir lunged. Her brother snapped, savage and furious, and threw himself against the bars. Through the bars, the force of will and angelic construction fading before him, around him, and rebuilding firm behind him. To bind archangels, not wolves, not jotun, not gods. To hold their enemies, and never them, so long as Gabriel set no foot inside. Hel sneered for First-father's foresight, and watched her brother fling a monster across his prison.
Gabriel twitched, reaching out automatically, but her father stilled his hand, held him close, and he made no further move. Abandoned his brother to his fate. Michael, though, was not so calm. Michael was not so distant. And Michael, general and warrior, Heaven's protector, swung to Lucifer's defense, and raised his Grace against her brother.
That was not allowed.
She flowed forward, moved silent as shadows past her father and her family, and gestured for Jor to join her, to precede her. Gestured for this, her strongest brother, to show Gabriel's lost family the error of their ways. Behind them, as his three children entered the cage, Loki watched with glittering eyes.
Fenrir snarled between the archangels, Lucifer before him, already bleeding from his teeth, Michael at his back and his flank, snarling with rage and weaponless, though fighting nonetheless. Hel caught his arm, caught hold of heat and fire and grace and pain, and pulled him back through his confusion. He lashed out at her, struck a glancing blow across her cheek with all the strength of archangels, and then Jormungandr was there. Then her brother caught him, caught Michael between his arms and cast him to the ground, put hands upon his shoulders and pressed him into the rock. Michael struggled, bucked, but Michael rested now in Hell, and was beyond the aid of his Father's might. And her brother was not the fatal youth he appeared, but the Serpent of Midgard, whom Thor himself could barely stir, and for the bruise upon her cheek, he showed no mercy. No remorse. Michael was pinned, and stayed pinned.
And Lucifer too, as she turned. The Morningstar, exhausted and faded from his long Ragnarok, cast back in defeat, proud and defiant yet but no longer strong. Too tired now to be strong. Against the fiercest of her brothers, he had fared no better than his own. Against Fenrir, he had fallen even as Michael had, pinned to the rock by savage claws, staring up at her in brutal, impotent rage. Lucifer, who had slain those dear to her.
"Hey, Lucy?" a soft voice called across them, gentle and dark from beyond the cage. She looked back across her shoulder, followed the Morningstar's bitter, hateful gaze, and saw Gabriel standing at the bars. Close enough to almost touch them, to almost be lost behind them, her father at his side. Gabriel, with pity in his eyes, and no mercy to be found.
"What?" Lucifer snarled, proud, so proud, the depths of his hate a fascination, the savagery of him a brutal mirror of the wolf ranged above him. Fenrir, looking down at him, grinned in black amazement.
"You know how Dad's mellowed a little lately, on that whole 'eye for an eye' thing?" Gabriel said softly, into his brother's hate. "How most of them can't do to you what you do to them, anymore?" He shook his head, a bright flare of pain as his hand reached for his chest, and then there was only the smooth, sneering smile of the Trickster, as he curled into her father. "Well ... Some of us, we're not so good at that. Some of us ... are perfectly happy to be old fashioned about things."
And he turned his head, looked at her with pale and shattered eyes, and nodded. And Hel, Goddess of the Dead, Maiden King and Vassal to the Last Power ... she nodded back, cold and calm, and turned to the finishing of her oath. Turned to the price and promise of her duty.
Lucifer glared at her as she knelt beside his head. Lucifer snarled and spat, a bright king of bright power, a pulse of light beneath her hands. He froze her, froze them, burning not hot but cold, cold as the depths of her realm, of Niflheim, but he was not of her kind. His cold was not of that source. His cold was the cold as he drew all heat into himself, the cold as he desperately drew what warmth he could to feed the pillar of fire inside himself, the hate and passion and glory and grace. Lucifer Morningstar burned, with everything he had, and left those around him in the cold.
But she was Hel. She was Loki's daughter, and the ruler of the Halls of Niflheim, and the servant of the oldest cold, the first cold. What rested inside her was not a burning flame, but a seeking, hungry void, a leeching power, a quiet pool. What rested in her, white as hoarfrost, black as the shadows, was the final power, and it was with that that she touched him. It was with that that she reached down, and pressed cold lips to his snarl, and touch the pillar of fire inside him. Touched it, held it, and slow as dying, smothered it as he screamed, as Michael roared and fought against her brother behind them. Smothered it, leeched his life into her quiet, laid her cold atop it, and drove the Morningstar into himself. Shattered his heart as he had shattered Gabriel's, slew him as he had slain her father.
When she pulled back, when she let him go, he stared up at her, eyes dull and shuttered, all hate, all passion locked away beneath the film of death, and though he continued, though his thread remained uncut, though his soul still pulsed ... never more would he be Lucifer. Never more would he be the Morning Star. Never more would he threaten what was hers.
"Be still," she told him softly, told the remnant beneath her hands. "Feel no more fear. No more pain. No more rage. Be quiet. Ever more. Be quiet, Lucifer." Her hands touched his forehead, his cheeks, achingly gentle. Remorseless pity, as she cradled him. "Rest. I have you now."
"Hel ..." Gabriel breathed, voice hollow and so deathly soft, his eyes blank and broken as he looked at her. His love in his eyes, for his brother, for her. His grief, an endless sorrow, a wild pain beneath his chest. "Hel," the archangel whispered, and her heart staggered once again. Her heart flinched. But he did not look away, not from the monster she could be, not from the justice she commanded. Gabriel, the broken judge, met her eyes, and for all the sorrow of his gaze, there was not one scrap of mercy, or of fear.
"What have you done?" Michael whispered, still in Jormungandr's arms, face white and sheer, eyes black pools of shock and loss. "What have you ... what have you ... I just got him back!" He struggled, rose to his knees, tears streaming as he screamed at her. "What have you done!?"
"Paid his debt," her father answered coldly, lifting his head from Gabriel's shoulder, his lip curling in contempt as he looked at the brother who had let all his family fall, as he looked at Michael, who had allowed Gabriel to die. "Blood for blood, life for life. The Morningstar killed our family, and more besides." He sneered, blackly vicious. "You should count yourself lucky we got to him first. Kali would not have been so ... gentle."
"Loki," Gabriel murmured softly, tugged her father close, tugged the bitterness in Loki's expression around and buried it against his chest, against his heart. "Hush," he whispered gently, and her father, stiff and savage, quieted against him. Gabriel's expression shook, as he looked down at him, looked down at the god who had almost been lost for his mistakes, and when he looked back up, looked once more at her, there was no more doubt in his eyes. No more hesitance. Love, and grief, and endless pain, but no more doubt. As he reached out a hand, as he called them to him once more, his children, Loki's children, his family as it was hers, there was only the sad determination of the broken judge.
"Brother," he said softly, the four of them ranged behind him as he looked at what had once been his family, as he looked at Lucifer's quiet form, and Michael's savage, desperate features. As he looked at the hollow of what had been the brightest of brothers, and the rage of what had been the most loving. "Brother," he said, echoing a Message he had given aeons before, echoing the first moment of his grief, and the first shadow of their loss, the first fracture of their family.
"Brother," Gabriel said, and she echoed him, "You are cast down."
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