thecapitol | OPEN

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Who| Gabriel and OPEN
What| Waking up in a strange place
Where| The Tribute Tower
When| A few hours before Enjolras' Crowning
Warnings/Notes| N/A

N O P E.

Just one big huge N O P E.

He was supposed to be dead, right? This wasn't dead. Maybe it was angel dead. This whole thing sure was a lot like Purgatory, but... way fancier. There were free drinks here, after all.

Everything happened so quickly, though. One second, Lucifer was standing over him. The next, he wakes up on a metal cot, debunked of all awesome abilities, informed that he's in some sort of twisted Hell, etc etc. One thing was for sure. It was seriously uncool.

But apparently he showed up at a good time. There was no fight going on and, actually, there was a big party going on later that evening that he was invited to. The invitation was mandatory, but details... He really didn't like being told what to do, but he opted to hang with it for now.

On the inside, the anger was close to bursting forth and shanking someone, but he stayed calm and collected. He'd just... meet the locals or something. Learn a little more about the place.

Yeah. Sure.

Gabriel decided to tour the Tribute Tower before the big shebang...

The anger wanted to come back again when he decided to take a jacket along solely because of the chill in the air.

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"That's sad," Guy said softly. "That it sounds like your family doesn't really get along, I mean. Family is important. I know what it's like to go without one but it must be tough having them there but not seeing eye to eye."

That's rough, buddy.

"But I guess that means it's even better that you're not that way and can hang around us." He nodded his head to the side, his hair flopping with the movement. "That's the great thing about people. If you're ever cast adrift somehow, you can always find someone willing to toss out a hand you can grab onto. I found my family that way - my new family, anyway. Finding them doesn't mean I forgot my old one so it's more like I got to have two."

"I sorta did that, too," Gabriel said after a little thought. "Well, I mean, I left when the whole family feud thing broke out, but I only got accepted with these other guys after faking who I was to them. It sorta worked out.

"Spirits aren't really like people. They don't do stuff out of the goodness of their hearts." Most of them don't, anyway.

"Why not?" he asked. The question wasn't accusatory. Just curious. "Is it that whole ineffable thing?"

He gestured to his head with a little circular motion.

"Thinking differently?"

"Ineffable is a word they like to use," he shrugged. "Between you and me, it's mostly just ego and pride. Yeah, they got cool powers and can live a long time, but the rest of creation isn't just worms."

Most of them just aren't all that amazing, really. Even Michael was guilty of pride.

"They can talk to people, right? How come they can't figure out people are - you know alive, thinking, feeling, by just talking to them? Or is the problem that they don't try?"

He was still just curious. New was new. He liked to understand things even if they were the kind of beings that would be too prideful to try to understand him.

"They know. They just... don't really care."

There was sort of a story behind it, so Gabriel waved a hand and shifted in place to get more comfortable. "Okay look. So everything started out with just us around, yeah? Nothing but what you call spirits and all that jazz. Well, my Dad decides to create you guys and orders us to love all of you more than Him. It... sorta didn't go well, so there's still a lot of hostility on that front.

"Then you add in all the other spirits who have no affiliation with my Father and they suddenly have to put up with you guys, too, without any word or warning. See what I mean?"

At least Lucifer was honest and spoke up, which is one of the few things that could be said well about him. He really doesn't lie, unlike the rest of them. Gabriel was confused, Raphael was angry, and Michael... well, he tried, at least, but he was like the rest of them. They all basically said "yeah sure" and hoped for the best.

It's probably very wrong and blasphemous to think, but Gabriel feels as if he's the only one that managed to hold up his end of the bargain. At least, out of the archangels.

"I can see why they'd be bothered by that, actually," said Guy after a few seconds of thoughtfulness. "Well, maybe not why they'd be bothered on my world. My world's not that bad. My world just has people surviving and if they do bad things it's because they're scared they won't. But it's simple, it's about survival. Anything worse than that, the unspeakable things - they're rare. And those people don't live long."

That meant it was fairly peaceful. The worst of the violence happened among cavepeople and they were rarer and rarer these days. Stuck in their ways and dying as the world changed - or intermarrying to survive it. Even their violence was just habitual aggression and territorial. Fear of the unknown. Nothing protracted, nothing sadistic, nothing torturous. Aggression was almost more a form of communication than because they enjoyed causing harm.

"But there are also people like the ones here. Killing children, hurting us. If I got to meet this - the Creator spirit and he told me to love people like that instead of the one who created me and created all I love, I wouldn't agree with it, either - even if they're people like me."

And they were the same species. It had to be even harder to be something different and to try to love such flawed beings like that.

Edited 2014-01-04 02:36 (UTC)

Dude. Dude. He could write a book on that, okay.

"We agreed to it, because we had to. We loved Him," he shrugged a little. It was a pretty deep topic, to be honest, and not one that had ever really left. "Yeah, they're pretty screwed up in all sorts of ways, but that's half of what makes them amazing, too. Through the demises that they create, there's still others that push through and stand up for what few things are good in the world. Sorta makes humanity worth it.

"But yeah, no, you're thinking like my brother now. He got kicked out for voicing that opinion. To be honest, he could have used a little more finesse with his approach instead of just being a whiny crybaby about the whole issue, but there you have it. The guy was older than me and couldn't handle the new baby."

Sort of made sense. Every knew Lucifer was loved the most and it broke everyone's heart to cast him out like that. Still. Dude was a grade-A dick, no matter which way you looked at it.

"Yeah, well, I don't like these people and there's a part of me that wants to see this whole place -"

He was about to say 'burn' but he's trying to learn to be more discreet. General malcontent was a normal thing to feel, especially if he was playing at following all the rules like a good little Tribute. They couldn't possibly expect no one to voice their discontent in private places.

That was as far as he should take it, though.

"I don't like these people. But I don't think they should all be hurt for this. Some are just ignorant. They've all been told lies. We wouldn't have to smile and pretend we were happy about all this if there weren't at least some people that would be upset to find out we weren't."

If the illusion being broken wouldn't upset some of the citizens of the Capitol, they wouldn't need an illusion at all. They'd be fine with them voicing their pain and distress. If they had to pretend everything was okay, it meant there were citizens of the Capitol that would be upset if they weren't okay.

"So there's a difference between justifiable anger and blind hatred."

Justifiable anger and blind hatred. That was a really nice way of putting it.

Gabriel nodded for a moment, thinking back to his brothers again. It wasn't the first time and it wouldn't be the last. "A while back ago, there were these five human cities. Big places. Each of them big like this Capitol big. Well, they weren't really nice places and the whole thing about not being nice to each other was spreading out to other cities. Well, needless to say, they started really pissing my Dad off, so he told us to get rid of it.

"After decisions were made and judgments were passed, we burned four of those cities in one night, two of them famously so. There were some righteous few that we saved from the ashes, but you'd be surprised how many did not pass judgement. By the next morning, the cities were just names and rubble.

"... It wasn't the first or the last time we wiped a place out like that, but for some reason I always go back to that one. I think it's the principle of the thing. Fire cleanses, destroys and causes for rebirth in a new age... Like a reset button."

Gabriel stays quiet for a moment, thinking once again about how nice it would be if he only had his powers back. At least he was sympathetic for humanity. He would make it quick.

"... I'm sorry, what were you saying? I got off topic there."

Now Guy was leaning back just slightly, eyes wide. He didn't look too scared. Not entirely.

He still trusted Gabriel to not just smite him on sight, it seemed.

But that was still slightly intimidating knowing a little more about his nature.

It was more than a little intimidating knowing a little more about the Creator spirit's nature.

"What happened to the kids?" he asked, voice halting. "If they were big places, there were lots of people. If there were lots of people, there were kids. There were at least some kids not old enough to be horrible yet, young enough to learn how to be good people."

Guy's reaction was pretty comical, he had to admit. It was appropriate, though. At least he wasn't taking Gabriel's words lightly like most seemed to do around here.

That was a very good question, though, and a bit of an uncomfortable one. He took his time and thought about it for a minute before deciding on how to start with that one.

"When humans used to fight over land and power, they would kill whoever was in charge. Normal, of course. That's what you would expect, because if the king is still alive, then how is someone else going to officially take over? Well, in the real world, it's not just that one ruler. You have to kill his second in command, their lieutenants, their generals. Then there's everyone who wants revenge, so the wives, husbands, brothers, sisters, children... In order to start over clean, you have to get rid of all of it.

"... Like I said, we saved some righteous few ordained by our Father and... well... we were bound by His word through faith and all of that nonsense, but..." Gabriel takes a minute to sigh and think over this a little more. It really was hard to explain and put into words. "He always knew what was going to happen and He always loved human kind, even if some bad things had to happen for the rest of the world. I'm not saying His decisions were wrong, but... I didn't agree with a lot of them."

Not that it was a big secret or anything.

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