"I beg your pardon."
Up on the lawn outside of Heaven's castle, Nigel looked across the linen-draped table and nodded at a Royal Doulton plate. "I should like the scones, please."
"That is not what you said." Colin sat back in his dainty chair, his black eyebrows down over eyes that were full of curses.
Their two dining companions - well, three if you counted the Irish wolfhound - stopped in midsip ... or sniff, in Tarquin's case. Nonetheless, Bertie delivered the plate in question, his fair face full of compassion, as was his way.
Suffice it to say, however, that no matter how glorious the pastry on the bone china was, tea was ruined.
"Nigel, what the hell have you done."
"I shall thank you to not address me in that tone, Colin."
"And you can pop off with the etiquette. What do you mean, you've been to see the Creator."
Nigel broke open his fresh currant scone, and breathed in the waft of sweet steam that rose up. Indeed, they did not require sustenance, but to deprive oneself of this pleasure on a technicality was absurd.
Byron pushed his rose-colored glasses up higher on his nose. "I am sure he had his reasons, did you not."
Unlike Colin, who was a hardheaded bull, the other two would merely wait for whatever Nigel chose to impart. Bertie, with his soft heart, and Byron, with his eternal optimism, were more delicate creatures than that other one, capable of demonstrating the virtues of restraint and patience in abundance.
Colin, however, would perhaps inquire but once more. And then he would start pounding the tabletop.
So naturally, Nigel took his time with his butter knife.
And naturally, one could feel the heat from the other side of the table sure as flames atop hardwood.
"Nigel. What has transpired."
He replied only after his first bite had been chewed thoroughly. "I believe we have discussed the other side's predilection for ... how shall one put it ... the creative readjustment of reality - "
"She's a cheater and a whoring liar," Colin spat.
"Must you be so blunt." Nigel put the scone down, his appetite gone. "And may I remind you again that we, too, have broken the rules? Our hands are likewise unclean, old friend, and - "
" 'Tis but a patch on what she hath wrought - "
"You shall desist the interruptions. Now."
The pair of them glared at each other in unbroken, unwavering silence ... to the point where Nigel knew well he would be sleeping alone this night - and that was more than fine with him.
"Are we finished arguing?" Nigel patronized.
Colin opened his mouth, then shut it with a clap.
"Good. Now, as I was saying, the Creator was aware of the transgressions - on both sides." Nigel tested the temperature of his Earl Grey tea, expecting, and finding, that it was perfect. "But I acknowledged our derelions and the fact that it is hardly fair of us to demand things of Devina that we are not prepared to honor as well."
"Her nature is as it always has been," Bertie said quietly. "She cannot help who and what she is. Surely the Maker knew this from the start."
"I think so, yes." Nigel took more of his tea. "There was no surprise at any of it. In fact, I received the impression ..." Nigel chose his words carefully, as one should never speak for the Creator of all things good and evil. "I almost believe it was all expected. Her violations. Our attempt to provide aid to Jim in the form of Adrian and Edward. All of it."
"And the outcome of your query is?" Colin barked.
"Unknown as of this moment. The Maker did impart news of the most unfortunate kind, however. As I was leaving, I was informed that there has been a fracture of goodwill among Jim and Edward and Adrian."
"Oh, they mustn't fight," Bertie murmured.
"Since when?" Colin demanded.
Nigel placed his china cup precisely in its saucer. "It just happened, evidently."
Colin's brows tightened once again which meant he was thinking. Never a good thing. "What transpired?"
"The Creator did not say, and it is not my place to inquire." And how he wished he could impart the same restraint to the archangel's heart. "But it is clear Jim is on his own."
Which was a disastrous course. The savior was strong, but had no experience in the ways of this ancient war. He was now a sitting pheasant to that demon's proverbial bird-shot.
"But I do believe the Maker is going to take action," Nigel concluded.
"Against us?" Colin asked.
"We shall wait and see."
There was nothing to promise his colleagues, no faith to install in them by virtue of conversation. Once one presented something to the Maker for consideration, the matter was out of one's hands, and there was no way of predicting how the dominoes lined up would fall.
"I am going down there," Colin announced. "Heron can't be alone."
Why can everyone not adhere to the rules, Nigel thought. Just once.
As he picked up his teacup and held it with his pinkie extended, he realized anew that if there was one thing that could be depended upon, it was Colin's passion: For all that he was the intellectual among them, the truth was, by nature he was fiery, his cognitional control naught but a hard-won overlay covering his true constitution.
"Nothing to say, Nigel?" Colin charged bitterly. "No, 'oh, no, you may nots'?"
Nigel focused on the castle that loomed in the near distance, and when he finally spoke, it was in a low voice that, coming from another, he would have termed as saddened. "We have an opportunity to seize this game. I would ask that you consider the action I just took - it would be foolish to follow it up - immediately - with precisely the kind of violation I presented for the Creator's redress."
"Conservatism is the cousin of cowardice. I say, if the Creator has known all along of Devina's infringements, then action could have been taken against her back in round one. That nothing has been done speaks to a condoning stance, and we should therefore be proactive in this instance." The archangel tossed his napkin onto the table. "You are not so powerful as you think, Nigel. Or do you believe yourself so important that only after you approached a response would be marshaled?"
In the silence that followed, Nigel found himself exhausted with all things and all bodies: Jim had brokered a deal with Devina. Colin was on the verge of going rogue. The demon was running amok.
The last round had been lost, and there was little hope for this current one.
"If you all will kindly excuse me." With care, he pressed his linen napkin to his mouth and folded it with precision. Laying it neatly beside his plate, he rose to his feet. "I believe I have done enough entreating with logic and you shall do what you will. I can only ask you to be cognizant of the larger implications." He shook his head at his old friend. "I expected to battle with the demon. I never considered that I would end up locking horns with the savior or the likes of you at the same time."
He did not wait for a response, but vaporized himself back to his quarters.
Standing in privacy amid the colorful satin and silk, he felt as though he had been cast into the cold galaxy and was floating through space, going end over end ... alone and directionless.
There was a good chance they were going to lose the war. With things fracturing down upon the earth as well as up here in the heavens, there was nothing to offer in contest to Devina's scheming, and she was exactly the sort to expose and exploit this weakened state.
When he had first entered the arena with the demon, he had been so confident of victory. Now all he could see was loss.
They were going to lose. Especially given that he should have stood up to Colin just now, but instead had caved in out of tiredness.
For a long while, he stood in the place where his feet had stopped, his lungs struggling for breath he did not need, and yet seemed panicked at the prospect of not having. Eventually, he walked over to his ornate mirror and sat before the reflection of himself. With a soft curse, he let his outer image smoke off until all that was left of him was all that he truly was: an iridescent, rainbowed light source that glowed with every color of creation.
He had lied to himself, he realized.
From the start, he had believed that this war was about saving the souls in the castle - and though that was a driver, there was another truth hidden behind his heroic mantle and purpose.
This was his home. These quarters here, the time he spent with Colin, his meals and sport with Bertie and Byron. Even Tarquin's kind brown eyes and lanky limbs were a sight to nurture and sustain him.
This was his life and he had love for it all, down to the wet footprints Colin left on the rugs after a bath, and the wine they had together when all was silent and still, and the way even the imagined skin they both assumed felt against the other's.
He was an immortal who in this moment knew the mortal terror of loss.
How did the humans do it? Going through their so-short lives, not knowing for certain when the people they loved would be taken from them ... or whether there was in fact a place for anyone on the other side.
Perhaps that was the point, however.
Indeed, he had passed too much time to calendar blhely going through his "days" and "nights" taking for granted that all was as he would wish it to be forever. It was only now, when he was confronted with a vast, black death, that he realized how beautiful the bright colors of this existence were.
The Maker was a genius, he thought. Infinity resulted in insolence. But transience was the way one treasured what one had been given.
"Nigel."
It was not Colin but Byron who stuck his head in between the flaps of purple and red. The archangel was tentative in his interruption, and it was a surprise that he had not announced himself.
"I have been calling for you," he said.
Ah, that explained it.
Nigel reassumed his form, recasting upon himself flesh and bone and re-covering the body with the white afternoon suit he had donned for tea.
As he met the eyes behind those rose-colored glasses, in truth, he would have preferred an audience with Colin's anger. Or even Devina's duplicity, for that matter. The last thing he was interested in was Byron's eternal faith and optimism.
"My dear boy," Nigel said, "perhaps we could do this another time?"
"I shan't be long. I've just come to tell you that Colin has decided not to go down."
Nigel rose and went to the chaise lounge by the bed. Stretching out, he found it a struggle to remain corporeal. He was tired, oh, so very tired, even in the face of that which should have relieved him.
"We shall see how long that reticence lasts," he murmured.
"He has taken to his own quarters."
The subtext was that should Nigel want to speak with the archangel, that would be the place to find him, and the field report, as it were, was rather dear of Byron, actually. And not really a surprise. It was impossible for Byron and Bertie not to know how close Nigel and his second in command were, but everything was handled with discretion.
This appearance, however, was Byron's way of saying that he was worried about the pair of them.
The optimist. Worried.
Indeed, things were in a very bad way.
"Colin is in his quarters," the archangel repeated.
"As he should be." After all, they had been spending their time together herein, but "officially" they lived apart.
Upon the smooth reply, Byron removed his tinted glasses, and when his iridescent eyes lifted, Nigel could not recall the archangel ever without those rosy lenses. "Forgive me for being blunt, but I think you should perhaps go speak with him."
"He may come to me."
"I knew you were going to say that."
"Any chance you approached him first?" The silence answered that one. "Ah, but you are kindhearted, dear friend."
"No, that is Bertie."
"And you. You always see the best in people."
"No, I am surrounded by good people doing their best. In fact, I am a realist, not an optimist." Abruptly, the angel's face glowed with the power of knowledge. "Your nature and Colin's are one and the same. My hope is that you will bothrealize this and unite once more."
"So you are a romantic, too, then. Bit of a contradiction for a realist."
"On the contrary, I want to win, and our chances are better for prevailing if you are not distracted by a broken heart."
"My heart is not broken."
Byron replaced his glasses upon his pert, straight nose. "And I ask unto you ... to whom you are lying."
With a bow, he ducked out of the tent.
In the silence that followed, Nigel became utterly frustrated that there was little to do save tally herein for the Maker's remark.
And how galling to think he was also awaiting Colin's arrival with an apology.
Mayhap he should not hold his unneeded breath for that one, however.