An angel has to work, I was told. The goddess told us that life was a gift, but to keep it, to stay here, requires work. Otherwise there would be no kingdom, no safe place to be inside the walls. And so I started to work. The hardest part wasn’t really the working, but the uncertainty and the failure. Every day I would try a new job and I would hope I was enough.

One morning I tried to help harvest fields of silver wheat. The wind sways the grains, friction they explained, and for those who get close or are too slow, they get shocked by a bolt of red lightning. Ramiel, the angel who had remembered a game of tag, was there. He laughed as he darted through the fields leaving them barren, and the bundles in his arms, lush. When he was done he sat down and looked up at the sky, forlorn, as if waiting for an old friend to return. I, on the other hand, was just shocked over and over until I couldn’t move.

There were forges one day. They used glowing pincer-like tools to hold strings of an iridescent liquid metal that they weaved into tools with blindingly fast speed. I watched Seraphim, the angel who remembered shaping stars, methodically bring knives into the world. I couldn’t help but let a warm feeling slip into me as I watched her focus. Her eyes darted as her hands danced, it was like she saw a completely different world from me, more full and more malleable, and it made her so beautiful. I ended up making something like a bird’s nest and I never saw the forge again.

I also swept through the winding halls of a keep. The air near the walls smelled stale with blood. I saw an angel, clad in light armor who glided through the sky with a determined rhythm, only to stall midair for a ferocious dive of death at an unseen foe. There was a pile of discarded armor, some scratched, others decayed, but my eyes lingered on a helmet which was concaved at its top. I cycled through the keep, polishing floors, cleaning baths, and picking up after rowdy soldiers. It was relaxing in a way, messes were problems that my eyes begged me solve, and each one I solved felt like a simple, natural triumph. Still, the angel who was mentoring me saw invisible problems. I wasn't polishing right, sweeping right, I was missing things I didn't understand. He said I was more work than I was worth. And so… even cleaning was too much for me.

Days went by as I was stuffed into new jobs. I was learning so much, but I was dismissed so easily. Still, even as I failed, all I could do was try.

The thundering groans of horns blared, bells rang. A warning.

Some frantic shouting, the pattering of boots, and a brief conversation with a superior I barely recall, and I was inside the room in my dormitory. I sat in front of my window and stared outside. The sky was crowded with rolling red clouds. Their shapes shifted to be no particular thing and they seemed to tremble with anger.

A soulstorm, I was told.

An angel outside hobbled frantically, carrying a basket of everdale sweetbread with an anxious, but satisfied look. She tripped and fell on her face, but recovered quickly, grabbing some of the bread that now littered the stone slag road with a now guilty and sullen look. Using her wings to boost herself up and forward, she made it into her home just before the rain began to fall.

I watched as the sweet bread she dropped became soggy under an onslaught of endless rain. It half floated half sank in a pool of clear liquid that glittered with an unnaturally sharp black. Soulwater. This rain that everyone feared, the chaos that it brought, was a reprieve. I wouldn't work today.

I stared outside at a fountain as I remembered the queen. The searing certainty in her eyes, the admiration I felt for her, the kindness that made me feel like this was home, and the gratitude for my name and life.

I reached above my head to feel the warm glow of my halo. Mevakiel.

But… I don't remember anything before my life, if the world needs so much more than I can give… What is there for me? And what about the queen… Will I ever see her again? She’s the reason I'm here, she was the warmness in my heart, the home that I wanted. But I realize now, that I am an ant and she is a mountain. So… is there anything to be grateful for?

The fountain was overflowing now and soulwater poured through the streets. It carried even the soggy sweetbread along into massive drains. They greedily swallowed it all.

I wonder what they’re so afraid of in this rain.

I opened the window and a damp smell greeted my nose, it filled my mind with a serene melancholy.

Streams of soulwater were thrown off the roofs, coiling as they reached and splattered onto the ground. The methodical splashing, the fresh smell, and most of all the emptiness of the streets added a consistency that was calming to my mind. Maybe this was what life was meant to be.

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There was a scaled frog with two antlers, it was sleek black and its eyes darted, searching. It didn’t seem to care for the soulwater at all, as it hopped through the rain, leaving fearless splashes in its wake. It settled upon a large garden of blue poppy flowers. Their blue was dark, but so strong that it enraptured me. Wisps of light blue floated off them as they glowed the dreary streets with twinkling life. And in a single moment, they were all swallowed whole. I looked at the house they belonged to.

I think that’s where the sweetbread girl lives.

The frog seemed perfectly fine. So from my window I reached out a hand. Everything seemed to slow as the first drop landed, and fear pumped from my head to my legs. A natural warning maybe, one I ignored. As I felt it land, it splashed out in a spark and in that single explosive moment:

Snow fell from a deep blue sky. A swirling torrent that danced in ways that tossed us around; like it was playing in a sick game. We trudged along in fur coats and face wraps, but the cold still stung our throats, and hunger lingered with our every step. I refused meals and looked apologetically at someone so small, so fragile, with a coat far too big for them. I was resolved, and in the night, I left my food and belongings, before walking out and letting the snow and the cold take me.

I recoiled, but still, rain landed on my hand and sparked still more.

A feeling of malaise, sickness in the stomach and on the skin. Scales bulged from an arm that felt like it was no longer mine until I felt nothing at all.

Metal rang a violent song in the chorus of battle. From clashes, from falls, and from shells crunched under the weight of a large stone club. There were people made of granite and iron that lumbered forward. People I knew fell one after another, I dashed in a desperate maneuver, but like them, I was too weak, too slow, too late.

The scaled frog was long gone now, and it was only the rain, creaking roofs, and struggling plants. I looked out into the relentless downpour, and I understood why the angels were afraid.

Those moments, each drop from the sky. There was fear… there was loneliness… there was death. I don’t know who these people are, I don’t know what they are. But…

I stepped outside my room. Some angels had the doors to their dormitory open and shifted their heads curiously as I walked by. I slipped into my shoes. And I burst open the door letting the cold damp air waft in.

They felt so alone in their struggle, so defeated.

I dashed out into the rain and sparks wisped off of me as I let the downpour overtake me.

I know how it feels. How they feel.

And so, when I’m here to remember them, they won’t be alone.

Each drop was a shattered memory. Every moment ended in death. So many moments that even death started to become nothing more than a drop of rain, scattered, and forgotten in a moment. Instead, I took notice of the people. Their love, their tragedy, and their willingness to live. Their lives were different, but similar, and through them, I saw a world that was not my own. With words I couldn’t parse, monsters that could crush my dormitory in a single step, and nature that filled every day with wonder and terror.

Being here, soaked in the rain of lonely souls, I watched the terror of their world. And I realized how happy I was to be here, so that they didn’t face it alone.

***

I stared longing out the window and I couldn’t help but let out a low grumble as I remembered all the sweetbread that I scattered all over the floor. I tried my best to save a few pieces, but Uriel just scolded me for trying to eat bread off the ground, citing “demonic corruption” and “basic common sense”. Now I was just hungry and sad. We were going to play a game of dancing vortex, but for now my mood was fallow and Uriel sat quietly beside me. We looked out into the rain and I let out a deep sigh as I watched my bread disappear into the storm drains.

While I was still in mourning, watching the rain tear through the streets. I saw an angel dash into the rain, and confusion and worry welled up inside me as I recognized her. I had noticed her before because of her white pupils and black irises, an unusual sight among angels. When I was just returning from a mission, I saw her staring up at the valkyries, the walls, and just generally the whole keep. She was like a lost puppy, fumbling around, and getting distracted by every new thing. That got the poor girl promptly berated by Quartermaster Raphael. He gave the girl a field day, she never stood a chance once she got on his bad side.

The wind and rain thrashed against her cloak, but she stood still, accepting its violence as it reared its ugly head. She looked focused, not on anything I could see, but on somewhere impossibly distant. Her otherwise empty white pupils were filled with life here as the rain fell and its glow sparkled in her eyes. It was a far cry from her fumbling at the keep, and most of all, she seemed safe and healthy.

Seeing her, so resolute and firm, I recalled my own time in the soul storm. We were looking for crystalline blooms in the Dygarlands and made a game of it, betting on colors and painting a picture in our heads together. Careening through that maroon sky, we played like life was our game. When the red clouds rolled in, it was already too late. The rain’s not fatal, but for most, too disorienting to fly, some become paralyzed in fear, and for the unlucky, it dooms them to an endless madness. She plummeted from the sky like her wings had been snipped from her back.

On the ground, she was left for the demons. Through the rain I couldn’t hear anything, but I could see. As the death of a friend overlayed with the death in the rain. In that moment, it felt so natural to join her, like we would be just another drop in that storm, to be scattered and forgotten. But I knew angels don’t die the same, we would never be part of the rain. And so, I looked past a reel of moments that weren’t mine, shivering from terror and the cold wind as it tossed me around.

This angel though… she wasn't running, she was jumping in to face it all head on. What made her do this, I could never guess. But whatever she saw, she wasn’t afraid. Not like I was.

“She must be insane. Another poor soul lost to the soulstorm.” Uriel uttered.

“Yeah.” I said

I looked on as she glowed in that narrow street and lit alight the dreary hour. And I decided, she would be enough.