Wings To The World

4.

'Aphale and Te Papa.'

The days were cold. The workshop was cold, and no amount of fire could fill the empty coldness. As the sun had faded on that day, when we lay tangled on the couch, it seemed that it had taken all the warmth with it.

There was no way to describe it.
It was somewhere between 'Losing everything you loved' and 'Living your worst nightmare'. It was gut-twisting, heat breaking, tear-inducing pain that wracked through everybody.

It had the same feeling as wine- it lingers on your lips until your head pounded with the remains. Like withdrawal, it brought a need to find some source of addiction. Like withdrawal, it brought pain, and it brought headaches, tempers, and loss with it.

And then we got a replacement.

Throughout the ages, only a few angels have recognisable names. There are angels everywhere. There are workshop groups in every aspect of the world- like schools. Like one group of angels spread out across the world. There isn't much communication between the workshops. We usually manage our own countries. We only talk if something important comes up or an angel needs to swap to another workshop.

But in all these times, there was never an angel such as Aphale.

Aphale, to a human, would be closer to a saint than an angel. She was short, thin, and had silver-grey hair that flecked itself out in a quiff on the top. The rest was an undercut that had grown out. She had purple, square-lensed glasses to frame her face. She wore earrings she found at whatever human store smelt of incense.

Her 'aura' was one of watercolour art and nature. It felt like grass, outdoors, pottery and painting with pastel watercolour. It felt like trying to understand and trying to move on.

Aphale was the replacement for Tanael. 'Replacement' in the sense that she was nothing like Tanael. But she did have the same, or a similar, job.

Aphale was different because she wasn't an old angel, she wasn't a new angel, she was an in-between of the two. She was different. She enjoyed stores like the ones tucked into their own corner of the world and smelling of rose incense. But she also enjoyed assignments and projects instead of a thousand worksheets.

Aphale preferred a way that wasn't what superior angels had planned. Aphale liked to lead us with ourselves, and how we saw the world, and she liked to fight for that. The superior angels didn't seem to like that. But while Aphale was wonderful in that way, she never felt like home.

We spent a week with her before deciding we wanted to find Tanael. And by we, I mean the only angels that weren't stuck in the heated workshop. That workshop that didn't fit the group now (thanks to the addition of a few angels that did not take well to us).

"Let us go," I said. That 'us' was four angels- Saraiel, Isael, and Haphaes. "We can find her. She wouldn't leave without letting us know where she left to."

Aphale studied us for a moment, but there was still a smile behind her eyes. "I'm fine with letting you try to find her, munchkins, but the only issue I have is with David and the rest-"

"Forget 'em," Haphaes said. "Say we've 'gone rogue' or something, mate."

"I'm not sure I could, pumpkinhead," Aphale considered, hands in her lap as she watched them. "No, I'm not going to let you go. It's too dangerous, you could- well, you could go missing, or something worse could happen. Too dangerous. You're safer here, Munchkins."

But we did anyway.

Angels aren't known to disobey direct orders, but we didn't disobey her 'direct orders'. We got the "project" of going down to find out what "humanity" was like. Finding Tanael was definitely nothing but a extra bonus.