It has been so long since an angel has challenged the decision of a senior that I had to ask fourteen different brothers and sisters before I found someone who knew. But I have done it. I have appealed the decision to end my time with Freya, requesting the consideration of Anteros himself.
Danit is distressed by this, and Zezette is angry, but I think neither one of them is surprised. How could they be? And I find myself by turns wracked with guilt and rigid with my own anger. I have absolutely no desire to quarrel with my seniors, but they should have known that I would not take this well. And whenever I falter, I remember what Peronel told me, that I should let love be my guide.
Love is guiding me closer to Freya, not away from her.
Still, I have not been to see her more than once in the last few days. The one time I did visit her, she was affected by my mood, growing restless and irritable. I left after only an hour. How unfair it is, that my time should be taken from her before the decision is even made!
While I wait for word from Anteros, I have been asking all of my siblings for their advice and help, though it is hardly kind of me to drag them into this matter. Lubos, of course, was the first one whose advice I sought. He went to see Freya himself, and he told me that he thought she would be all right on her own. “She is better off, I think, than when we first came to her,” he told me. “Your time with her has made her more sensitive to heavenly things, which can only help her in her relationships.”
“Or it will make her more vulnerable to pain,” I reminded him.
He shook his head, smiling. “She is strong, Asa’el, and pain will only make her stronger.”
“You don’t know that!” I had to pause to calm myself, and when I looked up again, he was looking at me with some concern. I tried a different tack. “You would often spend many years with your charges, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, but it is not the norm for Cupids,” he reminded. “Ours is the work of beginnings and foundations. And I would always be removed from a case when my charge began to sense my presence.” He set a hand on my shoulder. “It is time, Asa’el. You should let her go.”
I am afraid that I was a bit rude to you, Lubos, on my departure, for which I apologize.
Brid, as ever, was only worried about me. “I’m certain that’s all that Zezette and Danit are thinking of, too, Asa’el,” she told me. “Your welfare is their concern in this matter.”
“Am I not able to make my own decisions regarding my welfare?” I asked, rather bitterly.
She regarded me levelly. “It is true, a patient’s choice must be the first concern, until the patient proves to be self-destructive. Surely you have not reached that point yet, have you?”
She would not explain, but Hatsumi’s words clarified their viewpoint for me.
“There has always been a connection in your mind between Shannon and Freya,” she reminded me. “It was one of the first things that you told me about Shannon. Now it is no secret that losing Shannon nearly destroyed you, Asa’el, and you were not nearly as close to her as you were to Freya. If something were to happen to your fire woman, and you did not have some time to gain some distance and perspective, I fear that we would lose you, and that is not acceptable to any of us who love you.”
And what about my love? What about Freya, who will feel her abandonment even though she never knows what it is or why it happened? Am I truly more important than she is? I would not say so.
Orison, though he did tell me how to make my appeal formally, said nothing. Nor would Inca or Eburnean, though I believe they were asked by Orison not to speak. When I asked for his advice, he would only say that a decision of this importance should be made without bias.
Well, I am biased. I acknowledge that freely: I am biased towards Freya. She is the first human I truly loved and the one for whom I have risked so much. She deserves better than my sudden disappearance from her life, and that is all that matters.
I hope that Anteros will answer me soon. The waiting is difficult to bear.