Assured

I thought that I would have doubts.  I expected the peace to leave me, the certainty to fade.  But it has not.  I have had fears, certainly, but never doubts.  I know that this is the right course.

Evidently, though, I am the only one.

That is not fair.  Orison, Eburnean, and Inca have stood solidly with me this entire time, and they are not the only ones.  Guardians I have only met briefly, and even some I have never met at all, have come to me to welcome me, as if the decision was made and approved.  It seems that they have all been watching me, and they have seen in me something that is in themselves.

“When you rescued Freya, we knew that you could be one of us, Asa’el, that you had that strength and capability,” Inca explained.  “But Orison was adamant that as long as you chose to stay with the Cupids, we must not exert any pressure on you.  He said that you had been through enough uncertainty in your life.”

That was not wrong.  I have thought a great deal over the past days about what I experienced when I was new, and what I was told after I rescued Freya.  I felt so sure then, so certain that all was as it was meant to be.  Now I am uncertain again.

I have come to the conclusion that I was meant to begin as a Cupid, to learn first to love humans and understand the way that they love.  But looking back, there has been so much that has been leading me in this direction.  I always was protective of my charges, to the point even of overstepping my bounds.  Love was always in me, but battle was in me, too.  In fact, I wonder now if that is why my seniors had so much trouble placing me in my beginning.

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense.

My seniors do not agree, of course.  All of them have been to see me to try and reason with me—Zezette and Danit have both come more than once, Zezette in anger, Danit in tears.  And everything they have said to me makes sense.  The Scribes have been searching for days, and yet nothing they have found in the Repository says that this has happened before.  That does not mean it is not there, of course—angels have been serving our father for millennia, and there are records of all of it.  It will take them much longer than a week to go through it all.

I hope that I do not have to wait that long for an answer.

The confusion of my seniors and my Cupid brothers and sisters has been difficult to bear.  Adnar’el came to ask if he had somehow failed in training me.  Lubos said that he could understand why I feel unable to leave Freya, but that my decision seems very drastic nevertheless.  Nozomi is angry, as she believes that I am turning my back on all the charges I may have had, people who need love in their lives.  That suggestion was particularly hurtful.

But there is another side of that, too.  When I worry that I have betrayed some humans, I remember that I may be able to protect many more.

It was Brid’s reaction that worried me the most.  She was the first one I told of my decision, after I had returned to heaven and Orison had gone to relay my request to his seniors.  She listened without saying anything as I explained my reasoning and how I had thought of this before—indeed, I spoke for quite some time.  But I finally had to fall silent and hear what Brid thought.

“I know you love her,” she said at last.  “But Asa’el, you have to think about this.  You may be in service in heaven for far longer than one human life—most of us are.  When she is gone, will you still want to be a Guardian?”

I hadn’t thought of that, and the idea of Freya’s life ending made it very difficult to think at all.  In fact my reaction to the idea made me all the more certain of my course—my wings tensed, my hands flexed, all of myself resisting the possibility.  I was ready to go to battle then and there.

“Freya is the beginning of this, I admit,” I told her when I had calmed myself.  “But I believe she was just what was needed to make me see what has been there all along.  Brid, I know it may not seem right, but I think this is the course I was meant to follow.  I would not have wanted to fight for the sake of battle alone, but once I learned to love the humans, I wanted nothing so much as to protect them.”

She wasn’t looking at me, though we stood so close that our wings enfolded together, closing us off from the rest of heaven.  Her aura was rippling with fear and confusion, but I was beginning to see something else there, something I couldn’t quite make out.

“You are sure?” she asked.

“I am,” I answered her, because I was, and I am.

She shook her head.  “It will be very difficult.”

“I am not afraid,” I said, and I was not, and I am not.

Finally she lifted her eyes to me, and I could see the tears there.  “I will have to ask now not if you are happy, but if you are safe,” she said.

And that, readers, was the one moment that I wavered.  In her gaze I could see the reality of the danger into which I would be walking, and her fear touched me as my own has not been able to.

But then I thought of Inca, who braves that danger every day, and of Orison telling me how easy it is for over-worn Guardians to fail and fall, and of Freya, who lives her life in the midst of that danger.  And my heart steadied again.

“If I do not do this,” I said, “I will regret it always.  And truthfully, Brid, I do not think it will feel right to be a Cupid after all this.  I know that I am different now, and that it is not where I belong.”

She studied my face, and then I saw clearly in her aura what it was that lay under the fear: pride.  She took my face in her hands and kissed my brow.

“Then fight well, my friend,” she said, “and bring me your wounds, that I may fight in my way even as you fight in yours.”  She gazed steadily up at me and said, “We will both join the Long Fight in this way.”

I have never been so grateful for her friendship as I was in that moment.  But then, I could not imagine not having her at my back.  From the moment we were made, we were meant to be friends.

And so I wait, but without uncertainty, for I know what will happen.  One way or another, I will become what I am meant to be.

I do not think I will have to wait much longer.  Orison, who has been away much of this time, advocating for me, came to tell me just a while ago that Anteros has gone to speak to Salathiel, who is the Elder of Guardians.  They will discuss this matter and come to a decision soon.

I expected to be nervous, but my heart is calm.  I have my purpose, and the support of my dearest friend, and the hope that I may yet again stand at Freya’s back, somehow to help her through the shadowed world.  What is there to fear?