IN> Baal in Peacetime

[Daniel Childers]

It was a short time after the War had been won.

Zacharael was not very surprised that the Archangel of War was in the 
Graveyard. He had been a frequent visitor before the War, often visiting the 
graves of those he had dispatched personally. It was a War sort of thing to 
do; Zacharael did not like it, but knew better than most that different 
peoples had different ways of dealing with grief and death. The last she had 
heard, Michael had been recovering from grievous wounds, but she was not 
surprised that the Graveyard was the first place he would visit once he was 
up and about. Nor was she surprised that Baal's funeral pillar was the first 
grave he visited. She was surprised at what he was doing to it, though.

She flew to the defense of her Graveyard. "Lord Archangel! This is 
inappropriate! You do not need to do this!" She flew in a protective rage at 
the Archangel of War--who promptly swatted her from the sky, and gently 
pinned her to the ground with his tail, and resumed his business.

When he was done, he looked at her with his four good eyes. "In one sense, 
no," he joked. "As an Elohite might put it, I am an angel; I don't have to 
piss at all, much less on a grave."

Zacharael hissed at him, and struggled to get up, but stayed pinned.

Michael continued, "But in this case, there is a moral need. Hey, if you 
quit challenging me, you might have noticed you weren't getting any Dis from 
watching me do this! Cherubs, sheesh." This indeed gave her pause; she was 
not feeling any damage to her Word. "As I was going to say before you 
decided on a fight," Michael said jovially, "I promised Baal I'd do this."

"That...does sometimes count as a funeral promise," Zacharael admitted.

"Well, I was making one last attempt to talk Baal out of this--a pretty 
tough thing for *me* to do--"

"I do understand what it's like to have a Word," Zacharael interrupted.

"Then you don't need to go bucking for the Word of Smart-Alecs," Michael 
said. "Anyway--he swore he'd dance on my grave. So I swore I'd piss on his." 
He sighed. "Dumbass. I had him for sure at that point--when a Baalseraph and 
a Seraph make promises to each other, you know which promise will come 
true." He looked at the soaking pillar. "No need to ruin your day any 
further, though." He blew gently, and the pillar was dried and cleaned. 
"Right. Now I got business on the Marches to take care of. I'll come back 
later to look at all the other graves I got business with. Don't worry, Baal 
is the only one I promised to piss on, I'll be a good boy with the others." 
He started to limp away.

Zacharael got up and dusted herself off. "Not too bad off for losing a duel 
with War himself," she thought ruefully. Then she called after him, "Lord 
Michael...it is hard to have to kill your best friend. If you need to 
talk..."

"I didn't kill him," said Michael. "In fact, I had pretty much nothing to do 
with his death."

"Denial is one of the most terrible forms of grief," Zacharael said softly.

And Michael laughed long and hard. "No, no. I mean it literally. Seraph, 
remember? Baal didn't die from wounds. He died of Word-loss." Zacharael's 
eyes widened in realization. "Yeah, you got it finally," said Michael. 
"After the Final Battle, one way or the other, the War is over. No more War, 
no more Word of The War. Poof. Even if Lucifer wins--which wasn't going to 
happen as long as I was around. Baal the dumbass put himself in a trap all 
the way back at the Fall, and Baalseraphed himself into not noticing." He 
looked sadly at the funeral pillar. "You always did have more balls than 
brains, buddy."

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