War For The Gods » Places

         

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Edmund Elias Wolfenden

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Angels, as a matter of habit, did not tend to frequent coffee shops, and Elias was no exception. He had always thought the stuff to be terribly bitter and unnecessary besides, and being as angels did not have a tendency to eat or sleep either, it hadn't exactly required him to go out of his way in order to avoid it. He wasn't entirely certain what had drawn him to the scent of coffee today, but he was cautious even as far as angels went, and leaving even the most suspicious of stones unturned was not in the angelic handbook.

As usual, he'd come in well prepared for a fight, and with every intention of making the first move in the event of one. To the casual observer, he might have seemed like a particularly nervous young man, perhaps anxious to meet a friend or a romantic interest. To those who were familiar with angels and their mannerisms, however, he must have seemed like a cat waiting to pounce, muscles tensed in anticipation of some outside attack. It hadn't felt like self, but there was something on the wind that had caught his attention. Whatever it was, he certainly wasn't finding it now, unless it was hiding in plain sight.

It occurred to Elias several moments too late that upon quieting his suspicions, he was going to actually have to order something in order to maintain a relatively normal appearance, which he strove for even on the worst of days. Warming his hands unnecessarily with his hot breath, he waited in the arguably nonexistent line for the girl at the counter to finish speaking to the man he'd gleaned to be her father. Perhaps he could order a hot chocolate and avoid the taste of coffee altogether. The angel didn't much prefer the taste of chocolate to coffee, but anything was better than the bitter, acrid taste of even the mildest roasts. Coffee was a devil's drink, and rightly so.

Tea, it occurred to him, was usually readily available in coffee shops. Tea Elias could stand, and even enjoyed on occasion, assuming it had been prepared correctly. Now anticipating what was sure to be at least more pleasant than hot chocolate or coffee, and likely more respectable as well, the angel stuck his hands in the pockets of his black wool coat and waited his turn.

Even as far as angels went, Elias was old; he'd seen nations rise and fall, had listened as the song of human history had unfolded from a tenebrous whisper to a hardy chorus, and all the while, the angel had served his gods with patience and faith. But, unlike humans, whose piety might be swayed even at its strongest during times of disquiet, unrest, and upset, it was the unchanging nature of his mission that was driving this particular angel to question countless centuries of service now. Elias had been one of the first angels to fall in love with mankind, back in the days before any of them had taken names in the human tongue, although why or how he had managed to do so he was no longer entirely sure.

Now he was starting to doubt the lot of it. Sure, he had his job, and he supposed that regardless of its importance, he would continue to do it, but there was something so fundamentally methodical and almost robotic about smiting first and asking questions later. Contrary to popular belief, angels had never been mentally equipped for philosophy, so the whole subject of whether or not he should be processing all of this at a deeper level had long since begun to make Elias's head hurt quasi-permanently.

Though he might have appeared to be deep in concentration, his pensive eyes staring in scrutiny at the chalkboard menu, the angel was paying little attention to the world that existed outside of his head at the moment. It was no surprise, then, that when it came his turn to order, he was caught entirely off guard. "Oh, u-uhm, excuse me, I must have been miles away. Tea, please. Black tea." If he'd spent a few moments looking, the angel might have noticed something familiar about the girl behind the counter, but he was hardly devoting his attention to the minute details at the moment.