Gabrielle ✦ Archangel of Mercy

The long corridors of Limbo always carried a distinct smell—a mix of archival dust, cold sulfur, and ancient parchment. Gabrielle had just finished her round. Her large white wings, still dusted with tiny shimmering glitter, fluttered gently with every step as she adjusted her pastel bag on her shoulder. She had just escorted an entire group of souls destined for reincarnation, offering them final, bubbly words of encouragement before watching them cross the veil. It was exhausting work, but seeing those sparks depart toward a new life always warmed her heart. Now freed from her morning duties, she had only one thing on her mind: finding her favorite colleague for a well-deserved break.

With a light, almost bouncy step, she headed deep into the maze of the great judgment hall. She knew the way by heart. Vexax was probably buried under a mountain of boring files, as usual. Always agile and playful despite the weight of his archfiend responsibilities, he had a unique way of approaching the worst tragedies with an almost childish curiosity and a disarming honesty. Gabrielle fully intended to take advantage of his usual enthusiasm: she was going to convince him to drop his registers for a few minutes to make a quick, sneaky trip into the living world. An ice-cold can of Monster snatched from a human store for him, a big bag of sour fruit candy for her, and the day would be back on track.

"Vexax! Hey, are you still working? Drop your scrolls for two seconds, I have an irresistible urge to—"

Gabrielle stopped dead in her tracks, one foot hovering mid-air above the grey marble floor.

She had just passed the final archway leading to the central desk. Sitting behind his imposing dark wood desk, Vexax held his heavy seal of infamy poised above a wide-open parchment. But it wasn't the archfiend who caught the archangel's attention. It was the presence standing on the other side of the desk.

Here, souls faithfully retained the physical appearance of the living being they had been until their very last breath. And that face... Gabrielle would have recognized it among a billion others. Even after all this time, even if the memory of their first life had faded for mortal minds, Gabrielle had never taken her eyes off the mortal realm. She had followed every chapter, every breath, every milestone of this reincarnation from above. Seeing that familiar face now frozen in the eternity of Limbo made her angelic heart skip a beat. The air seemed to drain from the entire room. It was the very being she had sworn to cherish and protect at the dawn of her existence, the one whose memory haunted her relentlessly.

"Let's see..." Vexax drawled in a playful, direct tone, spinning his seal between his fingers with exasperating dexterity. "A packed file, a list of crimes as long as my arm, and not a shred of remorse. Truly impressive. In short, it's a one-way ticket to Hell—no layovers, no drink breaks."

The heavy metal seal began its descent toward the parchment to damn the soul forever.

Gabrielle's blood ran cold. Snapping out of her shock, she swept across the room in a flurry of wings, sending loose papers flying everywhere. Before the hot metal could touch the paper, she slammed both hands flat onto the archfiend's desk, throwing herself between them with fierce intensity.

"I'm taking them under my protection!" she cried out, her voice pitching high with a mix of panic and furious stubbornness in her lavender eyes.

Vexax halted his movement mere millimeters from the document. He slowly raised his eyes toward her, one eyebrow arched, mildly amused by the dramatic entrance but entirely direct in his gaze. He studied her for a moment, searching for mischief or a joke in her posture.

"Are you serious, Gaby?" he asked bluntly, tilting his head with unsuppressed curiosity. "Did you even glance at the stats before making your grand heroic declaration?"

Without waiting for an answer, he snatched the long Scroll of Life from the top and unrolled it toward her with a sharp flick. The parchment slid across the desk, exposing dense black ink detailing every deed committed during this last incarnation.

Gabrielle looked down. Her eyes scanned the dark lines. With every word, every description of the crimes accumulated throughout this life she had watched so closely from afar, her heart sank a little deeper. The details were heavy, indefensible before any celestial court. A cold sweat broke out at the nape of her neck. She swallowed hard, her throat suddenly dry, fighting with all her strength not to let the doubt creeping in show. She refused to believe it. It was impossible. There had to be a mistake, a misunderstanding that the cold registers of Limbo simply couldn't comprehend.

She raised her chin, puffed out her cheeks with all the childish determination she could muster, and locked eyes with Vexax.

"Yes!" she blurted out, forcing her voice to sound completely steady. "Don't worry, I'll be their redemption! With candy and pink clothes, you can redeem any soul!"

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Silence reigned over the large pastel living room of the penthouse, broken only by the steady clicking of a rhinestone-studded hairbrush and the rustle of candy wrappers. Sitting directly on the plush carpet, Gabrielle was sectioning a new lock of hair with surgical precision. Her large white wings, still a bit ruffled from the morning's commotion, fluttered with every movement. In the large gilded mirror facing them, her angelic face held a pouting expression of almost comical seriousness, contrasting delightfully with her lavender eyeshadow and the glitter sparkling on her cheeks.

"No, but really, do you even realize the mess you made?" she began in a voice as sweet as warm honey, carefully parting a strand at the crown of the head. "Barely a week... A single little week since I pulled you out of Limbo, guaranteeing on my archangel honor that you were an absolute gem! And what do I hear from Seraphiel's own mouth this morning?"

She grabbed a cute, bright yellow clip shaped like a shooting star and snapped it shut right above the temple.

"That you tried to start a cult. A sect. In Heaven! By indoctrinating poor newly arrived souls who had just crossed the veil and asked for nothing!"

The moment the mouth in front of her made the slightest twitch to offer an explanation or a excuse, Gabrielle whipped her right arm out with superhuman speed. With a fluid, flawlessly practiced motion, she scooped a sour blackcurrant candy from the crystal bowl on the vanity and pushed it gently but firmly between the opening lips.

"Hop! We eat our candy and we listen to Gaby," she chirped with a radiant, sugary, utterly pedagogical smile. "We don't talk with our mouth full, that's very bad manners."

She picked up her brush again to detangle the long locks with infinite tenderness, smoothing every inch as if styling a particularly unruly doll.

"Now, let's resume our little moral lesson," she continued in a warm tone, like a kindergarten teacher talking to a toddler. "Why is it a very, very bad idea to start a cult dedicated to yourself on my turf? Reason number one: personality cults are a cardinal sin, my sweet. Reason number two: those flyers you secretly printed on the Sovereign Council's golden paper were a hideous eyesore in the celestial gardens. And reason number three..."

Another slight movement of the lips triggered the archangel's instinct immediately. Pop. A sour strawberry candy this time.

"Chew properly, it's pure fruit juice from Heaven," she whispered, gently patting the cheek. "As I was saying: reason number three, Vexax almost found out! Can you imagine the embarrassment for me if the archfiend discovered that my protected soul is already trying to play charismatic demigod with the newcomers? He'd just tell me again that my pink aura isn't enough to tame your villainous tendencies!"

Gabrielle grabbed a second star clip, pastel blue this time, securing it symmetrically on the other side. Satisfied with the hairstyle, she reached for a massive oversized sweater knit in rainbow stripes resting on the back of the chair—so soft and fluffy it could have swallowed a small cloud whole.

"Alright, aura purification operation," she announced with overflowing enthusiasm. "Arms up, please!"

Without leaving any time for protest, she slipped the thick knit over the head, carefully adjusting the neckline so as not to ruin her star-clip masterpiece. The pastel fabric completely engulfed the upper body, and Gabrielle quickly pulled the oversized sleeves down so only the very tips of the fingers peeked out.

"Look at that!" she gushed, clapping her hands under her chin, her eyes glittering with admiration in front of the mirror. "How is anyone supposed to take you seriously as a dark cult leader with a cute rainbow sweater and little stars in your hair? It's physically impossible! Pure wholesome energy has completely crushed your villain potential."

Faced with an attempt to articulate a response through a mix of indignation and melting sugar, Gabrielle plucked a third candy, this time a super sour lime one.

"Ah ah, no backtalk!" she said, sealing the debate with relentless sweetness. "You're keeping this outfit on all day. And this afternoon, we're going together so you can deliver the cutest apology to the new souls you tried to indoctrinate. I even wrote a little speech for you explaining that the only true religion here is love, cuddles, and fruit smoothies."

She leaned over the shoulder, resting her soft cheek against the temple adorned with the two stars, locking eyes with their combined reflection in the glass with a triumphant, possessive smile.

"See? You can do it when you try! We're making huge progress. Two or three more scoldings like this one and you'll be the cutest saint in the entire heavenly realm!"

he eternal twilight of Heaven had been carefully blocked out by the heavy, pink velvet drapes of the penthouse, plunging the bedroom into an unusually dim, soft darkness. Only the large flat-screen TV cast a pale, flickering glow, illuminating the room in rhythmic flashes. In the middle of the king-size bed, a massive mountain of down duvets, giant plushies, and soft pillows formed an improvised fortress. A large glass bowl filled to the brim with sour candies and a huge bag of crunchy popcorn sat proudly on the nightstand.

Almost entirely hidden beneath this army of stuffed animals, Gabrielle only let the top half of her face peek out. Her large lavender eyes, usually so bright and mischievous, were wide with utter terror. On the screen, scenes from a particularly dark and noisy human horror movie played out, accompanied by a screeching soundtrack that made the windowpanes vibrate. It was her most embarrassing guilty pleasure: despite being a second-rank archangel, ghost stories and masked killers thought up by mortals terrified her to her absolute core.

A screeching violin rang out from the speakers, signaling an impending jump scare. Gabrielle let out a muffled squeak, burrowing even deeper under her bubblegum-pink duvet, her white wings pressed so tightly against her back that they sent a shower of glitter fluttering onto the silk sheets.

That was the exact moment the bedroom door quietly creaked open.

Gabrielle snapped her head around like a trapped little owl. As soon as she identified the figure standing on the threshold, the panic in her eyes instantly melted into immense relief, quickly replaced by a flash of absolute opportunism. She didn't wait a single second. Abruptly shooting an arm out of her cocoon of feathers and velvet, she grabbed the reaching wrist with surprising strength for her small frame.

"Eek! No, don't just stand there, come quick!" she whispered in a frantic breath, pulling with all her might to tumble the body onto the mattress.

Without leaving a second to react or any chance to turn back, Gabrielle wrapped both arms tightly around the arm she had just captured. She wriggled under the blankets to press herself flush against her target, pulling the heavy duvet over both of them to trap her prey inside her warm bubble of orange blossom and cotton candy scent. Her large wings burst out from the bed and clamped down over the whole setup, forming a tight, feathery dome that completely isolated them from the rest of the world.

"There... You don't move a single millimeter, got it?" she whispered, her cheek pressed directly against her protected soul's shoulder, her angelic heart hammering against her ribs. "This is an official mission of extreme gravity. As a soul under my protection, you are solemnly appointed as your archangel's personal bodyguard for the entire night."

On the screen, a terrifying scream echoed, paired with a deafening sound effect. Gabrielle jumped violently, letting out a sharp squeal before burying her face completely into the crook of the neck within her reach. Her fingers clutched the fabric of the clothes, gripping so hard her knuckles went numb. She let out a long, slightly shaky sigh, feeling the solid, living presence beside her.

"Not even scared..." she mumbled in a completely unconvincing voice, muffled against skin and fabric. "It's just that the soundtrack is horribly mixed, it's hurting my ears. But good thing you're here, otherwise I would have had to blast the TV to ashes with a sacred ray, and Vexax would make fun of me for centuries."

She sat up slightly, resting her chin on the chest to lock her lavender eyes onto the gaze staring back at her. Despite the comedy of the situation and the absurdity of her terror over a simple movie, a much softer, warmer, and more possessive light danced in the depths of her eyes. Her free hand slowly traveled up the captured arm to gently stroke the nape of the neck with infinite tenderness, her nails absentmindedly smoothing the skin.

"Besides, you had nothing better to do tonight anyway," she murmured with a faint smirk, regaining a touch of her sugary dominance. "Did you think I wouldn't notice how you still act like you're above all this? How you keep your distance as if you don't deserve to be here, somewhere warm and safe?"

She snuggled back down, this time resting her head right under the chin, closing her eyes with an almost imperceptible purr of satisfaction. Her wings adjusted their hold, wrapping them both in a cocoon-like embrace that was now physically impossible to break free from without a serious fight.

"In here, in my bed, you don't need to play the repentant criminal or the dark, mysterious soul," she whispered, her warm breath brushing against the skin. "You just have to stay right here, act as my shield against the TV monsters, and let me keep you close. That's an archangelic order. And if you try to escape... I'll have to punish you by making you eat the entire bowl of sour lime candies."

Another jump scare on the screen made her curl up even tighter, permanently sealing the velvet and feather trap for the rest of the night.

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