France, c. 1150 A.D.

[hear_the_voices]

Anna is watching the activity below her on Earth.

It's what she does, these days. Watches.

All she has done for more than a thousand years. Watch. Unable to interact, or to go home.

At present, her attention is mostly (though not entirely, never entirely) focused on the watching the construction of yet another soaring church built to celebrate the fact that the world had not ended when the first millenium did. She finds this outburst of church-building fascinating; by now there are none alive who could have worried that the world would end in Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi 1000, and yet the building continues.

Comments

[thursdays_angel]

"One wonders where they will find enough people to fill it."

Castiel is, himself, rather bemused by the proliferation of houses of worship. Not five miles away, over the hill, another church is also under construction.

That building is not as sound as this one though. The laborers are cutting corners.

He'd been watching.

[hear_the_voices]

"And how many more they will build," she says.

"Hello, Castiel."

[thursdays_angel]

"Hello, Anna."

He watches as a pair of workers heave a heavy beam into place.

"You have to admire their faith. And enthusiasm."

[hear_the_voices]

"And creativity."

Statues, carvings, stained glass . . . these buildings will be works of act.

[thursdays_angel]

"Yes."

"It is almost enough to make one wish we had the need to build edifices."

Even though there is no real envy in his tone, he would not say so to most of his brothers and sisters for fear of reprimand. Angels have their God-given duties to discharge, and that it does not involve a great deal of creativity is by the will of their Father.

[hear_the_voices]

"More than almost, sometimes," Anna says, quietly.

[thursdays_angel]

Castiel does not quite know what to say to that.

The silence stretches on as he watches the workers wrestle the next beam into place (using some less than holy language).

"They build them because they need them," he says at last. "We do not. They," he indicates the men, "might say that we are the fortunate ones in that respect."

Angels do not have to wonder if the Kingdom of Heaven does, in fact, exist.

[hear_the_voices]

"No, Castiel. They build them because they can."

And it is, she thinks, as much about their glory as the Father's, as they put their own images into the stained glass and the frescos, and try to make their towers higher than the next town's.

[thursdays_angel]

Castiel is discomfited. He's sure she can tell, though he tries hard to mask it.

"You disapprove?"

[hear_the_voices]

"Not at all."

She thinks she would build such things if she could, too.

But this conversation grows . . . thorny, and dangerous.

She should change the subject.

And yet she doesn't.

[thursdays_angel]

"Then why do you seem....."

He cannot think of what to say here that will not be at least somewhat out of bounds and possibly unwelcome.

Still, she is his sister as well as his commander.

"You seem discontented."

"I worry for you."

Because this is not the first time.

[hear_the_voices]

Too perceptive by half.

"There is no need," she says, easily enough. "Though the thought is kind."

[thursdays_angel]

"As you say."

He is not convinced. But he will not argue the point.

[hear_the_voices]

"That stone is going to fall," she says, of the church they are watching.

It's going to crush that mason, too.

And there's nothing she or Castiel can do, but pray for his immortal soul.

(Castiel is right to worry. Anna is discontented.)

[thursdays_angel]

"Yes," he replies neutrally.

It will likely halt construction for a time.

"He seems to have a good deal of love for his work. There are worse ways for mortal life to end."

[hear_the_voices]

And better ones.

Anna still, after all this time, occasionally misses being able to close her eyes, and just shut it all out for a moment.

But as she can't, all she can do is watch it fall.

[thursdays_angel]

Shouts and cries rise from the work-site as men run to the scene of the accident.

Castiel remains respectfully silent until they begin to die down. Even though none would hear him if he were not.

"They'll say that he gave his life in the service of God," he predicts.

[hear_the_voices]

"No doubt," she says.

What else can they say? He died needlessly because a rope was not secure?

Both are true, in their own ways.

[thursdays_angel]

"He will be looked after."

Castiel isn't sure if he's saying it for her benefit, or for the benefit of the people clustered around the mason.

It's a moot point, either way.

She already knows.

And they cannot hear.

[hear_the_voices]

Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.

"We should see to other things," she says.

[thursdays_angel]

"Yes. There is nothing we can do here."

The resident reaper will tend to his soul on its journey. They will not be needed to provide escort.

[hear_the_voices]

"No, there's not."

That will not change with a new location, but at least the details of the things they cannot do will be different.