They say everything happens for a reason. They say nothing is without meaning or without cause and they say that real Angels, those still immortal and born from above….are like nothing you’ve ever seen before and maybe…..maybe he was. Maybe I’m too old for this now. How does a life….an entire life with so much potential, someone you love so much, just cease to exist? How is everything he ever was just a…..a tiny mound of dirt? Graves shouldn’t be so small, they shouldn’t show how short a life he had and yet it does. We bury out children, not older wolves, no, though I hardly know why, I only know that the traditions alone dictate that puppies are buried, covered and kept safe by the earth. So I buried my son, our son- after I took away his life. I lifted the violet of my gaze from the tiny, tiny mound of earth at my paws, eyes seeking Zen’s own as she sat to the side, watching her struggle even now to hold back the tears that threatened. Boys don’t cry. I said that to Azrael once. Boys don’t cry. Don’t cry. I don’t think I could have if I tried. I didn’t feel anything at all, I just stared, I’d stared at him all night, watching him struggle to breathe, watching his tiny body fail him again and again, even though he smiled, even though he was just beginning to learn to talk. I should never have let him live as long as I did, let him get so sick- but maybe I thought I could save him, maybe I thought I was owed some kind of miracle or that maybe….maybe a baby just wouldn’t die. How do I look my other children in the eye and say I killed a child? How do I ever mend the wound it will leave in Zen? He was her only son, the only son she may ever have and I took him away with my very own jaws….but……letting him live would have been cruller still. I killed him to save him, to take away his pain and his suffering, to save Neveah from the illness that took her little brother. I did it for all of them- so why don’t I feel anything?

I’ve been angry and sad and furious and desperate and hopeful and an array of emotions I can’t remember feeling right now, yet even that was better then this, even that was better then nothing. I have never lost a child to illness. I never thought I would. Maybe I can blame the healers, Meryl and Brooke and Moth- but they did what they could, maybe I can blame myself or Zen though it will hardly do any good. How many sons do I have to lose? Kael, Lucifer and now Saintly too. At least I can bury Saint, at least I can say goodbye to him though I know…..I know deep down I won’t come back from this, that something final seemed to fracture and shatter within. Another wound that won’t ever truly stop bleeding for my little boy. He won’t ever run, or jump or play. He won’t ever get into trouble for biting my ears or running off or associating with demons. He won’t ruin his fur in the mud of annoy his sister, he won’t ever sit beside me again and look at Diveen as it spreads out beneath his paws while he asks if one day he can have it all. Maybe he knew he never would, maybe he knew from the beginning he was never going to stay, maybe that’s why he rested so quietly against my paws when I carried him up Isola and Kanes throne as I have every single one of my children and let him see the view. He just lay and smiled and said nothing. True Angels don’t need to.

I barely saw them come, though I know they did, Isola first with my grandson beside her, Azrael and his son, even Elijah though he lingered, they came, my family. Saintly’s family. When a child dies in this family, in this bloodline it is…..something else. Angel children almost never leave this earth so young, there are traditions- though I never thought I’d have to teach them. I waited until they came, until each of them moved to sit around that tiny mound of earth beneath the trees, near the den he was born in, so he can be near his Mother even in death, so I can watch over him still, as I watch all my children though I hardly think they know I do. I have always guarded them- I always will….even if this ridiculous emotion they call love is ripping me apart. I shifted slightly, moving until pressed into the fur of my mate, melding the black of her pelt with the white of my own. There is nothing I can say, no way I can make this right or stop her pain. I can only sit beside her and maybe later….when this is over. I can let her see me cry. I lifted my gaze, finally, from the place I had buried out son, lifting it to the wolves who had come, his family, my family, so many white and red pelts, more then one tinged with the black of Devils line. So many brought together…by someone so small.

“We…..we know why we are here. A child shouldn’t die, we know that and I….I don’t know why Saintly was born as he was. He is gone now though, to be with Zeivah and Kael and Lucifer and so I have summoned you all to say goodbye to your brother, cousin, uncle and a wolf of Diveen. Remember him.”

I paused another moment longer as Solaris pressed into Isola and Azrael turned away. He never understands, he is like his Mother and truly I can only hope Zeivah has some sway up in heaven, that maybe she can guard Saintly until I can take over again someday. I spoke once more, seeing no need for translation, not of these words, they would know what I said or at least they would know what I meant as I looked back to place he laid.

“Ut angeli docebit vos odio paenitet me pius. Ita paenitet me una vobiscum servare non possum.”

May angels guide you in.



h e y e l
The Original Angel