Angel Dust by Aurora Morgenstern (summer beach reads .TXT) 📕

"I apologise for any discomfort", he says and smiles reassuringly. He has flown us to the other side of the mountain to a smaller plateau infront of a small cave. The area infront of the cave is covered in short grass and in the centre of the plateau there is a big oak tree that creates a large area protected from the harsh sunrays of midday. I can see why he picked this place, it is rather peaceful and isolated. Not quite as tranquil and mystical as Nathaniel´s hideout in the woods, but I can´t really tell Gabriel about that place. I wonder if he knows why Nathaniel feels he needs that little place of escape since he is his mentor. I dismiss the thought when Gabriel begins to explain about these powers I ahve heard so much about. 

"Every angel has a gift that is given to him or her by the lord, some of us have more than one and some are more powerful than others. While there are all kind sof different areas you can develop a gift in it is the most common for an angel to have an elemental link, all our gifts are in some form or other connected to the natural world. Off course archangels like me and Michael posses different sorts of gifts than the other angels would since our responsibility is much greater"

"How do I know what kind of gift I might have? Do humanborns have less strong gifts since we weren´t born with the angelic grace?", he looks surprised that I know of the grace. 

"Au contraire, humanborn angels often display gifts far greater than other angels would. That is the reason many angels feel threatened by you and the nephilim. Nephilim are..."

"I know about the Nephilim", I interrupt. "I´m sorry...do go on", I motion for him to continue. 

"That´s a good start then. The nephilim are important assets should it ever come to a war. Now where ways I? Oh yes humanborns tend to have greater abilities. The first thing we´ll do is meditate to help you open up to your gift. It could be literally anything and it takes some angels longer than others to discover where exactly their talents lie. Often an angel has several gifts that might not necessarily lie in the smae area at all. My student Nathaniel, I believe you know him, for example is able to manipulate shadows to hide him from sight, but he is also able to communicate with all sorts of birds. He is very talented, he has figured out how to use his gift to make them deliver messages for him. I have to say I was very proud when he developed that gift, seeing that I am heaven´s messenger. Sometimes your gift can be linked to your mentors if he was the one who foresaw you, the vision creates a link between the angel and his student.", all of this is a lot to take in but I try to listen attentively. I wonder if my gift will be in any way linked to Michael, will I be able to read minds too?

"What gifts does Michael have?", I inquire excitedly.

"Oh dear, that´s a very personal questions and not every angel is confident sharing this. You´ll have to ask Michael yourself, but I can tell you he is one out of four archangels that can conjure heavenly fire. It´s a very rare and difficult skill to achieve even if you are an archangel and we aren´t sure wether ordinary angels are capable of it at all. Both me and my brothers trained very hard for this, the archangel that is closest to obtaining teh gift of heavenly fire next is Uriel."

"What exactly is heavenly fire?"

"Heavenly fire is purified grace, it is the most pure material. Heavenly fire while highly destructive has the power to cleanse all evil. We believe that the great beast itself could be slain using heavenly fire. It exhausts whoever wields it greatly, one pays a great price for the use of it and if it believes you are not worthy of wielding its flames it will consume you. It takes a high level of self control and concentration to conjure it alone. Michael is by far the most adept of all of us in its use. He managed to bind it to his sword, the only weapon that was ever created capable of holding the fire.", I believe I have heard of the flaming sword before but I completely forgot that it was the archangel Michael who wields it. It is strange to think of Michael as this all mighty avenging archangel type from the bible. He is so much more...human than you would expect and yet he isn´t human at all. It´s hard to describe the way I just already begin to feel part of all this, I mean a week ago I would have called anyone who told me I´d develop cool powers a nutcase and quite possibly gone looking for my pepperspray. Things have changed and as it seems for the better. It turns out that a great deal of this discovering powers is sitting under a tree, trying very hard to concentrate on something other than the abundance of unimportant thoughts circulating in my head. Gabriel just sits there expectantly, looking at me and it is all I can manage not to laugh because for some reason not being able to laugh makes any situation all the more funny. 

"Will you at least try to concentrate, Felice! You´re broadcasting your thoughts at such a frequency it is impossible not to listen in!", Gabriel complains and I feel a sudden pang of guilt. I am wasting not only my but also Gabriels time by not taking this as serious as I should. Afterall I will benefit from having cool powers. I take a deep breath and close my eyes, this time focusing on my breathing anf my breathing alone, I soon manage to shut all other thoughts out in favout of just listening to my own (slightly ragged) breaths. 

"Better. Now I want you to focus on the ground beneath you. The hard earth and the roots of the tree, try to focus on the pulsing energy flowing from teh earth into that big oak tree that touches your back. Try to focus that energy into you, channel it", I do as he says and focus as hard as I can on teh ground beneath me but unlike him I don´t feel any pulsing energy or whatever he called it. 

"I don´t feel anything Gabriel", I let him know, the disappointment in my voice more than clear. 

"To be honest i wasn´t expecting you to, you didn´t strike me as an earth elemental. Just had to make sure. Maybe at a later stage, once you get over the initial hurdle of finding where your strenghts lie you will be able to develop in this field. I myself put a lot of time into it, I was curious as to what other elements feel like", he explains to me and I open my eyes for a moment to see him smile, as he sees this he gives me a chastisizing look and I quickly close them again. 

"This time I want you to hold out your hand infront of you, you can rest it on your lap. Keep your eyes closed and now I want you to picture a small flame in your head. What does it look like? What sounds does it produce? What does it smell like?", his voice is melodic and easy to follow. I picture a small flame, hovering over my hand, it´s soft yellow and orange, there is no sound to it but I can smell the smoke rising from it. This time there is a spark, flashing brilliantly bright inside me. I can feel the heat rising from my chest and...outward. I open ym eyes in shock to see the small flame I envisioned dancing on my hand, it is beyond beautiful. I stare at it in awe for a long moment before I lift my eyes to see a broadly smiling Gabriel. As my focus shifts to Gabriel the heat disappears and when I look back down the flame is gone completely. 

"That was really impressive for a first attempt, I wasn´t sure but it seems you have a rather strong link with the element fire just like Michael. Now you might have a strong wing in another section as well, but I believe this is quite enough for today. I´d like you to practice that for tomorrow and see how long you can keep the flame there. I´d advise you to be careful though, I remember Michael got himself burnt rather badly on his first attempts. He almost burnt heaven down! Don´t tell him I said that though", he gives me a conspirative wink and gets up. He instinctively offers me a hand up and I gladly take it. Of all the angels I have met so far Gabriel seems to be the most sensible and attentive one, he helped me up without having to be asked or watching me fall by myself. Gabriel probably wouldn´t have taught me how to fly by making my jump of a killer edge. 

"Michael knows you need to be strong and he is making you strong, by making you learn that there isn´t always someone around to help you up so you better learn how to do it yourself. We have different views on teaching and yet I would have made you jump off that mountain too, well maybe a small mountain first but you get what I´m saying", I don´t think I´ll get over the whole jumping thing anytime soon and Michael will be hearing a lot more about it. 

"Will I just wait in the same spot as today tomorrow?", I inquire politely and he nods absently. The flight back home is in mayn ways less awkward, I think I have gotten to know Gabriel a lot better over the course of this lesson and I believe I have taken to liking him. He has a very humane and gentle personality, but I believe that if need be Gabriel would fight for what he believes in and that whoever has to face him should it come down to that better be prepared. There is nothing more dangerous than a nice person when they are pushed too far, they are unpredictable and 

I stroll aimlessly around the house in search of something to do while Michael is out running his errand. I do wonder what kind of errand it is that an archangel runs. At least I am failry certain that he isn´t out grocery shopping or doing his taxes, for a minute I try to picture Michael in a supermarker, calmly pushing a trolley infront of himself, buying biscuits and quite possibly knocking things off their shelves with his enormous wings. I reach the end of the corridor I have been walking down and to my surprise it ends in a huge, heavy wooden doubledoor. The door is covered in intricate gold carvings of extreme beauty, all of them seemingly melting into one another. I