====== Afriel ======

Afriel is a Sek-Agkelos who was created in the 3rd Age by Symponia. She fell some years later and wandered the world for around four and a half millennia. Along her travels she became a doctor and, in the 8th Age, she opened a clinic in Touyou where she currently works as a general physician. She is very pretty with silvery-grey hair and sparkling grey eyes. She has a pale complexion and large grey wings. She wears a long doctor's coat embellished with red cross-shaped patches on the pockets, sleeves, and breast and a thick starched cloth band on her head with an identical red cross patch. She carries a brown satchel, also embellished with a red cross patch, which she carries her emergency first-aid supplies in, as well as a small flask she usually keeps full of a strong liquor (to satiate her alcoholism) and a deck of cards (to satiate her gambling tendencies).

===== Creation =====

Afriel was created as part of an order assigned to protect and raise orphans of war. It was called the Order of the Shield. She was one of several hundred angels created by Symponia, but she had just as much importance as any other.

Each angel, or “Shield” as they came to be called, was tasked with gathering up children in war-torn towns and villages and care for them in an orphanage run by these Shields. There were many of these orphanages scattered throughout the world. Afriel was based at one of these near [city name] with three other Shields.

===== Falling =====

One day, Afriel and her three comrades were alerted to a raid on a local town only a couple of miles from the orphanage. They hurried to the location and began searching through the damaged buildings to find any children they could save.

The raid was still going on when they arrived, so they were very careful not to attract attention to themselves as they never liked having to battle the invaders. Harming anyone unnecessarily was very much against their code as angels of Symponia.

Slipping down an alley to avoid being seen, Afriel began hearing screaming coming from one of the houses that connected to it. Locating the noise, she entered the kitchen area of the house as quietly as she could through the back door. Before her was a horrifying scene: two small girls, no older than five and seven, their parents stabbed to death in a bloody puddle on the floor, were being raped, in turn, by a squad of six men that were part of the invading army, each with their pants undone and around their ankles.

Afriel was sent into a blind rage. With no compassion in her heart for the men, who were currently unable to do much to defend themselves, she slew them all. It was only after their bodies lay at her feet that she turned to find the girls.

She found their bloody, naked, lifeless bodies lying in a pile together in a corner of the room. She dropped her sword amongst the men’s bodies where she stood, suddenly aware of the horrible sin she had just committed, and, stricken with grief and remorse for her trespass, flung herself to the floor, pulled the bodies of the girls into her arms, and began to sob uncontrollably.

She sat this way for several minutes, rocking back and forth, her ashen wings folded around the small girls as if in an attempt to fix her mistake. Then the back door opened and the other Shields stepped inside. She was afraid of what they would say, but she had no capacity to do anything about it, so she folded her wings tighter around the girls and continued to weep.

They knew what had happened the moment they stepped through the door. It was a pitiful sight: Afriel’s bloody sword amongst the bodies of six slain men, all with their pants undone, and Afriel’s newly greyed wings wrapped around herself and the bloody bodies of two small girls, their hair soaked with sorrowful tears. Diniel, a smaller female angel, laid a gentle hand on Afriel’s head, stroked the blood-spattered grey feathers of her wings, and together the two other angels took the girls’ bodies from Afriel.

She looked up at them, her expression pleading with them not to leave her there alone. Diniel spoke to her softly.

“You cannot come back with us, Afriel. You have fallen. You can no longer be a Shield. You know that, friend.”

Afriel began sobbing into her knees again.

“Do not cry, my friend. You are still loved. Symponia will want to speak with you. Be strong. She may punish you, but you know she will not do it out of anger with you.”

Diniel rested her hand on Afriel’s head gently one more time. “We must take care of the children now, Afriel. Take care, my friend,” she said, and with that, she followed the other Shields out the door, shut it behind them, and they were gone.

===== A Meeting with Symponia =====

Afriel was too ashamed to face Symponia. She collected herself and left the village, her destination unknown even to her. After a while, she found herself in a large city called ________ where she spent the next few decades wallowing in her grief. She took the human pastime of drinking to help drown her sorrows, although she admitted that it often made her feel worse rather than better.

Forty years passed. The war was still going on and she had still not gone to see Symponia. On one of Afriel’s particularly bad days, one in which she had nearly drank herself into a coma, she received a visit from an old friend. As she lay in an alley behind a stack of crates in an attempt to hide herself from the world, looking up at the melancholy sky and clutching an empty bottle in one hand, three faces appeared above her, and they all looked like her former comrade, Diniel.

“Afriel, look at yourself,” the three faces said softly in unison. “This is no way for a former angel of Symponia to live.”

She tried to respond, but was too numb to move her lips.

“Come, friend. I’ve been sent to collect you and bring you before Symponia. She has been wanting to speak with you for some time.”

Diniel pulled her up and held her limp body in her arms, then took off with Afriel in her arms to carry her to the heavens.

They entered Symponia’s grand palace and headed straight for her throne room. Diniel Laid Afriel before her and stayed down on one knee to bow to her.

“Thank you, Diniel. You are a trustworthy child. If you would, please stay for a moment. Afriel will need help getting back.”

“Yes, goddess,” said Diniel, bowing again and stepping to the side.

Symponia then turned her attention to Afriel, who was struggling to get her body to cooperate in an attempt to roll over, and spoke gently and slowly to her, her voice like fresh honey.

“Afriel, my child, you have spent the last years trying to destroy yourself. You have shown your repentance for your sin, but in the process have filled your heart with sorrow until there is no room left for compassion for others or yourself. It is time for you to let go of your grief, regain your senses, and begin repaying your debt to the world.”

Afriel, who had managed a kneeling position by now, began to cry again and fell over, curling into a fetal position and sobbing onto the soft floor.

The next thing she knew, she was being held in a very warm, loving embrace, her head being stroked by a strong yet gentle hand.

“My child,” Symponia whispered to her,” I love you, and I always will. Now you must stop crying. You are no longer an angel, but that is no reason to be sad. You simply have a different purpose now. Go back to the world. I cannot allow you to resume your former position as a Shield, but there are other roles that you are able to fill. I want you to learn a new trade, one that can be used to care for not only the orphans you were created to protect, but all of those who need to be shown love and compassion. I will call you back here when the time comes.”

Afriel looked into Symponia’s eyes and nodded. Then she was scooped up by Diniel and deposited back into the alley where she had found her.

Before leaving, Diniel gave her a friendly embrace and a warm smile.

“Until we meet again, friend,” she said, and flew away.

Afriel waved after her until she could no longer see her, then stood in the alley, contemplating what Symponia had said to her. ‘A new trade?’ she thought, ‘What kind of trade could she mean?’

She looked down and saw her empty bottle on the ground. She picked it up, paused for a moment, then lifted the bottle up and let the last few drops of alcohol drip onto her tongue. She then set the bottle back down behind the crates.

‘Well, that’s the last of that medicine bottle, I guess,’ she thought to herself. Then, she was struck with an idea. She would become a medic.

===== Back At Home =====

During the next few decades, she apprenticed under a traveling human doctor who was sympathetic to her situation. She acted as his nurse, learning all she could about the diagnosis and treatment of all kinds of diseases and injuries, as they traveled from one war-torn town to the next. They often saw the Shields in these towns, small children in tow, and would treat the children who had sustained injuries when they met.

When the doctor died, Afriel took his place as a traveling medic, going where she was needed. Soon she ended up near the area she had started out in as a Shield herself. There, she encountered her old comrades. Diniel was carrying a very small boy who had a badly broken leg and was crying loudly from pain. Afriel followed them to safety, then set to work on mending the leg. It took her a while, as she was still gaining technical skill and finesse, but eventually she was able to heal the leg and put the boy at ease.

After the boy stopped crying and fell asleep, Diniel made a suggestion. She told Afriel that some of the Shields in other regions had made agreements with local doctors to be able to treat the children they cared for cheaply or in exchange for room and board. She then asked Afriel if she would be interested in a similar arrangement, if Symponia would allow it. Afriel did not hesitate with her answer and, after it was cleared with Symponia, she moved back into the orphanage where she had begun her life on Polemos.

There were rules she had to follow, however. She was to remain at the orphanage at all times and was not to imbibe even a drop of alcohol. She was to be completely dependent on the Shields for all of her needs, and was also not to share any of the authority the Shields held. Her job was to treat the children when they were sick or injured, and in return she would be cared for by the Shields. She was in function a doctor, but in status an orphan.

Afriel was gracious for the hospitality, despite the restrictions placed upon her. She was given a small room on the top floor of the large orphanage that acted as both her examination room and her living quarters, with a dormitory beside it to act as an infirmary. When she was not treating the orphans, she was busy making improvements to her makeshift clinic. She hung curtains between the beds to give the sick children privacy, installed foldable shelves and medicine cabinets to keep supplies, and knocked out part of the wall between her room and the infirmary, replacing it with a curtain as well, to be able to hear the children at night in case there was an emergency.

She became a very good doctor and word of her skills spread quickly. The orphanage began to receive visits from townspeople seeking care from the grey-winged doctor. Most people were apprehensive of a Sek-agkelos treating the ill, but even those who were the most unaccepting of her kind found themselves seeking her aid when they required care they could not find or afford anywhere else. The entire top floor eventually had to be annexed for the infirmary because of the steadily growing number of patients.

However, there was also an ever-growing number of orphans the Shields needed space for, so Afriel soon had to build and open her own clinic so the orphanage could utilize the top floor again. She now saw many adults, but she still treated the orphans and made house calls to them when necessary, and she never charged them for her services. She was happy to do it for free.

===== Falling Back =====

Not being under the roof of the Shields anymore, she was no longer required to follow the restrictions placed upon her. So, she began falling back into the lifestyle she had picked up after her falling. She still had a great passion for caring for her patients, but began replacing some of the time she would have spent making improvements to her clinic with drinking until she became so dependent on the alcohol she often found it difficult to function normally without it.

When the Great War ended and the Golden Age began, Afriel found herself adrift. The Shields still ran their orphanages, as there was always a never-ending supply of unwanted children, war or not, but Afriel, through her alcoholism, became unable to practice medicine reliably. Her patrons began to mistrust her. Even the Shields became apprehensive about allowing her to treat the orphans and began taking them elsewhere. Seeing this, Afriel saw herself as no longer fit to do Symponia’s work. She closed down her clinic and once more began to wander the world in search of meaning for her existence.

Throughout the Fifth Age, she saw many places and met many people, but never stayed in one location for very long. She did odd jobs for people when she needed money, and she would often help families in need when she felt she could help them, particularly when her medical background would come in handy. She never asked for payment, but never refused it either, and most of the time was paid as handsomely as could be afforded by the grateful family members.

During this period, she picked up another vice: gambling, on cards in particular. She didn’t fancy herself particularly good, but discovered that many people, especially small-town folk, found her to be quite intimidating with her large grey wings, acting as if they had just met some kind of demon. Admittedly, she used this to her advantage more than once, slipping into a game already in progress and bluffing her way through the other folks’ chip stacks.

She would move from town to town like this, doing work, buying alcohol, winning and losing at cards, then moving on, for a few centuries. She picked up other forms of gambling along the way, such as dice, horse races, and the like, but she always came back to her old love. For the most part she enjoyed herself, roaming the world, free to do whatever she wanted. She saw the world morph and change, then be torn down and built up again. She had many, many lifetimes’ worth of experiences.

===== A Bad Beat =====

One evening, as Afriel was sitting at a card table in a rather smokey bar playing a quite profitable game of Touyouan Hold-Em, a new player sat across from her, one that she hadn’t seen in a very long time. It was Diniel, her snowy white wings folded in tightly to her body. She set down a large stack of chips and rather than a greeting, she simply said to Afriel, who was shuffling, “Deal me in.”

Afriel dealt the hand. There were three other men at the table. Afriel held the ace of spades and the king of clubs. The two men to her left posted the blinds, then everyone called (Afriel didn’t want to draw attention to her good hand) and the flop was dealt: the ace of hearts, ace of clubs, and king of diamonds.

Afriel couldn’t believe it. She had a full house on the flop. She contained herself though and played cool. The two men to her left folded: bad hands. Then it was Diniel’s turn. She looked at Afriel and silently pushed a sizable stack of chips toward the center of the table. The other man folded, unwilling to lose that much money on a hand he had little faith in. Afriel then, while keeping eye contact with Diniel, called her bet and laid down the turn card: the queen of diamonds.

Diniel silently pushed another large stack of chips toward Afriel, who looked at the board trying to figure out what was going on.

‘Has she even looked at the cards on the board? Does she know what she’s even doing?’ she asked herself. Afriel’s hand was good, but what could Diniel have that she’s putting so much faith in?

She called the bet.

The river card was revealed: the ten of diamonds.

Diniel stared emotionlessly at Afriel, then, as if on cue, she carefully pushed all of her chips in.

Was she trying to bluff? Force Afriel out of the game? Take all of her money? Simply make her sweat? Whatever it was, Afriel now sensed that Diniel knew exactly what she was doing.

The odds were in her favor. Not much could beat a full house. She knew Diniel couldn’t have four of a kind, and the chances of her having the straight flush were slim, especially if she didn’t have it until the river. Holding onto trash for that long was something an amateur would do, and from the way she was playing, Diniel looked like no amateur—persistent, maybe, but not an amateur.

Afriel pushed all of her chips in as well.

Diniel smiled as she laid down her cards. “Looks like I win this one, friend,” she said softly.

Afriel couldn’t believe it. With the jack and ace of diamonds, Diniel won the hand with a royal flush.

When the chips were sorted out and the money given to its rightful owner, the two of them took their leave from the table and stepped outside. It was a beautiful day. The bar was located in one of the more shady parts of town down a dirty alley, but between the buildings they could see in the cerulean blue sky the sun beaming rays of light from behind a puffy white cloud.

They didn’t say anything for a long time. They just stood there beside each other looking up at the sky.

Then they both turned toward each other and, without a word having to be said, they embraced each other in a long, loving hug. After a while, Diniel stood back and smiled at Afriel.

“Why did you come here, friend?” Afriel asked her, “Surely this visit wasn’t just to come take all of my money,” she said with a grin.

“Lots of exciting things are about to happen, my friend! So much change taking place all at once! One change in particular involves you, Afriel, so Symponia has sent me to collect you once more. She says that it is time.”

Afriel was beside herself. She thought Symponia had abandoned her, forgotten about what she had told her. Afriel remembered, though, and before Diniel had time to say anything else, they became white and grey blurs streaking towards the heavens.

===== Changes =====

Once again before Symponia, Afriel kneeled in a proper greeting to her god.

“It is good to see you, my child,” Symponia said with a warm smile. The words sounded so sweet to Afriel’s ears. It had been so long since she had last heard that voice.

“I am sure you are unaware of the changes about to take place, having been absent for quite some time, although you may have sensed them coming. Erevno will be imposing a barrier between our realm and the mortal realm very soon. This barrier will make it impossible for celestial beings to go between worlds, or even exist in the mortal world, therefore disallowing any interference on our part in the lives of mortals.”

The news was not quite a slap in the face, but Afriel’s hopes of being accepted back into the Order of the Shield had disintegrated in mere seconds. She knew that this meant The Order of the Shield would no longer be able to operate on Polemos. She suddenly felt as if a wide chasm had opened up inside her somewhere around her stomach.
“That is where you will come in, Afriel,” Symponia added softly.

Afriel perked up again, “Yes, goddess?”

She smiled, “As a Sek-Agkelos, you are somewhat immune to the barrier. You will not be able to pass between worlds once the barrier is in place, but because you have become attuned to the world, you will be able to exist there, unlike the rest of my children. Therefore, I am counting on you, Afriel, to carry on the work of your fellow Shields. It is your duty, and yours alone, to help to sick, the injured, and to care for and protect the children who have no voice of their own.”

Afriel’s stomach did somersaults. She was elated to know that she was again a Shield—and not just any Shield, THE Shield, the only one left on Polemos.

Then she realized what this meant. She would no longer be able to see Symponia or her comrade, Diniel. She would be alone.

Symponia saw this change in her heart and beckoned her forward.

“My child, your duty is of the upmost importance. These feelings you have are understandable, but are not becoming of a child of Symponia. You must do this alone. That, unfortunately, is the way things must be.”

Afriel, tears in her eyes, flung herself at her god, and Symponia held her in her arms as she had so many years ago.