Gabriel, the once respected and feared Judge of Hell, is plummeting downwards, the blurred landscape of Heresy growing worryingly closer. The archangel, for all his work at trying to take his fall gracefully, lets out the most undignified shriek he’d ever heard as he attempted to flap his pinioned wings, ignoring the pain, ignoring how his right wing’s wound opened again, ignoring how his position was all wrong to even try to fly.

Terror and panic fills every ounce of his being, every nerve focused on a desperate attempt to fly despite the fact that his wings had been rendered useless, tendons clipped and bones shattered at the hands of the Council. Gabriel tries desperately to right himself in the air, holding back a whine of pain as he snaps his wings out to their full extension, all before he lets out a strangled squawk as a sudden air current catches him.

For a few precious seconds, he managed to fight the air enough to turn himself horizontally, albeit in a more gliding position than an ideally flying one. Fate, however, is not on his side. His wings falter and he’s turned to his side by the air current, causing him to resume his fall. ── In just a few short seconds, Gabriel finally crashes down into Hersey, grunting as he tumbles across the cold ground. Eventually, he comes to a stop, splayed out on his back and wings lying limply on the dirt. Gabriel lays there shellshocked as he stares up at the red sky, the situation he has found himself in slowly dawning on him.

He shivers. He’d never noticed this coldness before in Heresy. This was a consequence; no longer did the Light burn in him. Ice is already beginning to crystallize on the inside of his visor, his skin prickling into goose flesh.

He’s tempted to simply stay there forever until his wings froze to his back and his joints locked up. However, he’s forced to get up when his stomach howls at him. Gabriel shakily stands up, wincing at how his body aches from the impact and his wings scream. He looks out into Heresy, skeptical of his own survival.