Around 5,000 years ago

Around this time, Kiel and Will would occasionally run into each other by chance during their travels — sometimes with decades, sometimes centuries between meetings. Their relationship had settled into something stable enough to be called a long-standing friendship between two old companions. Close enough that if Kiel caught Will doing something wicked, he would get a little annoyed and flick him on the head with a "I already told you not to do that, but I'll let it go this time since you did help someone the other day." And Will would find it funny and want to tease him all the more.

One day, while Will was happily enjoying himself at a brothel surrounded by an array of beautiful, alluring company — men and women alike — Kiel happened to wander past. He poked his head in, spotted Will, and greeted him in the most perfectly ordinary way, as though he hadn't noticed a single thing about the scene around him. A nod, a cheerful hello, and then he was on his way again — leaving Will in a state of bafflement, his mood somehow completely ruined.

After Kiel left, Will stood up and went after him. He found Kiel a little ways down the road, stopped at a street stall buying some snack. For reasons he couldn't quite explain, Will felt a sudden flash of irritation — that simple, oblivious little gesture felt almost offensively foolish to him. He strode over and planted himself in front of Kiel, a little roughly, and demanded to know why he hadn't reacted at all to what he'd just seen. Kiel only tilted his head and said, I know that's just the nature of demons like you — as long as you're not making a scene, I'm not going to judge you for it. The words were entirely well-meaning, but somehow landing in Will's ears like a thorn larger than the last. He didn't like it — he wanted Kiel to be angry, to care more. But then Will caught himself: why did he want that? There was no benefit in it for a demon like him. A celestial who turned a blind eye to a demon's sins was already more than generous — what more could he possibly want? He had no answer. He opened his mouth, then didn't. In the end he stormed off in a fury he couldn't quite name, leaving Kiel equally baffled as to why his demon friend had suddenly gotten so upset.

Will was afraid he was feeling something he had absolutely no desire to admit. And so for a long stretch of time after that, every time he saw Kiel, he made a point of being a little colder, a little more distant. Of course — he was only observing this angel to find a weakness, that was all. There was no way this foolish little celestial could throw him off balance. But that very foolishness of Kiel's didn't make things any easier. When Kiel noticed Will was acting a little differently than usual, he simply asked — hey, what's wrong, is something going on? — and when Will brushed it off, Kiel just accepted that with a small nod, then cheerfully handed him another ridiculous little gift. Will stared at it, caught somewhere between warmth and fury. That insufferable angel was absolutely testing him.

The Goat: Look at that, the master's losing sleep over someone again.
Will: YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH.

It was, perhaps, somewhat fortunate for Will that Kiel wandered so often and so far, meaning their meetings were few and far between. It gave him time to settle down, to talk himself back into reason, to focus on things he told himself mattered more — like becoming an exceptionally powerful demon, for instance. Will would never admit that during those intervals he still thought of Kiel sometimes. He would certainly never admit to taking out the ridiculous little trinkets Kiel had given him and looking at them.

Will ran into Kiel again in the middle of a territorial war, where Kiel had disguised himself as a human soldier on the opposing side. When the two came face to face in the thick of battle, Kiel's first reaction was a startled oh, why are you here? — and so the two of them slipped away to a corner of the forest at the edge of the battlefield to commiserate in peace. Kiel had never had any fondness for these kinds of battles, but this was one of those unavoidable duties, so there was nothing to be done about it. He genuinely couldn't understand why humans had to fight each other like this — they were the same kind of creature, weren't they? There was no need for all this slaughter, they could just talk it out. Will, listening, asked: so if they weren't the same kind of creature, it'd be fine to fight? Kiel paused, then quickly said, well, not exactly — you and I still talk to each other just fine, don't he? — and smiled his usual slightly dopey smile. Will said nothing. He just stood there and watched the battle end alongside Kiel.

Kiel disappeared for a long stretch after that, and Will assumed he'd been punished for neglecting his duties. (In reality, Ezekiel had simply caught him and made him rewrite his reports.) After their last conversation, Will had found himself thinking about how Kiel's worldview was hopelessly idealistic — so far removed from Will's own way of living, that of a demon who fed on chaos to seize power. He told himself this was exactly the wake-up call he needed. A reminder not to keep indulging in wayward thoughts.

And so another few centuries passed. By now, Will had entered into a particular arrangement, and a son had been born from it — a boy named Sileon. Strangely, Will had brought the child back to the underworld and raised him through his earliest years, which was a highly unusual thing to do in Hell.

It's worth understanding that the culture of the underworld operated on the principle of every demon for themselves — children included. Newborns were abandoned immediately, left to survive or perish on their own. If a child of demon nobility managed to survive into adulthood, they would eventually return to challenge their parent for their title, because no title could be held by two demons living at the same time. Demons were naturally immortal — they could only die at the hands of something stronger — so even demons who scattered their offspring across the world would routinely kill or even devour their own children.

Will didn't raise Sileon to adulthood. He let the boy fend for himself after a few years. In Will's view, he'd already been exceptionally generous — what happened next was no longer his concern.

That was 4,000 years before the present.

When Will returned to the surface, very little seemed to have changed in any meaningful way. Having a child hadn't given his life more meaning — if anything, it left him feeling more bitter. After that, he stopped taking on arrangements that had anything to do with offspring, despite being a demon whose domain was desire itself. The only silver lining he could think of was that while he'd been caring for Sileon, he hadn't been thinking about Kiel. It had at least given him something else to occupy his mind.

Will ran into Kiel again in the most unexpected way — while wandering alone through a forest at night, wanting nothing more than a change of scenery. He certainly hadn't expected to find that angel calmly bathing himself in a lake. Kiel recognized him immediately, gave a little wave, as though the figure who'd just appeared was nothing more alarming than a rabbit hopping past. The absolute worst possible timing. Kiel was completely bare, submerged in the still water, damp hair clinging to his face, every line of his build carved and precise as if sculpted, his skin seeming almost to glow, cheeks flushed warm from the cold of a night bath. Kiel was always striking — but like this he was something else entirely, enough to make even the most steadfastly indifferent person falter. Will had seen countless beautiful people in his time, men and women both, but this pull — was this something only angels had? Even so, he had himself well in hand. He walked to the water's edge, smiled, and said something to tease him. Kiel didn't seem the least bit self-conscious about his own appearance — he responded with complete naturalness, as though there were nothing at all unusual about the scene. Which, Will supposed, for Kiel, there genuinely wasn't — and somehow that made him more amused than anything else.

Kiel paddled over toward the bank and invited Will to come in too, said the water was nice. Will, of course, had no intention of getting in. So Kiel pretended there was something beautiful to look at and splashed him squarely in the face, then laughed and swam back out to the middle of the lake. Will stood on the bank feeling absolutely ridiculous, and pretended to scold him.

Will watched Kiel swim a few more laps around the lake. He didn't leave. How can someone like this actually exist, he thought to himself. When Kiel finally came ashore, he did so with complete unselfconsciousness, no attempt at modesty whatsoever. And it was then that Will noticed — Kiel had no genitalia. A strange feeling stirred in him and he found himself compelled to ask why. Kiel seemed to find the question perfectly obvious, and answered that he simply hadn't created one, because he had no use for it. (It's worth noting that an angel's human form is self-constructed and can be altered at will — it is not a real organic body in the biological sense.) Will was quiet for a moment, not quite realizing that he'd been staring at that absence on Kiel's body — and then, as though something had clicked into place, he stood, said his goodbyes, and left.

He couldn't quite explain why, but after that Will found himself even more intrigued by Kiel than before. He told himself it was straightforward enough — just curiosity, a desire to understand and to conquer. He couldn't believe someone like this actually existed; Kiel must surely be hiding some deeply aberrant desire beneath that surface, and Will would find a way to uncover it. He justified every stray thought about Kiel as simply his instincts at work, and told himself he no longer had any reason to avoid him. In fact, he thought he'd quite like to seek him out more often — just to see whether Kiel was really what he seemed.

A few things worth knowing about Kiel: Kiel is an Authority angel, part of Heaven's military order, meaning his skills and abilities skew heavily toward containment and offensive action against demons — he's built for combat. Not that he lacks healing or blessing abilities — every angel does — but those haven't developed nearly as strongly in him as they have in guardian-type angels. This may seem at odds with the personality Kiel has shown so far, but it's worth understanding that angels are best thought of as perfectly designed instruments of execution that happen to have personalities, rather than creatures resembling humans. In terms of raw power alone, Kiel is significantly stronger than Will — stronger, in fact, than quite a few demon lords if we're talking about pure force.

Will was already aware of how powerful Kiel was, as a matter of fact. Kiel had crossed paths with Will twice before ever setting foot on the mortal plane for the first time — their meeting on earth had been the third, and even then Kiel had recognized the demon from before and chosen to let him be. The first time was when Kiel escorted Lilith to the gates of Hell and met Will there — Will had been standing guard at the entrance at the time, and Kiel had asked him to take Lilith the rest of the way, since he himself could go no further. The second time was during an open war between Heaven and Hell, where the two came face to face again — Will hadn't wanted to participate in that battle but had orders from Lucifer, and Kiel, recognizing his old demon acquaintance, quietly asked after Lilith, then let him go out of goodwill. So yes — Will had already seen what Kiel was truly capable of, firsthand.

Every visit back to Heaven wasn't just leisurely wandering followed by being forced to rewrite reports — Kiel also ended up running all manner of errands for Ezekiel on the side: training new recruits, fixing old protocols he himself had invented that no one else could untangle, lending support to other units dealing with demon-related problems... all that added up to a solid week of work, and he'd still somehow find time to trim the hedges in the Garden of Eden on top of it all.

Kiel found watching humans far more enjoyable, but he didn't feel burdened by his work in Heaven either — he did it all as naturally as breathing. His mind might be drifting toward something a human had cooked last week, while his hands finished the task in front of him and his mouth kept reciting procedures without a single error. Ezekiel knew this perfectly well — he was fully aware that Kiel's attention wandered constantly, even when his actions never showed it — but he never said anything about it. He simply let the boy be. Which was part of why other angels rarely saw Kiel look truly serious about anything: even when he was operating at full capacity, he still looked like he was on a pleasant day off.

Though it's often said that all angels are like perfectly functioning machines, the word "perfect" really does depend on one's definition. Yes, they are extraordinarily efficient — even the most baseline angel operates at a level far beyond what any human could conceive. But between angels themselves, there are still differences — it's just that they're all so far above the human scale that those differences are impossible for humans to measure.

Kiel is also an ancient angel, having come into being in the earliest days of creation when supernatural forces were still warring constantly over the shape of things, meaning his experience in combat was forged in real, sustained conflict — his growth rate was rapid and exceptional in ways plainly visible to any observer. Angels born into more peaceful eras simply can't keep pace. Generally speaking, while all angels share the same baseline, they accumulate just as humans do — the longer they've lived, the higher their ceiling, even within the same rank. Because an angel's vocation is assigned at creation and never changes — with very rare exceptions, such as Kiel, who was reassigned early on for being too disruptive. Kiel had originally been made a Virtue, but he was so incorrigibly reckless that God looked at him and thought — hmm, alright, let's move this one to Authority. Which explains why, despite being classified as an Authority, Kiel's true form carries the softer qualities of a Virtue — his body translucent as though containing an entire cosmos, six vast wings, but only four used for flight, the remaining two folded down to cover his feet in the manner of a Virtue.

All angels are, by nature, genderless. When Kiel first descended to the mortal world and needed to construct a human form, Ezekiel suggested he make it male — not because it was required, but because Ezekiel felt Kiel's personality suited masculinity better, and that a man would have an easier time moving through the world. Kiel agreed without much thought and did exactly that.

After so many descents to the mortal plane, once Kiel's human form had fully settled and stabilized, he quietly became one of the most beautiful-looking angels in all of Heaven — according to the rankings kept by the third sphere angels. Kiel himself had absolutely no idea, since he appeared so infrequently and spent so little time there each visit that he'd simply become a fixture on the list of mysterious, handsome angels surrounded by 1001 strange and unlikely stories.

Ezekiel is a Dominion — Kiel's foster father and direct superior both — and he oversees many other Virtue and Authority angels beyond just Kiel. Kiel is considered the eldest among all those Ezekiel has ever raised, though by no means the only one. The others noticed that despite Ezekiel's strict exterior, he seemed consistently willing to overlook things when it came to Kiel — and every one of them thought it was blatant favoritism. (Which, well... fair.) They'd grumble about how the eldest got away with things they couldn't, and Ezekiel would simply say: very well, then go do what Kiel does, and if you can manage it, I'll be just as lenient with you. That tended to shut them up immediately. If Kiel ever saw a younger angel trotting out to copy him, he'd likely assume Ezekiel had sent them over to play — and proceed to work and chat their ear off simultaneously, completely demolishing their concentration, helpfully finish everything they couldn't keep up with, and then just keep talking.

Whenever Kiel returned to Heaven, he'd barely land before whooping and trying to drag everyone off somewhere to play — the archetypal instigator of chaos and disruption. Fortunately, Ezekiel would reel him in and put him to work writing reports, otherwise the senior angels would have no idea what to do when Kiel started inviting their subordinates on outings. Yes, he'd also finish all their work for them in the process, but that was beside the point procedurally speaking. And those seniors thought they were safe — little did they know Kiel would just invite them along too.

Back when Kiel was still a tiny little ball of fluff, he once climbed onto God's shoulder and bounced around chirping. Back then he was nothing but a small, perfectly round ball of light that fit neatly in the palm of Ezekiel's hand. Even then, the little ball was already overflowing with excess energy, always on the verge of bouncing right out of that palm to go play — but he was too small to actually get anywhere, and every time he made a break for it, Ezekiel caught him again. When Ezekiel brought the little ball to the nursery to learn alongside the other new ones, Kiel-ball spent approximately two minutes chirping before successfully convincing the entire group to go play, sending the supervising angels into a cold sweat. He had enormous energy but tired out very quickly — after a good round of chirping he'd simply roll over and fall asleep in Ezekiel's palm, leaving Ezekiel to sigh helplessly and stroke the little tuft of hair that had gotten all wild from all the mischief. When God passed through the nursery that day, Kiel-ball chirped directly at Him, enthusiastically, for quite some time — it was unclear whether he understood anything God said back — and was rewarded with a pat on the head and a you're such a good boy. (Where "good" was coming from was anyone's guess.) In short: a troublemaker from the very beginning.

~3,000 years ago

Ever since Will managed to gaslight himself into a more comfortable interpretation of his feelings, he'd been showing up to test Kiel, trying to find some crack in the surface — but because he'd willfully misread the whole situation from the start, every test kept producing results he hadn't bargained for. When Will gave Kiel a pile of gold and precious gems, Kiel accepted immediately. Before Will had time to feel smug about it, Kiel had already spent the whole sum buying every enslaved person at the market and setting them all free — then turned around to thank Will warmly and ask how he'd known that was exactly what Kiel had needed the money for. Will was at a complete loss for words. Fine. Consider it charity. Another time, Will deliberately brought Kiel to a group of people who followed a different god, radical enough in their beliefs to openly blaspheme against Kiel's Creator, just to see how Kiel would react — only to find Kiel quietly writing things down. Apparently he was documenting the cultural diversity of human belief systems as reference material for a different celestial unit that handled outreach to other traditions. There were many more attempts after that, and each one left Will feeling more and more like he'd run headfirst into a wall.

Gradually, Will found his self-justifications running thinner. He had to begin admitting something — that he liked Kiel more than he'd ever known how to like anyone, though having never been seriously in love before, he wasn't entirely sure what the word even meant when applied to himself. But this was wrong. How could a demon fall for an angel? Even by the standards of creatures defined by their disregard for rules, this was too far. Will kept the realization private for the time being, and went on seeing Kiel as before — but he began looking forward to those meetings in a way he hadn't before. The trouble was that this particular angel had an uncanny talent for being somewhere else entirely, drifting in and out without warning, and seeking him out was never straightforward. Will kept up his habit of teasing Kiel, though now he did it more because he liked watching Kiel react than because he was trying to uncover anything. He kept listening to Kiel's absurd, half-disastrous adventure stories because he wanted to know where Kiel had been during all the time they were apart. He kept inviting Kiel to meals because Kiel had mentioned he'd started developing a sense of taste recently and could finally tell flavors apart. Small things, all of it. But they made Will feel a little lighter, a little easier in himself — now that he'd at least admitted the truth to his own heart.