It's been the talk of Heaven, lately. The Archangel of the Sword has been acting somewhat, well, oddly. He's been seen conferring with as many Catholic and Christian blessed soul-theologians and clergy that he could find, pushing himself in training, and generally being somewhat snappish and edgy. Nobody has any real idea what's going on, but Laurence obviously has something fairly important on his mind, and he can't see how to resolve it. Actually, gossip doesn't know the half of it. Laurence does have something important to worry about, but it's in a fairly unexpected category.

A few months ago, one of his Malakim came to him with, well, a personal problem. The Malakim had noticed a .0054% drop in efficiency after he began seeing romantically an Ofanite of War. Now, while the percentage drop had substantially affected neither the Malakim's job performance nor his commitment to fighting the War, it was a noticeable degradation in ability. However, the Servitor was having difficulties in determining whether the drop in effectiveness justified ending the relationship (he personally doubted it), without first trying to compensate. Morale is, after all, an important factor in efficiency, and at present, breaking things off would only cause a steeper drop. Thankfully, the Servitor was working for an entity much wiser and experienced than he, who could no doubt give some practical advice…

When they give you the Archangel's halo, somehow they neglect to mention that you'll end up fielding baroque questions on a regular basis. This one caught Laurence flat-footed: his Servitor obviously didn't want to end his (perfectly honorable) relationship, but he also didn't want to lose any of his edge. The Archangel muttered some platitudes, the Malakim went away happy, and worked things out on his own (a slightly longer training period in the mornings cleared up the problem). Problem solved, except that Laurence wasn't too happy with his own role. Perfect Judge of Honor, an Archangel should be able to give well reasoned, pertinent advice when asked, not hem and haw and equivocate.

Since then, Laurence has been trying to come up with anything else than the obvious answer. He's grilled (gently) every theologian he can get his hands on, attacked the problem from all ends, tried thinking outside the box, but he keeps coming back to an unmistakable answer. Some things simply can't be handled by book learning. If Laurence wants to be a source of answers, he's going to have to have the pertinent experience to justify it.

Laurence… is going to have to Go Out On A Date.

This should be fun to watch, really. Laurence has few vices, and vanity isn't one of them. He has no idea exactly what his terse announcement that he requires an escort to "a pleasant yet respectable social activity, with no threat of dishonor, followed by a refreshing and nourishing meal on the corporeal plane" is going to do to the Pax Dei. He's actually worried that no one will volunteer. The Bright Lilim alone… well, it won't be pretty (thankfully, there aren't that many of them). However, they'll have plenty of company as the hordes of female angels attempt to be the first one to volunteer. Nobody will be sure whether Laurence is going to ever choose to go out on a second date, so you snooze, you lose. There may even be genteel rioting. Heck, a few male angels might give it a stab; it's not like the Roman Catholic Church has ever banned homosexual behavior among angels, so whatever misguided theological positions wouldn't even apply here.

And if you think Heaven's reaction is going to be interesting, wait until the news hits Hell. More than one Lilim will seriously toy with the idea of Redemption on this one. Servitors of Lust will just muse on the potential rewards of bagging the ultimate prize. Everybody else will just use the data to tweak some angelic noses.

And, of course, you just know that Lilith and Andre will just happen to have reservations at the same restaurant as Laurence and his date…