Gabriel waved a hand vaguely but emphatically at the landscape, struggling for words. "Not like this," he finished at last, irritable and strangely unnerved. "Green. Foresty. Fieldsy. And okay, with the occasional scrap of desert. Even that was nothing like this. There's nothing here. No life."

Just desolation. The archangel realised just how disconcerted he'd sounded and checked himself. It took him a moment, frowning, to realise it wasn't just the memory of what should have been here that was making him feel like this. It was the desolation, period. The scar on the land. It had been a long, long time since he'd done much with the land itself instead of with those populating it, but he still remembered what the world had been like back then.

Wild. Open. Lush. Dangerous, yes, but dangerous because of the sheer amount of life in it. And beautiful for all that danger. This ... this made his human heart clench with the thought of everything his Father had made that had been destroyed. He hadn't been expecting that reaction.

"But at least we won't have any trouble cooking meals," he added with an attempt at levity, trying to rearrange his expression into something more upbeat and cheerful. He didn't quite make it; couldn't quite help the hurt in his eyes as he looked out over the landscape.