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“Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven“ – Paradise Lost, first Song
Lucifer sat on the edge of the sky and looked over the clouds. The stars were sparkling and radiantly bright to see, Lucifer lost himself almost in the dark picturesque color of the night, which always had a calming effect on him.
“Brother, my dear dreamer, what keeps you awake?”, Michael asked and Lucifer noticed him only now. He hadn’t seen him coming over and sat down next to him. He turned his head and looked at, looking in the deep blue eyes of the archangel.
“My thoughts keep me awake, no more and no less”, Lucifer then said plainly.
Michael nodded. “I see.”
Silence lay over the two angels. It was a pleasant silence. Lucifer liked it that he could just sit next to Michael and felt safe and warm without having to talk with him. It was a peaceful, familiar silence.
“Lucifer”, Michael said and his voice had a questioning pitch.
“Yes, Michael?”, Lucifer replied and looked at him again. He looked at Michael, who looked at him insecurely. Lucifer raised a curved eyebrow, searched his face for a sign of what he thought, but Michael’s thoughts from his facial expressions were hard for him to read.
“Aren’t you tired of just following a path?”, then he asked.
“What do you mean?”, Lucifer asked confusedly about it.
“We have a will and we must not use it”, Michael said emphatically. “We have feelings and must not feel right.
Lucifer nodded. He understood what Michael wanted to tell him, he always understood what Michael told him.
“Yes.” He smiled softly. “I can understand you. I’m kind of tired of it as well. We have so much we can make use of, but it’s forbidden. We were created to possess all these qualities, but we will never be as free as humans are.”
“You think humans are free?” Michael asked and skepticism lay in his voice.
Lucifer nodded. “I think so.”
Michael let out a dry laugh. “No, my dreaming brother, people aren’t free. You see the wrath of Yahweh in all that they do wrong, don’t you? This isn’t what being free means.”
“But are we free? We don’t even come to the point of being punished by him”, Lucifer replied.
“Hm, that’s a point, yes.” Michael agreed.
“I know”, Lucifer said arrogantly smiling.
“You’ve always been more arrogant than anyone when it comes to being right”, Michael teasingly remarked, pushing his shoulder against Lucifer’s, which made him laugh.
“I just can’t help myself. I’m always right”, he just said confidently and saw Michael shaking his head with a soft smile.
Lucifer looked at his brother, who lifted up his gaze and their eyes met.
Ocean blue met cloud gray.
“I love you Lucifer”, Michael said gently and put a hand on his cool, pale cheek.
“I love you too, Michael”, Lucifer replied smiling, warming himself in his chest.
It was true. He really loved his brother and they said it to each other often, especially in such quiet moments as these.
But what happened then, he clearly had not expected.
Michael leaned over to him and put his cool, hard lips on his.
Lucifer’s eyes widened.
This was wrong. He wasn’t allowed to. But a voice in his head said he could.
So he gave himself up. He replied the sweet kiss Michael gave him and closed his eyes. He’d give himself to Michael.
Michael made him feel safe. Safe and secure. He trusted him, there was nothing wrong with doing this.
*
Lucifer’s bright eyes were looking angry at Michael, who drew out his mighty sword and directed it against him.
Michael’s impeccably beautiful face was distorted by anger and deep aversion to him, and Lucifer didn’t understand why.
“Brother, don’t you remember our conversation a few nights ago?” Lucifer asked stunned, he felt a tear coming out of the corner of his eye and falling down on his marble cheek.
Michael was silent.
His silence had always been the worst punishment, had always been the worst pain he could inflict on him.
Michael’s silence should be the worst torment Lucifer should feel until that moment.
Lucifer vigorously shook his head, his wild reddish shimmering hair – those who constantly remembered the fire moved and framed his androgynous face gently and made it look soft and young.
Michael swallowed heavily at the sight of how Lucifer could see, and he continued to look irony at him. His hand clenched to a tense fist, the veins came out clearly and his knuckles became white.
“Michael”, said Lucifer thundering and at least he seemed to reach his brother. The archangel in front of him twitched barely visibly, he blinked weakly, as if he had been taken out of a trance and looked at Lucifer from blue eyes. His golden curls framed his sharp-cut feminine face. The next words that followed, however, didn’t have much in common with the Archangel whom Lucifer once called his brother, to whom he once kept company at night and had talked with him and – Lucifer closed his eyes briefly, what happened was a mistake and shouldn’t happen again, he drove away the thought of it and shook off the pictures from his inner eyes.
“You traitor. He called you Lightbringer? Almighty, you only bring shame upon us, defile the name of the angels for your own and rebel against our father after all he did for you? You ungrateful deviationist.”
Michale’s voice was cool and cutting as he pressed the words out between his thin lips. His eyes were dangerously narrowed and blazing almost up with rage.
And Lucifer didn’t understand why he called him that.
He didn’t do anything wrong, did he? He had merely questioned his father, used his will for what he had been given it for, and that was ultimately wrong? Was that the price of free will? To be trapped in one’s own head without doing anything to the customer and not questioning it? Just follow blind and be rewareded?
No, it’s not.
Lucifer couldn’t imagine that. There was nothing wrong with that. Yahweh wanted it that way. He was the darling of Yahweh, he could not imagine that this would now be his doom after all he had made use of and thus fulfilled himself by Yahweh.
Bitter disappointment loomed on his face, his features tightened and formed an angry grimace, which didn’t quite fit into the bright, immaculately beautiful portrait of him, but that was how he felt. Terrible. Used. Betrayed.
Michael took a swing with his sword. Lucifer evaded.
The same words kept echoing in his head. It couldn't be true, it couldn't be true. He dreamed.
Yes, he was dreaming. He was dreaming a terrible dream.
"Michael. Wake me up. Wake me up, please. I'm begging you, brother,” Lucifer shouted desperately, looked at his brother pleadingly - But he said nothing about it, instead he continued to aim his sword at Lucifer and finally wounded him on the upper arm.
Lucifer inhaled sharply and slapped his hand on the open, gaping wound. His face twisted in pain and he looked at Michael with a shock.
"Why?" He breathed out softly.
But Michael remained silent again.
Lucifer bowed his head and noticed now that they had reached the edge of the sky. A step further, a misstep, and Lucifer would fall down into the abyss, humiliating him with the worst punishment in heaven.
He looked back at Michael, who was now standing in front of him. His face was iron, no emotion allowed, and almost looked like a statue made of rich cold marble.
Lucifer trembled, his eyes moved restlessly, they searched Michael's face for emotion, and he finally found what he was looking for. He saw them. The wild waves of his emotions, in his bright blue eyes, which Lucifer had always reminded of the ocean which he had loved since Yahweh created it.
In his eyes, Lucifer could clearly see that Michael was under control that he was struggling with himself. He struggled with his feelings in this situation and that's why he remained so silent.
He didn't want to give in to his feelings.
Lucifer looked away. The fighters were concerned with themselves and completely immersed in this terrible, senseless war.
When he rebelled by finding some more angels who wanted to use their free will and their own thoughts and feelings, he hadn't expected such an outrage. He had thought it could be solved peacefully, but as so often that day, he seemed to have been wrong.
His brothers and sisters were fighting. They fought bitterly against each other and killed each other bestially. And why? Lucifer didn't know it himself. He couldn't name what it was they were fighting for, but what he did know was that he was alone with Michael now.
Alone with his brother.
Alone with the archangel. Alone with justice.
"Is that what you think justice is brother?" Lucifer asked bitingly and was surprised at how powerful his voice sounded.
Michael seemed to notice this as well, as he lowered his sword carelessly and flinched away.
Lucifer straightened up, clenched his hands into fists and narrowed his eyes dangerously. Hissing like a snake, he spat out, "Tell me brother, the hours of our night and your seduction, you knew it was wrong and yet you did it; I even got involved because I thought we shared the same views. That we would be the same in our inequality of being. Our thoughts, our feelings and our will. But now you stand here, punish me with your silence and point your sword against me. What for? Why do you need your sword against me? You know you won't stand a chance against me because I am Yahweh's favorite. I am better than all of you will ever be. I am like God!”
That seemed to have an effect. Lucifer took a deep breath, condemning his eyes to Michael, who dropped his sword tip to the floor and straightened his shoulders. He looked hard at him and spoke slowly and carefully: “Who is like God? You certainly not. "
Lucifer looked haughtily at him.
Michael looked back at him.
They looked into each other's eyes for a long time.
The raging waves behind Michael's deep blue eyes met the angry storm behind Lucifer's bright gray eyes.
"Show me who is the fairest," Lucifer said loudly, "Come on, tell me!"
Michael's lips formed a thin line, his eyebrows wrinkled angrily and he swung his sword, raised it over his head and took a swing.
Lucifer stopped and closed his eyes.
So it should be done. Michael's sword should hit him, and that would be his fate.
But the final blow should not come. Irritated by this, Lucifer opened his eyes and looked directly into the face of Michael, who was now standing in front of him. The blade of the sword next to their heads.
Lucifer raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"Michael?" He asked, hissing.
"Don’t," Michael replied gently, "I want you to know I'm sorry. I don't want to do it but I have to. He said I have to do it. "
Lucifer didn't understand.
What didn't Michael want to do? What did he have to do? Why didn't he say who it was?
But there was no time for answers. Michael grabbed Lucifer by the shoulder and turned him over so that he was standing with his back to him. He felt Michael pull the fabric from his pale body, which now hung loosely around his waist.
"Michael, what?" Lucifer asked. His voice trembled and he looked over his shoulder behind him, his bright wings were raised. Michael stepped away from him, made room between them and he heard the blade of his sword grind across the floor and he lifted it. Michael raised his sword over his head and Lucifer watched him doing it, he looked powerful and his eyes were determined, then he let his sword whiz down on Lucifer's back.
A shrill scream escaped his lips as the blade struck his wings.
The sharp metal severed the root of his wings and separated the white bones from his shoulder blades.
A bestial burning pain ran through his shoulder blades. Lucifer made a choked sound when his throat was unable to scream.
Why Michael Why brother? Why?
It echoed in his head like an eternal mantra.
Lucifer fell forward, resting his hands on the cold smooth floor of the marble. He was reflected in it. His eyes were wide and tears were running down hot over his smooth cheeks.
His body burned and ached, his shoulder blades felt numb and it was as if his heart was going to shatter into a thousand small fragments and want to open his chest from the inside out.
"Forgive me brother," he heard Michael whisper in his ear.
"Never," replied Lucifer, hissing.
Then everything went rapidly. Lucifer looked up and looked into his brother's beautiful face one last time. His traitor, his murderer, his thief.
He no longer resisted, he would accept it, his bitter fate, which his own father had probably imposed on him. He closed his eyes angrily, a single bitter tear rolled under his long eyelashes along his cheek and a single word escaped his lips, "Why?"
Lucifer's fall was quick, loud, and glowing.
He hit the ground with a massive, dull, loud bang. A desert-like landscape surrounded him. The floor was gray and he slowly straightened up, leaning on the floor with his hands. Ash.
He tilted his head back and looked back at the sky. Michael was still up there fighting his people, his people who supported him. The only ones who really were like his brothers and he knew that the same fate would happen to them. It was just the beginning. His fall from heaven was just one of many, but it was the most significant fall.
Slowly he heaved himself back onto his legs and pulled the soft, dusty fabric over his battered upper body. He bent down and collected the ashes from the floor with his hand, then let them thinly trickle back onto the surface between his fingers.
The wind blew a little of the dust away. He ran his thumb over the rest of his hand, images flickering in his mind's eye of what that ashes were. A beautiful large field, blooming like spring on earth and now cold and gray like the underworld. Underworld, so that's where he was.
Not on earth, no, they had pushed him down into the gorge of the abyss and left him to himself after taking everything that once made him out of him.
He clenched his hand into a fist and knocked it out, cried out in despair and doubled over. The tears ran down his cheeks.
"Why father? Why brother? Why?“, he kept shouting out loud howling. Lucifer raised his fists and pressed them against his temples, the pain in his head started slowly since he was stripped of his glow. The pain was unbearable while his body just felt numb and exhausted from the previous torment and fall. He got back on his knees and screamed bitterly and desperately towards the sky. Pleading for help and answers. Prayed and begged for forgiveness for having rebelled.
But all he got back was the miserable silence.
The silence with which Michael had already punished him.
This miserable, terrible silence.
Lucifer dropped to the front, came down with his forearms on the ashes, and wept bitterly.
"Nobody wants to hear me?" he asked, sobbing desperately. The sounds that came from his lips were heartbreaking and his heart contracted painfully in his tight chest.
Slowly the pain in his shoulder blades came back and Lucifer didn't know what to focus on, he threw himself on the floor and prayed that the pain would stop.
The pain in his head, in his shoulder blades; the pain in his heart.
"It hurts so bad. Father please, ”he pleaded again and again from compressed lips.
But nobody would hear him.
He was too far from his father, from his siblings. No one would ever hear Lucifer's pleading, asking, and praying.
Nobody.
He was all alone in this hell that scolded the underworld and damnation.
Lucifer's eyes widened. Hell. That was what he had here. It was hell and anyone who came here would experience the same pain as he once had.
He turned on his back and looked up at the sky. A proud smile.
He would seek revenge, he would be able to get people against God, he would make it clear to people that they should question what was given to them, that they should use their will that they had. He would make people do what he was punished for. He would make God in conflict with himself and his deeds and creations. That Michael saw what he had done wrong, that his seduction had led to suffering and chaos.
It was their fault. Their all alone.
Lucifer hadn't let himself get into debt and yet he was being punished, but he wouldn't let that happen to him; because in the end it was mortals who would experience rejection from God. Not Lucifer.
I used to be so beautiful, now look at me. My actions are undutiful, it’s clear to see.