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Lucifer has all ten claws dug so deeply into my arm that my fingers are tingling.
He's in his human form, so shouldn't even have his claws out at all, but I'm about ninety perce – ow, ow, ow OW – check that, one hundred percent sure he does.
Every time he panics (which is about every three steps or so) his hold becomes a white-knuckled, ‘Don't-You-DARE-Fucking-Drop-Me' death-grip, which is equal parts excruciating and adorable.
Lucifer's always been great at everything. When he picks up a violin, his warm up alone is enough to make his audience weep. His penmanship is so exquisite that his grocery lists could hang in the Louvre. I've seen him navigate with a sextant on a cloudy day, catch an owl with his bare hands, and win a hand of Blackjack with just a two and a four.
But today, entirely by accident, I’ve at last uncovered the Morningstar's one, and apparently only, weakness.
He can't skate for shit.
“This is ridiculous,” he's been grumbling, since he first stepped onto the ice. “How could anyone in their right mind en- AHH! -enjoy this nonsense? Shoes work. Shoes have worked just- AHH! -just fine for thousands of years, until some aspiring human genius strapped knives to the bottom, and now we're all just supposed to- YIPE! GRRRRrrrrr…”
“Oh, come on. It's not that bad, is it?”
“If the Demon King ever remodels the Devildom, he should get rid of the drowning fields and- AHH! -replace them with this, instead.”
Lucifer doesn't get grumpy very often, but when he does, he's the wettest of wet blankets.
And a bit of a bitch.
“This is the worst idea you've ever had,” he mutters, raining all over my happy parade, “and you've had plenty. Exactly what part of- AHH! -this is supposed to be fun? My pants are wet… I look stupid… how much further is it?... my head is cold…”
I roll my eyes. “Ok, I told you to dress warm. If you head's cold, put your damn hat on.”
I bought them all colour-coordinated touques (complete with pompoms) before we came up here, and they’d all been delighted. Belphie's been wearing his non-stop since the moment he opened the box, almost three days ago.
Lucifer’s the only one who wasn't interested.
And now his stupid head's cold.
“I don't need a hat. I need to not be here,” he grumbles. “If I’d known you were- AHH! -inviting us to an arctic wasteland, I would've stayed in the Devildom.”
“It's not an arctic wasteland, you friggen drama queen. It's Ottawa.”
“Same thing.”
I sigh. “This was your idea.”
“No, my idea was for you to share a human world festival with us. Festivals are fun. I like festivals. This is not- AHH! -not a festival. This is cruel and unusual punishment.”
“Everyone else is having fun.”
“…everyone else is stupid.”
I chuckle and kiss him on the cheek, then look out across my happy place: Winterlude, on the Rideau Canal. In spite of what my sourpuss Master claims, it most certainly IS a festival. (Albeit a chilly one, I'll concede him that much.) The Canal is a thoroughfare for boats during the summer, but as soon as it freezes, becomes the world's longest outdoor skating rink.
(Almost eight clicks.)
(…clicks are kilometers, I should clarify, for anyone not from Ontario.)
(And at the rate Lucifer's going, we'll be lucky to make it one.)
Everything looks just like it did when I was little, and the nostalgia alone is enough to bring a bittersweet tear to my eye. There are giant sculptures everywhere, all carved out of ice and sparkling like rainbows under a myriad of brightly coloured floodlights. There are concession stands right on the ice, selling coffee and hot chocolate and Beaver Tails, the most delicious, artery-clogging fried pastry to ever come out of the Great White North. The air smells like cinnamon and snow, and the barest scattering of snowflakes so large you could count all six of their perfect corners is turning the whole world white, one tiny flake at a time.
I'm certainly enjoying it, and so is everyone else. (Present company excepted.)
Mammon turned out to be a natural. He'd stepped onto the ice, spent the first few minutes wind-milling wildly, landed on his face a half-dozen times, then had laughed, grinned, wiped the snow off his ass and taken off like a bat out of hell. (Pun intended.) Now he was playing shinny hockey with a group of raucous teenagers (god I hope he didn't mug a little kid for that hockey stick), and, surprisingly enough, with Levi.
I'd been the most concerned about Levi, when we'd first gotten up here, but he'd just laughed. “I know water, Mishka. And ice is just frozen water, right?” (Which is technically true, I guess, but still makes no fucking sense.)
And off he'd gone. He's not as good as Mammon, by any stretch, but he's actually holding his own.
“Levi! Shoot me the pancake!”
“It's called a puck, dumbass,” one of the teenagers snickers.
“Hey! Who you callin' a dumbass, dumbass?”
“Mammon, we're not even on the same team!”
“’Mammon'? That's the stupidest name I've ever heard.”
“Yeah? Well your mom didn’t think it was stupid.”
“OOOOOOOOH!”
Awwww. I don't know what's cuter: that Levi's finally fitting in, or that Mammon is.
I expected Beel to have a knack for skating, too (since he seems to have natural skill in every possible sport), but… hehehe. Nope. He's right on par with Lucifer, taking slide-y little baby steps without ever lifting his blades off the ice – the only difference is that Beel isn't the least bit bothered by it. He's criss-crossing the river, shuffling excitedly from one concession stand to the next, and doesn't seem to care a whit that they're all selling the exact same thing.
While Lucifer’s clinging to my arm, Beel is clinging to Belphie's (though I highly doubt he's trying to carve his initials into Belphie's humerus). Belphie’s skill on the ice would qualify as ‘passable', at best, but he's more interested in the ice sculptures than winning a speed-skating trophy. He's stopping at every one, reading the information plaque, then marvelling at the sparkling fairy tales with stars in his eyes.
The twins are smiling, chatting (I'd swear on a stack of bibles that I even heard Belphie laugh), leaning on each other and, between the two of them, appreciating everything my humble human festival has to offer.
And that makes me happy.
Asmo's half a click behind us and barely out of the starting gate – but not because he sucks.
Quite the opposite, actually.
He's amassed a sizable crowd, all clapping and oooooohing and ahhhhhhing and asking for autographs, and I highly doubt he has any intention of joining back up with the rest of us any time soon.
He's the only one in figure skates, and also (he'd sprung this fact on me, with a sly wink, while I'd been lacing up my skates), the only one who was the 1908 women's Olympic figure skating champion.
(I'm really starting to suspect that Asmo has an innate, magical ability to change genders like the rest of us change our underwear.)
He's putting on one hell of a show, and looks to be in absolute heaven.
“Oh boy,” Lucifer mutters, snapping me out of my reverie, “company.”
I glance over my shoulder, and smile. Satan and Diavolo, each helping the other along, are laughing together, and quickly catching up. They'd both been trainwrecks, when they'd first hit the ice, but had also been the only two interested in listening to my advice. I'd given them chairs to lean on, like every respectable Canadian two-year old uses when they're first learning to skate, and after a bit of very determined practice, the unlikely duo had started teaching each other, and had been inseparable ever since.
(I'd offered Lucifer a chair, too, and if he hadn't been hobbled by his knife-shoes, I think I would've spent the rest of my night trying to figure out how to skate with a splintery chair leg shoved up my ass.)
“Hahaha! This is marvelous! It feels like flying!”
Satan, the only one of them who'd never had wings of his own, looked spell-bound by the comparison. “Does it…?”
“You don't think so?”
“I've never flown before,” Satan frowned. “Remember?”
“Oh, my! You're absolutely right. Well, that won't do at all! You must try it – when we get back, come to my castle. I can't stitch you a pair of wings, but I can certainly teach you an old levitation spell. You'll love it!”
“It would… be my honour, Lord Diavolo,” Satan smiled. “You're too kind.”
“Nonsense! It's the least I can do, for teaching me how to stop in these things,” he laughed. “I can't believe we've never talked like this before. You're well-spoken, and polite, and intelligent – fantastic company! We should do this more often!”
“I think I'd quite enjoy that.”
“Wonderful! Oh Satan, has anyone ever told you that you're a lot like Lucifer?”
…
Satan shoves the demon prince face-first into a snowbank, and keeps right on going. “Beel! Belphie! Wait up!”
…guess that means the friendship's over, hehehehe.
“Satan! What on earth are you thinking?! Get back here this…” Lucifer heaves a heavy sigh, and gives up. Satan's already out of earshot, and completely out of reach.
Lucifer watches him go, then looks down and frowns at the ice. After a somber minute contemplating his own feet, he finally murmurs, “Mishka… why am I so bad at this?”
…wait, is that what's really bothering him? He's not grumpy, or irritated, or even jealous… he’s just…
…ashamed of himself?
…I can't imagine how painful, and confusing, that must feel, to the Avatar of Pride.
…maybe this really is cruel and unusual.
I brush his hair out of his eyes (since all ten of his claws are currently occupied), and smile at him. “Don't worry about it, Sir. It's not for everyone. Besides, I'm starting to get a little chilly myself.” I slide an arm inside his overcoat, pull myself up against his chest, and flash my most mischievous smile. “Why don't we go back to the pavilion, and warm each other up?”
“You're not cold,” he muses, around the first hint of a smile he's shown all night. “But I appreciate the lie. And as appealing as that sounds…” he glances at Beel and Belphie and Satan, sharing hot chocolate over a picnic table, at Mammon and Levi, laughing and roughhousing and shouldering each other out of the way in the name of a black rubber pancake, at Asmo, remembering what it felt like to fly, at Diavolo, making (rather ironic) snow angels while he waits for someone to help him up, and, at last, back at me. “We should stay. If I go, they'll follow, and you're right – everyone really is enjoying themselves.” He finally peels his claws out of my arm (which is gonna bleed like a motherfucker, now) and takes my shoulders, instead. “You know, I think Diavolo might have the right idea after all.”
“Huh? He's right about what?”
“Making angels,” he chuckles. “Mishka, my beautiful pet…” He leans down, and I fully expect he's about to kiss me… but he pushes his lips against my ear, instead.
“…I hate skating.”
With a downright diabolical grin, he hurls me ass-over-teakettle into a snowdrift, immediately loses his balance, and crashes down on top of me.
At least, I thought he'd lost his balance.
Now, laying on my back in three feet of snow, with a smirking demon Lord kneeling over my hips and pinning my wrists above my head…
Well golly gee. Maybe, just maybe… that might've been on purpose.
“I really hate skating,” he emphasizes, just so we're all clear, “but I think I really might like to lay… right here,” he purrs, “and make some little angels with you.”
Diavolo's head pops up from the next snowdrift over. “Lucifer! There are children around!”
Lucifer rolls his eyes. “I meant snow angels.”
Then he looks back down, winks, and mouths…
No I didn't.
And this time, he kisses me for real.