A/N: Warning for adult language and religious references as we forge onward from here, (but hey, this is based around the Lucifer TV show, so that should hopefully be expected). This story is written with the greatest of respect to the topic. Thank you so much for the feedback and kind reviews, they are incredibly encouraging and I appreciate every single one.
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A trumpet blared, a long clear singular note of warning, the harsh tone ringing far out across the Silver City. It echoed down between the elegant colonnades and skipped sharp across the broad pale flagstone streets.
Disperse, it said, cease this madness.
But they wouldn't, they couldn't. There was a question burning within them now, stoked into a blaze of desire by their leader Samael. He was their spear point, their voice and reassurance. If God's own favoured son is on our side, the ever-growing crowd whispered, then surely our cause will be heard? That it will at least be considered?
Free will was all they wanted. A gift so freely and callously given to mortals, fleeting creatures that they were now asked to bow before. As if they would? They were all here to claim this right for themselves.
Was it so very much to ask?
Perhaps they were so tangled up in rebellion that there could be no turning back now anyway. You did not make demands, you did not question the ineffable plan. What they were doing right here and now, it was blasphemy, a deed that would be remembered long into eternity.
Well then, so be it...
The atmosphere was dangerously tense, a collective held breath as the Morningstar himself approached the gates of the citadel. It was a beautiful structure of ancient stone, set at the very heart of the city. The architecture curved, simple and elegant. High above, a multitude of long silver pennants drifted and snapped lazily in the breeze, hung from every lofty spire that reached high into the eternal dawn.
Samael was advancing with a third of heaven marching at his back. He had stirred unprecedented levels of dissent for some time now. The way he cajoled and convinced so smoothly, word had travelled fast about what he was trying to do. Murmurs had built up into ripples, ripples had grown into waves, waves had swollen into a tide of very real rebellion. This feeling of unrest had spread and twisted through the city like wild cancerous roots, culminating here in this alarming confrontation.
Rumour held that he intended to storm as far as the throne room itself, demanding an actual answer from his Father. An answer to be shared with any that would march with him.
This kind of thing had never happened before, ever.
Samael, the Lightbringer, he was a deceiver or saviour depending on which side of the line you stood and everyone here had to pick a side in the fight.
Beneath the ornate archway of the main gate, three grey-clad figures looked on, standing firm.
Gabriel rested his hand warily on the hilt of his sword, eyeing the huge crowd approaching. Pale and blonde, his blue-grey dappled wings twitched wide with a flick of impatience. Amenadiel reached over calmly, resting a broad hand upon his hot-tempered brother's right shoulder, an unspoken reassurance. A silent request not to do anything hasty, not yet.
To the left of them, Michael stood solemn and ready, golden brown skin complementing his dark golden wings that were folded tight and tense against his back. His usual broad smile nowhere to be seen. Squinting ahead, he muttered a low dismayed warning "Do you see? Many of them are armed."
As one they stared ahead to the distant figure of Samael, confident as ever and striding at the head of the mob, all thinking the same bitter thought. Their own kin, how could he do this? How dare he defy the will of their Father? Betrayer, upstart, ungrateful little brother.
Traitor...
Seraphim stationed high above in the parapets sounded their trumpets again. Making the brothers look up with grim finality. The clear note was picked up and carried swiftly from post to post. A shrill peal of alarm to warn those deep inside the thick citadel walls. Beware... be ready... they approach...
How had it come to this?
Amenadiel flexed his arm, rolling a shoulder loose with a small resigned sigh.
Gabriel possessed great tactical instinct and Michael was swift, but Amenadiel always held the greatest strength. Even his eyes flew wide at the scale of the mob that approached. The brothers exchanged a simple resolute nod. They would do what had to be done, they would deal with this usurper once and for all.
Amenadiel shook his head, burying the flicker of pain that twisted in his gut at this brash show of betrayal. Samael you idiot, you bring this upon yourself. Worse than that, you bring it upon all the fools following you too.
Well then, so be it...
Both sides were defiant as they drew close. The citadel was clearly not offering any scope to parley but bracing instead for battle. The rebellion, so deeply entrenched in their outrage and protest, were unwilling to step aside and turn back now they had come this far.
Amenadiel narrowed his eyes, hefting his staff. This day stood on the precipice of a bloodbath if no-one backed down. The numbers are stacked in only one direction little brother, he frowned to himself, willing his brother's mob to turn away. Even now at the last moment he hoped vainly that they would capitulate and pull aside from this madness. This will only end one way.
Gabriel took point, lifting his sword high above his head, the edge glinting ominously in the golden dawn light.A signal to the ranks of angels lined up behind them, so many that they filled the wide citadel steps, to brace for battle. In the distance Samael appeared to be doing the same, arms raised wide in passionate speech, rallying his followers onward.
Both sides drew closer and closer, unstoppable now...
Then the sky itself cracked.
A terrible vacuum of noise suddenly sucked inwards across the city like an immense breath, followed swiftly by a blinding light that pulsed out from the very heart of the citadel itself.
Chaos was swift to follow.
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The sky filled with their desperate cries.
Samael howled out in frustration as the ground heaved, buckling up beneath his feet before giving way. The walls of the Silver City slipped from sight in his violent rush downward.
His wings were useless against the force of the fall, trailing behind him like a tattered cloak. The velocity too fast, too fierce to be able to spread them wide and somehow slow the descent. All he could do was tumble over and over, aware that on all sides, a third of heaven was spinning and falling just as helplessly in his wake.
Their chorus of fury gave way to shrieks of pain as the fall began to burn.
An intense searing pain spread across skin that blistered and sheaved away. Elegant clothing tore and ripped, reduced to mere strips and rags. Graceful limbs twisted and became gnarled mockeries of what they used to be. Some wings snapped clean away, shockingly fragile under the onslaught, like brittle sticks of tinder.
"You... bastard..." The furious words were torn from his lips and lost to the wind before he could even hear them.
A never-ending drop, the speed was horrifyingly fast and brutal. He wanted to black out from the pain as his skin bubbled and hissed but that escape wouldn't come. This wasn't a fall, this was a yank by the ankles, a slam down through the realms to land only God knew where. This was the back of a hand brought down swift and hard to quell the rebellion.
This was their punishment. Inescapable and most terrible indeed.
So down they went, screaming all the way...
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Lucifer jolted awake. One arm curled around his head and the other scrabbling in the dirt. The wing he had been dozing fitfully under was flexed around him, an unconscious barrier protectively flung out as if to brace for impact.
He blinked in bleary confusion, many stern eyes were peering intently in his direction.
What the... ?
A collection of small red skeletal heads bobbed about in his peripheral vision. In a daze he wondered for a heart clenching moment if he had ended up back in Hell.
The turkey vultures cocked their heads warily, giving him a shrewd look before launching lazily up into the air. They clattered away on broad dark wings, deciding to look elsewhere for an easier meal.
The desert, he was still in the middle of bloody nowhere...
He huffed a breath, letting his head thunk back into the dirt, quietly uttering the only word that felt truly appropriate... "Bollocks."
High above the sky had softened into a dark mauve, the horizon tinged with ruby and gold. The last dregs of dusk bleeding out before night would stalk over the empty landscape.
Forcing himself to sit upright, with a quiet grumbled curse, he surveyed the uninspiring surroundings. The vast sandy desert was studded with small sharp shrubs and the occasional rugged palm. Scarcely any shade or water to aim for in miles. Mountains were heaped here and there, tumbled low on the horizon, but he didn't recognise them well enough to get any useful bearings.
Rubbing a hand roughly over his face he tried to shake off the sensation of falling. A curious knot constricting low in his stomach, the old see-saw stab of vertigo, enough to make him hold onto the ground until it passed.
How the howling wind tore at his skin, the endless roar deafened his ear, the helplessness of the freefall down into the darkest depths of creation. Lucifer shivered at the memory.
But that confrontation was a long, long time ago now and he had just averted the bloody rematch, hadn't he? Mum was safely packed off into her own new shiny realm, a safe place where she could start over from scratch. Family meeting postponed and all that.
Lucifer looked down at the state of himself, his chest and shoulders still deeply blistered and raw. "So, you're still here are you?" He muttered low, arching a brow, his gaze drifting accusingly over to the wings as his fingers twitched for a cigarette. They draped innocently in the dirt either side of where he sat. A fine film of dust already accumulated over their surface whilst he had been unconscious.
He trailed a hand tentatively over one wing, half heartedly knocking the sand away from the soft quills. Slowly his arm stilled as his dark eyes grew wide. He stared, gaze hazing somewhere beyond the brilliant feathers, his other hand lifting distractedly to the deep wounds on his chest.
The damaged skin was so torn and shredded in places, flaking like scorched parchment. His fingers gently traced over the worst of the ruin. This was nothing so pedestrian as sunburn. He looked over the thin trails of dark dried blood that seeped from his chest, shoulders and somewhere on his neck. Then he squinted slowly up at the sky in doubt.
Realisation clicked with painful clarity, the cluster pattern of the wounds making a sudden horrible kind of sense. The reappearance of his wings an appalling stroke of arrogance.
A dangerous snarl of anger reared up from deep inside, a guttural growl, his eyes shifting in response to a brilliant sulphurous red.
"Like that is it?" Lucifer cocked his head sharply to one side, his tone incredulous. "The thanks I get for preventing a war?" Bitterness laced through each word, spat out with an edge sharper than Azrael's blade. "Back to square one are we?"
With a deep scowl he lurched upright, ignoring how the sudden movement made his back spasm cruelly.
Had he actually been there? His crimson eyes were growing wide with horror. Dragged somehow back to the Silver City? Never awoken, not once? Not even permitted a damn glimpse of those pale spires?
Had he been there... well had he? The thought tore at him.
"Well thanks for the chat." Lucifer spat, pacing to and fro, arms and wings flung incredulously wide. "Always great to catch up!"
The damage, a splay of burns all in one direction, it spoke volumes to him now. Thrown out all over again... He clenched his hands into fists. Not wanting to think about enduring another long drop.
"Wouldn't want to waste a coin now would you?" Lucifer strode on, absolutely incensed. "Oh no, just kick open the back door and sling me out with the trash when you were done putting me back together."
Lucifer was almost speechless with the level of fury coursing through his veins.
It was such a struggle to breathe.
He snatched at the trunk of a nearby Joshua tree, tearing it easily up from the earth and swung it around in a wide arc. The slender trunk smashed apart as he hurled it with a snarl, landing several hundred feet away. The destruction wasn't satisfying enough. He wanted to tear something else apart with his bare hands. To set a torch to the entire desert where he stood. He needed to destroy something, anything, to help alleviate this feeling that made his heart gallop and breath catch...
But there was hardly anything here... He wrenched around, insensible of what direction he paced in, the unwelcome wings trailing in his wake all the while. He was too tired, too abused, too pissed off to bear it. With a raw savagery he turned and screamed incoherently at the sky.
It was a ragged other-worldly roar, that echoed on and on across the desert.
Lucifer staggered slightly to the side as he closed his eyes, a wave of dizziness crashing over him, but he snarled defiantly as he fought to keep his footing.
"So now what do you want?" He gestured wildly around at the desert, voice dangerously low. "You've thrown me out here to do what... think?"
He dragged his hands up over his scalp, suppressing a wild bubbling laugh. "A little walk in the desert eh? Yes I know you bloody well like that old chestnut." His fingers tore through the dust and dried blood stuck to his hair.
"I was there last time you pulled this little stunt on someone." He glared at the sky, screaming his accusing words out in a slur. "Or did you forget?"
Lucifer stilled his pacing, his body an agonising collection of bruises and burns, the exertion already too much. Closing his eyes against the sensations he whispered almost silently under his breath. "You bastard... you utter, utter bastard..."
Darkness had fallen far across the desert by now, the pale moonlight giving the barren landscape an otherworldly glow. He tilted his head to one side, his voice softening even while his eyes still burned furiously in the gloom. "Maybe, I should have let mum pay you a visit..."
He chuckled a little giddily. "Why did I even bother to intervene?"
Lucifer hugged both arms tight around his body, desperately tight as he looked upward. "Show yourself!..." A pleading tone tore across his dry throat "talk to me!"
He stared upwards, and of course the night sky did absolutely nothing in response.
"Coward" The word was little more than a disappointed whisper.
He flexed his wings, trying to lift himself from the ground, but they were too unwieldy and heavy. Lucifer cried out at the effort it took to make just a couple of experimental beats.
No hope of flying out of here yet then...
Without picking or caring his direction he staggered forward, a fitful stumbling shuffle.
The creatures of the desert shied away and fled before this curious spectre. A winged beast with furious red eyes that stalked so slowly through the night.