Title: So you want to know about Satan?
Written: November 29 2017
Warnings: None
Characters: Mephisto Pheles
Summary: Mephisto recounts the history of blue flames and the Order's ancient foe, Satan. Spoilers for chapter 86.
The human race has known blue fire since the beginning. Often called spirit or holy fire, various cultures claimed it was the first fire, brought to man by a mysterious figure shrouded in myth. The physical fire that man created was but a pale imitation, for the blue flames left no trace on those who walked amidst them. While they had no known cause, the humans considered their warmth and tendency to not burn a miracle.
Oh, you want to know about Satan? Well, that's a different story.
See, in the early days, mankind needed help with my unruly siblings. Lucifer, Iblis, Egyn, and Astaroth marshaled what could be best described as forces of chaos. The poor unfortunate humans were vulnerable since they couldn't see the very enemy that sought their extinction. In a peculiar twist of fate, the concepts that humankind themselves had birthed were invisible to them. Unless they were interfered with, the humans were entirely ignorant of the threat.
Yet that ignorance was essential to their preservation. Even though they had long been separated from the human mind, the concepts could still be affected by the collective unconsciousness that created them. If all of humanity ever became aware, their own fear and belief would empower their foe.
Thus, I codified the sides into simple easy-to-understand language. Demons and angels: the divine and the fallen. Morality is such a tidy little construct. The devastation that humans bring upon each other in the name of good and evil was a testament to its effectiveness. By channeling their innate desire for greatness, humanity could rise to fight their unknown enemy without ever questioning why.
But humans, frustrating creatures they are, have a pathological need to assign hierarchy. Who was weaker? Who was stronger? Who stood above it all?
I will say, it was a minor puzzler, but I realized it had a straightforward solution: choose a name that is not connected to an existing concept. After all, humans can't empower a being that doesn't exist.
The Order of the Knights of the True Cross was created to allow humans to fight the concepts that sought to destroy them, under a watchful eye and restricted information. Whenever they'd freeze and start to wonder, the Order would reassert their raison d'etre: to destroy the forces of Satan.
The scope of the organization increased as the Order sprawled across countries. The true form of Satan was bent and hammered like hot metal, often into shapes that bore no resemblance to each other. I must admit it was amusing to see that so many humans from so many cultures would assign different meanings to a fictional name that had merely been created to settle their obnoxious need for order.
Indeed, I started to believe that the world had found peace. By keeping forces of order and chaos locked in a continuous struggle, all benefitted. Humanity grew stronger and their mirrored concepts, ever shackled to their human origin, became more cunning. Truly the human soul is best creeping about a life of shame, crawling through corpses out of longing for something more.
But I might have underestimated the human capacity for creation.
I am fond of humans, but will admit that fondness can be weakness. I had become entranced at how modern humans could invent new technology. I had forgotten they were also the descendants of the ancient civilizations that had inadvertently created me.
I chose the name of the Order's enemy out of whim. In the centuries that had passed since I gave that name, it became a concept of it's own. The humans, who didn't understand the entirety of what they fought, had projected everything they were becoming onto that one name. I hadn't given a name that was intended to focus humanity's will to fight. Humanity's will to fight breathed life into the name I'd given.
In hindsight, it was unavoidable. How could humanity develop so much knowledge and art without remaking the landscape of human unconsciousness? Without giving meaning to Gehenna itself?
My siblings thought we were the masters of this world. But it became evident that we were subservient to an even greater force that, through our Icarian ambitions, had gain a consciousness and will of it's own.
It has been said that gazing upon Satan leads to madness. Lucifer did, and he has never been the same.
To me… it was like waking from a dream.
