Bit of a long one. :) Hope everyone's doing well. Thanks to everyone who left a comment - you're wonderful.
Mazikeen fell to her knees.
"Momma?" she whispered in mangled Lilim, as the cloud of ash spurred by her mother's rising washed over them both in a violent wave.
Trixie spat some of it out and wiped her eyes, nodding at her friend.
Then she turned to meet Lilith's burning gaze, standing as tall as her twelve-year-old frame allowed.
"I am not here to harm your child," she said, in a voice that didn't quite come from her mouth.
Lilith's earthen brows, framed in black obsidian, furrowed.
The ground pitched suddenly and the grinding of deep bedrock formed a deafening word.
-LEAVE-
"I'm going to, I just wanted to-"
-NOW-
"Momma?!" Mazikeen cried, reaching out as if she might grasp her mother's face. "Why are you like this?! What happened to you?!"
She turned, her eyes sharp and wild, to Trixie.
"Did you do this to her?!" she roared, pointing at her mother.
"Yes, but-"
Lilith's massive hand, that had slowly risen before them both, fell swiftly on top of Trixie, clenched as a fist the size of a football stadium.
The sound of it was a cacophony, and the earth and stone frame of the hand crumbled apart, filling the chasm beneath her feet as she merely passed through it all and floated level with her friend again.
And another limb rose to take its place, slamming down atop her once more.
-LEAVE-
Trixie sighed, restored above it all again.
"Lilith, you can't hur-"
A rock struck her temple, leaving a small gash, before falling away between her feet.
Trixie grasped her head and looked at Mazikeen in shock.
"UNDO WHAT YOU DID!" her friend cried, grabbing another rock to throw. "BRING HER BACK!"
"Mazikeen, you don't underst-"
Another limb collapsed atop her with a thunderous impact, crumbling away around her again.
With an irritated sound, Trixie's form exploded in a wave brilliant light, sending Mazikeen flying from the spire, shattering enormous boulders and obsidian spires to the far horizon, and searing a layer of earth from Lilith's form.
ENOUGH
Mazikeen stopped in midair, suspended far above the shattered earth, her limbs caught flailing, her eyes wide with fear and rage.
Stunned, still flailing, she was lifted and restored to her feet on the spire.
The earth about them reformed, returning to the bluff that had stood before Lilith's rising.
And the realm trembled as God spoke.
YOUR MOTHER MADE THIS CHOICE, MAZIKEEN OF THE LILIM
The light shimmered and shifted and drew in.
Back to the form of Trixie.
"Not me."
Mazikeen's legs crumpled beneath her. She sat hard against the ground.
"Why?" she asked, in a broken voice.
Trixie's sparkly sneakers slowly lowered to the restored earth.
She looked at Lilith's gargantuan, scowling form, and back.
And her eyes grew gentle upon Maze.
"Because she wanted to be close to all of you."
Mazikeen's breath hitched, and her gaze, glistening with tears, moved from Trixie, to Lilith's earthen visage.
The blazing, molten gaze of her mother swiveled slowly to her.
"But... you left us... you went away," Mazikeen mumbled. "You abandoned us..."
With a far thunderous rumbling, Lilith's head turned slowly back and forth.
And the earth groaned again.
-HERE-
-ALWAYS-
A sob tore from Mazikeen. She clamped a hand over her mouth as if to stop the sound.
Trixie walked near.
"I made your mom out of this land, Maze. This was my first attempt at Eden. It looked really different then."
Drawing a little closer, she sat down beside her friend.
"I had a grand plan. But Lilith was so strong and wild and curious and driven. She had no interest in following it. She hated Adam. I had to separate them. So I gave her this space and the power to shape it, and I started a new realm and a new Eden."
Trixie started played with the dirt as she spoke, crumbling it between her little fingers.
It was all so long ago.
But being connected to the past as clearly as the present, it felt like yesterday.
"She started creating the Lilim. You were one of the first, you know. But I don't think she saw you as her children. She was lonely and desperate for connection and change. She started refashioning the land, but she wasn't very good at it and the lifeforms I'd placed here died."
Mazikeen finally looked up at the far distant figure, her eyes flooded and tight with rage.
"You were a terrible mother!" she shouted out over the land.
Lilith's gaze did not waver.
-YES-
"She made so many of you, seeking for what she could not find, she grew overwhelmed. She was angry at the failing of her world, and the world started to reflect her anger, growing hot and inhospitable. Conflict and punishment became twined with the fabric of this place. Which was perfect for my new plan. I desired a place to send those who had done wrong, outside of the bounds I had written for their souls."
Mazikeen scowled.
"I hate both of you."
Trixie reached out to grasp Mazikeen's hand. "I know. And that's fair."
Frowning, Mazikeen looked up at her, and Trixie continued, knowing Lilith wanted her to.
Knowing her friend needed her to.
"Your mother agreed to my proposal, knowing her creations would enjoy the torment of others. But she asked me for a favor."
Looking out at the mountainous form of Lilith, Trixie smiled.
"She'd realized she'd neglected you all. That she'd misunderstood how you saw her. She'd missed a chance to be a mother, a guardian, a nurturer - one who could support her offspring in their passions, as twisted as they had become."
She looked back at her friend, whose tear-filled gaze had fallen to the dry ground.
"She couldn't give the millions of you that she'd fashioned the individual care and attention you each craved and deserved. But she realized there was a way she could support all of you. To cradle you in way, and hold each of you as you lived your lives in the realm she'd been given."
Trixie's smile grew soft. "She asked me to return her to the land she'd been fashioned from, but in full consciousness of who she was. So... she merged with this realm. Lilith is Hell, Maze. She did this to be close to all of you. To hold all of you in the best form of love she could manage."
Mazikeen's eyes opened, and her brows soared as she looked back at her mother.
She looked fragile and lost.
And Trixie pushed on.
"She grew dormant after a while, her consciousness quieting as the millennia passed."
She squeezed her friend's hand. "Until you came."
Mazikeen looked up at her.
With no anger or spite or fear.
"When you came," Trixie continued, in her small twelve-year-old voice, "and you claimed the throne because of the soul I gave you, and connected with this realm so completely, your mother woke up. That's why Hell responds to you as it has no other. That's why the land leaps to your whim and aid. Your mother is supporting you. And, I think..."
She grinned.
"I think she's-"
-PROUD-
The land roared over her words.
Mazikeen's gaze snapped to her mother, her mouth falling open in shock as the rumbling words faded behind them.
And sagging against the earth, she broke down completely, grasping the dry, crumbling soil as she shook with deep sobs.
Trixie gathered her friend in a small hug as she looked out over the plains, and caught the burning gaze of Lilith.
And smiled.
And between Mazikeen's grasping hands, caked with the ash and dirt of her mother, grew something new.
Something very small and green.
Untainted by rage and disappointment.
Trixie looked down at it and grinned.
"Lilith! Look what you did!"
The skies grew thick with something never seen in Hell, save once before, at its earliest making.
Clouds. Tall and wide and full of power.
More new green things slowly emerged from the parched, burnt land.
And the rains began to fall.
Trixie began to laugh, like a little kid.
Because she was a little kid.
Well, twelve wasn't that little anymore, maybe.
But this made an endless immortal being feel so young again.
"I like this chaos," she whispered, as the water streaked down her face and she held her best friend.
Mazikeen slowly unfolded, lifting her hands to catch the rain as the green life spread around her.
"What's happening?" she mumbled, her gaze rising to the clouds, then dropping to seek her mother's form through the haze of the falling rain.
-ALWAYS HERE-, came one last rumbling call from the land about her, before the figure began to crumble, its form dissolving back to the plains and mountains as the carpet of green began to spread.
"Momma?!" Mazikeen cried, jerking forward. "No! Don't leave!"
Trixie rested her hand on her friend's arm. "She's not going anywhere, Maze. She's a part of everything around you. And right now she's doing something wonderful."
Maze grasped at Trixie's hand desperately, her eyes locked on where her mother had been.
"What is she doing?"
"She's healing," Trixie said softly.
Mazikeen finally looked at her fully, her eyes bloodshot, her hair and face dripping with rain.
And she wrapped her arms around Trixie and held her tight.
"I don't hate you," she whispered.
"I know," Trixie murmured back, smiling.
"But I'm not leaving."
Trixie swallowed and nodded as the smile faded. "I know."
"Come visit me?"
"I'll try. I'll be Trixie completely soon though, and I won't remember all of this. I'll tell Lucifer to bring me though."
Mazikeen pulled away slowly.
"He's really back?"
Trixie nodded.
Her friend winced and looked down at the soaking ground.
"I tried to kill him."
"You do that a lot."
Mazikeen's gaze flicked up. A bright, wicked grin spread across her face.
"Yeah, I do."
Trixie giggled. Reaching behind herself, she snatched up the six-pack that had fallen during the fight, and been buried under the earth a thousand feet below them.
The six-pack was more of a mangled three-pack by then, but she offered one of the salvaged cans to her friend, before taking one for herself.
Mazikeen took it, snapped the top, and tipped her head back to drink.
Trixie tried the same thing.
And spit it up.
"Oh, so gross," she sputtered, before wiping her mouth. "Bleah."
Mazikeen rolled her eyes, grabbed the can from Trixie and drank it, before crushing and tossing the can over her shoulder to where the other lay.
Trixie blinked the cans into a recycling bin on Earth, staring pointedly at her friend as she did so.
She sighed then, and gazed over the Plain of the Buried where no more tortured flora grew and everything was green.
"I guess I have to revise some things now. This is a sucky part of chaos."
"I have an idea," Mazikeen said abruptly, enjoying the last can. She pointed her pinkie at Trixie as she drank, before wiping her mouth roughly. "Stop punishing people."
Trixie frowned.
"But they've done terrible things."
"I've done terrible things."
"Because that's what you did here."
"On Earth too," Maze said, crossing her arms. "Did you know I ate a guy's pet goldfish in front of him?"
"I did, since I was everything at the time. Including that goldfish I might add. And that's terrible."
"It was terrible. Tasted like shit and wiggled all the way down."
"I remember, and eww."
"Right?"
"I can't not punish people, Maze," God said in her young voice, throwing her small arms out. "What else am I supposed to do? Reward them?"
"No," Maze answered, rolling her eyes as if Trixie were an idiot. Then she started grinding her can into the dirt. "But... they did a lot of these things because they were hurt. Like I was. I've learned that here." She finally looked up, and gave a lazy shrug. "I dunno. Make them start over until they get it right, or something."
Trixie blinked.
"Oh... you mean like reincarnation?" Covering her mouth, she giggled into her hand. "That's my fault, you know. Sometimes I get a tiny bit tired and the boundaries fall a little and all of a sudden everyone gets a glimpse of being everyone else throughout history and it's all, 'I was Cleopatra', or 'I was Alexander the Great', or 'I was some poor Slavic peasant who died because she ate a bad turnip'."
She frowned. "Or ate nothing at all. Damn my wife for those famines and plagues. The thirteen hundreds sucked."
When she looked back at her friend, Maze was staring at her cockeyed.
"Nevermind," Trixie said quickly.
And she considered it.
"It's a lot of work. I'll have to stop making new souls for a little while."
"That sounds like less work."
Trixie put her small fists on her hips. "Who's the god of all creation here?"
Maze just smirked.
"Whatever."
Giggling, Trixie stood.
Her smile turned sad.
"Thanks for being my friend, Maze. I've never really had a friend before. I mean, I've had everyone else's friends, but never... one of my own. Even when I incarnated the first time I didn't really have friends. They were all scared of me, or hated me, or looked at me in awe all the time. Then they nailed me to a damn stick."
Maze was looking at her cockeyed again.
Trixie laughed out loud.
"See? Nobody ever looked at me like that. You're my best friend, Maze... and... I love you."
Mazikeen grabbed her and held her tight.
"I love you too, Trix. I mean... Maker.. or God... or," she growled at herself, "whatever. Come and visit."
Trixie nodded slowly against her as her eyes flooded with tears.
It would be a while before she did.
And it wouldn't be the same.
"Oh," she mumbled, sniffing over Maze's shoulder. "By the way, Michael's gone."
Mazikeen pulled back, rolling her eyes dramatically. "Oh, thank God!"
Then she smirked. "I mean... you... and Michael was okay, but... he was no Lucifer. He slept all the damn time. Lucifer never slept once. We'd go at it hard for centuries at a time, every position you could imagine, with friends and lots of toys, and he... why are your fingers in your ears?"
Trixie grinned and pulled them out. "I'm supposed to be twelve. And I think someone better is coming very soon."
"Oh?" Mazikeen raised an unscarred eyebrow. "Are they good at sex? Do they have stamina?"
Trixie tilted her head thoughtfully.
"I think so? They've certainly had a lot of time to practice? But, I can't talk about that anymore or I'll get grounded."
She stared off at the lush forest spreading out before them as the clouds thinned and the sky flooded with color.
Things were getting a little distant inside.
"I think I'm starting to remember I'm just Trixie," she whispered, before turning back to her friend. "I think I have to go home before I forget how to."
"Okay," Maze said, smiling as she squeezed her hand. "Thank you for everything, Trixie."
God beamed at her best friend.
And stepped backwards into the Cliff House.
where she stared at nothing for a little while as her tears fell.
The part of her as God that still managed the universe made adjustments and corrections outside the scope of time - a multitude of damned souls were claimed back from Hell and thrust into the cycle of life once more, their scrolls waiting to be filled with new moments and the bright potential that awaited.
Most were reincarnated as Hermit crabs.
Trixie blinked.
She was standing in the living room, and the morning light was streaming through the tall windows.
Frowning, she looked out at the deck, then around the kitchen, and down the hall.
"Mom?" she called.
Nobody answered.
And it didn't feel like anyone was here.
Something fell from her cheek, and she wiped there, confused.
Why was her face wet?
"Mom?" she called again, her voice rising.
There was a sweep of wings, and a bright swell of light, and the sliding door behind her opened.
And in walked Lucifer in black pants, carrying her mom in his arms.
Chloe was flushed and smiling from ear to ear as Lucifer lowered her to her feet. His own eyes were soft, and fixed utterly on her, and they kissed gently before turning towards her.
Her mom smiled at her, eyes full of love and joy.
She looked so happy, it was wonderful.
"Trixie? You're up early?"
She ran towards her mom, because she needed to be held. Everything felt a little bad and she didn't know why.
Lucifer's gaze caught her. He frowned.
Father? came his voice in her head.
But she hadn't even seen him steeple his hands in prayer?
"W-what?" she asked, looking up at him in confusion as she grasped her mom tight.
"I see," Lucifer said softly. And he smiled. "Good morning, Beatrice. Have you had breakfast?"
She frowned, deeply, and started to shake her head. "No, I... I don't know... I... something's weird, mom."
Chloe crouched before her and held her hands. "What do you mean, monkey? What's going on?"
Trixie started to shift in place as her frown grew deeper. "I don't know, I feel like... I forgot something."
Lucifer snorted.
Chloe's eyes widened and she started up at him slowly.
He winced. "Forgive me. I will make breakfast. Chocolate chip pancakes, Beatrice?"
Trixie stared at him, nodding slowly before watching him walk away. "Why's he talking so funny, mom?"
Chloe frowned. "How do you mean, baby?"
She shook her head, as her throat grew thick. "I don't know... he's not saying things the same way. Why is everything so weird, mom?"
"Monkey... come sit on the couch."
And her mom led her to the soft leather sofa and lifted her up into her arms.
"You are getting so big," Chloe said, holding her close.
It felt good, and she relaxed a little, watching Lucifer over her mom's shoulder.
He was cooking, but glanced at her a few times, his gaze thoughtful.
What was going on?
"What happened to Lucifer," she whispered near her mom's ear. "He's different."
Chloe sighed, and nodded softly. "Yes, monkey, he is. But in a good way."
Trixie pulled back to stare at her mom. "What happened?"
And her mom looked at her sadly. "Well... you remember the camping trip Lucifer and I went on?"
Trixie nodded, because she did.
And it annoyed her, because they didn't let her come. It wasn't like she didn't know how to camp!
Her mother's eyes held her cautiously.
"Do you remember what happened after that?"
"Sure," Trixie said, shrugging, and she opened her mouth to say more.
But nothing came out, because her mind was filling swiftly with memories.
And every single one of them was terrible.
Her dad yelling at the phone, grabbing her with a forced smile, and rushing them to the hospital.
Staring into a nurse's cheerful face as her dad talked to the doctor, who assured him that while it had been close, everything was going to be okay.
But... nothing was okay.
Because Lucifer... had died. She'd run through him in the hospital room, thinking he was solid and real and alive.
He'd been... a ghost?
A strangled sob left her as her eyes grew wide, fixed on him.
"Oh, no... monkey, hey - I'm right here and everything's okay!"
And a man had come...
Trixie's breaths came in rapid pants as she started to shake, her focus shifting beyond Lucifer, beyond the kitchen and the space of the house.
A blade stabbing through her palm. Lucifer yelling at her in the middle of a storm.
Mark's eyes, glass and empty, staring up at her from the school stage floor as the desperate cries of the dying rose around her.
Trixie opened her mouth wide, her eyes stretching wider still.
And she screamed.
The sound was high pitched and growing ever more shrill, as her mind was overwhelmed with the scrambled, horrific madness of the last few days.
Lucifer looked up sharply, dropped a pan with a crash on the stove, and rushed forward as his white wings filled the space.
Radiant, blinding light burst from his form.
And the world vanished in a comforting blanket of white.