"Be silent!"
It was when he saw Rosiel that he knew his decline -- the loss of brilliance.
Rosiel was beautiful, he always was. He was his master, he always was. He was the one who granted him the feel of spring, the feel of fingertips against his shoulder. He was the source of everything that surrounded him, and the fact that he was alive, truly alive!
But defiance crossed him, sometimes. Rosiel was submitting to his own madness, he found. At first he sought to ignore the truth. Rosiel, he was his impervious master, the one who gave him spring.
But then he realized -- Rosiel, was he the same one who had given him spring?
Surely, Rosiel was Rosiel. He was the same beautiful, coy angel he had always been. But he missed the old sweet things. The gentle promises, the things that made him feel special, the reason that he was granted that body.
When that left, what would Rosiel be to him?
"Swallow this pill obediently! You're not allowed to have your own mind anymore -- because you never follow my orders!"
He could not. The lifesaver -- he could not take it. It was not his to take from this foreign being. He could only take this from Rosiel, his Rosiel. To obey this would only verify that he was, indeed, a slave, and only a slave from the start. Never his own self, even as spring touched him. He bit down on the offering finger -- no, he could not take life from this thing. He could not continue to follow this radically different world.
But, as Rosiel's desperate image wavered in his eyes, his vision in and out, the taste of blood from the finger fresh in his mouth, the ground beneath him -- he thought of the life. That life he was given. He could not take it back from death. Was it his place to give it freely to Lucifer? Was it his place... to leave Rosiel alone?
Or was it selfishness, not sanity, speaking?
Rosiel would do better, see better, without him. Should he leave, in hopes that perhaps Rosiel would wake into himself again? Should he continued, of course, Rosiel would only continue in his decline.
But he loved the spring. He wanted to feel the spring again.
He swallowed.