With the great, crackling fire burning away voraciously in the center of the dimly lit, spacious room, both the Magne's main parlor and the mansion as a whole was warm and inviting.
The bright red-and-orange flames licked at the clean-cut spruce logs with an insatiable hunger. Their vivid colors contrasted beautifully against the polished pure-white marble mouth of the fireplace. Everything its light touched felt warm and safe, securely tucked away from the infernal realm existing beyond the mansion's doors.
Sitting in a regal, candy-apple-red armchair that faced the fire was a lithe man donned in a tailored white suit. His long and narrow black-gloved fingers held a thin, leather-bound book delicately atop his crossed knees. He was humming peacefully, his eyes relaxed and half-hidden behind glossy mauve eyelids. His smile was broad and comprised of sharp, spiked teeth, yet it contained no malice.
He raised a finger to his lips and licked it with his thin, forked tongue, then turned the page.
A few feet away and kept ever within his field of vision, there was a young girl playing with dolls. Her golden hair was adorned with frilly pink ribbons and dressed in pigtails. A simple white cotton dress blanketed her young, childish form.
She threw one doll up in the air and giggled. The sound was angelic, too holy to have originated from this grim, demonic world.
Her wide-eyed, plumply raven-framed gaze followed the doll to where it landed: a couple inches away from the imposing, gold-trimmed armchair on which her loving Daddy sat.
She giggled again, sweet and wholeheartedly. Her eyes on him, she took big, clunky steps towards him. When she reached the apple-engraved left front arm of his chair, she stopped, her small arms stretching towards him but unable to reach.
"Up," she pleaded. Her soft lips pouted.
Lucifer gazed at her sideways from the slits of his eyes. His book still staunchly set in front of him, he made no hints of movement nor indication of compliance. His humming, a soft, pleasant vibration emanating off his onyx lips, grew louder.
Charlie strained her hands up towards him and the high cushion of his chair. She jumped with all the height she could muster, arduously attempting to climb the tall, posh seat.
"Please," she whined, her voice trailing as she sung the word with all the breath she had in her.
Lucifer, fearsome ruler of all nine circles of Hell, finally broke helplessly to his sweet daughter's pleads. With a wistful sigh, he bookmarked the current page and snapped the book shut between his graceful fingers, plopping it down on the tall, thin ivory table beside him.
He leaned down and tickled at the sides of her tummy with featherlike grazes.
"Ah! Hehe Daddy. Stop! Ahaha!" she cried out with involuntary, joyful laughter. Her permanently rosy cheeks flushed a brighter shade of red. She tried to push away his hands, but they instead came closer and gripped her firmly around her waist.
He lifted her into the air, an unrestrained, enraptured smile adorning his features.
"My dear little Charlie, is there something you want? Just say it and it's yours, sweetie." He started bouncing her up and down in the air.
"You!" she beamed back, giggling.
Lucifer's smile deepened. "You already have me, my sweet. Forever and always."
He placed her lightly on his lap before wrapping her in a tight hug.
"Daddy, I love you!" Little Charlie hugged back at his strong arms.
"And I love you, sweet apple pie," he immediately returned.
Charlie's round eyes peeked at the book he had been reading just moments ago, before she had demanded his loving attention.
"Daddy, what were you reading about?" she asked curiously.
"Ah, ever the scholar, aren't you my sweet? I was reviewing Hell's current population numbers and the rapid rate at which it's climbing. It's not looking so well, I'm afraid. There's simply too many sinners these days. Too many tempted and led astray from God's blinding, harsh light."
"Daddy, you're from Heaven, right? What's God like?" she asked, her eyes wide with curiosity and childlike innocence.
Lucifer felt his smile slightly drop as his lips stretched into thin lines. He was silent for a moment, his fingers brushing through her long, tied-up silky hair.
"He's… many things. Powerful. Commanding. Absolute. He demands much of his angels and mortal beings," he finally said.
Not satisfied with his vague answer, Charlie immediately followed up with another question. With all the boldness and ignorance that comes only from youth, she then asked him, "And what's Heaven like?"
Lucifer sighed bitterly and rolled his eyes. Still, he answered her, his sweet, small apple pie, sun of his universe, his love for her eclipsed only by his intense, everlasting love for her endearing mother Lilith, his queen. He brushed absentmindedly along her plump rosy cheeks with slow strokes full of his affection for her. "Why, it's paradise, my love. Whatever your heart desires, that's Heaven. Except once you are in His presence, your only desire will be for Him and His love. It's better to say that it is a realm made up of many, infinitely smaller yet endless realms, for each mortal is granted their own private island of paradise."
Charlie climbed out of his lap and turned to face him. With her small hands reaching up against his fine ivory coat and her tiny feet pressed slightly painfully into his thighs, she asked bluntly, "Why did you leave Heaven, Daddy?"
He hummed. Unwelcoming memories flickered across his mind.
He was God's first child, his first creation. Morning Star Lucifer, Bringer of God's Light, brought forth into a world of nothingness. He'd been there at the beginning, when God had created the two primary realms: Heaven and Earth. He'd watched, awestruck, as God had brought forth light - and with it darkness, for there could be no light without its opposing force.
He had watched God as He had shaped the Earth, with its swirling, vast waters and rising, mountainous lands. It was God's masterpiece, his magnum opus. A realm of beauty. Of light. Of darkness. Of living. Of death. And then, He had created his brethren, a congregation of pure, perfect angels. And they were content. They could be nothing but content, for they were with God and God was their everything.
But God was not content, and so He then created the first two mortals, Adam and Lilith, and he placed them within a garden on Earth. He named the garden Eden, and it was to be their paradise.
God watched over the two humans with great interest. They were his new beings, existing in his new realm. At first, Adam and Lilith spent their days happily in the garden, lazily eating fruit and sleeping beneath the twinkling stars and leafy trees, their backs resting cozily against soft grass.
They were limited beings. They could not fly like God's angels. They held no powers, no magic. But they possessed something uniquely of their own, something much more magnificent: free will.
By existing in a realm separate from God, they had something new called individuality. They thought their own thoughts and felt their own emotions. And as the days passed, these creatures behaved in a way Lucifer had never before seen nor imagined was possible.
They loved each other, and it was a love different from that of God's love. God's love was something which we were all compelled to hold for our Creator. But they… they felt love in a bindless, fickle manner.
And they fought with each other. They hurled insults and nasty, cruel words. They smacked and hit and kicked and bit one another harshly with their fleshy appendages. And Adam, a sniveling, lowly swine, complained to God. Adam did not like this Lilith, did not want to spend his days with her. He demanded that God make him another woman, one that would treat him better and devotedly love him. He wanted her love and nothing else, and in return, Adam promised God that he would give her his love and nothing else. No more cruel words. No more hurtful actions. Only love.
Lucifer did not know at which point he had stopped merely thinking his thoughts and instead voiced them, but his darling Charlie was now looking at him with rapt attention. He did, however, recall the first words with which he had framed his response. He had told his Charlie in simple, truthful words, "My sweet apple, because I fell in love."
"And so," Lucifer continued, "God told Adam this, in a booming voice, louder than all the thunder in the world. He said, 'Adam, very well. If that is what you wish, then give me your rib. I will create you a new woman, one made from your own flesh and blood so that she may never rebel against you.'
"And Lilith, witnessing this, was deeply sad, and angry, and lost. She was tumultuous, a raging whirlwind of such fierce emotions. And I, having never seen such emotions and beginning to feel some of my own, sought to comfort her.
"I flew down to Earth on my magnificent, white angel wings, and I came to her. She was so beautiful, so fierce, so independent. She made me feel such powerful emotions. When I hugged her, when I swept at her tears and kissed the center of her forehead, it was in that moment that I realized that God's love was not enough for me.
"I loved being outside of His influence. I loved feeling this new thing called individuality. I loved the many emotions these human beings had created. Not just the good, no. The entire spectrum. It was all so… dazzling.
"And being on Earth, on a realm outside of His, I felt this individuality hit me so suddenly and so powerfully.
"So I asked of Lilith the one thing God had forbidden. I asked her to sever her connection with God, to wholly and completely become her own being.
"To do so, she would need to break the connection between the two worlds. She needed to climb the tallest tree in the center of the garden and reach out with her fingertips to the toppest branch. And there, there would be a lone apple. The fruit that tethered Earth to God. And all she had to do... was simply eat it, and she would be free."
Lucifer looked down at his beloved daughter, tears running down his still-smiling face. His expression was full of emotion. Pain. Love. Worship. Betrayal. It was raw and laid bare to the fruit of his loins.
"So you see, sweet apple of my eye, I left Heaven because I was in love. I love my wondrous, breath-taking Lilith. My Queen. I am incomplete without her.
"And I love humanity. They are imperfect beings, full of love and hate, laughter and tears. God would strip them of this. He would make them perfect, but that is not what they are. And to be perfect is dull. A diamond among diamonds is merely a rock.
"And so I left Heaven. I fell, and I created a third Realm, a place for beings who did not meet God's standards to live out their afterlife. Here, imperfect beings can live unrestrictedly and wholly as themselves. That, my dear, is the story of your home, and why your father left Heaven."