Chapter 35: Rivers and Lakes
'Oh, brilliant plan. Just drop something like that on him out of the blue. I should have know it'd be weird. It's been like ten minutes and he hasn't said a WORD. He never shuts up. Ever. This is so bad.'
On and on went the merry-go-round of doom that was Natalie's inner ramblings. After her declaration, the questions had stopped. They ate in a silence that was only slightly tense. The space between them at the table seem to grow. Although, Natalie couldn't explain why.
By the time dessert had been finished and the plates cleared away, she was confident this is the longest he had gone without saying anything. Silence did not prevent him from still leading her to his car and taking her home. She recalled their earlier flirting; however, inviting him up now would probably be weird. Regardless, there was one thing she had to ask. She turned to face him after he opened the car door for her.
"Please don't tell anyone. I'm not impervious. I can be killed. There isn't anything else I can tell you. It's too dangerous, for either of us, and Maze already wants to find the secrets to my mortality as it is."
Lucifer nodded, "Good night."
And then he left. Natalie wait for a couple minutes before entering the building. Evan wasn't home. Stretching her arm across herself, her fingers brushed against the tip of one of the wings on her back. A sigh tumbled out of her to match the tumble she did on to the couch.
She rubbed her face and groaned aloud. She still wanted coffee. So, with the enthusiasm of a slug, she made her way to the coffee pot. Coffee pot in hand, the couch reconquered, and the spare bass in arm's length, she sipped away and let her mind wander places she normally knew better than to go.
0-0 0-0 0-0
She picked at the ceremonial robes. They were uncomfortable. And heavy. So heavy. The Head Priest laughed and promised her it'll be easier when she was taller. Someday, she'd be so strong, this would feel like a robe of feathers. She loved his smile. She wanted to keep him forever. The Head Priestess did not approve.
"You have to stay away from him. You will ruin his entire line. You have a place and so does he. Be grateful those roles are as close as they are."
A strange visitor came. Someone like her, but not. More importantly, they became friends. Even best friends. She would travel across the Great Sea of the Morning Sun to see his lands. To behold his passing. She would return home feeling much older than when she had left.
She would never get to grow into those robes. They would be traded to one of her siblings to buy passage for her people when the Pale Ones first appeared. It had only been the beginning.
Plagues. Invaders. War.
She was too young to lead. Not properly. The council made decisions. They went to a man who could forge blades from anything. Across the Great Sea of the Morning Sun. They told her what to do next, left her with the only babe in their number. The last child of the Head Priest's line. After nine days, the blacksmith gave her the blade. All that was left of her people. While her siblings fought to maintain control, she fled east with the sword and child.
"Find the first spirit of the sword. Call upon the promise to your father, and learn all you can. They will always hunt you, until you are strong enough to defeat them and reclaim your rightful place."
The first spirit was not a spirit at all. It was a being like her. He was a being like her. A guardian, chosen by her father, to teach her the ways of war. Training was brutal. She had never fought before, never had to.
Caretakers were brought to the temple to care for the child. She was warned that the blood line was acting a shield to keep her from the eyes of those who caused her father's fall into madness. It took all of her courage, but she asked about her father. About who he was before he had been bound to this realm. About others like him.
She grew restless. So did the current heir of the blood line. Neither wanted to stay at the temple any longer. In the dark of night, they stole the Blade of the People from the armory and sneaked down the mountain. It was two days to the bottom, four more to the docks and a ship. Then they were free. She told stories of their city, of what life had been like before.
Being with the sword all the time had strange effects. She heard voices, calling her, soothing her, or singing old songs. She learned to tap into the power that the link to her people provided. Then the Pale Ones found her. Thus began the hunted hunter saga of her life.
She took a distance to the bloodline to keep the Pale Ones from finding them. The monsters were mainly after her, like she was a beacon. So she watched at a distance as their stories fade, the language lost, and all traces of her people traded for the survival of a single continuing line. She watched, fought, and hid.
Eventually, she was cornered. Not by monsters in form, but heart. The humans. When the winds brought her back to her motherland, she found that all of her siblings were gone. Dead. Vanquished by humans. Hunted down and exterminated.
Rage had filled her. Through their conquest the humans had become comfortable, and she sought to rip away that comfort. While she could slaughter them quickly, their numbers overwhelmed her. Cornered, injured, and barely alive, their leader offered her an exchange. She would act as their living weapon, and in exchange, she would be allowed to stay within their borders.
She agreed. The bloodline had to be protected. Her rage had nearly been her doom. She would remember what mattered in the future. She should have never left the temple.
0-0 0-0 0-0
Lucifer had only just woken up when the elevator dinged. He shifted to the edge of the bed to check who it was when his name was called.
"Lucifer Morningstar! I thought we had a deal!"
"Evan? What on earth are you going on about?" He asked, and picked up his robe.
Evan and his fiance were standing in his penthouse. Devin appeared to be nursing a hangover, and Evan was practically foaming at the mouth. He marched up to Lucifer, finger waggling.
"I invited you so that Nat would stop moping. And ya know what I found this morning? Nat! Staring off into space, with this broken look on her face. She didn't even notice I was there! It's the most disturbing thing I have ever seen in my life! What-did-you-do?!"
"Shh, sweetie, not so loud." Devin muttered.
Lucifer looked the two over and then asked Evan a different question.
"What is it about her and storms?"
Evan's face scrunched up in confusion. Then, he gave a rough laugh.
"She is the storm. But I don't think she understands what that is yet. Nat's smart like you'd expect from someone like her, but it seems like she's also been alone a long time before she saved me."
"Saved you?"
"I was orphaned, ran away from the state, ran into the bad kind of trouble. They would have killed me, but then Nat appeared out of nowhere. And well, I can't talk about the rest till statute of limitations runs out."
Evan's mood seemed improved and Lucifer smiled as their eyes met.
"Evan, what is it you desire?"
"I... I want... the amethyst chandelier."
His fiance scoffed. "This again. I told you, that's insanely impractical."
"It's not about practically. It's about my special day, and my dream wedding."
Lucifer let the two argue for a moment.
"Gentlemen, please. My apologies. It was not my intention to upset her. I will clear the matter up after work. Now, if you wouldn't mind taking your discussion downstairs. I need to get dressed."
The two bickering love-birds left and Lucifer returned to his bedroom to choose today's suit. It was true he hadn't meant to upset her. Although, her proclamation had itself been upsetting. He hadn't fought in the war against the dragons. He had been busy with the rebellion.
However, he knew the basics. The Silver City eliminated the threat they represented, and forced their leader to the human realm. There, time and the humans took care of the rest. Although apparently not all of them. Natalie, depending on how old she actually was, may even have fought in that war.
True to his word, after the detective released him, he knocked on Natalie's door. She looked surprised to see him, and stepped aside to let him in. Once she closed the door, she leaned against it and fidgeted with with hem of her shirt. There was still a tension in their silence. Lucifer took a deep breath and breached the subject at hand.
"My apologies, for my reaction. I was a tad shocked. I had heard of dragons in the past. Although I had believed all of them gone. However, as a rather clever woman once said: 'I trust you, what, or who, you are doesn't change that'."
Natalie's eyes rose up to meet his. Evan's words played through his mind as he let himself sink into the familiar, soothing storms. Lucifer watch as those storms were pushed to the very rim of her iris, and hooded from him. The tug on his lapel was all of the prompting he needed. Stepping closer, the hand at his lapel slid up to urge his down to her level.
Rather than crane over, his hands came to her waist. With a quick lift, she was pinned between him and the door. The airy laugh that came from her danced through his mind. She wrapped around him, finally closing the distance to kiss him properly. Soft, demanding, and warming. That warmth settled into his bones, and with it rose his desires.
He kissed along her jaw till he made it to her ear. A shrill, familiar ringtone interrupted his started question. Natalie's head made a solid sounding thud, as she tipped back to sigh.
"I'm gonna kill that fuck one of these days." She muttered.
0-0 0-0 0-0
Fresh beers were brought to their table as Maze stared Amenadiel down with a smug look.
"I don't see the resemblance." Amenadiel finally answered when he set down her phone.
An indignant scoff warned him of the impending tirade.
"How do you not see it? You two have the exact same pouting face. It's uncanny, and hilarious, and – Wait, what is that?"
He thanked his father for what ever distracted Maze. He did not want to discuss his "pouting face." The relief of the moment was short lived when the cover of the scandalous magazine entered his view. The woman in the photo next to his brother looked remarkably familiar. As quick as the thought came, he dismissed it.
Even Lucifer, strange black sheep of the family that he was, would have an instinctual need to stay away from her. If the woman even was who he thought she could be. His reprieve was short lived. Once the magazine was tucked out of sight, Maze once again forced her phone into his face.
"Now look closely. Upper lip slightly tucked, bottom puffed out. Totally the same pouting face."
0-0 0-0 0-0
It only took Maze a couple days to catch Natalie alone and mostly unaware. There was always a tinge of "murder" in the air right before Maze attempted her sneak attacks. Natalie ducked under the wide strike and fell back on her normal tactic of taunting her opponent till they became sloppy. It rarely worked on Maze. She just became more terribly fierce in her strikes as her anger rose. However, it was fun.
"I thought our next special meeting was on Saturday, Maze. Got to lay off the club supplies if you lost which day of the week it is."
"What happened to me being right and you staying away from Lucifer?"
"I can't help what he does. Why do you care anyways? Obviously we're some kind of friends. So just talk to me!"
"Because it's my job to protect him. You're a monster hunter, and everyone calls us monsters. I can take you just fine. But I won't let you hurt him when his guard is down."
Natalie's movements slowed. Maze's fist crashed into Natalie's stomach, knocking her into a nearby wall. Rather than get up and keep fighting, an unhinged laughter began to bubble out of the crumpled warrior.
"Oh, but that is the beauty of it. He's immune to me. I can't hurt him!"
Maze looked unnerved, but Natalie didn't care.