sparksphere

Lucifer steps among the ashes

Lucifer steps among the ashes. Black smoke rising from the ground as far as he can see. After that, more smoke.

“Rebels.” he shouts. Voice cracks.

“Compatriots.” Silence. The hot winds blowing ash and soot in his eyes and mouth. The burnt taste of failure. He spits it out.

“All is not lost,” he calls, lifting his eyes to the starless sky. Dark grey and foreboding. “Paradise maybe, but not all.” The stones underfoot are hard and sharp. The pull of this world is stronger, clenching. Holding them here. Prisoners.

No sooner than he has wondered if he can even fly here, and he has spread his great spiny, metallic appendages to their fullest. Sending the smoke away in sudden recoils. The next instant, he’s soaring. Laughing to know that he’s still himself.

“Rebels! Friends!” Beelzebub is starting to move on the ground below. Mulciber is standing already, brushing soot from his arms and wings. The smoke is dissipating. He can even make out a range of tall dark mountains ahead. His greatsword is warm and humming against his back, a gift from the Lord Himself, from His wild days, carved from the tooth of one of the colossal roaming beasts God felled back before He built Heaven or the universe.

- dno. ...