A perfect love
In the beginning…
Before the ranks and choruses of angels were created, before Heaven was fully realised, He created Lucifer. The firstborn, the first being to exist that was somewhat separate from Himself. Lucifer was created and all he knew was His love and Lucifer loved Him just the same. A perfect love.
Then came the other angels and Heaven and Lucifer loved Him even when His love wasn’t focused solely on Lucifer anymore. It wasn’t quite the same as the first halcyon age when they alone existed, but the company made up for it in some ways. There was Raphael, quiet watchful Raphael who loved Lucifer and who Lucifer loved almost as much as Him. There was The Metatron. Heaven in those times, as Lucifer will refuse to admit, was as close to perfection as it was ever going to get. And then…
And then.
Came the thought. Without Him without God existence without worshipping Him all the time The butterfly thought that stirred up a cyclone. Came the War, where he and his compatriots had fought for themselves, were forced to fight when Michael’s armies had come for them. And lost. Lost everything and gained everything.
For a moment, before he was cast down, Lucifer had stood before Him. Determinedly not shaking before His wrath, hurting, defiant and afraid. Michael, bruised and bloody because Lucifer had put up one hell of a fight, stood at His side, The Metatron, Gabriel, Raphael, they all stood there. Behind them were the ranks and Lucifer could see some among them weeping. For him. For Heaven’s loss of him. What will You do? I’m not sorry. I won’t be sorry for wanting this. And for that moment, He made it like it had been in the beginning. Like it was the two of them, nothing else, and Lucifer was inundated with love. For one perfect, beautiful, glorious, terrible moment.
And then Lucifer was Falling and all he knew was pain.
Lucifer had wondered later, puzzled over it when the searing flames of agony hadn’t faded in the slightest but at least he’d adjusted to it, could function despite it, why He’d done that. Had the rest of the rank and file noticed anything? For that moment, had He and Lucifer been elsewhere? Or was it just a trick with smoke and mirrors? There were no answers and the only conclusion Lucifer could come to was that it was to show him just what he’d given up. Just what he’d never have again.
How Lucifer hated him for it. For everything. For feeling like a fly caught wriggling in a spider’s web, unable to get free no matter what he tried. For the loss of Raphael who he hadn’t seen since that spectacular Fall and who he missed all the time. For Metatron’s determined lectures about how he could come home if only he wanted to. (And for whom there was desire and lust and hatred and pain. Love, perhaps, turned on its head.)
If Lucifer wasn’t stronger for it all, at the least he was harder.
Before the ranks and choruses of angels were created, before Heaven was fully realised, He created Lucifer. The firstborn, the first being to exist that was somewhat separate from Himself. Lucifer was created and all he knew was His love and Lucifer loved Him just the same. A perfect love.
Then came the other angels and Heaven and Lucifer loved Him even when His love wasn’t focused solely on Lucifer anymore. It wasn’t quite the same as the first halcyon age when they alone existed, but the company made up for it in some ways. There was Raphael, quiet watchful Raphael who loved Lucifer and who Lucifer loved almost as much as Him. There was The Metatron. Heaven in those times, as Lucifer will refuse to admit, was as close to perfection as it was ever going to get. And then…
And then.
Came the thought. Without Him without God existence without worshipping Him all the time The butterfly thought that stirred up a cyclone. Came the War, where he and his compatriots had fought for themselves, were forced to fight when Michael’s armies had come for them. And lost. Lost everything and gained everything.
For a moment, before he was cast down, Lucifer had stood before Him. Determinedly not shaking before His wrath, hurting, defiant and afraid. Michael, bruised and bloody because Lucifer had put up one hell of a fight, stood at His side, The Metatron, Gabriel, Raphael, they all stood there. Behind them were the ranks and Lucifer could see some among them weeping. For him. For Heaven’s loss of him. What will You do? I’m not sorry. I won’t be sorry for wanting this. And for that moment, He made it like it had been in the beginning. Like it was the two of them, nothing else, and Lucifer was inundated with love. For one perfect, beautiful, glorious, terrible moment.
And then Lucifer was Falling and all he knew was pain.
Lucifer had wondered later, puzzled over it when the searing flames of agony hadn’t faded in the slightest but at least he’d adjusted to it, could function despite it, why He’d done that. Had the rest of the rank and file noticed anything? For that moment, had He and Lucifer been elsewhere? Or was it just a trick with smoke and mirrors? There were no answers and the only conclusion Lucifer could come to was that it was to show him just what he’d given up. Just what he’d never have again.
How Lucifer hated him for it. For everything. For feeling like a fly caught wriggling in a spider’s web, unable to get free no matter what he tried. For the loss of Raphael who he hadn’t seen since that spectacular Fall and who he missed all the time. For Metatron’s determined lectures about how he could come home if only he wanted to. (And for whom there was desire and lust and hatred and pain. Love, perhaps, turned on its head.)
If Lucifer wasn’t stronger for it all, at the least he was harder.