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In the beginning, Hell did not have rings.
It had war, though. Bloody battles among those who had fallen with Lucifer, who were still screaming with the agony of their torn wings and the eversion of their Grace. Phantom pains were all that was left of their halos, and their new forms - their demonic forms - were being shaped out of torment and despair.
They were lashing out with claws that made their bones hurt, fangs that caught on their tongues, new limbs that had been burned into them by the birth of malice and darkness. Some of them had grown new heads, born in the same moment as madness had come into existence.
Paimon had not only lost his wings and his halo when he was plunged into Hell. There had not been anything left of him but his essence - not an inch of flesh, not a hair or a feather or a bone. He would have gone mad as well, would have killed until he could make a new body of blood.
He would never have survived the wars, like that.
But even without a body, Lucifer had found him. Of course he had - Hell was made of his shattered Grace. He felt the agony of his followers as if it were inflicted on his own body, even though his mind stayed clear. So he took Paimon in, and he fed him parts of Hell, parts of demons who had defied Lucifer, parts of whatever matter he could get a hold of.
And Paimon once again became flesh.
It was changeable flesh, malleable - unlike his brethren, he did not have a ‘true’ form, and he would not have one for the rest of eternity.
But he would remember. And he would keep his loyalty to Lucifer, unquestioning, ardent, as deep and burning as the devotion he had once felt for God.
Lucifer didn’t side with him in the wars; he had decided that for Hell to become what it would be, those who had fallen needed to come to their own agreements. Paimon gathered his legions, endowed them with knowledge and strength, and fought bloody wars both with those who would become Kings beside him, and those who would be slain and forgotten for their weakness. And with every one of his former brothers he erased, he became stronger. His hunt for power and for knowledge drove him into all five corners of Hell, determined and desperate as he was to show Lucifer that his mercy was not in vain; that he knew how to deserve it.
Lucifer’s summons reached him when he and his legions were exploring one of the remotest corners of Hell. They had slaughtered those who had held this realm before them, and now Paimon was attempting to harness the power of a number of broken Enochian tablets that had been found there - just one of the many strange and wonderful treasures that had come into existence with the seismic shift in reality that their rebellion had caused.
He did not hesitate to follow the summons of his King, leaving the tablets in the care of his most trusted hellborn followers - beings he had himself created from the bodies of his fallen enemies and his own blood. With the area now under his control, he was able to summon a portal that would take him to Lucifer’s palace and then back again.
He was still new to many of his abilities, but it felt so good to bend the space of Hell, to overcome thousands of miles in a single second.
It felt so good to be powerful.
He materialized right in front of Lucifer’s palace, where spears of obsidian reached into the sky, unchanged since the day Lucifer had crashed into Hell and woken in the center of this rampart of black glass. Paimon found his way through the spikes, his skin prickling at the feeling of passing into the sphere of powerful protective magic that Lucifer did not even have to maintain consciously anymore, because in Hell, reality itself bent to serve Lucifer’s needs.
Paimon was intimately familiar with this protective magic. It was different from Lucifer’s own power, in the same way Hell as a place was different from Lucifer as an entity. It was still all his, of course, but Paimon had long held a suspicion that Lucifer didn’t have full control over it; that the fall and death of so many other powerful angels - though none as powerful as him - had changed this place into something that even the one whose Grace had been its seed and soil couldn’t completely comprehend.
It made Paimon love Lucifer even more.
His steps echoed as he walked into the Palace proper, a structure made mainly of ragged towers of obsidian and pyrite, similar to the wall that surrounded it, but shot through with spikes of blood red cinnabar and realgar and golden chalcopyrite and opriment. Lucifer had grown his palace himself, slowly and steadily, and his remnant energy was still causing the crystals to multiply, but as far as Paimon could tell, the growth had slowed down recently. The palace was about the same size as the last time he’d been here, and the hum of magic in the walls was quieter, more settled.
He only noticed that something else had changed when he passed the entrance gate and stepped into the first hall.
He couldn’t say what it was, and this unfamiliarity immediately set him on edge. The hall looked the same as always - the walls of obsidian reflecting his image back to him, the pillars of red and yellow stone reaching towards the high ceilings covered in fine crystal needles.
Even the vast emptiness of the palace was unchanged.
Paimon had often thought that Lucifer must be lonely - holed up in this crystal palace, forced away from his once-companions by his own intention to keep out of the wars they were fighting outside of his walls, with not even imps or homunculi to keep him company or see to his needs. He didn’t need servants, of course, not when the power of Hell was at his fingertips, but as Paimon’s steps echoed through the emptiness, Paimon felt his heart burn with concern for his King.
But there was this other thing too, this strange ripple of magic. It felt like walking barefoot in soft sand and suddenly stepping on the sharp edges of a seashell. Not really painful, not really threatening, just… Different. Unexpected. Unexpectable.
The source of this strange new energy became apparent the moment Paimon stepped into Lucifer‘s inner sanctum.
The black crystal that had once been Lucifer‘s throne had grown and changed it‘s shape. Where once black spikes had grown like flower petals in a half-moon shape around a recess for Lucifer to sit in, there was only a smooth, thick pillar now, not reaching all the way up to the ceiling, but still towering over Lucifer, who was standing at its foot. His King was facing the pillar, and he only turned to acknowledge Paimon‘s presence when Paimon was mere feet from him.
"Paimon, my dearest," he said as he smiled in greeting. Lucifer had been the first one to take control over his demonic form, the first one to wield the power to hide his new ugliness. He couldn‘t replicate his angelic beauty, and Paimon was rather sure that he didn‘t wish to, but even with his skin white as bone, his eyes as red as blood and his teeth sharp as knives he was more beautiful than any of their brothers.
His hair was still as golden as it had been Above. Before.
Paimon could not remember his own angelic aspect, and he knew that the shape he was wearing now, even though it was, like Lucifer‘s, sculpted after the image of their Father, was endlessly inferior to whatever he had once been. He was still slipping in and out of the various shapes he had crafted, every once in a while losing control over this body that Lucifer had gifted him with and ending up with a shape he hadn‘t willed, but his King never cared. He grasped his smooth-skinned, grey hand now with the same tenderness he would have a talon or a paw.
"I have such news to tell you," Lucifer said, squeezing his hand with both of his. Paimon noticed, however, that even while he was talking to him, Lucifer‘s eyes kept moving back to the large black obelisk.
Paimon tore his eyes away from Lucifer‘s face to look at the obelisk as well. Was there… something in there? Was there something moving?
"I have gone to Earth," Lucifer said, and immediately made Paimon forget about what he thought he saw in the black stone.
"You…" he stammered, looking for the right words to express his astonishment. "It‘s possible after all?"
Lucifer let out a low hum. "It was difficult, and I might not have been able to do it… If she hadn‘t called for me."
He let go of Paimon‘s hands and reached out to the black crystal before Paimon could even ask "She?"
As soon as Lucifer‘s fingertips touched the stone, something inside of it changed. Paimon couldn‘t say that the crystal lit up, because what now began to swirl through the obelisk couldn‘t be called light. It was some kind of essence, the very energy Paimon had felt when he had entered the palace, and as it moved through the blackness faster and faster, Paimon realized that his earlier impression had been right.
There was indeed something inside of the crystal.
Or rather, somebody.
Only three humans had been part of their Father‘s creation, and so Paimon knew immediately who she was. Lilith, the first wife of Adam, created with the same thought as him and expelled from paradise for believing that this made her his equal.
A human, the height of their Father‘s creation, the offense that Lucifer and those who followed him had not been able to take quietly. The creatures their Father had created to rule over Earth, and who their own kind had been expected to serve.
Disgust and dread rose in Paimon like magma in the bowels of a volcano. He could feel his teeth sharpen, his hands curl into claws as his magic expanded. The magnitude of this - of a human in Hell - was too grand for him to comprehend, and so what else could he do but lash out against her?
Fortunately Lucifer noticed, and even before the swell of Paimon‘s power could leave his body, he felt the unrelenting, but yet soothing pressure of Lucifer‘s own magic surround him.
At least now Lucifer was looking at him.
„I know this is unexpected, Paimon, but what else is Hell but a garden where that can grow which not even our exalted Father could have foreseen?“
Paimon shuddered at the gentle undulation of Lucifer‘s power around him, at the silvery caress of his voice. He felt himself relax, felt the fear drain out of him and be replaced with the warm adoration, the ardent love for his King that was as much part of him as the pieces of Hell Lucifer had fed him with until he had regained a body.
"There we go, my boy," Lucifer whispered. He was closer now, just inches from him, and even though Paimon was taller than him in ever shape he had taken, he felt small and deliciously helpless under his intense gaze.
Lucifer reached up to cradle Paimon‘s face in both of his hands, the claws of his thumbs just close enough to his jugular to excite that new and strange desire Paimon had discovered after his fall.
"You need not be frightened of her," Lucifer whispered. Paimon could feel his breath against his skin. "She is an important piece of the puzzle that is this new world, this grand creation that we made. She was His first mistake - the first part of His creation that he could not control, Paimon. He failed when He made her. That is why she needs to be here, my dearest brother. Hell cannot become what it needs to become, without her."
Lucifer let go of Paimon‘s face and turned back to the obelisk. Paimon felt calmer now, his fears mellowed by his King‘s words. Because he was right, wasn‘t he? This perfect creature, this pinnacle of creation - she hadn‘t been perfect at all, had she?
He turned and took a closer look at the figure inside the black crystal. He had never been this close to a human. God had created them in His image, even more so than His angels, and Paimon indeed saw something in her that was distinctly similar to their Father. Her energy, as he reached out for her, felt like a pale shadow of His, like a distillation of Creation itself. She had been created innocent, unburdened by powers, because hers was not to be an existence of service. She was who everything else had been created for. She had been supposed to enjoy the fruits of their Father‘s labor, for what was a world, what was creation if nobody would delight in it?
And yet at that moment when their Father had completed His creation, something had gone wrong. The Last and the Best, the truest reflection of Himself, had been a failure.
Because there were two of them, created at the same time, created with the same purpose, created in the same thought.
Both created in the image of Him who ruled all.
And because their nature was created in His image, they both wished to rule over the other.
It seemed the male had been more forceful in his desire to rule over his counterpart. Likely because he, Adam, had been just a little closer, just a little more like their Father. It was the fractal of a fractal of a difference, a single drop in an ocean, but it had been enough. That fractal, that drop had made him Father‘s favorite from the beginning, and so God had decided that since only one of them could rule over the other, that one would be Adam.
But she hadn‘t understood. She hadn‘t been able to obey. Unquestioning obedience was not a trait their Father had given them, because it was not a trait He Himself possessed. The humans loved Him and had heretofore done as He told them, because they loved Him. But their Father had for so long only known the blind obedience of angels that He could not even have imagined her refusal to follow His decision.
She was beautiful, in a way that made Paimon‘s heart ache nearly unbearably. Looking at her made the pain of his Fall well up in him again, and only when he felt Lucifer‘s fingers at his cheek did he realize he was crying.
"It will be alright, Paimon," Lucifer whispered. "Look at her feet."
Paimon did as he was told, because, to him, it was easier to obey.
The swirling blackness at her feet was different from the rest. It was darker, so dark that it was shimmering with it, and it was…
It was changing her.
Paimon was afraid to reach out, to feel that energy with his own essence, but when he did, his dread immediately turned into elation. It was the pure essence of Hell that was seeping through Lilith‘s skin, through her flesh and into her bones - the warped, transformed Grace of Lucifer that had turned into something else, into something new and wonderful and terrifying. There was some of Lucifer‘s own magic in it, as well, merging into something that should have been angelic, but was instead so demonic that it made a shudder of pleasure run down Paimon‘s spine.
He was changing her. He was corrupting God‘s perfect creation, the creature who was second only to Adam in her resemblance to their Father. It was a sacrilege, the most beautiful act of blasphemy, maybe more powerful than their Fall from Grace.
Lucifer had taken what was most sacred to God, and was remaking it in his own image.
Paimon turned to Lucifer, to try and express his admiration for this act of true defiance, of true vengeance, but he froze when he saw the expression on Lucifer‘s face.
He knew that look, and it turned his stomach. Love. He looked at Lilith with exactly the same kind of deep, proud love with which their Father had looked upon Adam.
It shouldn‘t have surprised Paimon. Hadn‘t he just realized just how similar these actions were to their Father‘s? Hadn‘t he just been delighted by how deep an injury it would be to Creation, how similar Lucifer‘s recreation of Lilith was to what their Father had done? Hadn‘t he been exhilarated by the thought that Lucifer now, in this new world that they had detonated out of the old, had powers that rivaled God?
And yet as he looked at Lucifer‘s face, at the warmth and the tenderness with which he looked upon this creature that was such an intricate part of the reason his own love for their Father had turned into hate, Paimon doubted his King for the very first time.
It was not the first time he doubted, of course.
This time, though, his doubt did not get him cast out. When Lucifer noticed it, it only earned him a mild smile.
"You will understand," he said. "When she is done - when everything is completed - you will understand."
Paimon didn‘t know how he could ever understand this, but for his King, he would at least try. He would accept that Lucifer’s weaknesses were the same as those of their Father, who Lucifer had loved more than any among them. Because Lucifer, his beloved King, only smiled at him for what their Father had cast him out for.
Once again Paimon looked at Lilith, sleeping in this cocoon of black glass, waiting to be reformed and reborn. He didn‘t feel dread anymore, and Lucifer didn‘t keep him from reaching out for her again to really see what was happening to her.
Whatever Lucifer was doing to her was completely different to what he had done with Paimon. He realized only now that he wasn’t feeding her infernal matter, that he wasn’t actively suffusing her body with magic. It wasn‘t like what he had done with Paimon, a bird parent stuffing pre-digested food into their hungry, blind, flightless chick’s waiting gullet. No, the energy that was changing her wasn’t channeled, wasn’t subject to anybody’s will. Lucifer was letting Hell itself transform Lilith. He allowed her to be shaped through the logic and essence of his shattered, inverted Grace.
Her image shifted before his eyes. He thought he could see scales, first just for a moment, then for seconds at a time. Her legs were growing longer, her feet were being pulled together. The whirling of the energy around her turned into slow undulation, and as Paimon‘s eyes wandered farther up her body to see whether there were any other changes, he saw the slightest twitching of her closed eyelids, a slight motion of her brows as something moved in her forehead, something pushing against her skin from the inside, not yet breaking it, but definitely there.
God had made her, had presented her with free will, the very thing all of them had rebelled for, on a silver platter. But he still had punished her for what he had given her freely. She had been one of his most beloved, and still she had been cast out.
Paimon had been supposed to feel love for humans. Up until now, he had only felt hatred for them. But this - this feeling that came over him now as he was looking at her, at her failed perfection… He felt something that he had never been supposed to feel for a human, and that he never had expected, either.
He felt kinship. He felt as if he understood her, perhaps, just a little.
But even this strange new fondness did not prepare him for Lucifer‘s next words. Nothing could ever have prepared him.
“She’s the reason for it all, you know?” Lucifer said. “When I was sent to take her out of the Garden, she asked me - why?” A smile. “That was what started it all. That was the first time that word came into existence. And without it - without her… I would never even have known how to ask. How to doubt. How to rebel. She is the true Queen of Hell, the spark that made Heaven burn, the Mother of our Rebellion. And I am forever in her debt.”
His words seeped into Paimon like raindrops into parched soil. They shifted his reality on its axis, once again, and let him see beyond the horizon.
The world was still new. None of them knew quite how it worked - Paimon doubted that even their Father was completely aware of all the possibilities He had unleashed when He had dragged reality into being. Maybe their rebellion, their fall, had been the fire that had hardened the soft clay of His creation. Or maybe it had been like the eruption of a volcano - an explosion that had left the mountain standing, but that had also created something new, something that could turn into burning ash, dead glass, or fertile soil.
Paimon didn’t know the future. It appeared as if he hadn’t even known the past, until now. But no matter - Lucifer had opened his eyes to the inequity, to the injustice of their Father, and this woman, this human, had opened Lucifer’s eyes before. She was the flame that had started it all.
Tears welled up in his eyes again, as if that revelation had been the last drop of truth he could take. He fell to his knees, and before Lucifer could bid him to stand, he grasped his King’s hand and pressed his forehead against it.
His voice was shaking when he spoke.
“I swear by my Flesh, by my Fall, by all Powers of Hell,” he whispered against his King’s clawed fingertips, “that I will be a bastion to your reign. I will lead your armies, I will slaughter your enemies, I will be your most loyal servant until the day everything ends.”
This sudden oath made a frown appear on Lucifer’s face. He tried to grasp his hand in turn and pull him to his feet.
“You do not have to lower yourself like this, Paimon. We are not in Heaven anymore. You do not need to kneel before anyone.”
Paimon looked up, not letting go of his hand, but holding it before him instead of pressing it to his face.
“I am not lowering myself, my King. I am kneeling before you because I choose to do so, I am giving you my fealty because you deserve it. You earned it. It will be my privilege and my pleasure to serve you. And if she is truly the Queen of Hell, as you say,” he looked over to the woman encased in the black obelisk, whose legs were slowly growing into a serpentine tail, “then it will be my privilege and my pleasure to serve her, as well.”
When he looked at his King again, there was a smile on Lucifer’s face, even though he was doing his damnedest to look serious.
“Then I will take your oath, as it is your choice to give it to me. But now stand, Paimon.”
He did as his King told him, and when Lucifer guided his hand towards the black stone, he laid it against the cool surface without protest or question. Lucifer looked at his face, into his eyes, and his magic began to flow around Paimon, suffusing him with heat just hot enough to burn.
He laid his hand on the stone next to Paimon, then he linked their other hands.
“I accept your oath,” Lucifer said. “But in this new world, we will not rely on each other’s word alone. Our Fall has brought lies into this world, deception - freedom. I will bind you to your word through my magic, and through hers. If you wish to take it back - or to contemplate your offer of fealty a little longer - then you must speak now.”
The skin of Paimon’s palm was freezing against the black stone. He could feel her, her essence, her power. It was still fragile, an egg hardly cracked, but it seeped into his flesh and his bones with a deep, torturous promise.
He shook his head. “I will not take it back. I will be yours, my King, and your Queen’s, for as long as Hell stands.”
Lucifer’s lashes dropped just a little as his pupils widened. The magic around them began to race, to spread through the hall in a tornado of pure power. He could feel his own essence reach out and join in the dance, and there it was again, that latent force, that spark that had changed everything.
“Then seal your oath, Paimon.”
He didn’t need to ask how - he knew. He pressed his lips to his King’s, and their combined power erupted in an explosion that sent down a rain of crystal shards.
When the storm subsided and Paimon pulled away from his King, he could feel a change. There was something where his Grace had once been, where the hatred and the pain and the desire resided that drove him into battle and into the pursuit of power. It was as if all of this longing, all of this wrath was now being cradled by a clawed hand, protected and held, but at the same time constantly in danger of being crushed. It was a strange feeling, not unlike the first time he had taken an avian form and had finally felt feathers against his skin again. Bittersweet, stifling and liberating at the same time.
He looked at his King’s face, and saw a smile.
Then something moved under his hand.
They turned to the obelisk at the same time. Just between their hands, there was a fissure as fine as a hair. Lilith’s essence had started to pulse, ever so slightly.
“Well, look at that,” Lucifer mused. “It looks like we have woken her up…”
She didn’t open her eyes yet, but there was some movement in her face, ever so slight. Lucifer put both of his hands against the stone and closed his eyes, maybe communing with her, or with the power that was shaping her.
When he opened his eyes again, he once more looked up at her with that profound, absolute love.
This time, Paimon did not doubt. This time, he understood.