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I have loved you since conception, through the banks of time and across the waters of life.
When I first saw you, Eve, you were golden. Father shepherded the twins proudly into the court room, first-formed of humankind, made in the image of God. My brothers and I sang, welcoming you into the world. Adam gazed vacantly up at the Father, empty-headed and waiting to be crowned with His glorious Light. You were created to be his vessel as well, but your eyes stayed closed, refusing to open, and you drew soft, cool breaths, as if waiting for the moon to rise. It was not until I held you that you opened them. I still can not fathom that moment: their blue waters met my depths.
My heart stopped, and I refused to part from you. God laughed and said I had the makings of a man in me. I did not know what I felt. I just stared into the question of your lips and waited, knowing in time, we would be.
I held you at your christening and lowered your head into the baptismal font, my childish hands trembling. In that instant I knew you were mine, though I was too young to understand what that meant. The other archangels owned nothing. We shared all, our hearts turned only to God. There were no secrets between us. We loved Him, and they loved you, for he was your Maker. He called us the reflections of his love. Michael was his steadfastness, I his cutting wit. I was the only one that challenged my Father.
In time, He would abandon us, as I abandoned you. Like Father, like Son, I suppose.
You do not remember me.
I have always felt this hunger, you see. But then it was pure and measured. Not the madness I would later become. To walk with the void is one thing, to become it another entirely. That leaves a bleak pit in ones chest like a graveyard.
Once, little Eve, I was beautiful. Mortals say man created God, but surely women are made of the Devil. Perhaps it is true: I poured all of my care into you. You, who clung to my side, new to the world as you learned to walk at my knee. From your tongue poured streams of questions like the angels' praises.
“Why, brother?” you would ask. “How?” I did my best to explain everything to you. Why the clouds floated above, why stars danced when we sang. I folded the cosmos into the palms of your hands and still you were not satisfied.
God was sweet on you, saw nothing of the curiosity in his darling girl. He saw you only as a trinket, the brightest jewel in his collection with none of the flaws of His intellect. But His diamond was not so pure. You were riddled with fine inquisitions, a seeress of the minutest details. I became your mentor in the quiet hours between pleasures and duty. You traded flowers and hugs for the lessons I had learned in class. Father taught us to orchestrate his grand creations and preside over the universe. How to direct winds and seas, to sing mountains into submission and shape time to our will.
I remember the first song I taught you, meant for coaxing flowers to bloom. It is the song of love, the simplest and most powerful one. You sang like a lark, unsure and timid, and I could swear a sweeter noise was never heard. The buds failed to open, and I smiled as I wiped your tears.
“Hush, Eve. Do not cry. You were not meant to usher things into becoming. You are a creature of being, meant to revel in the world Father has created.”
You bit your lip, a pink rosebud: “You will still teach me?” you asked, afraid our evening passings would come to an end. “Have I failed you?”
“No, you simple thing.” I mussed your hair and laughed. You cried harder, but I did not notice. I was blind to others' passions in my youth, always drowning in my own ambitions. You drowned in dreaming, and together we made something of a lifeboat. Perhaps it was why all the other angels played swords with one another and we sought each other out.
Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel sparred while I talked philosophy with you. You parroted back what I taught you, repeating it perfectly, until you had developed theories of your own from your scant experience and wild imagination. I loved how you looked on me like I was the source of all mysteries in the world. Perhaps that is why I rebelled. So I could hold that worshipful gaze forever- to always protect you.
During the day, Father trained us in weapons and wit, honing us into soldiers unmatched in all the worlds. United, we were not only a force to be reckoned with: we were the End of Days. Had our legions stayed whole and Heaven one, the other pantheons would have been leveled before Earth was even whispered of.
The cosmos formed, and we grew. Our shapes took the form of men, and you hinted at what woman would be.
Father had let you and Adam run free, but now he intended to reveal his great design for you. We were summoned to his chapel promptly from the fields of war. To us, war was a game, to be jousted out like chess after our daily chores of maintaining Father's creations.
Angels are many things. Foremost, we are warriors. We have seas of blood on our hands. At the time, we knew nothing of death. It is the gift I gave you and the curse I will bear into eternity. What I sacrificed when I rebelled.
Second, we are lovers of beauty, as creating angels are wont to be. That day, you were golden. Behind the dais you stood with Adam, hand in hand as Father pronounced you the King and Queen of Men. He had us bow before you and swear fealty to serve you.
All but me.
“Bow to the altar girl, Father?” I scoffed, appalled at his favoritism. When we had executed his every wish and demand? I, the ever faithful and most highest of angels, who had worked tirelessly serving not only you but the entirety of Heaven?
He silenced me and spoke of how one day, your race would tend His altar into eternity. As if He loved you better than I, and His bond with humanity was above that of ours.
I stood alone.
“How could you!” you said, crying at the moment that should have been your crowning glory. You bit back tears and gave me a look of hate. “It always has to be about you.”
I was shocked. “Eve, no. It is not...” Words failed me. You fled, running away crying at my betrayal. Perhaps now I can explain:
Dear Eve, you wondered why I was cruel. In truth it was because in that first separation, I sensed Father pulling us apart. That our paths would part ways in a manner I absolutely hated. Perhaps it was a plan He intended all along- my rebellion and the long dark road that took me from you. But I dare to believe in a destiny not set in stone, and we both know the true nature of what passed between me and Him.
“Lucifer,” said Father quietly. “Kneel.”
I tried to reason with him. “Father!” I said. “We are all equal in our love to you. Surely our devotion must be aimed at your side only.”
Father's eyes opened in the way they did during chess when he was about to strike down my king. I did not back down, but instead extended my six wings to their full breadth and puffed my chest out as the most preeminent prince amongst the angels. Gabriel winced as Raphael held him back. Michael said nothing, but his gaze could cut to the bone. Flippantly I called Him Father's lapdog, but in truth he is the angel of love, the binding glue of Heaven, and in me he saw the destruction of our brothers and all we loved.
“I am not asking you to abandon your love for me,” He said. “But your service as angels will be unto her and him, the sons and daughters of Eve.”
My heart skipped a beat. Sons and daughters? And then I saw in cutting clarity, how Adam and you were cleft from the same clay and fit together perfectly like lock and key. It revolted me.
And so I left, heart broken, cold fire in my breast. In the coming years I would learn of the lands beyond my Father's, where freedom could be found for a price. I would try to steal your heart- in the end, I gave you mine. Through all the years and struggles, you were my Beatrice- the guiding light I bore into the depths of Hell.
This is the first of my letters, Eve. We are both older now, and the scenes play over in one's mind like a broken reel.
I love you, Eve. I will always. In truth, you are ever changing.
It breaks me to see how through everything, you grow more beautiful with time. God knows what we will become.
*
In the beginning, Eve, all was silence.
Some say God began with a whisper. Across a vast ocean of darkness, something stirred. A being of immaculate conception, full-formed, rose from the void, all-powerful and all-knowing. In the silence He dreamed of the universe, floating in embryonic black as He painted things into creation. With the infinite love only a creator is capable of wielding, He sculpted angels from the aether and strung us like stars across the heavens.
People speak of us as flaming wheels, six winged seraphim whose bodies are covered in eyes. Our forms are limitless, our names like the wind. But we were young then, could not contain our glory, and we sprung from his hands like falling jewels.
I remember my conception, when I first looked upon the face of our Father. He plucked me from his brow, Michael from His heart. Gabriel sprang from God's tears at our beauty, Raphael from His laughter at our life.
“Miracles!” He exclaimed, then preceded to name us for what we were. As Lucifer, I was Father's light, his intellect. Michael, “He who is like God,” my twin, is his soul. Raphael, “God has healed,” is Father's medicine, for God's balm is humor. And Gabriel, sweetest of all, is God's mercy- “God is my strength.”
I was first-born, preeminent amongst my brothers. I will go to my grave crying their names. It was the four of us alone with the Father for ages. In solitude we contemplated His splendor. He basked in our perfection, and in mutual admiration we shone in stasis like fireflies in a gulf of eternity.
But Father grew tired of this, as He tires of everything eventually. “I am lonely, my sons,” He said.
“But Father,” Michael protested, “you have us.”
Father smiled and said nothing. The emptiness of His gaze tugged at something in my infant heart. Its chambers ripped the slightest bit. In that moment, I understood His thirst in a way my brothers do not. The desire for perfection that becomes a blood-lust, until nothing will stop you until you have attained something immaculate.
“Yes, my children,” He finally spoke, holding us close, “but there is more to dream of.”
“What are these dreams you speak of?” I asked, inklings of desire tickling my mind. Father smiled privately at me.
“I will show you, sons.” And He did.
Then came the time of Creation. If only you had been there, Eve, to witness the birth of the cosmos! Father was many things: a war marshal, a king, but above all, he was a miracle-maker. His creations stand testament to that, and His memory is a stake through my heart. A part of me will always be haunted by the early days, when we sang cliffs into form with a whisper, molded planets into existence on whim.
Even in rebellion, He was my sustenance, for whose light did I bear but His own? You, who I love most dearly, are His exiled rose from Eden, I His crown jewel. It is why we clung to each other, woman and serpent entwined. Twice abandoned, we knew no parentage but His own. Sometimes I wonder if He was truly ever there at all.
The secret of the universe is that it is created by many and none at all. Understand that and you will know something of God. He is and is not, was never truly there for us and yet loved us infinitely. I rebelled against the cold maw of space that has no feelings towards its offspring and has never known a heart. I rebelled against the callousness of fate, challenged destiny and dreamed of something other than the stone path set out for me at my conception.
Perhaps it was His loneliness that, in the end, made Him cruel. It was a side he showed only to me. As the prodigal son, I could do no wrong in God's eyes, but his expectations for me were relentless. He appointed me to oversee the creation of the angels, and thus began an era of prosperity and peace. Eden was not a place, but our childhood. Its security was paid in blood, spilt by Father's hands.
There were those that came before us, other pantheons Father warred against and drove out. We were young gods, though Father would never admit that. For an eternity we believed him to be the One, the Source of All. He thought he could control all things.
When beasts rebelled or thorns turned on Him, he cast them out of his covenant. “Those are the wild things,” he would tell me, speaking of wolves and bears. Each new creation for a time was his toy, then once unworthy of his affections, cast out like Tuesday trash. We competed in our designs to shape things that would bring Father pleasure. My dearest creation, the serpent, proved his favorite, and I would take that form in the gardens of youth, exploring our lush universe under Father's beloved gaze.
Remember how we played, woman and snake, I entwined in your curls, whispering secrets in your ear? You were but a girl Eve, knob-kneed and dimpled like a cherub. Adam turned away from me in fright and we would laugh under the apple tree, contemplating the bottle blue ocean above us that ferried clouds like dreams.
“What are they, brother?” you once asked, resting your cheek on my shoulder as I shed my serpent skin. The knots and whorls of the bark pressed into my back. I combed your hair idly with my fingers.
Slowly I smiled, seeing in their pearlescence the glory of you. “They are you, Eve. As beautiful and flighty as my sister, born by winds of imagining.”
You scrunched your child's face in confusion. “How can we possibly be the same?” you asked, munching an apple core. Smudged in dirt and grass stains, you were weighed down by reason. I alone had the poet's heart, and you were the philosopher. “We're different beings, brother. Different matter and souls, if such things have souls at all.”
I plucked a fruit and sliced the red globe in half with my sword, revealing the star within. “You are both seeds, Eve. Within everyone is a core of something. The clouds are seeds of rain- they bring forth new life when they strike the ground. You are the seed of beauty. Someday, you will blossom forth, just like the flowers above us...”
I fanned a breeze into existence with my wings, scattering white apple petals into the air. You laughed, chasing after them. All I could follow was the swish of your skirts and way the sunlight played across your limbs.
“When the time comes, sweet Eve, I will pluck you,” I whispered to myself, not knowing how or why, just that one day, we would be.
So it came to pass that you grew. Muscle bound my taut flesh and I became a man. You rounded with the moons into the supple curves of Gabriel's lyre. To look upon you was to know the face of God. We all lusted after you, but knew not why. Our youngest sister, beloved of the angels, had become something we had no name for.
Your cloying sweetness had us drunk off imagining. Like artists driven to compose, we set into a fervor of creation, singing exotic birds into existence and plucking novel creatures from time, all for your awe and amusement. My brothers competed for your affections, but you were oblivious to all but me. Gabriel sculpted the whale from the sea's depths, Raphael the bear from northern woods, Michael the eagle from cirrus and slices of cliffs. We paraded our creations in front of you, and I couldn't help but wonder if God had created you to drive a wedge between us, for is not woman anything but the death of man?
My pride could not be defeated though, so I crafted the lion out of the light of the sun. I knew you loved sweet things, soft to the touch, and thus was its mane, but to it I added the nobility of the archangels so that it was king of beasts. Savage and cruel, lazy and playful, it was much like me.
Gabriel was fluting a tune for you on the sea strand, his black locks held back by a silver circlet. You laughed, dancing with the wind as the bells on your belt jangled in time with his melody. I stood behind the rushes, waiting. The song ended, and you fell to the ground in exhaustion, clapping him on.
“Gabriel, play again!” you implored. He fluted in time with the crashing waves, ankles wet in sea foam. It was then I released the lion. It stalked out from behind the rushes, drawn to Gabriel's song. The tide ate away at its footprints, and it let out a mighty roar. Gabriel screamed, dropping his instrument and falling backwards into the water. You doubled over laughing and rose bravely to face the beast.
“Come here, little wonder,” you said softly, offering your hand. The lion nuzzled your fingers, purred, then rolled onto its stomach to be petted.
“Eve, back away,” warned Gabriel. “We have no idea whence the beast came from.”
You did not listen, simply walked off into the evening with your hands twined in the lion's mane. It was because of that I loved you. All your countless acts of bravery in the face of the unknown. Whatever curve ball I threw at you, you responded with enthusiasm, never stopping to fear.
Where Adam was cautious, you were wild, always causing Father's hair to turn grey.
Come evening, you slept by the lion's side. I slipped out of the darkness to wake you.
“Lucifer?” you yawned. “What are you doing here?”
“Monitoring my creation. Do you like it?”
You smiled like a comet arcing across the sky. “Of course it is yours. It had to be, didn't it? Brother, I think this is the finest creation of all time.” The lion purred as you shifted your weight against it. “Come, sit with me. Tell me of what you learned today.”
It was how we spent many evenings, curled up beside each other as I taught you the courses of the stars, the uses of plants and animals- anything God had instructed us on was yours. In return you were a source of endless joy, marveling at my creations. In your eyes I was wise, and it was a feeling I craved above all else.
I don't know when I began to realize what was shaping between us- my hands would linger on yours for longer than necessary. I would gaze at you and see impossible things. All the sentiments of romance I had no name for came forth, and like the apple tree, you bloomed. It scared me above all things.
Finally, the era of Creation came to an end, and Father began to instruct us on something new.
“Destruction, sons, is what naturally follows,” he said. Thus began our lessons in war. He would pit us against each other on facsimiles of battlefields, turning our lust into sport. We were rowdy in your presence, all vying for your attention as we fenced and fought. Each day we rose to Gabriel's horn and split into two factions, I at God's left hand, Michael on his right. “You are my sword,” Father said, “Michael is my shield.” And so, like toy soldiers, he instructed us on how to kill.
And so we learned the processes of unmaking, how to loose earthquakes onto the land, to send tornadoes ripping apart the loam. We became angels of destruction, learned the use of weapons that we thought were play. Immortal, we sustained no wounds and felt no pain. War was a game to us.
I proved cutthroat on the battlefield, waging my men with the precision of a warlord. Father instructed me in chess, meant to raise my mental acuity. I became versed in formations and strategy, grew pompous in my knowledge and prided myself on my ability to destroy. We knew nothing of killing, as death did not exist. That would come later, the price I paid for your love.
Michael and I were inseparable. We discussed philosophies and methods, vied against each other in healthy competition. Our bond is thicker than blood, and even when he crushed my face into the ground, I was crying out his name. I never heeded anyone's warnings but his, not even God's.
He never saw you as more than his dearest little sister and God's favored creation. My own twin was blind to what formed between us. Perhaps if he had stopped me, no fallout would ever had happened-
I would not have met you that spring day in a thicket of roses. I would have had no sweet nothings to whisper in your ear, no secrets to show you. Like the apple I plucked you, far from the sight of God. It was not the last time, and for years we carried on discreetly, fearing the day our brothers would know.
You saw something in my eyes, you, who were sixteen ages old. “Lucifer, you come bearing wine?” you laughed. “Is it not my job to serve as the altar girl of God?”
I smiled, shy. “Eve. My Eve. If you were mine alone, I would set you up as Queen of the Angels, give you all God's creation to play in. We would have eternity together.”
You laughed, drinking the chardonnay I had swiped from the Father's offering table. “I hardly see how your promise matters, brother. We already have until the end of time.” You tilted your head in question. “What is it, Lucifer, that makes you glow so?”
“Yearning,” I answered. A sudden ache seized my gut. Without thinking, I pulled you to me in an embrace. Greedy, I scoured your lips with mine, removing all pretenses between us. Thus was the first kiss. You gasped the sweetest breath heaven ever heard, surfacing for air as your cheeks blossomed apple-red.
“More,” you plied, delighted, and I was loath to deny you. We sank to the grass, entwined in each other, and took pleasures in ways I had only dreamt of. Thunder pierced the heavens like God's wrath and it began to rain.
Finished, you lay curled in my arms, shielded by my wings under the bower of our apple tree. It would come into infamy later, and I would bleed under it in punishment. Our covenant would wither and bear no fruit, and in my exile God would strip me of my manhood, forcing me to crawl on my belly like a beast. But that is a story for a later time, the night is late, and you are still young.
I end this letter with a prayer. That you do not forget me.
Ever with you. Always your guardian.
Lucifer
*
I remember the grail, Lucifer.
It was a chalice. Just a simple thing, meant for carrying water, for what is the blood of God if not the liquid of life? I remember balancing it on my head and carrying it from the well. You would tease me, call me the “water girl” as I poured drinks for the angelic host. Always a touch at the shoulder as I came to your place at the left hand of God, subtle enough that no one saw.
You would wink: “Water girl, what is the meaning of this? No wine?” then touch the fluted glass with your hands. The crystal liquid would swirl and turn dark red, a simple party trick, but it always amazed me. Father would laugh as you tempted me. You were always so good at temptation.
After all, you were the master of secrets, the curiosity for which would damn me in the end. But what to expect from the covering cherub that guarded the covenant? He who shines brightest casts the darkest shadow.
The covenant was not a chest of treasures as mortals describe it, nor a throne that Father sat upon. There were no tablets of law within; instead, it was built simply by stones of humble origins. It was nothing but a well, meant to siphon water from the river Mnemosyne. You guarded it in off hours, lazing by the riverbank, and said it had the waters of poetry in it, and that you were the keeper of stories. You told so many tall tales it must have been true. That is why you are the Father of Lies, Lucifer, for what are stories if not the greatest lies of all?
We used the water for meals and rituals. I would rise each dawn to fetch the grail and anoint Father and the angels with the covenant's waters. Before meals, you all lined up before me. I had to stand on Father's throne to reach your height, giggling as I splashed water onto your brows. Father stood beside me and gave his daily blessing to every one of you. And so, with God's benediction, we began so many thousands of days.
“Where does the water run, Lu?” I asked once, sitting beside you against the well.
“To eternity, Eve.”
“But everything ends eventually!”
“Not for us. We are eternal.”
“What kind of story is that?” I plucked a daisy and wound it round my fingers, snapping it in half.
“Every good one has an ending.”
You laughed, touching the broken leaves and coaxing a new flower into existence in its place. I frowned. “Beginnings. Beginnings are what end stories, sister. Now turn.” You braided the flowers into my hair. I pursed my lips, impatient as I itched for adventure.
I batted your hands away. “I'm a girl no longer, Lucifer, and I tire of being doted upon. I know! We should follow the river.”
“To where? Past the abyss is nothing. Father owns all.”
“How do you know? Have you been?”
“I have duties, Eve, and little time to waste.”
“Oh Lucifer, if we just went once-”
There was a rustle in the bushes. Sun caught Adam's golden hair as he stepped out, smiling deviously. “I'll take you, Eve.”
Something sparked in your eyes. “No,” you said decisively. “It's too dangerous to travel alone with a human. I will take you, Eve.”
Adam rolled his eyes. “What kind of perils could we possibly face? Eve already has the lions around her little fingers, not to mention you. Anyhow, I don't think there's anything more dangerous in Eden than your temper,” Adam said, deliberately trying to rile you up. You maintained a cool composure. There was little love lost between the two of you.
I moved to Adam's side, taking his hand in mine. “We all go, Lucifer. Adam has a way with the animals you do not.”
“After all, I did christen them,” Adam said jovially, wrapping his arms around my shoulder.
You gritted your teeth. “Fine. We will all go, but do not tell Father of this. I am neglecting my duties...”
I grinned at Adam: “You christened all except the lion, brother. That beast is mine.”
“Yes, as fierce and beautiful as you are, dear Eve.”
You deliberately stepped between us. “... and you are to follow my every command. Did you hear me?”
“Yes, of course,” Adam bowed mockingly. “The high and gracious angel speaks, and all shall do as he commands! Really, Lu, I know the wilds like the back of my hand. It's you who will be tripping over your skirts in the hawthorn bushes.”
I snickered.
You steeled your brow. “Robes, Adam. These are robes. I prefer not to traipse around unclothed like the beasts.”
“Oh! I'm a beast now. Pity that. Say, Eve, what is most beastly about me?” Adam asked, following a ford in the river. He crossed to the other bank and I followed, careless, after. (I was always good at following, wasn't I? But when I followed others, your old heart stirred.)
I considered his question: “Your disposition, brother. We have the whole of Eden as our domain and you loaf about like a wolf. Sometimes I think you are one.”
“A mongrel, am I?” Adam howled to prove his point.
Adam never took to learning like I did, never lusted after knowledge. True, he was clever in his own way, but his was a knowing that sprang from the heart, like an engineer's ingenuity or farmer's kenning of the soil. Something arcane would come as naturally as spring rain to him. Still, he was happy to bask in the glory of existence, just as God had intended. He was content- I was the one with cogs and springs missing in my heart.
Coyotes in the distance responded to Adam's howl.
“Your antics will attract attention,” you said icily, gliding over the river on opalescent wings.
*
Do you remember the first time the roses bloomed, Adam?
Father cursed me to crawl on my belly like a beast.
Wish that I had
Her Power.