Post by Shadaras on Nov 28, 2009 2:34:29 GMT -5
100,054. ^_^ ..and I still have a couple thousand words of plot left at the very least. Fun!
And for those of you interested in such things, the 100kth word was 'opened'. ((Sentence/context: I laid down and opened the bond, feeling Cyrus’s body and mind open to mine, become mine, so that I was him and he was me. In that moment, everything was clear and wonderful, and all I had to do was look around to see how glorious the world was. Then that moment ended, and the hunt was on.))
I hated most things that had to do with this city [[Hel]]. I’d disliked it ever since I’d heard my father sing his song of despair, and that had intensified after he’d died. I forced that memory away. I couldn’t deal with it right now, especially as we were almost at Lucifer’s palace and that would require my full attention when we arrived. It was beautiful in a more traditional way. Made of opaque obsidian and marble, Lucifer’s palace was a darker version of the angelic dwellings in Heaven. My father’s memories told me that, even if Lucifer’s stories hadn’t made it clear.
I dragged my feet as we neared it, but I didn’t dare do anything more than that. As we drew nearer, Telemar grew more remote. I knew that he wouldn’t hesitate to yank my leash should I disobey him too fiercely. Thus, I didn’t dare do anything. I didn’t want to feel like I was going to choke, like I was going to die a slow and miserable death. I followed Telemar through corridors I knew as well as my name, and with every step closer to Lucifer I took, I felt more and more like I was going to be sick.
I wouldn’t be, of course. If I didn’t want to be I wouldn’t be, and I had enough self control to ensure that. I just really didn’t want to see Lucifer. His silvery wings, white-blond hair, golden hellfire eyes, and perfectly lucid speech that sounded so mad when you listened beneath it... all of it spoke of pain to me. Oh, he liked me. I had no doubt about that. He liked me in the same way a human liked a guard-dog: I was powerful and useful and utterly beneath him, so he could insult me without care. There would be no repercussions for his actions, for nobody was powerful enough to challenge him.
Except I’d done so anyway. I swallowed back bile as Telemar knocked on his door. It swung open, and Telemar led us into Lucifer’s lair. It hadn’t changed much in the years since I’d last seen it, but I hadn’t expected it to. Lucifer had no reason to change things around, and the stark austerity of his rooms suited him quite well. The silver and black coloring bothered me more than I ever wanted to admit, and I didn’t know why. The few gold or blood-red highlights that he had just unnerved me even more.
Lucifer himself was dressed in a midnight blue today, and wore sapphire eardrops to match. He smiled as we entered, but it had no charm left in it. The smile was that of a hunter, a predator who sees his prey in sight. “Welcome,” he said. As it did every time I heard it, it made my knees weaken. The bells and chimes in his voice were left over from when he’d been an angel, he said. From being an archangel, he meant, I was sure. Normal angels didn’t have that much power in their voices. Lucifer waved at the chairs arranged in the room, and Telemar led us to our seats.
I sat, my back to the wall. Telemar sat beside me, and Cyrus was on his other side. Telemar still had our leashes, and I wanted desperately to get rid of mine. I could; the spell that would rid me of it wasn’t that hard, even in Lucifer’s mage-proofed chambers. Before I could decide I wanted to, however, Lucifer sat and looked at me, a little smile on his face. “I’d long been wondering when you’d decide to challenge me,” he said, the music in his voice softer now. I realized that it sounded a lot like the sea that was in Cyrus’s voice betimes. “You have the power, I must admit, but the courage? That,” he said, leaning forward, “I doubted.”
I didn’t say anything. Telemar seemed no more at ease than I was, but he spoke up. “From what Seth has told me, this dragon put him up to the Challenge.” He twitched Cyrus’s leash, and I saw the dragon bite back a growl. “I wouldn’t put too much stock in the devil’s courage.”
“But still, he is here.” Lucifer smiled at Telemar, a broader, more open smile than anything else I’d ever seen on the angel’s face. “And since you have none of the partners I’d assigned to you, I imagine that they fought well enough that they could have escaped.” He stroked the ebony wood of his chair, looking at me thoughtfully with those eerie golden eyes that burned like the sun and felt like they could scorch me at any moment. “What are you, Setheremus? Do you even know yourself? I doubt it. You don’t realize just how precious you are.”
“Precious?” I said before I could remember that I wasn’t supposed to talk overmuch in front of Lucifer, simply because he’d likely start thinking me a right idiot. “How in all the worlds could I be precious to you? You’ve never treated me like anything good, and more often than not I’ve been nothing more than a playtoy to you.” I clenched my fists. “If I really was precious to you, then you’d realize that leashing me is not going to make anything better. I abide by Challenge, Lucifer. I have as much honor as you do, if not more.”
He laughed, and the sound washed over me like the sea, but made of light and fire. It shook me, though I tried not to let it show. “Go on, Tel,” Lucifer said affably. “I’ve made my point to the dogs. Let them run free.” He stood, straightening his midnight blue robes as Telemar released our leashes. I didn’t try to undo mine just yet. I just watched the angel. “You are precious because you still hold a part of my past in your hands,” Lucifer said. “Now, you have your second – the dragon. I have mine – Telemar. Shall we let our seconds arrange things while we talk?”
The last thing I wanted was to talk to Lucifer, but he wasn’t giving me any choice. Quickly, I muttered the spell that undid the leash. As it dropped off my neck, I stood and followed Lucifer out, feeling once more like a child. As we left the room, I heard Telemar explaining how the collars worked to Cyrus. I glowered, not even trying to hide it anymore. “What do we have to talk about?” I asked, not looking up from the floor. I kept my hands in my pockets, acting much more like a sulky teenager than I liked.
“Earth,” Lucifer said, unperturbed. “Tell me what it was like for you. And tell me this, Setheremus: how far to the angel’s side do you lean, now that I’ve let you stay with it for all these years?”
I stopped and stared at him, trying to comprehend exactly what was going on. “You’re telling me you did that just to see how much religion would affect me,” I said, disbelieving him. “Why would you do that?”
“Would you believe me if I said that I want to know what it would take to heal the rift between us?” Lucifer smiled as I gaped at him. “Apparently not. Setheremus, I still love God. I want Him to do what’s best for the world, and he can’t do that when he’s so focused on humans that he forgets the rest.”
“He killed the fey for that.”
“Correct.”
“And then you left.”
The angel shrugged. “If you want the technicalities, I left because God created mankind, not because He killed the fey, but in the timeline you are correct.” He paused. “Why do you find this so strange.”
“I—” I shook my head. “You act like you’re just out for yourself and want to kill anyone who doesn’t agree with you.”
“That’s also true,” Lucifer said mildly, taking my arm and leading me through the corridors. “Now, either tell me how much you fall on the angel’s side or I’ll take it from your mind.”
I made a face, but I fed the information into Lucifer. I didn’t use words. There wasn’t any good way to communicate this information using words, anyway. Pure thought was by far the best way for this to work. I cut off the link as soon as I dared, but I still suspected that Lucifer got more information from me than I wanted him to. So be it. It’d make Challenge harder on me, but that was the way life was. I’d already almost resigned myself to losing the battle. I looked at Lucifer, curious enough to ask, “What do you consider yourself? Where does your magic lie?”
He jerked away from me. “Angel in form, demon in mind, devil in magic.” He said it as quickly as he could. “I suppose I owe you that much, though you almost certainly knew that already.”
I nodded, and didn’t say another word about magic or Lucifer. It didn’t matter now. I knew that Lucifer was circling back to his rooms now; apparently he’d decided that enough time had passed that Telemar would have decided what we were going to be doing for a fight and where we’d be fighting. I didn’t pay much attention to where we were going; I knew the route, though not the exact path we were taking. When we arrived back at Lucifer’s rooms, Telemar and Cyrus were standing facing us.
“The field of battle is the Twilight Realms,” Cyrus said quietly.
Telemar grinned. “The weapons are us.”
I stared at them for a second, and then said, “Please tell me you’re kidding.”
Cyrus shook his head.
I groaned, and braced myself for a very weird day to come.
I dragged my feet as we neared it, but I didn’t dare do anything more than that. As we drew nearer, Telemar grew more remote. I knew that he wouldn’t hesitate to yank my leash should I disobey him too fiercely. Thus, I didn’t dare do anything. I didn’t want to feel like I was going to choke, like I was going to die a slow and miserable death. I followed Telemar through corridors I knew as well as my name, and with every step closer to Lucifer I took, I felt more and more like I was going to be sick.
I wouldn’t be, of course. If I didn’t want to be I wouldn’t be, and I had enough self control to ensure that. I just really didn’t want to see Lucifer. His silvery wings, white-blond hair, golden hellfire eyes, and perfectly lucid speech that sounded so mad when you listened beneath it... all of it spoke of pain to me. Oh, he liked me. I had no doubt about that. He liked me in the same way a human liked a guard-dog: I was powerful and useful and utterly beneath him, so he could insult me without care. There would be no repercussions for his actions, for nobody was powerful enough to challenge him.
Except I’d done so anyway. I swallowed back bile as Telemar knocked on his door. It swung open, and Telemar led us into Lucifer’s lair. It hadn’t changed much in the years since I’d last seen it, but I hadn’t expected it to. Lucifer had no reason to change things around, and the stark austerity of his rooms suited him quite well. The silver and black coloring bothered me more than I ever wanted to admit, and I didn’t know why. The few gold or blood-red highlights that he had just unnerved me even more.
Lucifer himself was dressed in a midnight blue today, and wore sapphire eardrops to match. He smiled as we entered, but it had no charm left in it. The smile was that of a hunter, a predator who sees his prey in sight. “Welcome,” he said. As it did every time I heard it, it made my knees weaken. The bells and chimes in his voice were left over from when he’d been an angel, he said. From being an archangel, he meant, I was sure. Normal angels didn’t have that much power in their voices. Lucifer waved at the chairs arranged in the room, and Telemar led us to our seats.
I sat, my back to the wall. Telemar sat beside me, and Cyrus was on his other side. Telemar still had our leashes, and I wanted desperately to get rid of mine. I could; the spell that would rid me of it wasn’t that hard, even in Lucifer’s mage-proofed chambers. Before I could decide I wanted to, however, Lucifer sat and looked at me, a little smile on his face. “I’d long been wondering when you’d decide to challenge me,” he said, the music in his voice softer now. I realized that it sounded a lot like the sea that was in Cyrus’s voice betimes. “You have the power, I must admit, but the courage? That,” he said, leaning forward, “I doubted.”
I didn’t say anything. Telemar seemed no more at ease than I was, but he spoke up. “From what Seth has told me, this dragon put him up to the Challenge.” He twitched Cyrus’s leash, and I saw the dragon bite back a growl. “I wouldn’t put too much stock in the devil’s courage.”
“But still, he is here.” Lucifer smiled at Telemar, a broader, more open smile than anything else I’d ever seen on the angel’s face. “And since you have none of the partners I’d assigned to you, I imagine that they fought well enough that they could have escaped.” He stroked the ebony wood of his chair, looking at me thoughtfully with those eerie golden eyes that burned like the sun and felt like they could scorch me at any moment. “What are you, Setheremus? Do you even know yourself? I doubt it. You don’t realize just how precious you are.”
“Precious?” I said before I could remember that I wasn’t supposed to talk overmuch in front of Lucifer, simply because he’d likely start thinking me a right idiot. “How in all the worlds could I be precious to you? You’ve never treated me like anything good, and more often than not I’ve been nothing more than a playtoy to you.” I clenched my fists. “If I really was precious to you, then you’d realize that leashing me is not going to make anything better. I abide by Challenge, Lucifer. I have as much honor as you do, if not more.”
He laughed, and the sound washed over me like the sea, but made of light and fire. It shook me, though I tried not to let it show. “Go on, Tel,” Lucifer said affably. “I’ve made my point to the dogs. Let them run free.” He stood, straightening his midnight blue robes as Telemar released our leashes. I didn’t try to undo mine just yet. I just watched the angel. “You are precious because you still hold a part of my past in your hands,” Lucifer said. “Now, you have your second – the dragon. I have mine – Telemar. Shall we let our seconds arrange things while we talk?”
The last thing I wanted was to talk to Lucifer, but he wasn’t giving me any choice. Quickly, I muttered the spell that undid the leash. As it dropped off my neck, I stood and followed Lucifer out, feeling once more like a child. As we left the room, I heard Telemar explaining how the collars worked to Cyrus. I glowered, not even trying to hide it anymore. “What do we have to talk about?” I asked, not looking up from the floor. I kept my hands in my pockets, acting much more like a sulky teenager than I liked.
“Earth,” Lucifer said, unperturbed. “Tell me what it was like for you. And tell me this, Setheremus: how far to the angel’s side do you lean, now that I’ve let you stay with it for all these years?”
I stopped and stared at him, trying to comprehend exactly what was going on. “You’re telling me you did that just to see how much religion would affect me,” I said, disbelieving him. “Why would you do that?”
“Would you believe me if I said that I want to know what it would take to heal the rift between us?” Lucifer smiled as I gaped at him. “Apparently not. Setheremus, I still love God. I want Him to do what’s best for the world, and he can’t do that when he’s so focused on humans that he forgets the rest.”
“He killed the fey for that.”
“Correct.”
“And then you left.”
The angel shrugged. “If you want the technicalities, I left because God created mankind, not because He killed the fey, but in the timeline you are correct.” He paused. “Why do you find this so strange.”
“I—” I shook my head. “You act like you’re just out for yourself and want to kill anyone who doesn’t agree with you.”
“That’s also true,” Lucifer said mildly, taking my arm and leading me through the corridors. “Now, either tell me how much you fall on the angel’s side or I’ll take it from your mind.”
I made a face, but I fed the information into Lucifer. I didn’t use words. There wasn’t any good way to communicate this information using words, anyway. Pure thought was by far the best way for this to work. I cut off the link as soon as I dared, but I still suspected that Lucifer got more information from me than I wanted him to. So be it. It’d make Challenge harder on me, but that was the way life was. I’d already almost resigned myself to losing the battle. I looked at Lucifer, curious enough to ask, “What do you consider yourself? Where does your magic lie?”
He jerked away from me. “Angel in form, demon in mind, devil in magic.” He said it as quickly as he could. “I suppose I owe you that much, though you almost certainly knew that already.”
I nodded, and didn’t say another word about magic or Lucifer. It didn’t matter now. I knew that Lucifer was circling back to his rooms now; apparently he’d decided that enough time had passed that Telemar would have decided what we were going to be doing for a fight and where we’d be fighting. I didn’t pay much attention to where we were going; I knew the route, though not the exact path we were taking. When we arrived back at Lucifer’s rooms, Telemar and Cyrus were standing facing us.
“The field of battle is the Twilight Realms,” Cyrus said quietly.
Telemar grinned. “The weapons are us.”
I stared at them for a second, and then said, “Please tell me you’re kidding.”
Cyrus shook his head.
I groaned, and braced myself for a very weird day to come.
And for those of you interested in such things, the 100kth word was 'opened'. ((Sentence/context: I laid down and opened the bond, feeling Cyrus’s body and mind open to mine, become mine, so that I was him and he was me. In that moment, everything was clear and wonderful, and all I had to do was look around to see how glorious the world was. Then that moment ended, and the hunt was on.))
