THE FATAL FRUIT.

I, WROUGHT OF FLESH’S DESIRE, REMEMBER, STILL, THAT I AM EVE TURNED SOPHIA SEDUCED BY KNOWLEDGE & CAST AWAY BY GOD.

HIS CREATOR’S RETORT BROUGHT A SMILE TO THE PRIMAL’S LIPS.  & thus shortly after a contented hum.  Such sharp words were a comfort even if his tongue would be laced with poison upon every syllable.  This was the creation’s comfort, his home.      “I’d do more than yowl for you.  I am always at your feet & I’d crawl the muck & mire just to see you.  My body is for your whims & my voice is yours to seize.”  Words dripped with the adoration he held as they were met with a small chuckle.  His carmine gaze flickered to the man’s visage as pulse raced.  Daring to reach out to Lucilius’ raiments only to confirm his beloved was truly there.      “It was lonely without you by my side.”

Velveted are the words spurned by the serpent –– lavishing Lucilius with pleasantries that leave nothing but a dull ring in the astral’s ears. Much like the hound Lucilius speaks of, Belial yaps on about devotion – about foul worship of the messiah he has made of his creator. Where gold grazes impurity (eager fingers that should know better, really), does Lucilius turn to Belial – glaciers that never threaten to thaw underneath the warmth the primarch of cunning exuded in return. A tut, rather – the lidded gaze of apathy.

“BOTH Cilius AND Sandy are back?  Seems it’s paid off being a good boy for Daddy.  I got a real treat.”

     A vice around his neck, Sandalphon could only watch in abject terror as hope was torn from underneath him.  Gasping, thrashing against his captor, periphery went black as he clambered for his sword.  This was no dream — somehow, defying all logic, Belial had freed himself from the shackles that bound him and his keeper to purgatory.  The fallen angel undoubtedly did not think himself above underhanded tactics, but approaching the reigning primarch in his sleep?  Playing to lovelorn desperation, raw and bleeding as it were?

          ( No, no, no — don’t take him from me again! )

          “ Belial, ” he rasped, strength waning with every panicked strike.  He couldn’t lose now  — not to this critical oversight.  Spontaneity trumped reason when Etemenanki fell, and while the rift’s integrity wasn’t grounds for immediate concern, he had failed to consider Belial condemning himself alongside Lucilius.  It didn’t matter now.  One final blow to his assailant’s side, and Sandalphon went limp.  Whatever hell awaited him, atonement was absolute.  

In the beats in between, Lucilius is left wanting -- an absence of his now halved power leaving room for a different kind of ache he did not think himself capable of. As he lets himself lay in the emptiness -- he closes his eyes and breathes out in steady intervals. Belial’s presence flickers -- filling the space between distortion and reality, yet never quite beyond either. With the brief respite, Lucilius soaks in the chaos of their hellscape, and begins to count before he threatens to snuff himself out again.

1... 2... 3...

He’d done this in the beginning, when the vacancy had begun gnawing at his thoughts in a much more aggressive stir than the numbing sense of eroding it had inflicted him with moments prior; it was different each time, always evolving and taking different forms to swathe him in its forlorn embrace. A beast in its own right, and not at all like the ones Lucilius contrived with his own hands. At the very least, he could admire its lawlessness.

The sea of stars glimmer like they were wailing -- as though feeling his willing agony underneath him. The wound, too, continues to promise a mending that cannot complete itself. Even still, Lucilius rests. He rests, he rests, he rests...

...1,854... 1,855... 1,856...

   “.....”

A faded bellow of despair -- the cackle of triumphant cunning. Lucilius wakes -- senses Belial before he watches the fizzle of his form re-appearing. To both his displeasure and delight, he also senses the spare -- a struggle of his aura resisting the pull between dimensions. Then, the final wrest, and the spare is snared in their trap. Lucilius remains where he rests -- weakened. And with weakness, does he close his eyes once more when Belial and Sandalphon finally appear within the dimensional rift. He breathes out in a slow, almost dying-like breath. Then, in a low timbre, Lucilius rasps above the tense silence.

  “One thousand, eight hundred, and seventy-one seconds.”

@sophaur​ said:  ❛  i  can  and  i  will  .  watch  me  .  ❜ ( hi :shy: )

to those vehement // ACCEPTING

     “------But you won’t take my free will.”

These were the words spat -- the beginnings of panic clawing up his throat as invisible shackles threaten to chain the astral to an eternity of ceaseless toiling for a god he refused to worship. He doesn’t realize when the threat of failure tips over his chesspiece for him -- arm raising as his breaths quicken in panic. His eyes narrows and his teeth bare themselves as he corrupts the heavens above him with the brewing of his power. Sandalphon, for all his weaknesses, rises to the challenge with little more than a hum, and a declaration of his own.

     'I can, and I will. Watch me.’

For the second time in his life, Lucilius feels fear strike his heart. 

                                        “Paradise Lost---!”

                                        “---Paradise Lost!”

The eternal ache: a re-opened bloom that surged throughout the entirety of his undead body and still heart, almost willing to count a single beat. The clash of will is the last of their exchanged blows, and defeat nestles into that ache like an old friend when light prevails over the darkness that has swallowed this old body’s core. The heavens tear asunder, but it is not chaos that rains. It is deliverance -- the borrowed power that has found its new host a worthy successor who has come to understand love and camaraderie. In that brilliant light, Lucilius sees the ghost of Lucifer moving through the spare. In that power, he sees the end; Lucilius knows he has lost.

     “RGGGHHHAAA...!!”

It ends as it begins: in the garden, where truth came with price -- under the watchful eye of the god who has abandoned them all. As that brilliance of Sandalphon’s power swallows him whole, Lucilius looks to the skies he has abhorred all his life -- gasping as punishment tears through his defiant soul and purges it in its judgement. Defeat stings like a cruel bite -- trembling his lip as his eyes close. Even now, he still denies the agony he has endured. Still, Lucilius defies, in spite of. And yet, the slightest breach -- unheard by all in the wake of holy rapture.

     “...Abba...”

@azureyed​ said:  ❛  judge  if  you  want  ,  we  are  all  going  to  die  .  i  intend  to  deserve  it  .  ❜

to those vehement // ACCEPTING

When the garbled words are spat towards the sky above, Lucilius gives pause to his actions -- cane still dug into the earth beside him. The blood that pools beneath the elezen is listless -- spelling no clear cut between beginning and end as his breaths labor with each rise and fall of his chest. And yet, in spite of, he still clings to them -- vapor clouding past his lips in rapid beats. His eyes trails from the fatal wound that would kill an ordinary man, to the paling face that screamed of defiance -- angered at his fate, yet all the more accepting even with hatred on his tongue. Lucilius’ eyes lid, and his lips part slightly.

Initially, he’d intended to put the agonized soul out of his misery -- sparing him the unnecessary trouble of potential begging and writhing. Instead, what he finds is potential -- a burning fire that begged to be fueled into something more carnivorous in nature; Lucilius always did like to see the spiteful souls in this miserable cycle of meaninglessness. The wind blows, and his robes billow against the silence.

     “I’ll judge not how you choose to die,” Lucilius hums -- blinking slowly, “but when the aether has deemed it time for you to rejoin its currents.” A single tap into the earth, and his eyes narrow. 

     “----and it seems you have plenty of it.”

The wind picks up -- a gust cultivated from the earth the elezen laid upon. Strings of aether spring and weave into the gaping wound -- sowing it shut as his cane emits a brilliant glow. Lucilius watches in silence as what was fatal is deemed nothing more than a memory past -- a mercy granted in the wake of such furious potential. As the gusts dwindle, and the spell settles -- Lucilius turns before reaction could be given -- eyes turning skyward as his feet find him traveling elsewhere; he’d never been one to dawdle in his travels. Not when he had much work to be done to undo this pointless existence.

@kanaphs​​ said:   ❛  i  don’t  have  to  prove  shit  to  you  .  ❜

to those vehement // ACCEPTING

The clash of unbreaking steel -- where celestial meets diabolic in the junction between the heavens and the skies; how Lucilius despised Etemenanki. But hatred also guides Sandalphon’s blade -- aiming for the throat and only finding the seamless weaves of Repudiation and Renunciation. There’s little joy to be found in the ease, but rather vague intrigue: why Sandalphon’s resistance bled through impossible ends. Why he persisted.

     “Is this really the result of your borrowed power...? How much longer do you intend to mock Lucifer’s misplaced faith in your sorry existence?”

He gets knocked down once more. In defiance, Sandalphon wills himself to stand again. With rebellion, he clashes ceaselessly against the embodiment of apocalypse. And then, he spits -- scorning Lucilius: ‘I don’t have to prove shit to you.’ Then, that intrigue turns into interest -- a flickering gleam in vacant constellations. Lucilius tilts his head as their blades clash together once more. “Hoh...?” And still, effortlessly, he flies back to balance against Sandalphon pushing him forward -- hurdling against an immovable force and willing for it to budge with a strength beyond the both of them. 

It’s then, Lucilius remembers who Sandalphon is -- why he despised him so. The light dies, and is swallowed by the darkness Lucilius embodied; he never did like looking into mirrors.

It takes a swift kick -- pressing into Sandalphon’s ribs to send him flying against the marble of Etemananki’s walls. The force is enough to have the wall cave against itself -- to have Sandalphon rasping for air. The clatter of his sword is satisfying, and the juxaposition of eight versus twelve has never felt more satisfying. As rocks crumble down in a dusty rain over the Supreme Primarch, Lucilius begins to stalk towards him once more; he did not need to wait and observe to know that Sandalphon was a rebel at heart, and would try to stand once more.

     “You’ve never had anything to worth proving, save your inept act of play God,” comes Lucilius’ snarl -- an unnamed anger that bleeds in his tightened grip against his blade’s hilt and upturned chin. With knowing, he turns his hand in preparation. With conjecture, their blades clash once more. Lucilius scoffs, and leans close from where he prepares to do pointless battle once more. His eyes narrow, and his frown is deepened with hatred. 

@malefacere​​ said:  ❛  bring  them  to  their  knees  .  head  bowed  and  fists  bleeding  —  make  them  repent  .  ❜

to those vehement // ACCEPTING

Even with pleading cries and desperate, outstretched hands, Lucilius grants the writhing victim nothing synonymous to the word ‘mercy’; the Astrals never seemed to discard their pride until it took everything but to bring them to his feet. This one is no different: a younger face to the rest who mocked him and his work -- an ignorant fool who knew nothing of the world and the stagnancy they were all locked in. Perhaps, if Lucilius were a kinder man, he’d put the poor soul out of his misery when the primal core he’d instilled inside of him began showing the first signs of rejection. But instead, he clicks his tongue -- narrowing his eyes as he ticks the seconds it takes for the core to overwhelm the would-be host. Even still, failure yields results, and it is results he will have once the Astral draws their last breath, and the primal core flickers with them.

Belial, however, has always found joy where Lucilius would not bother to. Where Lucilius is silence, Belial is noise -- filling the lab with laughter. Where the choir is absent, Belial sings his worship to a flawed messiah -- praise spilling forth amidst the agonized screams. 

    ‘Ahahaha...! Bring  them  to  their  knees, Cilius...! Head  bowed  and  fists  bleeding  —  make  them  repent for defying you!’

And it’s then, the Astral stops their desperate pleas; they’ve realized now, that Lucilius’ silence was not one of contemplation, but observation -- that his eyes were a sea of emptiness, and they were only another tossed pawn to his plans. When those despairing eyes meet the cold of Lucilius’, they see death, and death is what they find with one last twitch -- a final choked breath. 

The hand falls, and the cacophony stills into silence.

Belial’s laughter dwindles, and Lucilius stretches the moments thereafter with his unmoving gaze. It’s a settled weight, thudding against the walls as the steam begins to rise to the ceiling from the now rotting Astral. Belial smiles, then, and he knows that this silence is for him: Lucilius was digesting his words, and soaking them in while he committed to his research. He almost laughs again, were it not for the anticipation of his messiah’s answer. 

It’s not until the last of the carcass withers into ash, that Lucilius’ fists unclench -- that his jaw relaxes as his breath comes out in a slow exhale. That his eyes begin to glisten with a light that suggested vindictive joy in the failure. “There’s no need,” he hums -- recalling the scene earlier with an almost childlike glee; the astrals were sensing something amiss, and couldn’t pinpoint a source to their troubles and their dwindling members. He grins to himself.