Authors: Darcy Town
Andrealphus landed at Belial’s side.
“You need healing!
They can heal us.”
“What is the point?”
Lucifer snarled.
“I have failed her.”
Furcas and Paimon sat by his feet.
Furcas looked at the sky.
“We can try again!”
Lucifer looked at his youngest Archangel.
“We have no power, no hope to regain her.”
Furcas frowned.
“There is
always
hope.”
Paimon stared at his green-tinged hands.
“We have new gifts, so will you, and you are still Primangel.”
Belial nodded.
“Michael is not six-winged, and you are not dead so he cannot have your power.”
“We still can do nothing.
I cannot feel it, I cannot feel Heaven, we cannot return without wings.
We are locked out forever!”
Lucifer covered his face and howled.
“I failed her!
I failed you!”
Berith leaned over Lucifer.
“We are alive and we will survive to fight again.”
“Yes!”
Furcas stood up.
“We can do it again.
We know more now.”
“I should die.”
Paimon scowled.
“That is not the right thing to do!
Listen to us, Lucifer!”
Andy nodded.
“We can do this, together, we are stronger.
We
are the originals!”
Berith helped Lucifer sit up.
“You must be strong for us.
We can be your hope, resolve, but you must be strong.
Ladriam needs you to free her.”
Furcas held on to Paimon.
“If you die now she has no chance of freedom.
We are her sole hope.”
Lucifer shook his head.
“Hope was locked with her, and we were left nothing but pain.
This is our punishment for such a wrongdoing.
Death is what we should accept.”
Paimon pointed at him.
“Wrong!
You have a promise to keep.
You promised her to live and to protect this planet and your children.”
He jumped on Lucifer.
“Are you going to betray that too?”
The vision became fuzzy.
Dahlia tried to hold on to the images.
What is going on, Furcas?
I think we’ve been healed.
We are waking up?
Looks that way.
What about the rest?
I can tell you when you wake, Dahl-Dahl.
***
Saturday
In the small room attached to the Sanctuary, Furcas and Dahlia opened their eyes.
They exhaled and looked at each other, their magenta irises matched.
They held hands.
The wounds Dahlia and Furcas shared were healed and erased, but the damage he had received from the spear left him scarred.
His eye and forearm were missing, but the holes and cuts no longer festered or burned.
Furcas rubbed his working eye.
“So is it Ladriam now or Dahlia?”
“Dahlia.
I—that other name,
He
liked it.”
She yawned and smiled.
“I
like
the name Dahlia.”
“I think Dahlia is a splendid name.”
Furcas touched his face.
He trailed his hand down his chest to his stomach.
He felt the ridges of the healed skin.
“I’m still scarred.”
“Yes.”
“
Fuck
.”
“At least you are alive.”
Dahlia laughed.
“Besides, they make you look badass.”
“Thanks, darling.”
He glanced over at her.
“Your eyes are red.”
“So is yours.”
He touched his face.
“Really?”
She looked him over and touched his hair.
“You have changed, Furcas.
Your sweetness is masked in cynicism and vanity.
What happened to the ever hopeful youth you were?”
Furcas smiled a little.
“You remember everything then?”
“Yes, you sick, twisted, sexual
deviant
!
There are some things I will
never
be able to forget and I want to!”
Dahlia closed her eyes.
Her memory spanned back far past her birth as a human.
She analyzed herself, trying to find out if she was a different person now, but the memories integrated seamlessly.
She thought back to the time she met them again at the bar.
“What was that like for you?”
“I have long hair again?”
Furcas measured his hair down to his armpits.
“Sorry, what was that?”
Dahlia laughed and opened her eyes.
“Oh yeah you are not in my head anymore.
Seeing me again, what was that like?”
“When Paimon and I found you we were in shock and in love.”
Furcas smiled.
“You were so cute!
You made all of these adorable little squishy human sounds!”
“Why did you keep my presence from Lucifer?”
Furcas made a face.
“We did not want that
psychopath
near a baby.
You saw him go nuts in my memories.
That habit didn’t go away.
If anything it got worse the longer you were parted.”
He smiled.
“Besides, Paimon and I are selfish.
We wanted to have you all to ourselves.”
Dahlia laughed.
“How old was I when you found me?
It is strange, the gap, the blurriness, the human brain does not record in a stable fashion at that age.”
“You were a one-year-old.”
He smiled.
“Paimon and I were there when you learned to walk and talk.
We were there for your first word.”
“My parents said it was ‘Momma.’”
Furcas snorted.
“No.
It was Furcas, but it sounded like Fuck-ass.
I think that was Paimon’s doing, though he never admitted it.
Your parents just about died when you kept saying it around them, they couldn’t figure out why you said it.”
“Parents, I love that concept.”
She smiled.
“They were very good to me, loving unconditionally, supporting, and protective.
That is what He should have been.”
Dahlia shook her head.
“A wasted opportunity.
They were far better than He was, yet so devoted in worship to Him.
I miss them.”
Furcas rolled up on his arm and hugged her tight.
“We love you so much.
I wish I could have shown you more of my memories of after the Fall, but what remains behind will have to suffice.
We have paintings of you that fill up entire parts of this palace and sheets of music for you.
Berith forged you armor for the battle that we used to hope would come.
Paimon built flower gardens all over the planet for you.
Andy wrote poetry.”
“Andrealphus wrote poetry?”
“Some of it is good too.”
Dahlia wrapped her arms around Furcas and hugged him.
“I am glad you are all okay.
I did not want you dragged into that fight.
I had hoped that I would be able to break out, that none of that would be necessary, but I could not think in there.
I could not be anything else but pain for such a long time.”
She squeezed her eyes shut.
“I am sorry.”
“
You’re
sorry?”
“You were all hurt so much because of what I did.”
“That was not
your
fault.
I heard what He said, the secret conversation between you two.
We did the right thing by fighting.
Besides the pain wasn’t that bad.”
He took in her expression.
“Okay, yes, it
was
that bad, but your prison makes our suffering look paltry.
When Lucifer realized what it was like for you, he would have had his wings torn endlessly if he had thought it would have gotten you out.”
“Lucifer.”
Dahlia trembled.
She covered her face with her hands.
“I do not know what to do.”
“What do you mean?”
“I saw what he went through, what he was, and how he was made, but I hurt too.”
Her hands curled into fists.
“He did not try to save me when he had the chance.
I doubt now that he would have succeeded, but…” she pressed against Furcas.
“It is not fair, but I am
angry
.”
She opened her blood red eyes.
“You have gotten to live here, this place with family, while I was alone.”
Her eyes darkened to deep purple.
“I was so alone for so long, Furcas.”
Furcas pushed her chin up until they looked eye to eye.
“I cannot tell you how to feel, so I won’t.
I can tell you that we all regretted our inaction since that day and none of us goes long without agonizing over it, replaying the scene, and thinking of what we could have done.
No one does this more than he does.
He has gone centuries without moving, just remembering.
His prison is nothing like yours, but it is a prison nonetheless.”
Furcas took a deep breath.
“You released yourself.
You were able to escape the torture placed upon you.”
Dahlia nodded.
Furcas kissed her forehead.
“He cannot.
Lucifer cannot escape it, Dahlia, because he cannot forgive himself for what he did.
This was as He said.
Lucifer would live tortured by it, in agony without end.
He knew Lucifer well.”
Dahlia shuddered.
“Two prisons forged together in one action.”
“By ruining you, He made Lucifer ruin himself.”
Furcas broke into a sardonic grin.
“Sorry to tell you this, Dahl-face, but not only did you have to plan and execute your own escape, but you have to get his ass out of jail too.”
Dahlia laughed.
“When did you become such a mouthy brat?”
“You would be one too if you had to deal with Paimon and Lucifer for eternity.”
He smiled as her irises faded from purple to red.
“Feeling better?”
“Yes.”
She sat up and the world spun.
She fell backwards.
Hands held her shoulders up.
Dahlia turned around and looked into the matching crimson eyes of Gaea.
Dahlia burst into tears and hugged her daughter.
Gaea swooned as her pain evaporated.
A smile appeared on her face.
Dahlia looked into her daughter’s eyes.
“Why did you not say you were here?”
Gaea shrugged, sleepy.
“You two had things to talk about.”
Dahlia touched her daughter’s face.
“Did they all make it?
Are you all alive?”
“They are, but my siblings sleep and have for some time.”
Dahlia clasped Gaea to her.
“I want to know
everything
!”
Furcas and Gaea set in on filling her in on the past millennia.
***
In the Sanctuary, the door in the wall opened with a burst of green light.
It shut just as quickly as it opened.
Furcas leaned against the door, breathless.
He had on a skirt made out of leaves; his long brown hair was woven through with flowers.
He wore a green, leathery eye-patch to go with the foliage in his hair.
He smiled to himself.