😾Dream Recording😾

[angelbirth]

Sender: Satan
To: Everyone
Subject: Passive Dream Recording
Warnings: Discusses the birth of Satan.

Despite being regarded as the most beloved Angel in all the Celestial Realm, Lucifer's sour face doesn't seem to fit with such a title. Bubbling below the surface is a quiet rage that's just barely contained. He'd come to this room for some quiet, hoping to hide within its plain white walls, a room devoid of any any furniture.

Just for a moment. He needs just a moment to bury the anger deep down inside himself.

He doesn't get the moment.

The door opens and an angel steps into the room. The mask they are wearing might be comical, but Lucifer pays it no mind. There is a sense of disconnection, as though Lucifer feels nothing but neutral toward the angel. With a small, sharp inhale, Lucifer puts on a radiant smile.

And so begins the endless parade of angels who come to him to complain.

Mammon isn't doing his job very well. Leviathan hasn't left his room in days. Asmodeus went to another party in the human world. Beelzebub, Belphegor and Lilith all made a trip to the human world again.

The smile never leaves his face as he takes each complaint with all the grace in the world. He'll deal with it. He'll work with Mammon. He'll find a way to get Leviathan to leave his room. He'll lecture Asmodeus on the improperness of attending parties in the human world and, for good measure, he may as well loop the triplets into the lecture as well; better they hear it from him than from Michael.

His expression is positively serene, but with each complaint the anger boils even hotter inside him.

It's stifling, says the voice in his head, and Lucifer agrees. While he understands the concern Michael and his Father have, are he and his siblings not perfectly created as well? Thinking about it makes him even angrier, but the perfectly calm smile never leaves his face.

The words It's stifling paint themselves onto the brilliantly white walls, staining them, but the endless stream of angels who come to launch various complaints at him don't seem to acknowledge the words, just as Lucifer doesn't acknowledge their smiling masks.

Who are they to complain? Have they taken the time to speak with my brothers? With my sister? I was the one who recommended Mammon for the job. Of course he is capable of doing it. Leviathan would leave his room if he weren't so petrified of being thought of as useless. Asmodeus, Beelzebub, Belphegor and Lilith all have a perfectly healthy interest in the human world. Why is it my responsibility to correct their behavior? Are we not perfect beings?

The words write themselves on the wall in a bizarre handwriting that is equal parts elegant and messy the moment Lucifer thinks them.

The scene melts away in a flurry of white feathers. It's either another room or the walls are clean again, but Lucifer is no less angry, and the walls don't remain clean for long.

"I hate this," says Lucifer. Behind him, Satan writes on the wall, I hate this. His form isn't quite corporeal, but just like before, he's able to mark the walls in red.

"How dare he do this. How dare he threaten..."

Satan writes the words on the wall just as before. And, when Lucifer stops, Satan keeps going.

Lilith is my sister. She's our sister. We all love her. All of us. We are perfect beings. What she did was an act of love, not an act of rebellion. He hasn't seen true rebellion. I won't let him damn her to oblivion. I won't let him. I won't let him. I won't let him.

When Satan turns to face Lucifer, his expression is a mirror image of the wrath Lucifer is just barely able to contain.

When the scene melts away a second time, it is in a flurry of black feathers instead. Even though Lucifer had torn his six white wings off, four of them regrew, this time in black. As the scene comes into focus, Lucifer is Falling headfirst, plummeting downward. The rage he feels is absolutely unbearable, so much so that his body is no longer able a suitable host for it. Finally, Lucifer's anger is able to manifest physically, and the form it takes is Satan himself. The two of them Fall together, and for a brief moment, neither of them feel the unending torrent of rage. For a moment, they feel nothing but overwhelming sadness, because in the end, they knew it was all for nothing. They knew that in the end, Lilith would die.

They hit the ground of the Devildom hard, together, and it's so painful that Satan had quite preferred being an intangible consciousness inside of Lucifer in comparison. Despite how hard they hit the ground, they quickly sit up in unison. No longer were they supposedly perfect beings. They were demons, marked by their ram-like horns that mirrored each other. Lucifer kept the angelic form of his wings while Satan instead had a long black tail that remained coiled securely around his leg.

Lucifer takes a moment to fit the black, smiling mask the other angels were wearing on his face while, at the same time while Satan's face remains bare, unmasked and angry. They sit back to back, and Lucifer resolves to protect the rest of his family while Satan cannot even think clearly at all. The only thing he can think about or feel is the thousands of years worth of anger that Lucifer had consistently pushed down again and again until there was no room left.

Comments

Sender: Zelda

[multidisciplinary]

[ Normally, viewing another person's dream causes Zelda to wake with a start when it ends. But this time, she wakes slowly, a heavy feeling weighing on her chest. It's hot and stuffy in her bedroom, even though the weather outside is turning cooler by the day. She gets up from her bed to open her window and stare out at the other treehouse homes.

It's been over a year since they first arrived in Songerein, but Zelda can't recall a time she ever saw one of Satan's dreams. Dreams are shared among the dreamwalkers on a regular basis and the princess figures she has been witness to (or pulled into) at least one dream from most of her friends and acquaintances. The reverse is true as well. She knows Satan has seen at least a few of her dreams; he tends to write to her after they wake. Has she never seen one of his before?

Although Zelda feels like she knows Satan pretty well by now, the contents of this dream are bringing that into question. It occurs to her that she has never seen Satan's demon form before (nor Mammon's). She knows about their Fall, the sanctuary Diavolo gave them in the Devildom, and the war. And yet, Zelda is certain she's never heard mention of a sister before.

Grabbing her journal, Zelda sits down on the cushion in her window box. She considers how best to let Satan know that his private thoughts have been broadcast by his dream lantern. Maybe simply blurting it out directly would be... indelicate. How would Link or Mammon broach a difficult subject?

So the following image appears in Satan's journal with no additional comment. ]



[ Zelda's not very good at being anything but forthright. ]

[angelbirth]

[ Even though it was just a dream, he can still feel the lingering anger. To be fair, he is always angry to some degree. It's not something he can turn off or make go away as it's the very core of his being.

Just as he grabs his journal to write to Zelda in hopes of taking his mind off the dream, he sees the familiar image he had sent her so many times. It must have been sent recently because it wasn't there last night. Ordinarily, seeing that ridiculous sticker would get a laugh out of him, especially so unexpected and with no context.

Which is... suspiciously odd...

Was she sending this to make him laugh? He'd been feeling irritated over his most recent interactions with Angel and with Mammon and Alastor, but...

His quill hovers over the page to write a response. He can't think clearly, and so he just sits there for a moment not doing anything.

...She did send this to make him laugh, right? Because there is one other alternative he could think of, and if their places were switched, he would have... No... ]

Zelda.

No.

[multidisciplinary]

[ Hmm, that wasn't the reaction Zelda was hoping for. Satan loves that sticker—he's the one who showed it to Zelda in the first place. Perhaps sending him a sticker of Lucifer right after having a bad dream involving Lucifer wasn't the most tactful approach. The eldest brother tends to be a sore spot for Satan; Zelda is aware of the animosity between them, but not the reasons. She tends to avoid broaching the subject, out of respect for her friend, but perhaps it's something that needs to be talked about. ]

Forgive me. I thought a bit of levity might be easier to swallow than immediately pelting you with questions, but in retrospect, I see that it was tactless.

[angelbirth]

No, I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to scold you.

[ Her response, nonetheless, confirms his fear. When he wrote that "no" to her, he had meant it as a plea for her to confirm that no, his dream had not been broadcast. But looking at what he had written now, it does read as him being short with her. ]

I do think I understand the message you were trying to tell me without putting it into words, though. Thank you.

[ She had seen it.... It wasn't as if he had been purposefully hiding anything from her, but he liked it when he could be Just Satan with her, the way he wanted her to be able to be Just Zelda. What will she think now? He supposes she won't ever see him in the same light again. He would have told her freely... and he wishes he had done so, because this isn't how he wanted her to learn about him. ]

[multidisciplinary]

[ Zelda, in fact, did not realize that Satan's "no" was one of denial rather than a command; "no, tell me it isn't true that my dream was broadcast" rather than "no, don't send me a sticker of the brother I hate." But she's following him now. ]

For what it's worth, I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news on that front. There is no easy way to inform someone that their private thoughts have been shared without their consent.

[ In retrospect, she should have taken a page from Satan's book when she considered how to approach him. She does so now. ]

Are you all right?

[angelbirth]

[ For what it's worth, on any other day, opening his journal up to see that sticker waiting for him would have made him laugh. ]

There's no need to be sorry. It was inevitable that it would happen to me eventually, and I'm glad you were willing to let me know rather than let me be oblivious to what happened.

I'm fine. I'm just glad Lucifer isn't here to rub things in my face.

[ He wondered, given how emotion works in this place, how much of the wrath he felt in his dream may have been felt by anyone who watched. He could only help that she was unaffected. ]

I was naïve to think it wouldn't happen to me.

[multidisciplinary]

You've been luckier than most to make it this long. I've sometimes wondered if you knew some secret technique to shield your dreams from the lantern.

[ If you consider that lucky. Perhaps it's actually unlucky that he's been here so long without experiencing this for himself. Perhaps it's one of those things where, the more time passes, the harder it is to deal with. But one thing is definitely lucky---at least Lucifer isn't here.

Zelda doesn't really believe him when Satan writes that he's all right. Her chest still feels tight from the pressure of the anger in his dream. Does he feel like that often? She knows that Satan is the Avatar of Wrath, but she never thought that title was very fitting for him. Is it because he's always so carefully hiding his wrath?

There's a long pause before Zelda continues. She wants to understand what she saw in his dream. She thinks she knows, but she'd rather hear it as Satan wants to tell it. ]

May we talk?

[angelbirth]

If I did know such a technique, I would have shared it with you, even though it would have meant my hopes of one of your fun and wholesome dreams being shared would be dashed.

[ He hates that his first thought is that if such a spell existed, Lucifer would have used it perfectly. Not only would he have used it perfectly, but he would have only used it on himself, refusing to share how he did it with anyone else.

But thinking about Lucifer just makes him angry, so he forcefully returns his thoughts to Zelda. He's grateful that she reached out to him when she was under no obligation to do so. And, he's grateful that she appears to have done so out of concern or empathy rather than how others might have reached out.

When he sees her request to talk, his anger subsides, but only because it's replaced with a pit of fear in his stomach. If they talk, she'll know he was a hypocrite for encouraging Zelda to live as herself, just as she is, and that she is more than her title. But... ]

Of course.

[ Allowing himself to be vulnerable is... difficult. But he can't deny her this request when Zelda had always been so honest and transparent with him after her dreams were broadcast. So, he commits himself to do the same: to be as open and transparent with Zelda as he can be, even if it means putting himself in a bad light. ]

[multidisciplinary]

[ She appreciates the thought, even though she would probably struggle endlessly to master such a spell. It would probably require the use of dreamotion too, worst of all. ]

If I regularly dreamt more pleasant dreams than nightmares, I would not so loath others to see them.

[ Though not privy to his thoughts, Zelda knows she's asking a lot of Satan. It was a lot to ask of Link, when his own bad dream was broadcast earlier this month. The princess has not found it as difficult to talk about her dreams as her friends seem to. Perhaps, deep down, she has always wanted to talk about these things. It feels better to get them off her chest and put them out in the open. Finally opening up about her royal title was terrifying, but afterwards, she felt an immense weight lifted from her shoulders. Maybe talking about this dream will help Satan feel some of that same relief. ]

What was your dream about? I believe that I understand some of what I saw, but I would rather hear it from you. I don't want to risk making incorrect assumptions.

[ Her friendship with Satan is too important to jeopardize by hypothesizing on what she thinks she saw in his dream. ]

Sender: Mammon

[stupidmammon]

[ Is this the kind of feeling he made Satan deal with when he was having his own rough dream months ago? He always knew things were complicated between the two of them, and he assumed there was just this suffocating feeling of pain. Satan was literally born from his anger after all... but to really feel it deep inside, it... made mammon feel a little emotional. And if he were feeling that way when it was just a dream, he couldn't imagine just how emotional Satan was feeling right now.

he gets up and leaves his room to head to the kitchen and just sends a little journal note Satan's way. ]

I'm making some tea. Come get a cup.

[angelbirth]

[ Satan's response, once he sees the note from Mammon, is to abuse the closest book he has by throwing it at his bedroom door as hard as he can. It dents the door.

As he often does, Satan has mistaken Mammon's kindness for being condescending. ]

[stupidmammon]

[ Mammon flinches when he hears that book hit the door and quickly lets out a sigh. Maybe he should have worded that differently to Satan. He's definitely more sensitive at the moment after a dream like that and he had to approach him roughly like that. ]

EITHER YOU COME OUT HERE WITH ME OR I'M COMIN' IN THERE WITH TEA.

[ He shouts it loud enough, knowing Satan will probably just throw more books at him, he can't just sit here and do nothing. ]

[angelbirth]

[ And he does indeed throw another book. Except it's not enough, and it doesn't do anything for the lingering anger he's feeling, so it's only a few moments afterward that he swings his bedroom door open so hard that the wall is also probably dented now, too. ]

What the hell kind of threat is that?! How about you just choke on the tea instead?!

[stupidmammon]

Only if you come have some tea with me~

[ Mammon isn't helping. He knows he isn't helping, at least not right now, but sometimes he just can't figure out what Satan might want or need to help him through these sort of things. He's pissed and rightfully so after feeling all that all over again. ]

You can even punch an' kick an' bully me until you feel tired again.

[angelbirth]

Don't--don't do that!

[ His hands grip firmly around the doorjamb. Naturally, his body wants to shift into his demon form to compensate for his loss of emotional control, but that's the last thing Satan wants right now. So, for now at least, he stays out of his demon form. ]

Don't mock me like that!

[stupidmammon]

W-Woah woah I ain't tryin' to mock you here, Satan!

[ Okay he just needs to stop. Take a breath. he was clearly getting on Satan's nerves and he needed to speak honestly. If he didn't it might just mess with Satan more. ]

Look, I just wanted to do somethin' to get your mind distracted or somethin' I wasn't tryin' to start shit, Satan. I promise...

[angelbirth]

[ His hands clutch against the wood even harder, but the anger in his face subsides a small fraction. ]

...Why?

sender: link

[skyglider]

[Link awakes with a jolt, his heart thundering in his chest. For a little while, all he can feel is the strange, sickening rage that seems to accompany the dream, all-encompassing and heart-twisting. Is...is this how Satan feels? What he's gone through? Link has never felt anything like it in his life, and for a long time he doesn't understand how to process it. By the time he's finally able to breathe and think again, he's acutely aware of how small and cramped his room feels.

It's a long while before he decides to finally write to him. Not only because he's left his room to go outside, but because he understands how intrusive it feels, and how difficult it can be to face the fact that someone else has seen something so private. Figuring out how to respond is a bit of a struggle.

Finally, he decides to go with simplicity.]

Hey.
I'm out for a walk, if you'd like to join me.

[Sometimes you just need to get out.]

[angelbirth]

[ It's shocking that Satan hasn't set his journal on fire yet. Or, maybe he tried, and it just didn't work. While he isn't against the idea of meeting with Link, he doesn't want anyone to see how much he's lost control of his emotional state. But, he also feels if he turns Link down that he'll immediately figure out why. He's paranoid like that. ]

What an excellent birthday gift. I actually did prepare the food I mentioned before, so I can bring it with me. You won't be able to eat it comfortably though.

Shall we meet outside of Dreambucks?

[skyglider]

Ah. Happy birthday.

[Sorry, Satan. He would have baked a cake or something if he had known more...although it seems like he's got that covered himself.]

Perfect. I'm near there anyway.

[He seems totally unconcerned about this strangely ominous-sounding snack. Anyway, he is indeed nearby, and after he writes the above message he'll go ahead and wait outside of the cafe.]

[angelbirth]

[ Yeah, sure is happy all right. He didn't mean to try and squeeze a happy birthday out of Link, but... well, he has one now. ]

All right. I'll pack up the cakes I made I bring them over to you. I'm going to tell you in advance I really don't think it's a good idea to try the cake I imbued with magic. You're going to break your teeth on it.

I'll be there in 15 minutes.

[ He doesn't need quite that much time to pack the cakes and get there. He added the extra time so he can just... breathe... a lot. Maybe, by the time he gets there, he won't be so visibly angry. And maybe, with enough preparation, he can give off the impression that his dream had no affect on him at all.

Even though he would have liked to give himself more time, he didn't want to be too obvious about why... nor does he wants to actually show up late. So, he takes the precious few minutes he can to get his emotions under control as he gets dressed and packs the cakes. He ends up arriving outside of Dreambucks in 10 minutes anyway appearing moderately... okay. ]

[skyglider]

[To be fair, Link would understand either way; it's taken long enough for him to clear his own head, and the dream wasn't even his. But there's something about the dark and the quiet of the town at night that helps, in a way he can't really put into words. Nighttime in Hyrule could be ominous -- haunted by the possibility of a blood moon, the monsters seemed...louder, in the darkness. It's much more peaceful here. To be honest, it usually makes him feel restless, but after a dream like that...

He finds himself needing another deep breath, when he thinks of it.

That's when he notes Satan's approach, standing and greeting him with a quiet nod.]

You made it.

[angelbirth]

I thought very briefly about diving headfirst into traffic, but then I realized that is unfortunately not an option.

[ Because as a demon it wouldn't kill him, but also because there's not exactly a busy intersection to begin with. Regardless, he has arrived with the strap of a large leather bag over his shoulder, which is perpetually filled with research materials and sketching supplies. In his hands are two small cakes, wrapped separately in foil but stacked on top of each other. ]

I hope you didn't think I was joking about the food, because I really did bring it.

[skyglider]

[Those sure are words that mean something to someone. Probably.]

You brought a lot.

[Link tries to measure the amount of curiosity that seeps through into his expression, not just at the food Satan has packed, but also the extent of the stuff he seems to carry around with him. It's not unlike Link's own adventuring pack, he thinks...although there may be more fruits and bugs in his own bag.]

I'm ready. [He was born ready for this.]

[angelbirth]

[ Look, he'd also take being kicked in the face by a horse! ]

I did? Ah, right. This bag was actually a gift from Zelda, and it holds everything I need. There's mostly books, sketchpads and sample jars in there for my research. I always take it with me, so I guess I grabbed it out of habit.

[ He says "research" which, while true, is a misleading way of saying "for the poisons I make." ]

But, more importantly, I do have the cakes like I promised. You can tell me you're ready all you want, but forgive me if I have difficulty believing you.

[ Satan really does seem set on not believing that a human--well, he supposes Link is also a Hylian like Zelda, given their ears--can actually eat what he's made. He wouldn't even want to eat what he's made.

He separates the cake so that he's holding one in each hands. ]

The one on your right is the challenge cake I made. The one on your left is a cake that I personally find to be quite delicious. But, let me guess, you want to go for the challenge cake first?

[ The thing quite literally weighs about 30lbs. ]