WHERE Lux •
WHEN April; shortly after Julia's arrival. (Slight pandemic delay. Oops.) •
WHAT Julia goes to Lucifer for advice about her lack of power. •
WARNINGS None. •
STATUS Complete
Julia had accepted the invitation to Lux respectfully, out of an abundance of caution. She had met demons, incubi, dragons and gods-- each time they were never quite what she expected. When she entered Lux, the meaning of the name not lost on her, she looked for clues as to her host.
The club was modern, with the largest light source being the bar and display of top shelf alcohol bottles. That was one way to be the Lightbringer, Julia smirked. The half smile was short lived. She didn’t see any obvious signs of magic, symbology. He was used to living among humans, maybe.
“Hello?” Julia called. She hadn’t brought an offering. Sabrina hadn’t mentioned it and Julia wasn’t sure what the Hell she would have brought that would not have been insulting. Was Lucifer powerful enough to kill her? Julia wasn’t eager to find that out just yet.
Lux’s appearance in Vallo gave him a much needed distraction from his brief return to the Samael days and the complicated feelings that came with being his father’s good little soldier being so fresh in mind. It also provided him with plenty of booze to achieve a near blackout until he’d finished off the shelves. Unfortunately that also left him with the task of having to restock while preparing to open to a new crowd without the help of Mazikeen this time around.
Crouched down behind the bar, he was oblivious to any appearances in the club proper (few could do real harm to him anyway) until he heard the female voice calling out. Instead of the singular glass he’d dug out, he grabbed a second and smoothly rose to his feet to set them both on the counter. Young, attractive, with a bit of something about her that he wasn’t familiar with but made her all the more intriguing.
“You can come on over to the bar. I promise I don’t bite unless you want me to.” Lucifer gave her a wide smile that promised mischief before turning to the shelves of liquor, selecting one to fill the glasses. “Julia, yes? Sabrina’s friend?”
It felt a little strange to admit Julia was friends with a sixteen year old girl. She’d barely had any friends that age when she was sixteen herself. But Sabrina had been kind. Maybe that was the surprise: the Antichrist and Satan were decent people all along.
“Hi.” She approached the bar cautiously. “This is awkward, but I’m not really sure how you’d prefer to be addressed. Usually there’s a ritual involved or offerings or both? You just aren’t striking me as the ritual type but since I’m asking for your help I’m also really not looking to offend you.”
Julia cut herself off. Her experience with gods and demigods were mostly varying shades of terrible. It was then she realized her most positive interactions with otherworldly beings might in fact be demons. Her eyes spotted the two glasses and a small amount of tension released from her shoulders with a small, tired smile.
Rituals and offerings. His father had imposed his need for worship on these humans across universes well, hadn’t he? Lucifer’s nose wrinkled up, mouth in a firm line, an immature grimace of a reaction. “Absolutely bloody not. The only worship I do is...well.” The grimace smoothly became a smirk, dark eyes twinkling with mischief. “The only thing that would offend me is if you confessed to membership as a devil worshipper.” The way she didn’t seem to know what he required, he highly doubted it.
“I’ll be quite honest with you.” He uncorked the bottle and poured two fingers worth of liquor in both glasses, sliding one towards Julia. “I’ll always be honest with you actually. Unlike the moniker of the Prince of Lies, I can tell you that I am not. I invented deals but I don’t deal in souls ever. Hell is actually absolutely boring for me and if I can help it, I’d rather not be ruling over it if I don’t have to. I’m sure there’s a million other misnomers I could dispel but I think that would get boring for us both, yes?”
He held his glass up in a toast before taking a rather large swig of it. “So what is it that you’ve come looking for help with? What is it that you desire?” On that note, he leaned in slightly, hands resting on the bar counter, trying to catch her gaze.
Judging by Julia’s look, she would have absolutely listened to Lucifer dispel every misconception about him, down to his preferred cocktails, written the book and had it published among occult circles. Well, maybe not written it exactly, but Julia always had an unquenched thirst for knowledge.
“Promise I’m not really the worshipping type,” she said wryly. She was never really worshipped herself, too new as a goddess, but she missed the prayers. She missed answering them and helping others. Raising the glass in front of her she took a healthy swallow.
She met his eyes. He was attractive. Julia glanced away before she let the fact ensnare her to an embarrassing degree. “Uh, right…” Despite the way he asked, what followed wasn’t what she literally, truly desired. Only what she came for. “I don’t have magic anymore. I can’t even create a spark. Sabrina thought maybe you could help me with that.”
Her look was almost apologetic for asking, but then Julia wasn’t Julia without searching for something. She took another drink from her glass appreciatively.
“Then I like you already.” Which didn’t take much but there were shades to Lucifer’s connections to people. He liked many well enough but attempting to cross from the superficial to the depths underneath made for an incredibly difficult feat. Keeping his gaze on her, he took another drink, slow and steady as he listened to what she’d come for.
His brow furrowed briefly and the glass made no sound as he set it down on the bartop, leaning towards her. “I knew I felt something a bit different about you but that does seem to be quite common around here. A witch?” Vallo was home to several human and non-human species that hadn’t existed in his father’s realm but no stranger to the idea of several versions of a universe, it was merely something Lucifer had to get used to. A welcome change of pace, something new after millenia of the usual.
“I do like a good challenge.” It became less of a game then, more of a genuine curiosity as he reached across to take her free hand. “I must warn you that myself, like my siblings, are not the all powerful being that our father is but I do have a few skills of my own,” he added, his expression settling into a thoughtful frown, brow furrowing. “How did you lose it?”
Julia blinked in surprise at the hand on hers, but did not pull it away. Instead it was just one more piece of information to file away about The Devil. He was surprisingly affectionate. Since she didn’t find it threatening, Julia even managed a half smile.
“My friends were in trouble. They were on a quest and I stepped in. They needed seven very specific keys to complete the quest, but they were destroyed at the last second. I knew how to make them but… it required a lot of power. Maybe all of it.” Julia shrugged. “I’m still different, I’m still me, just without the magic.”
It was there underneath the surface, the feeling of different that he couldn’t place. Not the feeling he’d get when one of his siblings came to earth and tried to lurk undetected but enough to make an impression. “So you had power but you found a way to transfer it into these objects needed to complete a quest. Much like anything else in this universe, nothing is truly created or destroyed anymore but transferred from one vessel to another,” he murmured, more to himself than to Julia but if she chose to make something out of that…
“I suppose it wouldn’t be as easy to gather these seven keys if they were all here to complete a reverse movement of power back to you?” he added thoughtfully. “Contrary to what the Puritans said, I did not actually hang around with witches or imbue them with power so this is not my wheelhouse. However I find it interesting enough to try and help.”
Lucifer’s remark about the Puritans made her smile. He had a sense of humor, at least.
“I doubt the keys would just fall into my lap,” Julia said. Since when was anything in her life that easy? “In theory? Even if they did show up, I don’t have the power to reverse what I did. I don’t think my friends are leveled up enough to do anything more than… break them like the first set.”
Unless Alice knew more about the keys than she was sharing. She did know the spell to destroy them. But then Alice wasn’t here either and she generally wasn’t the kind of person to share what she knew or was thinking.
“And even if they did and even if I had the power to reverse what I did, they’re important. Humans--” Julia had never referred to humans and not included herself before. That was a new and strange experience for her, because she supposed she technically wasn’t one anymore. “....The keys each come with their own test. The keys either weed out or train the people who use them to be worthy of controlling the fate of magic.” Julia gave a small, apologetic shrug. “...Maybe I shouldn’t take them back?”
Lucifer arched an eyebrow at the admittance that confirmed what he’d been thinking about Julia. Something other than, more than she appeared to be. “We wouldn’t want magic out of control, now would we?” he asked though the question was purely rhetorical. As much as he was a fan of free will and all that, some things were dangerous without the proper control to keep them in check. Demons, for one.
So take the keys entirely off the table. Reversal, destruction. Perhaps something to visit at a later date but for the moment, the brief explanation seemed to indicate they were more trouble than they were worth in regards to returning Julia’s magic. He refilled his glass, gaze focused on the dark wooden bartop thoughtfully.
“Though that little explanation does lead me back around to the question I asked earlier and you neatly sidestepped. Your friends also have magic but you seem to feel you are different than them, so what are you? Don’t be shy. Consider me your priest and Lux your confessional. Nothing will leave this conversation that you wouldn’t want to,” he added with a small grin, enjoying the comparison.
Julia’s brows rose, trying her best to hide her amusement. He was the Devil, she could hardly be blamed that she found him charming, could she? And oddly enough, he seemed trustworthy. Julia needed help, she was going to have to start trusting someone.
“I was human,” she said, as a defense. But her eyes went down to her drink. She debated how much to say. “And then Our Lady Underground gifted me with a spark. I grew it and, for a hot minute, I was a full on goddess.”
Having skipped over most of it, the worst of it, Julia could look Lucifer in the eye. Her small smile was slightly sheepish. “Sometimes it kind of feels like I was raised up so the other gods could continue to sit on their asses. After I used my power to make the keys— I guess it depends on who you ask if I’m still technically a goddess or not. I’m immortal, indestructible sans god-level power, but I’m no longer connected. It’s not just magic, I can’t hear prayers anymore, I can’t do anything.”
“A bit defensive there.” Perhaps leftover from being around those who considered human the norm and anything else strange and something to keep distance from. That gave him pause for a moment, Chloe’s horrified expression at finally seeing his devil face and believing him for the first time, that he was the devil. His smirk faltered slightly and he quickly hid it behind a drink. While they had worked through that moment, he still had his insecurities. “You’re already more honest and less manipulative than the goddess I know, so I will give you that.”
He fell silent again, listening to her explanation. The only movement came from the glass hanging from his fingertips, the liquid sloshing around the sides in a rhythmic wave as his mind worked with the details. “I would say you could still consider yourself a goddess. One neutered or...would spayed be more appropriate? You catch my meaning. Without the magic, you still exhibit several characteristics that would belong to the kind at least.”
Something clicked in his head then and he stood up a little straighter. “A fallen goddess,” he said, gazing at her with renewed interest. “Now that’s a new one even to me but it does fit. The loss of your magic isn’t the same but no longer hearing prayers, the feeling of disconnect. It fits for when one has fallen,” he finished, his voice softening.
It took Julia two seconds for Julia to make the connection between Lucifer’s observation and the word fallen. Her eyes lit up, but it was more curiosity. If they were similar then…
“Do angels ever… un-fall?” she asked. Was there a process or a ritual? Could the mechanism that happened to him be reversed? Maybe that was her ticket. That was what she needed.
“They do. My brother did.” The circumstances between himself and Amenadiel were very different and yet so were the conditions of their falls. Lucifer kept his wings and his abilities but also gained his devil face which had terrified more than one soul over the millenia spent in Hell. Amenadiel lost it all, his wings, his ability to slow and stop time. In a strange way, it felt like a temporary time out while Lucifer kept his because his situation was intended to be permanent.
Or maybe his father knew what he’d need to survive in Hell.
“By trying to kill me to send me back to Hell as I wouldn’t go willingly, Amenadiel lost his wings and his ability to slow time, to stop it. He attempted to regain it back by doing things to please our father, doing good, proving his worth or trying to earn forgiveness. Finally they did come back to him but the ‘how’ of it...he believes that we do it to ourselves. The loss and return of his angel self, my devil side, he believes that when we have that power, we have the ability to punish ourselves unintentionally and in the same way, we have to figure out the key to fixing it.” He rolled his eyes, brushing past the part where his brother’s conviction still held some curiosity for him. “Of course, Amenadiel was always much more of a positive thinker than I. You see in it what you want to believe.”
“So… in theory… this could all just be in my head, my belief that I don’t have power.” Julia frowned thoughtfully. It actually wasn’t a bad idea? The only problem was Julia didn’t know how to get out of her own head, how to change her belief. Her predicament felt so entirely real.
She finished off her drink in a gulp. She’d earned that at least.
“Thank you,” Julia motioned to the drink. “I appreciate being able to talk to you about this.”
Lucifer held up a finger. “I can say from my own experience that it is possible. Those like us have power and no matter how long we wield it, it seems that if our own minds turn against us we run the risk of it wreaking havoc with how the world perceives us as well as ourselves.” He smiled faintly though there was no humor to it. His mental hurdle was and continued to be a strong vein of self-loathing and abandonment that would hardly heal itself in a mortal lifetime, even with the addition of the family he’d found both here and in Los Angeles.
“You’re quite welcome. I’ve found it very interesting to meet you, Julia, and I sympathize with your predicament. Perhaps you’ll keep me informed of your progress or we can discuss theories further if you come up with more,” he added, inclining his head towards her. “My door is open.”