✞ video

[sunlighter]

[The video screen opens to the Church of the Morningstar, a large, pristine building of white concrete and hard, sharp, modern edges. It's owner, both of the phone in possession and the church in name, stands in front of it wearing a long black overcoat with the collar pulled up on this unseasonably cold day.]

You have no idea how disappointing it is to finally come outside the prison of creation and be surrounded by the ensnarement of worship. And not of anything, but of me most importantly-- something that, I must profess, becomes more tiring by the day. You've all chosen to squander your chance to live by your desires only to build a prison of rules and governing around yourselves. Even here, having left those devices, you've so eagerly baited yourselves again. Let's change that, shall we?

[He waves his hand, and the church in front of him warps and collapses in on itself, a twisting of light that causes its viewers to blink only to be met with an entirely new creation-- a piano bar which reveals itself to intimate prohibition-style decor within. A sexily backlit 1923 Steinway piano ties together a room dotted with small tables perfect for a night of Jazz music and drinks. Lucifer takes a seat and crosses one leg over the other, different looking perhaps than those of the same name imPorts have been familiar with in the past. In fact, he bears a striking resemblance the Thin White Duke.... or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the Thin White Duke resembled him.]

'Lux'... a name I once chose impertinently to create something of my own in the entrapment of His will, seems a little unsuitable now that I've liberated myself of those titles. A new name, I think, would be more appropriate. Perhaps 'Revīvēscere'.

Comments

[craftpunk]

Woden.

[ Said with the haughty air of someone who knows what they are, but also the haughty air of someone all of nineteen years and saddled with the legacy of who he actually is. ]

We've met. Multiple times.

[sunlighter]

Of the Germanic Pantheon. You've traded the eyepatch for a helmet, I see.

[craftpunk]

Think older. Anglo-Saxon, to be specific. The nomenclature is a small thing, but the difference is important.

[ To literally nobody but him. ]

Well, if you like pedantic assholes like me, at least -- but yes, I thought I should modernize this time around.

[sunlighter]

[He waves his hand slightly.]

Norse or Anglo-Saxon, they're all so Oedipal I would think the difference were rather unimportant. [A pause.] Forgive me for speaking so openly.

[craftpunk]

[ He's certainly knowledgeable enough that he knows, very well, that Lucifer is trying to wind him up.

It's just blank staring. It's one of the few times he is glad for giving up his face like he did. It's much more effective. ]

If you want to reduce them to their base characteristics and disregard the nuance, certainly.

Not that I'm a scholar, of course. I suppose details wouldn't be that important. [ They are. They're very important. ]

[sunlighter]

Scholars are nothing but storytellers grasping at truths. It seems strange to me that you would think otherwise. There was a very long time when they all thought sacrificing boars meant anything to anyone.

[craftpunk]

[ A laugh.

He could say, of course, that for the first eighteen years of his life he was convinced of the folly, that he had been convinced that it had just been a way to explain the unknown, like every other child atheist, especially one that fought against his own father's knowledge and scholarly intrigue.

He could say that, but he doesn't. Instead: ]

They do their best. Only pointing out the difference with the familiar. That's what ties all these messy worlds together, from what I can gather.

I've only recently arrived as well.

[sunlighter]

You would be less impressed knowing that having a plan is easy when it's all been written in advance already. Look beyond all seams and find only frayed edges.

[craftpunk]

I've seen it.

[ In stark, erring detail. ]

It's part an parcel for our recurrences, you know. Or -- do you know?

[sunlighter]

What you're talking about? Not in the slightest.

[craftpunk]

Interesting.

[ Really interesting. ] She was with us -- You were with us, in the recurrence. From my world. She even looked like you, actually.

It's funny, the look stays with you.

[sunlighter]

You keep using that word as though it means anything to me. Perhaps sometime soon you'll care to elaborate.

[craftpunk]

Maybe.

But if you don't know it, what's the point? It's just a word where I'm from. Where you're not from, apparently. It has to do with us, and our...styles.

[sunlighter]

There are very few things more important than knowledge, Woden, but if you insist. [And just like that, it's dropped.]

[craftpunk]

Let's just say it's currency I'm going to keep for the moment.

[sunlighter]

It appears hanging from that tree has made you quite clever after all. [Said in only the gentlest teasing tone.]

[craftpunk]

[ A laugh. ]

Hanging from the tree, giving away my eye to see the future... [ Another digital laugh. ]

I'm the most intelligent between myself and my compatriots -- Not that it's hard...