As Lucifer spoke, Duma's thoughts traveled with him to the distant past, to those years he had nearly forgotten.
Back then, his eldest brother had still been Heaven's vice-regent, Father's most beloved son, while he himself had been an ordinary archangel standing at the very end beneath the white colonnades.
Yet Lucifer loved every one of his brothers. He understood the meaning of love better than God did. Though even then he possessed an air unlike that of his other brothers, despite his boundless pride, it did not set him apart from them. Instead, it made him all the more charming.
Like his other brothers, Duma naturally loved following at Lucifer's side. Being quiet and reserved by nature, he liked that feeling.
There were pitifully few entertainments in Seventh Heaven, but eldest brother could always find something to amuse them with. Secretly observing the world God tended like sheep was one such pastime.
And there, upon Earth, they saw another interesting kind of creature: humans. Father said they were the descendants of Adam and Eve, traitors to Heaven, born to suffer.
Lucifer did not see it that way, however. He believed that living was one state of being, while living in suffering was another.
That was far too cruel. Human souls were bound within fragile shells. They possessed endless possibilities, yet feared everything.
Guardian Angel still remembered his brother wrapping an arm around him as they lay at the edge of the white clouds, looking down from Heaven upon the mortal world.
Pitiful, naked ape-men, who in the sunlight even feared their own shadows—afraid of the dangerous world, afraid of everything in the dark.
Not knowing God's true name, driven by fear, they created the greatest psychological comfort they could possibly create.
Gods.
Yet at the time, they had no