#and lucifer will be the person daryn is most afraid of

[jaysworlds]

Whumptober Day Six

They had lost. Lucifer had expected it to be a hard fight, but he had never thought it would end like this. He had thought they had the element of surprise on their side.

But no. Lily had betrayed them.

He shouldn’t have trusted her, but he had never though she would choose the archangels over him, over their family. She had put her own children’s lives at risk. Malachi and Isaiah were both dead. Because of her.

Or at least, that is what Lucifer is trying to tell himself, because some small, furious part of him knows that it’s his fault, too. That he had been too blind to see how little Lily really loved him, and he had taken his children to war.

He hasn’t seen her. She hadn’t even come to visit them while they were locked up.

It’s their trial today. Lucifer knows full well that the angels will not be merciful towards him, and that his three eldest children won’t accept mercy even if it is offered. They had known what they were getting into when they followed him to war, and he’s so, so proud of them.

It’s Daryn he’s worried about. She’s only little, the baby of the family, and if they sentence her to death with the rest of them…

She doesn’t deserve that. She’d just followed the others blindly, barely even knowing what she was doing, and it hadn’t been until Lucifer had seen her trying to wield a sword that he had realised she was far, far too young to be fighting.

But fought she had, and now it’s too late.

They’re dragged up the steps towards the acropolis, and Lucifer doesn’t struggle, doesn’t react to the mocking whispers. He won’t give them the satisfaction.

His children are so good, and he’s so proud of them. They don’t cry, not even Daryn, though he can see how much she’s shaking, and he aches to pull her into his arms.

The trial is only a short thing, of course. It’s only for show, playing at justice. The archangels have already decided they’re guilty.

Lily is there, of course. He meets her eye for just a moment, and wonders if she can see how angry he is with her. Perhaps if it had only been the revolution that she had torn apart he would have been able to forgive her, but he can’t help but hate her for what she did to their children.

She looks away. Coward.

The sentence isn’t what he had expected. He had thought they would all be sentenced to death, but instead they’re to have their wings cut off and to be banished.

That’s far worse. Death is quick and relatively painless, but Lucifer can guess that this will be agony, and the pain will last.

And of course, the first person they pull out of the ranks is Daryn.

Perhaps they think it’s some small mercy, to not force her to watch, but Lucifer can’t stand it, can’t watch them hurt his baby girl.

She starts crying as they read the charges, trying to turn around and look towards Esther, towards Lucifer, her blue eyes wide and terrified.

“You bastards,” Esther screams, pulling at the chains keeping her secured, and Daryn sobs louder, only upset by Esther’s anger.

The archangels ignore her.

“You can’t do this to her,” Micah spits, always quick to back Esther up in anything she does. “You’ll all fucking burn.”

Lucifer doesn’t say anything for a moment. He knows the archangels will be more inclined to listen to him than to his children, but he doesn’t want to add to Daryn’s distress.

The angel closest to her forces one of her pretty blue wings away from her body, and she cries out, clearly terrified. Lucifer can’t take it anymore. He won’t let them hurt her, not without a fight.

“Stop,” he cries, and for a moment there’s silence. The archangels look at him almost expectantly. “Please.”

It’s hard to look up at them from the angle he’s chained down, but he tries his best, composure finally breaking a little. Let them do whatever they want to him, but Daryn’s a child.

“She’s a child. She doesn’t deserve this.”

“Your son,” Michael says slowly, and Lucifer knows he says it like that completely intentionally, “is old enough to pick a side, and old enough to suffer the consequences of his actions.”

That is, of course, when Daryn decides to finally weigh in. Her voice is still shaking, and there are still tears dripping down her cheeks, but she seems so brave as she tips her head back. “I’m a girl,” she says, “and you’re a bastard.”

And then she spits at his feet.

Lucifer is so proud of her.

Michael seems furious, of course, but there is nothing he can do to her past ordering the guards to continue carrying out the sentence.

Lucifer looks away before the knife comes down on her back, unable to watch, but he hears her scream, hears Esther and Micah cry out in unison.

He can’t feel anything but burning guilt in this moment, shame for what he’s done to his family.

He just hopes that Lily feels even half as guilty as he does.

[jetfuel-cantmeltsteelbeams]

So You Wanna Start a War ?

Timeline: New Court - Daniel Nightengale Chronicles

Location: Astor Smithe-Nightengale’s personal Manhattan apartment // Captive in the Sub-Realms of Arole // Amelie Smithe-Nightengale’s personal residence // Drigulian royal chambers

Characters: Astor Smithe-Nightengale, Daniel Nightengale // Nicolette Blythe-Demmekke, Mattea Cross // Braxis Draekmol, Amelie Smithe-Nightengale // Jaxon Mile, Daryn Cross-Demmekke, Astraea Demmekke

Song Used: So You Wanna Start a War by Klergy // Like I Can by Sam Smith // So You Wanna Start a War by Klergy  

Summary: Astor suffers migraines and shuts herself up in her apartment away from family. Hearing a sound in a backroom, she goes to investigate but finds nothing. // Nicolette searches for a way out of her rooms after a horrible encounter with her birth-father who had sought out her twin brothers. // Braxis witnesses something unseen trigger Amelie’s transformation while the goddess sleeps, but before he can find the source, she returns to her normal state. // After his training, Jaxon goes to check on the children in their nursery. An unseen threat triggers Daryn and Astraea’s powers. 

Astor Smithe-Nightengale One Half of the Throne of Creation  Deus Astoria, Great Hawk of the Skies

walked through the lazy sunstreams escaping her tall Manhattan apartment windows. Wearing nothing more than an oversized t-shirt and black lace panties, she ran a slow hand through the tangled mass of brown curls as she surveyed the crowded kitchen countertop.

With a scowl at the mess she’d created over the past two weeks, Astor rummaged through the cabinets until she found a single clean red solo cup and K pod. Setting it beneath the dispenser, she flipped the Keurig on to watch as the machine heated and poured her coffee. Leaning with her elbows on the counter, she let her head fall into waiting hands just to massage at the migraine that had been burning through her self-control for days now. 

So you wanna start a war, In the age of icons?

The shades had stayed drawn, the apartment left in darkness while she fought against the blinding pain behind her eyes. She hadn’t touched her cell since turning it off as soon as she walked through the door to the only residence hidden from her family. 

Selfish, hiding away like this. Your family worries about you. Astor rolled her neck, eyes closed. They only worry about what mess you’ve gotten into this time. You’re nothing but a liability. Her lips parted against the shock of pain that ran from temple to jaw. You’re a coward. You’re a hero. You’re a horrible queen. Those men owe their lives to you-

A creak in one of the back rooms had Astor opening unfocused blue hues. She stared down the hallway to her right, wondering if she might just be imagining the sound. A result of sleep depravation, or any number of psychosis stemming from her newly obtained- and difficult to control- powers.  Just as she turned back to pull her cup off the machine, she heard it again. A bump against one of the walls. No one in her family knew this apartment existed, let alone where it was. Leaving her cup on the counter, she wondered what poor bastard had chosen to break into a god’s apartment this early in the morning. Don’t thieves mainly work at night?

So you wanna be immortal,  With a loaded gun?

Slowly, she put one bare foot in front of the other. The hardwood beneath her made no sound as she crossed the kitchen.

Horrible queen.

So you wanna start a war, war?

I am one half of the Throne of Creation, she told herself, more powerful than ever. Still, a force stronger than anything she’d ever felt pressed against her chest. A chill crept up her spine, begging her to turn and run.

Panic filled both lungs like concrete, making it hard to breathe. Whatever was waiting for her at the end of the hall felt... wrong. Instinctively she knew fear, raw and unchecked. as she strained her ears to listen. Silence, but the pressure remained. Ominous and foreboding, like a ghost story come to life. 

I am the daughter of God, she repeated, one hand reaching for the only door in her apartment opened by a crack. Astor had a bad habit of closing the doors she went through, in all aspects. I am the daughter of the most powerful human ever to exist. As if a wall of cold brick had appeared, she froze with the one hand barely grazing the rich dark wood. A small part of her wanted to call for Bela, to send him racing headlong into whatever waited on the other side. She knew he’d come; they were mated souls, after all. 

Idly, she wondered if he could feel her fear down that bond.  A deep breath to steady her nerves, hardening her now silver eyes. I am the daughter of Lucifer, gatekeeper of all Hells realms, and I will not be afraid. With one great push, Astor forced the door open.

The room was empty.

So you wanna start a war.

-

Drig’uhl Nicolettte Blythe-Demmekke The Bridge Between Two Kingdoms First Reigning Queen of Angels

paced the small chambers she’d been seen to. After that sorry excuse for a reunion, she’d been parted from her brothers without protest from either raven-haired prince, led to a suite that she could only assume was as far away from the others as possible.

And the doors were locked, of course. She’d already tried them all, even the windows and walls for hidden passages. She’d come up with nothing less than a few broken nails from trying to pry a bookshelf from the wall only to find it was bolted steady.

So she paced, nibbling on the skin around her thumb nail as she struggled to come up with some sort of escape plan that didn’t end with her kingdom searching for a new ruler.

As she reached the far wall of her bed chamber, Nicolette heard a second set of footsteps behind her. Turning, hoping against chance that it was one of her brothers come to clear the air between them, she frowned when greeted with a long mane of blonde hair and steely green eyes. Mattea was dressed in her usual fighting leathers, with whips of black flame on both hips. The tall demoness had her arms crossed as she leaned against the bookshelf.

Nicolette knew the footsteps hadn’t been an oversight on Mae’s part, that they were as good of a greeting that the demon would give.

“If you can move around as you please, why don’t you get my brothers out of this shit hole?”

Her temper spiked at the nonchalant shrug of Mattea’s shoulders. “I asked. The princes don’t want to leave.”

“Can you at least get a message to the others? Tell them where we are?” They’ll come, bringing armies if need be. It’s what they did.

Mattea just stared, and Nicolette knew that the demon wasn’t leaving her brother’s side. Even for the few seconds it would take to flash into Drigulia, Mattea wouldn’t risk leaving Evryn without a smoking gun.

Or fire whips, held by an undead demoness that had fermented in the darkness of Hell for apparently a little too long.

Nicolette growled low in her throat, the incisors that rested inside her gums lengthening with her rage. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she snapped. Mattea’s eyes slowly moved from the angel’s face, roaming up the walls to focus on the cathedral ceiling above. “That man in there is not their father! And if my brothers think for a second that just because he donated sperm to our mother and that gives him any right to just walk into our lives-”

“Shut up.”

“Excuse me?!”

“I said,” the demon whispered as she pushed herself off the wall, “shut up.”

She was parting her lips when she felt it. The suffocating cold that filled the room, seeping through her skin as if it were nothing but paper and ash to settle in her bones. The feeling of being watched, of being monitored by unseen eyes sent the hairs on her neck prickling.

He could be a sinner,  Or a gentleman.  He could be your preacher,  When your soul is down. 

Mae’s head turned at an odd angle, bottoming out Nicolette’s stomach. She’d never seen the demon look… intrigued.

“Are they watching us?” The raven whispered, moving closer to her friend as the pressure in the room increased. If she’d been human, she might have found it hard to breathe.

Thin, blond brows arched as recognition flashed on Mattea’s face. Staring at the wall as if she were the only person in the room, a look of wonder sparked in her eyes. He could be your lawyer  On a witness stand, but,

“You’re like me.” The whisper that escaped her friend sent Nicolette back a step. She wasn’t sure what exactly Mae meant by like me, but she sure as shit was not sticking around to find out.

Just as Nicolette opened her mouth to say as much, the pressure faded. The feeling of being watched dwindled down to nothing more than the creeps.

He’ll never love you like I can, can. 

They were alone once again.

-

Braxis Draco Prince of Darkness  Heir of Rhydstrom the Great

frowned at the bedroom he found himself in, wondering what exactly had gone wrong in his life that he was counting flowers on the wallpaper, illuminated by a pink salt lamp on the nightstand. They were beautiful, really. Painted with individual care and great detail, but still. They were flowers. The bed he was on was designed for a little girl, just hitting the peak of her gender stereotype. A baby blue dress hung on a hook by the closet door, complete with a necklace of pearls and matching accessories nicely arranged for quick access. On the desk across the room, books littered the surface. Some still open, as if they’d been left reluctantly and with plans to return as soon as possible.

He’d pulled himself up a few hours ago to lean against the cushioned headboard, one knee drawn up to drape a long arm over. He was still in the black leather pants he’d arrived in yesterday, but his shirt lay discarded on the floor a few feet away along with his shoes and jacket.

And for hours, he’d watched her sleep. These days she didn’t get much of it, due to the stress of managing her kingdom whilst looking for her absent twin. So when she finally fell asleep, he tried not to wake her.

If only my family could see me now. The Prince of Darkness, strongest dragon heir to Rhydstrom the First, surrounded by creepy stuffed animals and lounging in a room that looked like a commercial ad for an eight year old girl’s wet dream.

And utterly contempt watching the rise and fall of his little brunette’s chest as she snored softly into the pillow by his thigh.

His brother and sister might laugh, but there were a few souls on his family tree that weren’t completely corrupt by his father’s menace. Like his little cousin Bernette- who insisted on being called Benji. At a startling eight years old, the little girl could make smoke fire from both nostrils. He knew, because every time he’d seen her in the past year she’d demonstrated.

Lost in thought, Braxis gently brushed a strand of hair from Amelie’s cheek as he debated on bringing it up in the morning. Considering their last family reunion had gone down on a damn battle field, he was hesitant to initiate more contact between the two great halves of his life-

His hand still resting in her hair, Braxis watched as Amelie’s skin began to darken. “Fuck,” he whispered, shifting to his knees. Broken, neon hieroglyphs to a long dead language began appearing, swirling atop the black. The planes of her face began to alter beneath the glow of words he couldn’t read, transforming the woman he loved.

It wasn’t until her breath came out in a frosty puff that he noticed it. The pressure in the room, followed by a frost so cold every hair in his body reacted.

From somewhere in the suite, Braxis heard glass shatter. He debated briefly on waking the sleeping goddess by his side, but decided instead on slipping from her bed on the basis of, I’m a fucking dragon. There’s not much in this world that could kill either of them without a struggle.

So you wanna start a war, In the age of icons? So you wanna be immortal, With a loaded gun?

With only a fraction of thought, Braxis summoned his war sword as he crossed the open doorway and entered the hall. A few steps brought him to the landing, leading him down a flight of stairs into a wide living area.

The air was thicker here, power crackling against the bare skin of his chest. Dragons didn’t claim to have an inner Instinct like the angels or shifters, but every semblance of common sense he had told him to turn around and run. To get as far away from the source of it and never look back.

The kitchen was where he found it; a picture frame had fallen from its place on the counter but somehow ended up in the middle of the kitchen floor. Braxis scanned the room for a cause, but nothing else seemed to be out of place.

Careful of his bare feet, he walked over to brush away the larger pieces of glass from the photograph. The faces of Luna, Astor, Amelie, and Nicolette smiled up at him, all in civilian clothes, serene except for the line of white that had been struck through the film over each girl’s eyes.

And as quickly as the pressure had appeared, it dissipated. The room felt lighter, less ominous, seconds after Braxis cleared the glass from the photo.

When he returned to the bedroom, picture in hand, he found Amelie curled up now on his side of the bed. Still asleep, now back in her usual form.

So you wanna start a war In the age of icons? So you wanna be immortal, With a loaded gun?

So you wanna start a war, war? So you wanna start a- War.

-

Jaxon Mile Lord of Lions King Consort to the Queen of Angels

sipped from the protein shake he’d prepared himself in the kitchens. His wife and brother-in-laws could be so lazy sometimes, he doubted they even knew how to find the kitchens without getting lost. Let alone how to prepare their own food.

Pros of growing up at the compound; he could make a triple decker BLT in less than a minute and stuff it down his throat in half that time.

Now if only he could find his wife to brag.

On the way to his workout, Jake took a detour to the playrooms that Nicolette had set up for the kids. He tried to spend as much time with the little monsters as he could, if only to make up for the attention they weren’t getting from the missing queens.

And maybe a little for himself. They were good company most days.

For the most part the children had free reign of the castle, restricted from only a few key areas such as the armory and war rooms. Nannies followed them around, keeping them on a loose schedule that the girls had insisted on.

Jaxon tried not to show his surprise when he turned into the first of the connecting rooms and found Astraea alone with Daryn. The former had been put in a pretty green dress, her brown hair loose but tamed as it fell straight to the ribbon around her waist. Her red hair wild in riotous curls framing a pale face, Daryn was pulling at the brown leggings under her own copper colored dress.

Jake could count on one hand all the times he’d seen the small brunette playing with the other children. Aside from sitting quietly beside her brother Alexei, Astraea kept to herself. And while Daryn was also relatively quiet herself, he’d never seen the two play together until just now.

If stacking blocks a few feet away from each other in complete silence could be considered ‘playing.’

Scratching at the stubble on his cheek, Jaxon mused on whether or not he was checking in with the kids enough when it happened. For no apparent reason, Astraea’s cold grey snapped to the far corner of the play area, focusing on a spot just above a teddy bear literally four times her size. Jaxon stepped farther into the room, following her gaze but found nothing that would harden a four-year-old’s face the way his niece’s was now.

“Taea?” But she didn’t move, didn’t shift to acknowledge him at all. Jaxon watched as Daryn’s small hands moved from the blocks to cover her eyes, head bowing into her own lap.

“Tae-”

But the brunette cut him off with a deadly whisper. “Bad.” Then, a pinprick of white energy appeared not a foot from her face, growing as fast as it had appeared. The room hummed with power, the very floor rumbling with the force hovering in front of the princess. A jerk of her chin sent the ball, about four foot in diameter, hurtling to the spot she’d locked eyes on. Jaxon was sent grabbing blindly for the door frame to steady himself at the impact, as he was sure the rest of the castle did.

And when the smoke finally cleared from the air, Jaxon made out two small forms still sitting where he’d found them. The tips of Daryn’s fingers, curls, and each foot was covered in a thin veil of ice that Jaxon would bet money on being so hard, even he couldn’t break through.

Coughing into a fist, Jaxon shuffled to the girls through the dense cloud of rubble that filled the air. “Taea, what the hell?!”

But grey eyes, too old for their age, turned up as the princess tilted to face him. “Bad’s gone,” she whispered, as if she’d just shooed away an obnoxious bird from her windowsill.