16619/Interlude : Of Mistakes and Memories

Interlude : Of Mistakes and Memories
Date of Scene:	13 November 2024
Location:	The CrossRoads
Synopsis:	Lucifer goes to the Crossroads to lash out at nothing. Then come the Horsemen. Then Azazel. At least some ends got tied.
Cast of Characters:	Lucifer, Sinister

---

Lucifer has posed:
Mimicking the time of the Falling, having left the Penthouse so quickly and silently, Lucifer's form is like a flash across many skies. Though mankind would see it as a possible falling star - maybe even a meteorite that never lands. Only it does land, but not where any mortal eye can see him unless they have come to make a deal.

However one spins it...no one is around. There -is- however, a slight crater in the middle of the crossroads. Dead center. And Lucifer in all of his glory of six wings that shine like the sun - but only they do. Otherwise, his eyes are red, his hair is black and wild. Short, still, and seemingly untamed. He breathes heavily, as if what he did just took a lot out of him.

"WHY?!" He yells out as if anyone could hear him. Though - he can be heard - and he makes sure of it. "You TORMENTED him! And for what?! Us falling wasn't enough for all you assholes? We play a little too much with all your precious cargo?!" That last bit, the last two words, are shouted in mockery.

"And now you send others down to put this on me for what? Because you thought I could reason with him? Make him turn a blind eye to you? No thanks. No longer. I will strip the very essence of my title and being before doing that to him again. Let him run free. Let him have his fucking vengeance... maybe THIS time you'll learn a fucking lesson or two. All you pious, vindictive, self-satisfying FUCKS!"

Sinister has posed:
"Of course not," the voice is little more than a whisper and four figures on horseback approach-- this is the cross-roads, a very special place indeed, where mystical things can happen. Deals can be struck. Binding contracts. Binding contacts. And there's a lot of power at the crossroads -- and is reality not a strange kind of construct. There is but one god, but the fact other deities wander about puts a bit of a contradiction on that.

There's a lot to be said for that.

A pale horse, a black horse, a chestnut red and a dappled skewbald. The figures come from the cardinal directions and the one with the scythe across the back just looks from the shadow of the hood, upon that pale horse, come from the north. Then the head turns to the one upon the black horse, stood at the south, wearing armour and with a weapon soaked in blood.

"We aren't going to help. If there is to be a retribution, we will not stop it. We thought you should know."

Lucifer has posed:
The Horsemen. Horsepeople? Lucifer isn't really sure if they even have gender and it's just another spin placed on that misogynist book written in the hand of MAN. He looks to all four corners - one at a time obviously - and his wings tuck behind his back. He even lowers his head out of respect.

He does not. However. Kneel.

"Who would be asking for your help? Them? Him? Not me. I don't need help. I need Azazel to know that I understand now. Whatever comes of what he has planned... I am not going to stop it. I am not going to stop him..." He pauses and only then does he lift his head.

"In some ways, I have half a bloody mind to help him. Sure that would make upstairs happy..."

Sinister has posed:
"There are those that would compel us. They would wish it at least..." the red horse rider rattles, coughs up a clod of black. There's hawking, a swallow and a rattle in suffering lungs - stood in the east. The silent figure on the skewbald horse to the West, munches on doritos.

No really. Munchmunch. A thin hand. A very thin hand, dipping endlessly into the bag and ferrying silently to the mouth.

"I am sorry I had to warn you as I did, Lucifer." The pale rider speaks quietly. "You looked to the wards and then the choice was yours. Machinations follow and the house of cards may yet come tumbling down."

Black horse speaks again -- "We will not be compelled."

Gone with the smell of chordite, a whisper of shadow, a puddle of snot and a tossed chip bag. Lucifer is once again alone.

Well. Mostly.

Smoke and ashes drift just shy of the path, slide here and there between the cracks of the road.

Lucifer has posed:
The voice of his sister causes Lucifer to turn to the pale rider and he lowers his head once more to her. He listens to all of them, but he does not speak. Taking their words in and giving no reply. There isn't one to give. His sister is right. He chose the path as soon as he look at those wards.

There's a soft sigh and then he reaches for his cigarette tin and goes through the motions of lighting a cigarette before replacing the tin into his inner pocket. A deep inhale of smoke let out through the nose. He watches the drifting of smoke and ash. Sends a shot of flame to the chip pack to incinerate it because it felt good to do. A glance up to the skies, watching the clouds as they churn, dark and ominous, but otherwise silent. Like an ever spinning threat of a tornado that never drops down.

"Are you going to ever say anything or just stand back and watch?" He asks to the darkness.

Sinister has posed:
The inverse tornado of dark above, crackles occasional red lightning, travelling widdershins about the sky.

The sound of a gibbet creaking can be heard, then the yellow eyes appear on the top of nowhere, the gibbet manifesting below the ash and smoke. The lurid sulphorous hue actually takes on a pupil this time around, hour glass shaped. Like the goat.

Rasped "Ain't got much to say I ain't already said. Wern't gonna come out no place with them showin' up..." the smoke and ash sucks in, like a movie effect in reverse, seeping back into the scars that litter the body of the Scapegoat.

Lucifer has posed:
"I didn't know. I hope you understand that. I had absolutely no idea. And you were right. I am an arrogant asshole. But at least I know when to plant my feet firmly in the ground and say no longer." Lucifer offers, looking at the body as it forms. "But we can go back and forth about the past again and again - I don't think it will get us anywhere. There's no way to change it. And I'm ready to move forward."

He takes another draw off the cigarette and glances around again. "No deals. No contracts. No stipulations. That was talk before understanding. Before...being played as if a pawn... We made a gentleman's agreement of no innocents. We will keep it at that."

Sinister has posed:
The figure sitting on the gibbet nods. Azazel, forming fully with his wife-beater and his leather jacket, takes a stogie from the inner pocket and lights it in his teeth without a second thought. Rather horrible stale tobacco scent drifts through the not-air of the crossroads and dissipates into the ether.

"I coulda said a thousand words, wouldn't've made a difference. Sometimes, you just ain't -got- words." He nods, looking with those yellow eyes at the devil. "Black suits ya. Kinda soot stained." The demon snorts. "Still shiny though."

Ash gets flicked.

"And all proud as ya like. Reckon all the shit they pinned on me been useful, out there?"

Lucifer has posed:
"What IS that accent you're using... it sounds like a cross between a Texan and a dog..." Lucifer riffs at Azazel before he gives a shrug. "You could have. You didn't. You showed me instead. I'm sorry I didn't realize sooner." He should have, but he can be blind sometimes. Like he's trying to win both sides while only playing for one team.

"One thing I am still curious of. And since it feels like we're on a bit better terms now..." He looks. "How the hell -did- you escape the prison?"

Sinister has posed:
"Dunno. It seems to come with this partic'lar aspect..." The scapegoat looks down at himself and shrugs. "Got the cloth from a hellspawn memory--" cloth sounds like he means meat-sack. Put on a person like you do a set of clothes. Funfun.

The yellow eyes fix downward. "I don't remember what i usetta sound like, words just sound like the throat that speaks them up there." He points upward with the cigar.

To the other side of the vortex.

"Well... they bound me in chains they made up there. I had a lot o' time to just... think, in the dark. It was crazymakin'. So I started yankin' slow on the chains. Little more each day. THey condemned me. No rest. So, I figured killin' myself, where'd I go?"

Right there. Right here. Staying put.

Lucifer has posed:
"I suppose the worst place you could have ended up was in hell. But you were bound to here. So now you're undead and bound to earth. Do you want to, like, not be undead? Cause being undead has got to suck...in some ways...and I'm sure if you had your angelic being back..." Lucifer says this much and then looks to the direction in which Asrael and been and gone.

"Wishful thinking maybe. I don't know what it's like to possess people... my husband doesn't know either. He's curious though. You should come visit. Talk to him. And the far removed nephew type person that you already met. And...kind of insulted. And...got hurt by Meta..." He shrugs then. "But yeah. I'm...not getting in your way. At all. If it brings their fall...so be it. Not my fucking circus anymore that's for damn sure."

Sinister has posed:
"Good," Azazel says that one thing, one word, in a kind of finality tone. The line in the sand is over there, nobody is going to fuck around with it. Capiche? Capiche.

We'll just be over here not mentioning it.

There is a shrug though. "I ain't an angel no more. Leastwise...don't reckon I'd be a pretty thing. Never was in the first place, but they didn't do me any favours." He drags a hand under his nose, hawks to the side and spits, caustically. It sizzles.

"You know, I reckon I get more done without a body. You get inside and go for a ride behind the eyeballs, but--" he crack his neck left and right "--humans can't handle it for long. Mostly, I don't care. They get me where I need to go and I'm gone. It's juicy when they invite ya in, then it can be real fun." He shrugs.

"But all those plans, I'm gonna make'm unravel. Do ya work. Gehenna, yeah?"

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer shrugs. "Whatever suits you, Azazel. The ante is bet, the hand is drawn...play the cards as you wish." He says it plainly and simply. As if nothing else matters in the moment. What more can be done to him anyway? An actual stripping of his title and place? Azazel was bound to the Earth while he was shot further into Hell. Technically, this isn't his domain.

It's just a preference.

"Gehenna indeed." He offers this much more and then crushes his cigarette in his hand like he has done so many times before. "Like I said. I'm not getting in your way. I may even offer my help should you need it." The way of how Azazel finally broke out of his prison isn't spoken of. Lucifer has the information. It was all he needed. "Though I believe your words to me were to stay out of your way. Don't harm an innocent. I'll be as far from you as you wish."

Sinister has posed:
There's a nod from the demon, swiping his hand under his nose again and snorting the stale cigar smoke from his nose a moment after.

There's no other response to the whole Wrath agenda, though he does watch the devil in silence.

"Ya really did get a family, eh? I didn't think you th'type, Lucifer. Seemed to me you..." he shrugs "...didn't see the point." The whole embrace of hedonism is a thing known, mostly because stereotype is definitely a thing that's born from a grain of truth. The horny devil, after all. And the sins are delicious.

Lucifer has posed:
"I did. It took a long while. But then again... I'm with a man who's literal name is Sin. Well. Sinister. But you get the jist." Lucifer says this and then shrugs. "Nick is a distant relative. Hundred times removed or some such. The product of a line when angels were fucking humans." To put it blunt as possible.

"And I still enjoy the sins of humanity... what else do you think the club is for? They come in by the dozens...night after night... greed, gluttony, pride, lust ...and I just feed off it all. And, my lover can easily satisfy my cravings...whole package sort of deal." He offers this much more and then - for likely the first time in Azazel's presence - he gives a genuine smile.

Sinister has posed:
"Yeah. Angels fuckin' humans is what got me into the state I'm in, along with teachin' them how to be smarter." Azazel observes rather bluntly.

"And then the punishment." He turns his head again and hoiks to the soil, corrosively. "Yeah, the kiddo, well... End product I reckon' of ... /his/ plan to hone the ability that mankind was gifted with. The ability to Name..."

Azazel considers the stogie, then incinerates it rather more violently than Lucifer usually does, crushing the ashes like they're nothing at all. "Seems like Sodom and Gemorrah didn't stick with the rest of man, though they really did take the whole go forth'n multiply thing ta heart, eh?" A grin when the smile is true. "Seems legit tho. Picked one that ticks all them boxes."

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer glances over and nods. "Well what the fuck else were you going to do while down here? Lie around and take it? And they think they got everything wrapped up in a neat little package. I am going to be on baited breath waiting for you to bring down the whole fucking house of cards, man..." Saying this and then further processing what else is said.

"That's the part that got me. What was mankind supposed to do? Just call everything unka and hu-hu? I never knew. I played my part like a good little thrown away toy... I should have known better. But what really pissed me off was them saying YOU brought them sin. Like you were the fucking apple that Adam and Eve bit into. That was already said and done anyway... all you did was help them develop further." He scoffs.

Then the conversation has turned to his love life and he smiles brightly. "Yeah. I did. It happened suddenly and without warning... surprised even me... but what can I say? He's my perfect."

Sinister has posed:
"Far as I can tell, they've ... whispered ta them as pull strings on Earth. Got some things taken out of the scripture. It ain't tought, they don't know what got done and why..." Azazel grimaces, then sighs. "Right. Right... still a work in progress. I'll have mine and they'll get what's comin' to them. Nice and poetical like..."

He also shrugs. "Whatcha think Enoch was gonna do anyway? Cop the blame? He shoved it all on me... after all, I armed y'all. I put the blades in yo' hands and stood beside when it all went down. I didn't back down... then didn't just crawl into the night down here. I just... don't get how he ended up being the Voice. How the /fuck/ did that one slip by?"

But it did. And it is something to ponder over.

"Your perfect. Geeze, you /have/ gone soft..." but he's smirking as he says it. There's a pause though, a frown and narrow of the yellow eyes. "He's the one as put it all together for you ta see, eh? I just... dumped it best I could. I didn't reckon you were gonna grock it all if I tried explainin'. Always was better at practical than flowery talkin'."

Lucifer has posed:
"He has his ways. Plus. It sort of helps that I can traverse planes a bit myself." Lucifer says this and then grimaces. "I don't know how Enoch got the position of Voice. Probably sucked a couple off to get it." It's a crude vision. But it works. "Yeah. You get your poetic justice, and we get the sideline view of it all."

He isn't sure what else to say here. Seems like everything is fitting into place - albeit in weird ways. "I'm sorry I never came to see you. I want to put that out there. And maybe I have gone a little soft in some ways...but you haven't seen the things I've done to get where I am. It hasn't been an easy path...not that it was ever going to be. I just fought my way to here, put my foot down when it mattered."

He sighs. "So. Where are you off to next? Or is that for you to know alone?"

Sinister has posed:
Azazel licks his tongue over a canine, then shrugs. "Reckoned you had your reasons. Didn't question stuff, until recently or whatever," he kind of backhands the air, like he was swatting a fly away. "Truth of it, I tried kickin' your ass when you showed up on near Golgotha, cos I thought they'd got to ya to come bring your dog to heel. Was a bit... suprisin' to hear what you said then, threw me off..."

The yellow eyes narrow again, seeing distant plans, perhaps. "And then, you weren't gonna listen. Which I figured..." he shrugs.

"Been a road that all leads to the crossroads for both of us. ANyway... I ain't gonna say. Best I don't --" with a tug of the forelock he hops off the gibbet perch and lands with a crack of the earth beneath in a classic kind of 'superhero' landing. "But I'll be in the Old World, before I'm back in the New. Miles to go a'fore I sleep. See ya around."
Pause, grin.
"Lucifer."

And Azazel is gone, dissipated into the winds. If they smell a little acrid, it soon fades.