The End of Eden

WARNING: If you would be offended by an alteration of the stories contained in the beginning of Genesis that could be taken to portray God in a negative manner, or Lucifer in a positive manner, then please DO NOT read any further. Thank you.

To the people who would be offended but refuse to listen to polite warnings, I'll say in advance: I told you so! Preaching, threats and angry rants will be ignored.

To everyone else: welcome to the story! I don't normally upload my original stories/poetry, though you can catch me over at fanfiction.net, if you like Harry Potter fanfiction. However, I liked this one rather a lot, so I decided to brave the trauma of showing it to the world.

Before anyone tells me off for it, I do realise that angels are traditionally supposed to be all male. I made some of them female for three reasons: because when I first thought of Anael she was female and I didn't want to change that; because it's incredibly sexist; and because it's already going to have the people who ignored the warning frothing at the mouth – including gay angels may make their heads explode. And that would be bad.

To avoid confusion, I'll also state that I am an atheist/secular humanist who happens to like religious stories/mythology. And that's enough rambling, onto the story! Enjoy, and please review!

~*~

The flames didn't burn her, but she hadn't expected they would. Hadn't cared, either. She'd still have come if they'd been infernos, ready to turn supple, smooth skin to charcoal, to roast her flesh, to blacken her bones.

As it was, the flames played around her bare feet, warmly caressing the skin like her lover's hands, toying with the hem of her dress and the tips of her wings' feathers as Anael walked the road that hadn't been there before now. A newly created road, leading to a newly created place.

Hell.

There was war in Heaven, or had been, until today. Today, when one angel, one action had ended it, once and for all. One angel. Her angel, her beautiful, warm-hearted, compassionate, caring lover. Who'd cared too much for the new beings called humans, and led the rebel angels in a battle they could barely hope to win, and won anyway, and been beaten, battered and tortured for it, then flung out to a place of eternal torment.

Her Lucifer.

And if you hadn't looked closely, you wouldn't have seen her lips form his name, or the tear that fell from her eye to sizzle into steam in the fire below.

Uriel had been the one to give her the news. Lucifer hadn't even told her what he planned, hadn't even said goodbye, though he must have known he wouldn't come back again. She had known nothing until Uriel came in, the archangel's distinctive heart-shaped face almost white, and told her what had happened.

Uriel had always been a sympathiser with the Rebellion, though secretly. In public, she declared her allegiance firmly to God's side of the war, and never let word drop of what she truly felt. Which was why she'd been given the keys of Eden to guard.

And Lucifer, sweet, kind Lucifer with all his ideals, had tired of petitioning God and taken matters into his own hands. Uriel had given him the keys, and he'd gone to Eden himself and given the humans the apple, the Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. He'd set it up elaborately, so that there appeared to be no doubt that Uriel had been tricked into giving him the keys.

And then Uriel had come to see her, and with her she'd brought another set of keys. Her voice had been low and intense, serious, and it still echoed in Anael's mind.

'The place he's been thrown into, I don't know much about it, except that it's a place of punishment. I looked at it from one of the high towers, and I saw fire. The way is locked, but I have the keys. Anael, if you want to go there… if you want to see him again, one last time… It will cost you a lot, God will find out for sure, but I know you love Lucifer. I thought I should give you the chance.'

And Anael couldn't say no. How could she, when the angel she loved was lying, battered and broken and injured, in some burning wasteland. She had to go to him. Nothing could have stopped her, not wind, not rain, not lightening, not pleas, not threats, and certainly not fear of what would happen after.

And now she stepped lightly, never looking back, never swerving from the path, towards this Hell, with the impassive flames curling around her. They grew higher the closer she got, until they towered above her, but she wasn't afraid. She had no time for fear, for this would be the last time she would ever see him, her Lucifer, her sweet, sweet angel, and separation from him had been her worst fear. Now that had happened, how could anything worse befall her?

And into Hell itself. Flat and grey as far as she could see, the flames burned high in places, left the ground empty and bare in others. She could feel Lucifer, now, like a faint familiar touch at the back of her mind, and she followed the feeling. Where she could, she avoided the flames.

Time didn't pass here. One heartbeat was the same as the next, but for the flames being different shapes. But she knew she was going in the right direction. She began to find the other fallen angels.

Some she knew, some she didn't, but the sight of all of them sickened her. That angelkind could do such things, commit such atrocities. She saw those with broken bones, massive bruises, gaping slashes, feathers torn, skin burnt black, wings ripped off, missing limbs… And other things, things she didn't dare to think about, because if she had they would have haunted her nightmares forever.

How could God ordain this? How could they justify so much pain, so much punishment? How could those angels who'd been selected to punish the rebels have done these things without screaming at the horror of it?

As much as she desired to, she couldn't stop to help them. If God should find out she was here he'd snatch her away, subject her to whatever punishment he chose, and she had to hurry to Lucifer before he did so. She had to see him…

Onward and onward, closer and closer, letting her senses pull her towards him, towards her beautiful Lucifer, and all the while she was sick with terror of what they'd have done to him, how they'd have hurt him, as the leader of the rebels. She didn't want to see him hurting, didn't want to see him in pain. She loved him too much, and the sight would tear her apart.

If she hadn't been able to sense Lucifer, she wouldn't have recognised him. As she felt that he was close, she began to look around carefully, checking every angel that she passed to see if she recognised her lover's familiar features.

Then she came across an angel, beaten even worse than the others, and in half a heartbeat she knew. She took in his injuries quickly, like a blow to the stomach, as though everything that had happened to him hurt her too and if she only saw them for a short space of time they wouldn't hurt as much.

Half his chest was engraved with deep cuts, and one particularly deep slash allowed entrails and organs to be seen, as though an eagle had been eating his liver. One wing was torn off, the other tattered and ripped, torn and broken. His arm was bent at an odd angle. Blood lay pooled about him, soaked into his hair, turning blonde to crimson and soft silk to hard mats. His legs were a mass of blue bruises, lined with vicious weals and burn marks.

And, already knowing who he was, she looked at his face, and under the blood and the cuts and the swellings and bruises were all the features she knew so well, his features, Lucifer's face, and suddenly her legs wouldn't hold her and she fell down, with a soft sob, by his side.

To suffer so much, to endure so much, beaten and battered and tortured and broken for being brave enough to do what was right! Every wound, every burn, every injury seemed to stand out, to scream at her, and she couldn't turn her eyes away as the image of Lucifer, her Lucifer, her beautiful, kind, sweet angel, burnt itself into her memory, so that every time she closed her eyes she would see it.

Choking softly, she reached out and grabbed hold of his wrists, making herself be sensible, practical, keeping her head though all she wanted to do was scream and rail at the cruelty that allowed this to happen. Concentrating hard – healing wasn't one of her strengths – she forced herself to find the gashes and bruises in her mind, to soothe them, to bring skin together, to mend bone, to replenish lost blood. Under her weak power, his injuries were slow, sluggish to respond, and she forced all of her willpower, all of her love for him into this, into the healing.

And eventually, she felt his hands grasp her wrists weakly, and a soft, smooth voice whispered, longingly, 'Anael…'

She opened her eyes to see his face, still injured and scarred, looking up at her with pain and love and anguish in his golden eyes. Feebly, he mouthed her name again.

'Lucifer,' she whispered in return, feeling her throat tighten with the pain of what she knew would be their last meeting, and all she wanted was to fling herself at him, into his arms where she was safe, and stay there forever. But she couldn't, he was still too weak…

As if he knew what she was thinking – he often did – he spoke again. 'Don't heal me any more. I'm okay. You'll wear yourself out…'

'You're not okay,' Anael whispered in reply. 'You're still weak, too weak, your injuries…'

'I'm strong enough.' Even his voice was a shadow of what it once had been. 'I'm stronger than…than most of the others.' And here, a bitter note to his voice, harsh and angry. Anael reached out to stroke his hair, usually so soft, like touching fine mist, but now clotted with blood. He smiled at her touch.

'You shouldn't have come,' he told her softly, almost mournfully. She sighed.

'Do you think I could have kept away?' she asked, letting her hand drift across his cheek. 'Away from you?'

'You should have,' he responded firmly. 'They'll punish you, Anael, and you know they can punish us in ways unimaginable…'

His voice broke on the last word, and he turned his face into her hand, eyes closing, like a small child seeking comfort. The scars and injuries from his recent punishment were all too noticeable in that moment, and Anael knew - perhaps by some bond of empathy to her love – that the physical torment was not all he'd suffered through.

'What did they do to you?' she asked breathlessly, horrible imaginings flickering through her mind. The flames around her seemed to give shape to her fears; from the corner of her eyes she was certain she could see figures, angels, engaged in horrible, repulsive, hideous acts of torture. 'How… how did they…'

He didn't let her finish, interrupting sharply. 'No,' he said. 'It's too… This is our last night together, Anael, my sweet, loving Anael… And I won't taint it by telling you such things. I have to spend eternity here. I want this final meeting to be happy, to give me something good to look back on…'

A lump crystallised in her throat, hard and jagged and painful, and the tears that had been threatening to fall for hours finally pressed their way to the front of her eyes, to burn like acid. It really was their final night, their last time together, the very last… As the first tears fell with a dry sob, blurring her vision, she felt Lucifer sit upright, swiftly putting his arms tight about her, hugging her, curving his one good wing around her, holding her head against his shoulder so that she could cry easily.

'Don't cry, Anael, please don't cry. Give me something to remember, something good and pure and beautiful…'

For his sake, she tried to control herself, gasping in deep gulps of air to dissolve the hard lump that blocked her throat, blinking away the tears. At last she could speak freely, although her voice was a raspy whisper. 'Why, Lucifer, why did you do this to me?'

'You know why,' he said softly.

She shook her head against his shoulder. 'No. No, I don't know why. I've lost you forever, forever and forever…why did you do this, why did you hurt me so?' Her voice was pleading, desperate.

'Hush, please, please…' He sounded stricken, frantic with the desire for her to calm. 'You know why I did it, why I had to do it…'

Her misery shattered, now indignant. 'For the sake of… of two animals!'

Lucifer sighed. 'If they'd have been mere animals, I wouldn't have done it.' He paused, pulling back to meet her soft blue eyes with his golden ones, his fingers still tangled in her hair. 'You saw them. Adam and Eve. They were… too intelligent to be animals. With speech, and a sense of self, and creativity…'

She cut in sharply, bitterly. 'I've read your propaganda.'

'Then you know why I did what I did,' he replied. A wave of weakness washed over him – both physical and mental – and he half-leaned, half-fell against Anael's shoulder. She let him.

'I hate you,' she whispered.

'I know,' he said, and pulled her closer to him. 'Don't. Don't hate me for what I did. For saving a race of beings from… mindless servitude.' His eyes sparked. 'For rescuing them from lifetimes of boredom. For giving them the ability to use their intelligence for good, for evil, for creativity, for love, for passion, for poetry, for philosophy, for art, for stories, for science…'

Anael laid a finger delicately on his lip, stopping his speech, and looked up at him with tears in her eyes again. 'No,' she said, her voice quiet and strangely high. 'I hate you for getting thrown down here, where I'll never see you again…'

He gave a strangely painful half smile. 'Oh, Anael, I hate myself for that too,' he told her, and brushed a strand of her hair out of her eyes. 'But I had to do what was right. I couldn't have lived with myself if I hadn't. Those two humans will breed and produce hundreds, thousands, even millions of the race of man. And now that race will be able to truly live, to think and create like we do. Not just sit in a garden all day, following His orders without question…' Lucifer sighed. 'Do you forgive me?' he asked.

'Yes. I can't stop myself from forgiving you,' she smiled weakly, resting her head on his shoulder. 'But I don't want to be separated from you. I love you. I love you so much it scares me…'

He nodded, his cheek rubbing against the top of her head. 'So much it hurts, so much it burns…' He clutched her tighter, suddenly afraid, and the fires of Hell reflected in his eyes.

They lapsed into silence, as the two lovers clung to each other, wishing that each fleeting instant could last an eternity, wishing that they could stay together, wishing that they would never have to part. Anael curled close to his chest, tucking her wings tightly against her, and listened to the soft sound of his breathing, to the distant thump of his heartbeat, as she had done so many times in the past and would never do again. Never again.

She forced herself to think of something else, to break the silence. 'He's changing the history. Well, trying to,' she told him. 'He can't change what the angels know, but He's recording a different version of events for mankind.'

'Does He think I'd care?' Lucifer asked with a bitter laugh. 'He can't hurt me any more. What's He saying about me?'

She took a breath. 'He's telling them that you were jealous and power-hungry, so you led a group of rebel angels against him to usurp his throne and got thrown out of Heaven. And then you gave mankind the apple, because you were evil.'

'Evil?' he echoed in puzzlement. 'How can giving a race of beings the potential to use their abilities be seen as evil?'

'He's not telling them that before the apple they were little more than animals…' Anael informed him with a sigh.

Lucifer nodded morosely. 'I would have expected no less of Him,' he said. 'Damn it, Anael… I don't want to talk about this. I just want to… to forget it all, all of the politics, the rebellion, the humans, the apple, the past, the future… all of it. It's our last night. I don't want to waste it.'

She laced her arms tightly around him. 'We won't.' she promised. 'We won't.'

They held each other as tightly as they could, his good wing tight around her and pressing her even closer to him, as though by clinging together they could flow into one being, two souls in one body, and never, never be separated. She ached where he didn't touch, burned where he did, and knew it was the same for him as he drifted his fingers up and down her back, murmuring soothingly.

Needing him, she leant upwards and kissed him, hard and passionate and desperate, and he kissed back with just as much love, just as much need. His mouth tasted of blood and pain, and she wept for him even as she drowned in his touch, in his warmth, in the fires that burned around them. And for a moment, it felt like they were one and the same being, spread across all infinity and all eternity and able to do anything they wanted. But that was only an instant, and then they weren't and couldn't.

Much later, he slept; a deep, healing sleep that would help the physical wounds, if not the mental ones. Anael lay awake and held him tightly, cold tears wetting her cheeks, until a pair of angels came to take her away as she'd known they would eventually.

She left in silence. There was no sunshine, no candlelight for her anymore: Lucifer had been her light, and he was gone forever.

~*~

Michael was the judge, standing on the high platform of the courtroom, looking down at Anael without emotion. From this angle, his cheekbones were sharply angled, the pure white light that shone from the high ceiling creating odd patterns of light on his face.

Behind him was a sheer marble cliff that went upwards and upwards, disappearing into the heavenly light far above. Down the face of it ran a silent stream of water, falling over the icy stone soundlessly, eerily, then pouring into the deep channels on the ground which had been cut to channel the water away, to other parts of Heaven. Cut deeply into the cliff face were several deep alcoves, in which sat the highest of the Archangels, watching over the judgement, though only Michael had the power to pass sentence. Anael's eyes fixed themselves on the empty alcove to the left of Uriel, where Lucifer used to sit, and her throat tightened. If only he were here, she could bear any punishment they named, if only he were here…

Uriel caught her eye briefly, with a sad, pitying look, and Anael looked away, feeling tears come to her eyes. She couldn't cry, not at her trial. People would take it as fear.

The last angels filed in, and all at once, as if at some signal, the watchers ringed behind her on their carved tiers of seats fell silent, leaning only the faint sound of a thousand angels breathing, of feathered wings brushing together. Michael fixed Anael with his sharp gaze.

'Are you the Angel named Anael?' he asked, as tradition and protocol demanded. Anael forced air into her throat, fought the lump of emotions, and spoke.

'I am.'

'Anael, you are charged with the crime of sympathising with the leader of the rebel angels, and indeed, visiting him in the place of punishment called Hell. Do you accept these charges as true?'

There would be no use claiming it as a lie; they had seen her, torn her from his arms. 'I do.'

The court was silent, every pair of eyes fixed on the scene, on judge and accused, each one, no doubt, praying for some different outcome, some different punishment. Michael drew breath, his expression as impassive as the marble behind him, and spread his wings to their full length, preparing to give judgement.

'Anael,' he said, loudly and clearly, 'it is the will of the Almighty that, for this crime, you suffer punishment.'

She met his gaze, trying to stay calm, without fear. Inside, she was clinging to her last thread of hope – please, send me to Hell, with him, with Lucifer, please…

'You shall be cast out of Heaven,' Michael went on, 'and shall serve your exile in Eden, guarding the Garden against any humans who find it.'

She was numb. Somewhere inside her, very distantly, there was screaming, a pure and unending note of ultimate loss, but that was locked in ice and marble and drowned in rivers of pure water.

Michael's eyes narrowed. 'For eternity.'

~*~

Time didn't pass here. Nothing changed, as though Eden were trapped in amber, preserved forever in a moment of complete perfection. The rich earth was coated thickly in verdant grass, dappled with light beneath graceful trees. Flowers were bursting with life, in all colours, shapes and sizes, petals as delicate as skin, which trembled in a breath. It never rained, here – only the eternal sunlight of a perfect summer's day – but a river fed the plants, its waters like liquid diamond, sparking in the golden sunshine.

Paradise. Supposedly.

But not for her, not for Anael: her paradise was far away in a world of fire, and she ached to be near him. There was no fire in the Garden, save for her sword, which she had been given to defend Eden from intruders. Silver-bladed, with a divine flame burning around it, a thing of fearful beauty.

The fire fascinated her. She looked deep into it, staring into the heart, and it seemed that the dancing, twisting patterns created images. Faces, smiling out at her from the flames. Lucifer.

Alone in the Garden, she would stare into the flames for days, hungry for his face, for his eyes, for his smile, and when she saw him she would reach into the burning fire and try to catch him with a desperate cry. But the flames always shifted, and he vanished, and she was left alone. Then she abandoned her sword, weeping, and wandered the Garden.

He was everywhere. She'd glimpse him in the branches of a tree, sitting on the riverbank, lying in the grass, and cry out in delight, but he was never there. It was always a clump of yellow flowers, or the pattern of the light, or nothing but imagination and wishes.

She would have given anything not to be in this place, to be able to leave it, to be able to fly down to Hell and lose herself in his arms, in his touch. She didn't sleep anymore, had forgotten how to sleep, but if she had all her dreams would have been of him, of being with him, of holding him to her and never letting go…

As it was, she dreamt while awake, till dreams and reality merged. She saw him continually, a phantom of her dreaming, and for a while she would believe herself with him, speaking to him, and she would laugh and cry in shaky joy. Until she realised that he wasn't really there at all, and she lost him again, and her heart broke again, cracking into sharp and painful splinters.

She traced his face in the bark of the trees, and wept, and curled herself into a ball and wished for an end. But angels were immortal, and couldn't die. Eternity. She would be here forever, and would see her love's face again and again, forever, and lose him again and again forever.

No. She formed the syllable in her heart, then in her mind, then with her mouth as she screamed 'No! No! No!' over and over again, making Eden ring with her cries, shaking the trees to their very roots. No. It couldn't be like this, she couldn't have lost him forever, eternally. There had to be a way to find him again, to reach Hell and be with him, simply because this couldn't last forever. She couldn't suffer forever. She couldn't.

So she wandered the Garden, stumbling, calling out his name. And it seemed that at every turn she saw him, but he was a dream, not real at all, and it hurt more and more. Eden and Hell, Heaven-on-Earth and Heaven's opposite, two places as far away as could be yet she had to get from one to the other, had to reach him… Both places were eternal torment, weren't they, so they must connect somewhere…

Fire.

She snatched up the burning sword, screaming in fury and pain and suffering, and spun to slash at a tree, carving a deep line in it that sprang to fire, flames licking on Paradise's luxuriant growth. Within the flames, she saw Lucifer reaching out to her. Burn Eden, and Eden will be like Hell, and Eden will be Hell, and she would be with him, and he with her…

She screamed, a wordless, endless scream, and with her eyes burning she spun her way through Eden, slicing and cutting and setting alight. The flames caught, and all of Eden soon roared with flame, crackling as trees turned to ash, delicate flowers to dust. Anael plunged the sword into the river; the divine fire could not be extinguished, so the liquid boiled and steamed, the thick white cloud scalding her, but she didn't care, she was going to be with Lucifer again.

There was nothing left to burn. Looking round like a lost child, she dropped the sword to the burning ground. Divine fire couldn't burn her, but it hurt. She hadn't even been aware of it.

Lucifer?

Where are you?

She called his name aloud, eyes frantically roving the Hellish landscape, questing for her love, her only love, but he was nowhere. But she would be with him soon, wouldn't she? With Eden burning, almost Hell, she was almost with him, she simply had to wait…

Dropping to the floor, she curled up inside the flames, staring into them, waiting for Lucifer to become real. Eden was destroyed, and Anael lay in the burning flames, her flesh scorching, silent and motionless, waiting for her life, her light, her love.

Eden was burning. And she saw that it was good.