Title: Rising
Author: scy
Feedback: scynneh@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: Not mine
Fandom: Lucifer
Pairing: Lucifer/Mazikeen
Rating: PG
Spoilers: up through the first volume or so
Summary: She does not trust angels
Author's Notes: These two are so wonderfully complex.
November 2008

Mazikeen had lived in few places during her life. With Lilith, she had avoided the caves where the demons came to see her mother. She had not the permission to stop them and was only allowed to step in when they raised a hand Lilith did not accept. There was nothing but obligation there, and Mazikeen had seen herself there always.

For angels to be among Lilith's visitors was not unimaginable, but for one not to want more than discourse was strange. The Morningstar smiled little and avoided Lilith's invitations, leaving the evening debauchery to his companion and not looking back.

Curious, Mazikeen followed him, keeping to the rocks and shadows, trailing the angel up to where the sun would rise and then spill its light over the valley.

Darkness still lingered with tenacity, and Mazikeen thought she had kept herself hidden when he spoke.

"Come out, demonling."

Holding her sword at the ready, Mazikeen stepped away from the boulder she had been standing behind and stared up at the angel. "How did you know I was there?"

"The darkness."

"It's dark everywhere."

"Any creature who is not touched by the light of Heaven gathers darkness to them," the Morningstar said.

"I do?" Mazikeen glanced down at herself, but didn't see how she could be pulling shadows closer, she was still wearing the torn shift that was all she had ever worn. "Where?"

"Many of the Host would say it is soul, like a small abyss that you carry with you."

Angels. Mazikeen didn't care for their rhetoric or the way that they came to speak with Lilith but pull their robes away from her children as they passed. She spat. "I don't care how black my soul is."

The Morningstar half turned to look at her again, and it seemed something was amused him about her defiance. "No, you truly don't."

"What have angels ever done for me?"

"Given you something to rail against."

The sun surged up over the horizon and Mazikeen's view of it was blocked by the manifestation of the Morningstar's wings. He spread them wide to catch the light, and Mazikeen ducked back from both.

"There is nothing to fear from the light, unless you let it blind you."

"It's too bright," Mazikeen said, and shivered. "It burns." Between the angel and the sun, she didn't know which brought tears to her eyes as she blinked and looked away.

Head tipped back, glowing like a star, he laughed. "Come here, Mazikeen of the Lilim, do not fear light when you are unafraid to stand up to it."

Mazikeen understood the compliment, but didn't trust angels, so she came closer slowly, her knife loose in her hands.

The Morningstar extended one wing over her head so that she was shaded from the sun and could look out over the valley.

"What do you see?"

"I know this place," Mazikeen said. She had explored the lands the Lilim had been given, been to the borders and had not been able to go further. There was nothing new to see in light or darkness.

"Not here," the Morningstar said. "Look beyond the boundaries of what you know, what is there?"

Mazikeen squinted and couldn't make out more than distant shapes of mountains and hills. "I don't know."

"Things are changing. What has been certain must be unsettled, otherwise, there is only the familiar standards and limitations."

Angels didn't talk about being unhappy, not that Mazikeen knew of, and she stared up at the Morningstar.

"Watch for change, child, and you may be swept up a direction that is to your liking."

He didn't say more, and Mazikeen thought about what he said, as they let the sunrise wash over them.

-end