is this just an excuse to write gabriel/beelzebub interactions? maybe. but who's stopping me? anyways. this was really fun to write and i hope you like it! all the characters are from the shattered stars universe, because i can't write anything else right now. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- God lived on an isolated island in the middle of a little ocean, or so she liked to think. Born from the waters and yet still giving the impression of floating upon them, the plot of land was a small thing, especially when compared to the infinity of ocean around her. The airy cottage perched on the green-smelling hills was open and soothing, always flooded with sunlight so that dust motes drifted calmly within, never settling on the furniture. The bed was made with soft sheets and a familiar bed-frame, and the picture placed on the humble table beside was vague, never settling on an image, but the impression it gave was comfortable. The flowers, not having a quite name or type, were perfect and rounded in the sense of a nice garden in some French painting. Nothing was definite on the little island, all a vague impression of a kind home to retire to, perhaps, or at least one that would remain more than agreeable even if one were to be trapped there for an eternity, which was both exactly what she was and exactly what she wasn’t. This was the place, at the very least, she supposed she would want to live in if she could live at all. Everything there, all the times she had walked its corridors and traced its furniture, were just imprinted memories, true and fabricated all at once. A little part of her was there in some way, somewhere, every time of her eternal day. Her first children, she thought occasionally, were visitors when they wished. The pair bickered, as usual, and with every action, every fake breath they drew, every cruel decision and every tossed pair of dice she loved them a little more. Outside of her home she saw them too, but out there was business; out there was all dice and cards and one more tiny crack in her proverbial heart she so wished she possessed. “Hi, loves,” she greeted, crossing the dirt path leading to the dock. The two stepped out of the rocky boat that never actually went anywhere, the demon nearly falling straight over into the sea while the angel giggled. “Hi, mom!” the angel called, absently grabbing onto the demon to prevent them from tipping the boat. “Hullo,” the latter said. They stepped onto the dock precariously, still clinging to the other. “How long has it been now?” she asked, tilting her head and smiling. “A millennia?” “Momma,” said the angel, “it’s only been ten. That’s barely a second. I swear we’re not trying to avoid you.” She smiled even wider. “I know. Come on, we can sit and you can tell me about how everything’s going.” A basket full of bread, along with a full jar of grape jelly and a tin of butter had manifested itself on the wooden dining table the moment she opened the door for her children, quaintly. She watched them as they took their usual seats. The angel took a loaf of bread absently and began to slice it, passing a piece to the demon beside them. “So,” she said, drawing a chair across from them and lacing her attempts at fingers, “how has everything been lately? Not too bad, I hope.” Their faces flickered with bad news and their hands tightened, clasped together under the table, but that was as far as they got into the explanation. A glimpse of chaos was all she could see from behind the glass. And then there was a glitch, and they were talking about something else. She always asked the question, but she never got an answer. She couldn’t get an answer; that was the whole point of it. Dead was dead. “I really don’t see the point of. Ahem. Tap shoes,” the demon was saying. In reality, they had had this discussion many times over, wearing it thin, but she liked hearing it. It comforted her, in a way. “They’re fun,” the angel responded. “It’s for enjoyment.” “I’ve never gotten the point of that, either. You very much terrify me.” Though the last remark was quite undermined by the fact that the demon was now laying in the angel’s lap, the latter stroking their fingers through their black hair, playing with the many white flowers that now adorned it. (cont)
(cont below) The two of them had names, given by the humans long ago, and she knew that. But they were born without them, and because they were her first children, and by extent the most important of them, she never thought to give them a distinction. They didn’t need them, after all. The angel blankly stroked a hand over the demon’s cheek, and they bit them lightly. “Ow,” the angel said, and frowned. God smiled. Really, it was nice just to watch them like this. A triplet daughter of God, the one specifically attuned to the more immoral sort of duties, stood in her little shrine-cellar under the cathedral and lodgings of her Sisters. She touched a hand softly to the surface of the gently glowing looking glass, running it along the carvings. “Love you, mom.”
