The fire burned lower now, nothing left but cinders.
Sera slept with her back to a tree, katana in her lap, one eye barely closed.
Elian couldn't sleep. His arm pulsed under the bandages — the black veins crawling a little farther every hour. His dreams had started whispering again.
Lucifer sat across from him, sharpening the edge of a jagged rib — demon bone. A trophy, or a weapon. Maybe both.
The silence stretched.
Then Lucifer spoke, soft and slow.
"You know it's not going to stop, right?"
Elian blinked. "What?"
"The thing inside you. The mark. The hunger. It doesn't go away. It just waits for you to get tired of pretending you're not like me."
Elian looked down at his hand. Flexed the fingers.
"I'm not like you."
Lucifer chuckled — dry, amused.
"That's what I said. Back then. When I still had both wings."
The crackling of the fire filled the space between words.
Lucifer leaned back against a rock.
"I used to believe," he said. "In structure. Obedience. Truth. But eventually, when all the bodies start piling up, you realize the difference between 'truth' and 'orders' is just who's giving them."
He eyed Elian carefully.
"So tell me. What made you break?"
Elian hesitated.
Then:
"I saw something I wasn't supposed to."
Lucifer smirked.
"That's always how it starts. Curiosity — humanity's original sin. And you were never even human."
Elian's jaw clenched.
"I still don't know what I am."
Lucifer nodded. "Good. That means you're still choosing."
They sat in silence again.
Lucifer reached into his coat and pulled out a flask — battered, dented, engraved with old celestial markings. He tossed it across the fire.
Elian caught it.
"What's in this?"
Lucifer shrugged. "Whatever got me through the last century."
"…It's glowing."
"Only a little."
Elian took a sip.
And immediately regretted everything.
"Is this… molten regret mixed with lighter fluid?!"
Lucifer smiled faintly. "Close. It's angel-grade. Cleans out the blood. Or kills you faster. Either way, you stop whining."
Elian coughed, wiped his mouth, and passed it back.
"…I don't hate you," he admitted.
Lucifer looked genuinely surprised.
"Thanks. That's the nicest thing someone's said to me since I fell. Once, a demon told me I had 'good cheekbones,' but then he tried to eat me, so it felt insincere."
A beat.
Then Elian asked, "Why'd you help us?"
Lucifer tapped the bone-shard blade against a stone.
"Because I've seen what happens when no one does."
He looked toward the sleeping Sera.
"She's fire. You're flint. And I'm smoke. Together, we're the start of something that can burn this world down — or light it up just enough to piss off the dark."
Elian nodded.
"…That sounded kinda cool until I realized it meant we're probably all gonna die."
The fire was little more than smoke.
The woods pressed close, damp and gray, as if the world itself wanted them gone.
Elian sat with his back to a tree, half-asleep but listening. His arm ached where the black veins crawled beneath his skin. He kept the sleeve tugged down, though he'd caught Sera watching it more than once.
Across from him, she worked her whetstone along her katana. Slow, steady strokes. The kind of rhythm that said this is what's keeping me sane.
"You ever put that thing down?" Elian asked.
She didn't look up. "You ever shut up?"
"…Touché."
They sat in silence for a while, except for the scrape of steel and the occasional drip of water from the trees. Elian tossed a twig into the embers, watched it curl and blacken.
"You really think I'll lose control?" he said finally.
"I don't think," she replied. "I prepare."
"…That's not comforting."
"Good. I'm not here to comfort you."
A crow screeched from a branch overhead, harsh and ugly. Sera glanced up at it, then back to Elian.
"Even the birds don't like you."
He smirked faintly. "Guess they're just jealous."
That earned him the smallest exhale — not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh. Her eyes flicked to his head for half a second before she went back to her blade.
The underbrush rustled. Both of them froze.
Sera's hand tightened on her sword. Elian straightened.
But it was only Lucifer, sauntering into the clearing with a dead raccoon dangling from one hand and a grin that didn't reach his eyes.
"Still alive? Touching." He dropped the carcass with a thud. "I'll cook. Unless one of you wants the honor?"
Sera stood, brushing ash from her coat. "I'll keep watch. He'd probably poison it on purpose."
Lucifer gave Elian a long, amused glance.
"She's warming up to you. Barely insulting me now."
Elian shook his head. "Feels more like frostbite than warmth."
Lucifer grinned wider. "Same difference."
Lucifer grinned.
"Oh, we are. The trick is making sure we enjoy the fire on the way out."
That night, when Elian finally laid down, the whispers were still there.
But quieter.
Sera took the first watch.
Elian tried to sleep. He didn't. The ground was cold, and every sound felt too close — the wind, the trees, Lucifer humming tunelessly as he cooked the raccoon.
After a while, he sat up.
"You should rest," he said.
"I should," Sera replied, eyes on the tree line. "But I don't trust the forest. Or you."
"Fair," he muttered. "Neither do I."
She gave him a sideways glance — sharp, but not hostile this time. More like she was measuring him again, reassessing.
"You keep making jokes," she said. "That a habit or a shield?"
"Maybe both."
Sera made a small sound — not quite a laugh, more like someone trying not to. "You're terrible at it."
"Yeah, well," he said, leaning back against a tree, "you're worse at pretending you don't care."
That got her attention. For a moment, her expression shifted — not soft, not open, but uncertain. Then the mask slid back into place.
"…Get some sleep before I change my mind about letting you," she said, turning away.
Elian closed his eyes, but didn't sleep.
When the wind moved through the trees, he heard her sword leave its sheath — quiet, careful — and he knew she hadn't either.