Little Russia

[YOLF]

Lubei

His eyes widened, transparent in sheer discomfort. Lubei's shoulders tensed, as though he was about to jolt forward to shield her smaller figure from prying eyes or unseen threats, but his arm seized in doubt in the space between them.

"I am not well-acquainted with anywhere outside your influence entirely," he said. If the demon didn't seem to serious, he would appear almost embarassed about it, eyes creased and pointed away so they would not meet hers for this admission. But shaking his head, he slammed his door behind him and crouched to Ivanna's side. Before she knew it, and before Lubei had any explanation to offer in his own expression, he was picking her up in his arms and rising, stalking away with light steps.

"I'll manage something."

It didn't take him long to find the nearest window and click it open before jumping away into the frigid air. As quickly as they rose, he landed on the brick streets behind the palace, veiled from the gusts of the day and the prying days of the seraph's populace. Checking for anyone around them, he headed away from the main streets without ever setting Ivanna down, trotting with inhuman speed. If any of her personal guard saw them, he did not stop, confident that they would not stop Ivanna.

Just like that, the scenery rushed and slipped away before Ivanna truly had any idea what her fixated friend wanted. Less used streets gave way to well-worn but solid roads, those roads to dirt paths, and the dirt paths to a sea of pine and spruce. Bringing her to the dead of the forest closest to her domain, he lept behind an ancient outcropping, and before he set her down, clenched his fist.

A dome of ice closed itself behind the terrain, isolating them from the outside. Lubei let out a breath he had long been holding and allowed her to sit, staring expectantly.

[SINIB]

Lubei

His eyes widened, transparent in sheer discomfort. Lubei's shoulders tensed, as though he was about to jolt forward to shield her smaller figure from prying eyes or unseen threats, but his arm seized in doubt in the space between them.

"I am not well-acquainted with anywhere outside your influence entirely," he said. If the demon didn't seem to serious, he would appear almost embarassed about it, eyes creased and pointed away so they would not meet hers for this admission. But shaking his head, he slammed his door behind him and crouched to Ivanna's side. Before she knew it, and before Lubei had any explanation to offer in his own expression, he was picking her up in his arms and rising, stalking away with light steps.

"I'll manage something."

It didn't take him long to find the nearest window and click it open before jumping away into the frigid air. As quickly as they rose, he landed on the brick streets behind the palace, veiled from the gusts of the day and the prying days of the seraph's populace. Checking for anyone around them, he headed away from the main streets without ever setting Ivanna down, trotting with inhuman speed. If any of her personal guard saw them, he did not stop, confident that they would not stop Ivanna.

Just like that, the scenery rushed and slipped away before Ivanna truly had any idea what her fixated friend wanted. Less used streets gave way to well-worn but solid roads, those roads to dirt paths, and the dirt paths to a sea of pine and spruce. Bringing her to the dead of the forest closest to her domain, he lept behind an ancient outcropping, and before he set her down, clenched his fist.

A dome of ice closed itself behind the terrain, isolating them from the outside. Lubei let out a breath he had long been holding and allowed her to sit, staring expectantly.

Ivanna

The divine loli squeaked as he picked her up and whisked her away into the frigid night. She placed her hand against his chest and wrapped the other one around his neck, simply holding tightly onto him, as if for dear life, until they arrived.

She hopped out of his arms and sat down with a single intoned chord, created small benches of ice for them to sit on.

Then, she just sat. She opened her mouth and squirmed in discomfort, but found herself unable to vocalize her worries, for simply thinking them was the gravest of heresies—let alone vocalize such worries.

So she sat. She looked up at him, and sat.

[YOLF]

Lubei

Lubei stared and waited, because whatever was ailing Ivanna was hers to tell, not his to forcibly extract. He had done his part and brought them to, he hoped, privacy. So why wasn't she saying anything? The silence between two stretching into discomfort, Lubei found the bench she had made in his eyesight, and sat. He could still feel her gaze on him, and it was distressingly warm even as he was surrounded by ice.

"You had something to say." He inclined his head towards the seraph, but evaded her own loaded stare. The demon lord didn't need to read the turbulence behind her face to feel it in her aborted words, in the void that her confident dialogue ought to fill. Lubei continued, "What do you expect from me if you won't, Ivanna? Tell me what you need, if it is within my abilities to... aid. I am here right now to hear it."

[SINIB]

Lubei

Lubei stared and waited, because whatever was ailing Ivanna was hers to tell, not his to forcibly extract. He had done his part and brought them to, he hoped, privacy. So why wasn't she saying anything? The silence between two stretching into discomfort, Lubei found the bench she had made in his eyesight, and sat. He could still feel her gaze on him, and it was distressingly warm even as he was surrounded by ice.

"You had something to say." He inclined his head towards the seraph, but evaded her own loaded stare. The demon lord didn't need to read the turbulence behind her face to feel it in her aborted words, in the void that her confident dialogue ought to fill. Lubei continued, "What do you expect from me if you won't, Ivanna? Tell me what you need, if it is within my abilities to... aid. I am here right now to hear it."

Ivanna

"I did. I do. But I do not know if I should say it—no, that's wrong." She babbled away, squirming in her icey chair. "I know that it is wrong to say—even to think it is the greatest thoughtcrime possible..."

[YOLF]

Lubei

His brow knit in cavernous depth. Lubei's eyes were filled with a churning frustration at the confession, setting off pinpricks in his throat, and a spill of familiar feelings in his chest. He didn't like the premise presented to him, the fear of it in Ivanna, and he thought in an instant to seize her to her feet and swear that he would not judge her. But another part of him held back. What if the idea or deed in question was as severe as she made it out to be, more severe than anything he would ever dare to support? How could promise such shallow support and disappoint her?

Even asking himself this made Lubei Sang scoff. He was no one to consider judging others, and yet... he cared enough to be unsettled at the thought that lack of discernment in those who had found a place in his mind would lead them to wrongful punishment. The demon lord could admit as much, and it was in tune with that reasoning that he heard the shrill call of his unbanishable companion. 'To know you are guilty does not exclude one from recognizing the errors of others.'

This time, he did not feel hurt from the advice. Lubei flattered his face, and said to Ivanna:

"Only you can judge whether something that you have kept to your own mind, and which you have kept from shaping your actions, is wrong. Good intentions may sometimes produce terrible results, and even without malice, someone must bear the karma. Can good results not come even from a mind that thinks of bad intentions, if what they do of their own will is not?"

[SINIB]

Ivanna

Ivanna frowned, and then shook her head. Her brow knitted up in aungish and she seemed to silently chuckle at Lubei's comment.  "No. It is I who judges others for the thoughts they keep in their heads. Mortals may have gained their freedom from their shackles, but the immortal angelic host are mere slaves to Him. I am Seraphim Ivanna, His bloody executioner."

She scoffed at herself and then let out a dry, rasping laugh, looking down at her feet before continuing. She gently twiddled her thumbs as she talked at Lubei. "I was designed with one singular purpose in mind. Can you guess what it is?" Before letting him answer, she said it herself. "I kill, and I never questioned his commandments. But everything is in flux now. I don't know what's right, or what's wrong..."

[YOLF]

Lubei

In this life as a demon, the person beneath the name of Lubei Sang was quite familiar with loathing, though he would scarce admit it. Maybe it was condescending to presume that these circumstances, or his feelings, made him able to understand even a sliver of the angel's. But noise strained her voice, mockery and doubt tearing it apart, leaving the only conclusion that she could express for the feelings in her heart as a deeply unresolved, unsatisfying sermon.

"Ivanna," he said, haltingly. Lubei thought that through the clawing of impossible questions, he could also hear that familiar refrain. Do I even deserve to have an opinion? The plea to be told what is right without gradients nor shades, so you know what to follow. Pitiful and unbearable.

So instead, the demon asked, "Haven't you already achieved many things outside your task? What was your guide towards them, if not what is right?"

[SINIB]

Lubei

In this life as a demon, the person beneath the name of Lubei Sang was quite familiar with loathing, though he would scarce admit it. Maybe it was condescending to presume that these circumstances, or his feelings, made him able to understand even a sliver of the angel's. But noise strained her voice, mockery and doubt tearing it apart, leaving the only conclusion that she could express for the feelings in her heart as a deeply unresolved, unsatisfying sermon.

"Ivanna," he said, haltingly. Lubei thought that through the clawing of impossible questions, he could also hear that familiar refrain. Do I even deserve to have an opinion? The plea to be told what is right without gradients nor shades, so you know what to follow. Pitiful and unbearable.

So instead, the demon asked, "Haven't you already achieved many things outside your task? What was your guide towards them, if not what is right?"

Ivanna

"I have no guide here—His voice is painfully, always, acutely absent." Her golden-blond hair flared with divine fire as she took on her angelic form. Her six glorious wings burst out of her back and tore through her simple dress, leaving her standing in tatters. "For all of my power, for all of my knowledge, I truly feel that I lack the understanding of anything. What even the lowliest and most uneducated wretch has an understanding of! Until my time in the Nexus, I never experienced such a feeling of loss!"

She slammed her foot into the ground with enough force to rupture the earth beneath her. "It is my fear that I was simply sent away to die, so He would not have to risk sending another angel to do my job."

[YOLF]

Lubei

He reeled back at the sudden outburst of radiance, startled by an instinctive fear. If not for the trajectory of his mind, if not for the fact that this seraph had previously beseeched that he call her friend, his reasoning might have agreed with the reaction of his demonic body, but Lubei Sang's mind was perfectly clear, and entirely capable of recognizing her pain.

What kept him in silence for a moment was awkwardness over something else. She couldn't know, but the last thing she said made him squeeze down a fierce cringe. That method sounded exactly like something that he, or rather, his former self, would have done. But if he kept feeling sorry, that would defeat the point here. "I am sorry," he said. The demon lord shook his head, and letting slip the tension from his legs, placed himself on eye level with her.

"I won't say I understand the essence of your loss, but I want you to hear well these words. Even if you had no compass from on high, you still have those who believe. I have met your devoted ones, and their efforts are no less valid for this. I have said I would be your ally for as long as this aid is returned, and I don't intend on making another mistake by taking this promise back. And if you are ignorant, then you have the ability to learn. You are not mortal, be you rogue, wanderer, exile, renegade, or whatever else you consider yourself. You have infinite time to walk towards virtue and to find your own merits."

[SINIB]

Lubei

He reeled back at the sudden outburst of radiance, startled by an instinctive fear. If not for the trajectory of his mind, if not for the fact that this seraph had previously beseeched that he call her friend, his reasoning might have agreed with the reaction of his demonic body, but Lubei Sang's mind was perfectly clear, and entirely capable of recognizing her pain.

What kept him in silence for a moment was awkwardness over something else. She couldn't know, but the last thing she said made him squeeze down a fierce cringe. That method sounded exactly like something that he, or rather, his former self, would have done. But if he kept feeling sorry, that would defeat the point here. "I am sorry," he said. The demon lord shook his head, and letting slip the tension from his legs, placed himself on eye level with her.

"I won't say I understand the essence of your loss, but I want you to hear well these words. Even if you had no compass from on high, you still have those who believe. I have met your devoted ones, and their efforts are no less valid for this. I have said I would be your ally for as long as this aid is returned, and I don't intend on making another mistake by taking this promise back. And if you are ignorant, then you have the ability to learn. You are not mortal, be you rogue, wanderer, exile, renegade, or whatever else you consider yourself. You have infinite time to walk towards virtue and to find your own merits."

Ivanna

The fine white feathers ruffled in a show of extreme discomfort she would never have allowed her subjects to see. "Everything I have done, for trillions of eternities, has been in His name. Every thought, every action, and this is no different. What if I was wrong? Are the people here happy, or brainwashed. With dissent hidden underneath the surface, waiting to be unleashed upon the world in my moment of weakness?"

Ivanna clutched at her forehead, digging long fingernails into her pale skin. Fresh drops of red ichor began to bead on her face.

[YOLF]

Lubei

Lubei's jaw felt so tight he feared it would break, as he seized her wrists, dragging her hands away. He didn't think it was panic, but a churning premonition took hold in his stomach. "Stop! Hurting yourself won't help anything, do you even understand what you're trying to repent for?!" He called out, trying to reach Ivanna through the torment.

The young demon lord had seen and heard various preposterous things in his short time in the Nexus, and almost every time it seemed as they manifested to threaten him to say or do something he would regret. A cold trepidation accompanied every action he took in response, whether they felt just or misguided in hindsight. This time, he forgot all about whether he had the right to make his feelings known, or to aid another, or care for things such as justice. Who had set alight this poison in the seraph's mind? He would not tolerate that Ivanna suffer without clarity or hope.

Lubei squezed her hands. "Ignorance is not a crime, but if you have done anything worthy of punishment, then don't shut your eyes and ears to the evidence out of fear, or you will never learn how to make it better. I don't know if you were wrong, but I understand - you have done your best."

[SINIB]

Ivanna

"Your world sounds positively idyllic in comparison—where I hail from, it is. Only those who accept god into their heart are capable of being saved. Those souls who are deemed the most worthy constitute the next generation of his angellic host. Fuhuhu..." Ivanna laughed into a pained sigh, and the divine light surrounding her seemed to falter. Discussing the details of his host and plans with an unclean one was a grave sin, but the thoughts she put to words and the fears and concerns that had come to dominate her being had a far greater effect.

"Lubei. I shall no longer allow myself to be part of his host. It is corrupt, destitute and lacking in morality. I can have no further part in it."

[YOLF]

Lubei Sang

He could not help but feel the change as a tremble in his blood, holding her arms with a resolved expression. "You speak of rebellion against the divine."

It was a natural extension of what Lubei had been asking Ivanna all this conversation, to recognize the good and ill of her place in the world in its own merits and make her decisions accordingly. But the demon was ordained by his dharma to be in conflict with heaven; the seraph was turning her back on that she had been born to. Their standings were not equal. But from where did dharma flow, and what decided their obligations when they were put upon the earth? Lubei had seen that which rose above and that which fell below, and in this life he lacked an answer. But at last here, his shade made its voice heard.

'It is righteous to turn against evil, but it is not yours the right to upturn the heavens. Remember that even gods are subject to judgement.' So it spoke, and the demon lord knew it to be true. But he would not turn away from Ivanna now.

"What will you do?" He asked.

[SINIB]

Lubei Sang

He could not help but feel the change as a tremble in his blood, holding her arms with a resolved expression. "You speak of rebellion against the divine."

It was a natural extension of what Lubei had been asking Ivanna all this conversation, to recognize the good and ill of her place in the world in its own merits and make her decisions accordingly. But the demon was ordained by his dharma to be in conflict with heaven; the seraph was turning her back on that she had been born to. Their standings were not equal. But from where did dharma flow, and what decided their obligations when they were put upon the earth? Lubei had seen that which rose above and that which fell below, and in this life he lacked an answer. But at last here, his shade made its voice heard.

'It is righteous to turn against evil, but it is not yours the right to upturn the heavens. Remember that even gods are subject to judgement.' So it spoke, and the demon lord knew it to be true. But he would not turn away from Ivanna now.

"What will you do?" He asked.

Ivanna

Ivanna raised her arms to the sky as if in prayer. The sky responded with a resounding crack of lightning slamming into her small form. "Isn't that obvious? I don't know what's happening next. That's freedom." She turned around and looked away from him, bathing herself in her divinely gifted flames. "Was I not right? Is this not the gravest of sins?" She took a breath. "Should I not end myself where I stand? It would be the rightous thing to do—rebellion... does it really suit one as exalted as myself?"

Ivanna chuckled. She just didn't want him to see her crying.

[YOLF]

Lubei

Lubei shook his head slowly. "No decision that is deeply and solely yours is unsuited to your person," he said, but a dark burden slipped into his tone. "This may lack persuasion, but I have trodden a like path before. To overturn the foundations of woe demands sacrifice, and guarantees nothing. Those who are not prepared to carry this karma will become no better than beasts, and lose all sight of their aspiration. To those who carry on will fall the demerit of drenching steel in their blood. These are the wages of rebellion."

The Ascendant Heretic Sunray had not been alone when he rose from the dirt to purge evil, and raised his blade to the celestial dome. He had companions who followed him in his grudge against the heavens, and whether by sharing his impurity, or aspiring too purely to the same deeds, lost themselves and became monsters of karma. Hollow of conscience or restraint, catastrophic in power, it fell to him to kill them. Lubei did not wish that on anyone else.

At least, the figure of Ivanna hiding herself from him stoked images not just of these times, but also of lighter things that taught him again what fondness was. He would keep this to himself, but she reminded him of his younger sister's tenderness. Perhaps that made giving this advice easier.

"If you are willing to fight for your freedom," he continued, "Then think carefully and calmly on what must be done. Consider the costs to others, and determine what you want to achieve, and who is your real enemy. Reflect patiently, think over your conclusions, and then come up with your plan."