War of Existence : - The Beginning of Saga

And so it begins

Darkness surrounded him. It was pitch black and not a spark of light was visible in the endless void.

“Where am I?”

“What am I doing here?’

His questions were left unanswered and the silence was deafening. He was all alone, floating in the void of Oblivion.

After what felt like a millennia, he heard a faint voice. It was a welcome change and he searched for its source.  It was a woman, a very beautiful woman. She had long raven blue hair, soft violet eyes. White flowing robe covered her body and her pale yet stunning face held a kind smile.

“You came!”Her honey like voice filled his soaring ears. “I was so lonely….” He knew that woman and couldn’t help but feel his chest get heavy. The woman tried to reach out for him but he flinched away. A frown came on her face but it was soon replaced by a knowing smile.

“Don’t worry or blame yourself, I forgive you….Come to me...” His eyes threatened to water at this as the woman opened her arms towards him and gave a bright and kind smile. A smile he once loved so much, a smile he thought he wouldn’t ever see again. “Come back to me Lucifer…you’re tired now, just let it go.”

His eyes grew heavy as he felt the woman’s warm hands embrace him. Oh, how he missed this. He gave into the warmth for he was tired now. He needed to rest and in the woman’s warm embrace, he felt like a huge weight has been lifted off his shoulder. He was at peace now and was ready to fade away in the Oblivion.

“LUCI!” another voice yelled.

  ‘That voice?’

“LUCI!” it called again and it sounded closer this time.

Slowly recovering from his shock, Lucifer finally got the power to acknowledge the voice, “Luna?” He asked in his low and raspy voice.

He searched for the source of Luna’s voice and saw a ray of light that chased away the darkness surrounding him. He could make out a silhouette of a girl and her hand reached out towards him. Using what all strength he had left he tried to grab it as well, the light intensified and soon it blinded him.

                                                                                       ---X---

He jerked upright when he felt someone shake him by his shoulder. His breath was laboured and his heart was beating at an incredible speed. He looked around and found that he was in an alley and not the void. It had been just a dream.

“Hey you okay, Luci?” Lucifer’s shifted towards the owner of the voice and visibly relaxed. It was a girl, who appeared to be in her late teens. Her long crimson hair tied up into a ponytail, peach skin with ghostly silver eyes and stood two heads shorter than him, fancying a deep orange robe. The man rubbed his eyes and mumbled “Oh it’s you Luna.” He practically sulked back on the ground and leaned against the wall.

Luna gave him a wide grin and said or more precisely yelled “Aw COME ON old man, you can’t be that tired! Stop quite being droopy and let’s go already!”

The red head forcefully yanked him up on his feet and dragged him away out of the alley.

Lucifer scoffed “Hey, I don’t look that old you know...” he grumbled and freed himself from Luna’s grip. He walked over a window and used its glass as a compromised mirror. Running his hand through his side shaved Blond hair; Lucifer rubbed away some filth form his beard to make sure it was presentable. His blue eyes scanning his aged features, especially the long downward scar over his left eye. Dusting his wardrobe consisted of a black shirt and quite dirty brown coat, with deep green trouser and worn boots. He seemed satisfied that he was at least decent enough to be labelled as presentable.  

“Yah-Yah, Whatever….Let’s get going already!” the excited girl exclaimed bubbly and exited the alley into the city while Lucifer’s protest was ignored. As they made their way through the crowded city Lucifer noticed that people were giving Luna questioning looks, mainly due to her odd clothing which stood out amidst the crowd of men who wore Victorian outfits.

‘Of course she would stick out!’ Lucifer scoffed and shot Luna a mild glare. She seemed to have noticed this and asked innocently, “What?”

“I told you that your clothes would stick out….” He hissed. But Luna innocently tilted her head and said merrily, “But these are the last clothes I have had since our last ‘Travel’....” Luna put extra emphasis on the word ‘travel’, “and we’re practically broke right now.”She added. Lucifer narrowed his eyes at this but they knew that the girl was absolutely right, no matter how much he hated it. He sighed in defeat and followed his companion.

He looked around him and finally got a good look of the city he was in. The city was huge. With stone pavements and roads filled with people, carts and vehicles loaded with goods or aristocrats. The towering buildings made up of stone and mostly metal with each possessing chimney with multiple assortments of pipes running along its edges and even over the road. Black smoke and mist clouded the sky making it misty, giving it a cold and gloomy feeling. The streets were at places covered with puddles of water and filths along with occasional dirty vagabonds adding more to the charm.

‘It’s been so LONG hasn’t it’ Lucifer let his train of thought run free as he aimlessly walked down the dirty stone pavement ‘So long since I was exiled’ He bumped into a man who apologised and went on his own way. A sharp whistle blew and a vehicle made of metal giving off steam zoomed pass the street. A Guard marched past him while Lucifer looked the other way to avoid eye contact. His eyes bolted up to a device hanging upside down at the middle of the street via suspension sprung alive in a mass of static and started conveying news and instruction, ‘So many years of wandering from one world to another.’ Lucifer took a deep breath and let out a puff of hot cloud from his mouth showing that it was very cold outside. Soon it started snowing lightly but the people were unfazed by it for it usually snowed in daily basis ‘This too is such a World. Siraya*, the land of Four Moons, home of the Vorkens*…’ Pushing those thoughts aside, Lucifer looked up and he could make out the faint outline of the Four natural moons of Siraya even if the smoke and mist somewhat obstructed his vision. Lucifer walked amongst the people, totally blending in. Not single soul there could imagine that he wasn’t one of them, that he was a being far from their world that happened to stumble at their planet by sheer luck. Not that he minded because it was much better if he didn’t stand out much amongst the locals. He wandered aimlessly and alone….Which seemed wrong.

He was quick to notice the lack of his fiery haired companion.

“Kid?”

He looked around for her and worry crept on his mind when he couldn’t find her.

“KID!” one might say he was overreacting but that tend to happen when a fairly attractive girl gets suddenly lost in a huge crowd and now he was positively freaking out.

“LUNA!”

When he spotted long flowing locks of red amidst the unfamiliar he could finally let go of the breadth he had been unconsciously holding. There she was, leaning on a railing at the other side of the road. Giving a sigh with a mixture of relief and annoyance, Lucifer approached Luna.

She was so engrossed at what she was doing that she didn’t even acknowledged Lucifer’s presence. This peaked his curiosity and he too looked at the direction Luna was looking to see what had raised such interest to his childish friend.

He saw that before him was a huge ravine. There were huge metallic pipes running downwards from either side of the ravine with equal number of pipes joining the two sides, all running in un-orderly fashion. Huge machines with pistons and rotating clogs were there which released unhealthy amount of steam and smoke from its exhaust pipes. Below him he could see many huge platforms housing numerous buildings and what not. In fact, it seemed that the entire city was actually built upon series of other cities.

But what Luna was staring at was the ‘docks’ or at least seemed like it. Located on the other side of the ravine, build on another platform was this so called docks. It had several huge hangers and storage houses along with many workers. Along the edges were an alignment of small red lights and a tower at the either edge of the platform. A huge metal bridge connected the platform and the city, and they looked gloomy and dirty just like the rest of the constructs.

An ear splitting horn blew which startled even Lucifer into a fit and made him look for the source of the sound. Turns out that it was a ship, a huge Galleon shaped ship made of metal plate. And the colossal engineered behemoth was FLYING!

The Galleon was suspended in air by a huge oval shaped balloon like structure with web like sails at its starboard sides with many series of small wing like structures which were constantly flapping to stabilize the ship for landing. As the Galleon* ascended down towards the platform, the landing mechanism of the docks secured the ship to the dock and the dock workers hooked the ship manually while the ship gave out another ear splitting horn. How those Vorken dock workers aren’t having ear problems was beyond Lucifer for he could see that they seemed unfazed by it.

Lucifer shook his head in amusement “Mortals* and their toys….”

He felt a hand take a hold of his own. It was Luna with all her cheerfulness. She smiled “Let’s go Luci, I want to explore a bit more!”

He had no idea why but such gesture would warm him up, even if a little bit. Luna was his friend. The only friend to be exact and even tough Lucifer didn’t admit it aloud, he was damn thankful that he had one. You can’t even comprehend how lonely it gets after wandering the Mortal realm of Cosmos* for over thousand eons.

He allowed himself a small chuckle. Not one of those amused or hollow ones, but a genuine one. It made him feel somewhat alive, somewhat sane.

The next few hours went by, Luna and Lucifer had reached from the Dock district to the Market district by now, which was located on a platform lower than Dock district. The huge platform housing the dock district casted a shadow over the market which was illuminated artificially via countless lighting and thus the district was very much alive even if it was dark. The Market district housed many stores with countless wares to purchase. At the centre of the district was the main plaza housing many stalls selling all sorts of things. Vorkens bustling around, Stall owners promising about prices and quality of their goods with occasional Guards patrolling the market. And some beggars here and there begging for alms until a Guard would come over and ‘escort’ the hippie to the Ground district, which if Lucifer’s limited knowledge served right, was the lowest district, often called ‘the Slum District’.

As Luna dragged poor Lucifer where ever she wanted to explore, he was more occupied about planning his stay in Siraya. Migrating from one world to another was more troublesome than it sound. He had to find a reliable station for temporary stay. Nothing fancy, for he had to remain incognito and try to lessen Mortal interference and interaction. He considered going and trying to learn more about the world by studying by the local library he had seen at the top Residence District and by Lucifer’s personal experience most worlds have a similar basic culture and a way of functioning in every society. Catching the basic was all he needed and he could blend in fairly easy.

From what he had seen, the Mortal societies could be casted as different types, Primitive, Medieval, Modern and Advance. Vorkens were somewhere between Medieval and Modern, so Barter wasn’t a preferred option like in Primitive Society. That means Vorken probably had invented a common source of bartering goods which held a common value and had to be earned by any means, in other world……….MONEY!

Lucifer let out an annoyed groan, he knew mortals fairly well and if Vorkens had money than they were likely to be greedy as well. And he will have to earn money for all the accommodations he will likely have to buy.

While Lucifer’s kind didn’t particularly need to feed constantly like mortals, but……..

“LUCI, I’m HUNGRY!” whined Luna.

His companion did not.

Usually such a childish act of a petite girl would have seemed adorable but Lucifer scoffed and people were now staring at their direction.

“Kid, you know we don’t have money right now so quite making a scene!” he said to the girl in a hushed tone.

But Luna puffed her cheeks and exploded “I’M HUNGRY! And I AIN’T MOVING UNTIL YOU DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!”……………………………….And she sat down at the street.

Lucifer’s face palmed as the onlookers shot them more odd looks and was exchanging hushed whispers.

“Okay fine!” he sighed in defeat and hoisted Luna to her feet. “But keep quite.” Luna instantly beamed with happiness and gave out her most radiant and adorable smile while Lucifer grumbled and lead her towards the more crowded area of the market.

Luna hummed to herself as she was being dragged by the tall Blonde and had to use all her will power not to giggle when Lucifer casually put his hand in a man’s pocket and skilfully took out a wallet which had a decent amount of Vorkish currency without anyone noticing.

Lucifer sighed for about a hundredth time that day. He looked to his side and saw Luna happily munching on a……bread of some sorts with meat filling that he had bought form the money he ‘borrowed’. He himself was actually holding a small bag filled with such bread which Luna will likely eat afterwards. It had always been like this, he ‘worked’ to keep Luna fed and she would again whine for more. Even occasionally demand for trinkets here and there like a child. She was a pain, a liability, a weakness but Lucifer would have had it no other way.

It gave him a reason to be occupied and frankly, he had grown used to it. He had grown used to HER. To the point that it became hard to imagine how it would be without this crimson haired bundle of energy and joy.

“Luci!” Luna called by a pet name only she would dare to call him by, bringing his attention to her. He looked at her, Her White eyes filled with life, her innocent smile filled with happiness and her extended hand which held a half bitten meat bread. Lucifer raised he brow while Luna’s look turned expectant. He knew the jester, the unnecessary yet heart warming jester. He shrugged but took a bite of the meaty bread. Luna’s smile turned into a fill wide grin and Lucifer couldn’t help but chuckle.

Indeed, he had grown used to her……