This Hell is dreadfully cold, Percival thought as he looked down at the ashy earth stretched out before him through the window. Lily's Hell was never this cold, chilly yes but never this cold.
The wind blowing through from outside was dry, harsh and sharp, cutting through him like a blade slicing through flesh.
At the thought of that Percival remembered the blades of aiònios stabbing through his heart, the feeling of his body crumbling to the ground and his eyes closing as blood gushed out of him like a fountain.
Even then, when the world was a white canvas of pain and anguish, he'd thought of his Julika, just the image of her in his mind numbed the pain, he'd almost succeeded in bringing her back, but alas, almost was never enough.
"Thinking about Julika again?" came a voice.
Percival didn't need to look up to know who it was, the voice was as familiar as the cold around him.
"What do you want Lucifer?" Percival said.
He heard Lucifer chuckle lightly and turned to face him.
He was in his true demonic form as he usually was in his Hell dimension. His features were all animalistic; ram's horns, bat's wings, cat's eyes, and yet he was beautiful, an inhuman and dangerous beauty, like the beauty of a lightning strike or the beauty of a meteor shower.
Lucifer walked steadily forward, his hands clasped behind his back.
"How are you enjoying the house?" Lucifer asked with a flourish. "Better than the last one was right?"
Percival looked around disdainfully.
The room was like any other room in a mansion, the space excessive, the furniture grand, a fire burning in the grate like a twinkling star. Percival hadn't known that there were mansions in Hell as well as in Heaven, but there were, and he had the biggest of them all.
"None of it's real" Percival said as he turned to face the window again. He could hear the slur in his own voice, the hopelessness he'd been feeling since he got here was as evident as pain. "It's all an illusion, just like you"
Lucifer scoffed. Percival could hear the smile in his voice.
"I wonder how long you've been waiting to say that to me" Lucifer said.
Percival didn't answer, instead he focused on the horizon, where shining stars kept falling from the dank misty sky and crashing into the ground.
The souls of the wicked.
"We had a deal" Percival said as he watched souls fall from grace. "You're the one who came to me, saying you would help me if I sold my soul to you, you said I would see her again and you lied"
He heard Lucifer walk forward, his feet tapping almost soundlessly against the tiled floor.
"I always lie" Lucifer said as he walked. "But I never lied to you, you did see her again, did you not?"
"You know it's not the same" Percival said. "I never even got to hear her voice"
"That is the Nightshade's fault, not mine"
Nightshade.
The name sent a bolt of resentment coursing through him.
Lucifer reached him and placed a hand on Percival's shoulder. Percival wore nothing but a cloth at his waist and could feel Lucifer's cold hand on his bare skin, shivers ran up and down his body.
"Sulking isn't necessary" Lucifer said. "We both lost something to the Nightshade boy, I lost the key and you lost your daughter, but if we work together we can both get what we want"
"And how do you suppose we do that, neither of us can leave this Hell, this suffering, I am dead and you are trapped here for eternity"
"Don't remind me" Lucifer said, there was ice in his tone, and the slightest trace of sadness. He recovered from it quickly.
"But never fear, one thing I have learned over millennia is that there will always be loopholes, and you should know as a talented necromancer that death is not the end of life, there are many ways to live"
Percival turned to face Lucifer. He realized that they were very close together, and that Lucifer smelt like fire and ashes and burning but he never radiated any heat. Only cold.
"Something tells me you have a suggestion" Percival said.
Lucifer smiled.
"I could make you a shedim, not just any shedim, but magnus shedim, a Greater Demon, you would have power, immortality, and you would no longer be confined to this prison"
"Maybe not but I would be tied to it" Percival said.
"But you would be able to see her, love her, even if from a distance" Lucifer said, his voice had that sadness in it again, like a bitter longing. "Believe me when I say that that is better than nothing"
Percival looked away from him, unable to look at the rawness on the devil's face, and focused on the horizon again.
Was it truly better than nothing, to live as a creature of shadows forever, to be afraid of all that is good and pure, to forever be a part of the darkness.
"I want to believe you" Percival said, though he could hear the uncertainty in his voice. "But how do I know the Nightshade will not just succeed again, he is very powerful, I never expected him to be so"
He remembered the burning blue of the Nightshade's eyes, the gleam of his blades under the moonlight. It haunted him still at times.
"Of course he is, he is my chosen one after all" Lucifer said. He brought out his hand and a ball of black fire hovered over his palm.
In it Percival could see moving images, a dark haired boy straining against a thread of gold, a nymph looking down from a throne of ice, a hybrid sparring on a frozen sea, a kitsune ripping through an animal's flesh, a purple haired boy watching over a boy in a hospital bed, and a blue haired girl riding through the sky on a pegasus.
"But the only thing greater than power is a plan" Lucifer said, the slits in his eyes growing like sword slashes as he stared at the blue haired girl. "And I have a plan like no other"