raise your horns //...

[paopu]

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matthias for devotion from another life, forbidden to him now and tossed aside long ago. a name of greek origin meaning "gift of God".
for his devotion long ago
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murmur for a skillset honed throughout centuries of collecting souls, throw away by choice. (also murmus, murmuur, murmux). a Great Duke and Earl of Hell, and has thirty legions of demons under his command. he teaches Philosophy, and can oblige the souls of the deceased to appear before the conjurer to answer every desired question. murmur is depicted as a soldier riding a vulture or a griffin, and wearing a ducal crown. two of his ministers go before him making the sound of trumpets. "murmur" in latin means noise, whisper, murmur, and the sound of the trumpet.
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john doe for it's anonymity and mundane nature. the first thing they were called on the surface. john doe is a multiple-use placeholder name that is used in the united kingdom and the united states when the true name of a person is unknown or is being intentionally concealed. can also be used to refer to an average guy.

[paopu]

*if youre sensitive to religious themes I'd recommend skipping this one. it's nothing too intense but Doe here is a demon.

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Love.

Mortals tossed the word around for nearly everything it seemed. They claimed to love all sorts of things from food to games to locations to Lucy whoever or whatever that may be… as far as Doe could tell a human being could literally love anything. There were countless songs written about it and nearly every story came back to it in some form or another. It was infused into their culture nearly as much as hellfire had been into his own. Perhaps even more so. It was absurd to listen to the things they claimed to love.

They didn’t know how lucky they were. They didn’t realize how much they took for granted.

It infuriated him.

He was fairly certain that blood could not safely boil, but that did not stop the feeling from bubbling up from within him. It was a feeling he recognized easily - after all, resentment comes oh so naturally to a demon.

They did not know what they had.

They did not know how many things like him would do to be able to feel that way for even one more second and- no. That way of thinking led to madness. Going back almost always was asking for trouble.

Because he knew what it felt like. Try as he might to forget it he knew what it felt like to be made of Love. He still remembered what it was like to be new. Long before he’d become aching bone and tender muscle, sculpted into a wretched parody of the thing he had once been. He remembered what it was like to just Be, unwound and untouched by an earth that did not yet exist. When the world was just down feathers, stardust, and divine spark.

In fact, he still dreams of it. Not every night, no, but often enough. Of the warmth. Of the belonging. Of the feeling of Grace spreading out from the depths of them. Of the gentle curious humor woven into the connection they had forged with something euphoric to finally. To feel gratitude and proud that they had made something they could call Good.

It was a steady stream, like a drip that bloomed into an ocean through him as a tributary. It was slow and steady, waiting patiently for the tap to turn. To flow out from the space deep inside of him and out into the world in color bursts of life sustaining elements. It is overwhelming to think about now - the act of being allowed to help create.

It meant waking felt like being turned inside out and left behind as nothing but raw, exposed nerves. It was hard every time. Being torn away from the memory of the light light with nothing but cold echoes that bit like frost in its wake, was hard. To have to fight off the desire to reach for the wellspring because he knew there would be nothing but an empty ache there for him to find, held tight and drawn out like the moment before the Fall.

They tossed around love like salt over a shoulder while he stood here, knowing painfully well how it felt to reach for the most holy of loves and feel nothing. But he had made that choice. Just as he would make one now. Just because he had fallen here did not mean he couldn't rise - not back there before, but somewhere in the middle.

It was easier than it had any right to be. Just a simple decision, a whim that catapulted into reality through sheer determination. Be mortal. Be alive. Have the chance to grow and learn and maybe some day even love. And so he was. He rose from the shadows, fleshbound and more real than he had ever been.

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