Read Rapture yesterday and I just absolutely adore Lucinda/Lucifer. I know Lucifer's bad and he put his greed before Lucinda but he DID love her. I mean you don't go and cradle her body seven thousand years later if you never loved her. And he definitely does, he just went about it wrong. I know she's meant to be with Daniel but she did betray him - sure, he was possessive and jealous but still. I LOVE HIM OKAY.

With the Throne absent, the angels began to speculate. It was Lucifer who had put the idea in Lucinda's head first, a horrible, unthinkable idea that gnawed at the sides of her subconscious, almost making her question the Throne. Had He grown tired of the angels? Had He abandoned them for the woes of regular mortal life?

And there was something else.

Something Lucinda could not ignore and could not explain. Something happening deep inside her soul, something that seemed more important than her adoration for the Throne. She shied away from the blasphemous thought – it was so early on that there wasn't even a word for blasphemous. Their adoration for the Throne just was. It was not questioned, there was no such thing as questioning the Almighty.

But still the thought and the feeling grew within her each day. It started within the first moments when He left them. The angels moved as if in a state of flux. They had nothing to adore. They were less as radiant, their souls diminishing slightly without the explicit need to adore Him. It could have been seconds but it could have been years, time did not yet exist in Heaven. He was just creating the Earth, creating time. They moved together never thinking about how long it had been since the Beginning.

Lucinda was reclining on her silver ledge, just as she had so many times before, and stared at the Throne. That in itself should've been impossible but without the incandescent light He made, the Throne was simply a throne.

That was when he walked by. Lucifer. His presence was not surprising, while Lucinda was the third most important Archangel, Lucifer was the most important, positioned directly to His left.

Since He had left them, the angels were able to notice differences between the others, separating them in physical terms rather than just the glow of their souls. She took in Lucifer's square jaw and his auburn hair and his blue eyes that shouldn't be drawing her attention, but they were. He smiled slightly – beautiful, she mused – and she spun her head around quickly towards the Throne. There is only adoration for Him.

There was more talk, more rumours – a thing that had not existed before He left them. Lucinda's doubt grew until the seed was planted firmly in her head. Maybe He had truly abandoned them. Her one true purpose in Heaven was to adore Him, just like everyone else. But with Him gone so far away it felt so hard to remember. Adore him. Adore him.

She found herself walking through the Meadow, waist deep in cloudsoil when Lucifer first talked to her. Properly talked to her.

"Lucinda!" He called, flying from his ledge to where she stood, awaiting him. "What is on your mind?"

She regarded him, the Archangel, the most important and said, "There is only adoration for Him." It was a mantra she had repeated in her head many-a-time and she usually chanted with confidence. It was a statement but her voice lifted at the end, to make it sound like a question.

There never used to be any questions.

She realised as quickly as her wings could lift her off the cloudsoil that she was looking for reassurance. She was looking for answers. She needed to know whether He was coming back for her, and wouldn't He have told Lucifer? He was His most trusted after all.

He smiled at her in a way that she knew made her soul swell and glow as brightly as it did when He was around and she smiled back. Something that made her soul as beautiful as it once was couldn't have been… there was no word for what was rippling through the angels. Not right. Lucifer's smile was Right.

"Lucinda. Come with me."

They walked without any sense of where they were headed, Heaven could go on forever or it could be as small as the Meadow. Was the Meadow small? There were no perceptions of measurement.

So, they walked.

And It began.

The It that would begin the rift in Heaven. The It that would condemn Lucinda to a mortal life for the next seven thousand years. The It that would almost destroy the cosmos.

But, in the beginning, Lucinda welcomed Lucifer into her heart and soul.

"What if I told you there were bigger powers than God?"

Her soul was still burning brightly but her wings rippled in time with her gasp, "There is no being more powerful than God." She stated, tasting the words, knowing their truth, questioning Lucifer. "Every angel knows this Lucifer. You most of all."

"What if I want you to adore me the way you adore Him?"

There was it again. The ripple through her wings that made her feel dirty. Exposed. No. Tainted.

It was almost as if she could feel her soul blackening although she was sure that no other angel would notice the change.

"There is only adoration for Him."

And the he kissed her. The First Kiss.

Lucifer would become famous for his many firsts. He began with the First Idea. And, now, the First Kiss. Later he would become renowned in Heaven for the First Love. And for being the cause of the First Tear. An angel had never cried before he used Lucinda. And from his love for Lucinda and greed for power came the First Lie.

She didn't understand. Her wings reacted, wrapping around the pair and pulling him closer to her, and when their wings touched sparks erupted from them, causing the most intense feeling inside of her body that Lucinda had everfelt in her existence but her mind didn't understand. For the first time she felt like her mind and her soul were two different entities. Her body seemed to be reacting to what her soul needed. But her mind couldn't keep up. What did this mean?

From that kiss, she realised something. There was more than adoration for Him.

The idea had her pushing Lucifer away and running to a portion of the Meadow where the cloudsoil was almost past her wings. She shuddered at the thought, not understanding the emotions passing through her, not understanding how there was more than Him. If there was more what was she? Did she still have to adore? What would happen to her? Would He know when He returned? If He returned?

There was never an 'if' in her mind before Lucifer kissed her.

He ran to her, she sensed his presence drawing ever nearer and she did not know how long she had to wait for him to get to her. She did not know she had to wait at all, only that it took too long.

He reached her, an ugly snarl on his face as he reached through the cloudsoil. It was only when he found her did he relax into that easy grin that she had seen a moment (or a Millennia) after He had left.

Lucinda scrambled back because for a moment, just one little moment before he smiled, when he broke through the cloudsoil, Lucinda could've sworn she'd seen a flash of red in his eyes and gold on his wings.

"What does it mean?" She whispered, terrified.

Terror: another new concept forming itself in the absence of Him.

"It is love, Lucinda." He spread his arms wide and smiled softly before the single, beautiful chord of his soul got louder and more beautiful and more terrifying and the light of his soul burned so brightly she would've been content to have died right there and then.

She had never felt so at peace with herself. She had seen Lucifer's soul burn brightly before, they all had, before He had left them, but it was never to this standard. No angel had ever shone so bright.

Then the sound and glow reduced until it was merely the grey representation of his soul, the same state the rest of the angels were in since He had left.

"Love?" She whispered, still unable to fully comprehend the situation, let alone the foreign word, "What is this love you speak of, Lucifer?" She kept her voice low, mindful of the fact that He may return at any moment and this… thing, this questioning was… it was… wrong.

The word found its way into her head so swiftly and so quickly it was as if she had simply forgotten it for a while. But, no. This was a new word. Invented by Lucinda because of Lucifer's defiance.

The First Wrong.

Lucinda gasped. "Lucifer, this is wrong."

"Love, my dear Lucinda, is not wrong, it is the only Right." Lucifer grabbed her hands in his own, "That spark you feel when you touch me, that is love. It is stronger than any devotion to any God, Lucinda. It is love, and it consumes all."

"The God," Lucinda corrected, brow furrowing, "Lucifer, there is only one God."

He ignored her words and continued, "When I kissed you, when our wings touched Lucinda, that was the only thing that mattered. In Heaven. In that blasted Earth He has created. In any of the cosmos. The connection we have is stronger than all of that."

"I don't understand, Lucifer. There is only Him. There is only Him." She reached her hands to cover her ears in an attempt to silence the questions running through her mind. There is only Him.

But there wasn't. There was Lucifer and his kiss in the Meadow. There was that electrifying moment when their wings had connected. The deepest kind of connection any two angels had ever experienced.

Lucifer had just invented love to describe his inexplicable feelings for Lucinda.

"Lucinda, He did this. Our names, the holiest of names, they are meant to be joined. It is wrong if they are not joined."

"The Morning Star," Lucinda whispered, reaching out to touch Lucifer's cheek, "And the Evening Light."

"We complete each other Lucinda." He whispered back, just as quietly as if he wanted her to fully appreciate the weight of this moment, "Our names represent a full cycle. The cycle is not complete without the other. I am not complete without you."

This time when he kissed her she did not run away.

It was glorious, magnificent and every other word she had used to describe the God who had not told her of love. She believed in Him reverently, adored Him as if He was a part of her but His power had nothing on Lucifer's kiss.

He pulled her closer to him, one hand holding her tightly on the small of her back and another lost in her long tresses of black hair. Her own hands seemed to easily find their spot: one of the curve between his neck and shoulder, one finger caressing the spot where his beautiful wings protruded from his body while the rest lightly gripped onto the back of his neck; the other was lost deep in his auburn hair, threading itself through the locks again and again as if it intended to get lost there forever.

His kiss burned through her. His lips moved hungrily against hers, almost bruising her lips, and she responded, somehow moving her lips over his as if she had been doing it since the Beginning. When the tip of his tongue probed her lip she gasped at the sensation, there had never been a more intimate moment between two beings. But Lucifer still was not satisfied and, taking advantage of her gasp, he slid his tongue into her mouth, beginning a battle with hers as it responded eagerly. He seemed to want to claim, to want to dominate, to want to know every part of her mouth, to truly know her. To know what no one else in Heaven knew. She was the same, tracing her tongue over his teeth, sliding it across his, in a desperate attempt to know him better even than he knew herself.

He pushed her urgently against the wall that was invisible in the high cloudsoil and placed both his hands in her hair, moaning softly into the kiss. Their wings were wrapped around each other in such a tight extrinsic way that, if not for the blinding brightness of their souls, they could've have been mistaken for part of the cloudsoil.

She did not need to breathe. She never needed to breathe, neither did Lucifer and she hoped that this kiss could last forever. It was foreign, it was new, it could even be wrong but in Lucifer's arms Lucinda had never felt more right. She knew this was where she needed to be, even if it cursed them.

Lucifer broke away to place one small, but strangely intimate, kiss at the hollow of her neck.

"Do you understand, Lucinda, my love? We are meant to be, we are soul mates."

Lucinda nodded and she smiled because she did understand. Love was not wrong. It was beautiful and all-consuming and perfect.

"It is greater than all." She whispered, the words tasting like acid on her tongue and her fear of Him returning hit her again, "He will not allow it."

"We do not have to tell him, my love."

Lucinda raised a finger to her lips, would He be able to tell?

Lucifer began to pull her away from the thick wall of cloudsoil, interlinking his fingers with hers. It felt right.

The other angels did not notice or they simply did not care now that He had left him. Lucinda let him pull her to his ledge and he sat down upon it, pulling her into him and sitting her across his lap. It was strange and exciting and unguarded her long enough for Lucifer to sneak another long, lingering kiss in.

"Lucifer," She began when they had pulled away from one another, "What will become of us? What will the other angels say?"

Lucifer's eyes darkened but did not flash red, "Those angels will know nothing of what is going on between us, they are too caught up in their own miserable loneliness to notice the brightest souls in Heaven." His eyes softened and he kissed her cheek, "As for you and I, my dear, we shall continue as we are now. In love."

When Lucinda stayed silent Lucifer began to sing. A low, soul-reverberating song that should've travelled across Heaven and captured every angel in the trance-like state Lucinda fell into. But it only affected her – she was the only one.

Of all the pairs the Throne endorsed
None rose to burn as bright
As Lucifer, the Morning Star,
And Lucinda, his Morning Light.

The sound touched her very core and she begged him, pleaded with him to sing it again and again. To teach her every dip and every rise in the song. To let her learn the very essence of it.

She wanted to know the song better than she knew herself.

They spent Time upon his ledge learning that song and not one angel noticed. Not even Gabbe, the second highest Archangel, the one whose ledge sat in-between Lucifer and Lucinda's. Even when she allowed herself to fall onto her ledge, she did not notice the pair of angels huddled together singing a song about love.

When Lucinda was sure she knew the song, Lucifer ordered her to sing it to him, over and over until the other angels disappeared from their minds and there was no one but Lucinda and Lucifer. Nothing but love.

Everything had been so perfect.

But.

She still feared the wrath of the Throne when He returned.

She still adored Him. She loved Lucifer yes, but she adored the Throne.

This angered him and the red flash in his eyes was more frequent and Lucinda was now certain she didn't imagine it – Lucifer was changing before her very eyes, into something new.

The love changed too. The song was forced, like a chant, like Lucifer was trying to make it stay in her mind instead of serenade her with words. Lucifer was angry, jealous, about Lucinda's relationship with the Throne. He must be adored.

Lucinda did not doubt that Lucifer loved her. He showed it to her every time they kissed and his soul was still as bright as ever and she was not afraid of his leaving her. She was afraid of his rage and his greed and his pride. And she knew that those ranked high above his love for her.

She cried.

It scared her, much more than any rage Lucifer could fly into or any punishment the Throne could bestow on her. Her soul was fading and the sadness she felt was made into a physical thing, pouring from her eyes.

When the shadow crossed her and it was not Lucifer, she looked up in surprise.

And felt her whole existence being knocked off kilter as she stared into a pair of violet eyes.