I Swear I'm Not Homesick

Chapter Two

Lucifer strolled through the woods, just as preoccupied as he had been earlier. Not with the growing itch in his back as he had before, but with Zachariah. He'd pulled the same lie a few months before..and a few months before that..and a few months before that..if the boy got suspicious he'd likely have to leave, go back to living alone. Well - he still pretty much lived alone at the moment, but at least if he wanted to talk to someone, he could. Though how to throw him off the scent..that was the problem. He pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders as he walked-he didn't have his wings to warm him after all.

Dry leaves in all the colors of autumn crunched under his black leather boots, occasionally sending up tiny puffs of dust in his wake. He found a smile growing on his face, despite himself. It was silly, he knew, but neither Heaven nor Hell had much in the way of seasons, just eternal summer and eternal..well, whatever you'd call a constant state of red light and mostly leafless trees. It was dreary really. But Ente Isla was different every day..it was a welcome variation. Even the freezing chill of winter was interesting. He'd been to the Land of the Holy Cross quite a few times in his day, he knew what snow looked like pretty early on - but the first time he'd actually been able to just hang out there during the cold season..well he'd pretty much just spent the entire day trying to discover how long he could stay out before his whole body went numb. The entire experience was a bit ridiculous. He had ended up acting a bit like a six-year old, but it's not like anyone else was there, and since when did age equal maturity? It was an odd memory, that's for certain.

After about half an hour of walking, Lucifer arrived at the place he had been staying. Just in time too, as the gentle breeze was picking up, causing the oldest trees to whistle as it passed. He stood in front of an old and slightly broken-down house - well shack really, small in size but made of strong wood that kept the elements out for the most part, despite Zachariah's worries. He pushed open the door-producing a loud creaking sound from the rusty hinges. Hey, he'd fixed the shack up a bit when he found it, jamming the loose boards back into place and such, but his actual 'renovations' could be found in the form of a few weak spells he had placed on it, such as the one to keep the roof from falling in again. But those were important things, he wasn't going to spend time and energy fixing the hinges. As if he knew how anyway.

Inside, the place was pretty bare, but it had a few things occupying the space. There was a table and a chair-a gray plush one that he'd stolen from a rich family in a nearby town - as hard wood against his back was an awful feeling, and if he cut into the back of a chair that could raise some eyebrows. Along the wall were two low cots he'd pushed together so he'd have a bit more room, and behind that were the last few furnishings: A desk and stool, and a worn-down bookshelf. The books on it looked fairly normal at first, but if you looked closer, you could see that there were a couple odd things about them. First, the bottom shelf was mostly filled with leather folders, each with the same odd rune written on them, and second, most of the books had the titles either ripped or burned off, and the covers were terribly marred. It had been an annoying task, but if he was to keep up appearances, he couldn't be caught with the sort of valuable tomes he had sort of stolen..and if the two that had Enochian titles were discovered..well he was already risking a lot with the angelic lettering inside.

He pulled his cloak off and tossed it to the floor next to the entrance, then plopped down with a book in his chair, sinking into the cushion. It was fiction, one of the few he had, and eventually he was dead to the world, lost in its pages, and ignoring the current predicament as usual. The stories you saw in books could be wildly different or strikingly similar to your own - but they were always resolved. It was a nice escape from the problems reality dealt you. He let himself become absorbed in the story, words leaping out and running together like fish in a stream, dancing as a swarm of letters one by one piecing together an epic. But as time went on, another page turned, he found it harder and harder to see the words, they blurred together, sometimes hard to distinguish from the page. He frowned, shaking his head as if to clear it - and then he realized the room was almost completely dark. Sighing and setting the book back on the shelf, he pulled aside the curtain covering his single window and peeked outside. The sky was spattered with thousands of stars, and the two orbs above - one blue, one red, coated the woods with a pale lavender light. The sky was clear, the air still cool...hm..