Nikolai

History can be a setting for one's current state, a reason for why we embrace the role of villain or hero, or it can be the cumulative progression of one's state of being.

There is a tipping of the balance between righteousness and wrongness, the good and the bad. When humans were made, they were like a virus, because they grew, and although exquisite in the likeliness of the Ethereal Gods, they were unpredictable, destructive, untamed and above all, they spread vastly like cancer.

When the Igori betrayed our Creator and taught the humans to think, we lost control of them. The Igori were vanished from the heavens, some turned to Tempters, Hells rulers, others remained hidden of the earth, tempting the humans, teaching them until all that was left was chaos. Now the humans were completely untameable.

Though the earthlings have tried to tame each other through technology and scientific strategic methods. They created viruses, they've created governments, leaders and in a way, it was orderly chaos but still chaos nonetheless. Now after a millennium, the hierarchy has completely changed from royalty to smarter wits, and the longer the earth flourishes with these mind games, the worse they will dig their poison.

From the outside world, the earth is beautiful until you put it under a microscope then you saw the disease the Venusians warned many about. The humans polluted the earth from the outside until they had no other alternative but to destroy the earth's core too. They forgot the earth wasn't made for just them, in fact, it was made to keep a certain God occupied as his children grew. It would've ended, it should've been destroyed but it will live on for many millennia.

It's only because of the Ethereal God, Lami-EL, the seventh son of God, the future God, the one who will rule all of it. The earth survived only because he stopped it, he paused time for 50 years, he stopped all growth and the earth had time to heal. He didn't do it for the earth of the humans, but his love for one girl made him do it, and because of that love the earth was new. The humans never had an inkling of what actually happened. They moved on with their lives, carried on living. But the others knew, the Realms of all the in-betweens, the Lightwatchers, Shapeshifters, Asguardians, Elvans, Casters, and the Fae.

We knew because we were there, we felt his pain, we lived in those years while all human life seized to exist. Yes, history can be a setting for many things, but not the history that is the most important, because those are always forgotten, lost in a fog of dust. Except I am here to make sure that one history is not forgotten, one part of my history is remembered and a promise is fulfilled.

"Did the Lightwatchers not entertain you enough? I thought you loved your earthly beings," Lee queries and I find the question extremely amusing, considering our time was once shared with those same Lightwatchers.

The Lightwatchers were part angel, part Venusian. Most of them passed as human but many of them were taller, their bone structure more pronounced, that when an earthling saw them they would find the angel descendants remarkable. It's why they concealed themselves, and the ones who chose to mingle with humans wore stones around their necks to hide their true identities. The Lightwatchers referred to the humans as Deceptors, but I often wondered if it was meant to be the other way around? I mean, after all, it was their ancestors who fell victim to the Archangels.

"I could ask the same about you, but here you are with your ethereal goddess in a human realm, I personally love the look. You almost look human except for that shiver you leave when you enter the room. Or the moment not too long ago when you almost sucked the souls out of all those innocent humans. No, I think it's those black eyes of yours. Did you not find a better color? Or are your eyes really the window to your soul? I am actually extremely enticed at the idea of your father learning about this, or better yet, what will goodie brother number 1 say? I hear Amon has found a softness to the humans."

"Of course you are enticed. Your life must be extremely boring that you'd show yourself after all this time." Lee moves closer toward me, and for once I hold my composure. Considering our last encounter was rather bloodier.

"Funny story actually, I was keeping my distance when I saw a certain red-head pop out and I thought I would take a look, and see what I was dealing with. You promised me she'll remember me, what happened?"

He grabs my shirt in less than a split second, and his obsidian gaze turns to a frosted white. I sometimes forget the Majestical Prince who once chose a demon's life for his own. It's hard to remember him in an innocent painting.

"You happened, you tipped the balance when you chose your path, you made the Altrax curse be my burden," His voice is dark, deep, and echoes in all parts of me on another plane. I can feel his power, his madness but the curse remained in tacked, unopened.

"I didn't do anything besides what I was meant to. She was my one exception, you chose to let her enter my gates, you let her come to me. You pushed her into my arms." A small smile touches my lips as his mouth tightens, and the coldness around us intensifies. Reality is always a hard pill to swallow. Does he think I don't know? DOES HE BELIEVE I AM BLIND?

"You wanted her gone before you even really looked. You've always craved Ara, never seeing the larger picture. Your soul was darkened when you chose a different path. We both know I had no part in the curse, like she was meant to be yours and you denied her, the curse is meant to be your burden Lee." I taunt him and he seems to regain some sort of control when he sucks in his power and lets me go.

"The curse would not be activated if I sever the bond."

"Yes, and I will gladly go on my way back to the deepest parts of Tartar." I want to laugh at how absurd I sound because I had no intention of going anywhere without what I decided was mine to keep.

"You could've done better, but you chose a life of hell. Tell me, Nikolai, for one second did you consider the other option? Did you consider trying it out?"

Did I? Should I tell him? Was Lee ready to hear the truth? Would it pain him? I wasn't so far gone yet that I would place my burden on his shoulders when he was already giving me an entire planet without even knowing what he was giving up.

"No," I say it, the lie on my tongue tangy and vile.

"You will always be his son. A Tempter. Satan's Spawn." I shrug my shoulder, fairly okay hearing it from his mouth. I have heard worse.

"I fulfilled my destiny, as Lami-El did. But you basically handed her to a pack of demons to feast on. Even after you witnessed what happened to him when he denied his true mate. Why did you do it Lee? Why did you choose this, weakness? Look at you, you can't even fight it any longer, your power is no longer yours to keep."

"I have a mind to think for myself. My father knew the road I would take would be with Ara before I even saw her face. But still he decided to tempt faith, choose a mere warrior as my destined mate. The Akashic must have laughed. I will always choose her."

I frown at his words and his gaze as it never blinks, and the coldness that never leaves his side.

"You can't choose something if you've never experienced the other side, because then it's not a choice, it's just a blinded option."

"But didn't you do the same thing when you chose hell over heaven? When you decided to rule Tartar with Azazeal? Isn't that why you're here brother? To remind me about that blinded option. To take what belongs to me?" His words are cutting and to another, it would make them grimace if they shared our history but not me. Not this time.

"I'm here to get what's rightfully mine, the Akashic said with its own words that I am not bound by the faith of our mother's will, but by the cords, I choose to strengthen, and why not take what is mine? isn't that the deal we made? One life for the other? Blinded option or not, you've chosen Ara and the two of you will be happy and have small babies, and I can take my lady and have my happy demon babies."

His eyes are colder than the deepest frost in all of the universe and 7 heavens.

"You know very well we can't procreate without the bond."

"I also know that bonds could be created."

"But the mating one."

"So you choose to give up all you could have, all the power you could possess for her? I find it quite romantic in a peculiar way that you choose suffering."

"I have never loved another, Ara is the only one for me. I don't call it suffering, I call it a choice of my own. Ara has always chosen me and me, her."

"Ara is a lowly Goddess born in Asguard. You have only ever chosen her, it's in your blood to stay loyal, your father has engrained it in you. I don't blame him either after what Lami-EL and Kalbreal did. You would do well to remember that, loyalty is not meant to be fulfilled blindly. I have spent eons in this world Leegwan and I can tell you that when we are blinded by the beauty of the picture we miss the hues shaded in its architecture. We can't appreciate or understand our story if we keep missing pieces."

"You are a terrible Tempter, how is it possible you are the ruler of the most treacherous?" He asks in obvious wonder, and I laugh.

"It's the charm."

He stares at me, with his obsidian gaze, and I look at him, so alike, but so different. It's a pity, a shame really that out of all the brothers and sisters he would choose another path. Why? Isn't that what we fought for all those years? Wasn't the war of descendants meant to teach us that lesson? Our destiny was already created, by his father.

"I never took the time to know her. Harlow was always viciously negligent, and excessively uncontrollable. I tossed her into hell only to face the wrath of my father, which is the reason I searched for her, but by then she was so engrossed in you, I couldn't even reason with her. She hated me more then, to the point she chose to kill me. She blamed me for you shunning her, she tried to hurt Ara, she was so close to tipping. Sending her to earth, was the only way to save her. But you are right, my powers leave me drained, and when we split her soul and sent her here, I couldn't hold her as I should've. There was something wrong, something about the experience has haunted me. But still, I wouldn't wish to know her. I see only Ara." He's blinded, but who was I to judge? Here I was standing in a company I only became a member of for fun, wearing a suit, and practically lowering myself to an earthling all for a female who was going to share my bed in more ways than one.