Chapter Text
Dr. Lucifer Morningstar's departure from the Celestium Foundation
Celestium Foundation
Excerpt from the Celestium Foundation Board Minutes
Confidential Memorandum
Subject: Dr. Lucifer Morningstar’s departure from the Celestium Foundation
Date: 1st November [ten years ago]
It is with a heavy heart and deepest regret that we acknowledge Dr. Lucifer Morningstar’s departure from the Celestium Foundation. Over the past years, Dr. Morningstar has contributed passionately to a number of our ‘city of the future’, rehabilitation and societal reintegration initiatives. His creativity and unwavering optimism, though at times unconventional, have left a distinct mark on our early outreach models.
The Board recognizes his desire to pursue independent efforts, and although his vision increasingly diverged from the Foundation’s core strategies and values, we continue to wish him every success in his future endeavors.
We remain committed to upholding a structured, compliant, and ethically sound environment for the betterment of society. While ideological differences are inevitable in any visionary field, we believe that adherence to protocol, measurable outcomes, and collective alignment are the pillars of sustainable impact.
Let it be known: this is not a dismissal. This is a divergence of purpose. And we are grateful for the time our paths were aligned.
per procurationem General Overseer of Development
Celestium Foundation
Transitional Funding Approval and FUCK YOU
Celestium Foundation
Office of the General Overseer of Development
Internal Memo, STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL
To: Dr. Lucifer Morningstar
Subject: Conclusion of Tenure & Transitional Funding Approval
Date: 1st November [ten years ago]
Dear Dr. Morningstar,
Following the decision of the Foundation board, we hereby confirm the formal conclusion of your position as a research lead within the Celestium Foundation. While your contributions in the early developmental stages of urban social engineering and sustainable environment were noted with appreciation, the foundation will be moving in a direction better aligned with our core principles and long-term objectives.
We understand that you have expressed the intent to pursue your own initiative – the "Paradise City Project". The Celestium Foundation has, in recognition of your previous service, approved funding to support the project, initially limited to the foundation phase. Please refer to the attached document for the terms of this arrangement.
Now, on a more personal note:
So, you’re building your own little Paradise, huh? Cute. Real cute. I gotta say, I admire the balls – Bold name for a rehab project run by a prick with a god complex. But hey – branding was always your strong suit. If it helps you sleep at night, call it whatever you want. Slapping gold paint on trash doesn’t make it holy, not even if this redemption kink is run by Saint Luci himself.
See, while the G.O.D.’s officially washing their hands of you, guess who’s been assigned to monitor compliance aka quality management? That’s right. Me. I volunteered >;)
Every form you file, every penny you spend in your miracle town, every weird little liberty you take with Foundation guidelines? I’ll know. I’m still responsible for ensuring our core principles are upheld. That includes yours. So, every time you or one of your little lost lambs steps out of line – It all crosses my desk. And you better believe I’ll scrutinize everything with a red pen in hand, twice, or if necessary multiple times.
You wanted out of the system? Congrats. But don’t kid yourself. This fake independence is not immunity. I know you’re oh so desperately trying to scrub your hands clean and play the savior. I know who you truly are. And I’ll make sure to watch your bleeding-heart utopia rot from the inside out.
So don’t get comfortable, Luci. You might’ve dodged the fall, but I’ll be right here – ready to kick your shiny little sandbox over the moment you step out of line. Well, you never did learn when to quit, did you? Enjoy ‘Paradise’. I’ll enjoy turning it to ash.
Adam
Vice Chair, Enforcement & Oversight
Celestium Foundation
P.S.
Tell my little queen I said hi. Must be romantic to rule over trash together.
P.P.S.
I hope you’re ready to play king in rags, Luci. Remember that international birthday party we had? – Paper crowns burn the fastest, just like your funding will after my audit!
To: Dangertits <Lutetia Castelnau>
Subject: FW: Conclusion of Tenure & Transitional Funding Approval
Date: 1st November [ten years ago]
Hi Lute, what do you think? Saint Luci finally got his ass handed and I’m the one informing him about the transitional funding, FUCK YEAH! By the way, the first quality management audit is scheduled for the 30th of November, but I’ll start cutting his budget tomorrow. He will overstep boundaries in no time anyway, as always. Help me with the forms, will you?
To: Adam Primus
Subject: FW: Conclusion of Tenure & Transitional Funding Approval
Date: 1st November [ten years ago]
Hi Adam, nice work! Isn’t it a bit long though? Make sure to cut the P.S.S. at least. Of course I will help you. See you for lunch! Best, Lute
Lucifer – Doctor, scientist, city founder
It’s somewhere between 4 and 5 a.m., those glorious, ungodly hours that hover between the end of the night and the earliest morning. In about two hours, the sun will grace his city with her light, but not yet. The almost-new-moon veils the world, and a pale blue haze pours through the high windows of his bedroom, casting everything in a strange, unreal glow.
Lucifer stretches and abandons his perch on the windowsill.
Most crimes are committed in the late evening, but the night? Nothing! It’s the so-called blue hour when the oddest things can happen – or so Dr. Cartier / ‘just Bee’, fellow scientist and a long-lost friend, found in one of her studies. In contrast to him, she always had a knack for the weirder corners of human behaviour.
With a sigh, Lucifer pads down the hallway, barefoot, tap, tap, tap, until he finds them – his favourite duck slippers!
“There you are”, he mutters. The light drains them of their bright yellow, turning them a melancholy grey that fits his mood disturbingly well. Everything feels like it’s under some sort of grey filter lately. “Nah, don’t get your hopes up.”
Lucifer has no intention to put them on. Slippers to work? Absolutely not, hard pass.
“Yes, I’m on my way to work. Don’t look at me like that!”, he scolds the ducks, before picking them up anyway, to return them to their place next to his office door.
“You’re my after-work slippers, remember? ‘To help distinguish between work and life’ and bla bla bla.”
Not that there had ever been much of a life. Not when he was still working, and certainly not now, what an irony. The ducks stare up at him from lifeless eyes.
“Well, duck you too. You don’t get to judge me.”
His mansion, as always, remains silent. Thankfully it doesn’t talk back, not yet, anyway! Outside the birds haven’t started singing, and it bothers Lucifer. These days he needs their melodies, their noise to obscure the fact that the whole luxurious building around him has become a museum of stillness with too many rooms he never enters. To Lucifer all of this doesn’t feel like home anymore. It’s more like a prison, abandoned by everyone but its sole occupant. This ‘palace’ doesn't belong to him. He belongs to it, and to the chaos spreading through its corridors like mould since she left.
The office door opens with an ominous screech. “Wow, very subtle. Think you are the first one to criticise my working hours?”
Lucifer rolls his eyes, flicks on the light, and sinks into his chair with a theatrical groan.
“Is it hot in here? It’s too hot. Should turn down the heating for real…”
He shrugs out of his white suit jacket. The fact that he got dressed just minutes ago after another sleepless night irritates him.
“Oh, what’s the point?”
No answer, of course. His computer hums to life, screen flickering. A pop-up window appears and announces his second-greatest nemesis. His inbox.
“Sooo, work,” he mutters, not convincingly, and scrolls through what must be- Oh who is he kidding, he doesn’t even want to estimate how many folders of emails. He starts with the oldest one, and two familiar messages catch his attention like raised middle fingers. With a sigh Lucifer opens the second, he knows every petty line by hard.
P.S. Tell my little queen I said hi. Must be romantic to rule over trash together.
P.P.S. I hope you’re ready to play king in rags, Luci. Remember that international birthday party we had? – Paper crowns burn the fastest, just like your funding will after my audit!
Lucifer exhales through his nose, jaw tense. Yeah, sure, asshole. Whatever. His finger hovers over the mouse, then with a tired sigh he clicks “delete”. And then he hastily undoes it again.
I should have done that long ago. He leans back. The message stares back at him.
“Transitional Funding Approval and FUCK YOU”, Lucifer reads the subject out loud. “Who in his right mind does such things anyway?”
Once again, he decides to keep the message. As a warning, perhaps, to stay careful, for his daughter’s sake. Adam Primus is a sadistic, sexist dickhead with an inflated, yet severely damaged ego. His cruelty and thirst for revenge must never be underestimated, even now, after ten long years.
Fine, enough procrastination!
With zero enthusiasm Lucifer opens one of his many mail folders – the one at hand arrivals of last week – and opens the first mail.
“Pffff, look at this! What even is this?”, he blurts out. He quickly scrolls to the next message. And the next. This must be the underbelly of the iceberg, lowest of the low points beneath the standard of depravity in his city. No, scratch that – this is only the top of the iceberg. Lucifer rubs one hand over his already tired eyes. What time is it? How long has he been doing this? Five minutes? It's already too much.
Pull yourself together. You're not a paper-pusher. You're Lucifer bloody Morningstar.
And yet, here he sits. Doctor, scientist, city founder. Scrolling through project requests like a reluctant deity of paperwork. There’s a vandalised school, lewd slogans scrawled across the walls. They want money to paint it afresh – In mint green and white.
Sure. Let’s just give every asshole in the area an open invitation and see how long it takes before someone draws a giant cock across the façade again. Giving the pupils pastels and the liberty to design ‘their school’ themselves would be more effective. And cheaper!
Eleven applications for technical equipment later, his patience is thinner than a thread in a spider’s web. And he isn’t even halfway through the folder. He recognizes every single name, because all of them belong to daring, complete no-hopers, who keep handing in the same pleas with only slight alterations every month. And the worst? Lucifer would bet both his hands on the fact that they don’t even try to work with what he already gave them. They never fix things, nohoho. His idea of a circular economy, sharing, reusing, repairing, recycling – core values of Paradise City – trampled on. The audacity!
To re-confirm his assumption, Lucifer opens one of the applications.
Ah, that Vox guy again.
The man in question has applied every month in the past nine years. Still wants that power plant to secure his media empire in case of another colossal city-wide power outage – a power outage Lucifer is sure Vox has caused in the first place, and likely on purpose.
That fucker! I should give him the compost shift!
Then again, there are already enough people working on it.
I need to find him another unpopular shift. Let’s put him on the list of ‘volunteers’. Serves him right!
Lucifer’s smirk is cruel. There’s satisfaction in strategic pettiness. You don’t run Paradise City without a little divine punishment. And yet, even this victory feels stale like most things lately. Another sigh, and Lucifer scrolls through the messages. Here come the heavy hitters – serious projects with serious funding requests. More wind turbines in the P-District? Oh yes, great idea.
But unless the gangs and their overlords – yes, he knows everyone calls them that, they are the mobsters currently running some of the essential infrastructure of his city – stop competing for the state-of-the-art science and sabotage each other’s projects at every twist and turn? Nope, sorry not sorry, not gonna happen.
Lucifer isn't that stupid. They destroy one wind turbine of a rival, ask for money to build a new one under their own control and then the whole circus starts afresh. Fuck them!
Green energy and red blood still don’t mix well in his opinion.
Lucifer massages his temple, opens the next file.
“Application to stop violence against cats.”
What?
Lucifer stares. Blinks. Re-reads.
They gotta be kidding him. His shoulders start to shake. The laughter comes uninvited, bubbling up like the tea Charlie loved so much when she was little. It’s maniacal, echoing in the empty office. He wipes away a tear with a duck-embroidered tissue from his breast pocket.
This city is mad. That must be it. Just pure, unfiltered madness. Nothing more, nothing less. Fuck. He is so over it.
He tries to stop, really, he does. But the absurdity overwhelms him.
“These hypocritical, self-righteous sinners! Can you imagine – an application to patrol the streets to save cats, when the hospital is barely running? And here in the p-district of all places!”
That’s new. His monitor vibrates from the force of his laughter. He steadies it, exhales, and fishes the duck-embroidered tissue out of the breast pocket of his vest to dab the tears off his eyes. A ray of sun peeks through the high window of his office and reflects in his golden wedding ring. It gives Lucifer’s fit of laughter an uncomfortable pause.
Ah, shit. Not today!
He gets up, dims the blinds. Darkness settles. He won't circle back into the apathic, depressed spiral he has been in for the last week. Their anniversary will be next month, yes, but only because Lilly and he got to know each other on a sunny day exactly-
Nope! No anniversary memories allowed, thank you very much.
Back at his desk, he opens his self-programmed app and slams the red button with gusto.
“Rejecteeeeeeed!”
Twenty-ish applications more to go. If he finishes these, he might almost appear productive. Carmilla and the city council wouldn’t notice either way. They’re too busy being at each other’s throats over the additional founding – breadcrumbs! – Celestium Foundations offers them.
Lucifer rereads the cat application.
“Will you look at that…”, he mumbles, while skimming through the text.
Painted cattails. Tortured animals. Heavens.
Lucifer bites his lip. The funding is minor. Barely a drop in the remaining budget.
Alright! Five percent. If it stops the lunatics with spray paint.
Hastily he removes the digital red stamp and hits the ‘accept’ button instead, before he can overthink it. Then he marks the rest of the emails in his folder and presses ‘delete’ without ever taking a look at them. Nobody expects him to actually read those ridiculous pleas, do they? Besides the pressing, urgent tone of the applications and messages he receives en masse, nobody seems to care about him or the lack of replies coming their way.
Typical.
Nobody cared when the ‘outside press’ started their smear campaign against Paradise City. Nobody cared when Lilly left him and took their daughter away. Nobody cared when she abandoned Charlie as well. And even less people cared when Celestium Foundation placed their coup de grace, finishing what little hope Lucifer had left with a dirty stab, giving Adam even more power over the evaluation of the rubble of Lucifer’s dreams. Adam's triumphant laughter still rings in his ears when he thinks of it, but over the years even that has lost its edge.
Lucifer closes his eyes. Nothing stirs. No hate. No fire. Just dust in a chest that’s long since hollowed out. Maybe this is what happens when you stop caring, defeat after defeat after defeat. You become the thing you used to mock. A mere signature. Like mother.
“Anyway, if anyone has important business, they could have sent a letter. Or called.” With a guilty look at the unplugged phone Lucifer grimaces. “Fine… They would need to send a fucking raven.”
Having seen enough funding requests for several lifetimes, Lucifer spins in his chair. His very mature action is interrupted by a single, dreaded sound that freezes him to the spot.
A message from Adam.
Ugh! What does he want?
It’s a give take and take
Lucifer blinks, surprised that all of sudden it’s half past ten. What happened to his morning? At least he is still suuuper productively trying to tame the beast his inbox has turned into. Maybe I should take a break. Alright, one last glance!
A certain message catches his attention. Ah shit. The reason why he is still doing literally everything else: A message from that fucker.
“Come on, Luci, this is probably important…”, he scolds himself, while at the same time a tiny voice in the back of his head is making promises about avoiding his inbox.
“Nope, I got this! I’m Lucifer Morningstar – look at me, the bravest guy in history and I’m also not afraid of emails, AHAHAHA!”
Keeping his momentum as long as he can, Lucifer skims said message and manages to overread most of the insults.
“Wait, what?! Another ‘quality control’?”, he all but yells at the screen. “Why?”
He’s got to be kidding him! The message is all about integration policies and welcoming new citizens again. Unholy hell, how many times is Adam going to harass him with this? When he tries to install something, Adam shuts it down. When he does nothing, Adam shows up to criticise.
“Fuck him!”
Still… Lucifer’s eyes flick to right corner of the screen. 10:43 a.m. A decent time to reach out. What if he handed this one to Charlie? She’s been asking, scratch that, begging to be more involved in the politics behind Paradise City.
These days, it feels like he’s riding a skeleton horse, but a decade ago, when they’d just started rebuilding the ghost town? Back then, everything felt possible. To her, anyway. To him, it had always felt like penance, with Adam breathing down his neck. Lucifer will never forget the judgmental stares of his former team, the insults they confronted him with, the disappointment of being cast out and isolated. Back then it felt like his chest was an open wound, and every single sharp comment a cut in his heart. Today? Lucifer shrugs off Adam’s latest effort to get to him with practiced indifference.
Maybe Charlie really is the better person for this.
“Fuck it. I’m calling her right now!”, Lucifer declares and checks his breast pocket. He checks his trouser pocket. His other trouser pocket.
“Urgh, where’s my phone?”
Lucifer gets up, his limbs feel like they’re glued to the chair, and it’s an immense effort to get back to his bedroom. Is his body hijacking his productiveness? Nah, it’s probably just a protest response to sitting for too long. To his relief, his phone is still on the nightstand – reliable and orderly, great! – and he gives his duck slippers a superior smile, as he heads back into the office, already dealing Charlie’s number.
“Hi Dad.”
To his shock, his daughter picks up immediately.
Oh shit. Oh shit. Lucifer freezes, mind reeling.
“Um – hello? This is Charlie.”
What do I say? Come on, say something clever!
“Heeellooo!”
“Hello Dad.”
“Er, hi honey!”, Lucifer can’t shake the awkward laugh. “Am I interrupting something?”
“Um, I’m in the middle of preparing a 90s party with Vaggie, but it’s okay. What’s up?”
“Oh! Better make it quick then! I, uh, wanted to ask a little favour.”
Charlie immediately agrees, no questions asked, but even if Lucifer doesn’t know his daughter, he at least knows her voice. He can spot the tiny signals that unmask the chipper tone as what it is: exasperation. It breaks his heart, yet they have been acting this play out for too long to escape their roles. He gives her a task, she accepts, he transfers her some money, she sends him a thumbs-up emoji. It has become their way of communicating, and Lucifer feels their unhealthy routine reaching for him as if he were being pulled along on a fishhook.
“The G.O.D. Office sent me a memo.”
“Celestium Foundation contacted you again? Um, what was it, the office of the general overseer of development, right?”
“Yes, yes, they want to do another QM of our IPs. It’s nothing big, just one meeting, shaking hands, that’s all.”
“Okayyy Dad...”
Ah, the blasted integration policies. If he could decide who was allowed into the city, there wouldn’t be any trouble to begin with! But no, his former oh-so-benevolent foundation had made it crystal clear that they were not letting him out of their net, only because they cast him out in the first place. Quality management his ass. The sole cause of Adam’s department was to tighten his chains regularly.
“Dad?”
Then again, Adam has mellowed – slightly – over the years. He’s still a bitter, vulgar, petty man. Still the same resentful bastard. But he’s lost some of his bite. And Lucifer knows his rights well. He can’t decide who is joining his city project, HAH! He can run a thorough background check and assign them individually tailored occupations. Adam doesn’t even protest anymore. And most of the new residents these days? Just misfits. People who didn’t belong out there.
Just like me… Oh fuck – Charlie is still on the line!
Patiently waiting for his mind to catch up.
“Sorry, sweety! Can you pull that off for me?”
“Sure, Dad, but what’s a QM again? And an IP?”
Ah yes, abbreviations. Lilith hated those, too. One explanation later, Lucifer tries to sweeten the pot, all the while feeling dirty with guilt.
“It’s the perfect opportunity to pitch your ideas about the new hotel and your ‘Getting Started in Paradise’ program. I think they’ll love seeing a young, ambitious, high-spirited woman for a change. A fresh face, so to speak.”
“You think so?”
“Yes, of course, sweetie”, Lucifer replies immediately, and he means it.
“YES! I can do it!”
Lucifer yanks the phone away from his ear. Charlie’s excited squeal rings through his skull like a fire alarm. While the past tugs at him with cold fingers, Lucifer can hear his daughter literally bouncing with joy on the other end. She used to do that a lot as a child.
“Just- maybe don’t mention my name, and you’ll be fine. Haha.”
No, just like her mother Charlie Magne will not fail a quality management trial. Lucifer exhales, long and deep.
“I’ll send you the details via sinstagram. Hm, sorry, sweety – I’ve got another critical task scheduled for today, soooo....”
“Sure, Dad, I know you’re always busy and I gotta go, too! Please don’t forget to send me the details. And, um, thanks for letting me do this! I’m going to win them over!”
“Of course you are!”
Lucifer smiles, it feels bittersweet and a little broken. No matter how detached they have become over the past years, he is still so very proud of his daughter and her never ending enthusiasm. Even if the reason why she’s wasting her talents on those lowly wretches is beyond him. The things she could do, if she decided to work in another field… Before his voice cracks, he hangs up.
How very convenient that he can busy himself with forwarding her the time and date of the meeting immediately. It’s a perfect distraction from the sinking feeling that he is letting his daughter down again. Or worse – tasking her with things that are his duties. Before he finds himself spiralling down down down the self-flagellation maw, Lucifer snaps out of it. He at least has to send her the details in advance and without any spelling hiccups this time! With a critically raised brow Lucifer double-checks that it's all correct. There, done and delivered.
“Fuck you, Adam, haha!”
Only one more thing to do, Lucifer thinks, then I’m done for today / this week / this month?
He sighs deeply and, with the energy of a man signing his own damnation, he opens Adam’s message again. “The sender has requested a read receipt”, Lucifer reads aloud in his best imitation of his former subordinate, only a little more high-pitched. “Awww, poor little Adam is afraid to be ignored.”
Lucifer responds with one of his pre-written autoreplies: Your message was dutifully noted.
Short. Cold. Satisfyingly impersonal. It would be unwise to really piss Adam off. Their little Cold War has long since lost its thrill. And honestly? The bastard’s not even worth the hate anymore. You’ve got to save what little emotion you’ve got left for someone who matters.
“Look at me, such responsibility and efficiency – truly remarkable”, Lucifer says dryly and shuts down his computer. As if the machine and he share the same source of power, Lucifer suddenly feels drained and he hugs his knees, while spinning in his chair.
Ah, yes, maybe it’s time for that break he was thinking about earlier… It takes him several spins to finally stop and get up. Lucifer walks past his door, closes it with a final click, and turns to his atelier, his duck slippers all but forgotten.
Inside the atelier he is greeted with the scent of fresh paint. Most tables, shelves and chairs are covered with his smaller projects: there are handmade children’s toys – horses and dragons and angels – with still missing eyes or limbs, several clocks that tick erratically, cracked snow globes, a dozen half-sculpted busts with smoothed out faces, artificial flowers, and, of course, his favourite sound installations – small everyday objects that play animal sounds, angelic choirs, or, if he accidentally broke them, soothing static.
On one of the tables the brushes from yesterday’s painting session are still soaking in a glass of cloudy water, after he abandoned his latest idea – Canvas painted with one colour only. Lucifer recently acknowledged to himself that he won’t paint 60 canvases, as was his original plan. The recombination options would probably be unsatisfactory anyway, and he can’t possibly convince himself to remove the family pictures covering his walls, even if they fuel his depression.
“When did I get so sloppy? Don't answer that!” Lucifer hastily fishes one of the brushes out and turns it between his fingers. “I will fix this!”
Then he laughs, low and tired. Who am I even talking to?
No answer. Just the silent judgment of white canvases and ruined sketches. He shrugs, rolls up his sleeves, and begins cleaning the brush. He can't pretend he is fine, but he can fix this brush from dying a soppy, miserable, self-loathing death in yesterday's water glass. What an achievement.