Chapter Text
He was an angel.
This was the word that popped into Alastor’s mind when he first laid eyes on Lucifer.
Trees grew so wide they seemed to blot out an otherwise endless sky. Entangled with chains of swamp moss, the forest exhaled a dampness so heavy, it made Alastor’s skin itch to tear itself open.
His only pair of shoes—washed as his mother insisted, despite knowing they would be filthy again the next day—were caked in stubborn clumps of mud.
From the surface of this dreary planet, it was nearly impossible to catch a glimpse of the system’s lone sun. While the nights always became clear, the days were cursed with relentless drizzle from the swollen clouds above. His mother had told him that a patch of blue sky may come once every several years, but Alastor had no memory of ever witnessing what people called ‘The Sun’.
It was said that boarding a spacecraft could take you there in the blink of an eye—but of course, Alastor had never stepped foot on one. What he did know came only from the voices overheard through a makeshift comlink, pieced together from scrapped parts he had secretly gathered.
“You were born beneath a sky full of stars. That must mean you’re destined, someday, to see them all.”
His mother often said things like that.
Alastor hated this dim, sodden planet he called home. And so, that fantasy thrilled him. He would become a pilot. Like the ones in the novels he read before bed. Or perhaps, a legendary warrior? It didn’t matter which. Faster than light, he would soar beyond this world and travel endlessly from star to star.
Surely there were places out there that were nothing like his birthplace. There would be planets with skies so clear, not a single cloud drifted across them. There would be worlds of endless, bone-dry deserts, called by a mythic, strange name.
But, Alastor thought, if he left…he would want to leave with Mama.
He washed his shoes without complaint, wore a ragged raincoat—riddled with holes—that they couldn’t afford to replace, and ate meals that were spiced to mask the stench of swamp fish.
He did all of this because his mother was there.
He lived like this not for her sake, but because every gesture was for him. Each act was an expression of love by the woman he loved. Alastor accepted everything the way it was because of that.
Even if it meant that the sun could be nothing more than a myth, it was enough. So long as his mother’s bright smile lit each day.
Dreams were dreams, fantasies were fantasies. He understood that. Growing up in this world, he had no choice but to understand that.
However.
On the morning of his seventh birthday, the Angel came—bringing with him the first sun seen in over seven years.
Alastor couldn’t glimpse at the sun itself, which was hidden by endless layers of cloud and canopy. But at dawn, he noticed the sky glow faintly brighter. The swamp’s creatures stirred in the light, and just as they did, so too did a seven-year-old boy, and he slipped from his bed.
His first task each morning was to wash his face with the rainwater collected outside. Then, he would bring eggs to his mother in the kitchen and do the laundry while chatting idly with the alligators that lounged in the swamp—which burn you at best, kill you at worst if you strayed too close. After breakfast, Alastor and his mother would set out for the settlement nearby; she’d head to work, he to school. Before night swallowed the sky, they would return, prepare dinner together, and at last, he would read before bed.
Such was his daily routine, unchanging, even on his birthday. However that morning, with cloth in hand, whilst stepping outside to wash his face, Alastor found a young man waiting for him.
On this planet, most people had dark skin, brunette hair, and brown eyes—at least according to what he witnessed and overheard on his communicator. But here was a person with translucent white skin, hair that shimmered, and eyes of a color he had never seen before. The man appeared utterly alien. Yet, Alastor thought, perhaps he was meant to be described as beautiful.
Who could this be? Alastor tilted his head. The more he pondered, the more the answer seemed perfectly clear. This must be the “angel” described in his books. A being of otherworldly beauty. Convinced of his conclusion, Alastor asked directly,
“Are you an angel?”
The Angel widened those strange-colored eyes, then smiled.
“And why would you think that?”
“Because I read in a book that angels have golden and shiny hair.”
“You’re a clever child,” the Angel said, nodding. “Well then…” He glanced up through the branches, then knelt in the mud to meet Alastor’s gaze.
“Perhaps my hair only looks like it sparkles because of the sunlight.”
“The…sunlight?”
“Ahh, right. This planet almost never clears during the day because of thick clouds. Adam said the turbulence here is enough to make any pilot weep.”
Tur-bu-lence. Another new word. Alastor would ask his mother of its meaning later–or perhaps this Angel would explain.
“You can see the sun today. But since it’s only just risen, you might be too short to see it.”
“So the sun is what makes your hair shine?”
“That’s right. The light strikes it and bounces back. You’ve seen how starlight glimmers on the dark waters of the swamp at night, haven’t you? It’s much the same.”
“And your eyes? Are they shining because of the sun too?”
“Hm…I think that’s more curiosity than sunlight.”
Curiosity. He knew that word. The feeling of finding something strange and wanting to understand it. Exactly the way he felt now, looking into those gleaming eyes.
“This planet is beautiful,” the Angel said. “Overflowing with life, perfectly in balance. If I had my way, I’d rather live here than on Pride.”
Alastor’s jaw fell open. To think this murky world was beautiful, much less want to live here, was shocking enough. But more than that, Pride. A name he knew from every story, every whispered transmission over his comlink. The galactic capital. One of the Seven Planets at the heart of civilization: Wrath, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Envy, Sloth, and Pride.
Worlds he longed to see.
The fertile plains that stretched across all of Wrath. Gluttony, a dry and warm planet, free of rain and humidity. Greed, a sprawl of endless factories and hub of trade. Lust, where neon cities blazed in place of a sun. Envy, an ocean planet ringed with the mightiest, salty seas. Sloth, with its artificial colonies devoted to the cutting edge of medicine and science.
And Pride—the nexus of them all. A world where buildings rose so high, layer upon layer, until they eclipsed the sky itself.
For a boy whose only home was a humble hut with his mother, the thought was unimaginable.
And yet, this Angel had come from Pride. Weren’t Angels, he remembered reading, dwellers of the heavens? If so, perhaps all who lived in sky-piercing towers were Angels.
“Do the people of Pride all have eyes like yours?”
“There are many kinds of people in Pride. Some with eyes like mine, some not. Some even with eyes like yours.”
“Like mine?”
“Your eyes are rich in color. The same as my robe.”
Smiling, he plucked at the cloak draped over his shoulders. Sunlight broke through the leaves to touch the fabric, and Alastor thought; it looked warm.
So, ‘rich’ color meant a warm color, perhaps. Alastor’s cheeks grew hot. As his fingertips touched his face, he felt warmth there too. Sunlight has heat, the Angel explained. But it wasn’t the choking heat of swamp air or of fire, but something gentler…
Something like the warmth of his mother’s hand.
To be told that his eyes matched the angel’s robe pleased him more than he expected, and this realization made him ask his next question.
“And your eyes? What do they match?”
“Hm, people say the sky. A clear sky.”
“A clear sky…”
“Yes. A blue sky. You see it now, don’t you?”
The Angel pointed upward and squinted his eyes at the bright light. Alastor followed the gesture and gasped.
For the first time, the sky was clear. Rather than littered with clouds and drowned by rain, it was vast and open.
When he looked back down, the two eyes before him still sparkled, lit by the sunlight. Yet somehow, Alastor knew, even without the sun–
They would have shone just as bright. Eyes the color of the sky. Blue eyes. Something burst inside his chest.
Ah—so this color was called ‘blue’.
And as Alastor, who had only just named the most beautiful color he had ever seen, looked on, the Angel smiled and whispered,
“I’m glad it cleared.”
Rising to his feet, he added, “Now then, to return to your first question—I’m afraid I am not an angel.”
The one most deserving of this word refuted it himself, Alastor wondered.
“My name is Lucifer Morningstar. I am a Jedi. And I came to meet you.”