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Sera has a way of making Lute feel small that no one else really can, and it’s only in part her physical height. A sinner in hell could be as high as mountain and Lute would feel like more of a match for them in size than she does right now.
Then again she doesn’t owe a sinner in hell any respect.
And before she’d had Adam to bridge the gap between herself and Sera. With Adam by her side she’d owed the seraphim respect but that had been the respect of a soldier to the leader of their nation, of the Lieutenant of the Exorcist army to the Warden of Heaven.
Without Adam she’s just a lower order angel standing in front of the two seraphim. One of whom created her.
Adam had taught her to be more. He’d elevated her. Picked her out from all the other excorists. And it’s so to not make all of that have been for nothing, have been a mistake like angels aren’t supposed to be make, that she’s standing here in front of an unimpressed Sera and an inexplicably around Emily having said her piece.
Sera’s mouth presses together and she gives an elegant shake of her head, "I’m sorry but I won't countenance another ill-prepared last minute extermination. Or any ideas of unsuccessful assassinations against Lucifer's daughter."
She actually does look somewhat regretful about it, and for some reason that only makes it worse.
Lute bristles. "Unsuccessful?"
Sure Vaggie had come out of the better of their last battle but Lute had won the one before that so they’re firmly one-all at this point. Even arguably in Lute’s favour if you compare one lost arm to a lost eye and wings.
Maybe she can’t take out Vaggie and the Morningstar bitch, but Lute can at least make the Princess of Hell feel what it’s like to lose the one you love. Feel what she felt when she lost Adam.
Besides if she’s being fair Vaggie is the traitor. The product of the two people who wrecked Adam’s life and all of human history is only doing what she was born to do. Vaggie is the one who’d turned against the one she was created to serve, turned against the place she’d been created to serve, and turned against the person who’d thought she was a friend: Lute herself.
And she could kill her, she could, she knows it as much as she knows her own purpose.
But Sera makes a motion with her hand and Lute’s sword disappears from it’s sheath.
"You don't have the power to win Lute. You will die attempting it. Or you will fall before you even get a chance to go against my orders. You're starting to already."
The words are firm, but spoken kindly and the worst of it is that while she disagrees that she can’t win, and she doesn’t care if she dies, Lute can’t deny that the last part of her sentence isn’t true.
She’s seen the dark feathers replacing the light ones in her wings, and how bloodshot the white of her eyes look, and felt how gravity seems to pull pull pull on her as if someone’s thought it a funny joke to triple its strength.
So she does the only thing a loyal soldier of heaven and the only woman Adam could trust not to be misled by Lucifer can do and demands, "Decommission me then,"
For the first time in the conversation Emily speaks, her hands flying to her face, "What?"
Lute lets her wings flare out as if they could ever be some sort of threat display to seraphim that could destroy her with a single word.
"De-fucking-commission me. I was made to serve Adam. For a purpose that no longer exists. I try and fulfil that purpose and my foot falls through this ground and you tell that’s because I'm fucking falling? Well I refuse to do that-"
"That's commendable," Sera cuts her off. "I am.... disappointed that you’re telling me you are incapable to lead your force into becoming something more suited to this new paradigm we're dealing with. We will have to break you exorcists up and integrate you into Michael's legions, but even as a foot soldier there will-"
"Be nothing for me. You don't understand. I can't just let Adam go. I don't understand how you can. He was- you were like a mother to him.” Her voice breaks, failing her again like it has so many times since Adam’s death as if his soul took It away with him, “You have to know that Sera."
Sera’s eyes glisten in a way they hadn’t seconds earlier and she reaches down to brush where the bandages on Lute’s arm are stained gold. The constant throb of pain that’s dogged her since she left hell vanishes, but stranger still is how her heart feels a little less hollow. How Sera’s touch had felt less clinical than all the angelic
"And you were more than a lieutenant to him.” The high seraphim acknowledges what the three of them never had when Adam was alive, “but I’m sorry. It changes nothing."
"So destroy me."
"Lute no!" Emily’s acting like she cares as if she doesn’t despite the purpose Lute was created for grates at her very soul. "we'd never do that! It's wrong."
"You might believe that. Sera doesn't."
Emily looks at Sera, "tell Lute she's wrong."
Sera's hands wring in her dress but her countenance is calm despite it all. "Explain your logic Lute."
"I was made to serve Adam. And to do heaven's dirty work. I can't do either of those things now. There's no reason for me to exist anymore."
"You can grow!" Emily declares, "you and the other girls can become more. It was wrong of us to keep you apart and to stop you from enjoying heaven, from discovering what you can be. But you can do that now, you can-"
"I'm not a winner Emily.” She’s not part of Emily’s remit, “I don't deserve all this paradise. My job is to protect it, not to enjoy it."
"A job you're neglecting." Sera says.
"A job you're telling me won't be needed. Adam didn't chose us to protect heaven. He chose us to strike into hell. I'm not needed anymore."
"You are," Emily tries, "your army needs you. I....I miss Adam too. I don't agree with the exterminations but I know he believed in them. Can't we...talk about him together? Miss him? Make a memorial?"
"He'd like a memorial," Lute can imagine him crowing over it. In fact he’d be insulted that there isn’t one yet. She can hear his complaints now. So perhaps that’s another thing she’s failed at. "But that changes nothing. You won't let me do what I know is right. And I'm unwilling to fall; to become one of those damned forever. I thought that I couldn't, I'm heavenborn. What I do has be right. But now Adam is gone and you tell me avenging him is a sin. And Lucifer was an angel once. I think,” I know, “I'm falling. And I don't want to."
She wants her desire to go down to hell and tear Vaggie’s other eye out and feed it to her demon lover to be righteous wrath and not sinful revenge.
She wants to die trying that if that’s all she can do.
But if she can’t do that she’ll settle for being unmade before she’d settle for falling like she’s Vaggie or that thief Lucifer.
"I should hope not." Sera says.
"I can help," Emily says, "there must be a way to help you learn how not to fall. It has to be easier than Charlie's hotel because you're already here!"
Charlie’s hotel that Emily had championed. Emily had supported that affront to the order of things, and it had killed Adam. And for all her platitudes about grieving him together Emily clearly found his loss less important that her joy over that snake-freak sneaking his way in here.
Or being redeemed as they’re apparently supposed to believe.
No, Lute cannot work with the littlest seraphim. Not when she can’t adapt to this new order. Not if she doesn’t want to get driven to do something that would definitely cause her to fall.
She forces herself to be polite. Sera had always reacted better to that. Not that Adam had ever cared.
"It’s too late for that Emily. Maybe it’s cowardice that I’m still here,” she’s not to stupid to not know her chances are better with her wounds healed, “Or if I flatter myself maybe it’s my loyalty to heaven that’s held me back so far. But my very essence says I need to avenge Adam, so…if I can't do that without falling; then I shouldn't exist. Please," her eyes are on Sera now, "you demanded my making. Handle my unmaking."
"Sera you can't!" Emily cries out, "this is as wrong as the exterminations. She's still a soul."
"Not a human one," Lute corrects her, "that's the problem." She looks out at Sera, "the other exorcists...they might be different," if that bitch Vaggie can betray them and become the girlfriend of the product of the first ungrateful monsters who hurt Adam then maybe the rest of them can all commit to a new cause and Michael's at least is holy. As their lieutenant she owes them that chance with their spotless record. "they might be able to combine with the other heavenly legions. But I...can't."
Sera's brows draw together. "You're flawed."
"Yes.” Lute admits. If she wasn’t then Adam and so many of the other exorcists wouldn’t be dead right now. “It's what happens when god doesn't create you."
"Adam wouldn't want this," Emily tries.
Lute could laugh. She thinks she does, but as she hears the noise she’s made it sounds more like a snarl. "Adam would want me to tear hell from atom to atom. He'd want me to weep by his grave for millenia without moving from the gravestone. He'd have no interest in this new heaven."
"That's not-"
Sera holds a hand up to quiet Emily just like she’d used to do to Adam.
"Lute has been honest with us. And she has not dared suicide in an affront to our father," She chides the younger seraphim, "if she believes she cannot serve heaven."
"I can't.” Lute says. “Not in the way you want."
Sera shuts her eyes and exhales before she proclaims, “then this is for the best."