Unsteady

Eighteen

Lucifer landed in a warm room decorated with a throne and pillars. I could hear the faint sounds of screams, was I in Hell?

Immediately taking a step closer to my father, I wanted out. Hell was the last place I wanted to be.

"Why are we here?" I questioned, not taking my eyes off the gloomy room.

"I'm the king of Hell, can't shirk my duties forever" Lucifer plopped down onto his throne, lazily he flicked his wrist and another chair appeared next to his seat. "And as my daughter, you have to learn the ropes. My demons know not to lay a finger on you, but you could have them at your beck and call"

"What if I don't want it" I dropped into my seat, sitting sideways so my feet dangled off the armrest, almost touching the throne.

"You don't have to, but if I'm not available, and the Winchesters can't help you, wouldn't you want some demons to help you out of your mess?" He raised an eyebrow in my direction.

"Then I'll call my other hunter friends" I crossed my arms. "Besides demons are more your thing than mine, they probably all hate me"

"They can't, because if they did, they would be dead, permanently" Lucifer waved it off. "So you had questions, I have time to answer them"

"Who was my mom?" I asked almost immediately after he stopped speaking.

"First I wanna hear what the angels spun" he deflected, coping my position and sitting sideways.

Sighing, I told him the story, how my fake mom told me everything. "She told me she and Castiel were in love"

"Pa-lease like baby bro could fall from heaven for a human" Lucifer rolled his eyes. "There is some truth to that, I'd gotten out of the cage for a time, about seventeen years ago. Met a girl, she was the most beautiful creature I'd ever seen, when she found out she was pregnant, she cried" a doleful look crossed his face. "Then the angels found out and shoved me back in the cage, only to get out just before you become an adult, by the time I found you, I'd missed everything, come to find out you'd been brainwashed by the very same angels who helped orchestrate my little vacation from prison"

"Castiel helped get you out? Just so you could make me?" I reached forward with my wing, brushing his as a sign of comfort. His reacted by skimming my primaries.

"He did, he's much more involved in the garrisons than he leads the Winchesters to believe, I've seen it, he commands armies and helps develop plans like these" Lucifer explained "do not mistake his acting for how he truly is"

"He's a seraphim, I should've known, according to rumor, he was barely a Virtue when he first met the Winchesters, but now he is the highest order of rank an angel can rise to" I shook my head.

"Castiel is a strategist, he knows how to play the room. For someone who was supposed to have been watching the earth, he is suspiciously naive" Lucifer pointed out "but he doesn't have to pretend anymore, doesn't have to get his hands dirty, he can send other angels to do that for him."

"Alright enough about the betrayer, I have more questions" I directed him back to the original topic at hand. He nodded for me to continue. "My grace, it's been, I don't know darker since my mo-fake mom died, and it's restless, doesn't want to be still"

"Grace is not meant to combine with a human soul" Lucifer began "it is powerful on its own and difficult to contain as its linked to emotion." His grace rose to his eyes, lighting them a bright red "it's supposed to work with you not for you. It's like an extension of yourself, and it's curious. It's not meant to be confined within your body, let it out"

"But I don't want to hurt anyone" I protested, my grace race through my body humming just beneath my skin, just waiting to leave it.

"Kiddo you're in Hell, the only things here are demons, besides, your grace won't hurt you, and once it meets mine, it should calm down a little" Lucifer chuckled, I nodded, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath.  My grace exploded out of me, traveling to every corner, every crack, every cranny in the room.

Then a different presence filled the room as well, interacting with my grace. It retreated when it was calm, settling just outside my body. "What was that?" I looked toward my father wide eyed.

"That was my grace. Yours is used to being the most powerful thing in the room, and it acts as such. When I released my grace, it discovered that mine is much older but non threatening at the same time, as for the darkness you described, it's the marring that comes with harming an innocent soul when you yourself were just as innocent as they. Yours strikes out in violent gestures because that's the only way it's been trained, to kill or harm."

"Would you teach me?" I questioned.

He nodded "once we master control, I'll teach you how to fly."

That made me sit up in interest. "Why do I have to have control of my grace first?"

"Well you may have wings, but angels haven't flown without grace in centuries, we evolved. Your grace wraps around your wings, shielding them from harm when you fly, it also helps to keep them clean."

I pulled my wing toward me, picking at some of my feathers, Lucifer's wing slapped my hands away.

"Stop that" he scolded "you'll pull them out"

"They'll grow back" I defended.

"You should take care of your wings not damage them" Lucifer sent me a look, and I allowed my wing to return to it's relaxed position behind me.

"Fine" I dropped my hands in my lap. "How do I control my grace"

"You don't 'control your grace', besides I have some business to attend to, you have a room here, stay there, I don't trust any of the demons as far as I can throw them" Lucifer got up, walking toward the doors I hadn't noticed when we first arrived.