Chapter 6 - Mother of Monsters
"Has she seriously not explained anything to you?" Levash asked in disbelief.
Alice shrugged, "Bits and pieces, but she never mentioned anything about being a queen or something."
"Alice, Lilith was never a queen, she was one of the six princes of Lestia." Levash stated with emphasis waiting for the significance to dawn on her.
Alice continued to look blankly at him. "Is that lower then, or?"
Pinching his nose, Levash began. "How to summarise, the first Demon, Samael, was a being equivalent to how humans view deities. His form was incomprehensible. Think of a collection of stars and dust--"
Alice interrupted him saying, "I can think that but I dont think it's painting the picture you want it too."
Ignoring her comment Levash continued. "Samael was this thing, floating through existence and he became obsessed with the beings he viewed in his travels and how insignificant they seemed in comparison to him. This caused pride to bubble within him, an unknown feeling he hadn't ever experienced before and he became addicted to it. From this he adapted himself to become sin incarnate. He became Pride." Levash's eyes flashed with warning as Alice went to interrupt once more. "Now at that point he still existed in a void, but as his form had changed and was now less suited to that kind of environment, Samael constructed his own realm to experience and spread his sin. This was Lestia."
Levash watched as Alice's hand raised into the air, realising she wasn't going to let him continue he nodded to her in assent.
"So is he the equivalent of the Devil then? Satan?"
"All monikers he has used in his dealings in foreign planes, his true name, Samael, was reserved for use amongst those born or shaped by sin."
"And this all relates to Lilith how?"
"One more interruption and I'm sending you to bed with nothing else, you can go tell Lilith how you pissed me off."
As Alice put her hands up in surrender, he winked and continued. "With Lestia built, Samael finally had to fathom his loneliness, he had constructed a physical form for himself, a home, and ways to spread pride to other beings, to mould them in his image, but he didn't have anyone else indulging in that sin with him. He aimed to create a creature out of pure sin, to have never existed as anything else but sin. His hope being that they would relate to him in Pride however upon creation, he found Lilith. Obviously Lilith did not take to Pride but soon found herself establishing a new sin that was absent from creation, Lust. After indulging in her new sin with the first Demon she soon gave birth to her first child, Belial who also turned out to be a demon of lust not pride. In the end Samael realised he had failed in creating a true partner for Pride and giving Lilith her own layer of Lestia as far from him as possible, he sent her to establish her own kingdom. She declared herself the Prince of Lust, and Samael followed suit adopting the moniker for Pride. Not to be out done by his own creation he did also go on to declare himself King of Lestia itself and typically used this term rather than any others."
Alice placed her hand up again and he stopped so she assumed it was safe to speak. "So Samael is, shock, really prideful then." Levash nodded. "Then why was he ever trying to create an equal if they would never have truly been equal?"
"He's a Lucifan, they can pretend to be well rounded leaders who are naturally fit for their role, but their sin clouds their minds as much as lust clouds ours." Levash said with a wink.
Levash cleared his throat to continue once he realised Alice had no further comments to add. "Once her kingdom was established, Lilith started to travel to other realms and convert beings she found to lust, creating the first true Succubi and Incubi, they resembled her and her child's forms, our forms, but even those turned by Lilith herself could not stand up to her or the children of Liliths power. Long story short Samael continued to try and create a partner resulting in four more Demons who would all go on to establish their own sins, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth and Envy. After this he gave up on trying to create an equal and instead followed in the footsteps of his creations, he began spawning demons through those corrupted by his sin, thus giving us Lucifans, or pride Demons. After he gave up there was some conflict between Lilith and the Prince of Greed, Mammon, this culminated with Mammon killing Lilith's first child, Belial. Lilith fell into a fit of anger so deep it caused her to, in turn, create a second sin of her own, Wrath. The conflict led to war and Lilith killed Mammon, flooded and seized his kingdom and used it to establish a second layer of Lestia dedicated to wrath, and the Demons created in her war against Mammon became Leviacas, Wrath Demons. Samael despised this result, feeling upstaged by his own creations. Which he was. Following this he declared creation of a second sin to be treason, Lilith was made to appoint a Demon to represent Wrath, which always was seen as a puppet, her child Marchosias. Greed demons relocated to a less desirable plane in Lestia, and that is how he arrived at what Lestia looked like prior to the invasion. Lilith created two kinds of Demons, two sins, was the first demon born of pure sin, was the first to turn beings into Demons, etcetera, etcetera." Levash trailed off towards the end, pride, ironically evident in his voice but still as he mentioned the invasion his mood turned decidedly more dour.
Levash paused after that, Alice reluctant to push him. He finally looked back up from the ground, his face set and his voice clear. "During the fall, Baphomet the Prince of Gluttony and Abyzou the Prince of Envy both died early on, their layers made for poor fortifications. Astaroth, Prince of Sloth, disappeared shortly after." He paused and closed his eyes, she could see the muscles in his arms looked tight, his fists clenched, she moved closer to him reaching out to hold his hand, after a few moments he accepted the gesture.
As his tight muscles released their tension he looked up and shared a small smile with Alice before continuing. "After this the fighting had grown mostly to a stalemate, Lilith, Samael and Marchosias, had finally created a secure path connecting the three kingdoms with Greed, which had managed to stand alone. Once a route had been opened, the three Princes planned with Pluto the Prince of Greed," Levash sneered, spitting his name like a curse. "The plan was to connect their armies together in Lust and work their way down through each layer, leaving only reserve forces behind them. There would be a, well a natural phenomenon in Lestia at that time that created a thick red miasma across the edges of most layers, moving under this cover, the Celestials would not have been able to track the armies movements nor know that they had all amassed in one realm. Samael and Marchosias were never seen again, their armies say they had been attacked by an overwhelming force, but the stories of that evening were wild and varied across the armies. Needless to say the Princes had been betrayed by Pluto who after this evening declared his defection to the Celestials, he was to be "cleansed" of his sin. As far as we know to this day he lives in luxury for his betrayal, a gilded cage crafted to only contain him. Lilith alone stood against the hordes for what felt like hundreds of years. We even managed to expand into Gluttony and had hopes to seize Greed but it was never to be. Celestials had snuck past our defences, Lilith was butchered and her body taken to be paraded as a trophy, the last fallen Prince. With her defeat, pockets managed to last for maybe two, three years, but, in the end we all fell."
Alice sat in silence, Levash's voice was tight as he attempted to lighten the mood. "I'm impressed you have sat still for so long."
"They paraded her body around?"
Levash shrugged. "This is what we were told, but it would have been around their realm, not ours. Had they done that in Lestia, perhaps it would have inspired more resistance, she became in the end, our only beacon of hope, for all Demons."
Alice tried to speak in her mind to Lilith, the Demon she had spoken with seemed like many things but never this general, Prince, Levash spoke of her admiration, adoration even clear in his voice. Yet Lilith did not respond.
Trying to turn the subject away from the potential humiliations she suffered, Alice asked. "I'm just, when you say they created sin, you don't mean literally right? Humans have been greedy and wrathful and all the rest since time immemorial. Those impulses weren't created by anyone else, they just, are."
