Chapter Text
“Once Upon a Time, there was a glowing city protected by gates known as Heaven. It was ruled by beings of pure light, angels that worshiped good and shielded all from Evil. Lucifer was one of these angels. He was a dreamer with fantastical ideas for all of creation. He was seen as a troublemaker by the Elders of Heaven, for they felt his way of thinking was dangerous to the order of their world. So, he watched as the angels began to expand the universe in their ways.
From the dust of earth they created Adam and Lilith, equals as the first of mankind. Despite this, Adam demanded control and Lilith refused to submit to his will. She fled the Garden and Lucifer, drawn in by her fierce independence, found her. The two rebellious dreamers fell deeply in love. Together, they wished to share the magic of free will with humanity. The pair offered the fruit of knowledge to Adam’s new bride, Eve, who gladly accepted. This gift came with a curse, for with this single act of disobedience Evil finally found its way into Earth. With it, a new realm of darkness and Sin.
The order Heaven had worked to maintain was shattered. As punishment for their reckless act, Heaven cast Lucifer and his love into the Dark pit they created. Never would Lucifer be allowed to see the good that came from Humanity, only the cruel and the wicked. Ashamed, Lucifer lost his will to dream. Lilith, however, thrived. She empowered demonkind with her voice and her songs. As the numbers of Hell grew, so did its power. Threatened by this, Heaven made a truly heartless decision. They chose to send down an army, an Extermination, to ensure Hell and its sinners could never rise against them. Still, Lillith’s hope remained and her dream was passed down to their precious daughter: The Princess of Hell.”
Charlotte Morningstar looks at the last page of the storybook with a huge smile on her face, “Mommy the last part is about me!” Lillith, Charlotte’s Mommy and her favorite person, smiles at her as she rubs her free hand in Charlotte’s blonde hair.
“I’m very aware, Lottie.”
”A-And Daddy and you are in the book too Mommy! It's why it’s the bestest story ever,” Charlotte toothily grins as she holds her Daddy’s hand tighter.
Charlotte’s Daddy shakes his head with a smile, “I’m surprised it's your favorite sweetie. It isn’t like we read it almost every night. You know, the story could be a little nicer to Daddy,” Mommy lightly slaps his arm. Daddy kisses her cheek. Than, the absolute weirdos smile at each other. Mommy and Daddy are so funny.
Mommy sniffs, “Well, Why don’t you write the next one then? But,” she giggles and places her head on his shoulder, “I doubt Lottie will like it as much as her favorite book !” Daddy makes a little noise like he’s hurt, but Charlotte knows he’s just pretending. Something you have to know about her Daddy is that he is really, REALLY, silly. He loves being goofy almost as much as Charlie loves the smell of paper. She really, REALLY, loves the smell of paper.
She leans over, letting go of Daddy’s hand, and smells the paper. Daddy probably doesn’t even notice, cause he and Mommy are just giggling at each other. The paper smells, as she expected, super good and papery.
“Our little Duck,” Mommy says, “Such a silly girl. Just like her Daddy.” Charlie hears little kissy noises as Mommy speaks. Guh-rose. Still, her heart feels very happy here with her paper and her Mommy and her silly Daddy. She really, REALLY, loves story time.
Suddenly, she starts laughing uncontrollably. It isn’t magic because she feels hands on her tummy tickling.
“Haha-HAhah-Haha, St-Stop, HahhahahhAHHah- DADDY!!!” Charlotte grabs his hands and gives him a pout. She isn’t really sad though, cause Daddy gives her a goofy face.
He pulls her into the space between him and Mommy, sing-talking, “Charlieee!! Tell Mommy and Daddy your most favorite part!”
“It’s-”
“And,” he wags his finger, “It can’t be the part with you in it.”
Pouting a silly pout, she exhales and thinks. It doesn’t take long for her eyes to brighten. “I really love when Mommy is brave! She stands up for herself against the mean guy, Adam! Then you meet each other and fall in love,” she gushes.
Mommy and Daddy smile at each other.
“I think that’s our favorite part too,” Daddy fondly croons, “Meeting Mommy was the best thing that ever happened to me. Besides the day I met you, my Ducky”
Mommy grins, “Well, the best thing to happen to me was seeing your Uncle Mammon fall on his butt at the Gala last year.”
Daddy clutches his chest, “Betrayed by my own wife!” He puts his head on top of Charlotte’s, making her giggle.
“I’m joking, of course,” Mommy lilts, “Meeting your Father and having you are the highlights of my life.” Daddy sighs happily, closing his eyes. Mommy waits a second before looking at Charlotte, gesturing to her hands and Daddy’s belly. Charlotte knows EXACTLY what to do. The two ladies of the Royal House of Morningstar pounce, tickling the Devil with no mercy.
“HAHHHAHhahhehHEHEHhehHAHH, I YIEL-, HEHEHHAHHAHHA”
Yeah, Charlotte loves the story of Eden.
The story Princess Charlotte grew up with isn’t the full truth. This can’t be fully blamed on her parents, as only a select few know the truth of Eden. Lillith and Lucifer, despite being half of the key players of the story, don’t understand the full picture. How can they, when Heaven took every step to ensure the smallest amount knew the secret of Eden.
The day Lillith betrayed Eden was the day Heaven knew they had to take action to prevent further rebellion. Obviously, what they had done to create the first women had not worked. Unlike Adam, she was disobedient and willful, not even needing to taste the Fruit of Knowledge to gain free will. Still, it was the will of the Almighty for humanity to populate the Earth. The Elders knew that they needed progenitors for the chosen species of God, but they were not willing to risk another Lillith.
After countless days of uninterrupted debate, it was decided. The Elders had devised a plan so brilliant, even Mettatron was unable to find a flaw. In hindsight, the elders agreed amongst each other that it seemed obvious in hindsight. As Raziel first noted, one human was still loyal to a fault: Adam, the First man. Why would Heaven create a new human who may repeat the same sins as Lillith when they could mold their pet into the exact person they needed?
Thus, the Elders descended upon Eden, greeting a distraught Adam, lost in his feverish prayers.
Adam did not like what he was feeling, which was itself a new feeling for him. Everything was wrong. His eyes were leaking, making his face feel wet. His body was introduced to a new sensation of utter wrongness. Before, being soaked meant he had just had fun in the crystal blue water littered across the paradise of Eden. Would he ever be able to enjoy the water again now that he was alone?
It had been days since Adam had seen anyone. Lily had left in the middle of the night after they had another fight. Everytime they talked it felt like a fight. Before he met her, he was unable to even understand what a fight was. Even though it is blasphemous, Adam longs for the days before he and Lily had been introduced. When it was only him and the angels.
He loved the Angels so much. They gave him hugs and stroked his hair, whispering soft words into his ears. Sometimes, they would wrap their wings around his form. He really liked the way the feathers felt against his skin.
One angel in particular was Adam’s favorite, his best friend! Lucifer, the Arch-Seraphim with a dazzling smile and a laugh that made Adam feel like how he imagined the birds in the sky felt when they swooped around. Lucifer told Adam he was his ‘Guardian Angel.’ Adam was so, so, happy that he was Luci’s and Luci was his. He just wished Lucifer felt the same way about him.
Adam knows that Luci loved him before they both met Lily. It took a bit after she was introduced to them as Adam’s wife, a concept which Adam had to be explained about multiple times before he understood it, for the two of them to decide they liked each other far more than liked him.
It started slowly, with the pair leaving him alone for minutes at a time to run around together. He didn’t even notice at first, so distracted by things the others didn’t particularly seem to care about anymore, like naming the animals or smelling the flowers. It was only when Lucifer denied playing with the Ducks, a creation he and Adam always said was theirs together, that Adam understood something had changed.
Adam wanted his friend mostly, but he also knew he needed to follow the word of God and fulfill his duties as Lily’s husband. Anytime he tried to kiss her or give her gifts, she ignored him. He saw her one day, throwing the pretty rock he had gifted her on their first meeting. He had spent hours searching for that rock. Lucifer had helped him had picked it out together.
He tried to fight against the change. He began to yell and stamp his feet when the pair ignored him. He would beg the pair to bring him, to listen to him, but they only became angry. Lily yelled that she didn’t want to be controlled, by him or by the Elders. Luci rolled his eyes and told him to stop being silly.
He wished he was just being silly, that he was imagining things. He knew, without a doubt, that he was right. He was being abandoned by the only two people that he really knew in the world. The two people he loved.
The night before, things reached a breaking point. He brought Lily another pinecone. She threw it on the ground.
“I don’t have to listen to you Addie,” she yelled.
Adam stamped his foot, “Yes you do Lily! It is the will of God that we are husband and wi-”
“I don’t care what God says! You aren’t my keeper or my destiny. I create my own fate. I am my own will,” she screams, pointing her beautiful finger at him, “You aren’t like me or Luci! You refuse to take charge of yourself! You follow the will of our captors without question! Don’t you ever wonder what it would be like to make your own choices? You could come with us Addie!”
Adam didn’t understand.
“Make our own choices?”
So, he was left behind. He regretted not understanding with every fiber of his being. They left him. He wasn’t smart enough to understand so they left him. He knew now that if he was asked again to forge his own path, he would just so he could be with the two he loved. He still didn’t understand, but he would for them. But he lost his chance. So, his eyes leaked. He had fallen to his knees hours ago. He prayed and prayed and prayed for another chance.
He wouldn’t get one.
“Adam, first man,” a voice bellowed. Adam startled and looked up at the noise, before bowing when he saw the visages of the Elders of Heaven. He steadied his hands, which had been in the praying position for hours already. He waited with baited breath for the words of the angels.
He knew he should rebel and scream. Ask where they had gone, demand they let him go. Maybe Lily and Luci were watching nearby, waiting for him to prove himself. Still, he found himself unable to move. His eyes welled with more liquid. He remembers Luci calling the leaking something, but his head hurts far too much to remember the term.
“Rise, Adam of Eden, and gaze upon us.” He obeyed, without question, thinking over and over of how stupid stupid stupid he was. He gazed upon their figures.
One angel steps forward, “Adam, you’ve failed in your duties as the Father of humanity. You failed to control your wife, allowing her to be seduced away by the idea of independence. How is it that a being created in the perfect image of God could fail at the simple tasks he was assigned?” Adam couldn’t speak, even if he wanted to. He was so, so, scared. He failed. He couldn’t do the very simple tasks he was assigned. It wasn’t as if he disobeyed, no he also failed at that. He was so incompetent that he couldn’t do anything right. His knees began shaking. He stopped breathing.
“Fear not, for you have been granted mercy,” another speaks, their voice echoey and inhuman, “The council has decided that you will be granted another chance.” Adam’s breath picked up. It was going to be ok. Even if his friends left him, the Elders wouldn’t abandon him. They were so merciful, so righteous, that they would offer him the opportunity to prove himself.
Adam sinks to his knees, “I-I know I am unworthy. I am so grateful for the chance to prove myself to Heaven.” One Angel coos. It was going to be ok. He was so happy that at least one thing would be ok.
One Angel, who Adam identifies by appearance as Mettatron, clears his throat, “A punishment is, understandably, required.” Adam begins shaking his head in approval, yes, yes, yes. It is clear that he needs to learn a lesson, to change.
“Adam, you failed to control your wife and to fulfill your duties. For this, you will be punished. In the day, you will be Adam: Father of Humanity. In the night you will become Eve, Mother of Humanity and bringer of life. All of humanity will come from you and you will be personally responsible for each soul.”
Adam felt, again confused.
“I am u-unable to understand, My Angel. I was told that God created women to bear the children and man to provide the seed? How will I do it alone and fulfill the duties of Lily-Lillith?”
Mettatron smiled a smile which felt…wrong and placed his hand on Adam’s shoulder, “Like this, my child.”
Suddenly, Adam’s body began to shift. He screamed out in agony as his shape began to change. His chest began growing in size, his weight redistributing itself. He almost felt himself becoming…shorter? His eyes began to leak-…
No. They began to cry. He finally remembered the word Lucifer told him as his body completed its transformation. Adam looked down and saw a body that was the same kind as Lily’s.
The body of a woman.
“In the night, you will turn into this,” Mettatron gestured to Adam’s body, “form. That of Eve, the bringer of humanity. Through holy intervention, you will give birth through virgin pregnancy, creating the holiest of children to populate the Earth. You are being granted the highest honor and mercy, Eve.”
Thus it was so, for it was the will of the Heavens.
…
He missed his friends.
From this interaction, the world changed forever. Still, Humanity did not happen the way Heaven wanted it to, not before or after this turning point. Adam betrayed Heaven, just like Lillith did.
Or, it is more accurate to say that Eve betrayed Heaven.
Lillith and Lucifer found who they assumed was Adam’s ‘New Bride’ and, like they had at one point wanted for Adam, they wished to liberate her by granting her free will.
They came across her alone among the trees of Eden, sitting next to a purring tiger. Both giggled and became excited when they saw how excitable this new human was. Lucifer was struck by how similar this Eve was to the old Adam: innocent, carefree, caring, and affectionate. Upon seeing the couple, Eve ran into them. Her soft arms pulled both of them into a warm hug.
Adam had no idea that the pair didn’t recognize him. He thought they must know that he had been changed or at least, recognized him as Adam when they saw him.
The cosmic misunderstanding which occurred between the trio was not understood by Adam until he had already taken a bite of the forbidden fruit offered to him by Lucifer. Of course, at that point, Adam had already engaged in something… fun with Lucifer and Lillith. An act he would later understand as sex, something new that the couple had created and wanted to share with their ‘new’ friend Eve.
When Adam bit into that apple, he understood a lot. He felt shame first, for a lot of things. For being naked, for not realizing the people he loved didn’t even recognize him, for being so desperate to be loved by them he betrayed God, and for eating the apple in the first place.
The backlash was instantaneous. Eve was separated from the couple, who didn’t wonder until much later what Adam’s reaction had been to learning his ‘wife’ had doomed humanity. Adam was oh so alone again and his punishment was worse than he could have imagined.
He was forced to leave Eden, alone and unprotected. Knowing he had doomed all of humanity. Knowing he had brought evil into the world. All of the tears in the world couldn’t express his anguish. He had entered the Garden as Adam and left it as Eve, the sun not rising until hours after he found himself in the new unfamiliar world.
Stranded, trapped out of Eden and alone, Adam fulfilled his dual duties and did everything in his power to atone for his sins. At first, he foolishly believed Lucifer and Lilith would come back for him. When he was in labor with his first child, he was sure Lucifer would come barreling to his side at every second. The pain of pregnancy and childbirth was unbearable, something he assumed was another punishment for his sin. He wanted Lucifer there, but he never came.
Adam gave birth to his and Lucifer’s son, Cain. He loved his son. The first time he had felt joy at all, let alone in the body of Eve, since the Apple was when Cain’s little brown eyes fluttered open for the first time. Of course, that joy was soon replaced with fear when he was visited by the angels and again punished. He had given birth to the spawn of the devil. He had already lost his virginity and now he had sullied his womb with the mark of the Devil. His births would no longer be the holy virginal kind the Angels had dreamed of. He cried for days in tandem with his infant son when he realized he had again doomed humanity. He would later learn that the menstrual cycle was punishment for this sin.
He was impregnated through spiritual means on a regular basis. Almost every birth was followed by another pregnancy. His body became ravaged and exhausted in both forms as he spent the days as Adam, working the fields tirelessly. His family grew in size, bringing him back some of the joy he had stolen from him. Abel understood him in ways no one else did, Cain treated him so kindly whenever he was Eve, Seth hung onto his every word, Aclima picked up burdens without anyone ever asking her. Every child was to him a perfect being. Proof in some way that maybe he hadn’t doomed humanity. That the sacrifice of being Adam and being Eve was worth it.
That was until Cain killed Abel. The angels had always pit Cain against Abel. Cain looked like his Father, which is to say he very little like his brothers and sisters. His hair was a blondish gold, his skin pale. He was shorter than all of his siblings around his age, although still much taller than his Father. Adam noticed that his laugh was just like Lucifers. He loved hearing it.
All of the children, excluding Cain, had their sacrifices accepted but it was the fervor at which Abel’s were gobbled up that truly got to Cain. Cain went out almost everyday with Abel to collect things to sacrifice, spending every second he wasn’t working the fields to try and impress the Angels. Still, he remained unnoticed. Cain once told Adam that he felt as though he could cut off his arm and sacrifice it and still be ignored. He had hugged Cain all night after that incident.
Adam still remembers that day and not understanding why Abel wasn’t moving, Cain screaming for Abie to ‘wake up, please, wake up!’ Adam met the angel Sera that night. She came down and told him what death was. He was Eve then and despite being heavily pregnant, he still tried to drag Abel inside. He couldn’t understand or accept what happened.
Other Elders came down and took the body from him. They took him and Cain out to a field, Adam only having a second to cry out to Aclima and Seth to ‘please please watch the babies and stay safe don’t stop moving please please!’ His son was banished far away, to wander the Earth until his death. He still remembers Cain sobbing.
“Mama, Mama, Please! I didn’t know what I was doing! I didn’t know Abel would stop moving, please, PLEASE MAMA!”
Cain’s body began moving on its own, contorting in ways which looked excruciatingly painful. Adam sobbed as his son began moving away from him. As his son got further away, his sobs became so hard that he collapsed onto the flowery grass. When he opened his eyes, he realized that the Elders were gone. He was alone.
On that lonely walk back to his remaining family, Adam realized just how much he despised himself. How much he hated the concept of being a woman. He had not minded being Eve before the apple and had tolerated it after. There were times he even loved it, because of his children. At that moment, Adam decided that he hated it. It was being Eve that doomed humanity and killed his children.
Adam spent the next 900 years fulfilling his duties. He birthed and raised humanity. Faithful to the end, he was able to enter Heaven when he finally died: having completed his punishment on earth and, in the eyes of the Elders, making up for his own original sin.
When Adam entered Heaven, he vowed to never live as Eve again. He, unfortunately, knew he had the option through the elders who ordered him to demonstrate the transformation the day he arrived in Heaven. ‘Just so we know you can do it,’ they said. Adam didn’t care, as long as he never had to do it again.
He threw himself into anything that distracted him from his past. Music, booze, women: anything that kept his mind off of what he had experienced. When the Elder’s told him off there need for exterminations, he volunteered. How could it be that there were so many in Hell they needed to be culled? These sinners weren’t like Cain. He didn’t know what he was doing. They did. They had all of the knowledge of what was sin and what wasn’t, yet they still chose to sin. In the end, he knows it is his fault they sinned. It was his responsibility to take care of his descendants, to ensure they didn’t threaten Heaven.
He did everything to ensure the success of the exterminations. He trained his girls, the closest thing he has to family since he distanced himself out of pain from his children and descendants, and watched them grow. He slaughtered the sinners of hell with no mercy. Soon it became easy to ignore their screams for mercy. He even made a deal with Lillith alongside the Elders, to keep her in Heaven as a bargaining chip against Hell in case the worst were to happen. He did everything right.
So why did he have to die?
As that stupid little cyclops bitch stabbed him through the chest, he reazlized he may have fucked up. His mind began to fuzz as he collapsed, suddenly finding Lute over him. He smiled at his closest friend, the one who hadn’t abandoned him. Who loved him. As his vision blackened, he had the small comfort of realizing he would finally be able to rest. He chuckled in his head, “Hey, at least I died in this body.”
Imagine his surprise when he woke up.
Imagine his surprise when he woke up in hell.
Imagine his fucking surprise when wakes up after his second death in a body he never thought he would have to be in again. Staring at his tits, he curses.“What the actual fuck.”