yogen | have you got a friend who'll stay?

[the following day, Stephanie has decided that the elevator is the most exciting game she's got readily available, and since they don't even seem to want to let her outside anymore... once again at 7PM, she stands in front of the elevator door, waiting for it to open, bouncing on her feet.]

[Lucifer to himself earlier was like "No way I'm going in the corpse elevator, who cares", but now there's a literal child standing in front of it and he can't help but be curious. She's excited about the elevator? Why. It's an elevator. Previously with a body in it.]

Stephanie. What ever are you up to?

[she glances at him with an expression like "okay one of the dads busted me but it's the cool dad maybe I still have a chance."]

Have you ever been to an amusement park? There's a button in there that makes it kinda go all... yahoo. I'm gonna press it again.

It's been a while, but yes, I have. There's one where I come from called "The Devil's Coast"... that's neither here nor there.

...that might be dangerous. Let me accompany you. I don't want anything to happen to you.

[Like he'd say no but it's Stephanie. No one talks this kid out of stuff.]

[good, he's learning.

she beams.] C'mon, then!

[when they enter the elevator, her hand immediately goes to the red button, hovering over it.] You ready?

As I'll ever be, yes.

[He has learnt indeed. Should they get attacked by something, he at least has his whip on him.

Hellevator time.]

[she nods, grins, presses the button, and then the elevator goes, as she said previously, yahoo: a freefall and a sudden stop, that nearly knocks her off her feet before, laughing, she breaks her fall by bracing her hand against the wall of buttons, accidentally hitting the one for the door.

the elevator door swings open, revealing... color. bright, cheery colors and the bluest skies you could imagine. it's the well-maintained and much-loved park in the center of a town that seems to be made entirely out of curved lines, and her face lights up the moment she sees it.]

... Home.

[and then, her face falls, clearly distressed by something, and she's running out of the elevator and into the park.]

[Lucifer doesn't see much wrong with the scene, though he's fascinated to find that they're in... somewhere? Somewhere he doesn't recognize. "Home", she had said, before running off — he can only follow her with a concerned shout of,]

Stephanie?

[The questions of "where the hell are we" and "how the hell are we here" can't be answered right now, because he's half-running after a very speedy child.]

Everything's... missing. Why are so many things missing? [there's a message in this, something it's telling her, like with Turing before. she's focused so much on wondering where all the sports equipment in the park has gone that she seems completely thrown off when the crowd of faceless people marches towards the park.

"crowd" is generous; it's no more than a dozen people. there are a few adults, but the crowd is mostly children, led by a girl with three pigtails. they carry signs: LET US MOVE. DEMOCRACY. FREE SPORTACUS. NO SPORTS BAN.

she moves through the group, waving her hand in front of their faces with an increasing frown, until she seems to give up on that and moves to wherever Lucifer has ended up, looking up at him.]

... When I came down here with Turing, and they opened the door... It showed their world if the bad guys won. This is my world. [there's a rhythmic noise like metal hitting concrete in the distance. it's getting louder as she speaks.]

[What kind of bad guys could a ten year old possibly be facing? Hello? Lucifer is Concerned?]

As fascinating as that is, [that metal banging noise has him looking around every which way trying to ascertain a source,] we don't have time to pick apart why things are missing or why that crowd is protesting... a sports ban?

[Like honestly what is going on here?]

Something is coming, if that clanging noise is anything to go by.

Don't be scared! If Trixie isn't scared, we'll be fine! [she gestures to the pigtailed figure, and, to be fair, she looks as non-scared as a faceless child can.

the noise ends as two small battalions of figures stands in formation at the entrances to the park, boxing them all in. they are... men? machines? a little bit of both? they are dressed in riot gear, with shields and batons; one carries a chainlink lead that's holding back a somewhat concerning combination of man, machine, and dog.]

... Okay, actually, that's completely new. I do not know what that's about. [beat] No, wait, that's... Oh, Robbie, no...

[the girl, Trixie, immediately gets up into the guards' faces, and the casual backhand one gives her, sending her to the ground, causes no immediate concern among the crowd, for all Stephanie recoils in horror; this has clearly happened before. it's only when one of the guards lifts the girl by the scruff of her jacket, dragging her away, that the others react, attempting to reach her - but, they're beaten back by the other guards.

Trixie is dropped onto the ground; the guards part, and the one that captured her makes a very clear pointing gesture. she's off running immediately, tripping over herself in her haste, and to be fair to the guards, they do give her a solid minute of a head start before they unchain the monster and set it off after her.

maybe it's best that it's out of their sight. the screaming doesn't last very long. but the wet noises do.]

[He's not scared but what use is it telling Stephanie that? She's already gone on to another thought anyway. Which, speaking of that thought...

There are few things that make Lucifer's stomach churn. He's a demon, so his moral complex is sketchy at best. He's desensitized to a lot of violence, and atrocities simply make him shrug most days. However... however.

As a general rule, children always stay out of the sordid affairs of demons; it's a rule they've had since before Lucifer Fell, and he'd always been easy on kids as an angel. Demons, too, have children of their own, though Lucifer personally isn't invested in such things. So... to see a child running for her life only to get mauled to death by an unknown beast... that pisses Lucifer enough to prompt him to switch forms. One hand protectively lands on Stephanie's shoulder lest she attempt to go running off after the creature or do something else equally as stupid.]

We need to leave. Now.

[If he has to fight a monster to keep her safe, so be it, but he'd rather get Stephanie away from the wet slurping sounds and the inevitable danger that comes with staring at this scene.]

[this is a wise move on his part, because she was absolutely going to run off like an idiot, as if there was something she could do about it. instead, she just whispers "it's not real it's not real" under her breath until she starts to believe it again.]

... Where's the elevator? It stops when we get back on. We need to get back to it. [she would help look, but it looks like the crowd is attempting to fight their way through the guards and that requires some horrified staring first.]

[It's not real, probably, that's what Lucifer would like to think anyway. This elevator trip into Hell is reminding him greatly of the myriad doorways to different alternate timelines that lay within Barbatos' room back home. Given that, and given the nature of this school, it's unlikely that this is the reality Stephanie left behind.

Still, though, if this is an alternate timeline, that doesn't make this any less "real". But he's not going to say all of that, and once they're out of here, he's going to assure Stephanie that that sight was just another one of this school's odd illusions. That should be enough, right?]

We wandered fairly far from it, but it should be back this way.

[He puts a hand on her back to sort of push her away from the crowd, trying to block her sight with his wings. She'll probably be able to push aside his feathers pretty easily if she wants to see, but for now, this is what he's doing.

The crowd seems to be growing as he tries to recall just where they came from, and Lucifer finds himself trying to avoid people ere long. They don't need to be questioned or harassed, after all.]

[she stares at the wings, glancing up at him as if it's taken her this long to realize anything has changed. she reaches a hand out, but only to tentatively touch one of the feathers. she is very much not interested in seeing anything past them.]

... These are pretty. [beat] Can you fly?

[Whatever it takes to keep her calm. ~~And of course his wings are pretty they were once the glory of the heavens themselves hello Lucifer is very hot thank you~~]

I can, yes. It's very difficult to do so indoors, is all. That's why I normally don't do it, and likely why you haven't witnessed it.

[Let's skip the part where he regularly flies around in the voidtorium back in the actual school proper, the only place he can fly due to its openness. He'll fly Stephanie around the town if she wants to go, but he's concerned about her possibly seeing more than she needs to here. How many children are getting mauled in this AU timeline?]

Oh. That makes sense. [beat] How do you keep from getting scared?

[it's fine there's just a riot starting behind them. someone threw a folding chair. it's fine.]

[Shhh just keep walking, Steph, you're almost back by now. Pr...obably.]

Let's just say... [He starts, and then realises that "I've seen too much" isn't exactly helpful for a child, so he settles on:] In the heat of the moment, you have to learn how to block out things that are going to scare you to the point of shutting down until you can get somewhere safe.

... What do you do when you get there?

have you got a friend who'll stay?

7/6, lucifer

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tw: uh. child. mauling?

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