Zhirael's Links
Zhirael's boyfriend, whom he adores to a capacity Zhirael wasn't previously aware non-humans were capable of. He initially hired Bonnie to help him with technological matters, but it didn't take long for both of them to realize they had a mutual interest in each other.
Zhirael's feelings are incredibly puzzling to him, seeing that he's a member of a species that isn't automatically born with human emotions. He can't exactly explain why he finds Bonnie so amusing, why he finds his snarking and audacity so charming, why his heart beats a little faster when Bonnie blushes and gets all flustered when Zhirael teases him, or why when Bonnie starts falling asleep next to him he can't keep himself from stroking his hair... but he's not sure he needs to. He's fairly transparent about his feelings toward Bonnie, as he is about most things.
Once all of this revolt-against-the-heavens business is over with, he'd like to just settle down with Bonnie somewhere and relax for a while.
Bonnie's boyfriend and boss, whom he's madly in love with. Bonnie is just as cocky and obnoxious to him as he is to everyone else, if not even moreso. He likes to tease Zhirael a lot, though he'll turn red and deny that he likes it when Zhirael teases him back. He's very open and vocal about his relationship, especially among friends, and likes to brag about Zhirael whenever he has the opportunity. Ideally, he would just be around him all the time.
Though to others - Zhirael included - he seems confident and very secure about their relationship, Bonnie is actually pretty self-conscious about it. He feels like Zhirael is way, way too good for him and that all he really does is take. What weighs even more heavily on him is the implication of Zhirael dating a human; Zhirael is already controversial enough to all three planes, and Bonnie's not making anything better. Even though Zhirael couldn't possibly care less, Bonnie feels like he's just dragging down Zhirael's reputation even further. Still, Bonnie loves him to death and he's pretty sure Zhirael feels the same way, so he tries to hide his concerns because the thought of losing Zhirael fills Bonnie with a cold sense of dread that he doesn't want any part of. Which, of course, just loops back to him feeling selfish that he's not convincing Zhirael to do better for himself.
A former Higher Angel who was kicked out of Heaven - a story he's no stranger to. They were originally enemies, but over time Langer helped bring them together as friends. After Langer's disappearance they were both equally eager to find him, working in tandem to search Heaven, Hell, and the mortal plane. But even after LaPlata contracted with him, he couldn't find so much as a trace of Langer. To this day he still seeks out Langer, but no longer just for his own purposes. He wants to complete his contract with LaPlata both for the sake of his own honor and for the sake of LaPlata's happiness.
A Demon Lord who used to be her greatest enemy before becoming her closest friend. He's the only one she's kept in any sort of contact with over the past many years, infrequently visiting him or inviting him to wherever she plans to drift toward next. She's grateful that he's tried so hard to find Langer and bring forth the world they all dreamed of, but she's too tired to do anything more. She wishes him the best, but she was never much of an optimist. He doesn't need to concern himself with paying her back for taking her eye and being able to do little with it. He's done enough, really.
A former professor of his from his Hell College days. Zhirael knows he's undoubtedly untalented and powerful, but they just come from two entirely different worlds. He's learned much from Yenzhal and could learn even more, but Zhirael finds it hard to be around him for too long. It's unfortunate that Yenzhal is so stubborn; Zhirael would love for him to make the same breakthrough he did in caring for lower beings, but he knows such a thing is next to impossible.
A former student at Hell College and a former student of his. Really quite the brilliant pupil... such a shame that he wound up like so many other demons of his generation, all tied up in the affairs of mortals and weakened by the burden of emotion... Perhaps someday he'll return to his senses and put that potential of his to good use.
Somewhat familiar, on second glance. Brings to mind the vaguest memory of a grocery store at 4 AM...
...It's all up to him now.
Zhirael is very familiar with Istra, and he was vital in the effort to [DATA EXPUNGED]
During his time in Hell College Zhirael spent a lot of time studying Istra and performing experiments on them, in particular seeking a way to stabilize them and create a treatment to cure those they infected. His thesis revolved around them, so needless to say Zhirael has a thorough knowledge of Istra inside and out.
Zhirael sees Istra as his responsibility and feels guilty for leaving them for so long. He knows he wasn't obligated to stay and he had important reasons to go back home... but as much as he respects Hell College's faculty, he doesn't trust them to treat Istra properly. He has a deep understanding of how to get Istra to cooperate, what they're capable of, what their limits are... he's left all sorts of documentation behind, but from his experience he expects that information to be used to further manipulate and exploit Istra for power and financial gain.
His experiences with Istra helped set into motion his desire to liberate lower beings from higher beings and encourage respect all throughout the chain of power. He's looking forward to seeing them again, even if they won't remember him.
He hopes he'll be able to change that.
Istra holds on to memories of Zhirael a little better than their memories of others, presumably due to having spent a lot of time around him. They don't remember much about him overall, but he seems to be very familiar with them...
They feel a certain melancholy from Zhirael, but they can't understand why. It seems like Zhirael feels bad for them, but Istra can't really see what's upsetting about their situation. Is their life really that bad? What does he know that they can't remember...?
Either way, Istra trusts him and enjoys his company. They're more cooperative with him than with other Hell College faculty and alumni, helped by the fact that Zhirael understands their behavior the best.
One of Bonnie's internet friends. He can't claim to know her personally, but any friend of Bonnie's is a friend of his.
"i'd fuck him" ~actual quote
A former pain in his side. They, Khazael, Langer, and LaPlata spent years pestering him and taking his things, and Ouray encouraged their partners to continue doing so with gusto.
...But he's glad. Ouray's persistence led to Zhirael making his first real connections with others, his first friends. The time he spent with them and their companions was invaluable to him, and he always enjoyed the group's company. They were a gateway into something far grander for him... and so, even though it was Ouray's last wish, potentially pushing Ouray into nonexistence pained him. After losing Langer, losing Ouray as well was a hard blow that led to him reconsidering the relationships that demons and humans were "meant" to have.
He currently has no idea that they've reincarnated into one of Bonnie's friends, though if he were to find out it would undoubtedly be cathartic to him to know that a little piece of them still lives on, that their contract didn't take them away so much as it allowed Ouray to find an entirely new way of existing - just as they had hoped for.
A fantastic person! From the moment Ouray laid eyes on Zhirael they adored him. He was so dark, intense, malevolent, threatening... completely awesome, in other words! Completely lacking any fear toward him (quite the opposite, actually), Ouray was the one who always pushed for the group to keep bothering him. They didn't hesitate to give up their eye for the purposes of encouraging further interaction, and as they lay dying their only wish was to see him once again.
Even if their contract went awry, they wouldn't have minded having their soul just going back to Zhirael. They wouldn't have given it to him if they didn't trust him with it, after all.
Langer was the catalyst for Zhirael's shift in personality and worldview, encouraging him to have a more open-minded view of the world and the relationships between its three planes.
...Of course, his feelings for Langer weren't always so deep. The first time they met, he and Ouray were rummaging through his belongings and Zhirael fully intended to kill them both and go about his day. But one glance at those eyes... that color, that iris pattern, the way they complimented the rest of his face... he instantly went weak at the knees. He had to have them. He spent the next handful of years eagerly waiting Langer and Ouray's foolish return trips, leaping at any chance he had to convince Langer to part with an eye and embracing every opportunity he had to stare at them.
Of course, Langer as a person slowly grew on him as well. There was something almost charming about the way he, against all reason, kept coming back as though he was seriously ever going to win. The only humans he had met before were ones who sought to sell their souls: people who were either full of pride and other sins or those who were fearful and dreaded his presence. Langer and his friends, meanwhile, kept treating him like an old friend even in the heat of battle. They baffled him. Still, eventually he began to see them the way they viewed him, cemented he and Langer's trade of eyes.
Langer's disappearance made Zhirael feel things he had never felt before. There was a sort of ache somewhere inside of him - a sense of loss that hurt when he touched it and hurt when he tried to ignore it. He unhesitatingly joined the search for him and was sorely disappointed when, with all of his power and effort, he came up with nothing.
Langer's disappearance kicked Zhirael's plan to lead a revolution against Heaven into action, and through it he hopes he'll be able to uncover the truth of what happened to him.
For better or worse, though, the truth is pretty far off from what he was expecting.
Langer's relationship with Zhirael was... kinda complicated. First Zhirael was trying to murder him, then he was going on about how gorgeous his eyes were, then he was kind of doing a little bit of both... did he want to fight? Did he want to bang?? Did he want to do both??? Some serious mixed signals going on there.
Either way it didn't take long for Langer to stop seeing Zhirael as a threat, seeing him more as a friend who sometimes tried to kidnap him to rip his eyes out but other times let him borrow whatever and told him cool stories about Hell stuff. Not exactly the most stable or safe relationship to have, but Langer was always pretty confident that Zhirael wasn't going to kill him so long as Langer could keep his eyes in his sockets... and, as such, Langer letting Zhirael take one of his eyes served as a symbol of his trust.
Langer always wondered what happened to Zhirael after he got all chinchilla'd and whatnot... would Zhirael have missed him...?
An employee of his whose soul he owns. Zhirael's employed him to aid in his efforts to bring the sins of Heaven to light and liberate humanity. He revived his girlfriend, gave him a place to live, provides his income... and yet Tigel still seems to despise him. He's become very used to humans being fond of him against all odds, so to have someone treat him with such vitriol despite his best efforts... it's certainly new to him.
Tigel has exposed him to the side of humanity that's been wronged so deeply that it consumes them with hatred for both themselves and others, and Zhirael has found himself unable to blame Tigel for his loathing. The more Zhirael learns about him, the more he understands.
Despite Tigel's attitude toward him, Zhirael is fond of Tigel and trusts him unconditionally, confident in his ability to complete any task assigned to him. He hopes someday that Tigel will understand that and be able to trust him in return, but he's fine if Tigel takes his time. If he's learned one thing about humans, it's that you have to be very careful with them.
The Demon Lord he sold his soul to for the sake of Seems' life. Is naturally distrustful of him and - unless he's around Seems - is very openly bitter toward him. He doesn't really believe he'll earn his soul back, but what choice does he have? He'll play his game as long as he have to for Seems' sake.
Though Zhirael hasn't shown malicious intent toward him, Tigel can't bring himself to trust him. He doesn't want to be wrong, and eternity is a long time. Even if he's friendly now, how can Tigel be sure his soul won't be at risk a decade from now? A century? The horrifying idea of being eternally under his command, completely at his whims, overtakes any positive aspects that Zhirael presents.
The woman Tigel sold his soul to him for. She subsequently became an employee of his, completely unaware of her death as a personal request from Tigel.
Zhirael enjoys her company and finds her to be an interesting insight into the emotions and motivations of mortals. The dynamic between her and Tigel has been revealing, to say the least. He's learned that love is an incredible motivator that comes in an infinite number of forms: familial love, sexual love, romantic love, friendly love, aesthetic love, a general love for all beings...
She's an interesting conversationalist who's helped him realized some things about himself. It seems that he isn't as far removed from humans as he had previously assumed...
Aw, you know, just some Demon Lord she works for! No big deal! She thinks he's a pretty cool guy, especially for a supposedly evil hell-being! She's remarkably open with him. There's just an aura about him that makes her feel like she can trust him, and so far he hasn't let her down!
Even though Tigel tries to hide it, she knows there's something weird between the two... why does she get the feeling it involves her?
A strange, undead child that he wound up taking in. He's intrigued by their soullessness; he's heard of souls being claimed or consumed, but not of a being without a soul who continued... err, living, for lack of a better word. He took them in and is providing them with magical energy in return for one of their eyes.
Zhirael is very fond of Eo, thinking of them as both something like a protégé and something like their own child. He's very proud of his necrodetective!!
...Something about them just seems so familiar, though...
The Demon Lord who took them in, provided them with the energy to survive, and is helping them find their soul. Eo holds him in high regard and dislikes being away from him for too long, seeing him as something like a father figure.
An interesting case. A Heaven College professor who betrayed the Overkings and fell to Hell... he gave Zhirael a lot to think about. If that was the case there, then it only seemed naturally that back home Heaven wasn't a single cruel entity... it was likely that there were many angels being oppressed and manipulating into allowing their superiors to do as they pleased, and if that was the case...
Jing gave Zhirael all the more reason to return to his home planet and set things right.
A Hell College graduate who was present when Jing first fell. He's good company and didn't judge him for being an angel, and he's glad to hear that he's returning to Hell College after so long.
A friend of Bonnie's, and therefore a friend of his. Hell College has given Zhirael the opportunity to meet him in person, and he's found that he's everything Zhirael expected him to be. This is a good thing, actually! He's a very endearing person and appreciates everything about his personality and motivations. A wonderful person to have both at Hell College and within his company.
Zhirael is oftentimes gently affectionate with him, partially because he's cute and partially because he feels Dicro could use it, what with all of the kinkshaming Bonnie does...
Bonnie's boyfriend, who he was always aware of and knew plenty about thanks to Bonnie wasting no opportunities to gush about him. As such, he knew what he was getting into from the start, but meeting someone like that in person is really... I mean, he's just so... *dicro sweating*
Really, though, Dicro enjoys Zhirael's company and thinks he's a really cool and impressive who has done so much for a lot of people. He really likes him... in a lot of ways... and can't stop sweating........ Tested can't even sweat but that's not going to stop him