Subconscious

'Mum, when will Brother come back?'

'One day, sweetheart. Just be patient.'

---

A month passed.

'Mum, he isn't back yet. You said he would be...'

'Lucifer, it hasn't been very long. You have to wait.' His mother's voice was tense but calm, belying the uncertainty that lay beneath. It was a dusky night; the grey clouds were hiding the moon, the stars swallowed by blackness. Lucifer shivered and huddled under his mother's feathered wing for warmth. He was, after all, only a youngster still.

---

Six months passed.

The cold of winter was morphing into the heat of summer, and suddenly the mountains were alive as they'd never been before. Scorching rocks concealed small lizards sunbathing in the light. Deer and white goats roamed the landscape in herds to keep themselves safe from predators. Mountain lions stood on high cliffs and watched their unsuspecting prey moving soundlessly below. The streams and rivers filled with all kinds of fish, which Lucifer's parents often brought home by the dozen.

As the family ate supper by the fiery evening sunlight, Lucifer spoke up between hasty bites of salmon: 'Hey, when is Brother coming back?'

His parents exchanged glances. There was something in their faces that he didn't recognise, and it made unease curdle in his stomach. He dropped his fish, no longer hungry. 'You said he was coming back... you promised.'

'Lucifer, we don't... know exactly when he'll return,' said the gruff, reassuring voice of his father Rook, a burly black crowdragon standing seven feet tall at the shoulder with a beak that could shear through bone.

'That's right,' said Whitney quickly, looking as though she'd been waiting for her mate to say something. 'He'll be back one day – we just don't know when. OK?'

Lucifer frowned and turned his attention back to his food, tuning out his parents' worried gazes and whispered conversation. He knew they were hiding something. Had his brother been in a terrible accident and was never coming back? Had he gotten lost somewhere and nobody could find him? The endless possibilities swirled around in his head until he could hardly stand it. He wanted to jump at his parents and demand to know where his brother was.

But he couldn't. So he held his silence.

---

Two years passed.

Lucifer was now almost fully-grown, though small for his age, standing barely five foot eight at the shoulder. He'd become acceptant of it, understanding that he would never be as big and strong as his father. His mum seemed not to care either; in fact, if it were possible, she might have loved him even more for his size.

It was a calm, breezy day in mid-March, cool but not freezing, and the salmon were just starting to appear in the rivers. Lucifer took the opportunity to go out on a fishing trip, hoping to bring some food home for his family. He always secretly resented that Whitney refused to allow him out hunting alone, believing he would get hurt or killed somehow.

So he left without telling her.

Later, when he was flying back to his lair in triumph, three large salmon nestled between his jaws, he felt something nearby. It was the creeping feeling of knowing you are being watched, a cold shiver along your neck that shoots down your spine like an icy drop of water. He tried to turn around and look, but being still an inexperienced flyer, his wings wouldn't quite obey him wishes. He never saw what hit him, but it hit him with the strength of a hurricane, sending him tumbling helplessly to earth.

His foreleg snapped cleanly on impact with the reddish-brown rocks below, and as he crumpled his left wing ended up tangled beneath his body; he felt several small bones cracking and splintering. His head slammed into the ground with a force that made his ears ring, and he didn't have time to register any pain before his world sunk into darkness.

---

Two days passed.

Trapped in eternal night, he wandered to the furthest corners of his mind. Everything looked so strange from here, as if he were viewing his own memories through a reflection on a ripping lake. Sounds were muted, drifting in and out of his hearing range. Once or twice he thought he heard his mother sobbing quietly not too far away and ran around desperately in search of her, but she was always just out of reach, her voice intertwined with the gruffer one of Rook, trying to comfort her.

For hours he roamed sleeplessly in the darkness that surrounded him. He saw many things, some interesting, some terrifying. Finding himself bored, he amused himself by searching for specific memories. Once, he stumbled upon a scene that he could barely remember, but somehow felt important...

He was in a shadow-draped room, with rocky walls and an uneven floor. He saw his own younger self backing away in fear as a black shape emerged and began to corner him. At first he could see nothing but glistening yellow eyes with viciously narrowed pupils, then the rest of its body sprang into view and he almost gasped as he recognised it. How could he ever forget those great jagged crow's wings, the sharp talons and shining dark scales that reflected the dim light like gemstones?

'Brother!' he cried out, but of course Crowley didn't hear; his entire being was focused on the tiny, trembling form of Lucifer's younger self. It struck him strongly then, how weak he really was, how his older brother towered head and neck over him, spikes and claws gleaming like polished metal.

'You're a little brat,' Crowley snarled, his jaws twisted horribly into an expression of purest hatred that Lucifer realised he would never forget again. 'You've taken everything, like the greedy animal you are... I should bring an end to you right here, right now...'

The younger version of Lucifer shook his head mutely and stumbled backwards while the present-day version looked on silently, hardly able to comprehend what he was seeing. He remembered the day Crowley had tried to kill him, but the details had faded into obscurity over time, the years blending into one another until he was no longer sure what was true and what wasn't. But the sight of it all happening in front of his eyes made him realise that he'd remembered very little of that day.

Not waiting to see his brother attack him, he turned away from the memory and wandered towards another flickering image in the distance. This one was different, showing his parents Whitney and Rook standing shoulder-to-shoulder, snarling at something. Lucifer suddenly noticed he could see his younger self off to one side. What was this memory? He himself couldn't remember any of it.

Then his heart and stomach gave a simultaneous lurch as he finally realised what was going on. His parents were confronting Crowley, berating him, threatening him – and the blue dragon was grinning at them without a trace of fear. Lucifer shuddered and ran back the way he'd come, up winding roads that shifted and changed shape under his talons. He wanted to escape all these terrible reminders of his brother, who he still loved in spite of everything, who he still wanted to see again more than anything else.

'Having fun?'

He skidded to a halt and whirled around, eyes wide with shock and terror. The voice had emanated from behind him, but there shouldn't be anyone else here – this was his mind! Then he saw the pale-yellow eyes and sleek blue form striding confidently towards him, and something inside him died at the sight.

'Brother!' he cried.

Crowley didn't say a word until they were face-to-face, barely six feet apart, close enough to attack. Then, almost casually, he lifted a paw and hit Lucifer hard across his muzzle. Something broke and Lucifer felt cool blood trickling from his nose. Even though he knew this was all in his subconsciousness, the pain of the blow made him wince. 'Brother, why--'

He was silenced by a second blow, this time an open-clawed slash across his throat that tore the silver feathers under his jaw. Blood poured copiously from the gash, and he felt his strength draining away as his unresponsive body sunk to the floor. Crowley leaned over him, an expression of ruthless anger and loathing in his face that made Lucifer's heart fall.

'You'll never be my family,' he whispered in the white dragon's ear, then straightened to his full height and walked away along to twisting road of darkness that spiralled deeper into his brother's mind. His form faded along with the last of Lucifer's energy, and everything around him slowly dissolved.

---

Three days passed.

When he awoke, there were questions to be answered. His parents were frantic with worry, berating him for leaving the cave alone and for crashing in the mountains where they might have never found him. They wanted to know if he was feeling better, if his wing had healed enough for him to fly again – the answer to that was yes – and what he'd dreamed about while he was unconscious. It was then that he learned he'd been unconscious for nearly a week and his parents had feared he would never wake up.

He didn't say anything about what he'd seen. The memories locked away in his mind were his alone, and he had no intention of sharing his experiences, not even with the two people he loved the most. He said nothing about meeting his brother in his dreams, for he knew they'd either kick up a fuss or think he'd just imagined it all. Lucifer knew he hadn't imagined anything. Crowley had come to him, and he had been real.

But it only confirmed his deepest worries that his brother wanted nothing to do with him. All his hopes of having a relationship with Crowley had been dashed, and it would be stupid to convince himself otherwise; it might even get him killed. He understood why Crowley had visited him in his sleep. It had been a threat, a warning to stay away – or else.

So he could do nothing but think back on what he'd seen and wish with all his heart that it could have been different.

---

Three years passed.

'Mum?'

'Yes, sweetheart?'

'Brother's not coming back.'

She turned and embraced him with a feathered wing, not needing to ask to understand what he meant. 'No, Lucifer. He's not.'

He's not.