Ferya walked out of the kitchen carrying a tray of cookies to see her supposed shop protectors, wrestling and play fighting through the nearly empty store. She counted herself lucky that they were only playing, seeing the tables being knocked over with metal screeches, the smoke and dark magic flashing through the air as each demon grappled into dominance only to find themselves defended against and subdued a moment later.
The sheer ferocity of the match caused her to go still, though a glance at the other patrons told her that no one else seemed concerned. They merely moved out of the way and shot curious glances in the direction of the demons but otherwise continued with their conversations or tasks once they were certain that their coffees weren't going to be spilled. Ferya was even starting to relax, a small smile coming to her features as the laughter of the two rough-housers infected her with good humour, until the whirling mass of power and aggression hit the exterior window hard enough to shake the building, sending a dull, twanging thud through the air that caused her to flinch.
"You're going to break the glass!" Ferya cringed as Baltha was slammed into the glass next by Urdu, causing another deep vibration to peel through the air.
The two of them stopped at her yell, turning to look at her, panting, but grinning infectiously. "This is Demon Proof class. No Demon in any of the realms could break through this, no matter how hard they were trying." Baltha grinned to her, reaching out to knock on the glass as Urdu casually brushed invisible dust off her shoulder.
They still hadn't explained why the two of them were there tonight, as Urdu had been working through the day and was supposed to leave when Baltha arrived. The girls had seemed a bit odd when she came in to relieve them but hadn't told her anything strange had happened. Ferya wasn't sure if she should have openly asked someone, since Urdu didn't leave when Baltha arrived and her human help had bolted the moment they were able to. She didn't even know if Demons needed to sleep and wasn't sure how to ask as the night wore on with surprisingly few customers.
Ferya frowned at that, before turning to start putting the new tray of cookies out. "All right."
"You don't believe us?" Urdu smiled at her, before moving to approach the counter. "Baltha is serious, out or in, that glass wouldn't shatter under the strongest attack from a demon."
"I know that demons are relatively high in the whole scheme of things. And they're a lot stronger than I am." Ferya murmured softly, glancing up from her task to take in Urdu's lighthearted expression, relieved that she was more of an amusement than an insult. "But I don't really know how to qualify how strong you're telling me that glass is."
Baltha chuckled, somehow getting close enough to her to grab a cookie before she could react, giving her one of his toothy grins. "Angels or Lucifer, then demons or things like minotaurs, then everything else falls in below. Tuath Dé, they can get as powerful as a mid-level demon, depending on how much power they're born with and how old they get."
Which still didn't tell her how powerful a demon was, technically, she didn't really understand how powerful anything else was.
Ferya stared at them for a long moment, before offering a shrug. "So... could you punch through a wall?"
There was a choking sound, as Baltha seemed to have swallowed the wrong part of his cookie, looking at her in a bewildered fashion. She would have been worried if she hadn't already learned that demons didn't really need to breathe but he didn't seem capable of answering her question.
So she glanced to Urdu curiously.
The woman gave her a lopsided grin. "Baltha is Lucifer's enforcer, he could give an Angel a run for its money. And I'm his equal. I can uproot a several hundred-year-old redwood with my pinky."
"I could level a mountain range in a good day's work." Baltha offered a shrug as he coughed and cleared his throat.
Baltha wasn't a modest demon, he always carried himself with far more confidence than Ferya could even fathom, and he always spoke to her with a tinge of humour, as if he wasn't taking what he was saying seriously. Usually it left her unsure if he was being serious or joking with her. But then, right then, he seemed to be stating a blunt fact.
"Right." Ferya looked between the two of them. "So that's really strong glass." She paused then, frowning ever so slightly as another thought came to mind. "How do you... do normal things, without destroying everything? I mean, that much strength, how do you pick up a cookie, or even a coffee mug, without shattering it?"
"Centuries of practice." Urdu smiled gently to her, reaching out to grab a cookie as well, shoving it quickly in her mouth as Baltha moved to steal it from her. Urdu chewed a couple times before answering with a full mouth, though her lips barely moved. "You have lived through all this upheaval, you're old enough that you were at least a child when the human world came to an end. You never saw any displays of power?"
Ferya took two more cookies off the tray and offered one to each of them, before turning back to putting the rest in the display. "I... I dunno, a lot of that is a blur. Sometimes I forget how I came to even work in the coffee shop, unless I think really hard about it. I was young when it all happened, and I know it was frightening, and I know I'm alone now, but... it's easier to just think about now."
She didn't want to admit that most of her past was a numb, pain-filled blur. Or that until that question, she hadn't thought about her childhood in a really long time. And even as she tried to conjure anything, she found most of her ideas of what happened to be a disjointed muddle of feelings and fog.
The two demons had fallen quiet, though she couldn't tell if it was pity or some other emotion that had them looking at her with those odd expressions, so she merely offered an absent smile and turned. She did her best to distract herself from those thoughts by returning to work, making the demons both Chai Lattes. Something about the spice of the cinnamon and sweetness of the concoction seemed to call the two of them. In fact, it was a favourite of a lot of demons and the only difference in the drinks between Baltha and Urdu was the fact that Urdu required a shot of espresso in hers.
Once they had taken their drinks and a couple more cookies for good measure, Ferya returned to the kitchen, where she set about kneading the dough for the next batch of sticky buns. She had just finished when the oven chimed its indication that the next batch of her cookies were ready.
She had forgotten about the conversation and the lost feeling it had caused by the time she pushed through the kitchen door with a tray of fresh cookies in her hands, jerking to a stop as she noticed three newcomers standing in front of the counter.
A small part of her mind noticed that both demons were on their feet and tensed, snarling silently as the three winged figures. Two men and a woman, garbed in golden armour and robes, all three of them tall, beautiful with gold-tinted feathers on their slightly outstretched wings. Their gazes locked on her and for a moment, there was a pull of calm and contentment under their gazes.
She felt a whisper of a voice in her mind, her own voice, begin to tell her that her only mission was to make them happy, to do as they needed her to do. That there would be no greater pleasure in her life than serving them.
Until her eyes locked on one of the males. He didn't look all that different from the others, just as golden, just as beautiful, his expression just as serene. But whatever spell they had been weaving over her mind snapped then, launching her into a sudden rush of fear, pain and torment when she saw his face.
She knew him.
She was looking at the face of evil, the face of every danger and terrifying noise that haunted her memories and dreams. If she had never met the Prince of Darkness and Lucifer stood beside the one in front of her, she would swear that Lucifer was the Angel, not the other way around. She had no idea why the man in front of her was evil, though there was a certainty in her mind that told her that it was for good reason, if only she could brush away the cobwebs of the past.
Ferya heard the sound of the tray of cookies clatter to the ground at her feet, though it was distant from her awareness of the world, as if she weren't watching through her eyes. She was watching the scene from a separate bubble, as the world moved in muted slow motion. She felt as if she were screaming in terror, though no sound came from her mouth.
Images came then, disjointedly at first, like the first couple drops of a rainstorm. Ferya pulled in a hitched, shaking breath and the scene hit her like a downpour. Flashes of blood coating a long sword, much like the one peeking out over the shoulder of the man, echoed along with the screams in her mind.
It destroyed everything she was, and it was never going to end.
She didn't know what that thought meant, but that man, that sword of blood and pain, it was the destroyer of her world, and it would seek to finish the job. Ferya struggled to breathe as the image continued flashing across her mind, freezing her in place.
The eternity of torment was over the moment Lucifer appeared, sitting on the counter, his black, metal feathered wings stretched to their full span which was easily fifteen feet from tip to tip. He wasn't facing her, but he did block her view and whatever had frozen her into place disappeared, allowing her to hastily backpedal through the door to the kitchen without a backwards glance.
In a panic, she nearly made it through the rear exit before remembering that she wouldn't be safe outside in the dark either. She wasn't sure if she would be safe anywhere, anymore.
With a cry, she slammed that door shut and collapsed to the floor, burying her face in her hands as her back erupted into pain so excruciating, she could barely make sense of it. Her mind began to shake itself out of its rust coated stupor as she reached desperately for some sort of explanation of what she was seeing and feeling.
She was numb and confused with panic, until she remembered.
And then she began to sob.