video; BACKDATED to Wednesday

[expunger]

[Raphael, this time, looks less like the bleeding pile of shit she did last time and more like a meditative businesswoman with dry skin who hasn't slept in a while. She is seated Indian-style on the floor of what is obviously a run-down house; her normal illusions of nice drawing rooms and furnished libraries are gone. Forgotten, even. There's a tenseness around her eyes, a flickering darkness and she has the distinctive sallow-faced, corrosively-dry-skinned unhealthy look of Lucifer himself.]

I have heard talk and complaints about this latest event. People think they have been robbed of their identities, stripped of their selves.

[She looks vaguely disdainful at the concept, but so contemplative.]

The empty places within us call for something to fill them. Can you not wait a week? If you insist on squandering this.

[A blade emerges slowly from one sleeve until Raphael is holding a short sword in one hand. She brings it up to chest level and holds it gingerly between her two index fingers, so it rotates slowly in the air like a rotisserie.]

We do not know our own families. [One hand returns to rest on her knee, and the sword turns up until it's turn in mid-air like an impossible basketball, the sharpened point hovering centimeters over her outstretched finger.] I find it difficult to divine my motivations for my own actions.

But we have no ties that bind us from action or blinders to shield us from essential truths.

[The sword touches her finger and she looks to it slowly- curiously, like she's never seen it before. It presses down harder until drops of bright red blood well around the blade-tip. Raphael seems fascinated when her blood shimmers and tiny but dazzlingly white beams of light strobe from the small wound. Anyone looking at the sword can see creeping veins of rust spread slowly up the blade.]

In the absence of prejudice, clarity is easily grasped. The irrational contradictions we tolerate fall away.

We are not stripped. We are free.

Comments

[thelightbringer]

Upon trillions. Worlds as numerous as the grains of sand upon the sea...or somesuch. I can't remember how he told us to keep count.

[expunger]

He. [A chill passes over her. Something is missing. She can't even begin to wonder.] Who?

[thelightbringer]

[This is really disturbing, even to Lucifer, who should find it hilarious. He would, in fact, if this wasn't his sister.]

God.

[expunger]

[The answer unsettles her, and she (unusually) lets it show in uncomfortable shifting of weight and something young in her expression.]

That word has no meaning to me.

[thelightbringer]

He was our Creator. But it should have no meaning now, since He's flown the coop.

[expunger]

[... :c she doesn't like not knowing.]

I don't understand.

[thelightbringer]

...I don't know how to make it any plainer, Raphael.

He was the chicken before our eggs. He created us the way we create...well, anything we want.

[expunger]

No. I hear the words you are saying and I know the meanings of them. I know what you are trying to say.

But it makes no sense to me.

[There's a deeper reason why, but she's not saying. It's part of the reason that a connection with Michael makes no sense to her.]

[thelightbringer]

[Lucifer tilts his head, worried, waiting for her to explain. If she even can. If not, he's sure she'll change the subject.]

[expunger]

I have no context. [She starts worrying her vessel's wedding ring- a highly unusual tic for her.] Nothing. I have inferred that Michael remembers an unusual bond for us, but his face means nothing. This "God" means nothing.

You talk about him leaving- as if he was ever with us.

[thelightbringer]

[It's not real. He knows that. But it still makes his vessel tense up.]

Then what do you remember...?

[expunger]

Nothing. I remember nothing to indicate that I have ever been anything but absolutely alone.

[thelightbringer]

...Your first memory, then, where was that?

[expunger]

Adstringéndum.

[thelightbringer]

[Lucifer is honestly horrified by that. It's no wonder she was so baffled by him.]

Then you know what the Animus can do.

[expunger]

[The biggest "duh" look.]

[thelightbringer]

[He ignores it. He has a point to make here, little sister.]

Then you also know they can get in there, turn your mind into a Snoglobe, and shake out all the real memories you had.

[expunger]

Yes. I do.

I am aware that my real memories are gone. That does not change my perception of the world.

You do not know what it is to be alone.

[thelightbringer]

I--

I don't know what it is to be alone? You have false, forced memories of being on your own here but you--

And you think I'm self-absorbed?

[expunger]

[Blink blink. This is how impressed she is.]

I have no idea what you have been through but I know you did it with family.

[thelightbringer]

No. I did it in isolation, while they went on with their lives. And that includes you--

Especially you, and Michael.

[expunger]

[Eyes narrowing]

But you know us. You knew us once. From the way you talk, you were not always isolated.

That- I cannot even fathom the concept of that.

[She doesn't say it to one-up him. It's said simply, as a fact: she has no concept of what it is to be anything but alone. These people are all strangers to her.]