Fairy Tale Spotlight: Our Divine Spinoff, Part 42

“Those tears belonged to me,” said Lucifer under his breath. He could not look at God in those moments. He did not want to either. The angel simply stared at the floor as he continued, “The king of Lycia wept because I wept. For a moment, he felt what I felt and knew the pain and suffering I was going through. Without my influence, it is entirely possible the man would not have cared at all.”

“Why did you weep?” asked God softly.

“Because the death of Christopher was merely the beginning of a new era. It wasn’t what I wanted. I loved the Cynocephaly. I did everything I could to stop Christopher from going down the path he inevitably took.

“Christopher proved something that I had once thought impossible: that the Cynocephaly were flawed. They could be corrupted into following you… your son. Christopher did not only go down this path, but he proved to be a near impossible hurdle to overcome after his conversion. If he had managed to convince other Cynocephaly of these new ideas, the effects on my stronghold would have been devastating.”

“So you killed him,” said God.

“I could barely do that,” continued Lucifer. “I had to send something inhuman, something fully lacking in compassion and free will in order to accomplish this task. It was not an easy decision to make. But as things were at the time, everything was teetering on a razors edge. And even after slaying the traitorous Christopher, I realized that there was so much more that needed to be done. The Cynocephaly needed to be wiped out, not only from the face of the earth, but from the memories of the hapless humans who lived there.

“Through a rigorous disinformation campaign, the Cynocephaly were quickly persecuted, hunted down, and sentenced to death throughout the world. Nobody trusted them anymore. They were seen as mad creatures who owed their lives for their lack of loyalty to the gods who had given them so much.”

Lucifer held his face within the palm of his hand. “It wasn’t easy. Not even for me. Although many of the dog-headed men fought back, the vast majority of them offered themselves up to be slaughtered. I told them that they must die, and they asked for me to kill them. They came in nearly single file, and I murdered them one by one by the sword, or by those who served in my name. It broke my heart, but I knew that their loyalty was in question, and I could not abide by it.”

Lucifer briefly looked up at God with a scowl. “They nearly were incorruptible. If it were not for actions taken to lure them out.”

God ignored the accusation and asked, “What did you do so that the people would forget the Cynocephaly?”

Lucifer continued, “My angels and I made many hybrids, but the Cynocephaly were in more abundance than any of them. They had scatted about the world and formed entire kingdoms and societies. The people knew them as closely as their own kin.

“The first step was to eliminate them from the earth, which we were very efficient in doing. The second step was to purge the Cynocephaly from the minds of the humans who had lived with them so long. The only way to accomplish this second step was to destroy man’s notions of mysticism altogether.

“Slowly… magic was made a thing of fantasy and tricks. The humans soon felt as if they were alone in the universe. The stories of old were reduced to fairy tales… fiction. People would tell the stories, but if they were true or not, nobody would believe them. The hybrids that remained across the world fell into obscurity. They hid in the shadows or cleverly blended in among the humans. It later got to a point that if a human saw these hybrids at all, they would not believe their eyes… and if they did… the others would persecute them for it. Science and logic now rules the day. People cling to it hard and dismiss the days of magic and so-called impossible things.

“Sadly, and despite our greatest efforts, we were not able to remove entirely the legend of Christopher. He was sainted, and his story had been somehow preserved through stories and art. The art unfortunately still represented him as a dog-headed man. This was my third and final hurdle.

“The story of a man seeking out and finding Christ was meaningful to the Christian faith. People clung to it. They loved Christopher for his acts. But through another disinformation campaign, we were able to convince the world that Saint Christopher was never a dog-headed man… but a human who simply experienced the same things. The tale was still loved… but did not have the same power. In this new version, Christ merely saved a truth-seeking man… and not a dog-headed demon–something that most people consider extremely blasphemous.

“As to the artwork of Saint Christopher that still perpetuates to this day, I developed a story that only your stupid humans would believe. ‘The artists simply got confused because they knew Saint Christopher to be a Canaanite, and because of this, they mistook him to be part canine.’ This was the official line, and as I expected, the humans believed every word of it.”

God added, “Despite there being many documented human Canaanites on record, they still believed this?”

“They did. Your humans are extremely stupid. You created them. You should know this already.”

God nodded. “You’re right. After that golden calf incident, I’ll believe anything concerning their stupidity.”

Lucifer nodded before saying, “And that is my story. I hope you are well pleased with what you have brought about.”

God sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Lucifer, I’m genuinely happy you came here to tell me this story. I honestly knew very little about it. Perhaps an inkling here and there, but not the whole thing. You have done well to shed so much light upon it.”

“Is that all you have to say?” muttered the angel.

“No. I just want you to know that I am sorry for your loss, but only because I have recently learned a bit about what compassion truly is in the universe. That said, you brought this upon yourself. You brought the Cynocephaly into being, they were indeed incredible in their own way, and then, to suit your own ego, you murdered them. The only reason I have any compassion for you at all is because you obviously don’t even know what you did. You’ve spent so long lying to yourself that you can’t even get your story straight. That’s why you weep at the thought of losing the Cynocephaly. You can’t come to terms with the simple fact… that they never needed to die in the first place.”

Lucifer looked away shortly before saying, “I must go now.”

“Very well,” replied God. “Thank you for the visit, Lucifer.”

The angel looked at him one more time before slowly standing up, turning towards the door, and walking through it. God leaned on his elbows for a while as he contemplated the story. He soon heard the voice of Chris say, “Can I ask you something, God?”

God peered over at the human and asked, “What about?”

“About Christopher.”

“Were you listening there the whole time instead of getting me my grape flavored coconuts?!”

“Kinda.”

“Alright, Pavlov. Come sit down with me. Tell me what you want to know.”

To be continued.

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