Sunday, September 18, 2005

   Chapter 7: Lucifer (part 2)
“I’m sorry to have to break the news to you that you’ve got a roommate,” Panda said as they walked. “I know that you would rather be alone. However, you might be pleasantly surprised. Ah, here we go.” He had stopped in front of the door labeled with the number 10-1. “Well, go right on in. I’m sure you’ll both be happy to meet each other.” With those vague words, he left Pen standing alone in the hall.
The boy knocked before he opened the unlocked door and stepped inside. It was a small, rectangular-shaped room with two skinny beds. A lone candle flickered in the dim light on a bedside table.
“You must be my roomate, huh?” said an ageless, but not unpleasant, voice. The speaker was standing by the window, looking out over the sunset across the water of the Acheron river. He wore a black cloak that disgused his whole figure. Pen realized immediately that this was the person who Panda had greeted at the door of the inn.
As usual, Pen did not answer his question. The door fell shut behind him, a tool to cover up the silence. He didn’t know why, but there was something about this guy that did not want him to stay silent. It was something hidden in his voice, the mixture of seriousness and amiability and intelligence and quiet all wrapped into one somehow.
The person turned around, away from the window, taking off his hood in the process.
The two boys stared at each other for almost a full minute.
Pen had never seen anyone so strange. He was an angel with black hair, except that the tips were made red by magic or dye or both. His eyes were so dark brown that they nearly appeared to be black, too. His clothes were all black: a tight shirt, reveiling a powerful and strong body, baggy pants that were easy to move in, and practical shoes. It appeared as though everything he wore was made of the same black leather that was so thin that it could pass as cloth if one didn’t look closely enough.
“My name is Lucifer,” he said, breaking the silence. He took off his cloak and hung it across the lone chair in the corner, uncovering his completely black wings. “Where I come from, it’s common curtesy to say one’s own name before asking for another’s.”
“Yes, it’s like that here, also,” Pen said. “I... I’m Pen.”
Lucifer gave him an odd glance out of the side of his eye while he pulled the blanket off the bed. The black-eyed boy kicked off his shoes and set his backpack down on top of them. “That’s not your full name, is it?”
Pen flinched.
“Oh, did I say something wrong?”
He hesitated, his mind shivering when he finally said the words that he had never before shared in his life. “I hate my name.”
“Well, sorry about that. Pen is fine.” Lucifer flicked and stretched his wings, preparing to go to bed. Pen didn’t know what to say or do when he did not persue the topic; he had been expecting him, like most of the people he knew, to start asking questions.
“Umm… one thing,” Pen started, even though it was very unlike him. “Where are you from?”
“The Okora mountains,” was the answer. Lucifer got into bed, tucking his hands under his head. “Have you heard of them?”
“We learned a little about them from the stories about the war,” Pen replied. “They told us that most of the mountain’s natives were wiped out when the demons started invading. You held them off until the armies were gathered.”
“Yes, I guess that’s right. There’s only two villages left that still hunt the Okora.” Pen sat down on his bed, too, as the angel stretched out his wings beneath him. “Mind if I ask you something?”
The black-eyed boy layed down, so as to cover up his lack of answer again. When Lucifer did not say anything, he finally spoke up. “Go ahead.”
“You’re the one who got invited to University a year early, right?”
“Yeah.” Lucifer started chuckling. “What’s so funny?”
“Oh, it’s just,” he answered, “it’s so strange that they would put us together, since you’re a year younger and I’m a year older. I guess we’re the two oddballs, huh?”
Suddenly, Pen found the humor in his statement. Without knowing why, he started to chuckle too, for the first time in his life, laughing along. “Odd is right!”
“I’ll bet you that we’ll be roommates at University, too!”
“I thought that there were single rooms there.”
“Are you kidding? They’ve got a couple hundred thousand kids to fit in! I doubt the Primary School has singles very much.”
“You’re probably right. I never gave it that much thought before. I assumed I’d just be stuck in with some other elf-kid.”
“You sound so glad about it.”
Pen didn’t know what to say.
“Well, anyway, we’d better get some rest.” With those words, Lucifer blew out the candle, drowning the room in darkness. “Sleep well.”
The black-eyed boy felt strangely content. Before he knew it, he had closed his eyes, too. “You, too,” he said, not knowing why, for the first time in his life, he actually meant it.
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