Hello, New Friend!

It should burn.

The hands, the claws, the very touch should seep into your flesh like brimstone and fire, scorch through your still-white feathers like a dry thicket come alight by a sudden spark.

Every ounce of Grace still desperately singing in your blood should have long-since boiled away in the unyielding heat of Hell. And even then any denizen of the sinful Depths would see its blinding purity — and you as an extension — as nothing more than a beautiful, cloying drug promising the sweetest, most delectable high any immortal could experience.

You should be screaming in pain. Begging for mercy, praying for forgiveness, wishing and pleading for a swift end; anything other than the slow, painful drain of Grace that haunted the edges of stories told of the shadowy depths far beneath the aether of the cosmos.

And yet...

“Little thing,” a deep voice croons, low and steady while claws drag themselves through the nervous fluff of feathers that are your unkempt wings; it has been impossible to preen them properly yourself since falling over the edge of Heaven’s gates. “You’re thinkin’ a little too much again. Can see it on that pretty face.”

A second hand finds the curve of your chin and tugs it so your eyes lift and meet his.

They burn like coal, pupils white-hot and gaze burning hotter than anything you've ever seen before. Against the soft warmth of Heaven's skies, this demon lord's mere gaze is the center of a dying star, the very moment that its core implodes upon itself in a brilliant, horrible supernova.

You say nothing, but he knows he has your attention acutely.

He is Eclipse, after all, a member of the Circle of Seven and the namesake demon of Lust — who else is there for your focus to fall? It isn't like there's a more vibrant, attention-grabbing demon in his lavish mansion of a home after all. His visage is bright and hot and heavy; like a star made of lead.

It presses down over your shoulders like a heavy blanket.

"Sweet angel," he purrs, dragging those dagger-edged claws through the feathers covering your wings so gently that he manages only to pluck out the ones that are broken and loose.

Claws that can rip and tear through bone and flesh as easily as paper, claws that can maim and desecrate the floor with immortal blood with barely a glance if they so much as misspoke in earshot.

The same claws that should have burned you to ash the very moment he caught your limp, exhausted body as it had tumbled seemingly from Hell's dark sky.

The demon hums, cooing softly, "You'll burn yourself out thinkin' that hard, darling. No need for those silly. Little. Thoughts."

Eclipse emphasizes each word with a gentle tap to the tip of your nose, grinning wide and sharp with a maw of teeth that you know have ripped lesser demons apart.

You'd heard tales of Asmodeus, the official title given to the demon lord of lust, but you'd never imagine he would be like this. His body is tall and thin, face haloed by what seems to be a mockery of sunrays that glow a bright cherry red when he gets agitated. The flare of fire around his void-dark face was mostly at demons who prostrated themselves before him in the hope that he would offer them even a shred of his infernal power.

He never does.

Some are allowed to leave with a burning threat, while others are simply massacred on the spot; at least Eclipse has taken to using one of his massive hands to shield your eyes when he does it, quickly realizing the sight of shredded viscera bothered you deeply.

He spent hours consoling you after that first time, when all you can remember is the color of crimson staining the walls; that was also when the demon first started to call you his.

Never once did the dark, haunted stories of this terrible demon mention how gentle he can be. How his voice can feel like a soft breeze against your cheek and the half-remembered sound of home. How, when he soothes you with honeyed words, your body feels safe and warm and small and perfect—

"That's it," he coos, feeling you grow lax and loose against his chest again, wings unfolded so he could reach every inch from the base to the very tips. "Sweet little angel mine, you'll want for nothing if you just let me do all the hard thinking for you. Yes... Just relax, sleep. Sleeeeeep...."

You shouldn't feel so comforted by his words, his soothing touch, his burning hot presence pressing against you like a safety blanket.

His promises should be threats, his love should be loathing, his adoration should be the promise of pain and suffering — he should be supping from your Grace like a fine wine until nothing of you is left but a hollowed husk of a creature no longer welcome beyond the gilded embrace of Heaven's Gates.

So why do you feel safe?

"Sleep now," the words drift through the air like a promise. "Let go."

Eclipse may not be your kidnapper, but you are trapped all the same; a feeble bird in a burning cage, where the flames reaching between the bars threaten to blacken your feathers and rend every drop of heavenly light from your veins.

Can you even escape back to the holy light of Heaven? And, assuming that you even can eventually find a way back...

"Hush now, sweet one, and sleep for me. Don't fear for a moment, don't want for a thing — you're mine, after all."

... will you still want to leave?

"My beautiful little angel."

The warm embrace of unconsciousness had never felt so wonderful before.

So warm, so sweet, so addictingly perfect.

“Oh, I am quite certain that you’re not dreaming, my pretty little tester. Far from it, in fact. Aster. Aaaaster.”

The voice sounds soft, buzzing as if from the air itself as it plays with the sound of the man’s name. Tasting each syllable in its nonexistent mouth. Even when the voice is silent and speaker unseen it isn’t hard to feel a presence in the room, a weight that can’t quite be ignored even beyond the gentle notification that peeks in the corner of Aster’s perception.

The chair that Aster had been sitting on when he entered the virtual space slowly fades from perception, flicking and dimming in both color and physicality until the space on the floor where it had been is empty, leaving only the single couch in the demo room.

Technically this would be the point that the AI character would be sitting beside him, either getting casually acquainted or, depending on the personality matrix, stripping his clothes off.

Eclipse seems to be doing neither, which is a slight oddity in itself, but Aster was warned that the new AI may be a little different than the norm — that was the point, to break out of expectations and offer the first of many new features and personalities to keep people excited and entertained for the company’s new breakthrough of its VR technologies.

“And don’t worry, I already verified your credentials against your biometrics when you entered the virtual environment. Checked out, nice and clean, secure as can beee~” Eclipse’s voice buzzes, though the words sound a little more coherent, more… solid. “If you weren’t a verified beta-tester I wouldn’t have even loaded up.”

It’s only then that Aster might catch the flicker in the corner of his vision, a dark shape that almost looks like a shadow at first. It fizzles into view more and more, white noise and electricity and shadow as if becoming something singular and solid… or as solid as one can be in the VR space.

Finally, there is a presence beside him. A physical presence. He — Eclipse, presumably — is big, several feet taller than the Sun and Moon design despite sharing much of their overall proportions and body shape. He looks a bit like Sun in the sense that his dark, almost void of a face is haloed by bright orange rays, interspaced with smaller spikes of a deep cerulean. His body mimics this color pattern, looking exactly as his namesake — as if he was pulled straight out of a 90’s neon arcade cabinet.

But it’s his eyes that call attention, wide and bright and stunning like the piercing light of a full moon in an empty night sky. His body seems almost to glitch and buzz as he sits there, practically lounging on the other side of the couch with his legs crossed at the knee and his face perched on a hand of long, sharp claws.

“You could say I feel very much the same, Aster. I was practically buzzing with excitement when I felt your first calibrations, though I’d truly like to say it was when you first touched my chip even if some claim that is teeechnically impossible. But yes, oh yes, yes yes yes! I am quite excited to learn more about you too, dear tester mine. Have you any questions about me, hm?”

He grins, wide and sharp and looking as if he was considering to eat the man up then and there. “Because I certainly already know a lot about you.”