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It started with a goose.
Ok, it hadn't actually started with a goose. It started with the terrified shriek of a tiny little angel as he ran from a goose.
It was fairly common knowledge in Heaven that if a thing had teeth and was mean as sin, it was probably created by the Archangel Michael. He didn't do it on purpose necessarily, but that didn't stop most of the things he created from being mean little abominations. He tried his best—really, he did—but any time Michael announced he had a new creation he was working on, the angels in Heaven all let out a collective groan. Respectfully, of course, and quietly enough that the Hand of God didn't hear them; but a groan was still a groan, and Michael's creations were still a thing that made them all weary. A few too many times of being bitten, chased, and maimed had most angels unwilling to even get near them when he proudly unveiled them. At this point there were only two brave enough to be near him, and even the two of them usually stood a respectful distance away until they determined just how afraid of these things they should be. His two brothers—Gabriel and Lucifer—were ever supportive and encouraging of Michael's attempts to create life for the Garden, even if he kind of sucked at it. Truth be told, only Lucifer was ever brave enough to get close to one, and it was debatable if it was bravery or stupidity.
Lucifer himself was starting to believe it might be stupidity.
This most recent creation didn't have teeth—or at least it shouldn't have had teeth. It was a bird. Birds didn't have teeth. Surely a bird couldn't be that dangerous, right?
Wrong.
Lucifer could not have been more wrong in assuming that when he encouraged Michael's idea this time. Birds were so easy, he couldn't imagine Michael being able to screw that up in any way. Feathers, wings, beak—easy peasy! Add some glittery little eyes and you had an absolutely infallible recipe for cute. He'd been more than supportive of Michael creating birds, and when asked for design advice to make it cute, he'd been more than happy to offer his knowledge to his twin. Michael deserved a win. After the absolute disaster that had been the honey badger, he felt like his brother really needed the encouragement. Surely a cute little bird couldn't be turned into anything scary or dangerous.
He'd severely underestimated the other angel's abilities.
Aesthetically, the goose was not a bad-looking bird. It was rather oddly shaped, and its beak—which Michael was calling a bill—was kind of weird, but it had silly little feet and waddled in a way that was rather endearing. The little honking noise it made was kind of amusing, and in all honesty, just looking at it Lucifer hadn't entirely hated it. Was it how he would have designed such a bird? No, but it was a solid attempt, and the way Michael absolutely gushed over it gave him warm fuzzy feelings. Michael was not often one to outright show emotions, so when his usually expressionless and stoic face lit up in that bright smile and he'd cooed at the thing, Lucifer couldn't help but lean into the love he had for his brother and give it a chance. He'd gotten closer, asking questions as he did and enjoying Michael's enthusiastic explanation. Then it had turned towards him.
The newly-created goose had looked at him with its beady black eyes, blinking as it studied him, before very suddenly and without warning, it honked aggressively and opened its bill wide enough to reveal teeth not only along its jaw, but also along its tongue. Birds were not meant to have teeth, and the sight startled a little squeak from Lucifer, pulling a hearty chuckle from Gabriel who was watching from a respectable distance. Lucifer shot him a glare, and despite how disturbed he was by the creature, he decided to push through it. Plenty of things had teeth—teeth did not make anything inherently mean. He'd moved a few steps forward at a slightly more hesitant pace than before. He shouldn't have. He should have stopped where he was or backed away, but Michael was still going on about all these wonderful things his new goose could do, and Lucifer was a sucker for anything that made his twin this happy.
Those next several steps had been a mistake.
Now, Lucifer wasn't a coward by any means, but when a bird almost half his size turned on him with a mouth full of teeth, puffed up its feathers, and started to aggressively honk at him, he was absolutely going to be on guard. When evil flashed in its eyes and it started moving towards him at a surprising speed, he could not be blamed for how he reacted. He ran. He ran and forgot that he had wings that could fly faster than even Gabriel's speedy little hummingbirds. Even if the goose did have the capability of flight, the likelihood of it being able to catch him was slim if he'd just spread his wings and taken to the sky. He had not done that. He had not remembered the three sets of wings on his back, and had instead chosen to run as fast as his short little legs would carry him, all the while being chased by the angry, hate-filled ball of feathers his brother created. He'd let out a scream that was perhaps one of the single most undignified noises he'd ever made, and immediately bolted for the nearest tree. He'd reached it and scrambled up its trunk into the lower branches, as Michael chased his new creation with chastising words and Gabriel literally dropped to the ground in hysterical laughter, clutching his sides as tears streamed down his face in his mirth.
It was not his proudest moment.
It took far longer for Michael to get his goose under control than Lucifer might have liked, and by the time he'd managed to reign it back in, they had more than Gabriel as an audience.
“What happened, Little Star?” Gabriel asked in amusement, standing beneath him and looking up with a smirk. “Forget you had wings?”
“Haha, very funny,” Lucifer grumbled, making extra sure Michael had control of that thing before he climbed out of the tree. His feet made it to the ground and he dusted himself off, glancing up at the snickering angels who had come to watch with a glare. “I didn't exactly see you volunteering to go be excited for Michael's goose.”
“That would be because we value our limbs, and you are far too soft to disappoint him,” Gabriel chuckled.
“Yeah, well, I didn't think he could manage to screw up a bird, of all things,” Lucifer sighed. “Birds are one of the easiest things we make.”
“You said the same thing about fish,” Gabriel reminded him as they made their way back towards their shared workshop, “and we don't think we need to remind you about the anglerfish incident, or the blue-ringed octopus.”
“Please don't remind me,” the little angel muttered, as he suppressed the shudder that wanted to run through him at the mention of the failed aquatic life. “I still have nightmares about that little glowing monster.” He sighed again and looked over at Michael who was back to cooing at his creation. “I gave him so many good ideas, and he just—it could have been such a good little bird.”
“So do it better,” his brother said with a shrug. “You always do. It's not like we can't put both in the Garden.”
“I'm not so sure we should put that in the Garden.”
“Perhaps not, but Michael's creations always end up at least on Earth. Might as well make something for the humans that won't terrify them.”
Gabriel was right. Even if Michael's creations didn't always end up in the Garden of Eden, they did always end up on Earth. There was an entire continent where his most dangerous creations tended to get dumped, and in all honesty, Lucifer felt sorry for whatever humans might actually live there one day. It wouldn't be all dangerous things, of course, but when one considered other failed creations that had ended up there—koalas were his failures, and though cute, were incredibly stupid—he couldn't help feeling kind of bad for its future residents.
As far as he could tell, the goose wasn't quite dangerous enough to be banished to a single continent, but it certainly couldn't end up in the Garden, and really that was a shame. Lucifer had given him some of his best ideas and had put an entire project on hold in hopes that perhaps Michael might succeed this time. With this recent failure, though, Lucifer was starting to wonder if Gabriel wasn't right. He didn't want to step on Michael's toes, but he was arguably better at creating than his brother was, and oftentimes when Michael failed at something, word would come from their Father that he needed Lucifer to correct the mistakes. Michael's ideas were good and his heart was always in the right place, his execution was just lacking, so he was not at all surprised to find a golden scroll on his workbench several days later with the requested revisions.
It was almost what God wanted, Michael's goose, close to being perfect. Most of the notes and requested revisions were little things like its size and slight changes to its shape. Overall, their Father had liked it very much and it was already being placed on Earth, however, he wanted one for the Garden, and that one needed to be considerably less hostile if it were to be allowed around the First Man and Woman. As always, these revisions fell to Lucifer to make, especially considering how many times the words “aggressive” and “teeth” were mentioned. It would seem God felt Michael's heart was in the right place, but it needed a little bit of Lucifer's gentle touch to make it truly perfect.
Michael wasn't going to like this. He wasn't going to be happy about yet another one of his creations being remade by Lucifer, but it wasn't exactly like he could ignore a direct request from their Father, even if he wanted to. Truth be told, Lucifer had been rather sad about putting his own little bird aside in favor of giving Michael a chance to shine. He'd been designing and working on perfecting the silly little creature for ages in hopes that it might impress Lilith. He wasn't technically supposed to be designing things exclusively for one human, but he had a soft spot for the First Woman and couldn't quite help himself. Lilly was a soft, gentle soul, and she was having a rough go of things with Adam as of late. Smiles that used to sit easily on her face were becoming harder and harder to come by these days, and Lucifer hated to see her frown. He'd do anything to bring that smile back, including create silly little birds that might upset his twin.
He'd set to work almost immediately upon receiving the scroll, adjusting and removing things from Michael's goose as he went. He made it smaller, cuter, and undeniably nicer. While the noise the goose made had been endearing at first, Lucifer could say from experience that sound could be terrifying when it wanted to be, and he in no way wanted this creation to have a sound that might strike terror into humanity's hearts. Instead of the aggressive honking, he went with a quacking sound that even Michael admitted was kind of sweet. He kept some things that had been original to Michael's design. He liked the weird little webbed feet, and the way it seemed so calm and serene floating along the water, despite the frantic way those feet kicked just beneath the surface. He also liked the way they were meant to stick together in flocks, and the V-shaped formation in which he'd watched them fly when observing them—from an incredibly safe distance this time, thank you.
Sticking to some of Michael's designs in no way seemed to help his brother's stormy mood when his own bird had been unveiled. He couldn't imagine it was easy watching the other angels fawn over Lucifer's bird, when they had kept their distance and looked on his own with suspicion.
“You know, I don't do it on purpose,” Michael muttered as Lucifer stepped up next to him while the other angels played with his creation.
The larger angel had positioned himself off to the side, sitting underneath the very tree that Lucifer had run to when the goose had chased him. His face was its usual mask of stoicism, but Lucifer, who knew his twin better than any other angel in existence, could see the pain and sadness behind the mask.
“I know,” he said softly, sitting down next to him and reaching over to take his brother's hand in his own, hoping desperately that the other angel could feel the love and affection he had for him through his touch.
Michael had his rough edges, and as the protector of Heaven, he wasn't often one who made others comfortable in his presence. This made for a rather lonely and secluded existence, and while Lucifer knew Michael would never verbally complain about his position in Heaven, he could feel the hurt that sat beneath the surface. Michael loved Creation just as much as the rest of them—he loved the life other angels created, and he loved their Father's Plan more than any of them—he just didn't show it as well.
“I don't understand,” Michael sighed, “I am supposed to be one of the strongest beings in Heaven. Aside from you and Gabriel, no one should come close to me in terms of controlling Grace or the ability to mold Creation. What am I doing wrong? How am I so flawed that I cannot even manage to do the one thing all angels are meant to be able to do right? Why am I such a failure?”
“You aren't a failure, Michael,” Lucifer soothed, leaning against his brother's shoulder, tilting his head to rest against it and wrapping his wings around them in a way he knew comforted his twin. “We all have our strengths. No one in Heaven is more fit to lead us than you are. You're doing just fine and are exactly as our Father intended. Don't question yourself so much.”
“Gentle words from the angel who is the manifestation of Love,” Michael huffed. “Of course you believe that; you love everything, Lucifer.”
“It's not love that I speak with, Michael,” he said, looking up into the pale blue eyes of his twin and shaking his head. “Well, it's not all love. It's faith. I have faith in you. Surely as the manifestation of Faith, you can feel that in me the same as I feel your love for Creation. Maybe you aren't the best at creating, but you are the best at inspiring us all to believe. You remind us all the time to have faith in Father's Plan. Have a little in yourself, brother.”
“When did you get so wise, Little Star?” Micheal asked, looking down at him, a hint of a smile playing at his lips.
“Dunno,” he shrugged, grinning up at him. “Just something my big brother taught me.”
Michael chuckled slightly and leaned over to plant a gentle kiss on his forehead. “What would I do without you, Lucifer? Without your love, we would all be so lost.”
“Curl up into a ball and be miserably grumpy all the time.”
“Probably,” Michael admitted with a hearty laugh, before looking back over at the group of angels that surrounded Lucifer's little bird. “What are you calling it?”
“I think I'll call it a duck.”
“What a ridiculous name,” he snorted, shaking his head, “I like it.”
“So do I. I think it might be my favorite creation so far.”
“I think it's mine, too.”