No. 96

Prompt: Lucifer. Lucifer Morningstar. Choosing to keep his God-given name.
http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/695345.html?thread=91568433#t91568433

The thing about Lucifer is that it isn't his God-given name, not in the strictest sense. Lucifer is the Latin term for a translation of a translation of a translation of but one of his names, Light-bringer. For a while there he stylized his name, called himself Lucifer Morgenstern, but he's in LA these days, and Lucifer Morningstar has a more dramatic flair to it. He likes the way people pause, raise their eyebrows when they hear it. He is amused at their skepticism and even more amused when their skepticism is utterly ruined, because he's never been anything but honest about who and what he is (and they call him the Father of Lies).

But Lucifer is probably the closest thing to the name God gave him. When he first awoke to his function and purpose, it was to the Word washing over him, naming him, forming him. God spoke in a pure language, one lost to humans long ago (and whether it was the result of a flood or a tower he will not say, because while he is honest, he is also a man of mystery when it suits him), and his name, his true name, is one he can no longer speak, because no one alive knows how to hear it.

He was the angel who would shine as bright as the morning star, carrying arrows of light into battle against the darkness. He was to deliver the illumination of truth against the shadow of ignorance. It was his job to convey the Warmth and Light and Love of the Father to all his children. (Things got a bit muddled up along the way, and now little naked babies fire arrows of love at people, but the original intention was something grand, something beautiful.)

He keeps his name to himself, because it is the one thing that God gave him that he cannot take away (and He's taken everything else - his home, his purpose, his identity as the most beloved angel, the fun out of life). But he will answer to Lucifer. For now. He likes the way it rolls off the tongue, the sibilance and the long vowels and the short vowels and the way he can really relish the initial consonant. If people ever come up with something better, the Light Bringer who is the Prince of Darkness (or is that Dracula these days? So hard to keep up with the supernatural fads), he will try that on for size.