Let He Who Cast the First Stone Ch.1 (Patreon)

[EDIT AN: Added Lilith POV between Adam and Enoch.]

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[GENESIS]

IIIII

— Abel —

“Cain-!”

The gasp, it tore from Abel’s lungs. He had fallen. No, he had been struck down from behind!

The earth that broke his fall was all too soft, all too welcoming…

**CRACK!

Abel reeled. In body and spirit, the pain came sharp and heavy. His forehead split, broken by fire from top to brow. His cracked skull was driven into the dirt.

Agony-! Betrayal-! Injustice-! LORD, his brother had forsaken-!

**CRACK!

His head rattled; his thinking essence leaked. Living red splashed upon the welcoming earth, watering the fields they’d tended together, as taught by their father.

“Broth-!”

**CRACK!

Cain towered over him and blocked out the sun. His face was shadowed. His eyes shone silver with rage and malice.

There was a jagged stone in his hand. Its bloodied edge caught the light as Cain raised it. Abel scrambled and found no purchase upon the welcoming earth. He could not flee.

The stone fell, cast upon Abel by his brother’s hand.

**CRACK!

Blood flowed into Abel’s eye — a world of red. The other remained clear, begging for mercy, for forgiveness, though he had committed no true crime. Or perhaps he was glaring, just as fiercely as Cain. Bloody anger in one eye, and a plea in the other.

Neither was answered, not with vengeance, not with grace.

Cain knelt over him now. Abel’s body would not heed him. The stone had struck exhaustion into the marrow of his bones. Flowing lifeblood stole the very warmth from his flesh.

**CRACK-!

“Bro-oth-errr-…” Abel wheezed. Why was his chest weak if his head was struck…?

**CRACK…

“K-Kin-slayer…” Abel cursed. His lips — they barely moved.

**Crack…

Hesitation. A great shuddering freeze, as if something suddenly slotted into place in Cain and shocked him back to sense.

“… Abel,” Cain whispered.

His strikes slowed, intent leaving him. His eyes, so stubborn and furious, cleared. Cain blinked far too late.

He stared at the stone in his hand, colored in lifeblood and essential viscera. The horror was no comfort to fading Abel. BLACK closed in on his vision, out to in, overwriting both the world in red and the world so painfully clear.

The welcoming earth soaked into his mind. His mind soaked into the welcoming earth. There was no line anymore.

Cain did nothing for Abel; he could do nothing, for there was nothing to be done — only… nothing, the chilling distance of Oblivion that consumed Abel whole.

The chill made that moment so clear; the distance made that moment last forever. Oblivion did not call and beckon; it stole Abel from that moment, vivid and eternal.

Through the stealing BLACK in his eyes, Abel saw Cain-…

Abel cursed through silently moving lips-…

Abel tried to weep, beg, scream-…

Abel-…

BLACK, the color of the stone striking his head.

[ALL OVER A SACRIFICIAL FUCKING LAMB… AND SO, THE STONE IS CAST, AND THE STONER IS CAST ANEW. OH, HOW LOWLY HE BEGINS; OH, HOW FAR HE WILL COME.]

IIIII

— Adam —

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!” Adam thundered, the rage of a father upon an erring son.

“Does it matter?” Cain asked. “It is done.”

Cain stood and spoke stiffer than Adam had ever seen him. He looked carved of stone, broken of stone. He was hurting, but he covered it and buried it as deep as… as… as his brother, Abel, now lay in death.

‘Is this the son I seeded? The son I raised beside his brother?’ Adam thought.

The words he let fly were much more scornful. “It is done?! Yes, DONE! Now, your brother is dead, and you have been cursed!”

“By the LORD, yes,” Cain nodded stoically. “Cursed from the earth that drank Abel’s blood, cursed to wander, cursed to live with my sin as you and mother live with yours.”

“The LORD… He was clear on that much, and that much alone,” Cain grunted, almost a scoff.

“You spoke to Him,” Adam realized. “What more did He say?!”

“Riddles and portents for me, Father, not for you,” Cain spat.

The fool boy… His firstborn had always been proud and stubborn, but to keep the LORD’s word from his father, who had not heard Him since he and Eve were cast out of Eden…?

It burned Adam as much as the kinslaying.

In that moment, he drew himself up against his son in anger. He raised his hand, fire flaring in his breast. Cain did not flinch.

“Careful, Father,” His son warned, still stoic and stiff, broken as stone.

“I have been cursed and will soon be cast out for such a sin, just as you were for your sin before me. Are you trying to reverse the pattern and follow me now? Do you think the LORD will be kinder to you when you add my sin to yours?”

Adam recognized the harsh truth in his son’s words, but he was unable to back down from the fire of a Man Ignored by the LORD so quickly.

The LORD had spoken to his son, not him… “What did He say?! Why you; why now?!”

Cain sighed, stoicism fading to broken yet still stubborn bitterness. “I suppose I just earned more of his attention than you, Father. Your story is done. Mine is now cursed never to end, at the whim of a God who wants… I don’t know; something about building the best ship plank by plank?”

The LORD’s words for Cain confused Adam, too, but still, he raged with envy. His son had murdered his son, yet He spoke to the kinslayer, not the father. But he knew there was nothing he could do. Cain was, if nothing else, stubborn.

“… You care more for the LORD’s word not meant for you than for Abel,” Cain said, barely a whisper.

Adam glared. “You have no right to say that to me.”

Cain returned the glare. “I have every right. It’s my fault. He was your son, but he was my brother; I murdered him, I have to live with that… and Abel no longer can. You’ll move on. You’ll sire another son; with me cast out, you won’t have any other choice. But no matter how much I wander, I’ll never be able to move on.”

“You brought this on yourself.”

“… I did.”

There was nothing more than that to say between them, it seemed. Adam’s firstborn had murdered his second — a sin as grave as Adam and Eve’s in the Garden, perhaps even more so.

While Adam did look upon Cain and feel for his child — putting on his stoic and stubborn mask — he could hardly bear to do so.

He shook his head, thinking, ‘It should’ve been Abel — clever Abel, pious Abel. My firstborn is not worthy. Too stubborn, too prideful, birthed too soon after my sin. No matter how he takes responsibility in his broken way, it will not change what has been done. All that’s left for him is the LORD’s curse.’

“… I want you gone from here before the sun sets. As the LORD has decreed.”

“I’m going to speak to mother first.”

“You will do no such-!”

“I.” Cain cut him off immediately. “Am going. To speak. To my mother. This may be the last time I do. You won’t stop me.”

Adam did not protest again. He didn’t wish to leave his relationship with Cain on an even more bitter note, if greater vitriol was even possible at this point. He let the boy go to his mother’s skirts. 

Adam overheard the start of Cain’s conversation with Eve.

“Oh, Cain…! Cain, oh, Cain, what have you done…? My boy-! My boys-!” Eve grieved, yet still, somehow and someway, she found it in her motherly heart to hug her undeserving son.

Cain all but collapsed into her arms. Adam heard no tears. He heard something more telling from Cain, instead.

“Mother… I’m sorry-”

Listening, Adam scoffed to himself. Stubborn, fool boy. He would apologize to his mother but not his father or the LORD? He’d have to raise his next son to show proper respect for the order of LORD, Father, and Son. A thirdborn to rightfully, legitimately succeed him, yes.

The line of Adam would not fail because of Cain’s sin. Still… Adam couldn’t bear to strike Cain’s name from his line completely. The boy would inherit nothing, but Cain was still his son, his firstborn…

‘Oh, what a sin, LORD!’ Adam lamented. ‘How am I meant to reconcile my line, when one son murders the other? How am I meant to feel, when my firstborn is lost to me, yet still so dear? How am I meant to carry on with a third, when I have already so clearly erred as a father to first and second? Please, LORD, give me guidance, strength, mercy, determination… something…’

As always, since he and Eve had been cast out of Eden — just as Cain was now cast out of their house — the LORD was silent in Adam’s ears.

[A STORY IN ITS EPILOGUE; WHAT IS THERE TO SPEAK OF? ALL I HEAR IS SELFISH WHINING. I PREFER EVE’S REACTION. IF ONLY I COULD’VE SHIPPED HER BETTER…]

IIIII

— Lilith —

The Land of Nod was a primal place. Not primal as the Garden had been, during Lilith’s relatively short time in it; primal as in the very essence of Wyld. The law of beasts ruled Nod, but so did the laws of plant and fungus, force and disaster.

Certainly, there were men and women in Wyld Nod; just no Men like Cain and Adam or Women like Lilith and Eve. The men and women who eked out their lives in this land did not make for good company, Lilith had found. Her time in Wyld Nod had been spent alone as a result.

It was a harsh land to live in, to be cast out in, to walk alone. So Lilith had taken pity on Cain there, though she wouldn’t say it as such to his face. He would not take kindly to ‘pity’.

Adam’s son, the newly cursed Man, was in a tumultuous place mentally.

To be expected. He had murdered his brother. The LORD had cursed him — as He had cursed his father, but worse. And now, he wandered Wyld Nod alone.

Lilith had found him very soon after he’d entered the Land of Nod. She’d watched him from afar for a time. Cain put one foot in front of the other, but he didn’t stop to eat or drink or sleep. He didn’t stop at all. All he did was wander, the most literal interpretation of His curse that Lilith could see on the Marks upon Cain’s skin and soul.

Very quickly, Lilith saw that Cain was not his father. That truth was welcome in her mind, though much of that welcome was due to bitter bias.

Still, Lilith didn’t think Adam could’ve braved Wyld Nod as Cain did. Adam had all the strength of the First of Man, certainly, but he lacked the stubborn fire that burned in Cain’s breast. Adam eventually would’ve fallen back on aid; Cain… the very idea of falling back on anything other than himself already seemed anathema to his soul, his story, to Lilith’s observant eyes.

When first approaching him, Lilith had been honest and open, but she’d offered no aid. She simply made herself known to him.

Even then, he spurned her to start. “Leave me to my curse, First Woman. I know you wish nothing to do with the Son of Adam, much less the current most cursed Man in Creation.”

“Oh? You speak for me, then?” Lilith had asked in return.

“I speak the objective truth.”

“Objective truth? It is a lie that only boasts a place in Paradise, wholly and unimpeachably under the LORD’s dominion. Then, His word is objective truth, and only there is it felt fully. But tell me, Cain, is there anyone left in Paradise?”

“… No. Father and Mother’s first sin ensured it is closed to Man and Woman alike.”

“Precisely, and thus, ‘objective truth’ blurs into nuanced reality. This is Wyld Nod, Cain, not Eden, nor even the placid border where your father settled. The world is tempestuous here, a storm of pure nature where all may come to be. The LORD surely still watches us, but this is the Crucible where all things compete for an ‘objective’ place in His Creation. Our canon smears into others here; the only ‘objectivity’ we may find is what we carve for ourselves.

“You will go far on your own, I’m sure. But do you wish to?”

Her question should’ve been tempting: an offer of companionship, a chance to stand against Wyld Nod together. She was surprised by Cain’s response, even after seeing how stubborn he was; Lilith remembered.

“… I shall bear my curse alone. I alone cast the first stone, and I alone must live with that.”

Then, Lilith had shaken her head fondly; now, she did the same again as she reminisced. “Stubborn Man.”

But that stubborn strength, the willful fire in his heart, had been charming — enthralling, even. Lilith had seen that Cain knew not what he’d declared, not truly. She had borne the curse of loneliness for herself. There was no salvation or meaning to be found in it.

Lilith was glad to no longer be alone.

She thought as she worked, harvesting the corpse Cain had made for her. It was a chimera, with the head and claws of a proud lion, the horns of a charging mountain goat, and the body of an almost-man ape. There was no direction to its creation other than the Wyld evolution of Nod’s Crucible.

A knife of bone slid beneath the beast’s skin with practiced skill. Larger than her twice over, the Thing of Nod would provide blood for her rituals, entrails for her augury, bone, tooth, and claw for her crafts, and Wyld essence that both she and Cain could sustain themselves upon.

Wandering, as always, at the edge of Lilith’s senses, Cain continued to ignore her as she worked.

He’d refused her in their first meeting; Lilith hadn’t given up on him since. She smiled to herself, hands coated in blood. He needed the companionship as much as she did. He would never say as much, but just the fact that he hadn’t chased her off said enough.

They were not lovers, no Husband and Wife — even if he was a Man and she was a woman, and they both had no one else. Cain would claim they were ‘Man and pestering shadow’. Lilith would claim they were companions in Wyld Nod regardless.

If only he made for more consistent conversation… why, a Woman may just come to like him-

**SHH-SH-sshh~…

A noise from the grass immediately set Lilith on edge. It was all the warning she got.

Ghostly snakes — air and the absence of Light — sprang at her from the grass.

Lilith’s hands were still buried in the chimera. Her magicks were slow to answer her reflexive call. Another moment, just one more, and she would’ve torn the Nodding ghost-snakes to shreds and ribbons with spelled blood and bone!

… She didn’t get that moment.

Then, in that same moment she didn’t get, Cain was there.

One foot stomped a ghost-snake flat, decapitating it with the hardened flesh of Man. A hand grabbed another mid-lunge and crushed air and not-Light into Wyld essence. The last two of the pack-hunting serpents met Cain’s Stone.

Murder filled the air to Lilith’s senses — all blood and malice and the ending of lives.

Even after murdering Lilith’s ambushers, Cain didn’t turn to her. He stood straight, stoic, and strong; not even her gifted sight could see through Murder to the Man beneath.

“… Be more careful. I know you would not have let them slither so close if you had not let your usual vigilance lapse.”

Despite the passing danger, Lilith grinned at his back. “I was preoccupied with thoughts of you, Cain.”

Cain didn’t reply to that statement with words, just a scoff.

Casually, Lilith collected her harvest from the chimera and stood. She continued as if he hadn’t just tried to end the conversation.

“Truly. Even after years together, you remain a fascinating enigma.”

“We are not together.”

“Oh, of course. We’ve simply happened to go to the same place, at the same time, along the same path, without fail, for what…? Three decades, Cain?”

“… I protect you, that is all. I expect payment.”

“I managed to protect myself for a century before you. I’m sure I could do so again,” Lilith bluffed.

She could absolutely protect herself, but returning to the loneliness…?

As expected, though, Cain didn’t call her bluff. “You grow distracted too easily, and your magicks require preparation. It’s best if I continue to… wander beside you.”

“Oh, I suppose,” Lilith put on a resigned sigh. “And I really should compensate you for such a duty. My magicks, Cain; would you like to learn?”

“… It is something to do while I wander and you follow. I will not refuse your lessons.”

Lilith grinned. “Splendid! Lead, then, and I will lead you into Mystery in turn…”

[SPURNING AND THEN SOFTENING; DERE ADDED TO SO MUCH TSUN. HIS PATH COULD’VE TURNED DIFFERENTLY, MORE BITTER AND LONELY. I’M GLAD IT DIDN’T. SOMEONE TO WANDER BESIDE WILL BE GOOD FOR HIM.]

IIIII

— Enoch —

Son of Cain, Son of Lilith, King of the city bearing his name, Enoch treasured the gifts he’d been given and sought always to thrive beyond them.

He was of the original line of Man, and men were his subjects, populating the world from more than just the line of Adam.

His father had built him a great foundation, passing it down when his curse forced him to wander once more. Enoch had built the city upon it, the greatest in the world.

Enoch, the city, sat beside an oasis, protected north, east, and west by stony mountains. The lands it claimed boasted agriculture enough to feed a growing population. They fielded barley, flax, sesame, and gardens of varied seedings — green leaves, lentils, cucumbers, leeks, garlic, onion, and many herbs. Groves of trees were cultivated — fig, date, and olive. Livestock was herded as well: sheep, cattle, and even pigs.

Father, though cursed so that the earth no longer yielded its bounty to him, had been a farmer, one of the first. He taught Enoch, both son and city, his ways.

With such a bounty, it was only natural to attract men looking to eat and live. In Enoch’s long lifetime, the city had sprung from his inherited household to a village to the center of civilization he now ruled.

Stone was quarried from the surrounding mountains, and mortar mud-clay was gathered from the banks of the oasis and its feeding river. Buildings were constructed to house Enoch’s citizens, and valuable trades began to develop within the safety of the city.

Now, nigh-countless tens of thousands called Enoch home. And Enoch, as king, was responsible for all of those lives.

His throne sat at the top of the central ziggurat, upon a flat and open pinnacle so he might always witness the march of progress beneath his name.

Father had told him the stories of his youth, when the world they knew was young as well. There had been no cities like Enoch, and Enoch was proud to be the first.

“One of the first,” Father’s voice in Enoch’s mind warned against pride. “The world you know is not all there is. There are lands outside your lands, my son. There are men outside your men, myths aside from our stories, and gods apart from the LORD.”

If there was anyone — Man or man — who knew the world, it would be Father. Enoch trusted his word, and strove to keep himself humble. Even in the world he knew, Enoch was not without rivals. His old uncle Seth, thirdborn of Adam, boasted no city like Enoch’s, but he still had his flourishing line — a king in his own right.

Father spoke of his younger brother’s success when he could visit Enoch. He spoke of many things, both the past he’d left behind and the present he was cursed to wander.

Of the past, Father told Enoch about Grandfather Adam and Grandmother Eve settling the harsh but still fruitful land outside the Garden of Eden, and how far man had come since then.

The Garden was forever lost to both Man and man now, but since he first heard the tale, it’d been a secret desire of Enoch’s to lay eyes upon Paradise once more.

It was not to be. Father said he’d seen the Garden from afar during his wanders. It was closed now, and guarded by an Angel of the LORD — “Four-winged,” Father described. “Powerful enough for a simple guard dog.”

Why the number of wings on the LORD’s Angel mattered, Enoch did not know. He had never seen an Angel himself. He had seen darker things during his reign, however.

A bastion of civilization as great as Enoch was bound to attract predatory evil, both within the hearts of men and without. Such was the current nightly plague Enoch faced.

Each morning, men across the city were found drained and deathly pale. A rare few men weren’t found at all, disappearing into the night with whatever hunted there.

Enoch had inherited his father’s strength as a Man, and his mother’s magic, too. He’d stood against monsters to protect Enoch and his people. But against such a shadowed foe, he found nothing to strike.

Whatever things stalked the night in his city were subtle and powerful. His attempts to ward the walls failed, for the hunters were already inside them. His ritual prayer to the LORD received only a brush of His attention, acknowledging him as Son of Cain but no more. His warnings of vigilance to the citizens of Enoch contained no solutions and only sparked panic.

Thus, each night in Enoch grew darker. Thus, each morning Enoch prayed to the LORD for aid. Thus… 

Enoch let out a sigh of relief atop his throne when he saw the unmistakable trail of his father in the distance, a day’s journey out but heading his way. The LORD had answered his prayer with the only aid he could send — Cain for the Son of Cain.

Cain was visible from such a distance because of his following, the one Enoch’s father had repeatedly told him he had had no hand in, and truly wanted no part of. Still, where Cain wandered, hundreds followed.

It was his strength that gathered the cult to him. It was his stoicism and distance, the otherworldly feel of his cursed wandering that men found so easy to worship. It was the very fact that he didn’t want the following he’d gathered.

… And Mother may very well have played a major part in it as well, spreading word of Father’s constant wandering.

Enoch mused on his parents as he waited for his father to arrive; everyone in the city knew Cain was to be honored and brought to him immediately.

Their story… Enoch knew he’d been born of a short-lived affair, one of spite and comfort. Cain had been cast out into the wild lands of Nod, and Lilith found him. He fought as the strong arm to her sharp wit for a time, and she taught him her magicks. There was fondness and attraction between them, but no true love; despite having created a child together, their relationship was mainly platonic. Yet even after going their separate ways, Lilith looked out for Cain and Enoch.

Lilith was the one who had taught Enoch the magicks he knew, just as she had taught his father. Magic and Mystery were many and malleable, she said, while the world was still young. But aside from a rare few gifts in the casting die of birth, it could only be channeled and called upon; it did not tend to spring naturally from the hearts of men.

Lilith, however, was no man. She was the first Woman, preceding even Eve, and she boasted all of those rare few gifts. It was her duty to pass them down into the world. Where would she start with that duty other than with her own son?

She taught Enoch to call upon the spirits, divine both signs and answers from various auspices, perform manyfold rituals of blood, and more; Mother’s gifts were powerful, but the magical knowledge she’d gathered beyond them was endless.

If she was in Enoch, none of the night hunters would’ve gotten a second night of hunting. If Father was present, they wouldn’t have gotten a first.

Enoch took solace in the certainty that Cain was nearly there, and felt some shame that he hadn’t solved the issue himself.

A runner came to him with the message that his wandering father had been received at the gates. Enoch took what time he had left to look out over Enoch. This city of sandstone and marvel, home to thousands who counted on him for defense. He’d failed them these past nights. Cain would not.

“Father!” Enoch greeted his honored guest as Cain walked onto the flat throne-room peak of the city. “You are welcome in my house, my city! Look upon all I’ve built and rejoice, for you are the one to make it possible for me to do so!”

Cain looked exactly the same as Enoch had always known him. It went beyond the long-living benefits of being one of the First of Man. Enoch had ruled his city for 200 years, and while he had 200 more in him, he had still aged and grown.

Cain still bore the shine of youth, only some 28 years of a near-millennium of life shown. It would’ve been easy to mistake him and Enoch for reversed positions — Enoch the father and Cain the son.

If one only looked on the surface, that is. Looking just the barest bit deeper, Cain carried himself as a Man who’d seen the world — known and not. His well-wandered body radiated the strength of Man, Son of Adam, even if he’d been all but cast out of the line. Enoch had seen his father wrestle the very earth to carve out the place Enoch now sat — both city and king — and he’d seen him practice magicks that only Lilith could rival. Though he was gifted only as a Man, he mastered the external forces of the world with stalwart inner will.

“Enoch,” Cain greeted his only son with a face of stone. “I hear you have a problem. Tell me about the ills that plague your city; your father shall lend his ear and his hand.”

Relief filled Enoch, and he did as his father requested. He told Cain of the dark mystery in his city, of bodies drained in the night and the sun driving away the hunters.

Cain listened, and then, he nodded; he knew the cause.

“Bloodsuckers,” He said. “Pests upon the lines of men. You have an infestation, Enoch. I’m afraid I may be the one to blame for it.”

“How could you be to blame, Father? You have not visited in three decades, a generation!” Enoch exclaimed.

Cain grunted, “These bloodsuckers have taken a liking to me, thinking us cursed kin. We are not, of course. But that doesn’t stop them from trying to get my attention, just like the overeager pups that follow my steps through the world and now camp at your gates.”

“They are in line with your cult, then?” Enoch asked.

“Don’t…” Cain grimaced. “Don’t call it that, even if the word is accurate. I lead them nowhere; they simply follow everywhere.”

Enoch let out a chuckle at the irony in that statement. “You are well worth following, Father, though you claim not to lead. If these bloodsuckers are not your followers, are they pretenders even more grave?”

“Even more mistaken and misled, but ‘grave’ is also apt,” Cain confirmed. “I will take them off your hands. Bearing their attention more directly is the least I can do for my son.”

“Will they truly come when you call?”

“They will flock. Like bats. Their progenitor will come to me tonight, now that she knows I am here. She will try to embrace me, drinking of my blood and feeding me hers. When it fails, she will switch her tack and look to embrace me carnally. Her children will grow jealous. When I leave with their mother in tow, they will attack me. They will be powerful, with blood so pure, but I am not afraid. I will murder them. There can be no other outcome.”

Cain sighed to himself at the end of his seeming prophecy, worn and weary. Enoch blinked.

“Is the sight not Mother’s domain?” He asked.

“I need no true prophecy to see how this river of blood will flow,” Cain replied.

“Evaluation and estimation can be just as powerful. You can see the signs with your own eyes when you have seen enough. There are patterns in the world and in the lives that live within it.” He continued, a lesson for his son in his words.

“Finding them is just a matter of experience, recognition, and intelligence, all applied. You’ve lived two centuries already, Enoch — you have the experience. I know you have the eyes to see. And you are my son; despite what many would claim, including my brother and father, our line is not dull.”

“Just…” Cain trailed off; his voice came out soft and pained. “Just stubborn, just proud.”

Enoch said nothing to dispute that truth. He’d experienced their line’s traits for himself; it was, in part, what pushed and enabled him to build his kingdom. It’d also pushed him to mistakes of his own. And Cain… Father never spoke of Abel.

The moment passed, and Cain’s countenance hardened to stone once more.

“Paying the progenitor my personal attention and culling the fools from her line will be a bribe enough to spare your city her hunts,” He promised. “I will depart in the night, leaving the progenitor craving more and raving to follow. Your city will be free from pests when the sun rises.”

“Thank you, Father.” Enoch bowed his head. “I can see the sacrifice you’re making.”

“The nights to come won’t be quiet for me,” He sighed before waving off Enoch’s gratitude. “But speak nothing of it. It is the least-… No, it is the most a cursed wanderer can do for his son...”

Cain trailed off once more, and Enoch heard the regret in his voice.

“I have never felt that I am lacking as your son, nor as Mother’s,” Enoch assured. “You came now, when I needed you, did you not?”

“Not for this.” Cain shook his head. “Another matter drove my feet here; you deserve to hear this, Enoch.”

Enoch met his father’s silver eyes. He saw a fire within them, shining through his usual stoicism. And that fire… it burned impotently. Whatever the reason, the cause, Cain felt powerless and even lost for the first time that Enoch had seen from his father. The sight unsettled him to his core.

“Lilith… Your mother is missing, Enoch. I can sense her nowhere in this world. She knew it was coming. I… I didn’t listen to her — too damned stubborn… She claimed that it would be the next arc of her story, that it was fated, that… she wouldn’t forget our friendship, even if it seems as though she has…”

Reeling at the news, Enoch remembered a prophecy his mother had once whispered in his ears as she taught him her magicks.

“One day,” She’d said. “There will be magicks that even man can call their own. They will be stolen from the now-primitive Devils during an age of great turmoil, Great War. The role I will play in those magicks shall be distant… but it will come, no matter the evils I have a hand in to make it so. When any man, any woman, can defend themselves and all they cherish with effort and will… it shall be worth the sacrifice.”

Enoch relayed the memory to his father, and Cain chuffed; some of the impotent fire in his eyes waned, replaced by a regretful sort of pride.

“That Woman… At least I know she’ll be driving Lucifer as mad as she drove me…”

[IT'S NOT OTP, BUT I STILL FRIEND-SHIP THEM. HMM, DOES STEALING LILITH AWAY FROM THE FRIEND-SHIP COUNT AS NTR? NOT COOL, HELEL; NOT COOL.]

IIIII

— Noah —

“‘Built an ark,’ He says. ‘Two of every beast,’ He commands. And now, look at poor Noah!” Noah exclaimed, ranting to himself. “Run a mock between lions and sheep! The sky has opened up with His wrath and the world floods; I only live by His grace, and I could not even follow His commandments properly!

“The bugs, oh, the bugs! Of ants, I brought two mounds instead of a breeding pair — if such a pair even exists for the tiny things! — yet now, they war upon the deck of my ark! Who could have said that ants fight constant battles more bloody than any civilizations of men?!”

Above, the sky thundered and poured as it had for weeks already. The ark held, but only by the Grace of G-O-D. Noah had no chance to rest. His sons manned the ark’s tiller and sails, while he had the duty of shepherding the beasts of the world.

Most of the beasts followed no shepherd! Elephants, so mighty and grand, were much too noble to heed a mere man, though they were surprisingly cooperative once Noah ‘got to know them’. All across the deck, rats ran from cats, cats ran from dogs, dogs ran from hyenas, hyenas ran from lions, and tigers, and bears — oh my!

And the hippos, unmovable scourge of shepherd and sheep! The geese, more fierce than their size should allow! The rowdy, rowdy rabbits!

“Wait until there is dry land to spread your seed, dammit!” Noah snapped at the last offenders.

Hawk and eagle, albatross and swallow, dueled in the stormy air above the ark. They would come to perch eventually, Noah knew now, and at least while they flew, they were out of his hair.

The loyal hounds peeled off from the chasing of cats to heel at Noah’s side. ‘We wish to help, master!’ the hounds panted and barked. The wolves joined them, absent of any other pack; as did the wild and painted dogs. The foxes came sneaking into the circle of helpful hounds, yipping agreement only if Noah paid the canny beasts in meat.

“The LORD provides,” Noah told the foxes, the dogs, the wolves, and the hounds. “The LORD… provides…”

His promise was just as much a prayer. The LORD had provided so far. With each still-torrential morning, food for the beasts fell upon the deck of the ark, soaked and carried for leagues that only He knew. It was still edible, enough to sustain the ark. The haphazard manner in which it arrived did nothing to help Noah contain the chaos, though.

Noah took the canine pack around him throughout the ark. With the predators, they barked and bayed and protected him in his most important duty. With the livestock and prey, they did the same to push the wary beasts back from Noah’s goal.

Shit… All of the shit. Every beast shit, and two of each shit enough for the disposal to be a constant duty, as it turned out.

The piss was a whole other matter, too, for many a beast marked territory with it. The claiming lines upon the ark were so convoluted that Noah had outright drawn a map; it had to be updated constantly.

Noah had been a man of peace, a man without sin — blameless, so the LORD had said.

Now, he was a man of shit and piss and desperation.

He suspected he’d lost countless unnamed bugs to the storm and the flood. He knew for a fact that the wooly mammoths had gone out fighting with the pair of sabertooth cats. The griffins had disappeared at some point — perfectly explainable with their wings to carry them. The unicorns had also disappeared, and Noah could not begin to say why, other than Fae laughter on the wind and a payment of druidic greenery left in their place.

Noah sighed. “At least I do not have to worry about the fish-…”

Starboard of his ark, something massive suddenly broke through the flood. Serpentine and powerful, it reared straight up as if to bite the storming heavens. Noah and all of his beasts could only watch in collective horror as the leviathan nearly succeeded in its quest.

Leagues upon leagues of leviathan snapped at the clouds. Fins and flippers lined its length like the legs of a centipede — oh, how Noah wished he could’ve left those tiny monsters behind…

For a moment, the clouds parted before the leviathan’s jaws. Then, as it began to fall back into the flood, they sealed over again. The leviathan roared in rage, still falling. And in time with the rage, a shout! A dogged shout of Man and blasphemy!

“FUUU-UUU-UUUU-CCCC-KKKK YOOOOO-UUUU-UU, LORD!”

Scandalized, Noah searched for the source. He found it standing atop the leviathan’s head, a Man stubborn enough to master the monster. In the darkness of the storm, he shone with spiteful silver.

Noah recognized the Man from stories passed down. He was Noah’s distant uncle, cursed elder brother to Noah’s six-times-great-grandfather.

Cain…

Then, the leviathan dove back beneath the waves, and Cain dove with it.

And Noah, while his distant uncle was riding a leviathan to spite G-O-D’s storm… went back to shoveling shit off his ark.

[… THAT WAS FUCKING SIIIIICK. SICKEST SHIT I’VE SEEN IN CREATION SO FAR. I HOPE THE SYSTEM WAS RECORDING, ‘CAUSE GABRIEL NEEDS TO SEE HOW SICK THAT WAS. OH, MY ME, I HOPE THAT MAKES IT INTO THE BOOK.]

IIIII

— G-O-D —

[HMM? OH, LOOK, THEY’RE BUILDING A TOWER NOW. THIS SHOULD BE GOOD.

OOF. AND THERE IT GOES. AS EXPECTED.

WELL, AT LEAST WE CAN JOIN THE OTHER CANONS MORE SMOOTHLY WITH THAT. I WONDER WHO I’LL BE ABLE TO SHIP MY STUBBORN FAVORITE WITH NOW…

THE SELF-PROCLAIMED ‘UNLOVABLE’ ONES ALWAYS MAKE THE SHIP THAT MUCH SWEETER. AND I DO NEED SOMETHING TO HOLD ME OVER UNTIL OTP…]

IIIII

[AN: And that’s the first half of Genesis, from the First Murder to the Tower of Babel. I wanted us to get off to a running start here. The next chapter should be a bit closer to the events happening with less time-skipping, but I’m honestly half-considering writing the whole story from every POV but Cain’s. Not locking anything in yet; I’d love some feedback first. At the very least, though, ‘outside Cain’ POVs will be common. Just need to decide if I’m fully committing to that or not.

Similarly, I’d love some feedback on the (literal) Word of G-O-D lines. I think they add some good tonal relief compared to the rest of the story’s more serious, played-straight prose, but they may also be a bit too jarring, idk. Should it be a running motif throughout the whole story? He is omniscient and all…

This is the G-O-D I’m going with, though. The Big Shipper in the Sky. In the end, it’s DxD; it can’t be taken too-too seriously, ya know?

Oh, the next chapter should also introduce some of the FATE Age of Gods crossover bits, too. The Tower of Babel falls here at the end of the chapter, and the Abrahamic canon bubble bursts with it. I’m planning the first era we spend some time in to be Ancient Sumer/Uruk (and Egypt, but that comes after), which might give you a clue what crossover bits I’m looking to include first ;]