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evilmenshoe80 · 4 days ago

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Promises: Prologue

[@evilmenshoe80 @optimisticartisanwinner Here's a rough start 👀]

Far from the rush the bustling town, hidden amongst the foliage and vines of the forest, stood a dilapidated temple – long forgotten and abandoned by the people. Hundreds of years had already passed since its prime, when its followers, the old ancestors of the people of the town, used to come by in flocks to pray to the deity that the temple belonged to. Thick vines clutched and clung to every crack and crevice of the temples now smoothened stone carvings. The paintings along its stone walls faded and barely legible as time and negligence had taken its toll. Pools of cold water from the early morning rains littered the damaged marble floor, used as a bath for the wild birds that inhabited the forest, their merry songs bringing some life to the place.

Perhaps the temple hasn’t been completely abandoned. It had the wild forest animals, from the regal deer to the diminutive forest mice, as its daily visitors. And recently, it seemed to have gained another follower.

The cool air sent goosebumps on Adam’s skin as he forced himself further into the old temple with shaky, stumbling steps, careful not to soak his old leather shoes in the puddles. With heavy, tired heaves, he took a brief pause, steadying himself against the cold stone walls of the temple. His tunic clung uncomfortably sticky against his bruised skin, though the cool air helped with his sweating a little. In front of him, on the large stone wall, was a large fresco covered by branching vines and mould and dirt, but the image was still fairly legible. It depicted a scene from the supposed past of the town; the soldiers fiercely defending their families and homes from their invading neighbours. Behind the soldiers, stood a giant lion with wide golden wings, shining so brightly as it blessed the town and its people with the might and courage to win the battle. The winged lion. Adam had read during his spare time that it used to be one of the deities his town worshipped. It was the deity of warriors, people used to pray to it to aid them in wars and give them the strength they needed.

Adam closed his eyes for a brief moment and gave a short, insincere prayer to the winged lion to lend him strength. Then, he pushed himself off the wall, wincing a little as he continued his way towards the altar further into the temple. With a little more effort as he stumbled through the empty halls, even slipping once or twice, further dirtying his tunic, Adam eventually reached the end of the long hall where large wooden double doors stood in his way. No matter how many times he had pushed and opened these doors, his eyes couldn’t help but admire some of the engravings still present on red wood as he ran his fingertips over its curves and bumps, feeling some of the splinters of the rotten wood against his skin.

With an effort he normally wouldn’t need, Adam pushed open the heavy wooden doors, the rotten wood groaning in loud echoes as it slowly revealed a large marble statue of the deity that the temple belonged to: the winged lion. There, it stood in all of its mighty glory untouched by the ageing of time, while the world around it had died and moved on.

Taking a few further steps forward, Adam let the doors slowly creak shut behind him as he took out a small package and some matches from the small worn satchel he had been carrying. With memorised movements, Adam reliably made his way towards the altar just in front of the large marble statue and lit the lamp he had left there. A small orange light, not even bright enough to brighten the place a few feet from it, flickered quietly in the cold, dark room. However, it was all that Adam needed – just a small light, enough to brighten up the area around the altar. The small orange light dyed the marble statue in dark shades of gold, its blue jewelled eyes glistening along the flickering flame. Adam knelt on the make-shift cushion stuffed with hay that he had made just so he could sit comfortably by the altar. One by one, he took the items out of his satchel, placing them atop the altar; a bundle of blue, white and yellow flowers, a variety of fresh berries he had picked the day before, and an old heavy book with yellowed and creased pages, clearly loved and read many times over.

Fluffing up the cushion once more, Adam made himself comfortable by the altar, well, as comfortable as he could get considering the purple and green bruises that peppered his body. This was his almost daily morning routine, which he had started about a fortnight ago; to simply spend a few hours alone in this dilapidated temple talking to himself and the statue about the events of the days prior. It wasn’t as if he came here every morning to worship and pay his respects to the deity, he had lost all love and respect for their kind since he was much younger, no, he was just here because he liked the seclusion, the isolation from the people who only wish to benefit from his suffering. And also maybe because, a small part of him thought he could relate a little with the winged lion, both used and abandoned by the same town.

A soft, bitter laugh escaped from Adam’s lips at the thought of relating to a deity. That was stupid. The winged lion was probably the one who abandoned the town, moving on to more devout, more deserving followers. There was also the matter of the fact that Adam was still technically needed by his town, to at least take on its misfortunes so that the rest might live on happily at peace. Resentment filled his heart at the thought of everyone else living such merry lives, while he never had a choice in the matter; the cuts and bruises on his body from last night’s ‘accident’ another payment for someone else’s sake.

Adam reached out for his book, gifted to him by Samael long ago, one of his few friends from the town. The beautiful leather-bound book felt heavy on his hands, hundreds of its pages a testament to the knowledge it held. Its pages had been flipped open countless times, and Adam had read over the delicately inked pages so many times that he had memorised most of them. It covered a variety of topics, ranging from edible plants found in this forest to the history of the town’s humble beginnings. However, there was a section of the book that had kept Adam coming back to it recently: the topic about deities the townspeople had worshipped. Apparently, their ancestors had worshipped many ever since the town’s establishment, many deities beloved and then forgotten, their temples and shrines forever lost in time and buried in dirt never to be visited again. The subject matter was interesting, sure, but Adam never cared for the gods for they had never been at his side. What quickly changed that, however, was when he found this temple two weeks ago when he was hunting a hare and it led him to this place. A dilapidated, but still relatively intact temple. And ever since then, Adam had been spending most of his spare time learning more about the place and the deity it used to host.

Out of recently made habit, Adam instantly flicked to the section of the book where it discussed more of the history of the temple, when it was made, who were its most notable priests, and all that stuff. Oddly enough, it didn’t have much to talk about the deity itself, besides the fact that it manifested itself in the form of a large lion with shining gold fur and six massive wings, and that it supposedly helped the town win their wars. Other than that, nothing much. The lion apparently used to be a rather popular deity amongst the people especially during their warring times. But as time marched on, and the people had learned to coexist with one another, the lion’s presence slowly waned into the background until it was eventually forgotten by the people.

Adam picked a random berry and popped it into his mouth, its freshly sweet and mildly sour juices coating his tongue. It tasted quite lovely by itself, but Adam would’ve preferred it with some porridge and honey. It would’ve been such a nice hearty breakfast, one that he probably needed, but he couldn’t bear staying in that cursed town. The shorter he had to remain there, the less time he had to see the people there, the better. Besides, and it was most likely just him deluding himself, but in the two weeks Adam had been visiting the abandoned temple, no misfortune had befallen onto him yet, at least not while he was within its bounds. He was sure it was just him desperately looking for solace, no matter how false, but the temple had slowly become his safe space, his comfortable little hideout, at least for a short time.

“You can have some, you know?” he jokingly told the statue as he pushed the bag of berries towards it.

After quietly reading his book for some time, Adam placed a thin wooden bookmark between the pages he was currently on before closing the book to rest his eyes. He remembered Samael telling him before that reading in the dark wasn’t good for his eyes. The little light that the lamp emitted helped a little, but after a while, his eyes did start to hurt a little. So, while waiting for his eyes to stop hurting, Adam busied himself with replacing the limp and browning flowers he had brought last time, wrapping them in paper and replacing them with the fresh ones he had brought today. It was such a monotonous and pointless thing to do, nobody lived at the temple nor did he stay long at the place, but he thought it made the place look prettier, a little less lifeless than it already was.

“I hope you like these flowers, not that you get any say,” joked Adam before doubling over as he let out a sharp hiss of pain when he accidentally hit his side on a pointed edge of the altar. “Fuck..! Lilith really didn’t hold back on her curses, huh?” he wheezed, clenching his now slightly wet side as he slowly slumped back down on the cold floor with his back against the hard marble statue.

There on the floor, in the dark, Adam remained seated quietly, his eyes focusing at nothing in particular. He would need to wrap a bandage around his side, but he couldn’t care less about it right now. “Today is supposed to be a good day,” he muttered to himself. “No, today is going to be a good day,” he said louder, trying to convince himself as tears began to prick his eyes.

Today, he woke up early, got his morning chores done despite the pain he felt, he was going to spend a nice peaceful morning at the temple and then he was going to welcome his best friend Samael back from his travels in the afternoon. It was supposed to be a smooth sailing day, but then he just had to suddenly feel so tired now, to feel like he didn’t want to move ever again. He was sick of it, trying his hardest to trudge through the day, pretending that he could keep up with this, that it was fine as long as it was for the greater good. He wanted to be selfish, even just for once…

“I wish it would just end,” he muttered with a shaky breath, rubbing his eyes with his hands as he desperately tried to prevent his tears from flowing down. He leaned his head against the lion statue, sadly eyeing the wooden doors in front of him. Just the thought of having to leave soon and going back to the town drowned his spirits into dark watery depths. “I’m so tired, I don’t want to fight anymore…”

Then he felt a sudden warmth from behind him as the lion statue began to crack with soft golden light coming out of it. Adam crawled back from the statue, a small trail of red following him, as pieces of the marble fell away one by one, slowly revealing a pale man dressed in regal blues and whites intricately lined with gold accents, a heavy looking dark blue cape hung on his shoulders. Stars seemed to line his cheeks just below his dark blue eyes with softly golden waves of hair flowing just above his shoulders, needless to say, his appearance was otherworldly. But what really caught his eyes were the six golden wings spread wide behind the man. The strange man flexed his limbs, wings fluttering slightly in the cramped space, before turning his focus on Adam, who remained frozen both in awe and fear at the sight in front of him.

The winged man stepped down from the marble stage, folding his wings neatly behind him, and made his way in front of Adam, where he crouched down to meet the terrified human eye to eye. And then…he gave a tender smile.

“I heard you might need help?”

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel adam #guitarhero #michael x adam #hazbin hotel michael #hazbin adam #🛡🎸#promises au #UUUUUUGGHHHHH This is so interesting that cliffhanger HELP!!! 😭😭😭💙💙💙✨✨✨#I need to know more about Adam's curse and WHY THE HELL LILITH DID THAT TO MY BABY! >:C #I really hope lucifer doesn't hurt Adam too much on this story I want to believe 🥹🔥🔥🔥

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