#he screams and then ik comes rushing in with crow on her shoulder and a cat at her heels

[journey-to-the-attic]

I've had this AU in my head for ages but I only just got the nerve to submit it lol (long ask ahead, sorry)

Anyway so basically it's like: what if the brothers' fall goes entirely different. This is half serious and half crack? But basically after falling, instead of ending up in the Devildom they land in the human world, in animal forms. So like Lucifer's a peacock, Mammon's a crow, Levi's a snake, Satan's a cat, Asmo's a rabbit, Beel's one of those big dogs that go boof, Belphie's a fox. (I was going to go demonic animal for all of them, but then Beel would be a fly and Satan would be a unicorn which don't exist, and that's tricky to work with lol)

Basically they can communicate with each other but they can't speak like verbally, they can still do simple magic but no demon form transforming. They're just kinda stuck in animal form for some reason.

Ik sees a tattered crow hopping about by the road on her way home from school. It keeps getting startled by the cars but it's not flying away, and it looks really close to getting hit, which she's worried about. So she tries to shoo it away, and the crow stops and looks at her with these big dark eyes and she can't help but feel like it *understands* her when she tells it that it's dangerous by the road.

Next day the crow is there again, and this time it's staying away from the curb, as if it *listened* to her. And for some reasons he can't stop thinking about it... so the next day she buys a little bag of nuts on the way back, and when she sees the crow by the road again she scatters some of them for it, which it seems to appreciate.

Ik feeds the crow for a week before it's already comfortable enough to hop right up to her and wait for its snack. While she's watching it eat, she'll talk to it. After another week it seems to be *looking forward* to seeing her, because it sits on a tree watching the path she takes and visibly perks up when it spots her coming around the corner, and it seems to listen very intently when she's talking. It's like having a best friend.

Then one day the crow follows her home. Ik waves to it when she goes inside and it's gone by morning. And it isn't there in the usual place after school...

Then she gets home and finds the crow waiting on her doorstep. When it spots her it squawks happily and then calls to something. And then six animals that you would NOT expect a crow to be acquainted with emerge from hiding in a bush nearby. Does that dog have a fox AND a snake on its back? Is that a fucking *peacock*?!

Okay. This is weird and definitely not normal. "Are these your friends?" she asks the crow, as if it understands. Then the crow *nods*.

Basically Ik takes in the animal-brothers and takes care of them as best she can in her little house. (Bonus: cut to Diavolo and Barbatos in the Devildom, extremely panicked and confused about where those fallen angels ended up if they're not here)

I've got more thoughts but I'd like to know what you think first hehee

OOOOO I LIKE IT VERY MUCH!! i agree that this is a very half and half au, so let me think about the serious half for a moment...

if this happens directly after the fall, then there's a lot of interesting dialogue coming from the fact that all that war trauma's very fresh... though potentially, they'll all heal from it a lot more healthily, rather than repressing for centuries on end until a kid who cares too much shows up. this time, the kid who cares too much is right there immediately

i reckon the other brothers, especially lucifer and the twins, would be quite standoffish with ik at first. like, they'll acknowledge her help and be grateful for it, but belphie'll snap if she gets too close and lucifer doesn't like being alone in a room with her. but i think satan would latch onto her company quite quick actually - since he's new to, like, existing, and isn't quite sure how to be around his new brothers

mammon of course has decided ik is his new bestest friend ever. part of it is because his brothers are all very sombre and he doesn't know how to handle grief properly, so he's glad to have someone to just goof off with - part of it's because ik's the first face he saw after landing and he's, like, imprinted

(he did see other humans but none stopped long enough for him to get a look at them, and ik's the first one that approached him in good nature)

ik's main concern is not having a lot of room for all these animals, plus letting them get out. levi doesn't wanna anyway, she can be pretending to walk a dog with beel, mammon can just kinda go fly on his own and will look normal, belphie, asmo and satan won't look that out of place outside - the main issue is lucifer, because peacocks are not a normal sight in urban england

she resorts to waiting until the dead of night so that lucifer can get some air and loses a fair amount of sleep over it, and this is part of the reason lucifer starts warming up to her :')