Night had just fallen when they finally entered the dark, shadowy expanse of the woods. The Moaning. Aden tried not to show too much fear as she stepped under the black branches -- it was so dark in the shadows that she couldn't see her hand in front of her face. She winced.

"We should camp out here and wait until morning," Aden suggested, stumbling in the dark.

"Light," Lucyfer said, as though commanding her to produce it.

She sneered. "No, half-wit, I don't have any light, otherwise I'd already-"

Fzzzz!

A sudden bright, burning light shot up into the air, making Aden blink rapidly, momentarily blinded. Lucyfer reached out and grabbed her hand so she didn't fall backwards, she was so startled. She brushed him off, uncomfortable with the gesture.

"What was that?" she asked, unnerved by his lack of surprise.

"A light," he said calmly. "What, you think we Immortals do not have abilities of our own?"

She gawked at him, unsure of how to respond to that. Abilities of their own? As in, powers to do certain things? "Like what?" she asked quietly.

He smiled then; a cold, quizzical smile that was purely gesture. "I have simply embodied Light as a means to guide us. That ball of flame is actually a part of me."

"A part of...?" Aden frowned.

He didn't answer; rather, grabbed her by the wrist and began leading her forward, thrusting her before him. "Walk, human," he directed, the light hovering about her head. His tall shadow cast a long row in front of them. "Direct me to where these paths diverge."

"Uh... alright," Aden stuttered, pausing for a moment to get her bearings. She yanked the map out from around her belt and checked it, staring at the jumble of lines that ran across the pages, some of them stopping and starting suddenly for no reason. It all made very little sense, and yet when she looked closely enough....

"I believe it's this way," she said, and continued following up the path. The flame cast barely enough light to see within five feet in every direction, and most of that was blocked out by thick, gnarly trees. The grass was thick underfoot though and softened all sounds, so she was left to listen to the distant pounding of rain on the overhead foliage and the slight rustling along the forest floor. It was eerily dark and quiet. Unnaturally so.

"Walk closer to me," Lucyfer spoke suddenly, his voice hushed. "There is... something ahead."

Aden didn't ask how he knew -- she backed up instead, until she felt his hand on her shoulder. It was just firm enough against her skin to reassure her, and she continued forward through the night, careful of where she stepped in case of snakes.

Finally, after almost half an hour of stumbling forward along the path, which had become quite overgrown, the forest suddenly opened up. They stepped into a wide clearing, where the trees lengthened and broadened, turning from bent and wretched to proud and tall.  The trail ended in the center of it, and from it several pathways opened and wove off through the wilderness, some paved in stone, others barely visible from the overgrowth. For a brief, spiraling moment she felt dizzy, like her sense of direction was purposefully being fooled by the place. Aden took a faltering step forward.

"Well, Lucyfer?" this was the moment they had banked on, the reason why she had brought them this far. "Which path should we take?"

The gift of the Immortals was that they contained all-knowledge. They knew the information about anything, including the proper direction to take. In this instance, they were both hoping that Lucyfer would be able to pick the correct path once he was presented with a choice. True choice could only be made by true Knowledge, after all.

But Lucyfer stood there for a long time, silent, his head bowed in thought. Several times he shifted his weight, but said nothing. Aden watched him in the dim light, shivering in the brisk wind, wishing her schoolgirl uniform was just that much thicker and longer.

Finally Lucyfer folded his arms thoughtfully. "They are not those kinds of paths," he said, his eyes closed.

Aden paused, looking him over, surprised and altogether nonplussed. "What?" she asked flatly.

"They are not... paths in that sense of the word, it seems," he said slowly, as though having difficulty relaying his thoughts into words. He grunted in what could have been annoyance. "Usually I don't need to explain anything."

She nodded, relaxing slightly. "Well, go on then, what are they if not paths?"

"Well, they are pathways in a sense, just... the direction they take is not one that involves space, or distance, or...." Lucyfer trailed off.

Aden was even more confused now, though she had a certain suspicion forming that left a cold patch in her stomach. "Well, what should we do then?"

"We ask for directions," Lucyfer murmured.

"What?"

The tall, black-clad man stepped majestically over to the border of the wood and stooped down, and Aden's eyes widened when he picked up a small object. On closer inspection, it was a frog. He held the frog close to eye level and said, "I need ask you a question, good sir."

His rich tenor seemed to strike a certain chord in the air, and Aden watched, curious and somewhat entranced, but as the minutes stretches on, she began to grin.

"Haha, look Lucyfer, maybe you don't realize this but animals don't talk in the Incarnate." She laughed, rolling her eyes. "See, you Immortals think you know everything, but there's always room for exception--"

This time it was Lucyfer who was grinning, and there was just such a sharpness to his grin that it brought her words to a stumbling halt. "What's so funny?" she asked.

Lucyfer was still turned toward the frog, but watching her out of the corner of his eye. "You should realize, my young lady, that the Immortal and the Incarnate cross and effect each other in all instances. In this case, what I can do in the Immortal realm, I can demand to do in the Incarnate realm, and it is my right... I am not bound by the Incarnate's laws." He turned back to the frog. "Are you awake now, my new friend?"

Aden's eyes widened as she watched Lucyfer's sharpened, black-gloved fingers trail across the frog's body, a wisp of extra mist seeming to swirl around it. Then she gasped -- no, not from around it, from inside of it! She was looking at the frog's... well, essence. The frog's soul.

Lucyfer grinned at her expression.

"My Lord of Night," the frog said, its voice a croaky, low vibrato. "How might I serve your needs?"

"I seek the path that leads to the Dreaming Keep. Which one will lead true?"

The frog croaked for a moment low in its throat, then the words burst and streamed forth from the mist surrounding its body. "All paths lead True," the toad croaked. Aden frowned, trying to understand its muddled speech. "Yet all shall lead False if the journeyman proves False."

"What?" Aden murmured.

The frog continued. "One must be true to one's own self and one's own judgement, and choose the path they should walk down. This path," the frog mist motioned to their right, "leads to Happiness, this path leads to Honor, this path leads to Justice," he continued pointing, "this path to Liberty, and this path to Knowledge. Choose one."

Aden stood, her feet twitching, gazing at the paths that circled them on all sides. The stone path of Knowledge, the dank earth of Honor....

"What if we choose the wrong one?" she asked.

At first the frog didn't respond, then Lucyfer prompted it and the beast croaked, "If you are True to yourself, you cannot choose the wrong one."

"True to myself... true to myself?" Aden muttered, turning back to the paths. Lucyfer thanked the frog and set it back on the ground, coming to stand next to her.

They stood for a long, silent moment, his orange light fizzling between them, giving off warmth. Aden folded her arms around herself and glanced at her silent, shadowy companion.

"You know, at times I think I almost have memories of doing this kind of stuff, in past lives," she said with a wry smile.

Lucyfer nodded absently.

"Think we knew each other in one of my past lives?"

"I have known few humans," Lucyfer said vaguely.  "You do not seem like anyone I have known before."

"Huh..." she chewed her lip for a moment, tuning to look at the sandy dirt of Justice. "True to myself... how can you be true to yourself, Lucyfer, if you can't even feel? I mean, how do you choose the path that's right for you?"

"Perhaps it is easier for me, because I don't feel," Lucyfer said quietly. "It is obvious to me that I must take the path of Knowledge, since that is the way of my kind."

"Huh, I don't think that," Aden grunted.

"Don't you?"

"Nope, I think you should challenge yourself, you know? I mean isn't that the point of a path? To move along it?" Aden paused and chewed her lip a moment more, thinking. "The frog warned us to be true to ourselves. I think in that case it means be true to what you really want. If you take the path of Knowledge, you're just standing still because it's not taking you anywhere, you already know everything it has to offer. You'll just end up where you started." Aden stood for a long time once again, deep in thought. "I think we're going to have to take separate paths."

"Yes," Lucyfer agreed.

"I think I've decided."

With that Aden slung her book bag over her shoulder and headed for the sandy, overgrown path of Happiness.

"What's that?" Lucyfer called after her. "I thought you were supposed to challenge yourself?"

"This is a challenge!" she called back to him, already disappearing through the bushes. The light he had created trailed after her.  "Have you ever known anyone to have reached Happiness? But it seems like the only thing worth pursuing!"

The flash of her high white socks disappeared into the trees.

"Hopefully it will not land you in more pain, young one," Lucyfer murmured. He didn't bother relighting his lantern -- with the understanding of all things, he had no need for eyes, especially since the path before him was not one of time and space. Yes, the path of happiness did seem to be an attractive choice, but in the end, it was only an emotion the girl was chasing. Lucyfer couldn't take that path even if he wanted to. Happiness meant nothing to a being that couldn't feel pain.

Instead he turned back to the diverged paths and mulled his options over thoughtfully. Honor and Justice were both attractive, with their grassy knooks and shrubs. Being that these were not normal paths, he was not worried about getting lost on them in a normal way. Considering his purpose, they could serve him well -- the path of Honor would certainly see that he got his revenge. The path of Justice more than likely the same, though possibly along a much more political slant. Politics in Olympus, ugh, how he tired to think of it. Very rarely was a power play made, only once in what was measurably thousands of years, if such time frames existed inside the Immortal. This time, however, he had been distracted... busy and preoccupied and lazy enough to fall for the rival Lord's trap. And now here he was, wounded and limping and barely a shadow of his old might. That would change once he set food inside the Immortal again, but such beings as the Lords could not predict the future, and as long as he was inside the Incarnate, the future blocked him from seeing the outcome of his return to Olympus.

Still, there was something empty about Honor and Justice that left him feeling somewhat unsatisfied. For eons he had existed inside the Immortal -- he had been one of its first creations when the joining between the Immortal and the Incarnate had taken place. He knew all about Honor and Justice. He knew all about Fate and Destiny and those other idealistic concepts as well. His eyes traveled back to the route of Knowledge, and then ever further to the route of Liberty, one more sorely overgrown than all the rest. Liberty, huh? Liberty was something different. Liberty was... freedom. Freedom to become whatever, do whatever... feel whatever, without consequence. Yet unlike Honor or Justice, one couldn't have true Liberty unless they had Knowledge... and then a certain choice was always required. A certain... awakening.

Could he do it? Could he choose a path that would challenge his very nature? He thought of what Aden had said and suddenly it seemed clear that it was the only path he could choose. She was right; unless he challenged himself, he would only stay put, not move forward... as the paths were obviously intended. He would need to challenge himself, and so far Liberty was the only one that presented any sort of problem.

He would walk the path of Liberty. He would see all that it offered. And in the end, perhaps... perhaps he would find a way to pacify his unsettled soul.