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SVLeo loved the Father's creation.
While Tarus raised mountains and Nerea healed oceans, Leo sat with the Father's creatures.
He taught them to make music by striking stones, to laugh when they fell, and to tell stories around the fire.
—Look —he would tell them, making a flower bloom in a child's palm—. The Father made it so you would smile. If you smile, He smiles.
The children followed him everywhere.
They called him «The One Who Laughs».
In the Kingdom of Shadows, Lucifer watched this in his black lake.
And for the first time since his fall, he felt something that was not hate.
It was envy.
—Of all my siblings —he told Hate—, Leo is the only one who never looked at me with fear. Not even when I became Lucifer. He looked at me with sadness. As if I were the one who had lost something.
Hate bowed his head.
—And that is why he is dangerous?
—No. That is why he is the easiest to break.
Lucifer touched the water of the lake.
—Tarus holds himself up with his strength. Agnis, with her justice. Nerea, with her compassion. But Leo… Leo holds himself up with the joy of others. If I strip the joy from those he loves… he will fall on his own.
He raised his hand.
From the depths of the black lake rose a mist that was not black.
It was gray.
Without color.
Without sound.
—This is not a sword. It is not a chain. It is something humans will invent very soon. It is called despair. Take it to their village. Do not kill them. That would turn them into martyrs. Make them stop wanting to live.
Hate took the gray mist and vanished.
For three days, Leo noticed something was wrong.
The children no longer ran to greet him.
The men no longer sang while they harvested.
The women stared at the fire without speaking.
—Hello, little one —Leo said to a girl who always braided flowers into his hair—. Will you make me a crown today?
The girl looked at him with empty eyes.
—What for? Flowers die.
Leo felt a cold he had never felt, not even in the Kingdom of Shadows.
His laugh, which could make deserts bloom, found no echo.
He tried a trick.
He made butterflies of light appear.
The humans saw them and did not smile.
—They will leave —said an old man—. Everything leaves.
That night, Leo ran to Heaven.
He woke Nerea, Tarus, and Agnis.
—Something is wrong with them! They don't laugh! They don't speak! It's as if something inside them has been stolen!
Nerea descended at once.
She placed her hands on the humans and tried to heal them.
Her tears, which could cure continents, fell on them and evaporated without effect.
—They are not wounded —said Nerea, pale—. They are not sick. It is… as if they have decided that nothing is worth it.
Agnis drew her sword.
The blue flame lit the village, but the gray mist would not burn.
It passed through it.
—It is not chaos —she said—. I cannot burn something that does not fight.
She slowly lowered the sword.
—It only… surrenders.
Tarus tried to lift them, embrace them, carry them as he carried worlds.
But you cannot carry someone who does not want to rise.
Leo sat in the middle of the village.
For the first time in his eternal existence, he did not know what to do.
—Come —he told them with a trembling smile—. I'll tell you the story of how the first star was born. Remember? You loved it so much…
No one answered.
And then, for the first time, Leo could not smile.
His laugh broke into a sob.
He fell to his knees and wept.
He wept as humans weep.
With noise.
With his shoulders shaking.
With despair.
—Father… why can't I make them laugh? —he whispered to the sky.
In the Kingdom of Shadows, Lucifer saw that tear and rose from his throne.
He had waited for this moment for eons.
—Now —he said.
The gray mist gathered and took shape behind Leo.
It was not Hate.
It was Lucifer himself.
He had not come to fight.
He had come to whisper.
He knelt behind his brother, like a friend.
—It hurts, doesn't it? —he said softly, only for him—. To give them everything and have it not be enough.
Leo turned, his eyes full of tears.
—You?
—I felt it too —Lucifer continued.
For an instant, his voice did not sound like a dark king's.
It sounded like Lucero's.
—When I saved galaxies and they only said my name out of habit. When I gave my light and they asked for more. That is the curse of those who give joy, Leo. It is never enough for them.
Leo shook his head, but he did not pull away.
He was too wounded to fight.
—Look at them —Lucifer insisted, pointing at the humans—. You gave them flowers, songs, stories… and with a single gray mist they forgot it all. They do not need joy, Leo. They need someone to force them to go on.
—No!
—Yes! The Father made them fragile! I can make them strong! Give me leave and I will make sure they never feel this sadness again. I will take from them the capacity to despair. They will be obedient. Eternally happy under my command.
It was the same lie he had offered Zakiel.
The same he had offered Aster and Lior.
But spoken with the voice of the brother he loved most.
Leo closed his eyes.
He was about to say yes.
Not for power.
For love.
Because he could not bear to see them suffer.
In that instant, a small hand touched his wing.
It was the girl of the flowers.
The one who had said:
«Flowers die».
She had walked, with great effort, to him.
Her eyes were still sad, but she was there.
—Leo… —she whispered—. Do you still have a flower?
Leo looked at her.
He did not understand.
The girl went on, in a voice almost without strength:
—My mom says it isn't worth it… but I… I want to try again.
It was not a laugh.
It was not a song.
It was something much smaller and much more powerful:
an attempt.
Leo, weeping, opened his hand.
He did not make a perfect, brilliant flower appear as before.
A crooked little flower appeared in his palm, one petal broken.
A flower that had fought to be born in the middle of the gray mist.
He gave it to her.
The girl took it and, for the first time in three days, smiled.
A tiny smile.
Broken.
But real.
That smile cut through the gray mist like a sword.
Lucifer stepped back as if he had been struck.
—What did you do?
Leo rose with the girl in his arms.
His eyes were no longer only joyful.
Now they were also full of tears.
And because of that, they were stronger.
—You taught them to surrender —he told Lucifer—. I just taught them you can be sad and keep trying. That you cannot take from me. Because I just learned it too.
The gray mist cracked.
Nerea saw her chance, and her tears — which before had evaporated — now dissolved it.
Agnis burned what remained.
Tarus lifted the humans who were still on the ground.
Lucifer understood he had lost.
Not because Leo was stronger.
But because Leo had accepted being weak.
—This is not over, brother —he said before vanishing—. Today you learned to weep. Soon you will learn what it costs to lose someone who weeps with you.
He returned to his throne.
He was furious, but also fascinated.
Hate approached.
—We failed again.
—No —answered Lucifer, watching the lake that now showed Leo holding the girl—. Today we broke the one who had never wept. And in breaking… he became stronger.
He sat and pointed to the last sister he had not yet touched.
—It is time for Nerea. The Mother of Compassion.
His eyes darkened.
—We are going to give her someone she cannot heal.