Archdevils Do Not Dream

Archdevils do not dream.

Dreaming is for mortals, for lesser beings, for those without the power of Baator flowing through their veins. Dreaming is for those who are not the only thing standing between the endless tides of sickening chaos that spew forth from the Abyss and the fragile existence of the Material Plane.

Dreaming is not for the likes of you. Not any more.

Yet the claws of fatigue dig into your body, all-powerful as it is. Wading through ichor and blood and fire takes its toll upon even your tireless arms and while Archdevils do not dream they must, on occasion, sleep. In those moments of caught breath and unconscious blackness there pluck at your senses scraps of visions. Memories, perhaps – things that you have not thought of in long, long years. Things you cannot, will not, think of.

The war takes up all the space in your mind anyway. There is no room for reminiscence because the hordes of the Abyss, foul and wretched, spare as little time for rest as you do. They do not dream either and their incursions are one long, waking nightmare of horror that leaves no time to recall those that stood at your side in ages long gone. There is no time to see the flickering shades of humans standing where now stand osyluth and barbazu and spinagon and erinyes. The only standard that matters is the one bearing your blazing insignia, your burning sword the last thing the demonic filth ever see before you scour them from existence. There cannot be a standard of a shining sun at your side because in Avernus there is no sun. There is only a sky red as the blood that coats your every waking moment, only clouds like breaking scabs and lightning like sorrow and oil-slick crimson rain that makes your wings sizzle and your halo steam.

In the citadel of Avernus there are no mirrors. When you came here they hung – or so it seemed – in every room of this brutal, lonely place. In frames of gold and black that glittering glass haunted you, taunted you from every thrice-accursed wall no matter where you turned in the endless fortress now yours to call home. You forbade the serving imps and spinagons to collect the shards. Still they lie below the empty, broken, twisted frames, imprints of your claws still in the metal. It matters not to you, who spends no time at all here save for when duty demands it.

Other Archdukes are reluctant to meet with you on the front lines – cowards that they are. Afraid of a little ichor on their hands, as if it would react poorly with the other blood that stains them.

Unlike them you are proud of the stains on your hands because in acquiring them you have accomplished something. Whilst the rest of this conniving anthill that calls itself the Nine Hells may be content to sit and scheme against itself, gathering power here and promises there for pointless ends, you, oh, you have far greater ideals than they. Despite how they sneer and whisper, deriding your youth and your inexperience and your…regrettable origins. What does any of that matter when you hold the line?

Without you their precious schemes would mean nothing. Without you, Baator would be naught but chaos, a new playground for the Abyss to ruin. Without you they would be nothing! Lords of failure and dust and they would fade into howling obscurity and every web they ever wove would come crashing down upon them to suffocate their ever-lying mouths.

And so they will not meet with you in your place of power. They will not come where you fight. Only in this vast and empty citadel will they come to you, this ancient place with its echoing halls and broken mirrors. They do not say anything to your face, no, that would be far too obvious. But they see, and they know, and you know that they file that sliver of broken glass knowledge away as a weakness and an exploit they will one day make use of.

It does not matter.

What will they do? March on your fortress with a great mirror and force you to look at yourself? As if the reflection will hurt more writ large than it ever did in the shards. As if seeing the whole will somehow be worse than the parts, than the glimpses of burning eyes, burning wings, burning soul that follow you everywhere you go. As if you do not carry the weight of this body with you, as if you are not aware of the skin that wraps your bones. How little they understand. It does not matter if the body is wrong, all that matters is that the mind is right.

And your mind is still right. The body follows the mind, follows orders, and you were ever good at giving those. The mind functions as it should and it does not need memories, it does not need dreams and it does not see humans where there are only devils. For though you did dream, once, and though that dream was grand, you do not dream any more.

You are an Archdevil. And Archdevils do not dream.