Lucifer awoke to a pleasant warmth entering her core, and the long forgotten feeling of air entering her lungs. The fact that said air was hot enough to boil a normal human's lungs, and was almost entirely lacking in oxygen, did not matter to her.

After a moment of basking in the satisfying feeling of heat suffusing her body, her brain caught on to the fact that air was entering her lungs.

Instantly Lucifer shot up, opening her eyes to see a massive beam of fire, aimed straight at her. The unnatural feeling of the flames alone would have been enough to confuse her, but the massive snake-like maw the flames were originating from, were of a higher priority.

"What the fuck?" She asked, more an exclamation of confusion than a genuine question.

Seemingly responding to her voice, the massive mouth, filled with sword-like teeth, shut with a thunderous crash and Lucifer was left staring at the head of a dragon.

Now, dragons weren't a new concept to her, she had even seen one in what would later be called Germany, but the size of the beast was outside of what she thought was possible.

The dragon in Germany had been about as large as a modern day bus, and it's flaming breath was pitiful in comparison to her own fires. She had kept the beast in hell, along with most of the other unusual creatures her father had disliked. Said dragon had lived barely two thousand years, and after reaching adulthood, it had barely grown larger.

In comparison to the beast she now laid her eyes on, her pet dragon had been down right tiny.

All she could see of the dragon was it's massive head and part of it's neck. The rest of the body was hidden in a pool of molten rock. But the head alone was more than enough, taking up a large part of her field of vision.

The head alone was larger than her pet dragon, and looked like a stereotypical dragon's head. Complete with massive but uneven teeth,nostrils large enough for Lucifer to fit into, and the iconic snake like slitted eyes. The eyes themselves were about as large as Lucifer's entire body and colored an incredible gold. The scales covering it's body were as large as mortal kite shields and a deep matte crimson color. The crowning feature were the two pairs of horns adorning it's head. One pair grew backwards along it's neck, curving upwards at the tips, while the second pair grew from below the eyes of the massive beast, following it's lower jaw and ending in incredibly fine tips.

Lucifer was starstruck. She had loved her pet dragon with all her heart, for the two thousand years it had lived, but she could never find a mate for it. To now be sitting in front of a dragon again, after having resigned herself to never seeing one again was incredible.

Observing the dragon, she was pretty sure it's face showed confusion.

"Holy shit, aren't you just the prettiest thing I've seen in ages."

Feeling the heat her core had gathered, she funneled it down towards her mangled legs, returning them to perfect condition in a flash of white flames.

While the dragon continued to observe her, it's pupils narrowing, Lucifer stood, tested her regrown legs for a moment and jumped onto the dragon's head.

Feeling the dragon tense under her bare feet, Lucifer walked along it's brow ridge, to the spot where the horns grew from its skull. Before it could even react, Lucifer had arrived at the spot where she knew dragons enjoyed scratches. Rubbing her hands along the ridges of it's scalp, she felt the dragon unconsciously relax below her feet, as her hands scratched itches the dragon didn't even know it had.

Continuing with her ministrations, Lucifer spoke again.

"Aren't you just the most fearsome creature I've ever seen? Yes you're so beautiful, and your scales are so smooth. And just look at your horns, so pretty."

Slowly at first, but with rising intensity, the dragon began to vibrate beneath her feet. Taking that reaction as an obvious invitation to continue, Lucifer felt around it's head while constantly scratching along the base of its skull. After a moment of consideration, she reached down the side of its skull to scratch behind the opening of its right ear.

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Almost instantly, a single clawed paw rose from beneath the molten rock, and swatted Lucifer off the dragon's skull, launching her back to the spot she had woken up at.

Flaring her wings, Lucifer caught herself in mid air and landed gently on her feet. Looking back at the dragon, she saw it scratching at the spot she had touched just moments earlier with it's front paw, much like a cat would.

Squealing like the grown woman she was, Lucifer gushed " Aww look at you, was that spot itchy? I know that my hands are magic but next time you have to be more careful. A mortal would have been flattened if you hit them with your paw like that."

As the words "next time" left her mouth, the dragon froze, ceasing it's low rumbling and whipping it's head back towards her.

It looked at her for a moment, as if confused by the sequence of events that had just taken place, before it's pupils narrowed to tiny slits.

"How dare you?" A mighty voice rumbled through the cavern. Lucifer froze.

"You DARE? I AM AINDAETH THE INFERNO! THE OLDEST DRAGON IN EXISTENCE! THE INCINERATOR! THE BURNING SCOURGE! QUEEN OF THE DRAGONS! ELDEST DAUGHTER OF TIAMAT! YOU DARE TREAT ME LIKE A STRAY CAT?" Aindaeth thundered, her voice tinged with fury. Along her head the air began to burn and the pool of magma concealing her body began to bubble.

Lucifer, not intimidated by the threatening display, blurted out "Holy shit, you can talk?"

Stunned by the absurdity of the question, Aindaeth answered, sounding very offended "Of course I can talk! What do you take me for?"

"A Dragon? I mean, mine never communicated beyond hissing, purring and roaring. Maybe the occasional scream when he was in one of his moods. But he didn't have the capacity for language, I even checked his soul after he passed, he was about as smart as a house cat." Lucifer answered.

Aindaeths mind had ground to a halt after her intimidation had failed. Both the fact that the tiny angel in front of her seemed to barely mind her presence, and the fact that she spoke about a dragon as if she kept it as a pet, confused her to no end.

Lucifer, after her instinctive reaction to such a cute creature, took in her surroundings for the first time. She was in an underground cavern that seemed suspiciously empty. Apart from the lake of molten rock, and a few puddles of liquid metal, it was entirely barren. Here and there, charred corpses littered the ground, but there was nothing here. Turning around, Lucifer spotted Marble, half sunk into the soft ground due to his considerable weight.

"Ah there you are, I thought we'd have gotten separated on entry."

Feeling the indignation radiating off of Marble, Lucifer manipulated his kinetic energy, causing him to float up and towards her, settling into a lazy orbit around her body.

"Yes I'm sorry, I forgot you for a moment, but I mean look at her!" Lucifer said, rudely pointing at the confused dragon.

"Isn't she the cutest thing you've ever seen? No, I don't think you're cute! You're a sphere of glass for fucks sake! At most you are handsome. Yes you are the most handsome sphere of glass I've ever seen."

Aindaeth meanwhile grew enraged again, as the tiny angel turned her back on her, rambling nonsense at the black sphere that had been carried with her. And for some reason, she felt as if the sphere radiated a smugness about the fact that it had the angel's attention.

"ENOUGH!" She roared. "I WILL NOT BE DISRESPECTED LIKE THIS! ESPECIALLY NOT BY A SERVANT OF THOSE DESPICABLE GODS!"

Rearing her head back, Aindaeth inhaled with more vigor than her previous attack. Every last bit of air was sucked into her chest, almost creating a vacuum. With a thunderous crash, air from outside rushed into the cavern to equalize the pressure, but Aindaeth kept inhaling. Orange light began to seep between the gaps in her scales, as her lungs compressed the air in her chest. Mixing in as much mana as her core would allow, Aindaeth prepared to vaporize the puny angel and her damnable glass sphere.

Lucifer, noticing the buildup of heat, turned around to face the dragon again. She was about to apologize, when Aindaeth opened her massive maw again, spewing forth a potent mixture of fire and superheated gas, in a deep red beam. The ground beneath Aindaeths front legs liquified instantly, and her breath carved a furrow into the ground, vaporizing rock as the beam hit Lucifer.

Over the centuries Aindaeth had burnt many a monster to death with her fires. From sorcerer's that were confident in their [Fire resistance] to upstart red dragons, anything had burnt to ashes. Instead of seeking an alternative means to kill beings resistant to flames, she had spent ages perfected her control of mana to make her flames hotter, choosing to fight [fire resistance] with endlessly hotter fire. Aindaeth expected her [Dragons breath] to annihilate the angel, her stupid glass sphere and maybe blow a hole into the mountain.

What she did not expect was for the flames to just be absorbed by the angel. Seemingly without expending any effort, Lucifer absorbed the fire in the same manner as her unconscious body had. The flames seemed to just disappear as soon as they neared her. In the same manner as with the fires, Lucifer absorbed the kinetic energy the rapidly expanding air had created.

"Wow! I did not know dragonfire could get this intense."

Seemingly unperturbed, Lucifer stood in front of the panting dragon. "Now I'm very forgiving, so I'm not going to attack you. I know that I'm probably in your territory, but I woke up here, and I don't even know where "here" is. So until I get some answers I'm going to be a bit mean."

Before Aindaeth could make sense of what the angel just said, Lucifer lifted her right arm and an orange vortex formed on the palm of her hand. Instantly the temperature inside the cavern started dropping.

Aindaeth watched in confusion as the ground beneath the tiny angel solidified. For hundreds of years the ground had had the consistency of melting plastic, but with Lucifer rapidly absorbing the heat, it crystallized into obsidian.

Lucifer took a deep breath to center herself, momentarily losing herself in the feeling of actual air entering her lungs. And then, with an effort of will she ripped every bit of heat she could get her metaphorical hands on into her core.

Instantly, the lake of magma covering Aindaeths lower body solidified into a single, massive piece of obsidian. The entire cavern was plunged into darkness as every puddle of molten rock ceased glowing and solidified.

Aindaeth was shocked. Not only had the tiny angel barely reacted to her full power, it managed to freeze the entire cavern, seemingly without using a drop of mana.

Lucifer stood before the dragon, and ignited the air around her wings, mostly so she could see, but a tiny part of her enjoyed the theatrics as well. A dark cavern with the only light being the burning wings of an angel had to look badass.

"Now I see that this form doesn't garner the respect I'm used to, so I'm going to show you something, and then we're going to have a civilized conversation, okay?"

Speechless, Aindaeth watched as the tiny angel began to morph. Seemingly from within the angel's body, countless wings unfolded from odd angles that bent the laws of physics. The humanoid head of the angel opened up like a flower bud, unfurling into a mass of black wings encircling a tiny white flame. Then, all at once, millions of eyes blinked open.

Aindaeth fell unconscious.