Metamorphosis

A long time ago, people called me Zahara. They said I was a flower; I was most exquisite. They were wrong.
Flowers are delicate, right? Things most exquisite are protected, right? They're kept close to the heart, hidden, right?
Wrong.
Delicacy was never a quality of mine. It was never something I mastered, never something I could even pretend. Violence, brutality, and cold, silent anger? All things I found as easy as breathing. Never once was I delicate.
No one ever protected me from anything. I never needed them to. Taking care of myself was something I learned early, and it's something that never left me.
Yes, I have hidden myself, but not close to the heart of anyone or anything. I fit in the outskirts, in back alleys, and in sewers.
There is nothing quite so good as independence, nothing quite as sweet as needing no one, nothing quite so addicting as being cast out again. Self-sufficiency is a skill required and acquired, a necessity earned, not bought.

So, no, don't call me Zahara. I no longer fit the name.

I lived in a village named Waldgarten. You would call it Forest Garden, and that's what it was. Hidden deep among the roots of trees as old as the world, was my home. It was a place full of rainbows, of light, and of love. Laughter was a sound always heard, and beauty was a thing desired and loved. It was a place people dream of.
Until me.
I was an adorable baby, who grew up to be a beautiful girl. I was cherished, and played with, and enjoyed. I grew flowers and joy in my garden, and I made people happy. I believed I was pretty.
Until them.
They were a people of war, and of rage. They destroyed things without thinking, as they wake and sleep. Tales of them were only ever whispered, lest they hear you and come. They took things of beauty, fought wars over a single woman they never knew. They destroyed Waldgarten, and plucked me from the burned ruins of my family of flowers. I knew I was pretty. I believed I would continue to be protected, cherished, if in a different way.
Until then.
They took me home with them, home to a land of cold, and death, and loneliness. They took me home to a life of cleaning, and beatings, and learning to keep silent. They took me home to be a slave. I realized what being pretty had done to me, and I cared.
Until now.
I find that looks no longer matter .I had lived in a shed attached to the house of a prosperous family. Not anymore.

Call me Lucifer.
Lucifer was the light-bringer, God's favorite among the angels. He was beautiful, light and goodness embodied.
Lucifer is the Devil, the ancient enemy of what he once was. He is terrible, and he is cruel, and he brings pain.

Now I live in the forest, and I live up to my name.
I was beautiful, a favorite among my people. I brought them suffering and destruction.
I am doing the same to those who killed them.

And after?

Maybe I will be an angel again.