Happy Xmahanukwanzyule 2018

Image copyright Annalise 1988

(This post was written on the Deliver Me blog and cross-posted)

Happy holidays if you celebrate them and best wishes for prosperity in the approaching year!

It has been an eventful and not terribly lucrative year here in the World of Nether, but many of our efforts are still in their infancy and I like to think that things are looking up and that perseverance still counts for something. To a degree, these are uncharted waters that we are navigating with the rise of the gig economy. So, what can we do to make this unprecedented situation work for us?

For my own part, I have a knack for speaking my mind, such as it is, and for telling it like it is from my point of view. This has tended to get me in trouble, but the older I get the less fucks I give. 

However, I do not intend to use this so-called skill only to bitch about everything that pisses me off. I would also like to use it to help others. 

For many years, I worked as a nurse's aide and then a nurse. I helped those who were too infirm to care for their own needs. This included the elderly and special needs children. However, my own constitution declined sharply in the past couple of years, and I can no longer do the physically demanding jobs that I had been doing since 1988.

My income declined sharply when I was no longer able to work as a nurse. Between 2015 and 2017, I was pulling up to $1000 per week if I worked 60 hour weeks. However, I was constantly exhausted and always in a mental fog working this many hours. In some ways I'm amazed that I never made any critical errors.

I am unable to work full time at this point, and my disabilities put me out of the running for most "normal" jobs. Because of my health issues, I need Medicaid. But if I make more than $1100 a month, I lose Medicaid. To me, it seems as if I'm being punished for being disabled. I think that punishing people for being disabled is one whole steaming load of crap. I also think that Charles Dickens would have a field day writing about the current political climate in the era of Lord Dampnut. In fairness, being British, he might be more inclined to write about Brexit and Lord Dampnut's British soul twin, Boris Johnson.

In any case, I am trying to piece together a life that works. Other than being broke and physically unable to do certain things that I used to be able to do without issue, there are many ways in which I like my life after disability better than my life before disability. I like not being enslaved by a time clock. I much prefer soft deadlines to Draconian ones.

Overall, I am a creative rather than a practical person. If I could, I would spend my days writing, learning to draw, engaging in Photoshop Phucquery, hand crocheting, loom knitting, woodworking, making soap and candles, and whatever other artsy fartsy crafty wafty pursuit happened to strike my fancy. I attempt to keep my artsy fartsy side separate from the Deliver Me blog, but there is inevitable bleed-through, and I'm not going to fight the tide too hard.

If you are interested in opportunities for writers or occasional shares of poetry and prose, visit the Horror Harridans Writing Sisterhood page.

If you are interested in WAH opportunities, recipes, and suggestions for saving money, visit the Deliver Me blog.

If you are interested in reading high quality Kindle smut, visit the Naughty Netherworld Press blog. This blog is safe for work, but some of the places it links to aren't. 

If you are interested in obtaining a Tarot reading to help you kick-start the new year, click here.

May you and yours have a pleasant holiday if you celebrate, or a good day in general if you don't.

Best wishes,

Cie

This offer is valid through December 30, 2018

This offer is always in season

I Am Grateful

 As someone with a rather chaotic life, everything is catch as catch can. I've tried meditating, but I have trouble doing so. This video is brief enough that it allows me to focus fully on it and to help myself with the brief, encouraging, but not sappy affirmations.

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 31: What It Is

Copyright Linnaea Mallette

Love is an endless

Eternal infinity

Sharing our sorrow

Some patches of happiness

In our purgatory; life

~Cie~

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 30: Shrouded

Copyright Lassaffa

So everyone dances

Swinging along the moon

Singing their joyful tune

Swaying to the rhythm

Sweethearts are so in love

Standing in the shadows

Shrouded figures grieving

~Cie~

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 29: Three of Swords

At the Beginning of the End Version 6

Photoshop Manipulation by The Real Cie

In unity were we well met

But that was before

My soul was crushed by the duality

Of everything and nothingness

When my soul was still filled with belief

In things spiritual and mystical

Now nothing is left but pain and sadness

Within this empty human life

You were perfection

I was lucky to find you

In a life full of suffering

You were a gift of great auspiciousness

I was destroyed when I lost you

And now all I have

Is loneliness

And nothingness

Eternally

Ondina Rvaga

Regent, Lost Zecor

Notes for Nerds: 

This is one of the story poems for Team Netherworld's WIP, Fetch.

The story, at its core, is Cthulhu Mythos fan fiction combined with elements from an original Star Trek episode (The Lights of Zetar) which gave me nightmares from the time I first saw it at the age of ten years old. 

Ondina Rvaga is a reluctant princess of Western Zecor on the planet Zetar 6. She spends her time working in a laboratory, using her empathic gifts to heal the victims of her violent and sadistic brother King Qweh if she can, compassionately dispatching them to the realm of spirit if she cannot. 

The people of West Zecor love the Princess Ondina and know her to be kind, but they also realize that she does not have much power to help them. Her brother is extremely powerful and controls the armies of West Zecor. Brutal soldiers happily do his bidding. 

Ondina is miserable in her existence. She does not expect to find love. She had been expected to marry her twenty-four-year-old half-brother, Prince Qweh, when she was twelve years old. She was resigned to her fate, believing herself blessed until she discovered Qweh's true, brutal nature. At that point, she used her healing gifts in reverse and destroyed her reproductive organs so she could never conceive an heir for the corrupt regime. 

Qweh knew that Ondina loved her people and couldn't bear to see them in pain. Over the years, he reveled in watching her suffer as she attempted to heal those devastated by the brutal attacks of his armies.

After Qweh groped her during a scouting mission, Ondina attempted to commit suicide by jumping from a precipice. She was encouraged by the spirit of Serab's twin brother Joub to repair her injuries. He promised her that someone who would bring the love that she could never have imagined was about to enter her life.

Days later, Serab was apprehended by King Qweh's lackeys and brought to Ondina as a joke. The king laughingly postulated that the tiny Serab, who stood approximately five feet three inches tall, replace Ondina's previous bodyguard, who had been slain by Qweh in a fit of rage. Ondina, however, did not see the suggestion as a joke. She claimed Serab as her bodyguard and assistant and treated him with a compassion which he had not thought possible from a member of West Zecor's wicked royal family.

Serab and Ondina were smitten with each other from the start but initially attempted to keep their feelings in check.

When the ill-advised sorcery of King Qweh under the direction of Yadira, High Priestess of Nyarlathotep, caused the demon sultan Azathoth to trigger the small sun in Zetar's binary star system to begin consuming the large sun, the majority of Zecor's residents fled to other worlds. Ondina, Serab, and Ondina's longtime friend and caretaker Xegran along with Qweh and his most devoted lackeys were still on the planet when the gamma rays rendered their spaceships useless. 

Ondina had planned all along to take herself, Serab, and Xegran through a gate to "the realm of the Yellow Sun," a peaceful, primitive world many light years away. Qweh demanded that Ondina bring himself and his toadies along as well. When she refused, he beheaded Xegran and brutalized Ondina. Serab was slain when he stepped in to defend his beloved. In spite of his protests, Ondina dispatched his spirit and that of Xegran to the Realm of the Yellow Sun.

Although Qweh and his lackeys were unable to invade the new world, they were not doomed to an inevitable death. Utilizing scientific and mystical abilities taught to him by the powerful High Priestess Yadira, Qweh caused the astral bodies of himself and his companions to form a community of pure energy; for all intents and purposes, a giant, malevolent brain. The hive entity sped away from the doomed world, leaving Ondina to her fate.

The traumatized Ondina believed herself to be at fault for the death of her old friend and her beloved. She tenderly lay each of their bodies in state beside her and spent the next six hours dying with only her regrets for company. She resolved to stay well away from Serab forever so that Qweh would not punish her by harming him in future lifetimes.

The heartbroken Serab never forgot Ondina. In lifetime after lifetime, he attempted to find her, although he forgot the exact nature of his original purpose. 

Serab was reunited with Ondina during his most recent lifetime, although they did not encounter each other in the flesh. He was, for all intents and purposes, part of the spirit world. Although his body still lived, he was no longer able to function properly through it. Gerry was a Fetch, an Irish term essentially describing a ghost which has a body that still lives but through which it is temporarily or permanently unable to interface.
Ondina had reincarnated as Pepper Baiij, a troubled woman with strong mediumistic abilities which she tended to write off as delusion. Pepper knew who Gerry was. Along with his brother, Paul, he was a well-known musician whose work she admired.
Pepper was the only person who could help Gerry, who was being pursued by Yadira Root. This left Gerry in a precarious position. On a good day, Pepper believed strongly in her abilities and in Gerry's affection for her. On a bad day, her self-deprecation caused her to believe that she was merely insane, and/or that Gerry was yet another cad who would use her to get what he wanted and then leave her high and dry.

The story is far from finished, although it has, sadly, had to be back-burnered recently. These story-poems are, I feel, a valid form of keeping it viable.

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 28: Schism

Copyright Didgeman

Demanding that one

Who has been repeatedly broken

Must make the choice

To appear whole and happy

In order to bridge the chasm

Between rejection and belonging

Only serves to foster

A life built on a lie

The schism remains

And the least misstep

Means falling back into the abyss

~Cie~

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 27: My Lafayette

I remember you

Your eyes were yellowish-green

You are gone three years

I love you always, Buddy

For you I will always weep 

Mama

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 26: Mixed Messages

Copyright Pezibear

I need to be more open, I am told

Not to keep my truth a secret, to be bold

Not to be introspective, to reveal

Every thought I think and feeling that I feel

But when I follow this advice, then all I find

Are those who say: don't be quick to speak your mind

You must maintain an air of mystery

Don't be in a hurry to set your secrets free

Have an open heart but don't wear it on your sleeve

Don't let the sun catch you crying, no-one wants to see you grieve

Be real and true and honest, but don't be an open book

Don't keep your light hidden inside, let the world have a look

With all this conflicting information

I just want to catch the train and leave the station

~Cie~

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 25: Receiver Of

Copyright Geralt

The door does

Not go both ways for me

In the past when the door would open

I would follow the advice of the well-meaning

People who would suggest that I should

Jump in and take the chance

And walk through

The door does

Not go both ways for me

If I go in, part of me does not

Return when I am thrown out the door like the trash

By men who want the old in and out

But they actually hate

Those they use

The door does

Not go both ways for me

Saying I should take a chance on "love"

Is the worst advice that anyone can give me

When I have taken chances, I have 

Only been abused, so

Not again

The door does

Not go both ways for me

I long ago grew very weary

Of giving but never receiving in return

Only receiving abuse for love

Do not suggest that I

Try again

~Cie~

Notes:

The Triquain, created by Shelley A. Cephas, is a poem with several creative variances and can be a rhyming or non-rhyming verse. The simplest form is a poem made up of 7 lines with 3, 6, 9, 12, 9, 6, and 3 syllables in this order. 

Yes, the poem is autobiographical. Please, please, please do not suggest that there is something "wrong" with me for not wanting to be involved in a romantic relationship. Please do not suggest that I need to "fix" myself so that I can "find love." That may be something you need or want. It is not something that I do. I have had more than enough of gaslighting by narcissistic predators posing as "nice guys" for one lifetime, thank you anyway.

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 24: Out of the Attic

Outside

Unlock

Fling

Freely

Gape

The madwoman has escaped from the attic

And cut through the red tape

Unlock

Fling

Freely

Gape

Outside

She stumbles out into the sunlight

No longer will she hide

Fling 

Freely

Gape

Outside

Unlock

The people hide in the shadows

To see her in the open is quite a shock

Freely

Gape

Outside

Unlock

Fling

How dare she try to approach the good people?

She's such a hideous thing!

Gape 

Outside

Unlock

Fling

Freely

Surely she doesn't fancy herself equal to us

Who does she think she is really?

Outside

Unlock

Fling

Freely

Gape

The madwoman has escaped from the attic

And cut through the red tape

~Cie~

Note:

I have type 2 bipolar disorder which was not properly diagnosed until I was 38 years old. I first noted symptoms of bipolar disorder, then termed manic depression, in myself when I was taking a psychology class in high school. I approached the teacher with my thoughts, and she told me that I couldn't be manic depressive because manic depression was a psychosis, and I evidently wasn't psychotic.

Bipolar disorder has since been recategorized as a mood disorder rather than a psychosis.

Bipolar type 2 can be difficult to diagnose because it presents with hypomania rather than full mania. Bipolar 2 does not have psychotic features. Bipolar 1 may or may not present with psychosis.

I have experienced mania and psychosis when they were triggered by SSRI's, the darlings of the psychiatry field. It was terrifying and upsetting. While taking Effexor, a patient in the long-term care center I was working for at the time asked me why I was so happy. I wasn't happy, I was manic as fuck and felt completely out of control. I never experience mania if I don't take SSRI's. 

Just another reason why people suggesting that I should "try medication" makes me want to go all Norman Bates on their ass. I did, and the cure was worse than the problem. Having a psychiatric anomaly does not make a person stupid.

I realize that sometimes it can be difficult when dealing with people who do improve with use of medication and who then feel as if they have been cured and quit taking the medication. Psychiatric dysfunctions are not one size fits all. 

I do best using a low dose of Lithium Orotate. It short-circuits the irritability that is part and parcel of my condition.

I once had a doctor tell me to "just stay on" a medication (Zoloft) which made it feel as if my brain had developed tiny hands and was trying to pick its way out of my skull. To this day, I would like to know how the fuck he thought that was an improvement. That was a psychotic reaction to the medication. I normally do not experience psychosis. I knew it wasn't really happening, but it sure as fuck FELT as if it was really happening, and who the hell knows what I might have done to stop it if it kept on. 

These medications are not "happy pills." They change the brain chemistry. Some people are helped by them. For some, they don't work at all. For others, the cure is worse than the disease.

I think that one thing which desperately needs to change is the idea of making people who live with neurological or psychological differences into "normal" people, and to stop acting as if those of us who live with these conditions are "broken." 

It would have been nice to learn how to live with a brain like mine from the time I was in my youth rather than being told that I had to be "fixed," to be "normal." 

I will never be normal.

I will only be me.

Stop the stigma.

Haiga copyright The Real Cie

You are welcome to use it with a credit back to me.

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 23: Behind the Mask

Copyright Madeinitaly

Beneath this facade

I hide the unspoken truth

None may uncover

I will never make it clear

What lies behind this calm mask

~Cie~

Note:

I could tell you the unspoken truth, but then I'd have to kill you. ;-)

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 22: A Palindrome for my Pancreas

Copyright Darksouls1

An artistic depiction of my pancreas

Betrayal in honesty

No loyalty offered

Deception not really

Not dishonesty

Without grace

Though there was duplicity

There wasn't mercy

You weren't exactly lying

You have not forgiveness

Forgiveness not have you

Lying exactly weren't you

Mercy wasn't there

Duplicity was there though

Grace without

Dishonesty not

Really not deception

Offered no loyalty

Honesty in betrayal

~Cie~

Note:

Pardon my brutal honesty, but my endocrine system is a fucking trash fire. My thyroid decided to immolate itself when I was sixteen. My ovaries became cystic, shitty little bastards. My periods were from hell. I developed endometriosis. I don't know when I started developing fibroids, but I have a uterus full of the damn things, and it's coming out at the end of the year. 

At least with the thyroid, I just have to take pills, although sometimes the dose has to be adjusted down because they can jack up my blood pressure and pulse rate. My thyroid may still have some of its own function, but it's completely abnormal.

Then there's my pancreas.

My pancreas waited until I was 49 to decide to fuck me over.

At first, I took pills, but then they stopped working sufficiently. Besides, I don't like having to carry around a spare pair of pants, and the less said about that, the better.

Then I had to start injecting long-acting insulin (Levemir).

Now I inject the long-acting insulin at noon and midnight and the rapid-acting insulin before meals.

"It's soooo much fun having a zombie pancreas," declared the queen of sarcasm.

By the way, diabetes cannot be cured, so don't tell me about how if I just drink a gallon of vinegar at every full moon while pouring ice cubes down my pants and sprinkling pepper in my hair I will be cured of diabetes.

In rare cases, type 2 diabetes goes into remission. This is not the same thing as being cured. Like cancer, a person with diabetes in remission is always more vulnerable to a recurrence of the disease than a person who has never had diabetes.

Further, I would like to see the word "diabetes" stricken from the medical lexicon and replaced with "hypopancreatism," which is a much more accurate term.

Diabetes is an ancient Greek term which translates loosely to "evil pissing" because of the increased urination that is part and parcel of the hell that is this stupid disease. Besides, it's a loaded term. People love to say it with a sneer as if those who end up with it "brought it on themselves" by "eating too much sugar.'

The cause of hypopancreatism is having a genetic trigger for the disease. A person who does not have the genetic trigger will never get the disease no matter how much sugar they consume.

People living with food insecurity are more vulnerable to activating the genetic trigger for the disease than people who have a reliable supply of nutritious food. However, the disease can strike anyone with the genetic trigger, regardless of their physique or social standing. Age increases the likelihood of developing type 2 hypopancreatism.

So, I am not calling the disease by its ancient Greek name anymore, although I do think that "evil pissing" is a pretty cool term. I would like to see the stigma attached to the condition eradicated.

And now, I need to go inject my wonderful basal insulin.

People who don't have the condition think that having to poke oneself with needles is the worst part of the disease. It really isn't. Often I don't even feel the needle. If I hit a tender spot, I experience minor pain. No big whoop. 

What I hate the most is the way the disease curtails my independence.

And that is why I leave this with a big FUCK YOU to my zombie pancreas and my crap endocrine system as a whole. I sometimes wonder what my life could have been like if I hadn't been easily fatigued and depressed for most of it and accused of being lazy every step of the way.

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 21: Hideous Death or Merely Misery

Image Source

Since I have the libido of roadkill

I really couldn't give a rip

Whether it's love or lust

If there was a spark in the dark

I probably didn't notice

My desire is long dead and buried in a desert 

Or a scrap heap

Or a tomb with no view

And I have no intentions of reviving it

Anytime in the near future

Or ever

I'm better off without it

But I am questioning

And I am deciding

Whether this wretched cough

Complete with nasty mucus

Is just a lousy cold

Or if this awful feeling

Like someone set an anvil on my chest

Is in fact the beginnings

Of something quite a bit worse

Like maybe Captain Trips

So my choices boil down to this:

Am I a miserable hypochondriac

Or am I about to leave behind a really vile corpse

For some unfortunate soul to discover

Laying on the couch

Slime running from the eyes, nose, and mouth

Of my putrefying body

Kitchen Nightmares playing on the computer

I will die thinking 

If Gordon Ramsay survives

He will cut Randall Flagg to bits with his words

Thus ends my alternate universe version of The Stand

And now, if you'll excuse me

I must cough up a lung

By now it should come as no surprise

That I don't have a man in my life

My Give-A-Fuck broke a long time ago

No fellow in his right mind wants a partner

With a twisted sense of humor like mine

~Cie~

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 20: Fetch: Once in a Moment

Princess Ondina receives an omen

Once in a moment

Which extended for hours 

The minutes became days

'Neath stars more beautiful than flowers

The clock ticked a timeless rhythm

In the hourglass there was a glow

Foretelling an event in the future

Something which my heart needed to know

The events of my past were awful

The present gives no relief

The hourglass foretold to me

Of one who would steal my heart like a thief

Not a thief with malicious intent

A thief with a delicate touch

Of all the moments in this life's chronology

This one means so very much

The night was filled with terror

My heart filled with hope and fear

For you would bring me my greatest treasure

Though all would end in tears

Princess Ondina Rvaga

Regent, Western Zecor

Note:

Yes, it's another story-poem from the world of Fetch.

People aren't too keen for these poems. I think I've gotten one comment on them in the time since Fetch sprang into being close to four years ago. 

Nonetheless, I will keep writing them. They keep the story alive although I've not been able to work on it directly for quite some time.

To paraquote Dr. Frank N. Furter, "I didn't make it for you!"

So, there's that.

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 19: Suicide Ideation

Flowers and a Grave

Copyright Raivn_70

Is it death that you desire

Or do you wish to escape from your troubles

Are you questioning whether to end it 

Or do you wish to escape from your troubles

Do you search for a means of suicide

Or do you wish to escape from your troubles

Do you doubt your will to live

Or do you wish to escape from your troubles

Will you fulfill the threat to end it all

Or do you wish to escape from your troubles

~Cie~

Notes:

The form is a chant poem.

I am aware that the go-to when one believes that someone is suicidal is to tell them to go to the emergency room or tell them to call the suicide line.

Please don't tell me to do either of those things.

I have lived with suicide ideation for as long as I can remember.

If I went to the emergency room every time I felt suicidal, I'd have to live there.

If I may be so bold, fuck that shit.

I'm afraid that in my experience, suicide hotlines are, well, not that helpful, if I'm to be blunt. I had one asshole who laughed at my distress. I had one kind but not at all helpful fellow who wished me luck. So, that has been my experience with suicide hotlines.

Suicide ideation is in a different class than someone threatening suicide, particularly if they have the means and a specific plan to complete the act.

A person may have a high degree of suicide ideation but a low level of planning, which tends to be my case when my suicide ideation flares up.

A person like me is not likely to telegraph it if they are actually going to commit suicide. If I were to commit suicide, no-one would know until after the fact. Thus, telling someone like me to go to the emergency room if I say I wish I was dead isn't going to accomplish anything except for wasting my time. With someone like me, it works much better to ask what's going on to make me feel that way. I might say that I'm on a downswing, or it might be something more concrete. But asking why I'm feeling as I am will make me feel as if you care rather than causing me to make a mental note to myself that here is yet one more person I can't tell anything because they just don't fucking get it.

It is a fact that people who experience suicide ideation are more likely to complete suicide than people who do not experience suicide ideation. It also is a fact that people who experience suicide ideation over the long term tend to have mood disorders such as major depression or bipolar disorder. A lot of us do not respond well (or at all) to the "magic medications." For people living with a chronic mental illness, it tends to be unhelpful and demeaning to suggest that we "try meds" or "seek counseling." Many of us have had bad experiences with "mental health professionals" and will avoid them like a bad case of athlete's foot.

If I could find a therapist who did cognitive behavioral therapy and whose services were covered by Medicaid, I might consider it. Such beasts, however, are rare as the proverbial hen's teeth. I find artistic pursuits to be a far more soothing balm than spilling my guts to someone who a) probably doesn't give a fuck, and b) will frustrate me by just not fucking getting it. I can find someone who fills those criteria by walking out onto any street corner and yelling "hey, come talk to me!"

That is your psychology lecture for the day, class. Thank you for attending the Crazy Creatives Cheerleading Academy!

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 18: Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time

In a world where everything seemed possible

I cast a spell of enchantment

I believed my prestidigitation

Would inspire fascination

In the souls of those sorts of people

With whom I wished to spend my time

But it was only hocus pocus

My magic was out of focus

And I was but the punchline

Of a rotten cosmic joke

~Cie~

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 17: Normal is Boring and Sanity is Overrated

I'm just sane enough

To know what I'm supposed to

Do so I fit in

And just sane enough to know

That I damn well think it sucks

~Cie~

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 16: Bonded Eternally

Serab as a teenager

His twin brother Joub, slain at age 13 by Qweh's soldiers

Dearest, beloved brother

We were born in hell

Dearest, beloved brother

Never in peace to dwell

Scapegoated, seen as lesser

We were born in hell

Tortured by our oppressors

Nonetheless, we had one treasure

Scapegoated, seen as lesser

We had a blessing without measure

The bond that was between us

Nonetheless, we had one treasure

We had one another's trust

You sacrificed yourself for me 

The bond that was between us

From this grief I'll never be free

Dearest, beloved brother

Until your face I may once again see

Dearest, beloved brother

Serab

In memory of his brother, Joub

On the occasion of their sixteenth birthday

Notes:

Elf brother images purchased from 123rf.com

Creator information appears on the lower right corner of the angel and demon brother images.

Nerdy trivia, mostly for the benefit of the members of Team Netherworld.

Serab is a major character in Team Netherworld's long-running WIP, Fetch. He is the previous incarnation of the story's main male protagonist, Gerry Clifford.

In his most recent lifetime, Joub reincarnated as Gerry's younger brother, Paul. 

The brothers are platonic soul mates, who were originally the sixth and seventh sons of Lucifer. 

 Malak, the sixth son of Lucifer, later incarnated as Serab the Thief on Zecor (Zetar 6) and most recently as Gerry Clifford on Earth

Malak is of the Celestial order of Greater Spirits

Arion, the Seventh Son of Lucifer

Created by Lucifer from Malak's heartfelt wish for a best friend

Later incarnated as Joub, the twin brother of Serab, on the troubled planet Zecor 

Most recently incarnated as Paul Clifford

Arion is of the Infernal order of Greater Spirits