Caine looked with bitterness at his fields, then up at the harvest of his brother in the distance.
Abel's fields, if one can rightly call such untamed land that, were fertile and full of wild growth. Vines and trees grew haphazardly, and produced abundant fruit. Harmless game animals, sluggish with full bellies and easy to catch, practically infested the undergrowth. Similarly plump people, fed by the verdant land, laid in the long grass and on smooth rocks and warm sand, basking in the warm sun and caressed by cool breezes. God's favored people dwelt in a little echo of Eden, and wanted for nothing.
Meanwhile, Caine's fields were nearly barren, and no animals came there but birds that ate what meager seeds they could find in the gray soil. Tilled and laid with seeds provided by the Rebel Angels, they reliably gave Caine and his family crops for a time. But now they only grudgingly gave up growth. The bitter farmer suspected that Loyalist Angels did something to turn the soil, and warded the clouds that fed the lush gardens of Abel only miles south of him. Not that it mattered why. Their harvest was never as lush as Abel's family's was, even at its best times, and it took backbreaking work for Caine and his small family to render whatever they could from the earth. The Fallen Host offered to create plants some years back for Caine, to simply bring them forth from the earth with their great powers, but Caine refused them. "Just give me the seed and the tools, and I will provide for my own." The Celestials were true to their word, and Caine had never gone to ask them for their help. Now they were too busy fighting Heaven, intricate dances of concepts that the simple farmer didn't understand, and those that would teach mankind had forgotten about his little family.
Caine looked grimly at his garden and noticed the weeds that strangled the vegetable-bearing plants. With nothing else to eat, he considered the best of the weeds: a tangled mass of briers. The plant was surprisingly sweet and tender when cooked, especially the thick white root, but the problem was the wicked thorns, which took hours to break off.
While he considered whether it was worth the effort, he heard his daughter cry in the still dry air, even from within the modest shelter Caine had built with his own hands. His hungry daughter.
With a determined grimace, Caine removed the rags he wore, wrapped them around his hands, grabbed the briers, and pulled.
The thorns cut through the weathered cloth as if weren't there and dug deep into Caine's calloused hands. Still, he pulled. Brier met bone and nerve, filling Caine's vision with white agony. Still, he pulled. Blood soaked his hand-woven tunic, crafted by his wife's loving hands, and dripped on the parched soil. And yet still Caine pulled, the taproot of the plant finally giving... not enough, however, though the chord-muscled man gritted his teeth and strained mightily.
A shadow fell upon him. Caine looked up, squinting against the unforgiving sun casting his visitors in stark relief. A familiar voice: "Hello, brother."
Caine stood, not believing his ears. He looked at his brother, carrying a bundle of fruit in his arms. His adult sons Enoch and Irad stood beside him, handsome and looking much like their father; Caine had not seen them since they were children. He felt a flood of conflicting emotion for his brother. Foremost was love, for Abel and his get were his kin, an eternal bond that would never be questioned or broken. But also there was regret, bitterness and a little hate... Abel, who turned from the Lightbringer's wisdom and returned to the simple existence ordained by God; Abel, who still retained God's grace, something forever denied Caine for choosing free will; Abel, who prospered with no effort while Caine's toils availed him so little; Abel, who had turned his back on his brother when he walked away those years ago.
The three men were opposite Caine, bleeding from his ragged hands, scrawny and dirty, yet who stood proudly and looked each man in the face. None would look at him for long. Caine said nothing, and simply regarded his brother and nephews from behind his stony facade... his heart breaking, his emotions tearing at him from within, but not letting it show.
Abel finally spoke, "Brother... you have existed too long out of God's light. Are you not happy to see your own flesh and blood?"
Caine said, "The years have been kind to you."
Abel: "Yes, I know. I suffer to see you like this. I have come to offer you something. A gift from me, and from God. It is not much, but I beg you to accept it."
Caine sneered, and opened his mouth to tell Abel to take his vaunted offerings away and to God, when something compelled him to look at the hut that housed his family. His wife and children were outside, watching. They were thin and looked haggard, starving slowly. Caine knew his wife would stand with him and his decision to deny Abel. But what of his children, staring with rapt hunger at what Abel held in his arms? Caine swallowed.
"Your pride would be a bitter feast for your family, Caine. Will you please accept my gift? Simply ask me what I have to offer you, and you shall have it."
Tears ran down Caine's weathered face, streaking the dust settled on it from his dessicated garden. His fists clenched as a war raged within him, drops of blood squeezed from between his fingers and to the barren ground. He made the only decision he could have made. He looked at Abel.
"Brother... I ask you, what do you offer me?" Silence.
Abel smiled and said, "I got deez nutz for you, bitch! Deeeeeez nutz!"
Laughter exploded. "Aw, snap! Oh naw you dinnit!" Enoch said, laughing.
Irad: "Aw damn, you hear what he just said?! No dad didn't just bust on Caine like that!"
Abel: "Yes hell I did. Call my ass 'Willing and Abel', 'cause I'll put a punk in his place in a second."
Enoch: "Hell naw! Caine was like, 'What you got for me?', and--"
Irad: "--dad was all like, 'deez nutz!' I mean, what other crazy motherfucker gonna do some cold-assed shit like that there?"
Enoch: "Yeah he crazy, rollin' up on the man's property and dissin' him right in front of his bitch! Man, wait 'til Zillah hears about--"
Caine launched himself at his brother, roaring, bloodied hands held like claws in front of him. He grabbed his brother by the throat and crushed the life from him, shaking and throttling his brother long after he was dead, crying bitter tears as he did. With Abel's passing, a wave radiated from the extinguished life, marking the change of Creation -- and Caine -- forever after.
Irad: "Aw damn. That's just fucked up, right there."