Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The phone shook in Via’s hands. 

Octavia had first learned about the egg from social media. Her father hadn’t contacted her. He hadn’t sent her a photo of him and his boyfriend with their egg. Loon hadn’t told her either. 

No. Octavia had learned about her father’s new child from a video circulating on the internet.

. . .

When her father had laid his head down upon the executioner’s block, Octavia had never felt so betrayed in her life. Her father had promised her. He had promised her that he would never leave her behind.

And what had she seen on the television. She had seen the notifications for the trial on her phone. She’d been too busy finishing a piece of taxidermy, a deceased cat from the mortal world, to notice anything outside her room. So when she saw the headline, Stolas Goetia Admits to Dastardly Crime, Octavia had nearly fallen off her chair at her work station. She’d rushed to the living room and turned on the TV to find him about to die with acceptance.

Her father, so ready to lay down his life for someone who he irreversibly wrecked their family for. Octavia then knew she had lost her father, and only her mother had been there to comfort her. She hid her face against her mother's chest, chirping tears of devastation at the loss of her father.

(Of course, her mother would then go back to being indifferent to her feelings the next day, but the thought that she could put aside her petty anger for a moment was what counted right?)

Octavia would later find out that, no, her father had not been executed. Instead he had been stripped of his magic and title for a century. Not really much of a difference if she was being honest with herself. 

He still had betrayed her and left her for someone who would probably be dead by the time his sentence ended. He had left her alone in a palace with two demons who she wasn’t sure even cared about her. 

Her uncle, she wasn’t surprised by. The wacky and sometimes prissy man who galavanted in dresses and fur scarves like a Disney princess with that ridiculously posh accent. She had enjoyed his presence as a kid. He was the silly uncle who told funny jokes and made her laugh.

Though closer to adulthood, her uncle came off more as your typical privileged douchebag. With the way he thought himself haughtier and mightier than everyone else and how he flaunted his wealth, Andrealphus was the pinnacle of high society.

(Granted, her father did that too on occasion, though he came off more as goofy and naive rather than a jackass.)

As for her mother, Octavia wanted so badly to believe that her mother loved her. Perhaps she did, but not in the way that Octavia once had believed that Stolas had her. It was always the same behavior. Taking her out shopping for dresses that didn’t suit her. Gossipping with her friends. Critiquing her own hobbies and interests. Her mother seemed to want for Octavia to be a carbon copy of herself. 

Octavia might have considered arguing back against her mother though she had not the energy to deal with her mother’s temper. Sure she had her own but then that would only lead to plenty of broken vases and sore throats.

Octavia was left alone in a hub for malignant narcissists, as was evident by one of them parading sculptures and pictures of themselves along the halls and walls, with two of the most wretched people in all of Hell. It was a living nightmare and no amount of music from her headphones could draw her away from this reality.

And then her father had the nerve to show up a month later and pretend like he cared about her when it was obvious that all she ever did was make him miserable. She’d gone to him because…because….

She couldn’t place what it was. Those stupid pills of his still clung tightly to her mind like a rash. He needed those pills clearly with there being so many bottles littering his closet, some of them being empty of the depression medication. So she had decided to be the good daughter in spite of everything and bring him his meds. Only she never found him where she expected to find him. Only the weird red dickhead and his team of assassins.

Instead, her father had gone back home to find her. 

Home. 

The word no longer held meaning for the palace. Its warm and inviting halls now encased in a cold and brutal ice that could freeze to the touch, where one slip could spell a demon’s own doom. She had not been lying about her uncle’s visage being littered across the palace. Both inside and out.

An ocean of ice that spread across the vast gardens and hills surrounding the palace. The vibrant life that her father had cultivated within its walls now frozen to death by her uncle’s cold heart. How ironic.

Her father’s boyfriend and his companions had put up a fight against her uncle. Much more than she anticipated. Octavia had been impressed by their tenacity with how long they had lasted against her uncle. She hadn’t been lying when she said that if it ever got out that he had been nearly bested by them, her uncle’s reputation would be in the dirt that he had frozen over.

The threat she had thrown against her uncle had worked and he backed off. She was angry at her father, but she didn’t want him dead. Her uncle should have learned that lesson by now, what with him being sorely humiliated.

‘Via, please, you have been the one good thing in my life!’

The words rang hollower than her bones. He had hugged her, like everything was supposed to be okay, like it could all go back to normal. But it couldn’t. The premise of normal was gone. Obliterated. All because he threw her away like she was nothing. He had chosen that imp over her and she had told him as such. 

She didn’t look back. Even as she heard his terrible sobbing. Even as she dared to cry herself over what she was leaving behind.

‘Have a good life with him.’

When did it start, she wondered. When did she become so much of a burden that her father needed those pills to cope with living throughout his day.

She couldn’t fathom it. She didn’t want to. Yet, the reality of the world seemed to push down on her the gravity of its truth. That somewhere down the line, Octavia had always been a burden.

Her father never loved her. She had only been a source of pain for him.

Perhaps with her gone, he could finally live his life and be happy…without her.

Memories, however, were impossible to remove. 

(She could have used her magic, but doing so would risk brain damage. She wished to forget the pain, but she wouldn’t be so reckless.)

From the wickedness of her nightmares she would hide beneath her covers, screaming for her parents. Her bedroom door would creak open, exposing her room to the lit halls of the palace. From the door her father’s shadow would be cast followed by his very presence, the owl prince wearing the same scarlet robe she was accustomed to seeing him wear in the mornings.

‘Via, what troubles you my owlet,’ he would ask her in a tired but worried voice.

She would hear his voice and be relieved somewhat, pulling her ruffled head out from beneath the covers to cry, ‘Daddy, I had a dream! A really bad dream!’ 

She had been stuck in an empty palace running through dark and decrepit halls in search of her father. The walls seemed to rot and the air was ice cold. Cruel voices would laugh and mock her with each step. Through the halls she would cry and beg for her father. But with every shadow she found, she only found bitter loneliness. Until she stumbled through a door and into a dark pit where fell endlessly. When she hit the bottom, she was thrown from the throes of slumber and into waking reality. 

Finding comfort in her father (Her mother never seemed to care and even despised having anything to do with her.), Stolas would pull her into his soft, warming embrace. 

Through casually pushed away yawns, her father would answer, ‘A nightmare.’ 

He must have always been so tired, she wondered. Had he truly wanted to be there for her, or had it all been an act?

‘I was looking all over the palace, and I couldn’t find you anywhere,’ she would cry. Her father would continue to gaze at her intently with a warm smile. ‘You weren’t there!’ She whined, throwing her face into his neck for comfort, to shield herself away from the bad dreams.

‘There, there, Via,’ he would whisper assuringly, and it would work then. The darkness never felt so powerful when he was there for her. Stolas would settle down upon her bed, his Grimoire floating behind him at the ready.

‘When you’re scared, and you don’t know where I am, you must remember, no matter what happens to me, I will never be far away from my special little Starfire.’

The nickname bore a hole inside her chest. An ache for a time where she was naive and unawares to the cruel and wicked truths of the real world. 

Her father would take her to the beyonder of space and comfort her with its beauty. The stars would be her nightlight as he sang her back into a peaceful rest. His voice had been so assuring, so soothing. 

A comfortable lie.

The nightmares had been terrible. Some were good. Though some also exposed her to periods of deja vu throughout her childhood. Conversations or events she remembered having in her dreams that she later had in real life. As she grew older, Stolas explained that some of her dreams may have been prophetic visions of the future. It dawned on her then what it was her childhood years had been warning of her.

No matter how hard she tried to shut them out. Waking up from the nightmares no longer was an option.

The nightmare had already become the reality.

. . .

The weeks carried on into months until it had been half a year since she had last seen her father.

Life had not gotten any easier with him gone. In some instances, it was better. She no longer cried herself to sleep every night and she didn’t have to worry about the incessant screaming from her mother when she woke up. 

In other instances…not so much.

Her mother and uncle’s lack of affection or care toward her hadn’t changed much. If anything, it had only grown worse.

The palace was a prison. That was perhaps the best way to describe it. A cage adorning her feathers with their gilded shackles. The cold ice built along its walls a perfect metaphor for the way her own heart felt on her worst days.

Her mother would still take her to luxurious parties to show herself off to the world. The proud divorcee free from her disgraced husband. Her mother was eating up the sympathy from her fellow Ars Goetia. There, Octavia felt as though she were nothing more than a prop to her mother’s arrogance. Truthfully, she was, but this was a pill that was far too difficult to swallow at the time.

And the casual mockery towards her father. 

It was unbearable to have to listen to her mother degrade her father. So was being compared to him as well.

Octavia! Your feathers are so dull and boring.

Octavia! Why must you stand there with that dreadful stare?

Octavia! 

Octavia cried herself to sleep on most nights. She almost resented her father for how terribly everyone compared her to him. 

Almost.

At the end of the day, it was her mother who instigated the insults, and Octavia was starting to question more deeply if her mother’s love even existed at all rather than it just being warped by her own arrogance.

Once upon a time, Octavia had begun to agree with her mother's insults. As she grew older, she'd seen her father's gangly appearance and his dull demeanor and had begun to resent it. 

It was only as she had them thrown at her that Octavia began to see how soul crushing it really was, and the owlet only felt more shame and guilt for her inability to see her father's suffering. The life of a royal was demeaning in of itself. Her father wasn't strong enough to handle it. (It was hard not to understand why.) So Octavia chose to bore the brunt so he would not have to.

Octavia had grown numb to the internal pain within her soul by this time. It was either that or continue to allow her soul to break into pieces. She considered stealing the wine glasses being carried around by the staff, but seeing her mother being drunkenly led home by the staff as well as recalling some of her father’s own low points around the beverage were enough to scare Via away from the beverage. 

It was humiliating. At least her father had the decency to get drunk in the privacy of his own home. (It wasn’t exactly any better since walking into your father passed out on his bedroom floor had its own problems.) Listening to the mockery from the other Goetia was causing her head to explode.

As such, Octavia wasn’t a fool to those very eyes ‘pitying’ her mother. Octavia, who always sat in the corner and watched as her mother got drunk and cavorted with her peers, was very observant. 

While her mother was witless and sometimes idiotic with how she handled herself in public (much to the hypocritical chagrin of Andrealphus), Octavia’s quiet attitude benefited her the gift of being on the qui vive.

She heard the cruel whispers. The sneers that the nobles would give her mother when her back was turned. They hated her. Spoke of her as a spoiled princess who never learned manners. Some even dared to say that Stolas’ banishment was a blessing for him as he never had to listen to Stella’s shrill voice for a good while. 

It wasn’t all she heard. 

Duke Eligos got his head stuck in a vase and needed help from his wife to get it unstuck.

Prince Sitri had multiple hellhound mistresses, some of which may or may not have become pregnant by him. (But those were all just rumors. The latter half anyways.)

Her grandfather, King Paimon, was a literal king of whores, according to her mother, who enjoyed gallivanting with his human followers on Earth in less than upstanding ways.

Duchess Elenor, wife of Duke Zepar, allegedly moonlighted as an online model on an online platform called Only Demons under the moniker, Miss Mary.

There were other things that one might find embarrassing or scandalous but Octavia took pleasure in none of it. Though she was sure to bury the information for a rainy day. Her catalog of blackmail was not all that Octavia needed to improve and expand upon however.

‘My dear niece. You don’t need to be messing around with such important things. Why don’t you spend some time with your mother doing…whatever it is that makes her happy,’ her uncle Andrealphus had told her once when she asked him to teach her how to read the stars. 

He’d metaphorically and literally closed the book in front of her. 

Octavia resented him like a high school mean girl does to the more attractive poor girl. She had seen his skill too and her uncle may have been talented when it came to his ice magic, able to construct precise geometric shapes or even pinpoint specific stars in the sky. 

His other skills such as prophesying and portaling were less so. He was utterly incompetent and wasn’t even trying to rectify the situation.

Octavia heavily suspected that this was partially intentional. Her debut into the Goetia family was set the day after her birthday. Both were a month away from now.

With her debut, a giant ceremony where she was expected to show off her abilities to the rest of the family. If only her uncle would allow her to complete her training. Yet, every time she tried to broach the subject with Elsa (Yes, she had grown accustomed to calling him that in her head. She hated the weird red dickhead that her father had chosen over her, but she couldn’t deny that it was a clever nickname for her uncle.) he would completely change the subject and tell her not to worry and how it wasn’t her responsibility.

More so, her mother and uncle would speak in hushed tones around her. She didn’t hear all of what they talked about. However, one word she heard told Octavia all she needed to know.

Marriage.

It could have been about her mother. They could have been discussing another suitor for her now eligible mother. Yet, Octavia would have known had her mother been trying to entice the gazes of another Goetia. Stella was never one for tact. If Stella had a new boyfriend, everyone would have known about it.

So no, it was about her. This was further confirmed by the fact that Stella was regularly introducing her to different suitors with the implications of pairing her with them. Their ages ranged from fifteen to five-thousand years old. 

The fifteen year old had been some penguin-Goetia high schooler who wouldn’t stop calling her babe and trying to slip his hands into her upper shirt. On the other claw, the elder man was a wrinkled crow who continued to eye her up like a prize of candy as well, a lemon candy. He too was touchy and might even have been senile with how mentally gone he seemed half the time.

None of the other candidates her mother offered up were any better. Octavia couldn’t help but wonder why it was only now that her mother was bringing up the idea of suitors to marry Octavia off to. 

But she knew the answer. 

Her father.

She recalled an argument her parents had gotten into when Octavia was about thirteen. It was one of the few times where her father raised his voice against her mother. She’d never seen her father so adamant about something in her life. In his own words: 

‘Octavia will have her own choice in marriage so long as I’m the head of this house!’

Well, he was no longer the head of the house. He was gone, and Octavia was at the mercy of her mother.

She was still a child technically speaking, but she wasn’t an idiot. If anything, she was far smarter than both her mother and uncle combined. Not like either of them would listen to her though. 

Of course, Octavia would not let her uncle’s refusal to teach her or her mother’s desire to marry her off stop her. She was anything if not resourceful and stubborn. She supposed that the latter of those two characteristics was the one good thing she got from her mother.

In private, Octavia would steal the Grimoire away when her uncle was sleeping. He kept the book locked away in his study. 

Correction. 

It was Octavia’s father’s old study, now glazed over with gaudy sculptures and over-the-top self-portraits of himself. 

Seriously, just how badly does he want to fuck himself, Octavia pondered to herself when she first laid her eyes on it the gaudy decorations.

Her uncle had kept the book locked away in a drawer in his desk using a magic spell lock. One that was so amateurish that Octavia had been able to get away with removing and resetting multiple times for the past three months.

Reading through the Grimoire on her own wasn’t the definition of easy. It involved a lot of trial and error and the hope she didn’t kill herself. She very nearly set her whole room on fire while trying to master her portaling technique and the only reason her uncle didn’t find out was because Octavia had quickly been able to rectify the situation.

Though if her father could do it as he once told her, then so could she. 

‘Dad, if you were able to handle it on your own, why can’t I?!’ Octavia had groaned when she tried to cast a random spell she saw. Her father had promptly taken the Grimoire from her eyesight before the spell could take. 

‘It wasn’t easy, though Via. I almost opened a black hole in the backyard once. Poor Mr. Butler nearly had a heart attack,’ Stolas recalled sheepishly. 

She was thirteen and her father was finally introducing her to the basics of handling the Grimoire. Octavia had been impatient, a quality that hadn’t really changed in the last five years. 

‘Why didn’t Grandpa Paimon help you then?’ Octavia questioned.

‘He was…busy,’ Stolas had responded. She noticed the disheartened glance of his eyes as he said this, but Octavia never commented on it. Octavia had never met her grandfather before. He was always busy as it seemed. A fact that her father never liked to talk about, so she decided not to. She pondered if this was why he had made the effort against his own wishes to be a apart of her childhood, an attempt to make up for his own lonely youth.

Noble, but a lie nonetheless.

Vehemently, her father stated to her, ‘I will not let you put yourself at harm while I am here. You must have the forbearance to master the Grimoire as I did. Otherwise, you will fail, and we cannot have that.’

Octavia pouted at her father’s insistence. She didn’t want to wait. She wanted to know everything now. She felt useless otherwise. Her father seemed to recognize this at the time and patted her on the shoulder.

‘Don’t worry my precious Starfire,’ her father assured, reorienting one of her headfeathers with his hand. She swatted it away playfully, hiding the smile on her beak. ‘I know that by the time you become of age, you will be truly gifted with what may come,’

‘That seems so far away though, Dad,’ she complained.

‘Yes, but time has a way of catching up to us,’ he sighed with a smile. ‘For now, let us begin with a simple levitation spell. I’m sure…’

That memory had been ages ago, but her father had been correct. She couldn’t exactly learn to use the Grimoire on her own.

Octavia briefly considered asking her father for help since he would be fluent in how to read the magical tome despite being powerless. However, she quickly threw that idea into the dumpster. She didn’t want to bother him, and she doubted that he would even want to help her of all demons. 

So Octavia was on her own to read through the Grimoire. 

Or so she thought. 

Octavia didn’t interact much with her extended family. Even her uncle Andrealphus, before her father’s cheating scandal, Octavia maybe saw five times a year. Even less was her father’s half-brother, her uncle, Vassago. 

. . .

It had been at one of the parties her mother had attended that Octavia had first reunited with her estranged uncle. Chittering voices and clinking glasses reverberated through the wide space of Duke Elios’ ballroom. 

Demons in fancy crystal and gold studded dresses and jewelry laughed and gossiped while smaller imps in black and white uniforms carried on unbothered as they served their higher-class bosses. 

Tonight had been no different than the previous parties. Octavia had worn a plain purple dress, her eyes shadowed with sparkling eyeliner and her head feathers combed back into a waterfall of elegance. 

The dress was different from the bright pink monstrosities her mother picked out for her. Octavia had decided to wear it out of defiance, fully expecting her mother to hate the dress. Instead, her mother had loved it, gawking how perfectly it worked with her feathers and applauding her decision to get involved with her own attire.

While Octavia would have been happy for such a compliment from her mother a year ago, it felt empty knowing that her mother was only interested in her when it came to her own desires. Another reminder that Stella only wanted a doll out of her. A twisted sort of love. 

(If you could even call it that.)

Octavia was busy half-listening to the mindless conversations of peers. She would rather have been anywhere else. 

She was sure that Loona would have made for a much better companion than them, and she already was. Every now and then when things became too much for her, Octavia would call Loona and the pair would go to hang out somewhere across the seven rings. The most common place was a coffee shop in Pride that served rat smoothies that Octavia really liked. 

Sometimes even Loona would call her to go shopping or go to a concert. 

(The picture of the two of them dressed in Fuck U Dad shirts at said band’s concert was currently her new screensaver.)

Loona never bothered her about her father and Octavia kept her mouth shut about Blitzø. It was a clean truce between them and it worked…for now. Loona was kind of like a friend to her now, but who knew if that would last knowing her luck.

Octavia was about ready to sock one of the girls across the face for a comment they made about her when she felt a presence beside her. The red and white feathered macaw dressed in a red suit jacket and white undershirt, with brown pants and stylish gold boots that clacked along the floor. 

The other girls, the children of princes, marquesses, and presidents, respectively, bowed their heads respectfully toward Vassago while Octavia was left speechless from recollection. 

“Apologies, señoritas. Might I borrow my niece for a moment,” Vassago smiled. 

He held out a hand for Octavia to take. The princess didn’t hesitate. She hated the boring and rude conversations of her peers and wanted nothing to do with them. 

She put on a smile and went with her uncle to a corner of the ballroom that was quieter. Octavia glanced at her mother to see that the peahen was too busy interacting with her friends on the opposite end of the ballroom to notice her. Octavia sighed in relief.

“Hello, Uncle Vassago,” Octavia mumbled through tired eyes.

“Hola, querida sobrina,” Vassago replied. His expression softened toward her. “You don’t look as though you are enjoying this, are you Via?”

Off in the distance, Stella’s screeching laugh could be heard. Both niece and uncle glanced at the peahen to see her nearly stumbling over herself drunk. A wine glass held in her hand shook, the yellow fermented liquid spilling onto the floor. Octavia wanted to hide her face in her dress.

“Was it that obvious?” Octavia grumbled.

¡Qué vergüenza! Vassago sighed, shaking his head out of second-hand embarrassment. 

Octavia grumbled angrily. She would kill to have her father standing next to her wearing the Loo Loo Land merchandise at this point. “Yeah, I know. My mother is something, isn't she.”

She wanted so badly to die now. Where was an exterminator when you needed them?

Her uncle gave her an expression of sympathy…or was it pity? “Listen, sobrina, I know I haven’t been in your life much,” he began. 

Octavia rolled her eyes. “No shit.”

“But, you’re still my niece and I want to make sure you are doing well,” he told her before adding, “If not for you, then for your father.”

“Like he would care,” Octavia scoffed. She was sure that her father was doing much better without her.

Vassago shook his head rather adamantly. “He cares much more than you think he does.”

Octavia grumbled, ignoring the sincerity in his voice. “I’m fine uncle,” Octavia responded tensely. “I can handle my mother and Uncle Andrealphus.” 

Which was true…ish. She knew how to avoid them when she could or what to say to get them to back off. But she was clueless on how to entirely avoid her mother and uncle’s marriage talks surrounding her.

“Perhaps now, sure,” Vassago remarked. “But have you accounted for everything?”

“I’m aware that they plan to marry me off,” Octavia commented sourly. She could already feel a cold metal ring being forced along her claws, a phantom pain of broken dreams.

Vassago cursed quietly into his shoulder. “Then you understand how serious things are. We cannot allow them to make you a prisoner to someone else.”

Octavia felt a chill run up her spine. The idea of being forced to marry someone else left her with a dreadful sensation. The idea of being forced to bed with anyone was enough to induce a churning sensation within her stomach.

“How is your magic?” Vassago queried.

“It’s…getting there,” she answered, less confidently than she had wanted to. 

She was much better than her uncle, but nowhere near where her father had been before his magic had been taken from him. Scrying for prophecies was still something she was having difficulty with. 

Her ability to divine for future events was far from her grasp. Every time she tried, it was like floating through an endless sea of screaming voices. It would always end with her needing to pull herself out before she completely went mad from the voices. She came out from those sessions with a stir of inadequacy because she could feel the stars desperately calling out to her. 

They were innate to her very being. The stars were begging for her to speak to them now that her father was gone. If only she could identify how she could reach out her soul and graze along the stardust.

“So you need help, is what you’re saying?” Vassago responded.

“No,” Octavia gritted through her beak. She wasn’t ready to accept help. She could do things on her own. It was what was expected of her.

“Ay caramba,” Vassago mumbled, annoyed by the response. “Please, sobrina. You need humility to be your greatest ally right now. I mean, just look at your madre.” 

Suddenly, the both of them heard Stella again, this time the former princess being escorted out by Andrealphus. The peacock stepped with poise and hurry in his step as he pulled his sister to his side.

“Stella, we are leaving,” Andrealphus hissed with a fake smile, his eyes implying a deep fury burrowing into his sister. Everyone was watching amusingly, giggling at Stella’s drunk 

“But An–d–dre!” Stella slurred, but was far too drunk to fight back against her brother dragging her along with him. 

Octavia sighed in humiliation again. The girls from earlier had already been giving her so much shit about her mother’s unlady-like behavior. She knew it would only get worse from here.

‘Okay, maybe Uncle V has a point. No need to let your pride balloon like mother’s,' she thought to herself.

She saw her uncle and mother leaving the ballroom. She had no doubt that once her uncle dropped her mother off in the limo that he would return for her. So, they needed to talk fast.

“What do you propose?” Octavia whispered, turning to her uncle with an expression of certainty.

The macaw’s expression became serious as well. “When you debut, you need to be able to show to the rest of the Goetia that you are more than ready to handle your padre’s duties. I can help fill in the blanks for you so that you get to that point.”

“You mean you want to be my teacher,” Octavia stated. 

She had suspected that this was what he was implying. Sure, Octavia was at the top or close to it in many of her classes, but she needed experience from someone who had their foot in the big league magic like her uncle. That and she needed someone who could keep quiet about what she planned to do.

And Uncle Vassago was…her only option in regards to those qualities.

“Fuck it. Where do we start?”

. . .

Vassago was…quirky…to say the least. But he was also patient.

He was critical of her abilities, though he was quick to provide her feedback in a manner that wasn’t contrite or condescending in tone. He was a decent replacement for her father. His advice certainly reminded her of the way her father would speak to her when they were training.

“Let their voices flow. Let your soul guide you. Don’t force it. Become one with the stars.”

He was a Goetia with similar abilities to her father. However, his prophetic abilities were more closely related to locating lost objects or narrowing down the movements of individuals. 

Still, he was a decent teacher in the art of magic. 

With his help, Octavia was able to more readily tether herself to the stars. She wasn’t fully where she needed to be yet. The stars were still far from her grasp of interpretation, but she could see glimpses of what they wanted to tell her. 

Three brand new stars. Two of which were part of a binary system, glowing a bright red while the third star, a hot white glowed by its lonesome. Yet, all three joined a much greater solar system. Eclipsing them was another star glowing purple with its fire being orbited by a bright white moon. At the center of the system were two large suns, glowing hotter than she had ever felt before. 

Octavia had not a sense of what any of it meant, but she was certain that further practice would bear the fruit she needed to complete her first prophetic visions.

She and Vassago would meet every few days whenever Andrealphus was out of the palace to practice. It was risky to say the least, bringing Vassago into the heart of Andrealphus’ new lair. 

Yet, it wasn't like it was only them in the know of her plans to usurp the ice queen. 

As it turned out, and unsurprisingly, every single member of staff wanted Andrealphus and Stella gone from the palace too. It wasn’t just the cold they hated, though that played a large factor, especially for the imps whose bodies were more accustomed to higher temperatures. 

Mostly, it was for the regular mistreatment from Stella and Andrealphus. Her mother was already accustomed to tossing the imp staff members around like bean bags, though she quickly took to tripping and throwing objects at them too for her own amusement. As for Uncle Andy, there were plenty of dead imps frozen into block statues littering the halls. None of the staff were happy seeing their friends and coworkers reduced to ornaments, locked in time like the animals she worked on. 

(Octavia liked taxidermy, sure, but at least those creatures were non-sentient and already dead by the time she got her hands on them.)

Her father had never been perfect toward the staff. He was naive about their jobs and sometimes talked down to them. Yet, anyone could agree that he had at least somewhat respected them for their hard work to a certain level. Nor had he been physically or verbally abusive to them.

So for the staff, the opportunity to get rid of the sibling terrors was a curse from Satan. They would serve as lookout for when Andrealphus returned, certain to notify Octavia and Vassago before they could get caught. On top of that, the staff also reported on the casual conversations between Stella and Andrealphus to Octavia.

Just as Octavia had always suspected, the two were planning to marry her off. Worse, however, the main goal was to steal her father’s estate and fortune from her. With Octavia gone and married off, her assets would go to whomever she was set to marry, and if she was certain of one thing, it was that Andrealphus would weasel his way for said fortune into any marriage contract.

‘You’re certain?’ Octavia had asked of Pringles when he had alerted her to this fact. He nodded diligently before rushing off at the sound of Andrealphus’ calling, leaving Via alone to deal with the betrayal. She hadn’t wanted to believe it. She wished to hold onto the hope that her mother would never put their wealth over her.

And yet…

The proof was right in front of her. The only thing stopping her from accepting it was herself.

. . .

It was a few days after this revelation that Octavia discovered what her father had been up to since she had last seen him.

It was on one of Octavia’s off days. ‘Off’ as in she had nothing better to do and so was doomscrolling on her phone while resting on her bed. It was while she partook in this hobby that Octavia came across a video that was trending on Voxtok. 

It was posted by a group calling themselves Blitzers. She looked deeper into their content prior to watching the video and discovered that they were a fanboy club centered around worshipping the very demon that her father had left her for. 

Their videos consisted of grainy videos of the imp or demons known to be related to him. There were also clips of podcast discussions between the group members where they would discuss how hot Blitzø was and why they deserved him. It was all pretty creepy and Octavia could see that the members were all horny and desperate losers. Of course, these Blitzers were not the only group of demons worshipping the man who had broken up her family.

Since his near-execution, Blitzø had become a legend amongst the lower hellborn classes. He was a symbol for them and the achievements that they could accomplish in the face of oppression. There were all sorts of fan groups centered around the assassin. Protests had been building up across the seven rings. The hellborn were fed-up with being taken advantage of and wanted fairer treatment. 

Octavia had scrolled through many of these types of videos over the past few months of demons explaining their reasons for protesting. Mistreatment from the Goetia. Terrible wages. There was even a channel dedicated to discussing conditions within hellhound kennels, of which led to Via not being able to sleep for a couple of nights. (Loona had once mentioned to her that her situation prior to being adopted had not been the best, though seeing the state of the kennels greatly implied that the silver-furred hellhound had been understating her abysmal youth.)

But the conversation always found a way to turn back to Blitzø and his desire to make a better world for himself and his friends and family. She hated seeing his face and hearing him being treated like he was a god. 

Couldn’t they see that he was just another asshole? She pondered while scrolling through the videos.

Still, she had to admit that the lower class was justified in their frustration, and Blitzø didn’t seem to be interacting with the new movement either. He had been completely silent on that front, content to live his own life and keep it private. 

Well, almost private, as she would soon see with the video she was about to watch. The title of it was ‘Egg-In-There?!: An Inside Scoop Into The Life Of The Blitzø’, which was her first clue as to the nature of the film. She knew better than to scroll into territory that she wouldn’t be able to handle. Yet, Octavia was curious. Far too much with seeing how her father was with his new life.

What the fuck am I doing, she thought to herself as she clicked on the video to see what her father was up to. She really could not help herself.

The video opened up on a balcony overlooking Imp City. She assumed it was as such as that was where she knew her father was and the sky was a deep red. The video itself was grainy and shaky, and Octavia could see a demon’s fingers clawing over the camera, implying it was being taken using a phone. 

The video took her through the window of an apartment building. Inside was what appeared to be a one-bedroom apartment. With the glare from the sun along the window, it was almost impossible to see inside at first, but some shaking from the camera gave her a clearer view. It was much smaller than Octavia had anticipated and not something she could ever see her father living in. 

Then again, beggars can’t be choosers.

There was a kitchenette in the far left corner, the door to the apartment on the opposite corner. In the center of the apartment stood a couch occupied by two demons. She quickly recognized them as her father and Blitzø. Both were huddled together watching TV as was evident by the multi-colored lights reflecting off their faces.

Their faces were that of relaxed contentment, both smiling softly as they leaned against one another. They were simply enjoying each other’s company as though nothing were wrong with the world. A far cry from the fake smiles and shattering glass that was reflective of her mother and father's relationship.

Octavia’s stomach tightened at the sight of the pair happy together. She didn’t know why she felt so envious toward her father. She had told him to have a good life. Her father had moved on without her and that was what she wanted, wasn’t it. 

It was to be expected. She should have seen it coming. Yet, Octavia had been caught off guard all the same, her heart shattering into a million pieces when the camera zoomed onto the pair, or toward the area between them. 

At first, Octavia didn’t know what she was looking at. It appeared at first glance to be some sort of light red football with blue spots, and a large one at that. However, upon further inspection, Octavia’s eyes slowly widened upon seeing that the ‘football’ was actually an egg.

An egg. 

Not just some random egg from the mortal world. No, a full in-the-shell Goetia egg. And there was only one reason why they two men would be cuddling with the damned thing.

Her mind went blank as the video continued, her brain a storm of bangs and screeching.

The demon holding the phone gasped as they too saw what Octavia had seen. This had ultimately alerted both her father and Blitzø. While Stolas shielded the egg from the interloper, Blitzø pulled out a pistol and fired it through the window. The bullet missed but the shot was enough to send the demon scrambling. 

‘Fucking bitch!’ Blitzø screamed through the video.

They very nearly made it to the first flight of stairs when another gunshot rang out. The phone shook and became smeared with specks of black blood as it tumbled through the air. It soon slammed onto the ground below, the screen cracking into a million pieces and blacking in an out, exposing the streets below. 

Some cursing could be heard from some nearby demons whom Octavia might have recognized as being Blitzers had she been paying attention. This was followed by the body of their compatriot splattering onto the concrete next to them. 

‘Stupid fuckers!’ Blitzø screeched again, the eyes of the deceased demon’s friends watching with horror at the object of their desire’s furious intent.

By the time Blitzø had started firing on the group, they had already made off with the damaged phone, likely hoping to salvage the date, and drove off in their vehicle before the video ended.

As the video cut out, Octavia threw her phone at the wall, shattering it into pieces. Tears were already running down her face before she slammed her face into her pillow. She was screaming her heart out, her voice muffled by the pillows as she sobbed. 

The world around her disappeared, a black void filling into the background. The endless weeping of heartbreak and despair filling the endless pockets of air filling her room. The cold wafted over her face, freezing the tears dripping down her eyes as they hit the bed.

Octavia pulled her face from her pillow and thought of the old memories she shared with her father. All of them felt empty from the reminder that she had always been a burden. That she could never be what he wanted, not with the connotation she carried.

An egg. 

A new child. 

Her father was starting a new family…without her.

He didn’t need her anymore. The crushing weight of that reality was too much. She should have been happy. He was finally free from her. He was finally happy, certainly. 

An avalanche of sorrow filled her being, her body shaking from devastation at the reality that she was forced to face.

First, her father’s betrayal.

Then, her mother’s.

And now, Octavia was reminded that she was once again alone in the world.

Her father had a new family, and she could never be a part of it.

Chapter Text

1 Month Ago…

“Fuck! That was awesome!” Octavia hooted, arms raised in the air in excitement. Her heart was still racing and her ears were about ready to pop from the excessively loud noises from before. Moments earlier she had been a single speck in a crowd of demons shouting and chanting to the siren calls of the band atop the metal stage.

That Fuck U Dad concert may have been the best one she had been to in ages and it was not one she would be forgetting anytime soon. With everything that had been going on in her life, Octavia had entirely spaced on keeping up to date with the goings on of her favorite artists. So when Loona offered to take her to the concert, Octavia had been more than happy to get away from the palace for a night.

Octavia was nearly bouncing on her feet as she shouted, “I mean, holy shit! I can’t believe that Shorun actually landed that backflip from the canopy without breaking his legs.” He’d even managed to nail the final line of the song as he did it too. Truly, it was one of the greatest things she had ever seen in her life. 

Beside her, walking briskly with a calmer demeanor, though her tail wagging ferociously behind her betrayed how excited she really was, Loona smirked at Octavia’s enthusiasm. 

“Easy there. Don’t need you to fly beak-first into a billboard because you’re so excited,” Loona teased.

Octavia rolled her eyes but was still smiling as she asked the hellhound, “What was your favorite part?”

Loona didn’t take long to think as she quickly responded, “For me it was the guitar riff from Freisha at the end of The Milk with the fireworks shooting right behind her. I thought her tail was gonna catch fire for a second there!”

Octavia recalled it. The hellhound lead singer had slid onto her knees to the edge of the stage right next to the pyrotechnics display. Just as she sang the final note of the song, her deep but feminine voice reaching a crescendo, the fireworks behind started spurting into the air into an arch over the crowd. The fireworks exploded into an array of deep colors of indigo, violet and sangria. 

That…that had been nothing short of spectacular.

With the excitement and claustrophobia of the concert behind them, the pair of them were walking toward the old-beat down van that Loona had taken them in. She hated the idea of going home but she knew her mother and uncle would be asking questions if she didn’t come out of her room tomorrow morning. 

“Thanks for inviting me out, Loona,” Octavia said to her friend.

Loona smiled, “Hey no sweat. I know it can’t be easy over there with the ice princesses.”

“Yeah,” Octavia sighed bitterly. 

Saying that it wasn’t easy was a bit of an understatement. Her mother hadn’t stopped her screaming since her father left. Only now it was directed at her. She never touched her but that didn’t change any less how disheartened Octavia had been left by it. Her uncle similarly disregarded her presence and treated her more as an obstacle to his own goals. 

“I think they’re planning to marry me off,” she stated aloud. Her eyes widened as she realized she hadn’t meant to tell Loona that part. 

The hellhound’s jaw dropped and she had an expression of shock. “Fuck! Seriously?”

Initially, Octavia froze. She really had not meant to share that with Loona. Mostly because she didn’t want her father doing something stupid again. Eventually, Octavia nodded to which the hellhound pulled her into a side hug as they walked. 

“Shit. I’m sorry,” Loona mumbled to the princess.

“Don’t worry,” Octavia shrugged. “I have a plan to get out of it.”

“If you say so,” Loona relented. She gazed down awkwardly at the teen owlet and fumbled with her jaw as she pondered on what to say. As they were a few yards from the ban, Loona looked down with an assuring gaze at Via, adding, “If you need anything, you know who to call.”

Octavia smiled at her friend’s care for her. It was nice not feeling so alone. “Thanks, Loona.”

“Anytime” she replied, pulling out her keys and unlocking the van.

Beep!

. . .

Beep! Beep! Beep!

Octavia pulled her face from her pillow and groaned. Her pink eyes were crusted from sleep and her pupils narrowed in on the cause of her sleep being interrupted. She reached a hand out and slammed it into her alarm clock. 

The device smashed underneath her fist and uttered a final whir before it died completely. With the bane of her sleep vanquished, Octavia’s head slammed into the soft object in the hopes of returning to her slumber.

A week had passed since she learned about the egg. 

The ovular object hung in her head like a ticking time bomb. She could barely do anything, let alone eat or drink without thinking about it. It was just there. Everywhere she looked, the egg was filling her head. 

She couldn’t fathom why. Her father had done what she had wanted him to do. To have a new life with the man she chose over her. Her father was probably happy at the thought of having a do-over. And now this new child of his and his boyfriend’s was going to have the happy life she had with her parents, and it wouldn't even be a lie this time.

How is it even possible? Octavia had asked of herself. 

She supposed it wasn’t impossible. With their goetic genes, it was not improbable for males or even females to be able to produce children with demons of the same sex according to some biologists. Magic was impressive in that regard after all. Or so she had heard.

She should have been happy for her father. He had a new child to dote on and it was with someone he loved. Instead she felt nothing but emptiness, wishing instead that it was her there.

You can though! A voice in the back of her head screamed at her. The princess had been hearing it for a while now. Octavia brushed it off. She wasn’t ready to face it. Why would she when she broke her father’s heart all those months ago after he broke hers?

With her mind on eggs, it was hard for Octavia to focus on her magic. She canceled her meetings with Vassago for the past week. The macaw had been unable to text her due to Via smashing her phone and Octavia hadn’t bothered to get a new one either. She had received a message from him through Pringles asking her if everything was okay. So she told Pringles to tell the macaw that she wasn’t feeling well and she would get back to him when she could. 

Assuming she even wanted to continue her training. 

Octavia felt so defeated after seeing the egg. The life had been completely sucked out of her and Octavia wasn’t sure what the point of trying to usurp her uncle and mother’s motives was. It wasn’t like it would change the heart break she was feeling in her chest. She was nothing more than a precautionary heir ordained to replace her father, whom was now free to have the life he truly wanted. 

Enough with this endless sulking. You’re starting to look like your father, her mother had uncaringly noted to her the other day. Perhaps she was correct, though her words of encouragement were cold and heartless. Octavia certainly wasn’t motivated by them to smile that was for sure. 

Fuck, she was stuck in a loop of the same bullshit pity. 

She pondered texting Loona. She had said if Octavia needed anything to call her, but with how hurt she felt, Octavia wasn’t certain if she could trust Loona.

The hellhound had to have known that Stolas had been gravid when they went to the concert. The hellhound had…had…

Octavia sank her face into her hands and sobbed. 

Why was she even mad at Loona in the first place? Hadn’t that been the point, that they not talk about their home lives? 

In short terms, she was a mess.

Sleep was absent from her body, which brought no less frustration to her as Octavia rolled around in her bed angrily. She soon growled, throwing her pillow onto the floor in frustration before deciding to get up. 

No use in lazing around in bed all day, she thought tiredly. She was letting this get to her far too easily.

Her legs landed on the floor and stumbled along some clothes that she had forgotten to clean off the floor. She hadn’t let any of the staff inside either so her room was a mess. The curtains were adjacent from the window a crack, a single light flickering inside and revealing the cluttered room where posters, figures on her shelves, and other things belonging to her littered the floor. 

She nearly stepped on top of a taxidermy beaver from the living world that she had perfected. She eyed the figure as well as the other ones across her room. She had always loved taxidermy as weird as it was. Providing the dead with a bit of grace and beauty following their demise. A beautiful outer skin covering for the dead rot within. A perfect irony for her old family in hindsight.

She wobbled on her feat through the mess and sat at her vanity, turning on the lights that bordered the mirror. When they came on, Octavia was unsurprised at what she saw. Her feathers were ruffled and bent. She was pretty sure she smelled too. She hadn’t taken a shower in a couple of days. 

Octavia pushed some of her head feathers out of the way of her face and noticed a few fall to the floor. She was due for a good preening. She was due for a good many things. Just because she was sad didn’t mean she should stop taking care of herself. 

Her stomach rumbled and the owlet princess remembered that she hadn’t been eating much either. She groaned as she got up from her seat. She’d shower later when she had something in her stomach.

Stepping out into the halls, her eyes flinched at how bright everything was, so much so that she completely forgot that she was cold too, being in nothing but her pajamas. Her gaze downward, she was unaware of how empty and quiet the halls were, the only sound being the audible sparkling of the ice crystals hanging from the ceiling. Nor was she aware of the fact that she was walking in the opposite direction of the kitchen.

It wasn’t until she pushed through a large set of double doors did Octavia’s brain finally catch up with the physical motions of her body. Octavia glanced up and found that the room she had stepped into was not the kitchen as was evident by the lack of the scent of any sort of food or the presence of kitchen staff.

Instead, she was met by the endless caverns of bookshelves and musty pages. It didn’t take her long to realize that she was in the library. 

“Fucking hell,” she grumbled. “I need coffee.” 

She turned to leave, hoping to drink down an entire pot-full of the bitter liquid, until something in the corner of her vision gave her a pause. 

She turned back to the center of the room and nearly lost feeling in her legs at what she saw. Standing in the center of the room atop a wooden table was a pillow. Of course, the pillow itself was not what caught her attention but rather what was sitting atop the pillow.

It was the egg. 

Its red and blue–spotted shell was the same as Octavia had seen in the leaked video. Octavia rubbed at her eyes, uncertain if what she was seeing was a hallucination. The owlet blinked and sure enough, the egg was still present on the pillow, sitting innocuously in the open air of the library.

It was here. The egg was really here in the palace. 

“What the fuck?” Octavia whispered, eyes locked completely on the egg. “Why is this thing here?”

No answer came. She glanced around to see that the library was empty. There was no trace of anyone being present save for the faint smell of whiskey and cigar smoke. Surely, it had to be some kind of joke. It had to be a trick on her. Though who would do it and why was lost on her. 

Suspicious of the egg, Octavia took a few pensive steps toward it. Her footsteps were loud, cracking against the ice beneath her. She reached a hand out and gently pressed a single finger against the egg. The egg shell was hard, the calcified barrier cold. Yet, it was real. She couldn’t sense a spell around it either. 

It was real.

“Holy shit,” she mumbled softly. 

The egg was real. It was in the palace. Alone and unaccounted. 

Why?

Had her father brought it?

She hadn’t heard anything from her father since she last saw him. She didn’t have his new number and she was certain that he didn’t have hers since she had blocked him and the weird red dickhead. Her father was never openly cruel toward her and so he automatically was out of the question. Also, why would her father leave the egg alone in the cold? He was far too overprotective in terms of his nature. She expected the egg to be in an incubator, not in the freezing cold.

On the other hand, a part of her wanted to think that it was the imp who had done this. However, she quickly tossed that idea out the window once she realized how comical it was. He hadn’t contacted her in any shape or form since she last saw him either and Octavia doubted that he would ever risk Andrealphus or any of the Goetic council finding out about it. The same went for her father.

Oh shit, Octavia realized. That video’s probably all over the goddamn internet.

She hadn't thought about it until now. All of Hell probably knew that the red dickhead had knocked up her father by now. That meant the other Goetia likely knew too. There was certainly going to be an uproar about the fact that a Goetic hybrid was out in the open. Personally, Octavia didn’t care about such matters, but there were a lot of people in power who did.

It couldn’t have been good for the egg to be out in the cold like this. The child inside required constant heat in order to survive. She wondered just how long the egg had been sitting out in the open like this. 

And why would that be so bad, a voice in the back of her head jeered. Your father doesn’t deserve to be happy. Not when he abandoned you.

Octavia’s throat went dry at the dark turn her head took. 

No. No I couldn’t, she argued back with the voice. 

Yes, you can. Just fucking pick it up and smash it! The voice, which was starting to sound a lot like her mother’s voice, snarked.

Octavia thought about it. She stared at the egg that had essentially replaced her in her father’s life. It sat silent and unassuming in the library. What exactly did she feel about it?

Anger flared in her chest but it wasn’t at the egg itself. She thought of her father and how he had thrown her away with no explanation for some random imp. She thought of the restless nights watching her father drink himself into a stupor over the dumb imp who would either be the greatest demon in the world or just another sob story for her father to drink through. 

She thought about that smug red bastard and how he had destroyed their whole family. He was probably happy with her father too. Maybe he was thinking about her. Maybe he wasn’t, though if it was the former, he was likely spitting on her from afar. She hated him, but did she hate him enough to murder their child.

And what would Loona say? 

This was technically her sibling too. She would hate her for basically murdering them before they were born. 

And mine. 

Octavia ran a hand down the egg, feeling the shell along her claws. Whatever was inside was related to her too. She honestly had no idea as to how she should feel about them. She didn’t know if she should love or hate them. It was her half-sibling technically, but still. 

Can I…can I really do that to them?

Octavia frowned as she thought about it. She was so tired and alone. Destroying the egg would only make her feel more alone. Yet, the pain in her heart was strong.

He hurt you didn’t he? Seems only fair, the voice reminded her. Eye for an eye as they said. 

Yes…yes, he did hurt me, but…

“What am I doing?” Octavia whimpered, her conscience winning out. Just the very contemplation of destroying the egg made her sick.

And for what? A quarrelsome and petty vendetta.

Because she was mad at her father and how he left her for some imp. Octavia fell to her knees, hugging herself tightly to the point that her claws were pressing ruthlessly into her skin. Tears were streaming down her face like a waterfall of misery and regret. She’d never felt so disgusted in her life. 

The egg, her sibling, who had done nothing wrong except simply exist, and she was about to destroy them. If she broke the egg and splattered them onto the carpeted floor, her father would most certainly hate her now if he already didn’t. First, he would break down crying knowing he had failed to protect them. He would be devastated and probably become inconsolable. Hell, maybe it would be permanent and her father would become a husk of himself.

Octavia wanted to scream. She wanted to unleash her fury on something that wouldn’t be missed. She was mad at her father, yes. But to hurt him so deeply was not an action she could bear to take. She could never do that to him. To hurt him so viciously. It was inconceivable. Venal even.

Who was she kidding? She missed her dad. She wanted him back, but Octavia would never get him back if she destroyed his new child. She imagined the heated and angry stares. The righteous fury that the red dickhead and Loona would unleash upon her. How she would deserve it. Her father who would be unable to look at her, too defeated by his own grief.

It was all too real a possibility. Octavia would be a monster for enacting it. She wasn’t a monster. She didn’t want to be a monster.

A vulgar laugh echoed down the hall. Her mother’s laugh, growing louder and closer with each passing second. Octavia raised her head, horrified at being caught near the egg. On instinct, Octavia ducked away from the egg and hid herself behind one of the bookshelves. 

Pressing her back against the shelf, Octavia cursed to herself for forgetting about the egg. It was out there and alone at the mercy of her mother. Before she could muster the will to steal it away, the door slammed open and two pairs of footsteps clopped along the floor. Octavia’s heart raced and she clamped a hand over her beak to keep her breathing quiet.

“Ah! You actually managed to do your job right for once, Stroker!” Stella proclaimed with an unhinged giddy, her feet tapping on the food rhythmically. 

Octavia heard a vexed grunt follow her mother’s condescending tone as well as a whipping, rattling sound. 

“It’s Striker, ma'am," a southern accent drawled with thinly veiled anger. 

“Who gives a fuck,” Stella snarked dismissively before her voice turned excited again. “You actually brought me that loser’s toadish spawn!”

Octavia cursed to herself. Of course her mother was the reason why the egg was here. It hadn’t crossed her mind as why would its appearance be anything other than a slight against herself. It didn’t leave her feeling any better though.

Oh fuck, she actually had someone kidnap the egg, Octavia realized in horror. She reproached herself for not coming to that conclusion. 

Her father leaving the egg alone in the palace? How erroneous.

Dad’s probably freaking the fuck out, Octavia thought. 

Octavia could hear the other individual grinding his teeth at the slur coming out of her mother’s beak. The princess judiciously assumed that the other demon in question was a hellborn, probably another imp based on his reaction. Only her mother would have the lack of tact to talk so condescendingly with another hellborn in front of them. 

Actually, so did her uncle and literally most of the Goetia now that she was thinking about it. (The uproar and recent protests from the hellborn were becoming a lot more justified with each day.)

Octavia carefully moved some of the books on the shelf and peeked her gaze through it. 

Sure enough, she could see her mother gawking at the egg with a silver golf club in her hands. Her feathers were unusually messy and her dress clung to her body with an unusual tightness. If she didn’t know any better, Octavia would have said that her mother had become rather plump in the past month or so. Not the obese type of ‘fat’, but there was a noticeable paunch on her mother’s stomach.

Meanwhile, next to her mother was a salmon colored imp, a hybrid of some kind most likely, dressed as a cowboy, with brown boots with spurs, long pants and a worn vest underneath a white jacket. He even had the cowboy hat and was chewing on a straw of wheat. Octavia could see the truculent and calculating gears behind his eyes, plotting whatever move he had next.

“Isn’t it so disgusting?” Stella touted.

“That, I can agree with you on,” Striker remarked.

“What about Stolas and the imp, I never did ask?” Stella pondered.

Octavia furrowed her eyebrows at her mother. What was she talking about? 

“I almost had 'em,” Striker grunted vexingly. He smiled, his tongue slithering. “I managed to wound the owl, but that imp and his team are feistier than I give them credit for.”

Her mother rolled her eyes unsurprisingly. “Well, I shouldn’t be astounded by your failure considering you failed to kill that pathetic excuse of an ex of mine the last two times.” 

While Stella continued to rant to the assassin, Octavia’s hearing had begun to ring relentlessly. 

Last…two…times. 

Octavia’s vision became dizzy. She had to stop herself before she knocked down one of the books and alerted her mother to her presence.

Her mother had tried to have her father killed? Not once. Not twice. But now three times. She didn’t know. Her father had never said anything to her about it. Why had he not said anything to her? Surely, her mother would know that killing Stolas would have crushed her, right?

No, she wouldn’t. She…she…

She was benighted to her mother’s cruelty. Her mother had already shown how much she hated Stolas. Spat on his name daily. Wished him death every other sentence. Stella wouldn’t have broken a sweat at killing her ex-husband. With how horribly she treated Octavia, was it such a shock that Stella would resort to killing her ex-husband.

Why does he hate her more than she loves me? Octavia had asked over Loona a year ago now. 

How foolish she had been? The irony was settling within her stomach, bubbling and exploding like a violent thunderstorm. 

More importantly, her father was hurt. He was hurt, maybe dying somewhere while the egg was here. Stolen from him, gone and he was bleeding out due to him no longer being immune to regular weaponry. Octavia had to pinch herself to prevent the oncoming sense of hyperventilating. 

Oh god, please don’t let him be dead. Octavia didn’t even notice that she had begun to cry.

When did the last two attempts even occur? Had this been before or after her father’s banishment? When did her mother become the monster in front of her? Or had she always been like that and Octavia had been too blinded by her youth to see it?

Or did Dad not want me to know? Octavia pondered. It was a single thought, but it existed. 

“Ooh,” her mother tittered, her eyes lighting up with an idea, and the cruel smile on her beak implied it was not a good one. 

The white swan pulled out her phone and tapped a few buttons on it before handing the device over to the imp, Striker.

“Your failure has provided us an opportunity to really make them suffer, and I know you will enjoy this as much as I will.”

The imp assassin took the phone unhesitatingly and aimed the camera at the egg. “That it will.”

Stella spread her feet apart and tested the golf club in her hands. As she righted her hair, she glared at Striker. “Come on, Stripe! At least get my good side,” she complained. “I want to look absolutely vile as I shatter Stolas’ heart like I’m about to do to his spawn.”

Everything seemed to slow at this point for Octavia.

Stella raised the golf behind her head with both hands. The club shined like the tip of a sword. Striker stood to the side with Stella’s phone, filming the atrocity with a pointy smile. The egg sat on the pillow unmoving, unawares of the impending doom that was about to befall it.

And Octavia stood there helplessly watching.

Then, as the club came down, Octavia snapped herself out of her stupor.

Without even thinking, Octavia willed her magic to life. The starry magic coursed through her fingers. She arched her arm upward, her palm facing her half sibling, and implored the egg to fly toward her. The egg, now covered with her magical aura, flew from the pillow, narrowly missing being hit by the golf club as the object was whacked against it. Her mother swore furiously at her chance of revenge being stolen from her.

Octavia, having moved from behind the bookshelf, caught the egg in her hands, clutching it to her chest. She could feel its warmth blooming against her chest. The presence of life within it she could detect with her magic. 

She looked up toward her mother and shivered at the evil eyes now staring deeply into her. The cowboy imp dropped the phone and his hand cautiously went to the glowing pistol at his side. 

Octavia gulped realizing that she had been caught red-handed interfering with her mother’s plans. An action that her mother did not take kindly to.

“Octavia!” Stella roared, her feathers “What the fuck do you think you are doing, you insolent little girl?!”

Octavia shook at her mother’s enraged stance, a fire burning in the matriarch’s eyes as she stomped over to her daughter. Octavia shielded the egg within the pit of her arm. 

“You were gonna kill them,” Octavia whimpered, backing away from the seething peahen before her. 

Octavia had never been afraid of her mother before. She’d never had been the center of cold-blooded eyes that spoke of murder and death. Feeling them burrowing into her soul, Octavia began to recognize the evil that those eyes spoke of.

She remembered the fights her parents would get into. Her mother’s constant screaming at her father while he cowered before her, just like she was now. 

None of that was supposed to be normal, she realized in horror. Is this how Dad felt?

“Uhm, yes, that was the point of me trying to smash it to bits,” Stella remarked, incensed at her daughter’s interference. “Octavia, I don’t have time for this. Hand over the egg so that I can destroy that abomination.”

“No, I won’t let you harm them,” Octavia gasped.

“You–Ergh!” Her mother screeched, stomping her feet onto the floor and kicking over a nearby shelf, sending books tumbling onto the floor. Covers tore and pages flew in Stella’s wake of destruction. Octavia kept her grip around the egg tight. Not enough to crack the shell, but enough that she could keep it out of anyone’s hands.

When her mother finished her furious screams, the peahen roared, “Are you serious? Don't you dare tell me you think of that thing as your sibling!. It is a freak of nature that should not exist.” 

Octavia glanced down at the egg, her sibling, then back at her mother. 

“They’re not a freak,” Octavia whispered. She didn’t care what they were the product of nor did she resent them for existing. She was still their older sister. They needed her to protect them.

It was as simple as that.

Her mother heard her daughter and growled with an annoyed roll of her eyes. The peahen tightened her fists and slowed her breathing. She appeared to cool down her temper and gazed upon her child with a softer gaze. 

“Octavia, that egg is a symbol of the fact your father doesn’t love you, dear,” Stella told her in a tone not dissimilar to how she had sounded the day of her father’s trial. Her tone felt so wrong hearing it now. So disingenuous. Octavia felt foolish for falling for it back then.

“Wouldn’t it be better if it were destroyed? Isn’t that what you want?” Stella questioned. The peahen was directly in front of Octavia. Her arms were extended outward to embrace her. 

As they closed around her, Octavia recoiled from her mother’s touch. “No!” Octavia sobbed, feeling worse about her earlier thoughts about the egg. She saw what her mother wanted, as was evident by how her mother’s claws failed to swipe at the egg in Octavia’s arms. “No, that’s…that’s not what I want. Not at all!”

Her mother’s smile disappeared back into a frown. She held her hand out and motioned toward herself. “Octavia, give me the egg now, or else I’ll have my…helper here take it from you,” Stella demanded. In a lower, haunting tone, she warned, “And he won’t be as generous as I am being right now.”

Behind her, Striker flared a gold snaggle tooth at her, whipping out a serrated angelic blade and showing it off to her. The blade shined and Octavia shivered at the thought of the weapon slicing into her skin. She looked to her mother for any sign that it was all a joke. That her mother would never suggest something such as that.

Yet…

“Why?” Octavia whimpered.

“Why what?” Stella grunted uncaringly.

“Why do you hate Dad more than you love me?”

Stella flinched at the question, much to Octavia’s surprise. Her beak curled pensively into a deep frown. For a moment, Octavoa swore that she saw some ounce of regret in her mother’s eyes. Whatever it was, it vanished into dust as her mother shivered with fury.

“Do you have any idea what it’s like, Via, to be sold as nothing more than cattle,” her mother whispered, her voice piercing like an icicle. Octavia’s heart skipped a beat at the raw anger boiling within her mother’s shaking voice. 

“To be told at such a young age that your only purpose in this world,” her mother paused, her voice rising to a fury pitch as she screeched, “Was to pop an egg out of your fucking cunt?!” Stella’s voice cracked and her feathers fell from her body with how much her body was shaking.

Octavia felt an array of pity for her mother, hearing the unbridled emotion within her mother’s voice. Her entire life, her mother had been this poised and graceful woman who had a temper greater than Satan’s. While her father attended to her every need, Stella had been offended by the notion of parenthood. Octavia couldn’t recall a single memory of her mother and her having fun together. 

Now, Octavia knew why, and her heart was shattered by it.

Her mother didn’t love her at all. For what was Via if not a reminder that Stella’s life was never her own.

“It was so humiliating,” the woman seethed.

“Then why do it to me?” Octavia begged. 

Stella’s gaze washed over Octavia and the owlet could sense a wave of resentment toward her wash over her being. “Because that’s how the world works!” Stella urged. “It is horrid, but it is a truth of the world we inhabit. The faster you learn that, the more equipped you’ll be to live amongst high society.”

Stella talked as though she were preparing Octavia for a future trapped just as much as she was. The resentment lingered on her mother’s tongue, and Octavia began to wonder truly if her mother even loved her to begin with, or if she hadn’t wanted Octavia much like her father. 

The idea of becoming another doll dressed up for what her mother called ‘high society’ was not appealing to Octavia either.

“You mean become a loud and obnoxious drunk like yourself? I think I’ll pass,” Octavia begrudged. 

“You dare mock me?” Stella roared, shocked by her daughter’s tongue. Deeper lines formed on her forehead as fire literally formed in her eyes. “After all the humiliation I’ve endured because of your father, I think I’ve earned a bit of fun.”

Octavia glanced at the door to the library. It wasn’t that far away. She could make a run for it. Yet, she noticed Striker staring at her, noting her every move. Would he be able to stop her before she reached the door? Octavia felt trapped in her own home and time slowly escaped.

“And Stolas, that stupid weak and pathetic excuse of a man!” Stella continued to berate. The very mention of her ex-husband only deepened the rage seeping from her ice-like feathers. 

“Going about smiling about his stupid plants and books and those ridiculous stars. Never at me! Like I was just a fucking chore! Errraaaarrrggh!” 

Stella was pacing angrily, like her body had no place to store the anger within herself and so she was destroying everything in her path. Stella’s heavy breaths carried her towards the pedestal where the egg had been sitting previously and the woman tossed it at her daughter. 

Octavia ducked under it and the pedestal crashed into a glass table behind the princess. She could feel a few glass shards slink behind her feet. Octavia herself was wary of her mother. Octavia shook off the feeling that her mother had thrown it at her with the intention of harm, just as she had when the peahen did it to her father. It didn’t stop how fearful Octavia felt toward her mother, however.

The echoes of the past were cruel. Lingering onto the palace walls like a cancer. Broken plates and pots shattered within the walls. Stella would scream. Stolas would dodge out of the way and try to placate her. Stella would continue to scream, and Octavia would hide behind her headphones pretending that it was okay. 

She cried thinking how often it went on, more so pondering how often her father failed to dodge the objects her mother threw at him. His placating gaze no longer so. He was terrified. Just as she was now. 

“It is aggravating how much like him you are. So soft and sentimental,” Stella mocked hatefully toward her daughter. Octavia didn’t think it could get any worse yet her mother then paused in thought. Her expression was angry, yet she began to smile. A cruel and twisted smile that only horrified Octavia the longer she saw it.

“It was so much fun slapping that smirk off his face,” Stella recalled with a soft chuckle.

“You…you what?” Octavia whimpered. She held onto the egg more closely at her mother’s words. 

Her mother glanced at her daughter, unrepentant with her expression. She only continued to laugh about it. 

“I mean, why should he get to be happy when I’m the one stuck with him! He deserved to know what suffering was like! Fucking crybaby bitch!” Stella screamed. “And he has the gall to cheat on me. To publicly copulate with some bottom-feeding fire toad!” 

Octavia was barely listening to her mother, too deeply entrenched within her own memories as she sobbed heavily, her vision near blurry. She had been ignorant of what had been beneath the surface of her mother’s skin. Like casually talking about abusing your spouse was a sport, a game for fun. She couldn’t ignore it anymore, could she?

Oh…oh fuck. This was what Dad was running from, Octavia realized. Was she so foolish to realize that her mother's insults toward her father were not the norm?

“I will not take any more disrespect!” Stella screeched with finality as she stomped over toward her daughter, her eyes locked on the egg in Octavia’s arms.

“Mom, stop!” Octavia cried. She held up a wall of magic around herself, the starry barrier appearing before her mother, who looked surprised at her daughter’s magical opposition.

“Octavia! Drop this wall now!” Stella commanded, slamming her fists along the barrier, causing it to shimmer and quiver under the force of her strikes. Despite the ferocity of her tone, Octavia refused. She knew what would happen if she did and the princess didn’t wish to be covered in the yolk of her sibling.

Behind her mother, Striker pulled out his revolver and cocked the safety off. “You want me to handle this ma’am?” he asked nonchalantly.

“Not yet,” Stella replied as she continued to bang on the wall to no avail. “I can still convince her to drop it.”

Striker didn’t look so convinced. “You sure about that?” 

Stella growled at her continued failure to bring down the barrier. All the while, Octavia clung to the egg, recoiling against the transparent veil of stardust she had constructed around herself. Yet it also served as a prison. She was trapped with nowhere to go. She couldn’t hold the veil for long either. Her mother’s banging wouldn’t do anything against it, she was sure. That Striker fellow’s angelic weaponry, however, would easily tear through the force field.

She was out of options. Octavia’s eyes turned to the floor beneath her, unable to stare into the raging beast that was her mother. She continued to focus on it as her train of thought shifted. 

Unless…

“You were going to destroy them too, weren’t you,” Stella stated, catching Octavia off guard. The owlet held an expression of guilt at her mother’s words. Her mother smirked pridefully at her child. “That’s why you're here, isn’t it. Oh, isn’t that rich? And here I thought you were more like your father. For once I’m glad to be wrong.”

“I don’t want to be like you! I’m not a monster!” Octavia screamed at her mother and causing the woman to freeze, shocked by her daughter’s accusation. Octavia herself was shocked, her brain taking a moment to catch up with her voice. Yet, she couldn’t find it in herself to disagree with her heart.

Her mother’s expression hardened and the peahen coldly remarked to her, “If a monster is what you think I am, then so be it.”

She turned to the hired hand. “Striker.”

“Yes ma’am,” he replied.

Stella turned back to her daughter, her hard-hearted stare drilling hatred into Octavia, and uttered two words that broke her more than she already was.

“Do it.”

With his master’s permission, Striker raised his angelic revolver up, the barrel pointed at Octavia, and pulled the trigger.

Chapter Text

The bullet exploded out of the barrel, smoke spewing from it, and sailed toward Octavia. The spiraling object, so small, yet so deadly, would have paralyzed Octavia. But by that point, Octavia had already made her exit strategy. With the flick of a finger and the muttering of a spell, Octavia conjured up a portal beneath her feet. As fast as it appeared did the owlet fall through it. 

At the same time, the bullet crashed into the veil and drilled through it, sparks flying, until it burst through the veil. It narrowly missed Via’s head as it crashed and embedded itself into the other end of the veil having lost its momentum. 

She could feel the bullet whizz past her head feathers, her heart nearly exploding at the close touch. Death had nearly claimed her being and she would have been lost to the stars. The princess couldn’t dwell on it as the wind was knocked out of herself as she collided with a hard surface. Octavia had landed with her back against a brick wall, the egg protected against her chest. 

She gasped in pain as she landed on her tail feathers. Her ears were ringing from how fast her heart was racing. Her mind was jumping incoherently between thoughts, yet one thing remained consistent in her brain. 

Mum really did it. She really told that assassin to kill me.

Above her, Octvaia could hear her mother’s screeching through the portal. “Octavia! You can’t run forever. We will–”

The portal shimmered and shook, waving in motion as it sealed shut, cutting off Stella and leaving Octavia alone in the silence of where she had portaled herself. She stared at the space where the portal had once been, almost expecting her mother to be right behind her, or at least the assassin who had tried to kill her.

How could she? 

Octavia stifled a sob, pitiful hoots popping out from her beak inconsistently. As her body began to relax, the focus of her mother’s rage returned to her and Octavia began to break down.

She hugged the egg to her chest for some sort of comfort seeing that she was alone. She had been wrong. So wrong about everything. She was slowly beginning to realize that her mother had never loved her. The woman had made that clear with how much she seemed to resent her. 

Worse, she was beginning to recognize why her father had been so miserable. She’d thought it was solely because of her, and maybe in some way she had been a contributor to his misery. 

But her mother…

Octavia had never known that anyone’s cruelty could be so deep and putrid. Her mother and father in hindsight had never been in love with one another. The princess had accepted this truth a long time ago. 

But for her mother to gain delight from abusing her own husband. Octavia would have puked if she had anything in her stomach to vomit up in the first place. 

How could Dad put up with that for so long? Octavia wondered. She wasn’t worth it. Not for him to suffer under her mother for almost two decades.

And that made it so much worse. That he had put up with the abuse for her. She didn’t need to ask him to know that he had stayed in that marriage for her. He had seemed to imply as much when they last saw each other. 

She had only ever been an obligation. 

There were days when her father would seem to flinch in pain unexpectedly or he’d have some unexplained injury along his face. One time, her father accidently fell down the stairs and sprained his ankle; broke his arm too. However, the most prominent of these moments occurred on a day that Octavia would recall as one of her favorites from her childhood. Octavia recalled one particularly nasty gash he had across his forehead on her eighth birthday. 

She had gone looking for her mother and father after they unexpectedly left the ballroom to speak. She only ever found her father. Back then, she had been naive to the quiet sobs and the way her father smiled through the sorrow in his eyes. He had told her that he had tripped onto one of the potted plants, never mind how utterly ridiculous that was. That such a deep cut could be caused by a simple misstep. 

And then he had cleaned himself up with his magic and promised her a fun night with the stars afterward and she had completely forgotten it.

Had that been mother too? 

A foolish question with an obvious answer.

Despite her mother stating it as plainly with her eyes, it was difficult to accept. Her mother had tried to kill her and gave too deeply into that reality now, she might not be able to get up.

After a few minutes of no portal opening up behind her, Octavia released a strangled sob. She wiped away her tears with her arms as she stood up, ignoring the cracks in her heart from the sting of betrayal. She hadn’t thought that she could hurt worse than when she saw her father’s head on the executioner’s block. 

Life had a way of proving her wrong it seemed. 

The warmth of the egg against her chest reminded her why she had portaled herself away in the first place, pulling her out of her head. 

She looked around and saw a dark gray sky filled with dark and fluffy clouds. A boom of thunder echoed above and a gust of wind blew a chill through her. 

The alleyway she found herself in was dirty but she was pleased to not be graced by the repulsive stench of rotten eggs and smog. 

On the opposite end much closer to her, she was met with the sight of a streetway lined with walking humans and shops. They had a more rustic and homely charm compared to the bustling cosmopolitan metropolis she was used to.

She was in the human world. 

Again.

“We’re safe now, I guess,” she whispered awkwardly to the egg. She didn’t know why. It wasn’t like they would respond. 

She hadn’t been paying attention when she made the portal. All she wished for when she conjured it was to be somewhere safe from her mother. She supposed that the human world was as safe as it was given her mother’s lack of magical abilities. 

Though it wouldn’t be long before Uncle Andre found out as well, she surmised. He would be able to pinpoint her location and find her. Though it would be awhile. He’d probably search throughout Hell first before even considering checking the human world, so she was safe for a few hours. 

Still, she couldn’t stay here. She had to keep moving, but to where.

The answer seemed obvious. That didn’t mean she liked it any better.

She needed to see her father. She prayed that he was alive and that whatever injury that had been inflicted on him wasn’t fatal. The assassin had said that he hadn’t killed her father’s boyfriend either. If the red dickhead really did care about him, then perhaps he was already searching for the egg too. Them and Loona and those other two imps that worked for the dickhead. 

Yet, did she want to put them in danger? With her uncle’s resources, her father would be in danger should Octavia go to them with the egg. No, she couldn’t put him in danger when he was probably hurt.

Her Uncle Vassago then. Yes, she decided. He could protect her and the egg. He was a prince. There was no way her uncle would be dumb enough to send that assassin after her in Vassago’s care.

She raised her hand again and attempted to conjure a portal with her mind. One began to form in front of her. It started as a circular orifice, dark and wavy. However, just as it formed, it quickly sputtered out of existence. 

Shit,” Octavia mumbled. Her legs grew weak and the owlet found herself leaning against the wall again for support. She had already been tired earlier, and her energy was further exhausted from the portal and force field. She should have seen this coming.

The princess grew hopeless as she realized that her only shot at safety was gone. She was alone with an easily breakable egg in the human world, in her pajamas and without her magic. Octavia’s eyes twitched with how done with life she was at the current moment.

Then, something wet hit Octavia’s head. Then another. And then another. Until Octavia was being poured upon by the rain clouds above. She arched her back so as to cover the egg and prevent it too from being pelted by the dancing rain.

“Fuck!” Octavia groaned out loud. “Could life please just give me a fucking break!”

As if to respond to her, a metal door further down the alleyway slammed open. A human woman with bronze skin and chocolate brown hair in pig tails stepped outside carrying a cardboard box. She wore a tight red and white striped dress that ended halfway down her thighs and a black shoulderless vest over it. Her arms were covered with white marks like tattoos. Though the most prominent of them was a black heart-like insignia with a white X over it on her forehead. 

Octavia thought it was familiar but the fact that she was out in the open in front of a random human was a much bigger issue to her. The woman’s yellow eyes spoke of boredom as she turned to Octavia, quickly morphing into shock at the presence of the demon princess.

“Oh shit!” The woman gasped, nearly dropping the box in her arms.

Octavia, stunned by the sudden appearance still and far too tired to run, wobbled on her feet anxiously. “Uhm, it’s not–”

“What the fuck are you doing out of your disguise?” The woman questioned impatiently.

Octavia blinked in surprise. “Huh.”

The woman groaned in annoyance at Octavia’s silence. She set the box down and approached the owl princess. “I said, what the fuck are you doing out of your human disguise? Satan’s tits, you’re as bad as my brother.”

“You’re a demon,” Octavia stated, astounded by the revelation. She couldn’t believe her luck.

“Uh, duh,” The woman snarked. “Don’t change the subject! I asked you…what…you’re…” The woman’s eyes slowly loved down and centered themselves toward what Octavia was carrying, her mind seeming to short circuit upon the object in question. “Is that an egg?”

. . .

5 minutes later…

The warehouse was a welcome breath of fresh air compared to the raining atmosphere outside. It was empty save for a few ‘humans’ who noticed Octavia and the imp woman climbing up the stairs up to the upper office in the corner of the facility. It was a square room in the corner of the warehouse, accessible by catwalks built along the walls.

The woman had shifted back into her demon form, revealing herself to be a red imp, her pigtails taking the form of two horns that curled in on themselves and a spaded tail swishing behind her. Her expression was that of annoyance, but she didn’t rattle on at Octavia which the princess was grateful for.

As she stepped upstairs, the owlet was better able to get a good view of the base of operations of the imp woman. Several shipping containers were lined up along the floor, with workers moving them out to long tables where they were counted by other staff members with clipboards. 

She noticed the warehouse had been divided into several sections too. One section contained mostly furniture and other knicknacks that would find themselves in the living room or bedroom of a demon. Other sections contained demons sorting through food products, alcohol, and even what seemed to be drugs. The latter was evident by the fact that a pair of workers were sampling the product, their eyes bulging as they sniffed up a white powder on the table. 

The woman eyed the activity from the edge of the railing and growled disapprovingly. “Hey assholes,” she called, catching the attention of the drug sniffing demons. 

“Sniff any more of that shit and I’ll blow it up your ass! And don’t fucking think I won’t do it!” 

The pair of workers blanched at the threat and got back to storing the goods, nearly knocking over each other in the process. Octavia stared at the imp woman half-impressed and the other half nervous around her temper. She shook her head of the nastiness from her mother’s rampage earlier. The woman in front of her didn’t seem that awful.

“A bit unprofessional,” Octavia noted.

The imp woman rolled her eyes but didn’t argue with her. “Yeah, well, with operations like this, you need to take all the help you can get. I’d hire more competent workers, but I’m still technically on probation after my brother fucked up my last gig.”

“Sorry. He sounds like a dickhead,” Octavia replied.

“Heh. He is,” the imp woman remarked with a scowl. Though her expression softened as she admitted, “But it’s also partially my fault too. That’s what I get for trusting a teenager to get me decent drugs without killing anybody.”

“You let your teenage brother supply drugs from the human world?” Octavia asked, shocked by the confession.

The woman shook her head. “No. The teenager was some human kid and my brother’s my age. We’re twins and…” The woman paused, realizing she was rattling on and groaning near irksomely. “It’s a whole thing, okay.”

Octavia noticed the irritated look in the woman’s eyes at the mention of her brother and decided it was best to drop the subject. 

“I um, I didn’t get your name?” Octavia queried as the woman opened the door to the office for her. 

The tattoo on the woman’s head was much more prominent now that Octavia was facing her. With a better visual on it, she realized that it was the exact same as that of the tattoo on the forehead of her father’s boyfriend. Octavia wondered if it was simply a coincidence. Perhaps a trend that happened some time ago, or maybe they both belonged to the same organization at one point in the past. It was impossible to say as Octavia had never seen anything like it before. 

“It’s Barbie,” the imp woman, Barbie, replied. “What’s yours?”

“Octavia,” the princess answered as she stepped inside, her earlier thoughts drifting away as she took in the office space, or living space as Octavia was beginning to recognize it as.

The office was small but built like a tiny apartment bedroom. A few lamp lights hung from the ceiling, casting the room in a bright yellow glow. A window covered with curtains hid them from the rest of the warehouse. A closet rested along the right wall by the door and a desk and stool opposite it just below the window. A neatly made bed with black sheets sat opposite the door. Octavia eyed the bed enviously.

“Is there a title that goes before it?” Barbie snarked.

“I could care less about that,” Octavia huffed. Most days, she wished she could be anyone other than a princess.

Barbie noticed the owlet’s eyes lingering on the bed and the woman nodded at her that it was fine. Octavia’s body shook with relief as she sat down on the soft bedsheets. The toll from earlier in the day was starting to catch up to her. 

“A royal who’s not a stuck up prick. That’s a first,” Barbie shrugged.

Octavia scowled at the imp woman. “Rude.” Though she paused as she realized what Barbie had implied. “How’d you know I was a royal?”

Barbie chuckled mockingly. “I think I know what a Goetia looks like by this point, and you technically just told me so.”

Octavia opened her beak to sarcastically reply but held herself back from doing so. She didn’t wear too much into the woman’s kindness. Not when the woman had every reason to turn Octavia into her mother and uncle. 

The owlet eyed the desk again. It was layered with a couple of magazine filers filled with manila folders and other important ledgers. A single framed photo sat on the desk showing Barbie and another imp woman with thick, puffy black hair in a head band. The two appeared happy together. Were they girfriends? Though Octavia noticed that the photo was torn in half within the frame, held together by tape with the rip tearing between the two, implying some sort of schism in the relationship.

“Do you live here?”

“Not always,” Barbie answered, settling onto the stool and leaning back against the desk. “Can’t exactly stay away from this place for too long without it all going to shit so it was easier to set up the office as a home away from home.”

Octavia noticed how forced the response was, like a lie she repeated to herself in the hopes that she might believe it. Octavia took a look at the bed and then at the photo on the desk, and finally considered how empty the room was. It was Octavia's guess that Barbie didn't have anywhere else to go and didn't want to admit that she was technically homeless. Out of respect, the princess decided to keep her beak shut on this detail.

Barbie picked a bottle of beer from the box she had been carrying from earlier and held it out toward the princess. 

“Want some beer?” she offered.

“I’d rather not,” Octavia muttered, leaning back at the gesture.

“What? Too good for what the rest of us peasants drink,” Barbie teased.

“Not quite. I’m seventeen, and even if I was of age I,” Octavia paused. She thought about her parents and their own relationship with the beverage. Anxiously, she responded, “I…I know people who don’t have a good relationship with it is all.”

“Fair enough,” Barbie replied with a nod of understanding. “I try to not drink the stuff often, though human beer is less potent than the demonic brands. It’s technically still alcohol but it has the effect of a sparkling soda.”

“And yet you offered it to an underage girl,” Octavia noted, raising her eyebrows at the imp woman.

“Just testing how stupid you are,” Barbie smirked, popping the bottle of alcohol and taking a swig from it. “And you get an A+ for intelligence. I’d give you a sticker if I had one on me.”

“Thanks,” Octavia remarked dead-panned. “That makes me feel so much better.”

Barbie chuckled at the sarcasm. “I’m sure it does. Make yourself at home brat.”

Though Octavia knew it was simply a gesture. She wouldn’t be staying long. But the sentiment was thoughtful and it made the burden within her chest easier to bear for some odd reason though she had only known her for a few minutes. 

“So, what is all of that out there?” Octavia asked, her eyes glancing through the curtains. 

“Isn’t it obvious? We’re traffickers.”

Octavia nearly choked on her own saliva, her hands covering the egg instinctually. “Should I be worried?”

“Not that kind!” Barbie groaned. “We move stuff from the human world to ours. Drugs. Alcohol. Personal items. You wouldn’t believe what Sinners want brought with them into the afterlife.”

“So, no people?”

Barbie sighed. “Fuck no. That shit’s fucking disgusting and the last thing any of us want is to piss off Asmodeus, especially since we use his crystals to move back and forth.” For emphasis, she held out her left arm, showing off the orange crystal that was familiar to succubi working under the Sin of Lust.

“I thought those were only for succubi and incubi lusting after humans here on Earth.”

“Well, it’s not all they’re used for,” Barbie remarked, a sly grin forming on her lips. “Though I do gotta crank a good fuck out every now and then to keep the thing working. These humans are easy to do it with too. Just one ass shake and I have 'em in the palm of my hand.”

“I did not need to know about that,” Octavia gagged. She now wondered if the tattoo on her forehead was indicative of rampant horniness.

“You asked, so I delivered. It’s kind of my business model,” The imp woman commented proudly, leaning back against her desk. 

“Even if it gets you into trouble?”

Barbie nonchalantly took another sip from the bottle of beer. “Nah, I usually stay away from risky jobs.” Though at this, the woman’s gaze became much more serious. Barbie leaned forward and asked her, “Speaking of trouble, how much of it are you in?”

Octavia gulped nervously at the question. While Barbie didn’t seem untrustworthy, right now, Octavia wasn’t sure if she should share her situation with a woman she just met. It wasn’t the brightest idea, but Octavia was without many options to her. 

“What makes you think I’m in trouble?” Octavia questioned with a steely tone.

Barbie scoffed at her attempt to put up a front. Obviously, the woman wasn’t one for bullshit. “Girl, you are a Goetian stranded in the human world in your pajamas with an egg you just birthed.”

“The egg’s not mine,” Octavia blinked. She probably wouldn't be able to walk by this point if she birthed it either. “They’re my sibling. Half-sibling technically, but still.”

Barbie paused at the correction but continued by remarking, “Okay. That doesn’t explain how you ended up here with them.”

“I could leave if I wanted to,” Octavia told Barbie.

Barbie chuckled sardonically. “Then portal out of here right now. I assume you are the one who portaled yourself here.”

Octavia squirmed in her seat on the bed. She was too tired to think of a proper rebuttal and so was anxious about being put on the spot. Suddenly, it was as though her body finally remembered how tired it was and Octavia shrunk on herself. 

“I…I don’t have the energy to open another one up. I…I…it’s been a week, okay,” she whispered weakly. Her body was so close to giving out on her and trying to open up another portal might end up doing real harm to herself. She felt so useless, even more so with the egg in her lap. 

Barbie stared intensely at Octavia with a quiet contemplative gaze, her eyes squinting, honing deep into the owlet’s being.

Eventually, Barbie sighed, her expression softening toward the owlet. “Look kid. You look fucking exhausted and from the way you’re shaking, pretty roughed up too,” Barbie told her. “I don’t normally stick my neck out for strangers but…”

Barbie appeared to physically struggle with her words as she considered what to say next. “Gah. I’m not good at this shit alright. I don’t need your trouble on my fucking plate!” Barbie seemed to be wrestling with her morals, unable to come to a consensus on what to do with the princess. “Please just tell me what happened and maybe I can help you, or better yet, find someone who can help you.”

“You can’t help me. I can barely help myself.”

The weight of everything was beginning to creep up again. She had managed to avoid her feelings by distracting herself with Barbie but now that said woman was now questioning her about what happened, Octavia was faced with the volcanic sea of emotions brewing in her heart.

“I’m gonna guess that someone is trying to kill you,” Barbie queried. The imp woman’s shoulders were tense at the possible danger but she was concerned as well in her tone. 

Octavia could only nod in response.

“Can you tell me who?”

Octavia’s throat grew tight. The truth was bubbling beneath her throat like bile. Maybe it was bile. She didn’t want to say it. That would make it real. Could she not pretend it was never real for a bit longer? 

“Okay, maybe it doesn’t–”

“My Mum,” Octavia croaked. 

A silence plowed through the air between them. There it was. The truth as it was. Octavia had spoken it.

Barbie’s eyes widened and her mouth opened into a bottomless cavern. The imp woman paused, her eyes moving with thought over the princess’ words before sympathy grew over them.

The sympathy was what broke her…because what was there to have sympathy over. Her mother had tried to kill her. How could anyone understand what it meant for a parent to despise you so deeply? Octavia didn’t realize she was crying until her vision grew blurry and the feathers on her face became wet. A sobbing hoot flickered through her throat and the owlet stopped thinking and bawled.

A presence made itself known next to her, two arms and a third appendage wrapping themselves around herself.

“Sorry kid,” Barbie sighed.

That just made Octavia cry harder and the owlet found herself leaning into the imp woman who had no reason to be so kind to her. She didn’t feel like she deserved such kindness. 

. . .

At some point, Octavia had fallen asleep during her crying. She supposed it didn’t really matter at this point. She had already been so close to unconsciousness prior so what did some shut eye hurt her.

However, it was during her sleep that Octavia discovered the sensation of falling. Sinking into a deep abyss like she had in her nightmares from her childhood. Plunging deeper into darkness and surrounded by a cacophony of voices. There were so many, familiar and unrecognizable. Some normal and others monstrous in pitch. 

Another vision, perhaps, she wondered. Was this the stars trying to tell her something? Or were her powers out of whack due to her own exhaustion? Looking down, Octavia spotted a white light. It was small at first. Really a dot. Only the dot grew and grew and grew, until Octavia realized that the dot was in fact the place she was falling towards.

Regardless of the answer, it seemed she was about to see what was in store for her.

Just as the feeling of falling began, Octavia was thrown against a solid surface. The princess groaned in pain at the force of her head colliding with the surface. If it was real, she might have been concussed by the impact. As she stood up, the faint smell of antiseptic caught Octavia’s attention. She turned around and realized she was no longer in the old musty walls of Barbie’s office. 

Rather she was now in a hospital room. The walls were covered in floral wallpaper, the windows showing a deep pink sky, the night of Sloth endless with its dreamful slumber. She’d never been in a hospital before now. 

The princess had never been sick aside from a common cold nor had she ever gone to see anyone in such a place. Octavia recalled that her mother had spoken about having tried to have her father assassinated before. Even admitting the truth to herself now didn’t stop the chills down her spine. But to digress, she wondered how badly if at all her father had been hurt during those attempts. Would he have ended up here? If so, why had he never told her?

She would have loved to say it was because he didn’t wish to be by her, but that excuse felt too dry and unrelated. Had he been ashamed of being unable to defend himself, or was it the burden of knowing that he would have to look her in the eye and know that her own mother was the one responsible for his pain?

Octavia had little time to ponder this when she spotted the hospital bed. More specifically, she spotted the demon she had just been thinking about resting within said bed.

“Dad!” Octavia gasped, a sob elicited from her beak. It was bittersweet seeing him there. She was heartened being able to just see him again. Yet, her heart twisted from the pain that came with seeing him beaten up and from the feeling of only ever being an obligation to the demon she loved and looked up to.

The banished prince was sleeping, the blue covers of the bed pulled up to his waist, arms hooked up to an EKG reader and blood transfusion packs. A bandage was wrapped tightly around his chest as well as a smaller bloodier bandage wrapped around his head, evidence of the scuffle he supposedly had with the assassin who tried to kill her. 

Octavia felt rage bubbling within her chest. She was going to find that assassin and kill them herself if that imp her father was dating didn’t get to them first. But for now, she was relieved to see her father alive.

So relieved to see him was Octavia that the princess momentarily forgot her anger towards him and made a mad dash for her father. Only she didn’t reach him as she collided with an invisible wall.

“What the hell?” Octavia uttered, banging her fists along the wall, the obstacle unseen and unmoving. 

She stared through the invisible wall, her heart pleading for it to vanish so she could be close to her father. He looked so frail in his hospital gown, his feathers dull and messy, shallow breaths infrequently coursing through the nose holes on his beak. Even on his worst drinking binges, Octavia wasn’t certain she had ever seen her father appear so disheveled.

It took her a moment to notice that her father wasn’t alone.

The imp was there too. Blitzø, the imp holding one of her father’s limp hands. He was in a pair of gray pants and a white t-shirt. He looked utterly exhausted with his reddened eyes and dark bags beneath them. Said eyes were deeply ingrained into Stolas’ sleeping form, a permanent frown emblazoned on the imp’s face. 

Despondent was the word for how Blitzø looked and for the first time, Octavia truly felt for him. She remembered how happy the imp had seemed sitting by her father in the video she had seen of them a week earlier, like the two were made for one another. In all of this time, she had wondered if the imp only saw her father as a good fuck and a cash cow. 

Now, however, it was hitting her how wrong she was.

He really does love him.

Was this what the stars wanted to show her? To disavow her assumptions?

Whatever it was, the vision wasn’t finished. Her father’s facial muscle twitched and a soft, pitiful groan leaped from his beak. His eyes creaked open, the top two first, followed by the bottom two, white irises dancing awake from the throes of slumber.

“Stolas!” Blitzø gasped, a smile of relief gracing his face as he noticed the owl waking up. 

“Blitzø,” her father croaked, eyes pointing toward his lover. The owl prince attempted to get up, causing the EKG meter to rise in pitch.

Blitzø placed his other hand against Stolas’ shoulder and gently forced him back down against the bed. “Stols, hey. Just sit tight for me. You’re in no position to get up.”

“What happened?” Stolas asked, his voice weary. The owl groaned and his hand went to the bandages on his chest.

Blitzø seemed to shake. Whether it was from rage or sorrow, Octavia couldn’t guess, but the imp replied to Stolas’ question, “You got shot with angel steel. We almost lost you.”

Octavia couldn’t shake away the gasp from her own beak. While her father seemed to shrug off the admission from Blitzø due to his own exhaustion, Octavia nearly crumbled onto her knees. Her father had been shot. Worse with angelic weapons, one of the only things that could kill an Ars Goetia demon. She’d almost lost him for good. The very thought propelled her to want to break through the wall.

“You look so exhausted, Darling. Have you been up this whole time?” Stolas queried, unphased by his own physical trauma.

Blitzø shook his head. “I couldn’t sleep. Not with how fucked everything is.”

Stolas frowned, the owl frightened by the thoughts brought to life through his own throat. “The egg. Our egg. Did he?”

Blitzø choked up, his eyes tearing up. “I’m sorry, Stolas. I wasn’t…Striker he took…”

Octavia paused at the name. Striker. That had been the assassin who’d been by her mother’s side. The one who stole the egg. It occurred to her that neither her father or Blitzø might have known the egg was no longer in his possession.

Stolas himself looked about ready to cry too. Still, despite his tears, he comforted his lover by cupping his cheek. It seemed that this was all he could do. “It’s…okay, Darling. I know you tried your hardest. It wasn’t your fault.”

“It was though, it…I should have,” Blitzø remarked, his fists tightening angrily.

“Blitzø, please. I should have–” 

“Dont!” Blitzø yelled suddenly, startling Stolas. The imp shrunk realizing he’d snapped and sobbed, “Stolas, this wasn’t your fault.”

“Well, it wasn’t yours either?” Stolas argued.

“Then who do I blame?!”

Stolas narrowed his eyes on his lover. “Perhaps the one who took our child in the first place?”

Blitzø paused, appearing as though he had never considered it as an option. His eyes grew angry thinking about the demon who’d taken his child. “Okay. I can work with that.” His fists tightened as deeper lines drew on his forehead. It was obvious to any outside observer, including Via, that murder was on his mind. Though it quickly vanished as a dainty blue hand settled against the imp.

“You’re s–so strong, Blitzy,” Stolas comforted, through a shuttering voice. “Stronger than anyone I know. You’ll find them and protect them. I believe in you.”

Blitzø sobbed at the caring words. His eyes stared out through the window, pondering. “Loona and M&M are out searching right now. Ozzie’s also using his connections to find them. Loona even managed to get Beelzebub to help us out too.”

Octavia was left speechless by the reveal. How in Hell had the imp and Loona manage to get the help of two Sin Lords. Just what connections did they have? She might have to ask the next time she sees them.

“I’m surprised you’re not out there helping. Not that I mind having you here,” Stolas commented curiously.

“I wanted to be out there, believe me,” Blitzø grumbled. “Fizz had his blue chicken use a spell to keep me in here. Was ‘for my own good’ as he put it.” Blitzø crossed his arms together as his tail whipped furiously behind him. “Try sitting still when your kid is in the hands of an insecure self-righteous cowboy prick and your partner’s half-dead in the hospital.” 

Octavia took in her father’s lover and his dedication. He was rude and vulgar, but there was care laced deeply within his words. It actually reminded her of Barbie a bit.

Stolas smiled albeit bitterly. “Well, I suppose I should thank him then. It would be better that you didn’t kill yourself from exhaustion for when we do find our child.” 

“Blitzø glanced down, considering Stolas’ point of view. “I suppose.” The imp’s jaw tightened in frustration. “I just wish I could do more.”

Stolas nodded. “I know you do, but right now, ‘more’ means you are taking care of yourself.”

The two sat there in silence for a while, basking in the glow of each other. Octavia had always wondered what it was like for two people to just enjoy each other’s presence, even at the lowest moments. Just like what she believed her parents’ relationship used to be. Seeing it here, it all felt surreal.

Her father’s mood began to grow dark as he seemed to be thinking something unpleasant. He made his repugnant thoughts known, stating, “I assume Stella and Andrealphus are searching for the egg as well, assuming they were the ones who sent that devil after us.”

The way with which Stolas knew that her mother was responsible for his predicament stung Octavia. It was another reminder that she had been clueless to the horrors of her parents’ marriage.

The imp didn’t reply immediately, but the look in his eyes told the owl all he needed to know. 

“I’m sorry, Stolas,” Blitzø replied.

Stolas tilted his head to the side and sighed despondently. “Why won’t she just leave me alone?” Stolas cried softly. 

Blitzø didn’t respond, because how could he. Via wouldn’t have known what to say either. She still couldn’t fathom the level of hatred her mother used to justify her actions. Seeing her father’s state both physically and mentally drew to the surface just how disgusting her mother was acting. She’d ignored it before but being witness to the consequences of her mother’s unfettered temper billowed Octavia’s own.

She’d been so scared of her mother before, so caught off guard by the monster in front of her then. Octavia hoped that her anger would overpower her fear the next time she saw her mother.

“What is it?” Stolas questioned, his eyes becoming worrisome at Blitzø’s anxious expression. The imp was shifting nervously in his seat, his throat bubbling with words that refused to make themselves known.

“Darling, please tell me?” Stolas begged.

Blitzø frowned. Octavia could see the uncertainty on the imp’s face. He was hiding something and the way that Blitzø squirmed from his inability to say it that said secret would drive her father crazy. 

Finally, Blitzø told him, “It’s Octavia. Apparently, she took the egg from the ice queens and ran off with them.”

“Wh–What?!” Stolas squawked. He nearly jumped from his bed. The EKG meter beeped in the background at a faster pace. “Where are they?”

Her father was shaking with panic and his feathers were puffing out.

“Elsa’s got your legions looking all over for her, but they haven’t found her,” Blitzø assured, but her father didn’t seem to be listening. Her father was definitely awake now, the owl conjuring up energy within his body at hearing about her being in danger.

Meanwhile, Blitzø was trying to keep Stolas from tearing off the wires and tubes in his arms. “Stolas. Baby, calm down!”  

Stolas was fighting Blitzø as the imp wrestled him by the arms in order to keep the owl in his bed. “No, don’t tell me to calm down! It was bad enough with our egg missing. Now Via’s in danger too.” 

“But Stolas, you said–”

“I know what I said!” Stolas sobbed. The shout zapped some of the energy from the owl prince and Stolas fell against Blitzø’s shoulder, weeping uncontrollably and shattering Octavia’s heart. “My Starfire…I can’t…She can’t die. I cannot lose either of them!”

“I know, baby. I know,” Blitzø whispered, gently rubbing the owl’s back as the EKG meter exploded with noise beside them. “We’ll find them both, I promise,” the imp assured, though it did little to soothe the unending tears coming from the owl.

Octavia cried her own silent tears at her father’s state. The owl prince cried for her like he cared about her when…

Was she truly so blind to his tears, even back then in the wintery courtyard…

No, no it couldn't be...

“Dad. Dad, I’m right here!” Octavia cried longingly, banging against the wall, forgetting that her father couldn’t hear or see her, losing herself to her emotions.

Her efforts were fruitless as she leaned defeatedly against the wall. She was alone. So close, yet so far away, and in some way, Octavia knew it was partially her own fault.

“I’m sorry.” 

. . .

Octavia’s eyes shot open and the princess threw herself seated upward. Her heart was racing again, sweat beading down the back of her head. She took a deep breath and counted to five. After five seconds, she opened her eyes and breathed out.

She glanced around to see she was still in the office. Barbie must have left her sleeping on the bed. 

That vision. 

It had felt too real to be a string of her imagination. Her father was alive. 

Octavia was flooded with relief knowing that she hadn’t lost him. But his reaction to her being in danger...

Why did he seem to care? Had she been wrong all this time? She didn’t know. What she was aware of was that she needed to leave. To find him and let him know that she was okay.

Octavia sat up over the edges of the bed. The room was empty. Barbie had left at some point during her sleep. The voices and noises outside had softened greatly, though she could still hear demons outside. A clock on the wall read 5:30. It had been about 10 in the morning when she first left her room. It was late evening if not already nighttime. She’d been asleep for seven hours. 

She was surprised that her uncle hadn’t found her by now given that his legions were scouring all of Hell for her and the egg. 

Though that raised the question of when her mother had told Andrealphus the truth. Knowing her mother, the peahen would have been panicking initially. Maybe she had taken control of the legions first. Caused a bit of chaos and that was how her brother found out. Regardless, it didn’t bode well for her or the egg.

Hopefully, she would be able to keep the egg sa–

Octavia swiveled her head around and searched for the egg. It was gone.

The egg. Where was the–

The door to the office opened and Barbie stepped inside. Against her chest, she held a cylindrical glass case with orange lids. Within it was the egg, sitting atop a pillowy surface, safe and whole. A soft hum sounded from the device, heat warming the shell within.

“Oh, you’re up,” Barbie realized as the door shut behind her. “Sleep well?”

Octavia barely could register the question, her eyes locked on the egg.

“Is that…,” Octavia began, recognizing the instrument as an incubator. The egg appeared to fit perfectly within the device too. 

Barbie nodded, handing the incubator back to Octavia, who took the device without hesitation. The heat from it radiated against her lap. It was a much better and more stable environment for it anyway. The princess hoped that being outside of such a place for so long hadn’t harmed what was inside.

“Yeah. We also specialize in moving pet supplies too. Though we were definitely lucky to have an incubator big enough for this thing.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Octavia mumbled, eyeing the probably expensive device. 

“I didn’t but,” Barbie sighed. “It…felt like the right thing to do.”

Octavia smiled at the generosity, choosing to believe it was completely sincere. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Barbie replied. The woman paused as her smile became tense. Her eyes were sympathetic again as she patted Octavia on the back. “And don’t feel too bad about your mommy issues by the way. My old man’s a piece of shit too. So I get what it’s like to have that one parent who just sucks.”

It was comforting knowing she wasn’t completely alone in feeling how she did about her mother, but it only reminded her of what Stella had told her. “She tried to kill me. She told me she hated me. She…”

Octavia did her best to explain through what had happened to her prior to arriving on Barbie’s doorstep. She sidestepped around her father’s banishment as well as mentioning details around the demon he had the affair with. In all honesty, Octavia really wanted to leave to find him, but she felt as though she owed Barbie an explanation as to why she was there. So she kept it short and simple.

“So let me get this straight,” Barbie began with a disgruntled expression. “Your old man cheated on your mom and then they got divorced. But then your mom decided to kill the child he made with the person he cheated on her with.”

“More or less,” Octavia sighed. Octavia would have loved to say it was more complicated, but no other detail could change how ridiculous her mother’s leap in act of revenge was.

Barbie similarly was having trouble fathoming the level of fury. “Like, I get her being pissed about the cheating, ” Barbie reasoned. “But I would have just keyed his car or limo or some shit like that.” The imp glanced at the egg and grimaced at the barbarity of Stella’s actions. “Killing his unborn baby. That’s fucking overkill.”

Octavia agreed. Even when her father had first cheated on her mother, Octavia had been angry. Disappointed. Hurt even. But enough to actually try and harm him? No never.

“She hates him. She…she said she hurt him throughout their marriage. She hired someone to kill him before the divorce,” Octavia blurted. She couldn’t stop herself from saying it. It felt so good and so terrible to get it off her chest, however.

“Oh fuck,” Barbie gasped in disgust. “Him cheating makes a hell of a lot of sense now.”

“Can you not say it like that?” Octavia groaned.

Barbie shrugged. “I mean, I wouldn’t stand for that bullshit. If anything, she got off lightly with the humiliation.” Octavia furrowed her eyebrows at the seemingly callous statement. Barbie noted the reaction and defiantly remarked to her, “Tell me, kid. Would there be an argument if their genders were reversed?”

Octavia opened her mouth to rebuttal but paused as she really considered the societal implications. If her parents’ roles were reversed, no question would the cheating have felt more justified and excusable to the outside…

Oh, fuck, the woman did have a point. 

Octavie groaned into her hands. “Fuck gender-normative double standards,” she mumbled.

“Yeah, fuck ‘em right up the ass, kid,” Barbie jeered sarcastically with her.

Octavia was mad. Mad about a lot of things if she was being honest, and she didn’t have that much of an outlet for it. “I didn’t know how bad it was. How bad she was to him,” Octavia admitted. 

She’d been so clueless all her life to the fake smiles between her parents, worrying glances from her father and mocking insults from her mother. Hidden away from them behind her father’s smiles and later her headphones, all the while pots broke and her father probably begged desperately for her mother’s terror to end.

“He hid it from me. He didn't trust me with it.” 

A part of her felt betrayed that her father didn’t share the truth with her. Treating her like a child while he held onto it like it was a curse, hurting himself. Octavia stood up, settling the incubator on the bed. Her rage at her mother was boiling, but she was still reeling from the hurt from her father. After the vision, she knew she wanted to see her father again, but…

Octavia threw her arms in the air furiously. The anger that had been brewing below came to the surface as she ranted, “And I got so mad at him for leaving me and I thought it was because of me. But maybe it’s not but I can’t talk to him now after I hurt him by leaving him! But also because I’m so pissed at him and I don’t want to hurt him anymore either!”

Octavia screamed out a fiery roar at the ceiling, letting go of all of the rage inside of her, or at least most of it. Her breaths were heavy and behind her, Barbie listened intently and cringefully.

“Jeez, and I thought my family situation was fucked,” Barbie winced. The insensitive comment earned a glare from Octavia to which Barbie defensively replied, “Hey, I told you I’m not good with this shit.”

Octavia sighed exhaustedly, ignoring the comment as she fell face first onto the bed. She wanted to go to sleep again after that admission.

Ugh! Why does my life have to be so fucking complicated?!

“Who’s your dad anyways?” Barbie asked her.

The owlet briefly lifted her face from the bed to reply, “I’m sure you saw him on the news. He pretty much shook up all of Hell being a so-called mastermind.”

Barbie shot up to her feet, in surprise, not that Octavia didn’t expect it. “Wait, your dad is that prince!” Barbie gasped. “The one who got deposed after he admitted to some conspiracy shit on television.”

“Yeah,” Octavia admitted. However, what Octavia didn’t expect was for Barbie to grow pale. This gave Octavia a growing air of concern especially since Barbie’s eyes were now glued to the egg.

“You okay?” Octavia asked.

Barbie was utterly silent, eyes studying the egg meticulously. Her body language spoke of utter disbelief, like the egg itself suddenly shouldn't have existed at all despite being in front of her. Eventually, she asked, “That imp, Blitzo. He’s the one who you’re dad’s with, right? He helped fuck this thing into existence?”

“Yeah,” Octavia repeated again, though this time more unpleasantly at the woman’s choice of words.

The woman was really starting to remind her of said imp.

“How?” Barbie followed up with disbelief.

Octavia answered, “I don’t know the specifics, but it’s not impossible for the Goetia to breed with demons of the same sex.”

She really didn’t want to know, period. Though she suspected that Barbie wasn’t either, more so if it was really possible to begin with. Yet, something about Barbie’s reaction was…maybe personal was the word. But why? 

Barbie grabbed her horns in irritation and paced around the room muttering furiously to herself. She only seemed to grow more angry with each step she took.

Octavia was left speechless by the sudden change in attitude. Barbie had been bold and rude with her choice of words. Otherwise, she’d been relatively calm their entire interaction. The sudden irksome behavior from the woman at the mention of her father…

Actually, had it been at the mention of her father, or had it been towards his lover, Blitzø. Octavia also recalled that Barbie had called him Blitzo, not Blitz with the silent O. Had she known him before the slight name change? Did their similar forehead tattoos have anything to do with it? 

Now that she was looking at Barbie, the woman did appear to share a resemblance with–

Barbie slammed her fists against the table, causing the room to shake from the impact and startling Octavia from her train of thought.

“Fuck!” She screamed, grumbling as she came to terms with whatever was going on in her head. Octavia was about to say something to the woman when Barbie told her, “Now I really have to help you.”

Octavia blinked in surprise. “Why? Not that I’m against it, but you weren’t exactly for it before.” 

The woman had said she didn’t necessarily do jobs that brought her trouble and so Octavia had half expected to leave the place back to Hell on her own. Sure, Barbie had been kind enough to let her stay and even care for the egg until she got herself sorted, but that didn’t correlate to aiding the princess any further.

Though whatever the reason was, Barbie was about to tell her it seemed.

“That boyfriend of his. The one your dad ‘left’ you for.”

Octavia nodded though she winced at Barbie stating that her father left her. The phrase no longer felt certain after what Octavia had seen in her vision. Yet, the owlet wasn’t fully prepared for what Barbie told her next.

“He’s my brother.”

Chapter Text

30 minutes later…

The car sped down the street of Lust with an extra hurry in the spin of its wheels. A few demons had to dive from the edge of the sidewalk as the vehicle bumped over the curb. The demons shouted vulgar curses at the driver, but with the rain and their ever increasing distance, they were unable to hear the crude language. 

The rain covered the windshield of the low-riding car, wiped away synchronously to reveal the two occupants of the vehicle and their cargo. Barbie sat in the driver seat, one hand on the wheel and the other holding a cigarette. Her expression calm, but her hands tight against the wheel as she tilted her head toward the open window and puffed out a plume of gray smoke.

“Can you drive a bit slower please?” Octavia asked from the passenger side, her hands tightly going around the incubator as she prayed that this would not be her final moment alive. She double checked the incubator to make sure the protection spell on it was stable just in case, which might have been the only reason why Barbie was so risky with her driving in the first place. 

Barbie was ignorant of Octavia’s worry, flicking the cigarette out the window. No doubt trying to relax after the danger from earlier. “Sorry kid, but with a bunch of legions and an assassin hunting us, I want to get to where we’re going as fast as possible.”

Another rough bump and Octavia’s hand clutched the door handle. At this point, she might have taken her father’s legionnaires over the woman’s driving. Though it wasn’t like the owlet would have been able to convince her of anything. As Octavia had discovered, Barbie Wire was just as stubborn as her twin brother.

Octavia had experienced coincidences before. Times where she went looking for her father to ask him a question when he was searching for her. The fact that she shared a birthday with the lead singer of Fuck U Dad (which made the owlet giddy to no end). 

Yet, out of all of the people she would first meet after escaping from her mother’s grasp, it was the twin sister of the demon who was dating her father. 

The resemblance between them was truly uncanny now that Octavia was thinking about it. If the similar forehead tattoos and facial structures weren’t obvious, then their similar vulgar and blunt natures should have been a dead giveaway. 

She scolded herself for not being perceptive of the similarities. Perhaps if she hadn’t been so exhausted, she might have realized it sooner. Not like it would have changed anything, however. 

Even with that fact, Octavia didn’t have much of a choice in who to turn to.

She couldn’t go to her father. She wanted to, but with her uncle using his and her father’s legions combined to search for her, the princess knew better than to risk his safety. He was already recovering in the hospital from a previous assassination attempt. She didn’t want to be the reason he got hurt again.

‘I’ve already done enough of that,’ Octavia had told herself.

Next out was her uncle Vassago. Initially, Octavia had been planning to go to him. With him being a prince and a mentor to her, it felt like a no-brainer to go to him for protection from her other uncle.

That was until Barbie provided her own input.

“I’ve got a way in with Asmodeus,” Barbie told her.

“Are you serious?” Octavia had questioned in disbelief.

With a confident smile, Barbie responded, “Yeah, I know someone close to him. He’ll hear us out, no problem.”

Octavia furrowed her eyebrows at the woman. Surely, it couldn’t be that easy. “And if he says no?”

Barbie had smiled deviously. “I doubt he’ll say no but, if he does, I’ll call my brother and tell him what really happened to his Rainbow Buttercup figurine when we were kids.”

Octavia had no idea what Barbie was referring to, yet she understood what a threat was.

Her logic was that there was no way Octavia’s uncle would be dumb enough to send his legions against a literal Sin. Reluctantly, Octavia agreed. Barbie didn’t sound like she was lying about the connection either, though Octavia could have been naive. 

It was a strange feeling sitting next to her in the car knowing who she was. It wasn’t that Octavia held any hostilities toward her. She didn’t. Barbie had been nice to her so far and had invested interest in the survival of the egg. Yet, she was also the sister of the demon she had grown to hate.

The sting of anger was violent and forceful. Octavia, on the other hand, could recognize its validity and necessity. If there was one thing that she could take away from her mother, it was that unbridled anger had a way of poisoning the mind as much as it did the body. A burning fire that forever burned so as the fury of reason remained.

Within Octavia, the flames were nothing but empty for Barbie. The same could be said for the egg in her lap. 

Another bump startled Octavia from her own head. As her eyes had already been on the egg, she noticed it didn’t move with the bump. The spell she had cast was indeed working. The egg was safe inside the incubator, unmoved and untouched. She breathed a sigh of relief. Their escape could have gone much worse after all.

"Duck!" Barbie had screamed, pulling Octavia down as a bullet blew through the glass window, sending pieces scattering across her office.

Octavia’s heart boomed through her chest as her eyes landed on a large whole in the wall, pondering that it too could have been splattered with blood if not for the imp next to her. "The f-fuck!" Octavia sputtered.

She barely had time to say another word as a second barrage of bullets peppered through the broken window. The door to the office was kicked off its hinges suddenly, causing the princess to fall onto her behind. A brown-furred hellhound dressed in silver thick-plated armor stormed inside. His face was covered with a metal helmet with a sheath over his eyes. A blue patch carrying her uncle’s Ars Goetia symbol rested along his chest and arms.

Uncle Andre! He’s found me! Octavia realized with horror.

His gaze landed upon Octavia and the legionnaire stomped toward her. As he reached a gloved hand down to grab her, his head exploded in a plume of red mist and his body crumpled to the ground. Blood pooled from his helmet and spread toward Octavia’s feet.

"Nice try bitch!" Barbie screeched, the woman having snuck the barrel of a pistol in the gap in his neck. "Always forget their rear!"

Octavia, whose face was splattered with their blood, was still in shock. "H-Holy..." she mumbled. 

Outside, she could hear the screams of the other demons whom worked at the warehouse. No doubt her uncle had told his men to leave no witnesses. Guilt washed over her knowing that in some way it was her fault for putting them in danger.

She was quickly shaken from her headspace literally by Barbie, the woman grabbing her by the shoulders and violently shaking her.

"Snap out of it princess! We’re getting out of here!" Barbie yelled.

The queasiness in Octavia’s stomach was still present but the wake-up call from Barbie had forced her to focus on her survival. She grabbed the incubator, the object having fallen on the floor.

"Quick! Portal us out of here!" Octavia shouted.

"Don’t need to tell me twice princess!" Barbie remarked. The woman spat on the Asmodean crystal on her wrist and rubbed it with a single finger. A lighting bolt shot from the crystal and zapped against the wall. A cloud-like portal opened to a street with pink skies. 

Barbie pushed Octavia through first. The princess nearly tripped over herself as she made it back to Hell. A somber air trickled against the princess, a side effect of Sloth. It was easy for a person to fall asleep within the ring's streets.

When she looked behind her, she was shocked to see that Barbie was not there. Panicked, she was about to go back for her when Barbie finally rushed out with a back pack over her shoulder. As she stepped through, a stray bullet caught her on the arm and the suddeness of it caused the woman to lose her balance and fall onto her face...halfway through the portal.

Behind Barbie, the portal shimmered and waved. Without thinking, Octavia conjured what she could of her magic to pull Barbie forward, preventing her from being sliced in half. Octavia could make out her uncle’s legionnaires shouting that they were getting away before the portal shut entirely.

Octavia set the egg down and went to check on Barbie. The woman was out and asleep, which wasn't good obviously. "Barbie, wake up! My uncle's legions are after us!" Octavia shouted, shaking the woman’s body relentlessly to no avail.

"Hmm...Kendra, baby," Barbie mumbled. A smile crested her face as she was obviously experiencing a happy dream. A very happy dream as her curling lips curled lustfully. "Five more minutes or else I’ll stick my special finger fi-"

Slap!

"Bitch! What the fuck!" Barbje yelped, the woman inactivity gripping her cheek from the pain. The flagrant horniness from Barbie had caused Octavia to slap her awake. Octavia didn’t falter underneath the daggers Barbie was throwing her way however.

"You fell asleep," Octavia explained. "I didn’t know what else to do."

"Satan’s taint, girl," Barbie winced as she rubbed her sore cheek. "You could have shaken me awake."

"I tried," Octavia complained. "But you kept muttering horny shit in your sleep and-"

"Okay! Okay! I get it!" Barbie interrupted. The woman sighed, pinching the area between her eyes. "I slept next to two horny boys in the circus, so I get it. I'd have done the same." Octavia didn’t bother to question Barbie on what she meant. She'd met plenty of horny males in high school to know what she was talking about.

Silence fell over the two as they took in their new situation, both imp and owlet coming to the realization that they were officially on the run. Of course, for Octavia, it wasn't just fear that drafted over her.

"Barbie, your people...I...," Octavia said, uneasiness creeping along her skin beneath her feathers. She couldn't get the screams of the other demons in the warehouse off her mind. They probably had families, some of them. And now they were gone. All because Octavia had been there.

Barbie held a finger up to Octavia’s beak. "Don't!" Barbie uttered, her breathing shuddering in her throat. "Did you tell your uncle to send his buddies after us?" Octavja didn't respond, too startled by the fiery look in the woman’s eyes. Though Octavia was able to shake her head. "Then don’t fucking blame yourself for other people's bullshit, you hear me kid!" Barbie finished.

The woman stood up with a fury, tail flicking viciously behind her, and stomped down the alley. Octavia didn't know what to say. She couldn't say anything. All she could do was follow her new friend down the alley toward where she went to cool off.

After that, the pair of them began the trek down, or she should say up, to Lust. Octavia had asked Barbie why she'd portaled them to Sloth instead of Lust. Barbie had told her it was a force of habit as Sloth was where her bosses were. 

Barbie might have then used her Asmodean Crystal to portal them to the tower. However, they quickly realized that such action would be impossible when they both realized the bullet that hit her shattered said crystal.

On the other hand, Octavia could have used her magic to portal them there. Although, Octavia was still shaken up from her experience from earlier and so was not mentally ready to perform another spell. 

As such, the pair was left with no choice but to take the long route to the ring. Fortunately, Barbie was excellent at hotwiring cars. (Good thing too as Octavia was getting plenty of stares from the passerby whom sped away from the blood spattered demons.)

And so here they were, princess and imp, on route to Lust to protect the egg in the former's lap 

Octavia still had no idea how of all places she ended up being transported to, it was Barbie’s location on Earth. Octavia had never met Barbie, never mind that she had never known her name in the first place. 

With her gaze on her incubated sibling, a thought came to Via’s head, which caused her to inspect the egg more inquisitively. She’d never thought of it before now. She was aware of the magic present within her sibling. Had they sensed the danger the both of them were in and influenced her direction? 

On a hunch, Octavia performed a simple spell. It was the same one she had performed in the palace when she found the egg. The first time around, she had only wanted to see if her sibling had magic. Now, however, Octavia wanted to see just how potent that magic was. 

The princess flicked her wrist and a puff of purple magic fluttered through the glass of the incubator and around the egg. It sparkled and swirled around the ovular structure, which too began to glow orange and blue. Octavia’s eyes glowed faintly as her magic collided with her sibling’s. The princess could sense the raw power emanating from their growing form.

The presence of life, wondrous and blooming, left Octavia with a sense of awe. She pondered if this was how her father had felt when he held her own egg. Her sibling was powerful. Very powerful. Enough so that they could rival her and their father’s magic easily at least. It was still too early to tell the full scope of their abilities. Certainly though, their magic was conscious and…

Octavia paused. Had she seen that right? She concentrated her magic for a deeper look into the aura within the egg. The magic was intense and all-encompassing. The aura of their magic, however, was what intrigued her. Her magic dissected through the chick’s own. 

Octavia’s eyes were shut in concentration as her magic pulsated and oozed over her sibling’s. 

A crack. Not in the egg shell, but in the magic itself. No. Not a crack. A differing wavelength. Octavia’s eyes widened as she finally realized what it was she was sensing. 

No way!

The egg was truly full of surprises.

“Should be there in about fifteen or so minutes!” Barbie yelled to her. The spell snapped out of existence as Octavia lost her concentration. Though the owlet had already gotten what she was looking for and more.

“Who are we visiting?” Octavia questioned, the disbelief from her earlier discovery still on her mind. 

Barbie didn’t notice as her eyes were on the road. “An old friend of mine. He’s kind of like a little brother. Grew up with me and Blitzo in the circus. Fizz. He lives here in Lust.”

The name rang a bell within Via’s head. “Fizz? Do you mean Fizzarolli? As in the famous clown?”

“Yeah. So you’ve heard of him?”

Octavia shivered. Old memories from her childhood coming to the surface. “I mean, who hasn’t. Though the closest I’ve ever been to him was that robot replica from Loo Loo Land.”

“Don’t seem too happy about that?” Barbie noted, her tone unsurprised.

“I hated that robot clown. It gave me nightmares as a kid,” Octavia growled. 

The first time Octavia had ever laid eyes on the Robo Fizzarolli, the princess had been startled by the ferocious metal teeth and grating voice. She had desperately wanted to run away, but the gaggle of other kids her age pushed forward toward the robotic clown. Closer and closer, Octavia slid forward. The sparking and smiling clown, with his metal fangs, looking more and more like a monster. As its face slunk down to her, teeth grinning and voice seemingly becoming more distorted and monstrous, Octavia wailed in terror, tears flowing down her face. 

The princess shivered at the disturbing memory. Barbie noticed the girl’s displeasure and nodded with understanding.

“Figures,” Barbie acknowledged. “I was happy for Fizz when he landed that gig with Mammon, but I cannot fathom what freak thought that thing would be a great source of entertainment for kids. It looks more like it would eat kids than entertain them.”

“That was my literal fear as a child,” Octavia admitted. She wasn’t about to float with that freakish robot contraption anytime soon.

In the distance, a large tower stood. Imposing and regal, like a needle poking into the heavens, or as a symbol of the ring itself, was the Tower of Lust, and it was where the both of them were heading. 

Barbie smiled as she added, “Thankfully, the only thing the real Fizz eats is attention…and burgers. He really likes those.”

Octavia mumbled a perplexed, “Noted,” in response. 

“Though it’s not like you have to worry about that thing anymore. I heard it burned down with the rest of that Satan-awful theme park.” 

Octavia noticed Barbie frown at the mention of the park burning down, like her mind wasn’t really on the burning down of the park itself.

“I know, I was there. Your brother was the one who burned it down.”

“Really?” Barbie remarked, rolling her eyes sarcastically. “I guess I shouldn't be surprised.” 

There was a sense of spite to her voice that Octavia noticed immediately. Though she was helping her out, Octavia could tell from the tightening of her hands against the wheel that Barbie herself still held a deep-seated hatred for her brother, and something in Via’s gut told her it was much deeper than Blitzø screwing up her job.

Barbie sighed, pushing whatever thoughts in her head away as she changed the subject. “Though I’m sure Fizz will be surprised when we show up. It’s been months since I last saw or spoke with him.”

“You didn’t call him yet!” Octavia asked exasperatedly.

“Didn't exactly have time with those soldiers shooting at us,” Barbie remarked sarcastically, giving the princess a deep scowl. 

Which, yes, they had been in a hurry and rightfully so. Octavia had needed to duck her head multiple times during the drive as well as cast a spell of invisibility on herself and the egg at the Hellevator checkpoint. 

Her uncle was really stretching his authority in trying to find her and Octavia wondered if this would all come back to bite him in the tail feathers. She was fully aware that hybrid children made with the lower class were disliked by most of the higher class. Many considered them abominations unworthy of existing in general and didn’t hide their vitriol about their beliefs either. Though how far they were willing to go was another matter entirely.

Her mother had already made clear what she thought of the egg, and Octavia was concerned that her uncle would be of the same mind. He was also a demon of flare. He would likely make a show of it before the council before disposing of the egg.

In her resolve, Octavia swore she would never allow this outcome to pass. 

Octavia gawked at the woman. Barbie groaned at the overbearing stare and pulled out her phone.

“Fine, I’ll call him now,” she mumbled. The woman scrolled through her contacts as she drove before hitting a few buttons. The car swerved but they miraculously didn’t crash. Barbie held out the phone toward the princess and forced it into her hand. “Hold the phone, yeah.”

Octavia didn’t argue as she held onto the phone as the car swerved again. The phone buzzed relentlessly in Octavia’s hand for nearly a minute. For a moment, Octavia thought that the clown wouldn’t pick up the phone.

That was until the buzzing stopped and a familiar scratchy voice on the other end answered hurriedly. “Barb, is that you?”

Barbie smiled at the voice. “Yeah, Fizz. It’s me. How’s life as a spoiled diva treating ya?”

“I’ll let you know that I am not spoiled. I’m sexy,” Fizzarolli scoffed. Octavia faked a gag at the comment. She did not need to deal with the sex talk now of all times.

In jest, Barbie teased, “My ass, you’re not spoiled. You got a closet the size of Blitzo's forehead.”

“A forehead that you share with him,” Fizzarolli pointed out. Both women could hear the smirk on his face.

“Oh fuck you, bitch!” Barbie laughed, amused by the playful humor of her old friend. Despite the severity of their situation, Octavia found it endearing. She could feel the history between the two emanating within their words.

Though said friend of Barbie sheltered the light-hearted humor, his tone becoming serious as he stated, “Uh, Barb. Not that I hate you calling me, but–”

“Yeah, I fucking know it’s not a good time,” Barbie interrupted. “You’re freaking out because someone kidnapped Blitzo and the owl’s kid.”

Fizzarolli sputtered, “H–how t–the fuck do you know that?”

“Because I got the egg and the owl’s girl sitting next to me,” Barbie replied. She glanced at Octavia and whispered to her, “Turn the phone toward yourself girlie.”

Octavia hesitated at first, but did as instructed  after a glare from Barbie. Turning the phone so that the screen was facing her, Octavia spotted a white face with a red nose and green eyes staring back at her. 

The robot from her nightmares was a remarkable replica of the real person. Yet, the real individual lacked the robotic and haunting flare that Octavia had been half expecting when Octavia stared into the screen. His expression was demure and quaint, eyes full of life and aloof rather than searing and intimidating. 

“Uh, hi,” Fizzarolli smiled awkwardly.

“Hey,” Octavia replied. 

She didn’t really know what to say to the jester and it seemed that Fizzarolli was in a similar position, the silence between them almost deafening. This was not at all how Octavia expected this meeting between them to go. 

The jester mumbled anxiously to himself as he tried to come up with something to say to her. “You…uhm…you really do look like your dad.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot.” She paused as she took in what Fizzarolli had suggested. It shouldn’t have surprised her that the jester knew her father. She wondered how the two met. “You aren’t as scary as the Loo Loo Land robot.”

“Ah! Thank you,” Fizzarolli chuckled. “H–how are you feeling?”

Octavia sighed. “Well, my mum tried to kill me, so I guess I could be better.” 

Fizzarolli visibly cringed at the comment. “Uh huh, that’ll do it. Your dad was not kidding about you being broody.” 

Octavia scoffed. “And Barbie was not lying about you looking like a diva?”

“I wouldn’t say I’m a diva,” Fizzarolli defended. 

“You are literally wearing a three million dollar Beelze–Verci robe and that make-up of yours is the same brand that Leviathan uses,” Octavia pointed out. 

If she was being honest, Octavia didn’t know how much of a diva that the jester was nor would she ever consider him the greatest diva. (That title went to her mother.) She would have to spend more time around him to get a sense. Yet, if you knew the dictionary definition of what ‘diva’ meant, then you knew that self-importance in regards to status wasn’t the only defining factor. 

“How in Satan’s hell can you tell?” Fizzarolli queried in disbelief, a hand going to his face self-consciously. Even Barbie gave a brief glance of surprise at Octavia’s meticulous observation.

“Aside from my father, fashion and make-up are one of the few things my mother doesn’t shut the fuck up about.”

Octavia knew much of what she did about make-up and dressware from her mother. Over the years, prior to the divorce, her mother had raised her on mastering her etiquette around nobility. As such, Octavia was trained to tell the difference between competing brands of make-up and clothing from a simple look. 

“Is the egg okay?” Fizzarolli then asked, shrugging off his earlier disbelief. His eyes were moving across the phone in search of the ovular object.

“They’re fine,” Octavia replied, tilting the phone down momentarily to show the egg to the jester. 

Fizzarolli released a thankful sigh as he took in the egg. “That’s good. That’s good,” he said with a relaxed tone. With a proud smile, he said to her, “You’re a good sister, ya know that?”

“I…thanks,” Octavia mumbled quietly, though she was certain that he could see the blush on her cheeks. 

Sister. Yes, she was their sister. It was still a strange feeling to her. 

“Could you turn the phone back to Barb, please?” Fizzarolli asked. Octavia nodded and did as such.

“Barb, how did you find them?” The jester questioned.

“It’s a long story,” Barbie grumbled. “We’re on our w–”

Another car sped past them and in front of the corvette. The car shook as Barbie almost lost control of it. Octavia’s heart jumped out of her stomach. One hand gripped tightly across the phone that it nearly cracked while the other went protectively around the incubator. 

The car thankfully did not crash as Barbie managed to stop along the side of the road. Barbie threw her head out and gave the speeding car a middle finger.

Barbie was foaming out the mouth as she screeched, “Go get sodomized with a rusty nail, you–BLEEP!–sucking–BLEEEEEEP!–whore–BLEEEP!–BITCH!” 

Barbie groaned irksomely, lying back against the seat tiredly from yelling. “Fucking assholes.”

Octavia herself was still physically strained as her heart raced. That had been too close. She never wanted to get in a car again after today. Octavia wasn’t sure if  the ringing in her ears was from her heart or from the vulgarity of Barbie’s cursing. The princess knew her father and mother alike could curse like their lives depended on it, but Barbie did so like it was an art project. 

The princess didn’t even know what a –BLEEEEEEP!– was but it didn’t sound nice.

“Uh, Barb, you might want to drive a bit more safely with the egg in the car,” Fizzarolli stated flinchingly. Oh, right. Fizz was still on the phone.

“Oh, do not judge me, Fizz. We both know that Blitzo would have tried to run that prick off the road,” Barbie growled.

“I…okay, you got a point,” Fizzarolli relented. “How far away are you?”

Barbie glanced up at the tower, her eyes doing calculations as she hummed to herself. “I’m maybe ten minutes from your tower, Fizz.”

“Alright, I’ll let Blitzø know.”

Barbie groaned at the mention of her brother. Octavia could feel the animosity boiling off of the woman. 

Fizzarolli noticed it too. “You know he cares about you, Barbie.”

Barbie rolled her eyes with indignation as though what assurance the jester gave meant nothing to her. “I’ll see you there, Fizz.”

Octavia could hear Fizzarolli sigh defeatedly on the other end. “Just be safe.”

“You too,” Barbie replied cordially. 

The phone call ended and Octavia set the phone down in the cup holder. Barbie was silent as she started the car up again and drove off down the road toward the tower. Although she appeared miffed, Barbie seemed to have at least considered Fizzarolli’s suggestion and was driving at a much slower pace, much to Octavia’s relief.

The phone call had left Octavia with many questions. Both about the woman she was entrusting herself to and about her father. There was a history about Barbie that Octavia was most perplexed by. Her hatred towards her brother and her connection to Fizzarolli. She said they grew up together, sure, but there was more, and Octavia was a searcher of knowledge much like her father. 

She pondered how he had done in the last few months she had seen him. And Blitz, the demon who had won her father’s heart. Was he truly as bad as she had once believed? Had it been more than lust that had pulled her father to him? That last one, more did she lean on the answer being yes.

But where did that leave her, and what did her being here mean for her purpose in her father’s life? 

“Could you be thinking any louder, Octavia?” Barbie sarcastically spoke. “You look about ready to burn a hole through my windshield.”

Octavia furrowed at her companion. “Is my thinking bothering you that much?”

“Not at all,” Barbie shrugged. “I’m just curious to know what’s going on in that head.”

“I just,” Octavia sighed. It wasn’t like there was anything else to do in the car. “What are the odds?”

“About what?”

“About us? Being here and together?”

“I don’t fucking know, kid,” Barbie replied, shaking her head absentmindedly. “Life is just wild like that.”

Wild, Octavia pondered in amusement. Wild is one way of putting it.

Her life had been relatively boring until Blitz showed up and made it exciting, and not necessarily in a good way. Still, the more she thought about it, the more Octavia began to see things from a differing perspective.

If things had stayed the way they were, would she and her father been happier? That was the question Octavia had asked herself. 

For the longest time, Octavia had thought the answer was yes. If Blitz had never come into their lives with his bold and capricious personality, the pain of the divorce never would have happened and they could go back to their old lives of normality.

Back to the gilded cage. An owl stuck in a golden cage. It sounded like something her father would woefully sing about in a depressive mood. Yet, Octavia couldn’t find it in herself to judge because the cage itself was not arbitrary fiction.

Now…the answer was not so clear, at least for her. Her father on the other hand, would have been miserable. Staying in the palace, disconsolate with his extraordinarily toxic marriage because of a child born out of duty. Octavia’s heart clenched, contrite with herself.

Though it wasn’t just her own family woes that Octavia considered. Most of Hell was exploding with rage at the inequalities and inequities brewing within the red tape that tangled all of the seven rings. A simple affair was on the brink of causing either real social change or utter anarchy. 

Some might call it a coincidence.

Or it could be considered destiny. Fate. 

When Octavia was a child, her father had shown her the stars, told her of his duties as a prophet and the burden of carrying such power. 

‘Not everything is set in stone, Via,’ Stolas had warned her. ‘While the details may be prone to change, for that which the stars deem necessary, fate can never be averted.’

It was one of the few times during those lessons that her father had spoken to her in a cold tone. In hindsight, she recalled a sense of resignation in his voice as well. Had he once believed that he too was to remain forever in his own personal Hell? Had that what he had meant in his lullaby to her? 

She was beginning to think more like a star gazer and prophet as her father might say. Everything was connected. The stars spelled a fate that she and everyone else was destined to follow towards. For what end, Octavia could never say, but it had carried her through too much for the princess to run away from it.

“My dad would probably call it fate,” Octavia remarked to Barbie.

Barbie scoffed in offense. “Fate. What a joke?”

“You don’t believe in it?” Octavia asked curiously.

Barbie shook her head. “I’ve had a lot of bad shit happen in my life Octavia. I hate to call it fate because that means…” The woman’s hands tightened around the wheel again. The rage within her was burning fiercely. Unresolved and poisonous.

Yet, it was certainly more tempered compared to Octavia’s mother. Also a touch sorrowful. Octavia could recognize the tell-tale sign of a sob with the heaviness in Barbie’s breathing, though she did a good job of holding it back. A deep pain that had left the woman jaded.

“I don’t get it either,” Octavia sighed. 

She thought about her father. All of the suffering he had endured, and it had led to Blitzø. Was the imp his proverbial ‘light at the end of the tunnel?’ 

And what their love made. The egg in Via’s lap. She had stayed alone in the palace, grappled by the jaws of fate as well, and had been brought before the egg in the right place to save them from sudden demise. Ironically, her time apart from her father, while hurting her (and him) in the process, had ultimately protected her siblings.

So maybe there was a purpose in her separation from her father, but did it mean she deserved to be welcomed back to him? Would he ever be able to forgive her for leaving him behind?

Octavia spoke with poise as she stated, “But for whatever reason, everything we’ve ever done has led to this moment. Dad once said that we all have a purpose in the grand scheme of things. What it is ultimately depends on how we carry ourselves. Nothing is ever set in stone until the final moment of action.”

“So you’re bratty and philosophical. How cute?” Barbie hummed unemotionally.

“I got it from my Dad,” Octavia replied glumly. 

In many ways, she was a mirror reflection of her father. 

Quiet. Intelligent. Observant. Lost.

The last one never felt truer.

“Hey,” Barbie spoke attentively. The woman’s face morphed with struggle, as though the words were antithetical to her own self. “If…if your dad really does give a shit about you, then I think he’d be proud of you for looking out for your sibling.”

“Siblings.”

Barbie blinked in confusion. “What?”

The princess eyed the egg with a sense of wonder. “There are two chicks…implings…two babies in here. I felt it with my magic,” Octavia explained. 

Every living individual had some level of affinity for magic. From the common imp or human to the higher Goetia and angels, magic existed. Yet, no two beings held the same wavelength of magic in the same way that no two people shared the exact same code of genetics. 

Not even twins.

“Twins,” Barbie scoffed. “Fate really is a bitch then, huh.”

“You really hate him? Your brother, I mean.” 

Octavia hadn’t meant to ask the question. It had been lingering deep in her head since Octavia learned who her brother was. It had simply come out of her beak without warning. Honestly, Octavia had been expecting Barbie to yell at her. To tell her to shut up.

Instead, Barbie was deathly silent, which was so much worse in her opinion. That utter and creeping silence when someone is deeply furious and they cannot even speak as a result. It was unnerving to say the least, so powerful that it ruffled the princess’ feathers.

“I…I don’t know…I don’t know what to think of that asshole,” Barbie sighed heavily. “He ruined my life. Killed our…”

Barbie’s breath hitched in the back of her throat and her eyes grew a touch tearful. There was a deep sense of loss within her voice. Octavia could recognize that, beneath the anger, whatever memory Barbie was reliving was deeply traumatic. 

Barbie appeared to be actively fighting with herself once more, her inner turmoil strife with a battle between rage and temperance. 

“But…if that owl likes him, and was fine with having his kids,” Barbie said with poise. “He better not screw them up is all I have to say.”

There was so much that Barbie seemed to want to say, but she forced it down like it was bile. Octavia could in some way recognize why. Some things were better left unsaid or were so repetitive that they continued to lose their meaning. When combined with a deep-seated rage, it could do more harm than good.

Octavia had seen with her mother what losing control could do to a person.

“What’s your take? I doubt you were happy learning your Daddy had a kid with another guy.”

“At first,” Octavia shrugged. She’d been mad. Mostly, she’d been depressed, feeling like she’d been replaced. A part of her still did truthfully. Yet, as she had asserted to herself, she couldn’t find it in herself to be angry at the egg in her lap. 

“I think I’m in the same boat as you, right now,” Octavia admitted, though there was lingering doubt in her voice. 

She would give her father and his boyfriend their child back. She was certain of this. What happened afterward, Octavia couldn’t fathom him welcoming her back in open arms. After all of the suffering she had caused him over the years, why would he?

“You’re worried he’s gonna not accept you back,” Barbie said with a casual frown.

Octavia grit her beak, but she didn’t say anything to disagree with Barbie’s assessment. She was starting to think that Barbie might have been a mind reader. The woman was on point. 

“Hey, if he does, then fuck him. You can just ride along with me or some shit like that,” Barbie smiled assuringly.

“Really?” Octavia questioned curiously. 

Barbie shrugged. “Sure. I could always use a hand at the office and you look like you got both the intelligence and a spine to whip those jackasses in shape.”

Octavia pondered on the idea. She thought it silly. Her whole life, she had been trained and raised with the notion of becoming a princess with the same duties as her father. Nothing else had really crossed her mind. Still, her father had his gardening as a hobby. He didn’t have to pursue it. He just did. 

Octavia hummed in consideration. 

“I do know that my father and grandfather have followers in the living world. I could probably use them to get you some more dealers for more objects to bring back.”

It was just an idea really. Octavia had no idea if it would ever come to fruition nor did she fully understand the mechanism for how she would use such resources. She had yet to figure a way out of her current situation for Satan’s sake. 

Hell, she had only met Barbie today. They weren’t family or anything…or were they? She was technically Blitz’s sister, so did that technically make her Octavia’s aunt by default? Ugh, she was not ready for these mental gymnastics.

Still, Barbie appeared to like the owlet’s input, tittering with excitement. With a slap of encouragement on her shoulder, Barbie said, “There you go. Already providing smart ideas.” 

Octavia blushed at the compliment. It was the first one she’d received in ages. Octavia had nearly forgotten what it was like for someone to find enjoyment with just her. 

“Hey, see that bag in the back. Would you bring it up here?” Barbie then asked.

Octavia knew what Barbie was referring to. It was a small black carry-on sitting on top of the back seat. Octavia had noticed the bag earlier but hadn’t had the urgency to ask her what it was.

“What’s in this thing?" Octavia asked as she moved it onto the center armrest. 

“Just some weapons I snagged from one of the storage containers,” Barbie replied. “Figured we would need them in case the trip went south.”

Octavia hummed in agreement with the logic. She pulled the zipper of the bag down and stuck her hand inside. She felt cold metal at the press of her talons and was shocked at what she saw. 

“Ninja stars?” 

The princess pulled out the star-shaped shuriken, a clawed talon running down one of the pointed tips. It wasn’t just those, however. There were also some kunais, a kusarigami, and a couple of tantos mixed in as well. The princess balked as she spotted a glove with spikes on the palm. It reminded her a bit of the claws of a hellhound.

“Nerds dig the ninja shit,” Barbie explained with a jovial smirk. “Though it’s all legit and deadly. One of the guys decided to be a dumbass for a day and play around with them. Now he’s a dumbass with one arm.”

“I’ll bet,” Octavia blushed in slight embarrassment. 

She didn’t want to admit that she too was one of the nerds who liked the ninja aesthetic. She remembered when she had broken into Blitzø’s office. She cringed at the memory of her using her head feathers as a face mask while she ‘snuck’ past the others, slinking against the wall with sharp eyes and her wits about her. 

Literally, the only person who hadn’t seen her was Blitzø himself, while everyone else stared at her like she was one of the weirdos she criticized on a daily basis. She swore that she got her lack of tact from her father.

“Or you could use that beak of yours,” Barbie then suggested.

“My beak?”

“Yeah, you could definitely pluck some eyes out with that thing. You’re an owl ain’t ya.”

“I…I think you’re thinking of crows,” Octavia remarked. Owls were known for killing animals with their claws, crushing rats within their talons. Crows, however, were more known for clawing out eyes, and the cases of it happening were exaggerated. In fact, if she wasn’t mistaken, it was nothing more than folklore. 

Barbie rolled her eyes ignorantly. “Same bird, different beak.”

Octavia scoffed in offense. “It is not. I could name you a thousand differences between owls and crows, old lady.”

“What’s the difference then, smart ass?” Barbie questioned with a daring smile.

Octavia was a demon for knowledge just like her father. Say what you will, but she was eager to answer the taunt from Barbie out of spite for the dumbass comparison.

“Well for starters it’s–Oh Shit!”

The car slid as the brakes activated, eliciting a loud screeching sound that nearly deafened Octavia’s sense of hearing. The princess instinctively hugged the egg tightly to her chest protectively during this. 

“Fuck!” Barbie cursed as the car finally halted in the middle of the road. 

Both imp and owlet stared ahead of them at the center of what caused Barbie to stop the car once again.

Spurred boots clomped against the road toward the car, stopping a few yards before them. Said boots were attached to a demon dressed as a cowboy. He swiveled a glowing white pistol along his right index finger with a menacing smile on his lips, a gold tooth gleaming from the car’s headlights.

Octavia’s arms instinctively wrapped around the incubator protectively, sweat beading down her forehead. Octavia instantly recognized him as the assassin her mother had ordered to kill her. 

Striker.

“Where do you think you’re going, little missy?!” He called out through the rain. “You’re mother ain’t exactly happy that you scurried away from us!”

Barbie’s fingers clenched tensely along the wheel. “Is that–”

“Yeah. It's him,” Octavia confirmed, her voice trembling. She remembered how the bullet had nearly torn through her skull. So close to death at the hands of the cold blooded assassin.

“Y’all better give us back what you took!” Striker warned. “Your uncle promises that this will all be forgotten if you just get out of the car and give back that mutant.”

“Fat chance,” Octavia mumbled, glancing at the imp next to her. Both women knew a false promise when they heard one.

How did he find us? Octavia asked herself. The pair had been so careful too. Up ahead, Asmodeus’ tower appeared much larger in size compared to earlier. So close, yet so far. Why did all of her plans have to end in utter disaster? She swore it had to be a family curse. Her uncle must have started tracking her through scrying. It was the only way that Octavia could fathom that they had been caught. Either that or the assassin simply used simple intuition.

She was starting to wish that she had forgotten Barbie’s worries and teleported them to the tower.

The standoff between the assassin and the car hung tense in the air. Neither side moved an inch from their positions. Then, the assassin aimed his pistol at the car window. “Now, y’all better get out of that–”

“Tell it to someone who gives a shit,” Barbie growled as she hit her foot on the gas, not caring to listen to the assassin’s spiel. 

The car roared like a dragon as it sped toward Striker. Octavia’s right arm gripped the door handle in fright at how fast the car started. She glanced at Barbie with a look of horror. 

What the fuck is she thinking?!

Meanwhile, the assassin’s smile dropped to a frown as the car raced toward him. The assassin jumped to the side as Barbie’s car swiped past him, narrowly missing him much to Barbie’s annoyance.

Just as the car passed him, Octavia was startled as an object embedded itself through the windshield of the car. She gasped in terror at the sight of Striker flying with the wind, tail flailing behind him as he held onto the car with one hand on the roof of the car and a glowing angelic dagger through the window. 

Before she could react, Striker pulled out the knife and plunged it again through the window, this time shattering it into pieces. Octavia held up her right hand to protect herself on instinct as glass splashed on her and the incubator in her lap. So she wasn’t caught off guard when the assassin stabbed the blade through her hand. It didn’t change how much it hurt.

Octavia screamed in pain, blood spurting from her hand as she fought against the blade.

“Oh you Daddy Fucker!” Barbie screamed with rage. 

The car began to swerve at top speeds in an attempt to shake off the assassin. Yet, he remained steady against the side of the car. During the swerving, the knife pulled upward on Octavia’s hand, finally becoming free from the appendage as it was bifurcated between Octavia’s talons.

The princess gripped her hand, tears dripping down her white face, as she watched her hand bend apart at where it had been sliced through. The pulpy flesh of her talon was bright and red. She could feel the angelic blessing coursing from her hand and into her blood stream. Her magic was fleeting from her being with each passing second. She felt like she was dying. It was all too much for her stomach to handle.

The princess turned toward the window and vomited liquidy bile from her stomach. It landed on Striker’s face, the assassin coughing and growling at having been vomited on, though he still managed to hold onto the car in spite of this.

“Oh, you disgusting, pigeon bitch!” Striker roared. “I’m gonna choke the fucking life out of you!”

In an instant, Striker’s tail crashed through the back passenger window. It slunk around Octavia’s throat and tightened around the headrest, pulling her neck forcefully against her seat. Octavia gasped as her vision became spotty, the oxygen leaving her body as she was in the grip of his tail like a lasso.

Octavia’s left hand went to her throat, her right hand limp and bleeding at her side, in an attempt to remove the tail from her neck, yet every attempt to claw it off only caused Striker to tighten his grip around her throat. A glance at Striker revealed a wide and gleaming smile with barring teeth. The assassin was taking great pleasure in this. 

Though his pleasure quickly turned to pain as he screamed. At the same time, the pressure loosened up and Octavia was able to taste the oxygen once again. The owlet hacked, spittle from her vomit leaking from her beak.

She looked to her left and saw Barbie holding a tanto in her right hand. The blade was embedded in the side of the headrest. Striker’s tail was hanging along Octavia and the headrest still, now severed from him. The length of tail still connected to him flailed, spewing blood like a fountain all over the back of the car.

Striker’s eyes were literally glowing with fury, the slits of his eyes exploding in size. “You fucking bitches!” He screamed. The assassin arched the knife in his hand back and prepared to stab at Octavia and the egg again.

Before he could, a shuriken embedded itself in his upper arm, courtesy of Barbie. The assassin shrieked in pain as the knife fell from his arm and onto the passing street. 

Barbie stared at the assassin with an equally vicious gaze. “Enjoy being roadkill, ASSHOLE!”

With that, Barbie stomped hard on the brake pedal and the vehicle slid to a halt. The force sent Striker flying forward, but so did the car. The sudden braking finally was too much for the front right tire, popping and causing the car to dip on its side, the front rim grazing against the tarmac. In the sudden chaos, Barbie lost control of the wheel and the car spun to the right, ultimately flipping over on its side in a repeated cycle.

Both Octavia and Barbie were flung side-to-side, only being held in place by their seat belts, as the car flipped over repeatedly. Time seemed to slow. Glass and blood flew. Barbie was screaming at her to hold on. The egg in the incubator, still protected by Octavia’s magic, floated into the open air. Octavia was reaching out with her left hand to grab it.

The car was doing somersaults in the air, parts exploding from different sections of the vehicle. Eventually, the car slowed in its spinning, until finally landing ungracefully on its roof. A tire popped off and rolled along the street toward the sidewalk. The hood caved in on impact and the car stood upward momentarily, swaying with the wind. With a painful whine, a spring shot out from the exposed underbelly of the car further signaling the end of the vehicle. 

Smoke could be seen emanating from the bottom of the car, now facing the deep blue sky of Lust, quickly dissipating due to the rain. The car, with its windows broken and cracked, rolled gently on its back, creaking and moaning from the damage.

Inside, Octavia’s vision danced with stars and black spots. Her head was screaming death at her. Her right arm hung limp, her half-bifurcated hand oozing black blood onto the roof. The tail that had once been wrapped around her throat fell to the floor with a splash. Water was pooling into the car from the broken windows. The bag of weapons was flung open and drowning in the water below.

Via’s throat was hoarse, the princess hacking out blood from her beak. “Fuck,” she whimpered.

She glanced down at her chest. Her left arm hugged the incubator tightly to it. Octavia could sense her magic still gracing the incubator. Inside, the egg appeared safe and sound. Her sibling was safe. 

For now. 

Her magic was weakening, and the reason why was abundantly clear. 

Octavia noticed cracks of white running down her right arm, climbing upward toward the rest of her body. Heavenly corruption running through her veins and deepening the headache splitting her head open. The heavenly blessing was spreading. If she didn’t get help soon, it would kill her. She needed to get out. Get to Barbie’s contact and…

Barbie.

“B–Bar–bie,” Octavia croaked before devolving into a hacking fit. 

She turned her  head to the side and noticed the imp woman in a similar situation to her, hanging upside down from her seat belt. There was a scar running down the side of her head, dripping blood. Her eyes flickered open and the woman began to stir from unconsciousness.

“FFFFFFFF-uuuck me right in the ass!” Barbie groaned. 

Her jaw was open and heaving for air. Her gaze was far off, too dazed to focus on anything. She soon glanced at Octavia, noticing the bleeding and dying owlet hanging from her seat belt holding the egg. It was this sight that snapped Barbie out of her head-trauma trance.

“Oh…oh fuck, kiddo!” Barbie gasped. Her arms flailed from their dangling position. 

The imp quickly reached for her seatbelt, her fingers fumbling around the switch. A clicking sound echoed within the car chamber and Barbie tumbled against the ceiling of the car. 

Barbie’s panicked eyes settled on Octavia and took in her injuries, the woman blanching at the sight of Octavia’s mangled hand.

“Everything hurts,” Octavia mumbled. Her body was so weak. She felt as though on the verge of passing out. 

Barbie held a finger up against Octavia’s beak. She put on a weak smile for Octavia’s morale. “Okay, okay. Don’t talk. Let’s just get you both out of this.” 

She took the incubator from Octavia’s arm and set it down on the ceiling before moving to Octavia’s own seatbelt. At the sound of a click, Octavia’s body fell though she was immediately caught by Barbie’s arms, the woman gently guiding her onto her back. 

“I got you. I got you,” Barbie whispered. 

The ceiling was wet. Her feathers were damp against the watery floor. She felt so cold. The space within the car felt so small compared to when she had first entered it. Like the walls were closing in on her. 

Octavia sobbed. She just wanted today to be over.

Barbie lifted Octavia so that she was sitting up. Her vision was ruffled from the sudden movement and another jolt of pain rocked her head. The imp woman cradled Octavia to her chest and gently rubbed her shoulders, perhaps to soothe her and tell her that everything would be okay, or maybe to assuage her own guilt of getting them in a wreck. Either way, it was comforting to the owlet princess.

“Can you stand?”

“M–Maybe,” Octavia replied weakly. She really didn’t feel like walking, but what choice did they have?

After strapping the bag of weapons over her shoulders, Barbie carried the incubator in the pit of her arm as she moved toward Octavia’s passenger window. She used her booted hooves to kick out some of the sharp glass sticking out from the window before turning back to the princess with a welcome hand outstretched. 

“Alright, I’m gonna move you out of here. Be mindful of the glass,” Barbie said. Octavia’s eyes were dizzy and it took a moment for her to register what Barbie had said. She was really out of it.

Nevertheless, Octavia took the hand and followed Barbie out of the car. Through the small opening, Barbie carefully guided Octavia through the water and broken glass and out into the festering rain. Her tailfeathers dragged uselessly behind her, though they thankfully didn’t get snagged on any of the broken glass.

Stepping outside, the atmosphere was humid to say the least. The rain drenched down on them and coated them like a caramel glaze. Octavia’s feathers were matted against her skin, weighing down on her like an iron barbell.

Barbie pulled Octavia up to her feet and wrapped the princess’ arm over her shoulder in an attempt to keep her standing. Octavia leaned against her companion, her legs wobbling beneath her. Just barely could Octavia stand. The very act of doing so caused another headache and for her stomach to boil about queasily.

“Wow, you are really light. Ya know that?” Barbie noted light-heartedly though the shaking of her voice betrayed how worried she was. 

“H–hollow b–bones,” Octavia stuttered.

Barbie smiled. A weak smile, but a smile. It helped Octavia forget that she was dying from the inside out. “Of course. Bird thing, right.”

Up above, Octavia could now see Asmodeus’ tower. It was directly above them. Ahead, through her dizzy and blackening vision, Octavia spotted a building with velvet stairs guarded by ropes and stanchions. 

Above the double doors was a sign that read, OZZIE'S. Octavia obviously had never been there, but she was well aware of the club that was the center of the Sin of Lust’s operations. Some of her more promiscuous classmates from high school couldn’t shut up about wanting to go there. At this point, Octavia couldn’t have cared less about what she saw. 

Barbie gave the princess an assuring nod of hope. “Alright, Octavia. Just one final sprint and we’re home free.”

“Okay,” Octavia mumbled weakly in reply.

Just some several yards ahead and they would be safe. Barbie limped along with Octavia, going overtime as she held the incubator in the crook of one arm and Octavia in the other. Octavia did her best to pull her weight, albeit still leaning against Barbie for support. 

Around them, the two noticed demons watching from their windows or coming out to see the chaos that had unfolded along the empty street. Octavia didn’t care for the eyes. Let them watch. She had far more important matters. 

Freedom was in their grasp.

BANG!

The loud blast shook Octavia, but she had little time to process it as Barbie collapsed, bringing her down with her. Octavia collided with the ground, chest first, and coughed up blood onto the wet sidewalk. The sudden rush of adrenaline sobered her up real fast, the princess checking on her friend.

“Barbie!” Octavia cried. She noticed blood seeping through the right side of Barbie’s back. White marks emanated through the hole in Barbie’s clothing. No matter how hard Octavia tried to shake Barbie awake, the woman did not move. She was out? Dead? Octavia had no clue.

The egg though. Octavia’s panicked eyes searched for the egg. She found it several feet away. The incubator had rolled from Barbie’s arm pit and onto the side walk, where it stopped against a traffic light. She couldn’t tell its condition from here, but she hoped the egg was okay.

“That’s what happens when you fuck with me!”

Octavia’s blood ran cold at the familiar southern twang. 

She slowly glanced behind her and was unable to control the whimper that escaped from her throat at the beast approaching her under the torrential deluge of rain.

Striker menacingly creeped forward with a pronounced limp, what was left of his tail dragging on the ground behind him and leaving a line of blood on the ground. An angelic pistol was gripped in his left hand, pointing directly at them and smoking at the barrel. The other hand was literally dangling from his arm, attached only by a few strands of flesh. The entire right side of his body was coated in his own blood, his outfit in tatters and close to falling off along with his right hand.

The right half of his face was practically missing, the skin having been skinned off and exposing parts of his jaw. His right eye also looked about ready to pop out due to the flesh around it being abrazed. Even the beasts Octavia had seen from those human horror films about demons didn’t hold a candle to the monster trailing toward her.

An animal on its last legs will fight like hell as was said.

Striker wheezed through broken teeth, “You…you dirty little…”

He was getting closer. Octavia looked between Striker, Barbie, and then the incubator. It was only her now. 

Striker wasn’t paying attention to anyone else. Not Barbie or the egg. Not the pedestrians gathering on the sidewalk to watch the spectacle. Only Octavia. Octavia had thought her mother’s fury had been spine chilling. She’d never been under gaze of the orbs of someone with nothing left to lose.

Octavia tried to summon her magic. Little magic sparkles emanated from her left palm, but it gave out almost instantly. The angelic blessing flared up at the use of her magic like a rash. Her head shot up with pain, so much so that she was unprepared for when Striker grabbed her by her headfeathers.

“Let…let go!” Octavia begged, flailing and kicking at her attacker in the hope of throwing him off balance, but to no avail.

“No. No I ain’t,” Striker growled, gripping and twisting her feathers tighter within his bloody hand. “I’m gonna fucking end you!” 

Striker threw her onto her back, falling on top of her, his knees burrowing into her chest. The barrel of his gun pressed into her cheek. Octavia whimpered underneath his intimidating gaze, his hot breath flowing into her face and causing her to flinch in disgust. He chuckled maniacly, literally going mad before her.

“You know, I remember when I had your daddy in a similar position,” the assassin remarked with a devilish smile. “He threatened that if I ever did anything to you…well.” The assassin chuckled to himself, recalling the cruel moment like it was another day at the beach. Octavia grew sick thinking that her father had been forced through a similar position as her right now. It made her angry.

“Those pearls of yours are just as pretty as his. I hope you don’t mind if I–”

Striker was unable to finish as Octavia’s left hand reached up and she used her claw to pierce his left eye. The assassin screamed in pain as blood and other fluids leaked from his eye.

Something inside Octavia snapped. All day, she had been running from her demons, both metaphorically and literally. She recalled how brave her father had appeared, going to the palace, not caring that Andrealphus might kill him. That bravery, or stupidity, sounded proud and contagious. If she was going to die, then she was going to go out swinging. 

She clenched down her finger harder into Striker’s eye, reveling in his screams as he desperately tried to push her off of himself. But Octavia wasn’t done.

“How about I take yours instead, asshole!” Octavia roared, her eyes feral. 

If she couldn’t embrace her magical heritage, she’d take on her biological one, or at least what Barbie had wrongly alluded to be hers.

She raised her face toward the assassin’s and sank her beak into his other eye. With how messed up his face was, it was easy to bite into the oracular organ. She could taste the metallic blood, her face souring from the taste, but she didn’t relent.

Octavia’s beak savagely clipped down on the eye and pulled at it. Striker backed away in order to remove himself from the feral princess, but this only led to his eye being pulled out. Still attached it was, however, to his brain, the cord of the eye tightening between his head and Octavia’s mouth. Octavia rolled her head back suddenly and the cord snapped in half, part of it dangling from Striker’s open eye hole.

The princess spit out the eye onto the street. It didn’t move far, but it landed in a river of water where it floated down into a side drain and was lost to the sewers.

While Octavia was smiling defiantly, Striker was screaming psychotically out into the open air and waving his gun around. He was a blind animal now, but that somehow made him more dangerous and unpredictable.

The blind animal randomly began to fire off his gun as he screeched at her. “I – BANG – don’t – BANG – need – BANG – to see – BANG – to kill YOU?!” 

The bullets had gone wild, hitting walls, lamp posts and windows with reckless abandon. The last bullet hit the sidewalk next to Octavia and the princess gasped as a result. This proved to be a fatal mistake as Striker heard it. 

His head locked on her, somehow seeing her even though he lacked the vision to do so. Octavia couldn’t move. She was far too exhausted and wounded to do so. Her body was too corrupted by blessing for her to use her magic. The princess was stuck.

“The sun’s about to set, princess,” he warned with a cruel smirk, raising his pistol at her.

It was earlier that morning all over again. Her heart was racing. The princess was utterly alone, drenched beneath the rain and with her own blood. She stared at the bleeding and broken coward with his bullheaded personality. Nothing but pathetic. Octavia’s eyes scowled with defiance and braced for death, not daring to look away. 

With death inches away from taking her, Octavia could only relay a final thought.

I’m sorry, Daddy.

Striker’s finger tightened around the trigger.

And then his body shuddered, and then it went still. His finger loosened on the trigger and his arm fell to his side.

Octavia blinked in confusion. Death hadn’t come for her. Why not?

Blood oozed through Striker’s open mouth, his body momentarily waved side-to-side before it slunk downward. With a thump, his body landed face-first onto the pavement. Octavia stared momentarily at the now deceased assassin, taken aback by the anti-climatic end, and noticing two spiked holes in the back of his skull. The cause of his death at last, but from who? 

The princess looked up to see that someone was standing behind him. 

Barbie. 

Blood leaked through her shirt and down her legs. Her skin was pale and her yellow eyes were reddening. Blood dripped from her left hand, only it wasn’t Barbie’s. It took Octavia a second for her to notice the glove with spikes covering her hand.

“For you, bitch!” Barbie roared victoriously. She kicked Striker’s corpse out of defiance. “Nighty, night!” 

The imp woman’s breaths were ragged, almost drowned out by the rain. Silence overtook the space between them. The two simply stared at one another, a sign of camaraderie between them. Neither woman needed to ask one another if the other was alright. It was stupid to ask anyways.

“The egg?” Barbie asked.

Octavia glanced behind her. Barbie turned her head and spotted the incubator lying not that far away. The woman turned back to Via and nodded, sighing with relief.

Barbie gasped, like she couldn’t find enough air to breathe. Her gaze grew dizzy. “That’s…that’s…gooooo…”

Barbie’s body collapsed onto the sidewalk with a thud, her arms at her sides. She didn’t move, her eyes closed and her mouth open.

Octavia stared at her with a blank expression, unable to feel or think. Her head, her entire being, ached and was exhausted. Octavia fell forward, her head hitting the pavement with a splash. Water coated over her, not drowning her, but it felt like she was. 

Darkness enveloped her vision and Octavia breathed a final breath. Giving into the expanse of the void.

As she fell, she could have sworn she heard someone call her name.

Chapter Text

Death was a strange feeling for Via. It was a point of in-between. A place where you existed and otherwise. An everlasting expanse of nothing. Nothing to hear. Nothing to see. Nothing to smell. Nothing to feel or taste. 

Death was nothing.

At the very least, Octavia was no longer in pain.

She had half expected to be amongst the stars, floating through the cosmos with the stars of creation. It would have been a fitting end. To join her ancestors and become one with the prophetic voices channeling fate and the existence of life. Perhaps she would be reincarnated, her soul recycled into a new life. Hopefully, one where she wouldn’t be a burden.

Instead, it was a static process of emptiness and worse…boredom. At least she was floating, which was an incredibly weird feeling given that there was no wind pressing against her. She just existed and that was a sensation that rattled her feathers.

The only thing she could do was ponder through her head space. What enjoyment that was. 

All that was there was a reminder of her insecurities and failures. 

They had been so close to safety, her and Barbie. Then, that bloody assassin had to go and put them both on death’s door. Octavia had never been in so much pain in her entire life. Never before had she ever had to put herself on the line. However, she couldn’t find it in herself to regret how she had handled it. She would rip out a thousand eyes if it meant protecting those she cared about.

Barbie was probably dead too. The thought left her with a feeling of regret that she never got to spend more time with her ‘aunt’ as well as for dragging the woman into the mess in the first place.

She pondered if the egg was fine too. Her magic had kept the egg safe within the incubator long enough up to that point. Hopefully, Barbie’s friend or even her brother Blitzø would have found it and saved them. At least then, Octavia may have finally done something to make her father really happy.

She thought of his soft voice and his awkward demeanor. How joyful he had seemed when the two of them were together. She wished only that she could have had a chance to tell him how she felt. To understand why he made himself suffer for her. Why had she ever been worth it to him? 

How could she be thinking if she was dead? Her eyes widened as she finally came to this realization. 

And it was this contradiction that caused the world around her to shimmer. The metaphorical curtain rolled itself back and Octavia underwent a sensation like she was moving through water. 

And then she was falling. It wasn’t a long fall. Barely a second.

The princess landed softly against carpeted flooring. Her body didn’t ache strangely enough. She felt fine. The pain from her wounds were still gone. In fact, her body was completely devoid of any blood or scarring. Her pajamas were clean and bloodless. She flashed her right hand in front of her face, eyes peering with confusion at the lack of exposed flesh.

Past her hand, Octavia froze at the presence of a familiar structure. A bed, one with curtains framing the end by the pillows, a wall of picturesque stars hanging above like a starry night sky. She recognized the space she was in. She remembered it by heart.

The walls gilded with poorly drawn pictures of her and her dad and the stars. Her bed with starry bed sheets over top and the pink floors that matched her eyes.

It was her room. 

Specifically, her old room, before she had traded for a different room with windows on the other side of the palace. Gone were the dark curtains and the stars painted on the roof and the velvet blankets. Now, Octavia could see toys littered on the floor, her favorite star plushie among them. 

A few dolls also sat along a bin in the corner of the room. Various lines of thread were run along the ends of the limbs and the heads of the dolls. When she was a child, she would rip off the limbs and heads off her dolls and try to reattach. Sometimes she’d mix and match them onto differing bodies just to see what they would look like. 

Many would have looked at it as disturbing and they did, including her mother and probably her father too. Though for whatever reason, her father had one of the staff teach her how to sew as he didn’t want to dissuade her ‘creative vision’. It eventually led down the path of her taking up taxidermy as a hobby, so she was grateful that her father had encouraged her.

She had a lot of fun memories here. Her old room, where she had been a young and naive princess who once believed that her parents were happy together and had a picture perfect marriage. Years before reality came in and punched her across the face. How she wished for those days where it was much simpler.

Crash!

Octavia shook from how startled she was. She backed away from the source of the sound, her eyes locking on the door to her room. On the other side, Octavia could hear screaming and shouting. Her mother’s voice. Angry and on a warpath. All too familiar and all too haunting.

“St–Stella! Please!” A voice begged. Her father’s voice. 

“You stupid, prick! You just had to humiliate me at Murmur’s party!” Her mother ranted. Octavia had no idea why her mother was so angry this time around. Then again, her mother rarely ever needed an excuse to let her temper loose on a demon. It was one of her mother’s many faults.

“All I did was–”

Smack!

Octavia released a startled gasp. She shook at the sound of flesh colliding with flesh. Immediately, she knew what had happened. It didn't make the pain in her chest hurt any less.

“For once, can you just be a man and defend me! I deserve that much!” Her mother roared, her voice cracking from how loud she was yelling. 

One could hear Stella’s heavy, animalistic breaths through the door. So could one hear Stolas’ pained sobbing. “As if you've ever done the same for me!” Stolas retorted. 

Octavia imagined that her father must have felt righteous releasing those words. Finally standing up for himself. Whatever he was feeling was replaced with terror as another crash sounded, followed by broken pieces of ceramic hitting the floor. Octavia could hear his strangled sobs and moans through the door, his body falling to the floor with a thud, her heart dropping with him. 

Why am I seeing this? Octavia pondered. 

Her brain seemed to have a fetish for torturing her as the memory continued. She wanted to close her eyes, but they stayed locked on the shadows dancing through the crack in the doorway. She could imagine their shapes. Her mother stood over her father with a scornful expression, hand raised against him, while her father cowered on the floor, begging for mercy.

Through the door, Stolas gasped at something, but it didn’t take genius to figure out what was happening as Octavia could hear the tightening of fabric and the deepening of her mother’s breath. Her throat tightened like someone was choking her.

Her mother, in a spine chilling tone, warned, “Don’t ever talk back to me again, you miserable waste, or I'll do so much worse.”

Another thud occurred and Stolas groaned. The thunderous clacking of heels against the floor followed, leaving her and her father's heavy breathing echoing solo in the atrocious atmosphere.

A few stray tears ran down Octavia’s face as she collapsed onto the floor, her back slapping against the side of her bed. How many times had she hidden away those memories? How long had she pretended that her father wasn’t being abused by her mother? 

The door to her room opened. No, it didn’t open. Rather a see-through projection of it opened. The door itself was still closed. 

Stepping through it like a ghost was her father. He was dressed in a gray vest and a red cloak overshadowing his shoulders, a cape dangling and ripped, his eyes weary and defeated. Octavia spotted bruising across his cheek as well as black blood dripping from a cut on the side of his head. Octavia swallowed the bile billowing in the back of her throat at the sight.

Octavia was speechless as her father approached the bed, his eyes full of tears, and knelt by it. Those eyes stared caringly toward the bed in a manner that Octavia was all too familiar with. Octavia glanced up and was surprised when she spotted another ghostly apparition sleeping soundly within the bed, their head being gently rubbed by a caring hand from their father.

Herself. Small and in her pink starry pajamas, her bundle of head feathers a mess, but it was her.

Suddenly, it hit Octavia like a freight train as to why she was seeing this. She remembered it. An itch in the back of her mind. A memory she had shrugged off as nothing.

“Daddy? What was that noise?” A mellow and sleepy voice yawned. 

Her younger self's pink eyes shined open through the dark. Octavia, terror filling her features, remembered this night. She'd woken up from her sleep because of a loud noise. She hadn’t known what it was then, only that it scared her shivering.

“Don’t worry princess. It was just a monster.” Her father replied. He paused on the words, his eyes speaking of regret but unable to take them back.

“Like the dragons from those stories?” A younger Octavia asked innocently.

Her father simply nodded, the princess too tired to notice the trembling of her father’s smile.

Octavia stared at her father with a sense of pride. “Did you beat it?” 

“I scared it off,” her father replied, barely dodging the question. Octavia, too young to sense anything wrong, took the answer as a yes and smiled with delight. She then yawned, her eyes flickering back into slumber as her head drifted down onto her pillows. 

“Don’t worry, Starfire. I won’t let anything hurt you.”

With that, the apparitions faded to nothing. The bed was empty, the sheets unwrinkled and clean. The opposite of what Octavia was feeling in her heart. He’d broken his promise to her, yet she could no longer fault him for doing so. Not when it was clear he had broken under the pressure. When her mother’s abuse finally became too much for him and he left, realizing that Octavia was holding him back from happiness. 

Any afterthought about her must have been a delusion or guilt, surely. His care for her in the hospital was surely that.

It wasn’t the last time she heard or saw one of the haunting ghosts. Differing arguments. Different fights. Sometimes all her mother did was throw cruel insults toward her father’s way. 

“Pathetic twig ass!”

“Your ugly feathered beak is a fucking disgrace!”

“Maybe if you were more of a man I wouldn’t be so angry!”

In other cases, she was much more physical. 

Slaps were the most common. Potted plants and plates were thrown. Not all of them hit her father, but it was obvious when it did from her father’s pained gasps. Once, Octavia heard him tumbling down the stares while her mother laughed over top. The worst of it, however, wasn’t the impact.

It was the sound of her father crying in the aftermath.

She hated hearing him cry. She hated how vulnerable and broken he sounded, a shadow of the father she had grown up with, or the one he had allowed her to see.

All of it haunted her. An echo chamber of reminders of the sacrifices her father had taken, of the suffering he had endured for her. Of what she had told herself to be normal. Octavia hid her face beneath her head feathers as she sobbed uncontrollably herself, reminded with each blocked memory that it was her own fault. 

She’d thought she was already living in Hell. This was worse than anything she could ever imagine a Double Hell was like.

She didn’t know how long she had sat at the corner of her bed. But eventually, she was disturbed by a new sound.

Knock!

At first, Octavia wasn’t sure if she had imagined it. She looked around to find the source, failing to see anything. The room was empty. There were no new apparitions. It had been quiet for a few minutes up to this point.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

The sound came again, this time in rapid succession. She finally recognized it as coming from her bedroom door. The light shining through the crack below was shadowed over. Someone was on the other side.

“Via?” A voice called from behind the door, and Octavia’s heart stuttered in its beating.

“Dad?” Octavia whispered in disbelief. 

Was this another apparition? Another memory meant to torment her?

“Via, please, it’s me,” her ‘father’ replied again. “Are you okay? You sound like you’re crying.”

Octavia sniffled and wiped her eyes. Slowly, however, she picked herself up and tip-toed over to the door. Each step creaked against the floor and increased the pace in which her heart bounced in her chest. What was only a few seconds felt like hours. 

Finally, she was directly in front of the door. Outside, she could hear faint and uneasy breaths flowing through the door. Otherwise, her ‘father’ was silent with trepidation. Assuming that it even was him, here with her. She didn’t even know where ‘here’ was.

Her hand drifted over the handle, fingers hovering over it, avoiding touching it like it was blazing hot. If she opened it, would she only make her suffering worse, or would choosing to linger within her room alone be the lesser option. 

Deciding to bite the bullet, Octavia gripped the handle and twisted it. She pulled open the door and the light of the hallway shined onto her, illuminating the bedroom in a bright veil.

Outside, her father stood, dressed in the same clothing that he’d been wearing the last she had seen him in person. He looked untouched. His feathers were kept and his eyes were no longer burdened by dark spots beneath them. His body didn’t glow like the other phantoms. He appeared fleshy and real.

Her father gave her a warm and welcoming smile, his hands clasped nervously together. “Hello, dearest. May I come in?”

Octavia stared at him, mouth agape. The silence was striking and tense. Her beak trembled anxiously as she couldn’t believe that her father was standing before her. She’d been expecting this moment for a long time now. Yet, now in the heat of the moment, Octavia was unable to form a sentence much less a thought.

Crash!

Another plant vase broke, pulling Octavia out of her stupor. Octavia saw the way her father flinched at the sound of broken ceramics clattering against the floor. His eyes became complacent and Octavia noticed the tell-tale signs of dissociation. In the background, Octavia could hear her mother screaming again and she too noticed her father shrivel at her cruel tone.

Before she knew what she was doing, Octavia grabbed her father by the wrist and pulled him inside. The exiled prince didn’t say anything as Octavia slammed the door shut behind her, leaning her back against it as though to shield themselves from what was on the other side. The screaming eventually faded and Octavia was left alone with her ‘father’ in her old room. 

The two stared at one another in an awkward void. Her father twiddled with his fingers nervously, his shoulders relaxing as Stella’s voice faded to a dull murmur.

“Thank you, Via,” Stolas whispered, the owl sounding guilty as he uttered the words out from his beak. 

As though he should have been stronger for her. The thought made her ill. He had been strong for her for long enough. Too long. Why did he think he needed to pretend around her?

She was feeling a variety of emotions. Relief that he was here and okay. Joy for the same reason. But also angry. The red emotion was still flowing through her veins like volcanic magma. She wanted to scream at him. To tell him how much she hated him for leaving her alone with the peafowl siblings and running off with his lover. For making her feel like her whole childhood was a lie. She was going to say…

“You’re here,” Octavia whispered with uncertainty. It was all she could say really. She still couldn’t quite believe that her father was here. Wherever here was that is. 

“I am. So are you,” Stolas responded. 

He sat down on top of her bed, his eyes landing on her expectantly. For a moment, Octavia wasn’t sure what he wanted until Stolas tapped the spot next to him. She was begrudging to do so, but another crash from outside made her legs weak. Though disinclined to do so, she sat down next to her father to his own relief. 

She didn’t really feel like listening to him. She was still angry with him, but it was probably better than going outside to whatever nightmare this world was cooking up for her.

His eyes glazed over the room with consideration, the screams from earlier seemingly forgotten as he took in her old room. He paused his gaze on the curtains overlooking the bed, his hand feeling over the velvet sheets. “I remember when you would have your nightmares. Your powers had manifested early in hindsight. I went through something similar when I was your age.” 

“I can’t imagine you liked doing it,” Octavia noted bitterly.

“No one likes having to get up in the middle of the night dearest,” Stolas smiled ruefully. “But I did it anyway because you needed me.” 

“So being my father was just a job?”

It was easy to believe. She was nothing more than an obligation, she had told herself.

Her father flinched at the snide remark, but he brushed it off and replied thoughtfully, “No…well…technically, it is a job, but it was one I took great enjoyment in, and they always say that work isn’t work when you love it.”

He’d said it with a smile. It was so corny and a bit misguided in execution. Like he got so lost in thought that a jumble of words followed his immediate response. So much like her father. So much like the parent she had quietly grown to enjoy in her later years before the divorce.

Why did he have to sound like he enjoyed being her father for the sake of it? Why did he have to keep pretending? She grinded her claws against her palms in frustration.

Another crash and another scream from her mother came. Her father sighed, his gaze unsurprised, so used to the screaming. “If only your mother had wished to expel the same level of desire.”

There was a sharpness to his tone. It was analogous to the anger he had shared with her throughout the divorce proceedings, the arguments so full of fury and sending Via to hide in her room. Yet, he sounded more exhausted this time, and…disappointed. As though he still expected more from her.

Perhaps hope truly was blind.

“Did she ever love me?” Octavia asked, her voice breaking.

Her father gazed at her with pity. “I…I would love to say, yes,” he responded reluctantly. “But I don’t want to lie to you anymore.” 

‘You lied to me once. You’ll do it again.’

Octavia remembered those words. They stung at her like a thousand icicles piercing her skin. 

Her father told her, “I can’t tell you if she ever did. Perhaps she does in her own way, but I am aware it's not in the way you wanted or needed.”

A single tear ran down Octavia’s cheek and the princess rubbed it away as soon as it began to slide along the fuzz of her face. 

When she was a kid, Octavia had wanted her mother’s attention wantonly. Yet, whenever she asked her mother to play, whenever she excitedly asked her mother to see what drawing she’d made or what other project she’d done, Stella had brushed her off. Sometimes she’d yell, losing her fiery temper on Octavia. When the owlet was younger, this had caused her to rush into her father’s arms in tears.

That ache within her chest, the dull empty feeling that overwhelmed and drowned her deeper into a soul crushing depth. (Her mother could never love her. She wondered if her mother loved herself at all.) Octavia was more infuriated that the truth stung like a nest of angry hornets. 

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Octavia breathed, her voice light. “I just wish it didn’t hurt so much.”

Stolas nodded with a look of understanding on his features. “I recognize your pain, Starfire. I…,” Stolas paused. The owl prince sighed sorrowfully. “Your grandfather, Paimon, he…I craved his attention so deeply when I was a child. Even now I cannot put into words how much I wish he could have loved me.”

“Do you even love me?” Octavia couldn’t help but ask her father, in a half-serious tone.

Her father was taken aback by the question. “Starfire, I do,” he replied, as though it shouldn’t have been a question to begin with. 

Octavia scoffed at his response and her father looked hurt. The princess turned her head away from him, unable to look into his eyes and ignoring the way her heart twisted in her chest.

“Am I dead?” Octavia started. It should have been the first thing she asked him, but she had been too stunned by his presence to do so.

Her father shook his head. “No, you’re not. You are very much alive. Just in a coma.”

A coma. 

Which meant…

“We’re in my head?” 

That explained why the memories were so surreal. 

“Precisely, my dear,” Stolas remarked. 

At that moment, another scream sounded down the hall. Octavia rubbed her head to soothe the headache that was forming. Stolas similarly rubbed his eyes. “I imagine it isn’t the most pleasant of places right now.”

Octavia rolled her eyes. Understatement of the year to say the least.

“Why are you here? How?” Octavia questioned, her tone forceful.

Her father didn’t flinch at her tone, telling her, “There are certain spells that can do such a thing. I had Vassago perform it so that I could speak to you.”

Her father’s expression grew softer as he reached a hand out to her shoulder. Instinctively, Octavia flinched at his touch and Stolas pulled his hand back. He looked hurt by her avoidance and Octavia felt a wave of contrite anguish in her stomach.

Nevertheless, her father sighed, continuing by saying, “As for why, you haven’t woken up yet. It’s been over a month. Even Barbara has woken up. We were all worried about you, so I thought to enter your mind to coax you awake.”

Octavia’s eyes lit up at this new information. Over a month had passed. It had barely felt like a day stuck in her own head. A month. The twins had probably hatched by now. And Barbie…

“Barbie’s okay?”

Stolas nodded. His voice was prideful as he spoke. “And so are your siblings. You protected them from your mother’s wrath, my Starfire. You have no idea how proud of you I am.”

It should have made her warm, hearing her father praise her. Instead, it left Octavia shaking with disgust. She clenched her beak as she uttered, “You shouldn’t be. I’m just like Mum.”

Stolas had an expression of surprise by her statement. “Via, I–”

“I tried to kill them,” Octavia gasped, the words escaping her beak like boiling hot steam, burning her tongue and causing her to sweat ferociously.

Stolas was startled by the admission, and he didn’t respond. Octavia couldn’t bear to look at him. She suspected that he was staring at her with fury. Was he disgusted with her too as she was herself?

Octavia rambled, “I saw that stupid fucking video of you two with that egg and I felt so mad brcause it was fucking obvious that you had the child you wanted. Then it was at the palace. I had their egg in my hands. I wanted to smash them. I would have.”

Her breathing was shallow and hot as she remembered the warm and fragile ovular object in her hands. She had been so close too. All Octavia had to do was loosen her grip and her siblings would have been scrambled onto the floor. 

“But you didn’t,” Stolas replied with a neutral tone.

No, she didn’t. Yet, she couldn’t shake the guilt from wanting to in the first place. Maybe now he would stop looking at her like she mattered. Her voice warbled as she continued. “It would have hurt you. You didn’t deserve that. Neither did they.”

Octavia dared a peek at her father and was shocked when she saw him with a proud smile emblazoned on his beak. “You chose to be better. You chose protecting them over your own anger,” he hummed. “All you’ve done is tell me what a great young woman you’re becoming, and I couldn’t be more proud.”

He was being so kind to her. So forgiving. It was too much for her.

“How can you look at me like that?” Octavia grunted. She stood up from the bed with a sob in her throat. She couldn’t bear to be seated next to him.

Stolas stared at his daughter with immense sorrow. “Via.”

“No!” Octavia cried. Why? Why did he insist on this act? “How can you possibly love me when all I’ve ever done is make you miserable?”

Octavia stared at her father with a defiant frown, tears dripping down her eyes. She took note that she had been doing that a lot lately. Her life was such a complete and utter trainwreck, but she was so utterly exhausted with the lies.

Her father trembled with melancholy. “I’m so sorry,” he bemoaned. “I’m so sorry I made you think I saw you as a burden.”

She was too devoid of energy to fight back when her father approached her, his eyes filled with fatherly affection. He gently cupped her face and wiped away the tears that were running down her cheeks. Octavia hated how much she enjoyed the comfort from her father. She didn’t feel she deserved it.his touch.

“May I show you something, Starfire,” he urged. Octavia couldn’t find the energy to reply. 

Her father took her silence as a ‘yes’.

Stolas took her hand and guided her toward the bedroom door. Pulling it open, Octavia was startled when it didn’t open into the hall but rather another room.

A king sized bed with pillars and a roof hovering above sat to her right, a horde of shelves of books on her left. The balcony doors were open reflecting the vermillion evening sky of Pride. The sun was shining bright, leaving a ray blazing through the open balcony doors. Octavia recognized it as her father’s room.

“What?” Octavia gasped as she mindlessly followed her father inside. 

Why were they here?

Her father turned his head and noticed her curiosity. “Though this is your mind, if I will it enough to occur, I am able to share my own memories with you,” he explained.

Octavia perked up at this. Her father’s memories. She frowned as she considered what that meant. What did he want to show her that she hadn’t already experienced in the deeper recesses of her own head? What horrid memory of his did he want to show her?

She quickly got her answer when an apparition appeared before them by the balcony. It was her father, dressed in a black t-shirt and shorts, his feathers messy and his face lined with deep bags, though much younger than he was now. His eyes, filled with worry and exhaustion, were focused on an ovular object with a pale shell sitting atop multiple pillows. 

An egg.

“Is that me?” Octavia asked. 

She’d only ever seen pictures of her egg. Being so close to the real thing was so surreal. She glanced at her father and noticed his gaze locked onto her egg. He wasn’t quite all there as his mind had drifted far off, lost in the space of deep thought.

“You were just an egg,” her father replied with a smile. He bent down before his younger self. “So small. So fragile, and you would still be when you hatched.” Octavia bent down next to him, eyeing her egg with intrigue. Her father, the real one, reached out a hand and ran it along the tip of the egg nostalgically. “I didn’t know what you would look like or what being a parent meant. I was dreading your very arrival.”

“How old were you?” she asked.

Her father replied, “I was a couple of years older than you. A child myself.”

Fuck, she thought. 

She knew her father was young, but it never occurred to her until now that he had really been young when he and her mother married and just as when they had her. Her entire childhood had probably just been him winging his parenting skills. It was no wonder he had chosen the imp over her. She had essentially taken his life from him.

“Did you even want me back then?” Octavia asked with a nervous twitch in her voice.

Her father froze at the question. He chewed on his lower beak as he seemed to ponder on a response, mumbling anxiously to himself. 

Finally, with a controlled and careful tone, her father responded, “Not at first, no. At first, you were nothing more than a symbol that my life was never really mine. I…I don’t want to say I hated you, but I certainly resented what you were.” 

Octavia gave a shuddered sigh in response. She had asked for the truth and so she shouldn’t have been hurt by that reality. Her mother had already reminded her of the fact that she didn’t truly care for her. 

She shouldn’t have been hurt by her father’s response. Though it was the way he presented his emotions as past tense that prevented her from giving in to the sorrow.

“At first?”

Her father smiled at her warmly. “It’s like I told you earlier, sweetheart, I grew to love you for your existence. Being your father was more rewarding than anything I have ever done.” 

His smile became a touch dopey as his mind drifted off again. “Every time you laughed, my heart skipped a beat. I wanted to cry tears of joy every time you showed me one of your drawings or how excited you looked with your hobbies.” 

Octavia’s breath hitched in the back of her throat at hearing the love in her father’s voice. She had to be hallucinating it, surely. 

“I won’t lie and say that I never pretended to be happy around you,” he added with a pursed frown. “But it was never you that made me miserable, though you certainly gave me a headache every now and again.” With a teasing wink, he added, “Shall we talk about the incident involving the carnivorous plants in my garden.”

Octavia couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped from her beak. She remembered it well. The plant had literally swallowed her whole while she was playing in the gardens, Octavia giggling while unaware of the danger she was in. Her father practically pulled her out from the mouth of the plant and against his chest with fright. She’d been covered in slime, yet her smile had eased some of the worry blooming in his chest.

“Looking back, you were about ready to shed all of your feathers,” she giggled. 

Her father hummed with amusement. “Oh, how dreadful. I might have looked like one of those vultures if that happened.”

The comment caused Octavia to guffaw, the image of her father featherless ingrained in her head. Her father too couldn’t help but chuckle with her. Octavia felt light on her knees sitting next to her father for the first time in ages. Though it was this revelation that caused her to pause in her laughter. Stolas noticed this and frowned. Octavia shifted uncomfortably with his eyes on her. The princess was speechless. She didn’t know what to say to him.

Her father broke the silence first. “I missed this, Via. You have no idea how much I’ve missed just sitting next to you. Talking with you and hearing your voice.”

She did too. She missed this too. If only she could air that thought to him. Her eyes drifted away, unable to face him, and focusing on the room for a distraction.

Her eyes widened as she spotted a familiar bottle. 

“Are those…?”

Her father turned his gaze toward where she was looking and he too spotted the bottle of antidepressants sitting atop the vanity desk. “Ever since my early teens, I’ve never felt right with myself,” he explained in a clinical tone. “I should have been happy. One day I would be. On the next, I would have the worst mood swings. Just a fucking mess.” 

Her father visibly cringed at whatever memory was playing in his head. Octavia just sat and listened, too entranced to comment.

“I had everything I could ask for, or at least I told myself as such,” he continued. “The doctors told me it was a chemical imbalance. Said that I needed to take the pills to help regulate my mood properly. I just thought of it as another way in which I was broken.” 

Octavia flinched at the last word. Broken. Like him being unable to feel happy made him subpersonal to everyone else around him. From the way he described it, it was a physical ailment.

“So, it…you needed them because your hormones were off?”

“Partially, I suppose,” Stolas pondered. “Though I suppose my isolated childhood and the weight placed on my shoulders at such a young age, it was hard for me to feel any sort of joy.”

“You’ve never talked about your childhood before,” Octavia noted. She’d always been the one to ask him, and each time he would dodge the question. Initially, she’d thought he never wanted to bother talking about it with her. Now, however…

In a despondent voice, Stolas stated, “It wasn’t something I wanted to regale you with. They’re not happy memories,” his eyes downtrodden upon the floor. 

“That’s why you spent so much time with me,” Octavia realized, another piece clicking into place. It should have been obvious sooner. “You wanted me to feel loved.”

She had truthfully. Maybe not from her mother, but her father had always tried to make her happy. That had been why his betrayal at the courtroom had devastated her so much. It was like all that love had turned out to be nothing more than an illusion.

“I do love you, Starfire. I never wanted you to feel like you were an obligation or a mistake the same way my father made me,” her father admitted. Octavia’s heart skipped a beat at his words and the princess was left devoid of air in her lungs. She was further left speechless by the regretful frown on his beak. 

‘My Starfire…I can’t…She can’t die. I cannot lose either of them!’

Octavia remembered how distraught he had been at her being in danger. She had told herself that it was a lie, that it was just him being exhausted and over-emotional as a result. 

Why was she trying so hard to fight against the truth that was right in front of her?

“Though it seems I failed at even that,” he whispered, more whimpered, in a low defeated voice, a gut punch to the princess listening to her father spill his being to her.

Before Octavia could say anything, another apparition formed near them, sauntering over to Stolas and the egg from the balcony.

“Uncle Vassago?” Octavia uttered with surprise. He’d never mentioned that he had been to see her as an egg.

“We were close in our teenage years,” Stolas told her with a smile of recollection. “Though we drifted apart as we grew older.” 

Octavia hummed thoughtfully. Vassago had said as much when they talked. Perhaps his depression had played a role in it, Octavia now wondered.

“He was helping me with my training,” she said to her father. “Our initial plan was for me to be ready to usurp Uncle Andy for your role.”

Stolas smiled at her initiative. “He mentioned as such. He said you were shaping up to be more powerful than I.” His eyes grew weepy with joy. “I have no reason to doubt him about your talent, though I do not believe your uncle would have been much of a challenge. Andrealphus was never as adept with magic as he liked to believe.”

Octavia chuckled. “Oh you have no idea how much he sucks, Dad.”

The peacock couldn’t even perform a simple prophecy without pissing himself, and that wasn’t an exaggeration either. A master manipulator for sure, but words could only carry so far before your shit became too rancid to explain away.

“You’ll have to tell me some other time, dear,” Stolas replied. 

The pair were halted as whatever memory her father wanted to show her began to play in front of them.

“Are you alright, amigo?” A concerned Vassago asked Stolas, the memory apparition that is.

“What am I doing, Vassago?” the apparition asked, glancing up at his friend for a word of advice, his expression showing complete and utter apathy.

“¿Qué quieres decir?”

The apparition sighed, rubbing at his eyes with a defeated slouch in his shoulders. “Why do I think that I can do this? Be a father?”

Octavia took notice of how young and lost her father sounded, a youthful croak to his voice that made Octavia feel small. Her father sounded so lost, alone. It was another reminder that he had been a scared child, forced to grow up in a world that constantly beat down on him.

Vassago gave him a carefree smile, tilting his gold shades down to reveal his eyes to his friend. “Because you want what’s better for them,” Vassago said with jovial certainty. “You wish to give them a childhood better than the one you had, no.”

“I don’t even know how to love them properly,” Stolas sighed.

Vassago bent down over his friend and comfortingly rubbed his shoulder. “You’ll know, Stolas. It’ll come to you the same way your magic does. I’m sure of it.”

“If you say so,” Stolas replied dejectedly. Octavia stared at the memory of her father. 

She recalled his earlier words, how he had once seen her as a burden upon him, a reminder of the meaninglessness of his life. Yet, he had also told her he had grown to love her. Which was true? Or were both so? Was she overthinking again in the same breadth as her paternal lineage, or did he harbor resentment like her mother? 

Actually, now that she was thinking about it…

“Do I need to ask where Mum is at the time of this?” Octavia questioned.

Her father, the real one, shrugged with an uncaring and disappointed expression. “Probably on a beach in Envy if I’m not mistaken.”

It stung, but not nearly as much as it should have. It was more of a numb feeling at this point, though it led to another question.

“What happened to Mum if you don’t mind me asking?”

She had been with her father for what constituted several minutes and not once had she bothered to learn what had happened while she was out. She couldn’t imagine that her mother and uncle Andy would have made any more attempts with a Sin on her father’s side, two actually. What she was able to coax out of her father was nothing short of such a wild and thrilling tale that it was nigh impossible to conceive.

Shortly after her and Barbie had passed out from their injuries, Blitzø and the others had arrived to find them and the twins, the latter safe within their egg while the former two were bleeding out in the street. In any case, both of them had been rushed to the hospital to have the angelic blessings flushed from their systems. Her father had not been there personally, given he was still in the hospital himself, but Blitzø had relayed what they had found and her father became squeamish, regaling her about how he felt at the time. 

“I’d never seen Blitzø look so shaken up, what with you and his sister both being hurt. He refused to even let me see you until you were out of harm's way,” Stolas recalled, frowning at the painful memory. 

Octavia meanwhile couldn’t fathom the imp caring about her well being. Barbie, sure, but her. Stolas seemed to notice her doubt.

“I know that he’s not your favorite person, dearest,” Stolas assured. Octavia rolled her eyes sarcastically. “But he’s not as heartless as you think he is.”

Octavia wanted to bite back but paused, recalling the affection she had seen in his eyes when he was with her father. Real, genuine love that Octavia had envied for she wished it had been between her mother and father. 

“Perhaps not,” Octavia mumbled. 

It wasn’t like she really knew him to begin with, and the fact Loona put up with him had to mean at least something as well. She’d drop it for now.

Not long after Octavia and Barbie had been stabilized, and the twins had been checked to see if they were okay (which they were), an immediate summons had been orchestrated by her uncle Andrealphus to Satan’s court. It didn’t surprise Octavia that Andrealphus had called a meeting of the Goetia and Sins. All for the marquis to hide behind someone bigger and frame it as them being the one in control while he pulled the strings. 

The coward.

Stolas and Blitzø had been dragged into court alongside the egg before Satan and the other Sins. Andrealphus had accused them of harboring an abomination as well as being responsible for the attack on Octavia. He had claimed that they had done so for bargaining power as, with Octavia gone, Stolas’ children with Blitzø would be his only heirs. Even at her angriest with him, Octavia would never believe such a callous tale, though it was not her opinion that mattered. 

Satan and the Goetia were a much harder hill to climb. Though her uncle Vassago, and the Sins Beelzebub and Asmodeus, had stood up to Satan over the accusations, the screams of the other Goetia and the lack of care from the other Sins were much louder. It didn’t help that Satan too had an ego that overrode reason.

“That must have been terrifying,” Octavia remarked, and all the while she was recovering in the hospital. She was amazed that her father had been able to keep himself together.

Her father nodded in reply. “It was, but thankfully, Lucifer was much more of a listener than Satan.”

Octavia’s eyes widened at this remark. Lucifer, at a court appearance? The true king of Hell had been a recluse for close to a decade now. 

For him to show up now, was absurd, and her father’s own shock, present within his voice, was just as evident.

According to him, Lucifer had shown up out of nowhere, sitting aloof atop his throne with a carefree expression, much to the shock and horror of everyone in the courtroom. Satan especially, according to her father, had appeared to physically shrink beneath the presence of the shorter king (no pun intended).

However, it was Andrealphus’ own terror that satisfied Stolas and Blitzø the most. Even Octavia now listening to how the peacock had quivered beneath the daring eyes of the King of Hell left her with a chirpy joy. 

Andrealphus, as decent a bull shitter as he was, knew there was no lying to the King of Lies. The title was not an indication of his own actions as some mortals falsely interpreted, but rather that Lucifer was capable of deciphering the truthfulness out of any demon, human, or angel. 

Octavia was jittery with glee knowing what was coming within her father’s story.

First, Lucifer had asked Stolas and Blitzø for their side of the story. Stolas had regaled to him his love for his daughter even with his banishment with some cursing and insults from Blitzø for added measure, throwing out that the assassin who attacked her had previously been hired by Stella to kill him multiple times. This accusation obviously had the effect of sending the court into a frenzy of choruses and cacophony, which Satan had shut up with a fist slamming into the wall. 

With the court room quieted, Lucifer then asked Andrealphus to relay his piece, much to the sweating and fearful peacock’s inability to speak. As one could guess, the entire trial went downhill for her uncle from here.

In a moment of panic, her uncle had essentially thrown his sister under the bus, capitulating to the notion of self-preservation. He'd blamed Stella for the assassination attempts, claiming that he was just being a good older brother by lying for her. It garnered him no sympathy from Lucifer, however. As a side note, the pale king asked him if he even had the skills to handle Stolas’ position.

Before he could even defend himself, Vassago had spoken aloud and remarked of how he had needed to train Octavia in place of Andrealphus due to the latter's utter incompetence and negligence with handling his duties. Much all to the scowling directed toward the sniveling peacock from both Lucifer and Satan. The former because he was none too pleased that such an important role had been handed to someone not belittled for it, and Satan because he was beginning to realize that he had been duped at the last trial.

Stella had immediately been transported to the courtroom where she was made to testify in her own defense, a reality that the entitled peahen was not prepared for in the slightest. Stella, unable to keep her cool, essentially told on herself, continuing to hurl insults and slurs at Stolas and Blitzø amongst other things. Even Satan balked at Stella’s wrathful rants. It only ended when Lucifer casted a magical seal over her lips, much to Stella’s fury and Stolas’ enjoyment. The exiled prince had nearly balled over from a laughing fit at the sight.

Stella had been punished with 100 years of exile. However, Satan decidedly added an additional stipulation of it being served at one of his ‘work’ camps. Stella, of course, had thrown a tantrum at the very idea of ‘work’, hurling shrieks and insults at everyone in her eye sight as she was dragged away by the cloaked reapers. Octavia didn’t feel anything hearing this. Her mother had made her choices, and now she was sleeping in the bed she'd made. Scratch that, the bed she'd made the staff make for her.

And considering that Andrealphus had knowingly gone along with the scheme, he too was given a punishment similar to the one Stolas had received. Two hundred years of exile to Wrath with the loss of his powers. It had been a devastating blow to Andrealphus, the peacock scowling at both Blitzø and Stolas as he too was taken away to his punishment.

As for Stolas, he was still technically guilty of loaning his Grimoire out to a random demon, so his exile was still in effect. However, Vassago had managed to convince Lucifer to allow Stolas to act as a paid advisor to Octavia for when she was able to ascend to her position as head of the House of Stolas. With some consideration, Lucifer agreed.

“A bit presumptuous of you both to assume that I would want that,” Octavia noted with a hint of bitterness.

Stolas’ eyes became downtrodden though understanding of her ire. “I…I know, it’s far too soon. I only agreed to it in the heat of the moment,” he remarked somberly. “I’m aware that you hate me.”

Octavia flinched at the words. “I…I don’t hate you,” she muttered. “I just…I don’t know how to trust you again.”

“Oh, Via.”

Suddenly, without warning, a low chirping could be heard. Octavia remembered then that her father had brought her to this memory of his for a reason. The memory version of Stolas heard it first. He gasped, slightly scooting away from the egg with a jolt. 

“She’s hatching, Vassago!” Stolas gasped.

“I can see that, hermano,” Vassago remarked. “Though I don’t believe we should jump just yet, it’ll be several hours before–”

The egg shook atop the pillow, almost falling over. It shook again. Cracks began to form along the egg like crevices in the dry earth of Wrath. 

The egg’s hatching! Octavia realized. So this was what the memory’s about. But why this?

The cracks grew wider, spreading across the entire egg. The chirping within the egg grew louder as the egg shook more and more, until it was finally too much for the egg shell to handle.

Even Octavia was startled when the egg split in half down the middle, sending the chick within, herself, sprawling onto the pillow. Leftover juices from within the egg spilled onto the pillow as the shell pieces fell to the side. 

A wet and sticky chick, naked of all feathers save for some downy on her forehead, sprawled and squawked on the pillow. All the while, both the memory apparitions of Stolas and Vassago stared dumbfounded at the newborn Octavia.

“That was fast,” Octavia stated in surprise. Much too fast if she was being truthful. She was amazed that she hadn’t immediately died afterwards. The whole point of her busting out of the shell was to serve a point toward her survival after all.

She’d read that it could take a dozen or so hours for the chick to break out of the egg, a way for them to build up their lungs and immune system. It had barely been a minute and Octavia was already rolling about and flapping her featherless arms.

Stolas chuckled fondly of the day’s events. “Your hatching was an unusually quick one. Just like a star, you were full of boundless energy.”

Octavia blushed at the remark, feeling the fatherly affection wafting over her. Could she really say anymore that he hated her? It didn’t change that he had lied to her, however. The claws of resentment were hard to remove.

Back within the memory, the environment began to change. Octavia first noticed it when she felt the light from outside begin to darken. A large, circular entity moved over the sun, darker than the night. It enveloped the sun with its presence, covering it like a blanket. The light outside faded to black and the room was littered within that same darkness.

Meanwhile, her father held the newborn Octavia within the palms of his hands, her arms raised high. He held her up like she was an offering to the heavens as he stared deeply into her. The little chick’s eyes opened for a moment, but it was long enough for a pink light to shine from them. The only light to escape within the room. Stolas’ breath stuttered and the owl’s body slouched weakly. 

Her father stuttered out, “Vas…she’s…”

Octavia leaned in to watch her father’s reaction, his eyes slowly tearing up at her tiny and rather ugly form. Then, in a warm and sobbing voice, he whispered. “She’s beautiful.”

And then he cried. The memory showed her father cuddling the small chick to his chest as he cried what could only be described as tears of joy at the newborn hatchling. Octavia’s breath hitched and the owlette wiped away a few tears of her own. She looked at her father next to her, the real one, and noticed him smiling nostalgically at the memory, shedding a few of his own tears. 

Why had her father shown her this? She’d asked herself that question moments earlier. Now, she knew why. 

The memory of her father sobbing over the egg continued. Eventually, the memory faded away, leaving only Octavia and her father alone in the room. The ghosts were gone. The eclipse had dissipated. It was only them.

“I didn’t know what would come,” her father told her suddenly, his eyes adrift. “All I knew then in that moment was you were the most precious thing in that room. More so than any star I had observed.”

Her father turned to her and placed his hands over her shoulders. “Don’t you see, Via,” he urged with importance. “You didn’t make me miserable. I already was as such. Not until you came into this world with the sun in your eyes, my Starfire, did I find the will to live.”

Octavia’s beak was agape. She couldn’t speak. All she was capable of was feeling the fatherly warmth glowing from one of the only demons who’d ever cared about her.

“You were what kept me going,” Stolas uttered truthfully. “You gave my life purpose. I never had a happy childhood, but I swore that day that I would give you one that would be.”

Octavia was in awe at her father’s devotion, spoken with a passion she had rarely ever seen from him growing up, always being so reserved. She remembered those memories of old. Her days with her father. The little play dates and tea parties he would do with her even when he looked uncomfortable in the small chairs and billowy dresses. The extravagant birthdays he would throw for her even though she hadn’t expected much. The little gestures of encouragement whenever she showed him her latest new clothes or drawings or even her taxidermy.

“You did,” Octavia whispered meekly, because he had. He had tried.

Yet…

“You were still hurting.”

Her father had tried so hard to be in her life in those early years. However, as she had grown older, it had felt as though he had further and further resigned himself to his own company. By Sinsmas last year, Octavia had accepted that her father had hated her, resented her, and this was why he had retreated within himself. She’d never thought to consider that his wounds were much deeper, older than herself.

“I was,” her father acknowledged with a look of regret. “I thought that being a father would make the pain go away, but it didn’t.” He was contrite as he stated, “But that’s not your fault, Via, and it’s not…my fault either.” The words were rocky on his tongue, like it was hard to come to terms with his own self worth.

“You…blamed yourself.” The thought made her ill. It sounded so barbaric, the idea that her father had done something to deserve the ire from her mother. However, the more she thought about it, the more she remembered that her father had always been alone. 

Stolas became squeamish as a carefully worded expression left his beak. “Like I said, I…I thought there was something wrong with me. I tried so hard to make your mother and everyone else in the Goetia happy.” Her father sardonically remarked, “I suppose I didn’t see any reason why it wasn’t my fault.”

There was a bitter irony to Stolas’ confession to her, one that didn't escape from Octavia’s grasp, and left her feeling dense to the world around her. Then again, didn't that make her more like the demon next her regardless.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She asked, no, begged. “About how upset you were? About Mum? About…everything?”

He stared at her like he knew something she didn't, and gently cupped her cheek with his hand. He told her, “Because it wasn’t your burden to bear.”

“She hurt you. She hurt you so many times and you took it…for me.” Her voice trembled a touch. It was inconceivable that she was worth so much pain and misery.

“And I would take so much more if it meant you were happy, my Starfire,” her father whispered with such certainty that it only confused Octavia more.

“Why?”

Her father shrugged, uncertain, yet certain at the same time. “That’s just what a father does.”

Octavia’s shoulders slumped. She didn’t know what to say to that. There was so much right and wrong about that statement that Octavia was left speechless as to how to respond. Nothing except…

“I could have stopped it,” with a child-like indignation.

Her father shook his head. “No, you couldn’t have, Via.”

“I could have though! I…I could have told her to stop or…or…”

Octavia’s throat tightened as did her fists. She…she could have stood up to her mother, right? She could have stopped her and prevented her father from suffering. She could have been a good daughter then.

Her father, on the other hand, continued to disagree. “And then you would have been the center of her anger, and I couldn’t let that happen,” he pointed out sincerely. “Look what happened when you confronted your mother this time. Even without me there, I’m sure she ignored your defense of me and the twins, yes?”

Octavia pursed her beak. She wanted so desperately to fight her father’s logic. However, looking back at the previous events…

“I feel so useless,” Octavia muttered defeatedly.

“You’re not useless, Via,” Stolas whispered assuringly. “Everything you’ve done attributes to the opposite conclusion.”

“It isn’t your responsibility to protect me, Starfire,” he continued. “It’s mine to protect you and, at the time, I thought that meant taking the brunt of her rage.” 

Her father’s expression was somber, full of regret. He’d been so young. He hadn’t known what to do other than take it. She recalled how lost she had been before her uncle Vassago came to help her. She wondered if she might have made a similar decision in his position.

“Was it the correct choice? Perhaps I could have done things differently,” he admitted. “But as I said, I will do anything to protect you.”

“But I’m not a little kid anymore, Dad,” Octavia complained. “That may have been your only choice then, but you can’t hide it anymore.”

“You’re..you are correct," Stolas remarked with a reluctant tone. “You will always be my little girl, but you are correct that you are growing up. As much as I dislike acknowledging it, that is something that I must get used to.” 

It was a hard pill for her father to swallow, but it was a pill he was trying to swallow seemingly. It was enough to show he at least cared for her opinion.

“You’ve already done enough for me, Dad,” Octavia told him firmly. She knew she wasn’t in the best of mental headspaces either. She was still an emotional teenager at heart. “I may not be all there to be an adult, but I need you to give me the chance to be.”

Her father pondered on her plea. A part of her half expected him to continue fighting her on this. However, she was relieved when he nodded his head in agreement. “I can’t promise that I won’t make another mistake, Via, as much as it hurts to admit it. I swear though that I will work to be what you need me to be.”

Octavia sighed. It wasn’t the best, but it was her father’s best, and that was all she could ask for. Though there was one thing left she needed to hear from him about.

“And…and Blitzø?” Octavia questioned.

The imp was an open wound to her. She hated to say that he was competition, because that implied that her father was someone not meant to be shared, which left a sour taste in Octavia’s mouth.

“He was going to die,” her father spoke hauntingly. “There was no time to think. He would have died in that courtroom and…and I never would have forgiven myself. I’m not sure if I would have recovered.”

Her father had always been a bit overdramatic. She’d grown up with his flair. Yet, she thought about that day again. She thought about what would have happened if her father had been a second late, the imp’s head rolling on the floor, eyes dead as the rest of him. What she thought would make her feel better, left her feeling disgusted. If her father had walked in on that, would it have broken him?

She thought about her own reaction to her father almost dying, both on screen during the trial and from her mother after she had the egg taken. The idea of losing him both times had torn her apart so much that she didn’t know how to function. Hell, the idea of being replaced had left her in a similar place. 

“You really love him, don’t you?”

It was hard for her to accept that her father could love someone else just as strongly as he did her. But her father wasn’t a toy. He was a person. He had his own wants and needs the same as her.

“I do,” Stolas replied. “But know that if it had been you up there instead, the decision would have been the same. He isn't there to replace you Via. Just another extension of my life in a vein different to you. Yet, I would do anything for you both. I love you both so much.”

Her father sighed dejectedly. “But I should have told you the truth, you were right about that, Via. I should have told you my feelings sooner.”

Her father crossed his arms over his shoulders. “I’m not used to sharing them. I don’t mean that as an excuse. It just is. I’m used to keeping everything bottled up. I…I wasn’t in a place where I could tell you without breaking down into tears, without feeling ashamed of myself for what I deemed to be my own inadequacies.”

“I’m ready now, however, and, if you would permit,” her father said hopefully. “I would love to try again at being your father.”

To have him again. That was what she had been wanting for. It wouldn’t be the same. It would never be the same. Their relationship, whatever it was before, it would not be what it once was. It was terrifying. 

Yet, sitting next to her father, being so close to the warm and caring individual who had given her so much joy throughout her life, wanting to make leaps and concessions for a second chance, the answer was clear, if a bit daunting. 

“Okay,” Octavia breathed. It was like a weight off her chest. 

Stolas leaned in to hug her excited by her approval, but paused when Octavia flinched at his approach. She wanted him so badly, loved him truly, but she wasn’t quite ready to hand herself over completely. 

Her father looked hurt by her reluctance but shook it away. The exiled prince took a deep breath, masking away the pain. “Baby steps. I understand,” Stolas accepted.

Octavia was relieved by his understanding. “That’s all I ask.”

Her father held out his hand to her instead. “It’s time to wake up.”

Octavia looked around her father’s old room. The past was full of such wonderful memories. She wondered what terrible memories also resided within them, but that was life she supposed. A mix of good and bad. 

Whatever came, she would face it. She took her father’s hand, and the world dissolved around them.

. . .

Waking up was not as fun the first time. 

Now, she was forced to deal with her actual physical body which had been unused and still for a month straight. Her head ached from the ever blinding light burning through her flickering eyes. Her body was stiff and her joints ached. It hurt to raise her head, yet she did so anyway.

Her vision was white, now slowly fading to reveal the colors of the real world. She first noticed the series of tubes and cords plugged into her arm as well as a wristband tied around her left wrist. She was dressed in a white and blue-spotted hospital gown with a thick white blanket pulled up to her waist. As she sat up, she took in the crowd formed around her bedside.

With the warning from her father, she wasn’t caught off guard by the multitude of demons surrounding her bedside, though she was still too dazed to speak immediately.

To her right was her father and her uncle Vassago, the latter tapping his feet with jubilation. Her father was sitting down with a tired expression, but no longer wearing the hospital scrubs. It looked as though he had never been hurt to begin with though she was sure there was some scarring beneath his clothing.

By the end of the bed were Loona and Blitzø, the former leaning over the railing with a half-smile and the latter also appearing relieved. 

The imp carried with him a small baby dressed in a purple onesie. The little tyke had small buds that would develop into horns on the top of their head, red skin showing alongside patches of feathers. Their face gave way to a regular mouth, the baby yawning to reveal a snake-like tongue. Looking down, Octavia spotted two pairs of bird-like talons for feet and an avian tail.

“Welcome back, V. Enjoy your sleep?” Loona welcomed with a casual smirk. 

“Not gonna lie, I preferred it when my hand was chopped nearly in half,” Octavia groaned, rubbing her forehead.

“Please, no,” Stolas gasped fretfully. “My heart cannot take it anymore.”

“Sí, please do not put yourself in any more danger, Via,” Vassago chimed in.

“Oh, you don’t have to tell me twice,” Octavia mumbled in agreement. She glanced down at her right hand, no longer bandaged up and revealing a tan scar running through her flesh. She attempted to bend her claws and flinched at how much more difficult it was…and painful. “I think I’ll leave the danger to the professionals for now,” she added, eyeing Blitzø and Loona tiredly.

“Hey, you kicked cowboy ass, princess,” Blitzø remarked with pride. Octavia wasn’t sure how to feel about that. 

“I’m the one who got their arse fucking kicked,” Octavia grumbled.

“Haven’t we all?” Loona shrugged. “And you gave back some in return. Fucking rad tearing out that prick’s eye.”

Octavia grew queasy thinking about it. “Not something I like thinking about.”

“In this world, it’s either kill or be killed. You didn’t have a choice,” Loona noted.

“I suppose you’re right,” Octavia sighed, leaning her head back against her pillow before glancing back at Loona. “Is it bad I felt good doing it?”

Loona chuckled at her remark. “Are you kidding me? Blitzø here took that cowboy’s corpse, pissed on it, and then literally had it grinded into mulch for the carnivorous plants on our balcony.”

“Fucking diabolical,” Octavia whispered in shock before smiling at the brutality. Damn, she didn’t know that he could be that disturbing.

“Ugh. Sounds a bit mucho grande, Red Devil,” Vassago squirmed, squeamishly staring at the imp.

Blitzø rolled his eyes, tail whipping defiantly at the parrot’s sense of decorum. “Well, I figured it was only fair after he almost merked half my family.”

“You’re pretty fucking cool after all,” Octavia uttered, before her eyes widened at the compliment, as did everyone else’s. Octavia blushed with the eyes on her while Blitzø’s eyes grew starry, his jaw dropping into an excited smile. 

He looked about ready to pounce when Loona gripped her hand upon his head. “Stay.”

“I wasn’t gonna jump on her,” Blitzø pouted. The child-like display of behavior was amusing to her.

“It’s nice to see you’re alright, princess.”

Octavia blinked in confusion and turned her head to the left toward the squeaky voice.

She had been so dazed that she hadn’t noticed the other two imps, both of whom she recognized as Blitzø’s two employees. She hadn’t seen them since Sinsmas. She paused as she tried to think of the demons’ names. “Thanks…Maxxie?”

“Moxxie,” the dressed-up male imp corrected. “And I’m sure you remember Millie.”

Millie was right next to her husband and looking the same as she had when Octavia first met her save for one key difference. The woman was currently sitting down on a chair, an enlarged stomach resting on her thighs. Octavia wanted to guess that she was pregnant as well, looking like she was about to give birth at any moment. 

“Howdy, Via. Glad to see you pull through,” Millie smiled. 

Octavia was perturbed by the woman’s kindness but she nodded in kind. “You’re…all here,” Octavia noted. Blitzø and Loona she understood, but why these two?

“Course,” Millie replied. “After what you did, girl, you’re one of us now, like your pa over there.”

Octavia looked to her father and noticed the beaming smile on his beak, a welcoming and homely vibe filling the air. She was…one of them. She glanced around at the group of demons surrounding her, staring at her with smiles and airs of comfort. 

It occurred to her then that the way they fought together in the previous Sinsmas was a symbol of something deeper. Something she hadn’t realized she had been lacking until recently. A weird makeshift group of demons from different backgrounds who looked out after each other. 

“Like a family,” she pondered aloud. It felt so far-fetched a concept.

“It’s quite nice, I might say so, Starfire,” Stolas said. “I meant it when I said ‘we’ were all waiting for you.”

Octavia hadn’t expected this after all was said and done. She had expected to go back to her life alone in the palace. Not…this. 

Her father seemed to recognize her anxiety and placed his hand over hers, replying, “It’s okay to be nervous, dear. I know the idea of companionship isn’t an easy thing, but don’t be afraid to settle down with it either.”

Octavia’s nervousness settled down at her father’s assurances. She glanced around at the group of demons surrounding her, not looking at her with judgemental gazes, but soft and friendly ones. 

A flash of pain rushed through Octavia’s hand and Octavia pulled away from her father suddenly. She gripped her right hand 

“I’m so sorry, Via!” Her father responded guiltily.

Octavia shook her hand. It hadn’t torn open or anything but the added pressure must have definitely acted on a bad nerve. “It’s fine, Dad,” Octavia grumbled. It wasn’t but it wasn’t like her father meant to cause it to flare up. “Man, playing the guitar is not gonna be easy after this,” Octavia groaned. 

Stolas frowned, “They removed the stitches a couple of days ago. They said you might not have complete feeling in it or flares of pain even with therapy.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” she sighed, flexing her fingers with mixed results. It would suck not having full use of her right hand anymore. Playing the guitar would probably be a challenge, which filled her with disappointment. That wasn’t considering what that meant for her magic. Too soon to tell.

Her eyes landed on the mumbling infant in Blitzø’s arms and her disappointment softened. “Still, I guess it was better than the alternative.”

“Wanna hold them?” Blitzø asked her, catching her by surprise. She’d never held an infant so much as touched one.

“I…”

“No buts,” Blitzø stated, walking around the bed so that he was by her left, where he promptly handed (forced) the baby into her hands. He carefully righted both of her arms so that they acted as a cradle beneath the baby. It was so awkward for Octavia that the princess completely forgot how to speak. Nevertheless, Blitzø didn’t seem to notice, adding, “As their big sister, you get honorary rights. Just support the head with your arm and their toosh with your opposite hand.”

“Toosh?”

Blitzø had an irritated look in his eyes as he said, “I’d say ass, but Stolas says no cursing around the baby, which is so fucking stupid if you ask me.”

“Blitzø!” Stolas scolded exasperatedly, his left foot thumping against the floor. “What did I say?”

“Oh, please, Mom,” Blitzø scowled. “Be lucky we’re not raising her in the circus. Satan’s ass, I’m sure Millie grew up hearing worse on that farm of hers. Hell, Moxxie grew up in a mob and Loony in a pound. Do you really think anyone was teaching them that cussing was bad? We live in Hell for Satan’s sake.”

Stolas groaned, shaking his head. “You are so incorrigible sometimes, darling.”

“If by that, you mean I encourage people to be honest with themselves, then yes Stolas, I am encourageable,” Blitzø replied with a cheery demeanor.

“That’s not what I…nevermind,” Stolas sighed, the ends of his beak slightly curving upward, deciding to drop the matter entirely. 

Octavia was a bit caught off guard by the banter for a moment. She’d been on edge slightly when she noticed the argument, but she was surprised at how light-hearted it felt. The princess had been expecting screams and broken ceramics or glassware. Not small smiles and good-faith teasing. Her father and Blitzø were already a far cry from the relationship her parents had. 

It left her a feeling that was a mix between happiness and melancholy.

Her arms had inadvertently tightened around the baby and they stirred a bit from their slumber. Yellow beacons surrounding red irises poked out from her eyelids. As the baby mumbled and cooed, Octavia panicked slightly, looking around with uncertainty as to what to do, before settling on soft shushes.

She relaxed when her baby sibling’s cries softened to stable breathing as she fell back to sleep. Octavia then noticed everyone’s gaze on her, many of whom were gawking with adoration at her. 

Blitzø was holding his phone and recording the whole thing with hearts in his eyes and a wagging tail behind him. Loona gave her a nod with a knowing smile. Her father meanwhile was becoming teary eyed while his beak trembled. It seemed he was doing everything in his power not to screech in jubilation and wake up the baby. Octavia had never blushed so hard in her life.

“What’s their name?” Octavia asked quietly, unable to look at the affectionate eyes staring into her soul.

“Tilla,” Blitzø responded. There was bittersweetness to his voice as he uttered the name. Octavia didn’t dwell on it long as she took in the infant, her sister, in her arms.

Her eyes grew tender as they became locked on the gentle and warm form cradled against her stomach. The little owlet impling yawned softly cuddling against her chest. Tilla’s tail instinctively curled around Octavia’s arm and the princess’ eyes warmed at the sight. She had always wanted a sibling when she was a child, but her parents had never brought that dream to fruition (for reasons that were now obvious to Octavia). Yet, given the circumstances, Octavia couldn’t find it in herself to care about the origins of her new sibling. This had been what she’d been protecting a month ago. 

The life in her arms. 

The sweet and adorable life that was her baby sister.

“She’s…she’s cute,” Octavia whispered.

She’d made the right choice. That she was certain of. For both her siblings.

Wait a moment…

“Where’s her twin?” Octavia asked. She’d completely forgotten about the second twin.

“Oh, you mean, Silas?” Stolas replied. “He’s with–”

“Come on, Ken!”

Everyone turned their head toward the door of the hospital room where a familiar voice could be heard speaking with another voice.

“Barb, calm down. You are gonna fall out of your chair.”

“I’m fine, Kendra. I’m not gonna shoot through the roof like Fizz,” Barbie replied as she was pushed through the door. 

Barbie was in a similar position to Octavia. Through her gown, Octavia could make out a heaping of bandages lining along her chest, over her shoulders and along her back. Visibly, Octavia could make out dark marks along her eyes, though they weren’t very severe compared to hers probably. 

The woman, Kendra as Barbie had referred to her as, was an imp with long puffy hair cuffed through a gray headband. Octavia could have sworn that she had seen the woman before but her mind was too sleep deprived for her to piece it together. 

In Barbie’s arms however was the second of Octavia’s newest siblings, wrapped in a green onesie. Unlike his twin sister, Silas was visibly more owl than imp, though he did hold some impish qualities. 

An imp tail slunk from his back and around Barbie’s wrist while horn buds could be seen protruding from his head. Unlike his sister, Silas was covered in red and blue downy fuzz, appearing as though he’d had a run in with a lightning bolt. Pupiless yellow eyes stared back at Octavia, a beak beneath them chirping and warbling soft mewlings.

“Well, well, look who’s finally up,” Barbie smiled as Kendra wheeled her past Vassago and Stolas to be right next to the princess. “About time. Had me worried for a sec.”

“You were worried?” Octavia asked, perplexed. “You’re the one who got shot, and in the back no less. Compared to me, you had significantly less of a chance of surviving.”

Barbie gave off a boasting laugh in reply. “A single bullet isn’t gonna stop me,” “It’ll take more than a bullet to stop a Buckzo.”

Blitzø cheered with her. “You tell ‘em, Barb!” 

Behind Barbie, Kendra coughed attentively with a scolding glare. “Yes, well, I’d…,” she began, her eyes landing on Stolas, who was also giving his own partner the same expression. She finished by stating, “We’d prefer if you two didn’t regularly put yourselves in any more danger.” Kendra’s hands tightened around Barbie’s shoulders, the woman’s smile tightening as she harshly whispered, “Please,” to her partner.

Barbie grumbled childishly to herself, as did her brother underneath the tense gaze of Stolas. ”Okay, fine,” they both mumbled irksomely. Octavia held back a laugh at the similarities between the two.

“Oh, right. You two haven’t met before,” Barbie remarked, shaking off her annoyance. “This is my girlfriend, Kendra.”

“Hello, princess,” Kendra nodded.

Octavia replied, “Via’s fine.” Now, she remembered. “I think I saw a picture of you in Barbie’s office if I remember correctly.”

At this, Barbie blushed while Kendra winked smugly at her girlfriend. “So you were thinking about me all this time,” Kendra teased.

Blushing, Barbie stuttered, “W–Well, you’re hard not to think about, babe.”

Kendra hummed teasingly, placing a kiss between Barbie’s horns from behind. Barbie’s mouth dropped and her eyes relaxed while her tail wagged against Kendra.

“Thanks for looking out for her,” Kendra said to Octavia.

“Are you kidding? She’s the one who saved me,” Octavia remarked. As dangerous as the car ride had been, Octavia knew that Striker would have killed her ten times over if Barbie hadn’t intervened. Of course, that wasn't the only time they had been in danger either.

Octavia frowned as she remembered the warehouse. "Hey, Barbie," she began solemnly. "About your job-"

Barbie held up a hand to stop her. "Don't kid. Like I told you, it wasn't your fault." Octavia still wasn't so sure. 

Barbie reached a hand out and placed it over Octavia's arm. With an assuring smile, she said, "Hey, if it helps, Fizz got his sugar daddy to give a settlement to their families. Even managed to convince my bosses to keep me around. So..." Barbie leaned back somberly in her seat, eyes lingering on her nephew. "It worked out the best it could. All I could ask for."

A coo from Tilla drew Octavia's attention to the infant. Living and breathing, unlike Barbie's coworkers. Yet, in spite of all the death, her brother and sister were still alive. Though gone, Octavia surmised it best not to push further lest the guilt drive her mad. Perhaps that was Barbie's line of thinking too.

"Thanks for looking out for me, again," Octavia mumbled to Barbie.

“That’s what family does, kiddo,” Barbie replied humbly. 

The word gave Octavia pause. Family. Was that what they were? She glanced at her father who had been listening and he gave her a nod of assurance. A warmth flooded her chest and the princess wasn’t sure what to say of it.

“Speaking of family, I see you’ve met Tilla,” Barbie sighed with a smile as she gazed down at the baby boy in her lap. She held up Silas like a trophy as she showed him off. “This is her brother, Silas.” The baby released a few chirps and mews that caused Barbie to melt, her eyes expanding like a cat’s at the adorable noises. 

Barbie couldn’t resist bringing Silas to her face and nuzzling his soft and fuzzy cheeks, her voice reaching a higher octave as she cooed, “Aren’t they just the cutest wittle softties ever?”

Behind her, Kendra snorted, her eyes casting a glance at Blitzø. “Might want to keep your kids away from Barb, Blitzø. She’s eyeing them like she does a sandwich from Ricky and Dicky’s.”

Blitzø’s eyes widened in recognition. “Oh, how’re they doing?” 

Barbie shrugged, gently setting her nephew back in her lap. “Fine. Their sandwiches are still mid though. At the very least, I didn’t have diarrhea after the last one I had from them.”

Knock! Knock!

The sound pulled everyone’s attention away from the conversation toward the door to the room. Standing in the doorway was a short human-looking man with white skin and blond hair covered by a large white top-hat. His white and gold-lapeled suit spoke of elegance despite his short stature.

“Hello. Don’t mean to interrupt,” Lucifer Morningstar announced as he sauntered into the hospital room, cane tapping along the floor. His presence was all-encompassing, an aura of chivalry and royalty that exploded like thunder.

Everyone lost their breath within the presence of the great king of Hell in spite of his stature however. Except for one of them.

“Oh, Lucifer! Our great king!” Moxie praised, diving onto his knees and literally bowing before Lucifer. The pale king paused before Moxxie, the fallen angel left stunned by the shorter imp’s devotion.

“Uhm…thank you,” Lucifer said with an awkward smile. 

“Moxxie, get your ass up before your wife pegs you for paying less attention to her!” Blitzø retorted with irritation. With the imp having already bearing witness to Lucifer, it wasn’t a surprise that he wasn’t as stat struck as everyone else.

Moxxie gasped, backing away from the Sin of Pride as he hissed at his boss, “You can’t talk like that in front of THE King of Hell, sir!”

Blitzø rolled his eyes, unworried by his employee’s comments. “Oh, I’m sure he’s heard worse from the Sinners who talk shit about him online.”

Lucifer blinked at the retort. “Sorry, what?” He stated, his tone becoming irksome. “People talk shit about me on what now?”

Nonchalantly, Loona remarked, “Voxtagram mostly.” The silver-furred hellhound, who stood a couple heads taller than the king, had pulled out her phone and was scrolling through it until she found what she was looking for. “Look! Someone just posted a GIF of the Radio Demon T-bagging you.”

The Sin of Pride looked up at the video on the phone, his eyes glowing red and horns suddenly protruding from his head as he became vexed by the images.

“The fuck! How are they doing that?” He roared, his voice dropping several octaves. “I thought the internet was just that dial-up thing!”

“Yeah, like twenty years ago, sure,” Barbie remarked, perturbed by the king’s lack of awareness. “Satan’s ballsack, just how much of a recluse are you?”

The king of Hell didn’t respond to Barbie’s retort, instead twitching his eyes at the mocking laughter coming from the video. Octavia had heard rumors of there being tension between Lucifer and the Radio Demon at Princess Charlotte’s Hazbin Hotel. Considering the king’s reaction to the meme’s, the princess was certain that they weren’t rumors. 

When it looked like Lucifer was about to explode with rage again, his face practically blowing up with hot air, the king of Hell slumped down with a hunched stature. “Remember what you came here to do, Luci,” the king of Hell breathed heavily. “Think about ducks. Think about Charlie. Think about you and Charlie as ducks. Yeah that’s nice.” The king of Hell relaxed as his meditative repetition caused him to relax, a smile gracing his face. 

Octavia couldn’t stop the expression of disbelief from leaving her face. This is the so-called Great Betrayer.

Lucifer pulled out a notepad and pen from within his suit. Biting his tongue with concentration, Lucifer whispered as he wrote, “Note to self: Get Charlie to teach me how to access the internet so I can find out who’s talking shit about me.”

As he put it away, Octavia’s father coughed loudly to gain Lucifer’s attention, the exiled prince nervously ruffling his feathers in the presence of the Sin of Pride. His soft voice was calm as he asked, “Your highness, this is not to say that I’m displeased by you being here, but what is the occasion?”

The king of Hell stiffened his posture as his mouth frowned with seriousness. “Whelp, there is uh…something that came up regarding your ex-wife, Stolas.”

“Oh?” Stolas pondered worriedly. In her and Barbie’s arms, even the twins mewled and chirped anxiously at the mention of their would-be murderer.

Next to him, Blitzø groaned vexingly at the mention of Stella. “What the fuck has that cunt bag done now?”

“Eh, it’s better if I show you all,” Lucifer explained. He removed his top hat and reached his hand into it. When he pulled it out, holding out the object for everyone to see, an air of confusion radioed across the room.

“She got a pet rabbit?” Millie asked, perturbed by the creature in Lucifer’s hand. 

The white rabbit sat hunched, encompassing Lucifer’s entire hand as its nose twitched at the group of demons. Octavia was similarly unsettled by the idea of her mother taking care of anything. Surely, the king of Hell was mistaken.

“What?” Lucifer blinked, his eyes landing on the animal before he blushed with embarrassment. “Oh, my bad. Wrong white thing.”

He gently laid the creature down on the floor before sticking his hand back into his hat in search of the object he was looking for. Upon touching the cold and sterile floor, the snow white rabbit began to hop along the floor in an attempt to escape. Black talons belonging to a red feathered body caught the rabbit and brought them to their chest. Vassago soothingly petted the rabbit and smiled as it purred in his arms.

“Muy suave,” the macaw whispered.

“Fucking weird for you to be attracted to a rabbit, Polly,” Blitzø eyed with a look of disgust. Vassago glanced at him with an expression of confusion.

“That was Spanish for ‘soft’, Blitzø,” Stolas corrected.

“Oh,” Blitzø mumbled with a blush, his eyes reflecting thought before his mouth formed into a teasing grin, the imp jumping onto the railing of the bed as he gripped Stolas’ chest.

“Then you’re so suave, Stolas, that your chest is the perfect pillow,” Blitzø teased, then deciding to sink his face into Stolas’ exposed chest feathers. Octavia uttered a gasp of disgust as did Loona. The owlette went to cover Tilla’s eyes protectively, Barbie doing the same with Silas. Her father meanwhile, was blushing up a storm, his pupils forming into hearts at Blitzø’s close contact.

“Oh my,” Stolas mumbled, startled by his partner.

Blitzø removed his face from Stolas’ chest and continued to tease him. “What do you think Stols? Should I take the time to crack out a dictionary and learn a new language?”

“Oh, please, no,” Loona groaned.

Barbie grumbled in agreement with her niece. “Hearing you annoy me in one language is bad enough.”

Octavia nodded. She already knew what he would do with that. “You’d probably only use it to say the most heinous sex shit to my Dad.”

“Actually, I was thinking of using it to shit talk Moxxie behind his back,” Blitzø admitted, causing Moxxie to drop his jaw in offense. Ignoring him, the former circus imp gave Octavia’s a moment of thought before responding with a smile, “But that works too.”

Octavia could only slap her forehead with her good hand. 

I just had to open my mouth, she scolded to herself.

“Would you like that, Stols?” Blitzø asked again with a smirk on his lips as he pressed his chest against Stolas’. “For me to dirty talk you in that speech that Gabriella and Alejandro drabble on in?”

Stolas appeared flustered at the mention of his favorite soap opera and his cheeks flushed to the color of Vassago. Octavia gave her father a half-pleading scowl to which he noticed. “L–let’s talk about this another time, darling. Our children are here,” Stolas stuttered, his feathers ruffling as the owl calmed himself down.

At the mention of the girls, Blitzø removed himself from Stolas, hopping onto the floor. “Oh yeah. I guess you’re right,” he admitted nonchalantly. “Don’t want to scar them more than they already are.”

“Please, thank you,” Octavia mumbled in relief. 

“Ah, here they are!” Lucifer cheered as he found what he was looking for from his hat.

Loona, who had been repelled by her father’s horny nature, turned her head to the King of Hell immediately. “Oh thank…fuck?” Loona gasped, the hellhound taken aback by the object in Lucifer’s hand.

That was everyone’s reaction as they all saw what Lucifer had pulled out of their hat. No one could conjure up a word to respond to what to say within the object’s presence. 

Octavia, who had been exhausted earlier, was jolted awake by the shock brimming along her bloodstream. “No way.”