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The orange light filtering in through the grand windows only serves to highlight Octavia’s tears. The soft light does not pierce the shadows but catches on the twin tear tracks framing her face, as though directed by the eye designs set into the base of each pane. The high ceiling and arches of the pillared hallway muffle sound, but her sobs seem to drip into hidden seams and linger, funneled back into her ears by the smooth curves.
She should wipe her tears away, hide them, stand and leave this bench behind. The trial will start soon. She can’t sit in this hallway forever, watching other Goetia walk past as they make their way to the jury or viewing boxes. Many glance at her, then hastily turn away as though scalded by the sight, leaning over to whisper to their companions. Their eyes linger on her tears, her slumped shoulders, her trembling hands braced on her knees.
She can’t afford any show of weakness here, not when her mother and uncle are the ones on trial. When not so long ago her father burst into the middle of a different trial wearing his crown and was dragged out without it. She’s royalty; she knows what is expected of her. Her tears will do her no favors here, and there is no one coming to save her.
But for all that this place watches for, highlights, punishes weakness, she cannot stop the tears from falling.
It hurts. Her feelings are a complicated knot so tangled she can’t believe she could ever pull them apart. Her father left her behind, he lied, and she- she doesn’t know if she was why he hurt, why he left. But. She’s been dealing with those feelings for months. They might not be welcome, but she traces those tangled threads with familiarity.
Now?
Everything is changing, again. Her whole life is upended, again. She’s learned things about her family she never wanted to know. Her mother’s shrill laugh rings in her ears and her uncle’s disdainful sniff and haughty shrieks pierce through her like the cold he summons. Their cruelty, their hatred, their oh-so-ambitious plots and plans are about to be displayed for all to see, as if she hasn’t spent the last few months teasing them out from underneath loving exteriors. She’s learned what hides behind their smiles, how fast their love falls apart when there isn’t any benefit to it (how had she never known, never seen, is this what her father dealt with- but he left her behind to deal with it all alone and she doesn’t know how-)
She’s spiraling. The tears are coming quick and fast now, rolling down her face in a constant stream, and she drops her face into her hands as sobs break past the barrier of her sore throat once again. She- she doesn’t know what to do, how to feel-
A gentle hand lands on her shoulder and Octavia almost jumps a foot into the air.
“Come on little lady, why the frown?” The voice is male, unfamiliar to her, his tone one of quiet concern. She can’t see the speaker; the position of his hand on her shoulder and the location of his voice tell her he’s standing a little behind her, over her left shoulder, out of the way of the crowds heading for the boxes. Her eyes are mostly blocked by her hands anyway, which is good. She can’t find it within herself to look up and face this well-meaning stranger, not when her tears refuse to dry.
“Are you- okay? Wait, that’s a dumb question, you’re crying, of course you’re not okay-“ She hasn’t responded and that seems to leave this stranger stumbling for the next step. Something about his awkward rambling reaches right into the tight, tangled knot in her chest and loosens something. Maybe something that shouldn’t be loosened because-
It reminds her of Dad. Just a little. And that reminder, no matter how small, renews the flood. The tears come thick and fast, dripping down her face to leave wet drops on the knees of her court finery.
The hand on her shoulder shifts a little as the man takes a step forward, as though drawn in by her distress. “Oh no, now I’ve made it worse-”
“No! No,” she sniffs, trying in vain to wipe away her tears. “You just- you remind me a bit of my dad.”
“Um. Okay- if you’re sure…” A moment of silence passes, interspersed with Octavia’s high-pitched sniffles. “Is that a good thing? Or bad?”
“I don’t know, and that’s the problem!” It bursts out of her without permission, a cannonball fired from a peashooter, too large for the body it comes from. She tenses, curls in further, shame crawling its way up her throat at the admission. What is she doing throwing her problems at a stranger-
A soft sigh sounds beside her, but it isn’t judging. The slight tremor that runs through his hand, the long release of breath, the silence hanging in the air, they feel sympathetic, reflective instead of judgmental. The reaction soothes the edges of the wounds inside her instead of clawing them open further.
That softness coaxes more from her where words would have failed. “E-everything is falling apart, and I- I thought it was all his fault, but now I know it isn’t, but- but some of it still is, and I don’t know why. Why he left. Was it all Mom? Was it me? Or is he just- like that? Was every bit of good a lie? I… I don’t…” She trails off, unable to continue past the tightness in her throat.
Another stretch of silence, still with that ineffable contemplative quality hanging in the air between them. As though Octavia has hung a mirror before them and shown the stranger a reflection he wasn’t expecting.
“Tell me about him. Who he is, how you’ve gotten along in the past, what happened.” A soft chuckle. “Lies are something of a specialty of mine. Maybe someone objective can help you sort out what’s true and what’s not.” A pause, then he speaks in an even softer tone, “And I know what it’s like to have your whole life upended- everything you were familiar with, that you thought you knew, turned on its head… how messy family can be.”
Octavia hesitates. She doesn’t know this man, doesn’t know who he is or what he wants, hasn’t even managed to look at him. But. There’s an ache behind his words that feels older, far older, than hers, but oh so familiar. A terrible wound long scarred over, edges softened by time, so tempting compared to the one inside her still gushing blood.
Still, she stalls. “The- the trial will start soon. I don’t want to hold you up-”
“We’ve got time. Go ahead.” A slight shift. “If someone came across my daughter crying in a lonely hallway, I’d hope they’d stop to help. I can do no less.”
She… can’t find a good counterargument for that. She honestly doesn’t want to. So, she talks: “I… it started a long time ago. Maybe before I was born. But… I guess it all came to a head when Mom found out about Dad’s affair…”
She stumbles at first, backtracks more than once as she lays out the messy timeline of Dad getting involved with the imp despite his marriage to Mom, Mom’s fury, their fights, how they started before the affair but got worse after. The stranger never interrupts, never shows any signs of getting tired, frustrated, or bored of her messy family drama. His hand stays on her shoulder, a grounding weight. As she gets deeper into the tale, he’ll sometimes increase the pressure a little or give a slight squeeze if she gets too off track or her voice starts giving out, drawing her out of the dark depths that try to suck her in.
She never raises her head, never looks up to face her companion. She doesn’t think she’d be able to continue if she did. Without trading faces or names, they exist in this liminal space where there are no expectations, no history, no judgement. This stranger wants to help and that’s what she needs right now. To show him her face, her tears, would invite the rest of the world in when she so desperately wants it to go away.
Octavia does her best to tell him about the good and the bad, not just the memories that lay heavy on her heart. How her dad could sing her to sleep after bad dreams, teach her magic, show her the stars, do his best to make her happy even when he didn’t quite understand how, like with that trip to Loo Loo Land. But those memories have connections they didn’t used to now, their happiness tainted by fresher recollections of a broken home and broken promises.
“He promised me then, but he- he left. He left me behind and – and now I know how awful Mom was, how much he hated home, but-but he promised me he’d never leave, not for that dickhead-“
A quiet hum and a gentle squeeze from the hand on her shoulder draw her back from the brink. She coughs, raising her arm to wipe away the most recent wave of tears. She’s getting ahead of herself, she’s not making sense, and she knows it. This stranger has been kind enough already; she can at least give him a coherent story.
So, after a moment to shove down the lump in her throat, she continues. The story of how he’d forgotten about the meteor shower prompts the first real reaction other than his attempts at comfort; the rustle of clothing as he shifts his stance, a little more pressure on her shoulder for a second that doesn’t feel intentional. Another quiet sigh but directed away, emotion not intended for her.
But the greater reaction by far comes when she starts talking about the trial. This is the moment where everything truly went off the rails, and so it’s the hardest to talk about yet. She hadn’t seen the earlier part of the trial before they started broadcasting it, but she saw every second of what came after, and it catches the stranger’s attention like nothing else before. He moves closer, leans in a little to catch every word. Once, there’s a little flicker and the temperature around them spikes, but it’s gone as soon as she notices it.
For the first time, the anger in her overwhelms the pain as she narrates Stolas’ confession. “He said it was all his fault, that he was the one who made the plan, so that he could take the punishment when he KNEW what it would be-” She’s almost shouting by the end, her tears have returned, and when her mouth opens again she doesn’t know if what comes next will be a sob or a scream-
Something wraps around her shoulders, light and warm with a comforting weight, cutting off the building explosion. The familiar tickle of feathers reveals it to be a wing – she can see a few pure white feathers at the edge of her vision without looking up. Strange coloration for Hell, much brighter than her mother or uncle’s feathers.
The distraction helps redirect her, giving her something else to think of for a half-second while her burning anger cools into something manageable. This stranger must be one of the Goetia – no other demons in Hell tend towards avian features, except for the occasional Sinner. And the magic emanating from him doesn’t feel like a Sinner’s. It’s- hard to describe. It’s both familiar and unfamiliar, like hers and her father’s and wildly different at the same time. She can’t get a full sense of it without actively reaching out with her own magic, but instinct tells her not to. Trying to understand his magic feels like looking up at a starry sky and realizing just how small she really is; if she reaches out, she’ll either be burnt away by the power she can feel only distantly or be swallowed by the sheer vastness.
Whoever this stranger is, she’s grateful for his presence as she sucks in a harsh breath and resumes her story. “They- they didn’t…” She stops, stutters for a moment, then starts again. “He- he was sentenced to lose his powers, title, position, everything, for a hundred years. They did it right there in the courtroom…” The temperature spikes again but Octavia hardly notices, lost in the memory of past tears and her mother’s embrace. Knowing what she knows now, was that comfort, that sympathy, even real?
The rest of it flows faster, like a dam burst, memory after memory spilling out in quick succession. It’s poking her fingers at a gaping wound inside in hope of drawing out the hurt like cleaning dirt away from a scraped knee, but now that she’s so close to the end it comes easier. The blocked calls, finding the empty bottles of Happy Pills in the closet, the confrontation with her uncle then father. The slow unraveling of mom’s abuse, lies, and plots, the secrets she and her brother tried to hide but couldn’t help bragging about. Everything that led to where they sit now, outside the courtroom.
“And- and now mom and uncle Andrealphus are about to go on trial, and I know what they did, what she did, and I- I just- I can’t sort out what’s real and what’s lies!” The final line in her long tale leaves her panting for breath like she’d just finished a grand spell. She feels used up, empty, a fire burnt down to embers, a pitcher drained to the last drop. Her eyes close, her head drops into her hands, and silence surrounds them again, a suffocating blanket full of possibilities good and bad.
She waits for his verdict.
“I wish your story wasn’t so familiar.”
Octavia hiccups, head lifting a little, enough to see the tip of a black boot as she opens her eyes. “W-what do you mean?”
A shift and a sigh. “So much of what you describe reminds me of… well, me. My mistakes.” The wing around her shoulders tenses a little before relaxing again. “I know what it is to make mistakes for the sake of love. I lost… almost everything, for that love. So much that I’ll never get back, that chases me to this day.” There’s pain in his voice. Obvious, deep-seated, and still so, so tender, no matter how much time has passed. She knows without asking that it has been a long, long time since the events he speaks of, though here in Hell that could mean ten years or ten millennia.
“I… wasn’t the same, after it happened. I… couldn’t be who I was. I tried; oh, I tried. For my wife, and my daughter, who deserved so much more than what little I could offer. For the others who looked to me, relied on me. But I couldn’t see past the darkness surrounding me even when they did their best to show me light. When my wife vanished… I fell deeper into that pit than I’d ever been before. I never meant to leave my daughter alone, but as time moved on, we spoke less and less, until I realized the distance between us was so great I couldn’t bridge it.” His voice nearly breaks at the end, almost as hoarse as Octavia’s.
But its strength returns when he speaks again: “But for all my mistakes, my failures, I never let go of that love. I never stopped loving my family, my daughter. I never will. But love doesn’t prevent us from making mistakes, from accidentally hurting those we love without meaning to, through action or inaction. Sometimes, love is the cause of those mistakes. That doesn’t mean it’s worth throwing away.”
There’s so much to unpack in his words. So much to think about, to sort through, to understand. He isn’t her father- he can’t answer the questions she needs answered, not fully. But his sincerity, his honesty, and even his suffering, they reach inside and begin combing through the tangled knot of her emotions, gently unsnarling them until each tug no longer causes quite so much pain. He’s shining a light into the darkness her father left behind, showing her what hides in the places she can’t see, can’t reach, can’t understand by herself.
Octavia hesitates. She’s standing at the edge of a cliff, not sure if she wants to take the chance that there is water below. Doesn’t even want to look down to check. But…
She takes the plunge. “Do you… talk to her anymore? Your daughter. Did… did you ever make up?”
“Yes.” A feeling that Octavia can’t name, like a swoop in her gut, is so overpowering she almost misses the stranger’s next words. “It was hard. It’s still hard. We both still mess up sometimes, me especially, but it’s worth it. It will always be worth it.” The relief in his voice, the love, it’s so strong that she can only compare it to a bonfire given fresh fuel, already roaring flames climbing high. “I’ll always be so, so grateful she reached out- I’m not sure we ever would have mended our relationship without that first call. No matter how much I wanted to, I don’t know that I would have had the courage to do what she did.”
Octavia sniffs, a few tears slipping down the well-worn tear tracks. “I don’t- don’t think I’m ready for that,” she admits.
A rustle of clothing, and the slight shift in the position of his hand and wing tell her he’s turned to face her. She can’t grant him the same courtesy, but he doesn’t wait: “You don’t have to be. He made mistakes, lots of them. Even if he didn’t mean to, even if there are extenuating circumstances, he’s responsible for his actions. He has to face the consequences.” Something… dark creeps into his tone at the last statement, but he’s moving on before she can dwell on it. “You don’t have to force yourself to forgive him. Take your time. Sort out your feelings. Wait until you’re ready to see him again. If he really loves you, he’ll wait, no matter how long it takes.”
His hand squeezes her shoulder lightly. “All I can do is encourage you not to give up, even when the road ahead looks impassible. Your father cares, and he’s trying. That’s not always enough, I know it isn’t. But as a father myself, I have to ask – doesn’t it count for something?”
It does. She won’t say it, but they both know it. And that’s enough.
For the first time all night, the next words come without struggle or pain. “Thank you. For the honesty, and the advice.”
The stranger hums again, a wordless acknowledgement. His wing laid across her shoulders hugs her closer, then falls loose again. His hand remains on her shoulder, waiting.
They sit in silence, but it’s a companionable silence. All that needs to be said has been said. Eventually Octavia sniffs for the last time, rubbing her poor abused arm across her face and beak to wipe away from the last of the tears now that they’ve finally stopped falling. Her eyes are bloodshot and her makeup is ruined, the proof of her tears impossible to wipe away. Oddly, she’s okay with that. The need to hide isn’t so overpowering anymore.
“I think the trial’s probably started by now,” she admits, still not looking up. She can’t say how long they’ve been talking, but it feels like a while. She’s exhausted, throat raw from crying and speaking so much, eyes smarting. Some of the teardrops that mark her dress have long since dried up.
A low chuckle, then a shifting weight and soft fluttering as the stranger retracts the wing around her shoulder. She finds herself missing the warmth as soon as it’s gone. “They know I’m coming; they won’t start without me.” The hand on her shoulder shifts, gives two gentle pats, then fully lifts away for the first time since it was placed there. Footsteps sound as the stranger finally moves away, heading down the corridor.
Octavia finally raises her head, a spark of curiosity giving her the push she needs to leave the comfortable world of anonymity behind. What did he mean they would wait for him? Who was-
A shorter man in a long white tailcoat walks away down the long hallway. A fancy top hat grants him a little extra height, but he’s still oddly small for a Hell that seems to favor the idea that bigger is better. The soft orange light shining through the windows catches a gleam of gold wrapped around the red base of his hat, caresses the apple shaped top of his walking stick. But for all these strange features, the one her eyes and mind fix on is the wings folding and merging with the back of his coat, because there isn’t only one pair. Six wings of pure white and blood-red feathers melt away into the back of his coat as he strides down the corridor, catching at the place in her brain that remembers all her father and tutor’s teachings until she realizes exactly who she’s looking at.
Lucifer Morningstar, High King of Hell, fallen angel, the Sin of Pride, one of the oldest and most powerful beings in all Creation, and the creator of her entire fucking race, glances back at her with a soft smile. The kind that until a little while ago, she could never have imagined the King of Hell could wear. The kind, she imagines with a startled jolt, that he probably gives his daughter.
“Until we meet again- good luck.” A flicker of fire blazes to life at his feet, deepening to a blood-red mixed with golden sparks as it spirals up his body, the King vanishing in a whirl of flame. Within moments there is no trace of his presence at all, just soft light and silence.
Octavia can only stare at the spot where he vanished, wrestling with a thousand feelings named and unnamed. Bewilderment, gratitude, horror, astonishment, awe, and more, mixing freely like paints blending into one another. But they’re lighter, infinitely lighter, than the tangled knot at the center of her chest that he’s helped her unravel, even a little bit.
Octavia snaps herself out of her wide-eyed daze, pulling herself off the narrow bench she’s occupied for far too long. There’s no one to see her as she wobbles for a second then catches her balance – everyone has long since taken their seats. It’s time she did so as well. She walks off down the corridor, heading for the boxes.
She still dreads the upcoming trial. She still doesn’t know what steps to take next. But the tight knot in her chest no longer threatens to choke her. Her inner wounds no longer bleed quite so freely, so visibly. And should this trial threaten to tear her open again, perhaps the sight of the figure in white sitting on the throne at the top of the courtroom will grant her a little extra strength.
It seems, she muses as she goes to show the world that even this cannot break her, having the Devil on your shoulder isn’t quite as bad as humans make it out to be.