[Aug 2005, New Orleans]

"Sir," Moxie snapped in response to his superior's complaining. "We'd have had more time for this part if we hadn't spent an hour hauling 15 kegs of old absinthe out of that basement during a hurricane evacuation!"

Blitzo couldn't comprehend Moxie's lack of appreciation for the discovery. "You think I'd let that kind of free income generator go to waste?"

Millie added thoughtfully, "Also...what might 15 barrels of moonshine mixed with flood water've caused for the people on that block?"

"Aha!" Blitzo exclaimed gleefully, giving Mllie an appreciative pat on the back, causing her to briefly grimace and side step away from the contact. "See, Mox? Did 'em a favor!"

Moxie growled under his breath, unable to help but notice that he and Mille were the only ones shoveling. "How about doing us a favor and shoveling something?"

"I'm worn out from the motherf***in' 40 collective feet of digging it took to get to that box," Blitzo complained. He pointed at the hole Millie and Moxie had created. "Maybe we should have started with her."

The imps were digging up a grave. Why go after someone who was already dead? Actually, they weren't. This was one of many things that made the job unusual. It involved no assassination and wasn't even a quest to desecrate a body for petty revenge. This body wasn't under attack at all. It was a simple search and retrieve mission. Whatever. They were offered pay for it, they'd do it. If it wasn't specialty labor, that should only make it simpler, right?

Because at least some creatures regularly interacted with the human world, intel was available and sometimes widely circulated via news media when an earthly event was predicted to cause a sudden population influx. Unfortunately for the citizens of Earth, this was one of the events currently being reported. Consequently, the client had become concerned about the implications severe flooding may have for items he had been forced to leave behind.

The first and highest priority had been to dig up a mysterious, very well-secured box from some deer-hunting grounds in New Orleans and return it to its owner in Hell to avoid the possibility of the flood dislodging the box, possibly resulting in its opening or deterioration. The search took several grueling hours because the box had deliberately been hidden with the hope that it would never be uncovered again. They ran into several random, unexpected human remains in the meantime, which was the only conceivable way to make the search more aggravating. The search for an accompanying key through every nook and cranny of the basement of an abandoned- at this point derelict- old house, where they had stumbled upon the moonshine, took almost as long. And that, of course, was followed by Blitzo's whim to take off with the product, which took another hour at least. When all was said and done, after having planned to have plenty of flex time to get safely in and out before the devastating storm, they were now well into the first grim signs of something highly destructive welling up, ears being hammered every few minutes by the shrill sound of evacuation sirens.

Unfortunately, their boss's poor prioritizing had gotten in the way of the second mandatory part of the mission, which was retrieving an item the owner had buried in this grave alongside the resident body as part of some sort of protection spell. The spell apparently required a trustworthy 'guardian' figure, dead or alive, to 'watch over' said item. While this had not been officially confirmed, discussions had implied said guardian was the client's ex-girlfriend, earning some absolutely caustic roasting from Blitzo once the team was out of earshot. (Millie and Moxie chuckled at the irony, as Blitzo still retained several 'comfort' items related to his most recent partner.) Anyway, whatever Miriam Gamble was 'guarding' was considered of extreme importance to secure, second only to whatever was in the box. They would almost certainly not have time for the third 'optional' (so was their boss's interpretation) part of the mission, which was moving poor Miriam's body to protect it from the impending flood as well, out of respect.

Moxie felt an obstacle stop the shovel, tapped a few times to be sure, and exclaimed with relief, "Finally!" The three imps scrambled to kick and scoop the rest of the dirt off with their hands and feet before prying the casket open. The object they were retrieving, to their consternation, appeared to be a doll, which sat alongside the body next to the left hand in a way that suggested the hand may have been enclosed around it once upon a time. A blindfold, which had slipped off, hung limply around the doll's neck. Luckily for I.M.P., after about 70 years, there was not much left of the body- a bit of thin, mummified skin, but pretty much all bones. Not that it would have mattered to denizens of Hell in terms of disgust factor, but they were relieved it was a body this old because bringing the cloth doll back to the owner covered in or stained with grave wax would have been in poor taste. In the spirit of professionalism, they would have had to get it dry cleaned, and none of them wanted another menial task tacked onto the end of this exhausting day. They just wanted a shot of that blessed moonshine.

Still, they couldn't help but stop to ponder some of the implications of their discovery.

Moxie held the doll up and squinted at it with an expression of astonishment. "This...is that who I think it is?" The doll strikingly resembled what they imagined the client might have looked like as a human child. Golden brown button eyes, dark brown hair, deep olive skin tone, large circular owl-like glasses, sharp stitched features.

Mille squealed and snatched the doll from her husband's arms to give it an affectionate squeeze. "Ahhhh! That's the most precious thing I ever heard of! She must've made 'im feel so safe! How romantic!"

Blitzo was far from impressed himself. "BLEGH. I officially respect that pompous hipster 150% less than I did already. Even more of a lame closet sentimentalist than I thought."

"Well I think he's a sweetie," Millie asserted, planting a kiss on the doll's cheek.

"Dial it back, hun," Moxie teased. "His ex will get jealous."

Millie regarded the bones in the recently excised grave, turned to Moxie and winked. "I think I can take her, shug."

Blitzo unceremoniously opened the return portal. "Okay, boys and girls, let's call it a day and get hammered."

Moxie was offended on behalf of the client and his sainted ex. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, boss!" He gestured at the uncovered grave. They'd not only not relocated her, they were leaving her actively more exposed to the elements than before. "Are you forgetting something?"

Blitzo shrugged. "He said to move her if we had time."

"I got...slightly different vibes, sir," Moxie replied.

Millie looked more stern than usual, one hand on her hip, the other pressing the doll against her as though comforting it. "She watched this cute little dumplin' for 70-some years. She deserves to be thanked!"

Blitzo was antsy. "Why is this important to move? It's not like she can feel anything, wherever she is now! There's almost nothing left, anyway! "

"I think it's an emotional request, not a rational one. He cared about her. Clearly," Moxie replied.

"All right, all right, we'll move her," Blitzo acquiesced. He rifled through his cartoonishly deep pockets and produced a flare gun, smirking wickedly. "How do you think she feels about cremation?" he asked jokingly and, without waiting for a response, shot the flare into the grave, the contents of which promptly erupted into flame.

While his approach was admittedly much more efficient than physically moving the body through the portal into another state outside of the storm trajectory and re-burying it, Moxie had been unprepared. "Sweet f***!"

Mille sympathetically covered the doll's eyes and whispered, "She can't feel it," as though it needed reminding.

Blitzo snapped his fingers commandingly, completely unaffected by his employees' horrified faces. "M&M, get the rest of the stuff in the cars and bring me my coffee thermos."

[X]

The imps drove to meet the client in separate vehicles. Blitzo had taken the truck, containing the box, which was double-buckled into the backseat, and the moonshine, piled into the back.

Moxie drove with Mililie in their personal car with the ashes and the doll-which was now blindfolded, as they had been (bizarrely) instructed. "So," he began after a period of silence, "can we address that that thing seems like it might be a voodoo doll?"

"That is what it looks like," Mille agreed. She held the doll in her lap and had sweetly positioned its arms around the thermos, where Blitzo had insensitively dumped the ashes, as though it were hugging them. The coffee thermos was a piece of very early Verosika Mayday merch. Comically, the way the doll's arms were positioned made it look less like he was sentimentally clinging to his ex's ashes and more like he was copping a feel of Verosika's tits.

Moxie continued, "If we're right...and that's him...he knowingly gave us access to something we could injure him with or hold for ransom if we decided to be total dicks for some reason...So he must have felt desperate." Millie nodded in agreement with this reasoning. Moxie was perturbed. "What in the world do you think is in that box, babe?" He asked because the implication, based on the few facts they were privy to, was that the doll was being protected from whatever was trapped in the box. This was why the client had hated the idea of both potentially being flooded out into the open. It would also explain why he had gone so far as to ask that the items be transported in separate vehicles, unwilling to take any chances on what might happen while he wasn't keeping an eye on them himself.

One after the other, Moxie and Blitzo pulled into a parking lot about 2 miles from the end destination of the cargo, where their client waited patiently, alone. They understood he commanded a lot of respect (read as: fear) in the Pride Ring, but it could be difficult to take him seriously at first glance. It was the fuzzy dear ears (insinuating, if there was a really was a just God, that there was also a fluffy tail hidden somewhere under his blazer), and the fact that his lanky stature combined with his monochrome dress and spastic mannerisms made him overwhelmingly resemble a Wacky Wavy Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man (one you saw it, you couldn't unsee it). For the imps, this first impression was compounded by the very secret information that only they possessed. The widely-feared creature bearing his teeth in a perpetual, fanged, aggressive smile, which was meant to intimidate, had hidden a representation of his childhood self in the arms of his dead girlfriend and was so terrified of the thing in the box that he allowed them access to this reputation-jeopardizing information and paid them extra to retrieve it. Still, if anything, this degree of awkwardness reminded the imps to exhibit even more politeness and deference than would normally be required in the presence of a powerful Pride Ring overlord, lest he snap like a threatened animal. Or at least it forced Millie and Moxie to remember.

Blitzo hopped out of the truck- shades on, stereo still blasting hair metal- threw open the backseat, and dragged the cargo out a little too roughly, driving one corner into the ground with a clatter. This earned a burst of static that sounded almost like a growl from the client's radio speaker. Oblivious to this, Blitzo stated with a bow, "I present to you...your heavy f***in' box."

Alastor nodded in approval. If anyone were paying close attention, they would also have seen a deep relief flicker through his eyes. With a snap of his fingers, the box was promptly relocated behind a triple-locked, double-booby-trapped closet door in Radio Tower.

"And here's the special little guy," Millie announced in a sing-song voice, holding out the doll with a wide grin.

Alastor took it from her and placed it gently in the interior pocket of his suit jacket. "Thank you so much for watching him, miss." He took Millie's hand and kissed it, earning a few flustered giggles. "I do hope he wasn't too much trouble. I've been told he can be rather hyperactive," he added with a wink.

Unamused, Moxie moved to gently separate Millie and Alastor. Quickly, though, his facial expression switched from annoyed to apologetic. "And, uh, your…" He coughed and sheepishly held out the thermos.

Alastor was perplexed but bemused. "Ammmm I the visitor who won the door prize? Is it a complimentary beverage or just the mug?"

Moxie grimaced and tried to work out how to break the news to him sensitively.

Blitzo jumped in enthusiastically, feeling proud of how he had approached this and considering it an extra service rendered. "The body you needed moved!"

Alastor silently stared him down with half-lidded eyes, trying to process the statement in a way that made more sense. The imps thought they might have heard a cricket chirp from the speaker.

"We were strapped for time, but technically we got the job done, as promised," Blitzo explained. He tapped the side of his own head dramatically and whispered, "Creative problem solving."

Determined to write this off as a gag, Alastor offered a performative, hearty laugh, augmented by the radio's laugh track. "Glad to see this line of work hasn't affected your sense of humor!"

"It's not a joke," Moxie replied before mouthing silently, 'I'm so sorry, sir.'

Still painfully unaware of how cringy the whole scenario was, Blitzo opened the top of the thermos to illustrate his 'success,' revealing watery ashes sloshing around. He had failed to dump out all of the coffee before throwing the ashes in. "Oh, oops… Uh… Hope she liked coffee and Baileys because she'll be smelling it for a long time."

Bitzo's shenanigans had achieved a rare feat- striking Alastor absolutely speechless. The deer demon's face was trained to stay locked in a smile at all times, meaning it could be difficult to pick up on the nuance in his expressions if one wasn't used to interacting with him. So the imps couldn't possibly know this, but his face at this particular moment probably ranked in the top ten appalled Alastor facial expressions of all time. He accepted the mug from Blitzo and silently stared into the murky ex-girlfriend ash soup in dismay, covertly turning down the volume on the radio speaker to avoid betraying his thoughts.

"Eh?" Blitzo uttered a la Fozzy Bear, accompanied by jazz hands.

Alastor decided quickly that it was useless to confront this willfully obtuse idiot now; he didn't want to delay getting the doll to its own separate, secure location. He also had no desire to terrorize the other two employees, who seemed polite and competent. He decided to do some research and some thinking and hex Blitzo later in a highly personal manner. Through gritted teeth, he asked, "And...what exactly am I meant to do with this lovely gift I didn't expect to receive?"

Blitzo shrugged, "She hosted you for 70-some years. Now you can look over her? Reciprocity, I guess."

"Kind of sweet, ain't it?" Millie interjected, smiling a desperate 'please don't kill us' smile.

Had Moxie not been born and raised in Hell, he probably would have been crossing himself.

Blitzo was eager to be done with work for the day. "So we'll be getting a tip for that or what? I expect a 5 star review!"

[X]

[May, 2020]

It had chagrined him enough to agree to the promotional event at the rehab center, which he expected to be a drag on its own, at face value. To have children crawling all over the place like maggots on shit was so, so much worse.

Charlie's idea had been to hold a promotional event at a rehab facility because she reasoned that the kind of person who, despite living in Hell, showed investment or belief in the efficacy of one form of rehab, might also put stock in another. Not a completely unreasonable way to seek out a customer base; basically solid reasoning. Her decision to hold the event during Mother's Day weekend, on the other hand, was more questionable. She should have foreseen the wave of children visiting their parents all at once, but her mind had been elsewhere.

When she approached Alastor about the event, he had asked about the scheduling and whether she'd be paying a visit to the queen. Charlie had shrugged, answering that Lilith had to travel for a concert, and left it at that. She was trying to throw her energy into a productive distraction- the ideal coping skill in his opinion, one to be encouraged. So he agreed to assist, partly because it was difficult even for someone like Alastor to resist the urge to cheer Charlie up when she looked this down. She was normally so energetic and high spirited that seeing her so morose felt unnatural and uncomfortable. He was also her business partner- a role he had claimed on his own, unprompted, and for which he now had to take responsibility. Especially, he admitted to himself, after the complaint he had lodged the other day.

"Can I ask why I wasn't consulted about this?" he had demanded of his business partner after witnessing a Happy Hotel advertisement playing on one of the screens in the storefront full of televisions he often passed while making his daily rounds. As he occasionally did, Vox had emerged through the static to stare him down, this time with an especially smug glint in his eyes. It burned Alastor that he produced no witty retort on this occasion and could only aggressively smile back in confusion and rage.

Angel sat directly behind them at the bar, ostensibly loitering until Husk returned from his break. The spider demon didn't give Charlie a chance to respond. "Shit, Al, they're already all over Voxtagram anyway," he interrupted, swiftly holding up his hellphone.

Al's head swiveled 180 degrees like an owl, dial eyes activated. "Pardon?" Sure enough, there was the advertisement in the banner at the top of the page. With a motherfucking rainbow on it. "How much money did we spend on this?!" Read as: How much did my nemesis manage to profit from our business?

"How much money I spent on it is inconsequential," Charlie answered, earning a whistle from Angel.

"Whooo! Big fancy heiress Charlie, throwin' 'er money around!"

"Angel, you know that's not what's happening," Charlie dismissed him.

"Well you should. I'd do it. Don't worry, though, Al, she won't have to pay for 'em soon because we'll get the same effect once I turn it into a meme. It's gonna be a gem of a meme."

Charlie tried to continue disregarding him but was quickly developing meme anxiety. "C'mon, Al. We have to cooperate with certain people to get this going. There's almost no way to advertise on a large scale without interacting with Vox or Velvet. I don't like it much better than you do, but we have to play the game. You'd be the first person to tell me that." She paused. "...You didn't come back here just to talk about this, right? You really need a hellphone."

"No, I assure you I did not come back here just to tell you that," he lied.

"Okay. Good. Glad to hear you didn't... forget." A deadly sentence. Charlie broke out a suspicious smirk, correctly intuiting that Al had meant to slither out of this by remaining conveniently absent, and his own pride over the commercial had just thwarted him. "We need to prep for that event tomorrow, business partner."

Having been pointedly reminded that he shouldn't demand this title only when it suited him, Alastor resigned himself to being officially roped in. But, presently, he couldn't help but wonder, "Would Angel or Husk have been a better fit for this task?"

Charlie tapped the side of her head, giving the 'use your brain' signal. "It would be a trigger for them, Al. Geez."

Charlie either had no sense of humor or an impeccable one. Sometimes it was hard to tell. This extended even beyond the hilariously innocent notion that either Angel or Husk was currently sober. Alastor regarded Charlie, himself, and the sea of rambunctious children hanging off of their exhausted, drug-withdrawn, yet mostly still affectionate and engaged mothers like rabid little monkeys. Trigger indeed. This was one of the rare times he could see traces of envy on the princess' face. She was the least entitled heiress he'd ever heard of, never expecting she deserved anything, always happy to witness others' good fortune. But now, she looked...almost...

Alastor felt as though he had just snapped out of a daze. He had almost sensed aggression in her face, as though she could have squashed one of the little twits for daring to flaunt their flawed but still caring parent in front of her. But that couldn't be, because it was Charlie. He blinked and it suddenly seemed to have been a trick of the light all along. A much less out-of-character expression of longing and sadness, but not hatred or envy, was evident now. Of course. What had caused him to interpret it in any other way? Very strange.

Maybe it was that, even though she clearly wasn't, he could easily understand how she might fall prey to envy. Despite the fact that the children were vicious tasmanian devils and the mothers bleary-eyed and ready to choke them, some of their displays were still surprisingly tender by Hell's standards. He saw one mother play-biting her child on the ear and then, in response to her daughter's giggling, mouthing the words 'I'll do better.' White noise buzzed in Alastor's ears. This sentimentality made him actively nauseous.

So he felt a twinge of inappropriate glee when a different mother-child pair on the other side of the room appeared to be squabbling. Alastor honed in on them like a shark and approached with his 'ready to troll' smile on. Charlie internally groaned, unsure of what sort of antics to expect, and followed close behind. Well, if nothing else good came of this, maybe she could engage the mom in conversation.

"You know," Alastor began, popping up behind the child like a deranged jack-in-the-box, "it's been at least 80 years since I last saw my mother." He sounded like he may actually be chastising the child for talking back to its parent. The little boy, for his part, did not look remorseful but was caught off-guard, so much that he nearly tumbled off the chair he was perched on. Alastor finished, "And every day, she warns me if I misbehave again, she'll take my hearing next. Phhhht, HAHAHAHA!" The child and Charlie groaned in unison at the terrible joke. The mother looked ready to high-five Alastor until she recognized him, at which point she suddenly emitted a high-pitched fake laugh that she hoped was a suitable offering to the powerful overlord, while aggressively pinching her son on the arm for being stupid enough to groan.

Alastor returned to the event table with Charlie, who wore a strained expression of extreme tolerance as he continued to stifle giggles over his own cliche wordplay. "My, my," Alastor said, noticing. "What's that look? Not being judgmental, are we, Princess?"

"No! Nope!" Charlie chuckled uncomfortably and flailed her hands crosswise in front of face.

Alastor raised an eyebrow and accused teasingly, "I think you're embarrassed."

"Noooo-"

"Embarrassed by your own friend." Alastor made a melodramatic hand swoop over his forehead. "Deplorable."

"I mean...hehe…" She went for it, since Alastor typically rewarded her meager efforts at 'mean humor.' And, of course, they were friends who could jab at each other. "Maybe a little," she said, miming 'little.'

Quick as a flash, Al transitioned to a stern, stiff smile. "Madam. I have a brain injury. Have you no understanding?" It was hard to tell since she was pale at baseline, but Charlie's face drained almost completely white. After a long pause, though, Alastor's stiff smile cracked, became a wiggly line that finally burst open in laughter. "You believed me!" Over Charlie's twitchy, anxious laughter, he reminded her, "Oh, you know I'm not offended that easily. Calm down, Princess," and mimed patting her on the shoulder without actually touching her.

Another 45 minutes ticked by and scarcely anyone had come by their event table to speak to them. Alastor hoped that with any luck, Charlie would give up soon and leave. An internal laugh track played in response to his last thought. 'Charlie' and 'give up' didn't go together in a sentence. Which was why the Princess's next request was bothersome, but not very surprising.

"Okay, look. Here's my pitch." Inspired by the earlier disparity between the mother's and child's reactions to Alastor's shenanigans, Charlie regarded the crowd. "I need some one-on-one time with the adults. But I need the kids out of the way. The adults might...be more open to conversation if you're…" Charlie vaguely made an 'over there' hand motion. "Because they're…"

"Afraid of me?" he asked, smirking. Alastor was amused that she said it like it was a bad thing.

'Well, it is bad for business,' Charlie's facial expression silently replied. "Yeah… But the kids aren't!" They both looked over just in time to see one demon child miming big floppy deer ears and blowing a raspberry as a second demon child mimed ramming a shotgun up the first one's ass and pulling the trigger.

"That's because they don't have fully developed brains yet," Alastor explained.

"I'm going to need you to distract them," Charlie pitched, sounding hesitant but hopeful.

"No." Alastor received a set of very wide, teary anime eyes from Charlie. "Don't you think you're better with children?"

Charlie sighed and frowned. "They'll walk all over me. You know that."

"You're their Princess. I think that entitles you to walk on them if you like."

"I don't want to walk on anyone," Charlie reminded him, sounding a bit put off by his philosophy. "Anyway, it's only a title I have because of my family. And… Well… I think everyone knows by now that I'm pretty loosely associated with the royals nowadays."

Alastor sighed quietly. He wouldn't give into her fishing for verbal comfort, but he was begrudgingly willing to do her a favor. He motioned his head toward the children, looked back at Charlie, and nodded. His business partner smiled, bounced up like a little spring and gave him a hug, which he slithered out of immediately.

"Kids!" Charlie called. "How about you give your parents a break for a little while, huh?" This was one of the only times the citizens of Hell ever regarded Charlie with emotions of respect. The mothers looked at her with watery-eyed gratitude as though she were handing out $100 bills. "My partner has agreed to entertain you."

"With what?" asked one of the children, looking unimpressed already.

"How about a magic show? Who volunteers to be sawed in half?" Alastor shot back. "I promise I'll put you back together the right way. But do you mind if I borrow one kidney? ...Actually, perhaps it would be most kind of you to offer your mother the kidney. That would make an apt Mother's Day gift in this case, don't you think?" he asked, radio laugh track warbling in the background.

"Alastor!" Charlie chastised. He couldn't be left to his own devices to saw children in half and make mockery of their parents' addiction-related health problems. Apparently she needed to give him specific instructions. "He'll tell you a story," she informed the children.

The cluster of children pivoted to Alastor in an eerily coordinated motion, sharp-toothed smiles glistening up at him, a gleeful look in their eyes that told both Alastor and Charlie they fully anticipated the chance to rip the storyteller to shreds verbally if not physically. Alastor glowered at Charlie hatefully. He was going to be made to perform this silly monkey dance for some grimy children just because he was slightly outranked by her? (He was outranked by several tiers, but he willfully denied that reality.)

"Well. Go on. This is what you do, isn't it? You perform?"

"Not usually for children."

"I thought you liked children."

"I don't actively dislike children."

"WE'RE WAITING, OLD MAN!"

"C'mon, Al… You can bullshit for all I care, just fill some time, please?"

"Any story I tell these children you'll deem inappropriate. What kind of mind game is this?"

"Fff- cripes, Al, go for princess in a tower or somethi-"

"How am I supposed to make that hold their attention?"

"Just put your spin on it, riff!"

Alastor accepted this fate with half-lidded eyes. There was no reason for Charlie to know this, but Al had had such thorough exposure to fairy tales as a child that he knew the basic formula intimately, to the point that he could construct and deconstruct them like legos. While this was an annoying task, it would not be a challenging one.

"Please note, by Your Highness' request I've been asked to tell you a fairy tale."

"BOOOOOO-"

There was deafening, shrill radio static, followed rapidly by silent resignation.

"Yes, that's how I feel about it, too, so please remember that we agree."

Meanwhile, Charlie returned to her display table with just a bit of spring in her step. Time to instill some hope in a few people who needed her! She hadn't taken more than one and a half steps behind the display when a nurse's aid walked by to shout, "Smoke break!" This elicited a stampede of every adult in the dayroom for the yard. Charlie eked out a surprised sound and began to follow, only to have the dayroom door slammed harshly in her face by the snickering aid, indicating she was unwelcome. Defeated, she slumped into a chair in the corner and turned a half-listening ear to her partner as she waited for them to return.

"A long time ago, there was a young prince who had the misfortune of having two parents who died when he was quite young, leaving him with a great deal of responsibility. It was a challenge to be at all effective. Not only did no one take him seriously because he was small, but his mother came from a neighboring kingdom against which there was much prejudice, so the citizens didn't respect him as a legitimate heir to the throne at all. There was a constant attitude of disrespect, and to avoid the pain of this indignity, the prince self-isolated most of the time."

"Why is it an emo fairy tale?"

"Look, this is not what I would have picked, but for your information, all fairy tales start out 'emo,'" Al finished with falsetto and air quotes. "That is the time-tested formula. Have you never read a book?"

"No."

"Did your mother ever read you a book?"

"Nah, she didn't have the attention span. She was a crackhead."

Al got the strange, socially-programmed sense that this was something that should make him feel sorry for the child. "… Have a candy, son."

"Ew, Three Musketeers? Gross!"

Al hurled a Snickers bar at the irritable child's head, where it hit with a loud thwack, and the silence resumed.

"...Having no one with whom to converse, he talked to himself frequently and tried his best to be entertaining. Luckily, the large, empty rooms of the castle provided the prince with one friend. He could talk as long as he wanted, and Echo would never object. If he cried, Echo would cry tears of sympathy with him. If he yelled, Echo would rage alongside him at his enemies. If he laughed, Echo would always laugh with him, never at him."

Charlie, who was rapidly coming to terms with the fact that this was not the violent slapstick comedy she'd anticipated, and who certainly had not expected to be sent hurtling off a cliff balls deep into Alastor's subconscious, awkwardly sat in a corner making a face like a Muppet breaking the fourth wall.

"Outside in the castle's gardens, the best place to talk to Echo was the deepest, darkest of the wells from which the household drew water. Years passed this way, but one day, Echo did not respond. Instead, a new voice seemed to rise up from the well, pleading for someone to answer. The prince feared that the long years he had spent in social isolation had driven him mad, so he consulted a doctor, who would probably have concurred were there not already multiple reports around the area of apparently sane people hearing the exact same voice."

"I think they just had a problem with their well water."

"Look, your cynicism is a very healthy quality in everyday life, but this is a story, so kindly shut up. ...Numerous others had heard this voice pleading for help. The circulating rumor was that it originated from a distressed sorceress who spoke so fervently into the emptiness around her that her magic allowed her voice to emerge from emptiness elsewhere. The intolerant citizens of the village from which she came were influenced enough by her magic that she avoided being burned as a witch, but they still exiled her to an isolated prison, in which she would surely starve to death if no help came. Mystifyingly, this voice had been heard long beyond the time it would normally take someone to starve once they had run out of food."

"If she's a powerful sorceress, why can't she-?"

"A handful of curious individuals had journeyed to the location described, but none had returned. The rumor was that a ferocious dragon guarded the prison and devoured any who tried to enter."

"Cliche."

"Quiet, you. ...The prince could not deny that the voice from the well was real, now that it had been corroborated, but he had hope that some of the other details were fabricated by peoples' imaginations alone. Had anyone ever seen this dragon? In any case, he felt tremendous sympathy for the woman, whose prison was so small that she likely had not even an echo to accompany her. The voice claimed to be able to provide any reward desired for rescue, but he wanted only her friendship. He decided to travel to this location himself and see if it was viable to rescue the lonely sorceress. After several days' journey, following the directions provided by the mysterious voice, he arrived. There was indeed a tall isolated tower, but when it appeared there was no dragon to slay, the prince felt only momentary relief before worrying that he may find the whole tower abandoned. Amazingly, he found the woman inside still alive and well."

"You're not going to explain how he made it in?"

"No."

"What the-"

"Child, I have not had enough caffeine, and I don't care. ... She was quite pretty and charming and quick-witted, such that the prince would have befriended her quickly had he met her anywhere else, so it seemed difficult to believe that anyone would want to lock her up. He praised her resilience and asked how she had lasted so long in such hostile conditions, and that was when the sorceress smiled, too wide, revealing rows and rows of sparkling, knife-like fangs. As she dropped her glamour spell, the prince had just enough time to feel like a fool before the dragon swallowed him whole in a single gulp. Of course! The whole place was completely barren, so what else could she have been eating?"

"Um, you just introduced the rows of fearsome teeth, and she doesn't even use-"

"I'm still talking."

"You suck at this, mister."

"Quite astonished that he was still alive, the prince explored the dark, cavernous gullet of the beast-"

"What the shit."

"-and at last came across its heart."

"It's like a cave? And he's wandering around inside one internal organ somehow finding other internal organs?"

"Did no one ever teach you what a metaphor is?"

"This is stupid."

"It's a magical-[radio static] fairy tale land, so suspend your disbelief, cretin!"

Charlie shot Alastor a frustrated glance, which was undeserved, in his opinion, given the completely unreasonable expectations these children had for fairy tales.

"...He marveled for a moment at how, despite the largeness of the organ, it beat exactly like his own. It differed only in its scale. Aside from this one detail, they were totally alike in function, complexity, and vulnerability. It struck him, deeply, and for a moment he was quiet with his thoughts."

"You're not about to tell me he empathizes with the monster that just ate him and they live happily ever after?"

"HAHAHAHA! Of course not, simpleton!" Alastor slapped his knee with one hand and aggressively tweaked the child's nose with the other, causing the boy to tumble backward.

Charlie grimaced. Normal Alastor had returned. What was she about to hear?

"He realized she was ultimately just as vulnerable and no stronger than he was, and suddenly all traces of intimidation and illusions of inferiority disappeared." The nature of Alastor's smile changed, and the children may not have noticed, but Charlie did, because she'd had practice. She tried to conceal her intrigue. "The prince was no longer afraid of the prejudiced townspeople, nor the vicious dragon. Without mercy, he stabbed the dragon's heart straight through, sliced the dead beast open, and bathed in its magical blood in celebration. After absorbing his enemy's magic, he returned home as the most powerful sorcerer his kingdom had ever seen, and those who still not did respect him feared him enough that it no longer mattered. But more valuable than any magic was the realization that he was truly never weaker than any enemy. No matter how formidable they may appear compared to you, everyone has weaknesses to be exploited, and if you always aim straight for the heart, any enemy can be conquered!"

The children were silent.

" ...Except zombies," Alastor added helpfully. "It's always best to take their heads off."

The crowd of children blinked quietly for about 1.5 seconds before a repetitive and merciless chant of "COOOORN-YYYY!" began.

Alastor shot a hateful glance at Charlie, who grinned/grimaced innocently as though she had expected something else, before the first few splatters of goo slapped them in the face.

[X]

"You were the one who begged me to try again so you could talk to the parents," Alastor reminded Charlie as the two walked the few blocks back to the hotel through the city, covered in ambiguous red splashes of liquid that could just as easily have been tomato juice or blood, given where they lived.

"What on earth did you say to them, Al?" It was hard to imagine how he could have overshot the mark by so much the second time after so woefully undershooting it the first time. The same fearless brats who had taunted them were hovering around their mothers for comfort by the time Charlie and Alastor were finally asked to leave. In response to whatever their children were complaining about, the mothers seemed fairly perturbed as well.

Alastor himself seemed mystified by the extreme reversal. "I just told them a story my mother used to tell me. About a hallway. A mysterious hallway that feeds on loneliness and eats people who have grown apart by luring them into it and separating them in a dark, featureless maze. It tricks them into running further and further apart with a menacing growl. The hallway turns out to be but a throat or a tongue that coils up and digests them in the even larger beast's stomach." Amused by her aghast expression, he wiggled his fingers and allowed the radio to play cartoonish, stock ghost sound effects.

Charlie thought the plot of this story sounded oddly familiar, though she couldn't place from where. But that wasn't what held her attention. "That was what she told you as a bedtime story?"

"I think it was her way of telling me she never wanted us to grow apart."

Charlie decided she didn't want to touch this with a 39.5 foot pole. "Forget it. ...I was surprised by the first story, too. Gotta say, Al, I was expecting a comedy."

"Yes, I considered going that route." Al shrugged. "But that was just what I came up with once I got going." Truth be told, Alastor was forcibly shutting down thoughts of various factors that may have compelled him to tell that story- Charlie's angst over her family being one, the mothers and children being another.

"Huh," Charlie uttered neutrally. Alastor seemed completely unbothered by the initial fishing comment, so she pressed forward. "Yeah, it was pretty formulaic, if unconventional."

"I became quite familiar with the formula. My mother must have liked those stories because there were several volumes of-" There was a brief, hesitant break before the continuation of the sentence, as if regret had set in. "-Grimm's Fairy Tales and the like...left behind."

Oof. Charlie changed the topic to another subject of interest for her. "...I have...some questions about that story…"

"Such as?"

"Well, first of all, the messaging."

"What could possibly be wrong with reminding children they're no less than anyone else?"

"Nothing, if that's the takeaway. But you really played up the violent, merciless slaughter of your enemies and 'fear is better than love' bit."

"Did you never play with other children in Hell when you were growing up? And as you can see," Al pointed out, gesturing at the red blotches on Charlie's face, "even that was nowhere near enough to satisfy them. I dialed it back to please you."

"Okay, well, point taken. But what about, like…" Charlie made a cartoonish facial expression of exaggerated discomfort and gestured awkwardly at the air. "The whole princess and the dragon being the same character, and literally 'women with pointy teeth,' as a trope-"

"We're in Hell, Charlie, dear. All of the women have pointy teeth," he replied with a wink.

Charlie narrowed her eyes in an expression of exasperation. "C'mon, Al, you know what I mean."

He was so naturally over-the-top that, even after having known him for months, it was still sometimes hard for Charlie to tell when Alastor was going for comic melodrama and when he was actually offended. He gasped, hand over heart. "Charlie! I'm surprised you think such an unflattering thing about me! I have nothing but positive opinions of women. I learned everything I know about psychological warfare and leveraging the element of surprise from females. I value their expertise. They're genius tacticions, really."

Charlie struggled with the calculations in her head. If Al immediately attributes a bunch of negative qualities to women but his unironic opinion is that all of those negatives are positives, is he still sexist? She honestly couldn't tell. Her eyes were crossing. New topic.

"Fine, fine. But...last question, promise! ...The echo thing. Were you…" She coughed and shifted, hesitant but too curious to stop. "Were you...describing...a laugh track?"

Speaking of sound effects, you could practically hear a record scratch. "Excuse me?" Alastor responded, in a tone that was even but very short.

"Were you… When you talked about speaking into the emptiness for company and hearing the echo… Were you talking about your old job?" Charlie ventured.

Al glowered at her out of the corner of his eye. "No. None of that was autobiographical," he lied. Charlie's assumption was not that he thought she was stupid, but rather that he was offended by the fact that she had dared pose the question out loud. She cringed as he continued walking ahead of her while obviously aware that she had stopped. Despite feeling mildly guilty for embarrassing him, she was frustrated. Why share something about yourself, publicly, metaphor or not, and expect a good friend not to comment on it? She trotted to keep up.

"Wait! Al…" At this point there was no reason to feign politeness. "Who's the dragon?!"

"I thought you said that was your last question."

"MmnmnnsrjeaHDGRHAQGRAHHH!"

Of the many things that intrigued and haunted Charlie about this interaction, what did so the most was that, during that last exchange, Alastor had seemed to insinuate, albeit not confirm, that his mother died before he had many memories of her. Yet for as long as Charlie had known Alastor, he frequently mentioned his mother- usually positively, and regarding very specific memories. So...who had he been talking about all this time? Clearly there must have been something she'd misunderstood.

[X]

Note: Fun fact- Sigfried is a character in folklore who slays a dragon but ultimately takes on many of the dragon's characteristics.