"Oh hey, Alastor! Hi, Aria! I'm so glad to see that you're feeling better!" Niffty said excitedly as Aria suspected that she was still in the hotel as she watched the small, red-headed demon zip around with impossible speed around a cavernous dining room as she polished and scrubbed a massive chandelier that glittered with crystal, demon eyes amidst golden, tentacle arms that hung suspended above a very long, wooden dining table with monster, clawed feet and a blood-red tablecloth that looked like a bloodstain on the table.
"Why, hello there, Niffty! It looks like you're doing a fabulous job!" Alastor complimented her cordially with his arms flung out before he twirled his staff for emphasis, while the sound of his radio background made a scrubbing, shiny noise followed by polite clapping as Aria smiled despite herself as she saw Niffty's contagious smile. "I trust that things are going well with the improvements I've ordered on the upkeep and restoration of the hotel?"
"It's super duper, Mr. Alastor! Although, did we really need to order so much coffee and alcohol? I mean, don't get me wrong, I really like a good Mudslide every so often, provided there's any ice cream around, but I'd prefer some fizzier alternatives, like root beer! Golly, I can't even remember the last time I had a real root beer float from an actual soda jerk! That's...that's just sad!" Niffty complained in a distressed manner as she proceeded to polish the table until it sparkled, its luster beautiful despite the creepy decor as she looked up at Aria and then dropped her polishing rag and put her little fist in her hand like she just remembered something important! "Hey! I just remembered! I have a surprise for both of you!"
"Oh really! Why, it isn't even my birthday, and yet I get two gifts in a single evening! How fortuitous!" Alastor exclaimed happily as he watched Niffty pick up her rag before pulling out two, small, neatly wrapped presents from out of nowhere that were the size of ring boxes that had red wrapping paper on it with a black bow on top as she gave one to Alastor and and then the other to Aria.
"Thank you! Wow...I don't know what to say!" Aria said, surprised and touched by the gesture as she saw Niffty beam at her words as she looked positively fit to burst from sheer happiness! "Is it okay if I open it now?"
"Yes, please! I can't wait to see your happy faces once you see them! Open yours too, Alastor! I worked really hard to get these ready so you could both have them for tonight!" Niffty insisted energetically, her single, sunset-looking eye looking a bit too tiny and manic for Aria, setting off alarms in Aria's head as she hesitated to unwrap the tiny gift until she saw Alastor poof his staff away as he began unwrapping his, which left her with no alternative as she did the same.
Sure enough, inside the tiny box was a shiny, red, heart-shaped locket that had simple filigree etched on it. Aria looked up at Alastor, the two of them sharing a painful look with equally stiff smiles as they both lifted their identical lockets by the black ribbons they were attached to. Aria sighed and tried very hard not to frown or groan as she opened the locket and found what she had dreaded. There she was with Alastor walking hand in hand at the park in the tiniest, heart-shaped photo she'd ever seen, confirming Aria's suspicion that a certain someone had snapped a photo of them in the park earlier that day.
"Oh, you both look so thrilled!" Niffty gushed, her hands clasped in delight as she put them under her chin in a dainty show of love-sick whimsy as she let out a sigh of longing before rushing up to Alastor and Aria with a heart-shaped gleam in her one, big eye. "I just saw you both in the park and just HAD to take a picture! It was just so romantic seeing you both hand in hand enjoying each other's touch under the twilight of the forest! Sigh...I'm just so happy for you two! I wish I could find my one, true love as quickly as you two did!"
"I...don't know what to say," Aria commented helplessly with a pathetic, stiff smile on her face, unable to see any easy way to tell Niffty the truth about how awful this gift was as Aria could only look at it and remember Alastor's assault right after this moment as she awkwardly put the locket on her wrist to save face with Niffty until she could take it off in her room. "Thank you for the gift, I guess. I mean, it's really nice, don't get me wrong! I just really wish you'd told me you were doing this. I feel really awkward about this surprise, since...well...it was so unexpected!"
"My thoughts exactly, especially given the nature of the gift, although I'd hate to squash that generous impulse you have, given how much you've already done for me and the hotel! For what it's worth, I want to thank you for the fact that you thought of me, but really, my dear, I can't seem to get you to understand that a gift like this is beyond my ability to really appreciate," Alastor agreed, his smile thin and strained as he held the locket between his thumb and forefinger like it was a poisonous snake until it suddenly sprang to life and tied itself onto his wrist, making Aria stare in shock as Alastor fought to take it off, but no matter how much he tore, pulled, or burned it, it stayed firmly on his wrist looking as clean and pristine as ever! "What the-! It won't come off! Where in the nine circles did you get this, Niffty!?"
"Do you like it, Alastor? You sound so excited about it, now, which is good, because for a minute there, I thought you didn't like your gift! Hahaha, silly, right?" Niffty asked with a laugh as she practically glowed with happiness as she hopped from place to place to polish while she talked until she eventually went over to Alastor expectantly as Aria watched them both with some trepidation, while she tried to discreetly untie her bracelet and realized that it wouldn't come off her, either! "Good thing these matching lockets were on sale, too, or I'd just be stuck giving you both some crummy, old photographs instead of those lovely lockets! The creepy, cloaked vendor I bought them from just outside the park was practically giving them away! I asked him how he'd gotten his hands on such nice jewelry, since I've got an eye for antiques, and I'm almost one hundred percent positive that those lockets are gold under all that shiny, red paint! All he'd say about them was that 'They're just the thing to bring two people together!' He smiled so strangely after I bought them after that, like I'd just given him a gift as he mysteriously vanished after that in a huge puff of white smoke and fireworks! I wonder if he's some sort of magician on top of being a seller of random, pretty, antique jewelry because who uses smoke and fireworks to disappear?"
"Niffty...do you mean to tell me that not only did you sneak around photographing us without our consent, but you then put those photos in a pair of lockets from some creepy, cloaked vendor who was happy to be rid of them!?" Alastor asked slowly with growing intensity as very eerie, creepy tuning screeched high and thin in the air around him as his smile looked unimaginably surreal like he couldn't believe this was happening to him as Niffty finally began to look uncertain as she turned to Alastor with her polishing rag hanging limp and lifeless in her hands.
"You mean...you don't like your gift, Alastor?" Niffty asked tentatively as her one eye started to look very large, pathetic, and watery as Alastor's smile turned thin and long-suffering as a very brittle laugh suddenly escaped him.
"Oh, my dear...what am I ever going to do with you?" Alastor asked himself softly with a strained smile on his face that looked incredibly lethal for a moment before a sigh escaped him as he stopped trying to take the locket off and summoned his staff and held onto it with both hands, his fingers tapping for a moment on the red cover of the microphone portion of it before he waved his staff towards an adjoining door. "Why don't you move on to the ballroom just through those doors, while I have a little chat with Miss Aria, hmm? I'm sure you can guess that we'll be bumping gums about your gifts, so don't worry about it and smile, won't you?"
"You got it, Mr. Alastor! Don't worry! I won't be sitting on the other side of the door listening in as you gush about my gifts and get all lovey-dovey with each other! Nope! Not me! Hehehe!" Niffty said with a smile and a giggle as she gave them both a smiling, knowing look as she zipped off to the door Alastor had mentioned about, turned back, and waved as she winked at them before slowly closing the door behind her with her single, big eye being the last thing to disappear from view.
"Go through those doors to your left and I'll meet you there," Alastor whispered quick and low to Aria as soon as the door closed behind Niffty as Alastor disappeared in a puff of darkness, while Aria looked at the doors next to her and recognized the telltale red, double doors with circular windows to be the entrance to the kitchen as Aria hurriedly made her way through them and shut the swinging doors behind her the best she could.
"I am going to find that shady swindler that tempted Niffty with shiny, heart-shaped baubles and personally ram every single one of his wares down his throat!" Aria heard Alastor say with deadly promise in his voice as Aria turned to her left and caught Alastor leaning over a massive kitchen sink and smiling rather creepily as his hands gripped the sides of it so hard that his nails scraped and screeched against the metal. "I'll make it so slow, so painful, and so incredibly traumatizing that he'll never be able to sell anything to anyone ever again without thinking of me and breaking into a fit of babbling, incoherent hysteria!"
"Um...Alastor?" Aria whispered uncertainly as she watched the intensity of his boiling rage simmer under the smiling surface he maintained with creepy efficiency as she watched him suddenly turn his red eyes on her, their murderous glint unnerving her to her very core.
Aria suddenly realized that Alastor was deadly serious about this as a lance of fear jolted through her, filling her with sudden dread.
"Go ahead, my dear! Analyze this deplorable trinket around my wrist and tell me what you see! I know you have the power to do it, so don't bother trying to lie to me," Alastor stated in a cold, brisk tone that didn't sound right in her ears as he turned on her, his poise and smile unbroken, but the measure of his steps and tone towards her filled her with a primal fear as she had to fight the urge to run away from him as he approached her with his nails continuing to screech on the metal counters he passed. "You better not disappoint me by trying to hide what I know is already there or you're going to regret it!"
Swallowing down her fear, and wondering how he knew she could analyze anything, Aria quickly sent a thought to her choker and rose upon her head, wondering why Alastor was so distraught as she concentrated all her assets on the matching lockets now bound to their wrists. The first thing that came up at the top, right corner of her vision almost floored her as her analysis from her rose clip confirmed that these items were angelic artifacts! Reading through the data quickly, her face paled and her body trembled as she suddenly realized why Alastor was so upset as her choker gave her a rather shallow, peripheral analysis.
"Don't leave me in suspense, my dear! I hardly have the patience for theatrics at the moment!" Alastor insisted impatiently as his leering smile now rested only an inch or two away from her own face as his hands gripped her shoulders so hard, his nails drew blood!
"Ow! Not so hard, Alastor! Let me go!" Aria cried out in pain, his grip unrelenting as he forced her away from the center of the kitchen and suddenly pinned her to one of the bone-colored walls!
"What do you see?" Alastor insisted harshly, his smile now too thin and dangerous to ignore as Aria watched him and suddenly realized that he was terrified as she stopped struggling under his painful grip and concentrated on what he was asking of her.
"It's in a very old, archaic form of Celestial. It says that they're a binding set," Aria answered quickly, afraid of what Alastor might do in the state of emotional upheaval he was in as she found his smile growing even more long and deadly as his grip grew harder still, making her hurry up as another cry of pain escaped her. "Ow! The small description that popped up when I scanned it says here that once one of them is put on, the other one will automatically grab onto the nearest soul. Oh no...that means that when I put mine on, the other one you were holding must have-Ow! Alastor, I'm so sorry! Ow!"
"Tell me how to take it off. Now!" Alastor practically hissed in her ear as Aria could now feel blood trickling down her arms from where his nails had dug into her flesh, the realization that he might rip her arms off if she didn't give him what he wanted popping into her head as she prayed frantically for help in her heart!
"Initiating Code 'Alpha and Omega'!" Aria said out loud tensely with apprehension as all the mystery of whether or not she could analyze her surroundings with hidden, angelic tech going out the window as strands of confirmation code rippled in the right corner of her vision as it asked for her identification and voice recognition. "Guardian Angel Ariathe June, Rank Elohim, Voice recognition password: 'The worth of souls is great in the sight of God!'"
"Identification authenticated and voice recognition confirmed!" A familiar, artificial voice answered as Aria watched the line of code ripple again before a sound she really didn't want to hear came into her ears that confirmed her worst fears. "Full Access to 'The Love That Binds Us Together' artifact Denied. Seraphim Bianca Minuet, creator of this artifact, is needed to access the full capabilities of this artifact! Please report to your nearest, higher ranking officer for help! Thank you and have a blessed day!"
"Initiate Code 'Tree of Knowledge'!" Aria insisted as Alastor leered at her, his eyes growing thin and decidedly more creepy and intense the longer she took to access the information needed to get the cursed artifacts off as lines of code rippled again before the artificial intelligence asked for her query. "Requesting any and all information about this angelic artifact and its creator!"
"Accessing! Please wait!" The artificial voice responded as code rippled before her quickly before the sound of confirmation rang in her ears, making her sigh in relief. "The information you seek is available! Downloading all related documentation now!"
"Requesting for all silencing protocols to be temporarily turned off while said information is being broadcasted!" Aria insisted impatiently as she waited for the rippling code to subside before she was again greeted with the sound of denial, making Aria growl in frustration as she looked at Alastor and tried very hard to not to take her frustrations out on the emotionally-unhinged demon as he leered at her with a smile that looked incredibly dark right then as the sound of radio feedback began to rise within the confines of the kitchen. "I'm sorry, but for some odd reason, I can't bypass the silencing protocols! I'm going to have to read the information out loud to you as quickly as I can, so please don't rip my arms off!"
"No promises, my dear," Alastor said with that unnerving grin on his face as his grip never relented as Aria could now hear the dripping sound of her own blood hitting the kitchen tiles, the sound of it filling her with that strange, bizarre feeling that this really couldn't be happening to her as the document downloaded quickly as she began to read it out loud.
"'The Love That Binds Us Together' artifact, which is made up of two, matching, heart-shaped lockets, was made for the uniting of souls," Aria read out loud, her dread deepening as she anxiously considered what this meant as she read on. "The lockets can only be activated by the creator of this artifact, but once activated, this artifact will remain active until it is made inert by its original creator. Once activated, at least one soul must willingly put one of the lockets on. Once done so, the remaining locket will bind itself to the nearest soul, which makes the artifact unable to be removed manually without the original creator's permission. If the creator of this artifact can not be reached or won't give their permission to unbind said souls, the terms of use recorded herein must be fulfilled to free both souls from this artifact, regardless of whether both souls are willing or unwilling to participate."
"Does it say who made this God-awful artifact so we can be rid of its foul binding?" Alastor asked impatiently with that creepy grin growing more menacing by the minute as noxious, red voodoo runes began to appear around him, the air around both of them darkening a little as Aria frantically scrolled all the way down to the ownership records, grimacing darkly as she recognized the date of when the document was created.
"Sigh, the owner was Seraphim Bianca Minuet of the Angelic Artifact Foundation, Experimental Division in Pentagram City, Hell," Aria answered, already knowing where this was going as the hope to get permission from the owner looked practically dead on its feet, making her groan at her dark pun in her head as she continued. "The date this document was created was 1577 A.D., which means not only is this artifact ancient, but this also means it may have been floating around Hell for centuries! That's insane!"
"Well, isn't that just dandy!" Alastor said sarcastically with a dark sneer on his face as a mirthless laugh escaped him as he finally let go of her, his nails stained a deeper red as he threw his hands up in a helpless gesture before he summoned his staff, his radio tuning loudly, while the sound of his staff tapped ominously against the red and black kitchen tiles as he began to pace. "Then this is exactly what I was afraid of! This artifact is none other than the Cursed Hearts of Cupid, or more generally known as The Cursed Lockets! It's a very popular, urban myth that has survived several retellings, but it always ends badly for anyone unlucky enough to be locked within them. The designer of this diabolical artifact never accounted for the chance that their immortal soul could one day be erased, which means it's now impossible for us to remove these cursed lockets manually!"
"Not to mention that it's been active for a ridiculous amount of time! I wonder why she didn't deactivate it after the first initial testing," Aria said curiously as she scrolled over the available documents, again, to see if she could find the reason why it hadn't been turned off earlier as she finally came across a legal document written in ancient Celestial reporting the theft of the artifact a thousand years after its creation. "It was stolen! Listen to this! It says here that the artifact was initially created to test whether the improvement of sinners could be achieved by being bound to an angel and sharing in an outlook and lifestyle completely foreign to what the sinner in question was used to. It says that Bianca was testing the artifact with herself stepping in as the angel and she was bound to one particularly tricky sinner named Vlad Tapesh!"
"Really? How incredibly interesting! I wonder how long it took for him to be free of the cursed locket he was forced to wear, I wonder? He wasn't well known for being particularly patient or forgiving!" Alastor commented with a dark chuckle, the idea humorous to him as the sound of screams amidst the sound of a roaring fire came over Alastor's radio background before going silent, making Aria's skin crawl as she wondered if she'd fair any better than Bianca as she continued to read aloud.
"It says they'd succeeded in both being released by completing the trial that's connected to the lockets, but only after being stuck together for a thousand years!" Aria said, the idea of being stuck with such a well-known murderer like Vlad for that long making her visibly shudder in horror! "That's a long time to be stuck with someone who obviously didn't want to do the experiment!"
"Let's just hope it doesn't take us that long to be rid of these lockets, my dear!" Alastor insisted with a leering grin, the cheekiness of it clouded by the very creepy, narrow look he gave her as Aria laughed nervously before she continued.
"However, it looks like despite her success, Bianca was planning to unmake her artifact!" Aria said in surprise as she read on, her interest rising as she wondered how it hadn't come about. "It says here that Vlad succeeded in talking Bianca out of destroying it, insisting that sinners like him needed something like this to force them to see that they were wrong. Bianca later testified that these strange set of circumstances forced her into leaving the artifact active because of her experience with Vlad while bound to him by her artifact. Before she could assign another angel to be bound to the artifact along with another sinner, however, the experimental artifact mysteriously disappeared from its lockbox that was in Bianca's private office. From what I can tell from the rest of the notes on the theft, Bianca was suspected of letting the artifact be stolen out of her office because of the nature of the locks and passcodes needed to access her lockbox in her office. Bianca was well-known to be forgetful and would constantly leave her office and its assorted lockboxes unlocked on account of her struggles to remember what passcodes she had put up previously. Ultimately, she was relieved of her rank as Seraphim and was demoted to Cherubim. After that, she was assigned to help with the protection of missionaries in a different part of Pentagram City called 'The Strip.' It looks like they never did figure out who took the artifact, even though it says Vlad was strongly suspected to have known where they were in Bianca's office. Despite that, he completely denied having stolen the artifact and pleaded his innocence of the crime despite suspicions from several, ranking angels. As it stands, Vlad Tapesh was found innocent and was released because there was a lack of evidence against him and the case went cold."
"So that's how these cursed lockets ended up being set upon the populace of Pentagram City!" Alastor commented with a disgusted grin on his face as he turned and faced her with his radio tuning a little as he kept fiddling and pulling at the black ribbon that kept the locket firmly on his wrist like it irritated his skin. "What a mess! I had every intention of seeing you off with Arackniss tomorrow and then watching you from a very great distance as you foolishly went to that Hellraiser, but as it stands now, it looks like I'm going to be forced to accompany you to the most hellish event of the year. Huzzah."
The emptiness in Alastor's voice and smile as he said this while habitually trying and failing to take the cursed locket off made Aria's heart sink as the guilt of what she'd inadvertently done became almost insufferable.
"Look, I'm sorry, okay? If I had known what this locket really was, I'd never would've put it on! Sigh...as much as I need to go to that Hellraiser to keep my shape-shifting powers a secret, and figure things out about that angel named Nicholas Chapman you mentioned, can't you just stand there and make me come back to you if I move too far away from you? My mission is pretty much pointless if I can't even move, and you know it," Aria said sadly, hating the idea of pointing out this flaw in the artifact's design because her mission meant everything to her, but she hated to see Alastor like this as she offered him this small glimmer of hope as a cold, hard laugh escaped him.
"Don't you understand the nature of the artifact that's bound us together, Aria?" Alastor asked quietly with a smile that spoke of cruel irony as he tapped his microphone softly before talking into it in a low and bitter voice as eerie, sad music accompanied him in his radio background. "As much as I enjoy your pathetic attempt at comfort, these cursed lockets are designed to know who's the angel and who's the sinner. Surely you can fathom what that means for me."
"...I'll be the one you'll be teleported to and not the other way around," Aria muttered softly and sadly, unhappy that both of them were forced into this as a sigh escaped her before she grit her teeth as she refused to give up as she began to look up more information about the cursed lockets. "Well, I refuse to be all locked up like this! I'm going to make sure we both get out of this as soon as possible or die trying, which, now that I think about it, is a pretty grim solution to our problem. Still...you got any arsenic?"
"Ha! Such a morbid joke, coming from you, my dear! That did cross my mind, but again, I find your death far less amusing than you might believe, even if it would make things easier for me to move around freely," Alastor pointed out with a dark chuckle, his tone a little less hollow as a more genuine smirk appeared on his face as he strode forward until he was face to face with her as he rested his hands on top of his staff. "Please continue and enlighten me on how we can be freed from these wretched lockets, then! I daresay, the design is unbecoming of a dapper gentleman such as myself! I do have a reputation to uphold!"
"I wholeheartedly agree! The locket would suit Husker far better than you, anyway, but don't tell him I said that. He hates me enough without me practically telling him to his face that he's a cuddly, plush toy to me," Aria joked as a small smile graced her lips as the act of joking in this less than ideal circumstance made her feel braver, but she couldn't stop thinking about Bianca and her stupid artifact. "I just can't believe Bianca made this kind of thing! It's so wrong of her to have kept her artifact from being destroyed and for her to just leave it active like that? She was incredibly irresponsible! Vlad was crazy to think forcing sinners is the right way to go, too! Our ability to choose for ourselves is the greatest gift the Lord has ever given to each of us! I can't believe Bianca forgot that! It's why the first war in Heaven was even fought in the first place! The whole reason why its such a sin to enslave people and try and take away their ability to choose is because it goes against everything we are as children of God! Lucifer wanted all the power to be given to him, including the free will of every, living soul, so he could control everyone completely, forcing salvation on everyone and gaining all the glory for himself and himself alone. That meant that none of us would gain an inheritance, we'd never become like God, and we'd be stuck as servants to a God that only cared about building himself up and no one else! So he tried to take God's throne and power by marching with those who were unwilling to keep their own freedom as they gave their will to him so that they wouldn't have to do any work to be saved! You now know them as demons here in Hell and rightly so! To uphold any being willing to force salvation that ultimately gained you nothing but eternal servitude with no reward for anything because with no choice, you can literally do nothing for yourself, is a crime beyond anything I can ever imagine!"
"...You're very passionate about freedom and choice, I see," Alastor pointed out with an amused grin on his face as he only offered a shrug and a shake of his head on the subject before he cleared his throat as his radio background played a more brisk and energetic, old-timey tune as it swept up the mood to a more adventurous feeling. "Now, then! Let's get to know the terms that will unbind us from each other, now, shall we? The sooner we break these bonds, the sooner I can freely frolick amongst the denizens of Hell as I make the streets of Pentagram City run red with the blood of my enemies once more!"
"...O...kay...There's a bunch of legal jargon, so give me a minute...come on...here it is!" Aria said as she tried hard not to think about the euphoric way Alastor spoke about blood and violence as she got back on track as she found the section on the terms of use for the artifact. "To be freed from the binding power of this artifact, an act of selfless love must be given freely by both souls. For clarification, an act of selfless love is an act of selflessness that does not benefit the giver in any way, is not given reluctantly, is done without compulsion or threat of harm, and doesn't come from a desire to deceive the other soul bound together with them in any way. This act must be willingly given out of the goodness of one's heart and must be given by both souls bound before the lockets will undo the binding. Those bound can do this act together or individually, but acts of selfless love must be done within three days of each other or the timer resets and those bound under this artifact must start all over again. Well, that's a stupid rule! Sorry, getting back on topic. There is no time limit to how long the binding can last, so for ease of movement and privacy, which terms are explained more fully in section F-69 of this document, the souls bound can move up to three hundred and sixty feet in any direction, and this includes going beyond walls, going up in the air, or underground. Nice! If any bound sinner goes beyond this limit, the sinner will be automatically teleported back to the angel. Please see section B-4 for information regarding safety protocols for using this artifact and consequences connected to forcefully separating the binding of this artifact through any other means than the terms of use. Sigh...well, you were right. I guess you're stuck with me."
"At the very least, I can count my blessings knowing I'm stuck with you and not another sinner!" Alastor commented with a sigh of acceptance like things could've been worse as he smiled at her, while the sound of chains rattling and the moaning and wailing of undead came over his radio feed like a bad, Halloween soundtrack as he reached out and pinched her nose and shook it until she batted his gloved hand away. "You know those legends about the Cursed Lockets I mentioned? I now know why they always ended badly. Two sinners, two demons, or one of each have gotten stuck like this without knowing how to take them off, or even if they did, they still would've set the other one up for a fall like what you joked about doing earlier to yourself. Poison, sudden accidents, and bloody endings come across any who came across these cursed things. Now do you understand my apprehension when I realized that they wouldn't come off, no matter what I did?"
"The Lord did say that everyone down here still suffers from the same sins that plagued them in life, so yes, I do understand all too well how perilous these lockets are, especially given that I could've gotten stuck with that tiger demon or worse!" Aria answered anxiously as she hugged herself as she thought of her murderers, Uncle Joe, and countless other sinners who had taken advantage of her for their own, personal gain as she thanked God that He'd at least spared her from that kind of nightmare. "May we both let go of what we may hold dear that's blocking our freedom instead of leading us to it."
"Excuse me, my dear, but I highly doubt you have any darkness left in you to worry about!" Alastor announced dismissively, making Aria laugh bitterly as she shook her head before she passed him in the kitchen to rummage inside the fridge near the sink he'd been close to earlier. "What could possibly be left that an angel would need help from The Radio Demon?"
"Read my report and you'll have plenty to go off of," Aria answered evenly as she found salsa, cheddar cheese, sour cream, and avocados in the fridge as she put the food on a nearby counter before opening a door beside the fridge and found a massive, walk-in pantry. "I just hope you bought corn chips. Nachos sound really good right now!"
"Oh no, my dear! You are not going to be eating junk food while I am forced to be near you for Hell knows how long!" Alastor insisted with a smile of distaste on his lips as he rolled his eyes at her before he put everything she'd pulled out back into the fridge with a snap of his fingers as another snap revealed a large pot full of what looked like some sort of vegetable stew. "How does Ratatouille sound?"
"Eh, it's okay, but I also really want some meat, so is there any way we might get to have some as a side dish?" Aria asked curiously before something dark occurred to her, making her physically recoil at the idea as her stomach suddenly went sour. "Oh, please don't tell me we'll be eating someone later if I want meat here in Hell!"
"Ha ha ha! Of course not, my dear! I make sure I get good, fresh meat of the non-sinner variety when I can!" Alastor insisted with a smile of amusement, the invisible audience laughing along with him as he summoned a cutting board, a knife, and what looked like a few lamb chops in front of him on the counter next to the pantry before he looked sideways at her with a dark grin as he began to cut the meat into little squares. "Of course, I can't guarantee that the meat prepared for sale here in Hell is of the "normal" variety, but rest assured, I do try to keep my palate away from tainted meat!"
"...I'm going to end up becoming a vegetarian after this, aren't I?" Aria bemoaned to herself as she held her face in her hands, while Alastor laughed as he prepared the meat with practiced ease, while a little, red-headed demon slowly and carefully closed the kitchen door she was using to eavesdrop as a giggle escaped her before she went back to work.