Chapter 15: Don't Speak Of Leviathan
666 million views.
That's how many views Angel Dust got for his video.
He'd managed to delete it, but it was too late. His followers who viewed the video shared it on their accounts and THEY got views, and their viewers reshared the video, gaining MORE views, MORE people resharing the video, and by now, for the 666 million views Angel Dust got, 666 million demons were sharing it.
They were watching the video on the computer in Charlie's office. Charlie, Vaggie, and Nifty were watching the video in awe. Alastor looked proud, Husk could care less, Angel Dust was pacing nervously, and Queenie was working on calming down a hyperventilating Indigo.
The door slammed open and Jinx the male imp came in. Just in time. The video suddenly got distorted and every single shared and reshared video of Indigo's dancing was replaced with a pop up hacking video of Fizzarolli pole dancing.
"Good news! I managed to get Fizzarolli to permanently block the video with one of his pop up videos!" Jinx beamed.
"There's no way he did that for you," Queenie snorted. A ding came and Jinx smugly played the voicemail on speaker. "Jinxy, my man! Pulled a big favor for ya, big boy! That undesirable video will be hacked nonstop by my pop-up ads for 66 hours nonstop until the next trending thing pops up! Don't forget ya owe me free delivery services for a month! And don't forget to tell your sister to vandalize Blitzo's van! Ya know? A big graffiti artwork that says 'IMP sucks like your life, Blitzo'! If she does that, I'll make sure the big O gets ya both reserved seating at Ozzie's! Cath ya later, my favorite college dormie!"
They stared at Jinx incredulously. "You're welcome," he said. "What? Just because I'm a Sloth Ring freak doesn't mean I'm lazy 24/7!"
"I thought you were from Gluttony?" Queenie's tail pointed at the beehive pattern on his arms.
"No, I was born in the Gluttony Ring, but my family moved to the Sloth Ring after my old man lost his job!" Jinx corrected. "I got those damn tissue scars when I was doing a delivery in the Gluttony Ring and I narrowly escaped some… creative customers."
"Hellhounds?"
"Nope. Bear demons… I was delivering bear traps…" Jinx shuddered.
"Well, thanks for getting rid of that video…" Indigo inhaled. "I'm glad we got it off the Internet. I can't believe I recorded it live!"
"But Miss Indigo was such a beautiful ice skater! I've never seen anything so amazing!" Nifty applauded.
"Indigo, how come you never told us you were that talented?" Charlie smiled and got excited. "My God, we could…"
"We could do nothing," Indigo said firmly. "I don't ice skate."
"Lying about your skills isn't going to help you with your redemption, my dear!" Alastor shook his finger. "Oh, how they'd admire you on theaters!"
"You're almost as good as my mom!" Charlie agreed. "Think about it! You changed the hotel's garden and you're helping promote our cause!" Her eyes beamed. "You could totally do a dancing number at the opening garden party!"
Before Indigo could explode her discomfort, it was Angel Dust who got angry first. "Di che cazzo stai parlando? I accidentally got her viral, and you want to keep her viral even though it upsets her?" He nearly yelled. "You want her to end up like nearly all the bitches down in Hell?" (What are you fucking talking about?)
"Angel…" Charlie began, but Angel Dust pounded his fist against her desk.
"I nearly got Indigo in shit and you're talking about using her as your project's next model!"
"Angel, I'd advise against talking in such a…" Alastor got caught off when Angel Dust grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and started shaking him. But the most troubling thing was how Angel Dust was starting to cry.
"Do you even understand the kind of crap I almost got her in? Do you understand what would happen if they saw that video? Do you know what Velvet and Valentino could do to her? You know that Velvet can't stand anyone surpassing her in popularity on social media, so she tracks down the competition, and she cuts them into pieces and sews them back to death with holy metal needles and they become her Frankenstein doll minions! And you know Valentino almost tracked her down when Indigo first got here and he knows she's a virgin! DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW MANY TEENS GET TRAPPED IN THE PORN BUSINESS, ALASTOR? DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT VALENTINO DOES TO VIRGINS BEFORE HE SIGNS DEALS WITH THEM? DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"
Angel Dust shoved Alastor away. The Radio Demon kept a silent smile on. The spider demon walked towards Indigo and put his hands on Indigo's shoulder. His screams had frozen her. "NEVER make my mistakes."
Indigo nodded. Angel Dust fell on his knees and hugged her. "I'd kill myself if you got hurt…"
Indigo nodded weakly.
"Angel's right. And if Indigo's not comfortable, we shouldn't force her," Vaggie said calmly.
"I could always design posters and flyers," Indigo offered. "I have no problem with visual marketing… just as long as no dancing is done publicly."
Vaggie nodded. Charlie sighed glumly. "Yes. That could do…"
"But I still don't get why you're embarrassed!" Nifty rambled insensitively. "Your room is full of ice-skating trophies! You could have been like Sonja Henie! Why don't you want to dance anymore?"
"Nifty!" Angel Dust warned.
"Sabotage-induced ground humiliation."
Queenie's sudden blunt answer as she kept typing on her phone got everyone's attention.
"What?" Indigo coldly asked.
"Sabotaged-induced ground humiliation, or SIGH," Queenie rolled her eyes. "It means that you experienced a sabotage during a performance that ruined your performing potential, creating humiliation that leads to results like stage fright, hiding talents, and embarrassments when you publicly let it slip."
"Is that a Lust Ring thing?" Jinx asked.
"Nah. SIGH is one of those trauma disorders they invent in the Envy Ring. When succubi and incubi train since childhood in the art of performances, they also learn about disorders that can hinder their tasks. SIGH is a specialty from the Envy Ring that can affect a performer if they come across an envious opponent. Sort of like the human's tall poppy syndrome, but uglier. You ever heard of Helga the Hussle Flame?"
Most demons just blinked at her.
"Seriously? She was basically this crane in can-can drag in the 1900s!" Queenie pointed in frustration at Angel Dust. He checked his face, wondering why she called him a crane. "Helga The Hussle Flame was Hell's number one can-can dancer and burlesque performer back at the turn of the 20th century! What the fuck are you people watching?"
"Clearly not the same stuff as you." Jinx's snicker earned him a kick in the balls from Queenie. The imp winced in pain.
Queenie groaned. "Really famous! She knew a bunch of moves! Hell's darling in the cabarets! Everyone knew her during the Belle Époque, until that fateful audition in October 1914! Like many famous succubus cabaret performers, she got invited to audition in front of Asmodeus himself to become the main star at Ozzie's! She would have won if that envious bitch Sally The Sweet Sprite hadn't 'accidentally' lifted up Helga's pantalettes to reveal her peony pink blood!"
Angel Dust gasped. "A succubus? With peony pink blood? No way!"
"Yes, way! Succubi and incubi are naturally born with light peony pink blood that darkens the more they have sex! Helga used to wear layers in her pantalettes to hide her bloody stains from her periods! She got exposed right in the middle of her audition, revealing to everyone, from her fans to the Lust King himself, that the greatest can-can dancer in all of Hell in the 1900s… was a virgin who used her sex-inducing powers to hypnotize her clients into fucking themselves so she wouldn't have to do it herself! Sally won the audition and Helga lived the rest of her life in shame! Nobody wanted her!" Queenie inhaled then spoke slower. "I mean, on the plus side, she got to die of old age in her family's small property in Wrath and created a pretty good cigar-making business. Sally, on the other hand, got her portrait plastered on Ozzie's wall and she became the most popular performer in Hell… for two years."
"Two years? That's it?"
"Her boyfriend bragged that she was sexier than the wife of the Grand Duke of Jealousy. They found her dead body in her room… bleeding with mirror shards piercing her skin and her vanity mirror shattered. Asmodeus lost seven weeks' worth of clients!"
She and Jinx both shuddered. Vaggie tensed, Nifty hid under Charlie's desk, Alastor stayed put, Husk pulled a bottle from under his hat, and Angel Dust just looked like he had no clue. Even Charlie of all people was nervous.
"On second thought, let's not engage Indigo in any face-revealing advertisement. I wouldn't wish to stir the ire of Envy's royal family," Alastor nodded.
Angel Dust snorted. "Seriously, Smiles? We're in the same room as the head honcho's kid and you're afraid of some sinful bluebloods?"
"Um… Exactly how many kids does…" Indigo shuddered and stayed behind Angel Dust for protection, "…does Le… Le...Leviathan have?"
"Four." Charlie rolled her eyes. "They're older than me…"
"No one likes them," Jinx said.
"That's not a nice thing to say."
"What do you want me to say, princess? I can't sugarcoat how fucking horrible that Eldritch whale and his family are. His four children, Phthonus, Nemesis, Oizys, and Invidia, each rule the four domains of Envy as Grand Duke and Grand Duchesses. Jealousy, Resentment, Schadenfreude, and the Evil Eye. Pray to all the exterminators that no one ever insults them or compares to them, because THEY WILL CONSUME THE ENVY OUT OF YOU UNTIL NOTHING IS LEFT OUT OF YOU BUT YOUR SKELETON!" Jinx started screaming just as a thunderstorm occurred outside. A terrified Indigo started to hug Angel Dust tightly. He petted her on the head.
"Indigo's not going to promote herself just for the hotel's shit," Angel Dust said firmly. "Are we all clear?"
"Clear since five seconds ago." Husk rolled his eyes.
Indigo whimpered in fear.
"Indigo… are you alright?" Charlie asked.
"No…" The teenage demon shook her head.
"You had a similar reaction before… Are you terrified of Leviathan?" Alastor tilted his head.
"Alastor…" Angel Dust growled in warning.
"Who wouldn't be afraid of him?" Insensitive as he was, Jinx jumped on top of Charlie's desk, gesticulating as the fire in the chimney glowed. "They say the Great Underdweller is more ancient than Lucifer himself and with a never-ending hunger for envy!"
"Jinx!" Queenie exclaimed.
"His mane is made of dorsal fins from all the sharks and orcas in existence! They move like waves while he wears them like a lion's mane!" Jinx jumped of the desk.
"Jinx!"
"His tail causes earthquakes every time it hits the ground!"
"Can you stop?" Vaggie demanded.
"You can never stop when it comes to the devil worse than the Devil himself!"
"Why do I feel like they're going to start singing?" Husk muttered.
Indigo tried to leave, but the office suddenly got dark. A purple spotlight landed on Queenie as she pulled Jinx by the tail.
Queenie: Don't speak of Leviathan, please just don't.
Don't speak of Leviathan…
Jinx: Want to change the tone?
Queenie and Jinx suddenly started dancing. Indigo didn't understand how it was possible, but they were suddenly all standing in the middle of a purple ocean. Most of the staff was figuring out what happened while Indigo focused on the duo.
Queenie: At the start of all time
Jinx: At the start of time
Queenie: That's how the story goes, after Heaven kicked out all mankind.
Jinx: Heaven kicked out all mankind.
In the distance, purple vapor silhouettes showed angels chasing away a man and a woman. The vapor then changed to a man walking around with a club until he stopped to look at the water. Eyes appeared, blinking as if the whole ocean were its eye sockets. Indigo shuddered.
Queenie: The monster sees Cain, an idea to reign.
Jinx: Danger!
Queenie: Don't oversell it!
Jinx: Just keep telling the story!
Queenie: Leviathan has a plan.
Jinx: Cain feels something bad.
Queenie: Rid the world of God's favored man.
Jinx: The funeral was very sad!
Queenie: The first murderer gets banned!
Jinx: Tragedy for mankind, they were blind!
Both: Don't speak of Leviathan, please just don't.
Don't speak of Leviathan…
Indigo and Angel Dust spotted the door and tried to make a run for it, but Jinx made Indigo spin using his tail. She found herself in the lobby, but it felt more like she was in the middle of a circus. Shreveport and Capone appeared out of nowhere and circled around her.
Shreveport: Everybody's scared of some underwater monster,
But nothing's scarier than the monster's master.
It's just scary when envy is just everywhere!
Capone shushed behind Indigo, nearly making her jump. The crocodilian demons crawled into the lobby's darkness and Indigo was sure that the furniture's eyeballs were blinking at her.
Shreveport: Anyone can be a jealous resenter
Their dreams twisted to dream to become tormentors.
With a demon like that, you must learn to beware.
You must beware!
The shadows moved around Indigo, engulfing her until she landed in a hallway. Mad Mats' dreadlocks moved on their own, creating animated shadow puppets of what looked like a monstrous lion tamer smiling viciously.
Mad Mats: A dorsal fins mane
Tail moves like a whip.
His smile gives you pain
You'll sail your last trip.
You get all frenzy
He'll eat your envy!
Indigo ran past Mad Mats and down the hallway, hoping to reach the stairs and run for her room. Doors opened and Queenie, Jinx, Shreveport, Capone, and Carman popped out at the same time. Carman covered her ears in agony.
Queenie, Jinx, Shreveport, and Capone: Don't speak of Leviathan, please just don't.
Carman: Please just don't!
Queenie, Jinx, Shreveport, and Capone: Don't speak of Leviathan…
Carman: Don't speak of Leviathan!
Indigo ran, but wound up in the lobby again. Husk, being his usual indifferent self, was sorting bottles in an ominous tune while Nifty dusted under the tables in sync. Vaggie checked outside before closing the front doors, Charlie standing behind her.
Nifty: I heard he is pure evil!
Husk: Are you kiddin'?
Queenie and Carman popped from behind the pillars.
Queenie and Carman: Please just don't!
Vaggie: We all need to be careful.
Charlie: I thought you don't sing.
Shreveport and Capone popped from behind other pillars. Bayou the imp walked in front of a trembling Jinx. Her hands trembled as she held her broom up like a weapon.
Queenie, Carman, Shreveport, and Capone: Please just don't!
Bayou: We knew a lot of imps working for him…
Jinx: Where'd they go again?
Indigo tried to walk away, but the six demons surrounded her with praying hand gestures.
All six demons: His temper will start your last hour's ticking!
Indigo yelped when she felt hands touch her. Fortunately, it was just Angel Dust. He pulled her away from the commotion.
Angel Dust: Leviathan ain't here, he can't hurt you right here, if you play it right.
Just play your part, I'll make sure ya safe, so you don't get lost in the night.
Indigo: Thank you, Angel Dust. I feel better.
Angel Dust walked Indigo out of all the commotion so she could get back to her room. Alastor was quietly watching the whole ordeal from the shadows and silently followed the two.
Alastor: Inside of every demon is a lost cause… very lost.
I cannot understand.
He gets easily tossed.
Angel's care for this child doesn't seem planned.
I just don't understand!
While he escorted her back to her room, Angel Dust didn't notice Indigo's growing anxiety.
Indigo: Leviathan…
I fear Leviathan…
I have nightmares about Leviathan.
I don't want to speak of Leviathan!
Angel Dust: Indigo, don't be gloom.
We're almost at your room.
All demons: At the start of all time, At the start of time.
A dorsal fins mane.
Leviathan ain't here, he can't hurt you right here, if you play it right.
That's how the story goes, after Heaven kicked out all mankind.
Tail moves like a whip.
Just play your part, I'll make sure ya safe, so you don't get lost in the night.
Heaven kicked out all mankind.
His smile gives you pain.
Inside of every demon is a lost cause… very lost.
The monster sees Cain, an idea to reign.
You'll sail your last trip.
I cannot understand.
Danger!
You get all frenzy.
He gets easily tossed.
Don't oversell it!
He'll eat your envy!
Angel's care for this child doesn't seem planned.
Just keep telling the story!
I just don't understand!
Leviathan has a plan.
I heard he is pure evil!
Cain feels something bad.
We all need to be careful.
Rid the world of God's favored man.
We knew a lot of imps working for him…
The funeral was very sad!
Are you kiddin'?
The first murderer gets banned!
I thought you don't sing.
Tragedy for mankind, they were blind!
Where'd they go again?
Don't speak of Leviathan, please just don't.
Don't speak of Leviathan…
"STOP TALKING ABOUT LEVIATHAN!" Indigo pushed Angel Dust off her and ran into her room. Once she locked the door, she jumped on her and cried her panic attacks out.
Much later
Against her common sense, Indigo spent the first half of her afternoon in her room, hiding under her bed and cuddling with Scrunchy the plush scorpion. She had cried so much that caterpillar eggs flooded her floor, leaving just a quarter of her body sticking out.
She just HAD to ice skate, did she?
Queenie wasn't wrong. She had sabotage-induced ground humiliation. She just never realized it would catch up to her.
At age 3, during a snow day get-together, Ines Coeurdor had wandered off to the frozen lake. Her father and grandparents had panicked, fearing that she'd fall through the ice. But Ines might as well have had light feet. She hadn't slipped once and she moved back to the main land just fine. The adults had been scared out of their mind, and a few weeks later, Ines had received her own pair of ice skates and outings to the local ice skating rink became a weekly thing. Her skills were improving.
At age 5, Ines had been carried away. She kept thinking about the fairy tale that her father had read to her the previous night. Not the child-friendly cartoon, but the original story of a mermaid who lost everything out of love and went to Heaven. She was imagining what it would be like to be the mermaid, dancing out beauty with agony. Lost in imagination, she zoned out and inadvertently performed a perfect jump and hydroblading. People at the rink thought she did it on purpose. Her grandparents had thought she was gifted. A professional trainer at the rink offered Mr. Coeurdor to coach his daughter at a reasonable price.
As time went by, Indigo kept coming back home with trophies. Contests started local, then regional, state-wide, and through most of the East Coast. Ines didn't just figure dance, she outright danced stories. Anything her father would tell her from the books in his store was an idea for her. She was the mermaid dancing beautifully but in pain. She was Icarus falling from the sky like a comet. She was a princess who turned into a free beast at daylight after living for so long in the shadows.
If anything, Ines Coeurdor had a future of possibilities. She could have become a renown Olympic athlete. Like any famous athletes, she could have spent her adulthood going around the world, using her newfound fortune for philanthropic or political support. She could have guest starred in movies or the Saturday Night Show. Heck, she could have become a new role model for kids and be talked about on Women's History Month YEARS after she died.
How WRONG she was!
Well, besides her obvious death at 16.
Way before the cause of her 'retirement', when she was twelve-years-old, an old war friend of Martin Coeurdor came for a visit. He had come to the US to celebrate his tenth' grandson's birth. The Coeurdor family had him over for dinner and the eldest men talked about their war experiences. The friend of Martin Coeurdor was a notoriously paranoid man. He even had a proverb that would then haunt Ines after her accident.
'Aiming for the best isn't needed, not because perfection is impossible, but because you'll attract unnecessary attention. If a person owned the best garden in the neighborhood and hired a professional gardener to dispose of his termite issue, the fool won't imagine how it's the gardener and not the termites that will truly destroy the garden. Because the fool didn't know the gardener's true intentions.'
Many months before her 13th birthday, a frequent customer of the bookstore informed Mr. Coeurdor of a unique flyer she had found at city: an international private ice-skating academy was hosting auditions in Maryland. An opportunity for junior ice skaters about to turn 13 to show their best moves and maybe, JUST maybe, any of them could join their classes. Be tutored by professional skaters. Perform live shows. Maybe get recommendations for the Olympics. Heck, this school basically trained the best for what was essentially Disney On Ice… with Broadway standing ovations.
Of course, Ines Coeurdor had accepted to audition. Of course, she trained her best (while completing her homework and passing her tests), and her family, Dimitri, and Dimitri's family had her back. She had trained to perform her dance, perhaps the most ambitious ice skating dance a preteen would have never dared to invent. A dance inspired by the flaming movements she imagined the beautiful gypsy to dance in Victor Hugo's story. Her aunt and father had paid a freelancing local fashion designer to design for Ines a one-sleeved, dark blue dress with blue-sequin flame patterns.
When the audition had come, Ines hadn't been stressed out nor overconfident. She stayed her humble self and got ready backstage. Unlike most young performers, she didn't think it would be the end of the world if she didn't get first place. It'd be a lot worse if she fell on the ice and broke her knee. Just as she did the last preparations in her dressing room, one of the other contestants, a black-haired girl from Baltimore, came to wish her good luck and give her the typical handshake of 'may the best one win'. When her name had been called, Ines had gone out of the dressing room. She had calmly walked through the hallway. She was ready to go downstairs to the main floor and to the ice…
Ines didn't expect to get pushed.
She didn't have to see who did it. She recognized the black-haired girl's large quantity of hibiscus-scented perfume.
It had been so quick, when she fell down the cemented staircase.
Her screams had echoed all over. She had been rushed to the hospital. The auditions had been suspended and rescheduled, but it didn't matter.
Her ankle had been twisted during the fall. Because the ice rink had cemented staircases, chances had been that along with some broken bones, tissues were damaged. The surgery had to take place.
The doctor said that she might never be able to ice skate again.
After weeks of staying in bed, meeting a physical trainer, and being comforted by her grandfather, Indigo was able to walk and run properly by the time she WAS thirteen. She could continue gym class. She could still ride a bike and swim.
But what did that change? Anytime she found herself dancing, she had to stop herself or keep it private, both for physical reasons AND because she didn't want to relive the experience.
Oh, and did we forget to mention that when the auditions were rescheduled, the underaged bitch who pushed her down the stairs got accepted into the school and she was now part of the Disney On Ice cast by the time Ines had time? Not like anyone knew, Ines had never told anyone who the culprit was.
Because what difference would it have made? She didn't have it in her guts to tattletale. And telling in her moment of pain would have made her look like a sore loser.
That accident had made Ines reflect on that proverb her grandfather's veteran friend had said.
'Aiming for the best isn't needed, not because perfection is impossible, but because you'll attract unnecessary attention. If a person owned the best garden in the neighborhood and hired a professional gardener to dispose of his termite issue, the fool won't imagine how it's the gardener and not the termites that will truly destroy the garden. Because the fool didn't know the gardener's true intentions.'
In the end, people would have told you that Ines Coeurdor should have won the auditions because she was the best. And she had attracted unwanted attention. She was the fool with the best garden in the neighborhood and her garden had been ruined by the gardener because the latter hated the fool for having the best garden.
Success led to the fool being ruined by an envious contestant.
But that's what Indigo still didn't understand as she cried under her bed! Why had she been humiliated out of envy? There were others out there better than her! And she moved on from it in silence! Why is she in Hell when she did nothing wrong? Was giving up a dream and pursuing new possibilities a sin? Was it hiding the truth? Why did she have to be a sin-devourer of envy? Why does Leviathan, the entity of envy, a nightmare for her?
Knock, knock.
Indigo stopped crying, but she didn't get out of her hiding spot. The door opened. All of the caterpillar eggs flooding her room hatched, and in five seconds, Baltimore checkerspots appeared. Someone opened the window and the swarm flew out. The window closed again.
"How peculiar. When I first touched one of your tears, it turned into an eastern tiger swallowtail. But now, they turned into Baltimore checkerspots!" Indigo recognized Alastor's voice. "Maybe it's because I was thinking of my favorite short story from Edgar Allan Poe. The Oval Portrait."
Indigo sniffed and hugged Scrunchy. "I know it. My dad used to read it to me."
"'He, passionate studious, austere, and having already a bride in his Art; she a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely than full of glee; all light and smiles, and frolicsome as the young fawn; loving and cherishing all things; hating only the Art which was her rival; dreading only the pallet and brushes and other untoward instruments which deprived her of the countenance of her lover.'" Alastor easily quoted. Indigo stuck her head out from under her bed. The Radio Demon was sitting at the bay window, a plate of recently baked pecan pralines. "How I love writers of the macabre! When I wasn't listening to the radio or doing chores in my youth, I'd read anything from good old Edgar Allan Poe. Robert Louis Stevenson. Charles Baudelaire. Why, after I died, I just got hooked into the humor of Charles Adams! And did I mention I liked the book Roald Dahl wrote about witches murdering children?"
Indigo chuckled and pulled herself out.
"An interesting place to hide, my dear!"
"I find it comfy," Indigo said quietly.
Alastor presented the plate of pecan pralines to her. "I find that talking about literature while tasting pralines are a nice remedy."
"That… wasn't necessary," Indigo tried to decline.
"You may relax, my dear. This isn't part of some scheme. And as unhealthy as it is, you need to nibble on something. You skipped on lunch AND you skipped on today's lesson."
Indigo sighed and took a praline. She sighed as the delicious, warm flavor filled her mouth. She sat down by the bay window, next to Alastor, and he handed her the plate. "What do you think Poe's short story is about?"
"The opposition between being married to your passioned career and being married with a beloved who represents the life you're missing out on." Indigo ate another praline.
"Indeed! How I love that story! I always imagined myself in the role of the painter!"
Indigo stopped eating and looked at the Radio Demon. His smile was small. "You mean… being dedicated to your career, which you are passionate about, to the point that nothing else matters… or the people in your life?" She frowned. "You see yourself as the painter?"
Alastor nodded.
"Aren't you lonely?"
He paused before shrugging. "I'm used to it. Besides, love and career, even in these modern times, will always challenge one another. Luckily for me, nobody approaches me with the decency of platonic humor, so it's not a problem! Ha, ha!"
Indigo grimly put down the plate still full of pralines. "What's your point in all of this?"
"That there's no need to wallow in past humiliations or being forced to perform physically! Why lose yourself to such an artistic career that can make you forget life, am I right? Maybe, if that silly sabotage-induced ground humiliation, or 'SIGH', had never happened, you would have been too busy with your artistic career to give attention to your old connections and life!"
Indigo got up. "What kind of pep talk are you trying to give me, exactly? If it's some kind of reverse psychology, I'm not falling for it and I'm not dancing! And why would you tell me that losing an opportunity is better than losing a loved one? You can't…" Indigo stopped before the red admirals could pop out. All this time, she still held on to Scrunchy. She looked sadly at the Radio Demon. "You're lonely in life and death."
"Doubtful."
"I had my family and friend back on Earth. They were there for me when… I had my problem. I got over it. They helped me. I could explore opportunities. That didn't mean I had to abandon them!"
"And you? Will you work on moving on? Or are you going to keep crying under your bed about a life-on-Earth trauma?" Alastor chuckled. "It's Hell after all, darling. New beginnings and new opportunities before any possibility of redemption after all. And did I forget to mention that we can regenerate our limbs? If you're worried about breaking yourself while tap dancing privately, you'll feel better the next day! You can break and heal your bones any time you want for the sake of pursuing artistic possibilities! I lost track of all the blood I lost to get to where I am!"
Indigo let out a laugh. "For someone with a great sense of comedy, you're a terrible pep talker, Mister Alastor!"
"Moi?" Alastor patted his chest in mock shock. "I don't know what you mean!" He snapped his fingers, as if an idea came to me. "You know, it stopped raining, the weather is decent again, and something occurred to me! Rosie always holds garden tea parties at her mansion on Tuesday afternoons! We've been stuffed inside the hotel all day and she'd be thrilled for the two of us to join her at the last minute, maybe even stay for dinner! We can catch up on our lesson in the car ride, and maybe, while we're there, you could get some ideas for the hotel's garden party… and maybe some advice for your upcoming attendance at the Goetia's teatime…"
Indigo's eyes beamed. "It would be nice to see Miss Rosie again."
Alastor's smile widened. "I'll let her know we're coming!" Indigo then saw that Alastor had finally noticed her Scrunchy. She held on to her childhood plush toy tightly, worried he'll take it. "I never thought you'd be a scorpion appreciator."
"Scorpions can be protectors!" Indigo said defensively. "And their venom is used in South Asian traditional medicine to cure their own stings!"
"I didn't suggest otherwise." Alastor tapped his chin. "However… if you'd be interested in moving around Hell without my constant supervision or that of the others, I can craft a protective gris-gris for you to wear at all times. Maybe fashion it with the motif of your treasured childhood toy?"
"Really! Mister Alastor, that's too kind of you!"
"For the small price of your voice."
