Vaggie somehow didn't have to squint through the light that was focused squarely on them. Alastor took it in stride, not even twitching an eye, while Charlie squinted but somehow kept from blocking out the bright shine with a hand. Vaggie wasn't surprised; considering how high-tier an Angel she was now, it'd be ridiculous for light to harm her at all.
In front of them was a grand ballroom. They were at the top of a large set of stairs looking out at the just as grandly decorated room. It was large enough to accommodate at least 1000 people. The entire thing was full of richly-decorated tables, each with their own ice sculpture and golden silverware, with a section open for people to mingle.
It was filled with Ars Goetia of all types: peacocks, cold weather, warm weather, tropical… She was pretty sure she even saw some penguin-themed ones. Now that she saw the variety, she could easily pick out those descended from Paimon.
She glanced at Alastor. Now she saw where some of Paimon's confusion came from. He looked like the bird king with the dark feathers and eyes. Eyes that Alastor hadn't been closing lately, instead keeping all four open. He said it was getting harder to keep the top two closed.
Was it part of his transformation? Hopefully they'd get answers here. Answers and allies.
After the pause, they made their way down the stairs. She was still feeling self-conscious about her outfit. Charlie looked hot as hell - when didn't she? - while Alastor looked interesting in his regular clothes trying to accommodate his transformed body. Vaggie wished she could say good. The problem was that Alastor was clinging to his outfit that simply didn't match his body anymore.
"Remember ladies: look as ravishing as you are and act as the lovely beauties you are," Alastor murmured.
"So, be ourselves?" Vaggie asked quietly.
"Perhaps less naive," he said, glancing at Charlie. "Try not to sample any drinks someone gets you."
"I know how to function at high class glass stuff!" Charlie complained softly as they were reaching the bottom of the stairs.
"Good luck, my loves," Alastor said to them before he let them loose and allowed himself to be drawn into the crowd by some obviously scheming Ars Goetia.
"What do we do now?" Vaggie asked. She'd never been to any of these types of events.
"We mingle! Stay with me and we can-" Suddenly Charlie was swiftly caught in a conversation with the peacock Ars Goetia.
Vaggie stood there and swore under her breath, "Fuck."
"My dear, are you quite alright?" Vaggie's gaze shot to an Ars Goetia that had addressed her. The bird looked like a generic kind, with a tufted red chest and plain brown feathers. She looked honestly concerned which put Vaggie on edge.
"Yes. I'm simply…" Vaggie rolled a wrist "...out of my element."
"I'm not surprised. Angels aren't exactly the most social in Hell," the Ars Goetia noted dryly.
"You can count Angels in Hell on one hand," Vaggie deadpanned.
"Exactly!" She laughed, a light thing with a chirp overlaying it. Then she perked up and exclaimed, "My goodness, I haven't introduced myself! I'm Pratel."
"...I'm Vaggie," she replied warily.
"'Egg'-cellent to meet you!" Pratel giggled again. She vibrated in place as she said, "It's been AGES since Lord Paimon has had a hatching ceremony with an already-hatched Goetia! Most of us die if we aren't hatched through a ceremony."
That caught Vaggie's attention. "You die ?" She pressed, "How did the ones that weren't in a ceremony survive?"
"Oh, they weren't very strong. Our auras aren't out-of-control like the higher-tier Goetia."
"Could you explain tiers to me? In layman terms?" Vaggie asked. Unlike Alastor, she hadn't been studying them and unlike Charlie she wasn't raised with all the knowledge.
"That was rather cruel, to throw you in with us without telling you anything!" Pratel chirped. The words were negative but the tone was chipper. "Okay, let me start!
"King Soloman was the one to found our people. Without him, the Ars Goetia wouldn't exist! He is gone, Lord Paimon ruling in his steed. Lord Paimon is constantly trying to keep a lineage going. It's a shame; so many die when they're children. The last good chunk were assassinated during a wedding between the Gaap and Ipos branches. Those two families, devastated. Only three of them survived, none of them the patriarchs.
"I've heard you're familiar - even cosy - with the Stolas branch. As all branches, they have a specific purpose. Theirs is to study space and the planets, and occasionally throw the human world into conflict. Last I heard of their involvement like that, they had some sort of human killed to herald the end of a habitable Earth sooner. They are as disgraced as the Sair lineage. I hear that Paimon is at least allowing Stolas to prove his worthiness by helping with the new son."
"What does your branch do?" Vaggie asked.
"I didn't mention, did I?" Pratel cheered, throwing confetti in the air. "We terraform! We agitate the lava and destructive forces in the Earth, destabilising regions and ruining their homes and crops! We are a Lesser Key of Knights; more populous than the 72 Pillars - well, more recently, 13 Pillars - but far less powerful."
Suddenly more confetti was thrown. Vaggie looked behind her to find that Charlie had reached into her pocket and used her emergency confetti to join in. From the line of offended Ars Goetia, she'd run over to do it.
"What are we celebrating?" Charlie asked, eyes sparkling. A flash of green told Vaggie that Alastor had made some sort of deal across the room.
"My family. I must say, Princess Charlotte, I like the colour of your tailfeathers!" Pratel said. As she talked, Vaggie used her holy powers to burn the confetti in her hair away.
"Uh, thanks!" She was about to say more when a different Ars Goetia interrupted them.
"Pardon me, Princess and Angel. I thought you might be thirsty and got you some drinks!" the bright white Ars Goetia with large eyelashes said. She offered the two of them flutes of sparkling wine.
"Oh, thank you!" Charlie waved her hands. "I don't think we're thirsty. Are we, Vaggie?"
"Noooo no. Not thirsty," Vaggie agreed.
"This fabulous wine will go to waste if you don't drink it!" the Ars Goetia guilted.
"You're absolutely right!" Charlie and Vaggie made room for Alastor who immediately stepped between them and the Ars Goetia that had interrupted them. "They shouldn't go to waste!" Alastor suggested, "Perhaps you and I should share a drink?"
"Me?! Drink this ?!" Her protest was obviously more than disgust. She tried covering it up by saying, "I'll drink if you drink."
"As the subject of the hatching ceremony, I must insist you drink first!"
Her face twisted before she turned red and slammed both of the flutes into the ground. "You eggless filth ! I can't believe Lord Paimon is allowing you to join our family."
As she stomped away and Imps snuck in to clean the mess, Alastor called after her, "I shall remember your generosity!"
"Ah yes, the Sair Marquises." Pratel huffed, "They're all so dramatic! They don't think it's a good party without an assassination attempt or few."
"I can tell," Vaggie commented.
"I mean, everyone knows that!" Charlie exclaimed.
Vaggie's eye narrowed. "I didn't."
Charlie and Alastor both blinked before looking at each other.
"My dear, I thought you would have educated our moth on courtly manners?" Alastor queried.
"It never came up in pillow talk!" Charlie defended. "I didn't think she'd need to know."
"I definitely have a need now," Vaggie sighed.
"Am I helping?" Pratel asked.
"Very much so," Vaggie assured her. "So, what are the various bits of gossip going around?"
"Oh, Vaggie, there is so much going on in the Sair circles!" she chirped. "Why, I could write a novel on this week alone! I must say, they lost a lot of standing when Stella tried to murder her daughter. Everyone expected her husband as a target, but her daughter ? It's still reverberating! The Sair lineage definitely lost some standing with that. Why, I'm surprised any of them were invited! Rumour has it that Sair even had his grimoire revoked! How chilling!"
She opened her beak to continue only to find herself cut off by loud drums. The four of them looked over as did the rest of the crowd at an area of the social gathering that had been cleared away. In its space a large matrix of complex glyphs and sigils had been inscribed in the floor in some sort of special stain. It was a blackish-green mixture. If Vaggie didn't know any better, she'd think it was specifically made for Alastor.
"Everyone, bow at attention as Lord Paimon prepares the egg for hatching!" cried out a tall Hellborn, her dual sets of horns decorated with golden rings. She looked to be some sort of Succubus, though wearing a rather subdued black-and-white dress and hat.
As one, all of the Ars Goetia bowed and moved to open a direct line for Alastor to walk to the matrix. Alastor outwardly looked confident but Vaggie and likely Charlie too could feel the confusion.
Charlie took his claw and said, "Let's go, my groom."
Vaggie got a clue and took his hand. "It's going to be great. You'll be brilliant."
"And even if you aren't I'm certain they'll stay by your side even if you're a deformed beast!" Pratel noted unhelpfully, head bowed to the floor.
That seemed to be the mark that Alastor needed. He walked forward, allowing Charlie and Vaggie to trail behind. When they got to the front, Paimon floated out from where he'd been drawing the matrix to in front of them.
"Alastor, my newly adopted son. Are you prepared to hatch into your new form as an Ars Goetia?" he boomed.
Alastor kissed Charlie and her hands before letting them drop away and looking up at Paimon. "Of course!" Only Vaggie and Charlie heard the whisper of, "I have no father."
Paimon raised a hand and gripped his fist. Alastor's smile twitched as he was lifted in the air by his chest and pulled into the matrix with Paimon. Paimon moved them until they were in the centre where two tightly coiled sets of sigils were interlocked. He centred Alastor over one while he placed himself above the other.
"Now, my sixth son, feel my power flow through you! Let your power flow through me! I share my blood, you share yours. My blood is your blood! Come forth, Soul of King Solomon! Inhabit your true form and come among your siblings as equals!"
Their forms vanished into shadow, the only thing visible being their outlines. Everyone around them were chanting, which made Vaggie realise that they were speaking a different language entirely, including Paimon.
Then their forms changed . Paimon's ballooned out, transforming into a large dark bird, stars in his wings and destruction and rebirth in his claws. Tailfeathers glowed in a variety of colours as he grew three more sets of eyes. As he cawed, the vibrations shaking her very being, Vaggie stared as Alastor's form contracted. It tightened into a ball as if he'd been sucked into a black hole.
Her gut fell. She nearly ran into the matrix before she felt someone grab her hand. Vaggie looked to Charlie who was as distressed as she was. Vaggie squeezed her hand as hard as she needed as they watched their loved one transform.
Strings of black and flashing colour appeared between the ball and Paimon. They thickened, then thinned, then all but one vanished. The remaining one was the same sickening green and black that had been the matrix and amazingly similar to Alastor's magickal aura.
It was then she noticed that there were two fighting shades in the ball. One looked bigger, the other more dark, shadowy tendrils. One of Paimon's wings reached out and brushed against the conflicting colours. They shuddered before slowly melding together into one mixed shade of dark green with bolts of black lightning here and there.
Paimon flapped his wings, squeezing the two concepts in his claws. Magic flowed around him, around Alastor, round and round until they coalesced into the ball that was Alastor.
A shape began to form. A tail fanned out from the ball first, tilting up before trailing down to the ground. Vaggie rolled her eye; of course it was a tail first. The part that Alastor hated the most. He had enough trouble accepting the deer tail.
Next, legs grew from the ball. The general shape was bird-like. Closer observation revealed that the feet were large, hefty hooves, not claws, with tufts of feathers coming out of the heel of the hooves. Next, arms. They were loosely feathered, ending in claws like raptors. His chest solidified, a thin yet thickly-feathered thing with a fading of feathers around his belly. His head emerged next. His ears were the same, though covered in feathers rather than fur and hair, with an even mix of reddish hair and black feathers on the rest of his head. A branching spread of antlers grew, far outclassing his old antlers in majesty.
More and more, his general shape was reminding Vaggie of a peryton rather than a bird. His shape was done, so it should finish any sec- That feeling was doubled as one more set of appendages emerged from his back: a set of deep black wings, red fur lining the inner wing.
A wave of inverse colours flooded the room from the two. Then, suddenly, it was done. Their colours returned to normal, the matrix stopped glowing. Paimon was an Ars Goetia again, while Alastor was…
The two floated to the ground. Paimon landed easily while Alastor fell into a naked lump against the ground. He twitched a few times before his head shot up and he took a ragged, gasping breath in. His four eyes were all open, staring unseeing towards the ceiling, his face finally visible.
Vaggie didn't realise she was holding her breath until she released it in relief. His face was still recognisable. Same main slitted red eyes, same sharp teeth, feathers merely circling around his face and throat. He still looked like him .
All the Ars Goetia raised themselves from their bows and simply stared at Alastor. Whispering started about them, Vaggie hearing mentions of 'sin'. Again, Vaggie made to enter the matrix to be stopped by Charlie's clenched hand. Charlie was as tense as Vaggie was but seemed to know something Vaggie didn't. So, as before, Vaggie stood down.
Paimon took the few steps forward to Alastor. He gripped Alastor with his hands and lifted him up. He exclaimed, "Ah! I see now. There's a touch of Belphagor or Satan in you, isn't there?" Paimon clicked his beak as he looked Alastor up and down. "It's been a damn long time since an Ars Goetia as my son Caim has been born. Millenia upon millenia! It makes finding the appropriate grimoire for you easy!"
He set Alastor back on his feet. Alastor shook, unsteady, not able to stand fully. Vaggie couldn't hold herself back anymore. She rushed into the dull matrix and grabbed Alastor by the side. All the Ars Goetia around them gasped. She didn't care.
"It's okay, Al, I've got you," Vaggie murmured. The load became easier as Charlie also ran in to help keep Alastor standing. The three of them stood in front of a thinking Paimon.
"Yes, yes, I think Caim's grimoire is well-suited for you, my son." Paimon held a hand out as if he were holding something. His other hand ran up the empty space, a book appearing where nothing had been before.
Another murmur through the crowd, this one she couldn't hear nor did she care about hearing. Alastor would always come first.
Alastor was finally standing upright. He still leaned heavily against them. His gaze had locked onto Paimon, his hands grasping for theirs. Vaggie wasn't at a good angle to grab his hand, being much shorter than the other two. Charlie made up for it by grabbing his hand and squeezing it as tightly as she had Vaggie's.
Paimon was now paying them mind again. He nodded. "Yes, let your bride help you. It will strengthen your bond! I fully expect to be seated up front with ~Lucifer~ at the wedding!" The idea of being near, considered equal to, Lucifer seemed to really make him happy.
Paimon coughed then got back to business. "Alastor, I bestow upon you the Liber Mali Prophetiae . It is your new grimoire, your place in Ars Goetia society. You shall have the gift of prophecy, seeing the future through the strings of fate and the flow of the universe. It gives you far-reaching sight into the way deals weave, the possible futures resulting from such things."
Alastor wheezed, "Deals, you say?" His voice was mostly the same with a bit of a musical whistle to it.
"Yes!" The grimoire floated over to Alastor. He took it in his free claw. Paimon grandly raised his arms and proclaimed, "Welcome, Alastor, Prince of the Ars Goetia, to our family! The hatching ceremony was a success!" He let out a strange warble-cry that was echoed by many of the Ars Goetia around them.
Vaggie took that as the mark that everything was finished. She said to Alastor, "Here, I can help you get home so we can change-"
"AH!" Paimon cried, "I forgot! You need clothes as you're older than a fresh hatchling." He said to his Imp assistant, "Please fetch one of Caim's outfits. They look to be the same size."
Alastor started, "That won't be necessary, I-"
"Already done, Sire." The Imp indicated the Hellborn with the horns and rings, who was holding a red outfit. Paimon snapped his fingers. Suddenly Alastor was no longer naked. In fact, the clothes he was wearing were eerily similar to his regular outfit, missing the shoulder pads and with far too much lace for Vaggie's liking. There were also slits for his wings and tail.
"What else is on the list, Imp?" Paimon somehow didn't know his servant's name.
"Direct sons are allotted a Hellborn or Imp bloodline to serve them," the Imp replied.
"Ah! Yes! That!" Paimon randomly grabbed the nearest Hellborn - the one with the horns and rings - and shoved her at the three. "Behold, your gift!" The Imp whispered something to Paimon, who then said, "The Rimus bloodline!"
"R-really, Lord Paimon, that isn't necessary ," Charlie rushed.
"My apologies, Princess Charlotte, but I must ensure my children have a good start to life. That includes having their own lines to serve them as they deserve to be served," Paimon apologised. He nodded at the Succubus. "You're theirs now! Yourself and your family."
"As you command, Sire," she replied, bowing first to Paimon, then to Alastor. "I am now part of the Alastor household." Straightening herself up, she said, "My name is Havas. My family will be pleased to serve you."
Vaggie rubbed her head. Great. Where would her family even stay ?
"Now, my son. Introduce yourself! Mingle! Form bonds with your brothers, nieces, and nephews!" Paimon declared.
As things began breaking up into smaller groups again, Charlie whispered, "Alastor, are you okay? Do we need to go home?"
He thought for a second before shaking his head, fully standing on his own. "We came to find allies. I doubt you two have had much success."
"I wouldn't say that," Vaggie murmured.
"Still, we need deep bonds to convince them to be by our sides during a life-or-death fight." Alastor kissed them both on the cheeks. "Back to battle, my dears?"
Charlie was more concerned than Vaggie. If Alastor was covering it up, they'd be able to tell. Vaggie truly believed that he was fine enough to mingle, as Paimon had said. She said lowly, "Good hunting, Al." before breaking off. She was going to find Pratel again.