Chapter Text
One seldom gets delivered bad news in a kind way. At least, that was how things often went for Stolas in his eighteen years of life. Never once was it wrapped up in a nice bow and served with a slice of cake. Not once was it spoken in a soft voice and delivered with a comforting embrace to soften the blow.
No. Instead, Stolas was delivered the worst news of his life during afternoon tea on his 18th birthday, with a newspaper to the face and a shrill laugh from his betrothed. The afternoon started off as a relatively pleasant one, all things considered. It was sunny and warm; the palace back gardens were in full bloom; the tea was made just right; and the pastries served with it today were especially delicious. Yet when he read the headline on the paper Stella had so thoughtfully thrown in his face, his blood ran cold, and the world felt like a far off place.
‘All Imp Circus Burned Down in a Tragic Fire’
“Sorry to say it, but your little plan to get out of this arrangement has gone up in smoke.” She laughed as she swept the skirt of her dress aside and took a seat across from him, before adding cruelly. “Quite literally at that.” She sat in her seat with an elegance befitting royalty, poised and proper like a princess ought to be. The sharp look in her eyes was like a dagger sinking between his ribs, and her words were like the hand that twisted it. “Such a pity for you.” She snickered as she delicately plucked an eclair from Stolas’ plate, taking a bite and watching him like a cat does a mouse, as if daring him to say anything.
Stolas paid her no mind as he read through the article, hoping with every fiber of his being that it wasn’t as bad as the papers told him. With every word, however, he felt a growing nausea slowly churn in his stomach.
‘Two dead, twenty-seven injured after a fire sparked out at an all imp run circus located in Greed. An investigation is still ongoing; however, improper storage of Mammon’s specialty Fire Salts is suspected to be the main cause of this disaster. This is only one of a handful of recent incidents involving the specialty fire salts used to heighten the danger factor in circus acts.
This once more brings forth the demand for safety regulations regarding the substance, as the fires these create are explosive if not handled correctly, and are the only ones in Hell known to cause fatal harm to Hellborn. This demand is facing pushback, however, as the profits from these salts are high enough for Mammon to disregard the harm committed.
Will lawmakers be bought out again? Or will something finally be done about this increasing threat to Hell-kind?’
Periodically, Stolas’ eyes would flicker to the soulmark on the back of his hand, the one he shared with Blitzo. He couldn’t be dead, right? He would feel something, wouldn’t he? And it only said two dead—all things considered, two deaths out of a whole circus made the probability of his soulmate being one of them low, right?
Finding Blitzo was his only ticket out of this arranged marriage, through a legal loophole set for those fortunate enough to find their soulmate.
‘Any demon who finds their soulmate may divorce, or break cleanly from prior engagements set for them without any legal ramifications.’
It would have been his one way ticket out of this, his way to avoid being tied to Stella for the rest of his life. His eyes lingered on the mark on the back of his hand, seeking something, as if it would have the answer to the questions plaguing his mind. As if it could confirm with a yes or a no that his soulmate was well and truly dead.
It provided him with no answers, as he’d expected.
His appetite was gone…
What a miserable 18th birthday it was…
·༻𐫱༺·
It was only one week before his wedding that his hope was finally snuffed out. Stolas had been clinging to the belief that Stella was wrong. This revelation was delivered to him kinder than the last, but brought with it a fresh slap to the face that made reality a little too real.
He was getting the last minute alterations on his suit done when his brother found him and delivered the news in the form of a certificate of death with Blitzo Buckzo scrolled across it. His soulmate had died, and worse yet, he’d died in one of the most agonizing ways demonically possible.
Stolas’ birthday had been heartwrenching, but today he was absolutely devastated by the final, grim confirmation.
“Lo siento (I’m sorry), Stolas…” Vassago’s voice was soft yet remorseful as he broke the news of Blitzo’s passing, “I wish I could have come bearing better news, but you deserved to know.”
Stolas stood as still as a statue, arms outstretched as his tailor adjusted the placement of the lace on his jacket. Some pleasant piano music played over the speakers in the boutique, and he could hear chatter coming from a bridal party a few rooms down, far more excited at the prospects of marriage than himself. The world around him hadn’t been brought to a screeching halt; everyone was carrying on with their lives as if nothing had happened. It felt almost cruel that Stolas’ whole world was ending before his life even started, and nobody seemed to care.
And why would they? They didn’t know Stolas, they didn’t just receive the life changing news that their soulmate had died a gruesome and painful death, and they didn't know that his fate to live a miserable life had just been sealed.
The only way Stolas could describe the feeling that overcame him was a wash of nothingness so strong he all but went numb. He hardly registered the burning in his eyes as tears threatened to pour over; he hardly registered the way his heart felt flayed from his chest, raw, at the knowledge that the love of his life was well and truly gone.
“Stolas?” His brother called his name. In the mirror before him, Stolas locked eyes with the older man and just barely registered the look of heavy remorse and concern in his eyes. “Will you be alright?”
He felt his lower beak quiver and his breath hitch as the magnitude of the news began to settle in. “Will I?” he asked in a hushed whisper as tears began to spill over. He was doomed to be locked in a loveless marriage, bound eternally to a woman he was betrothed to at ten years of age, a woman who seemed to hate his very existence from the start.
Stolas could see his future with a clarity that bordered on prophetic. For the rest of his eternal life in Hell, he would spend it at the side of a woman who took a sick satisfaction in his misery. He would dutifully serve his family as was expected of him; he would sire a precautionary heir, as his father demands, and he would be forever trapped in his own personal misery, trapped in a cycle of never being enough.
For Satan’s sake–he was a gay man! He could never love a woman like his family expects of him, and Stella wouldn’t even entertain the idea of being in a lavender marriage. Even going so far as to demand an infidelity clause in their prenuptial agreement to ensure he couldn’t seek out love without major legal ramifications. And of course, his father had allowed for it, despite having a new affair every other week.
They weren't even married, and yet she was already ensuring he would be as miserable as possible.
After all, she didn’t want to marry him either, but liked the status she would get as a princess enough to overlook the fact she was just as trapped in it as he was.
Stolas recalled their first ever meeting, chaperoned by their older siblings. Stella had decided immediately that he wasn’t what she’d imagined a prince to be. His feathers weren't grand enough, his well-mannered temperament had been too soft, and his love of reading and gardening had seemed too girlish for her tastes.
Things had only gotten worse as they grew, and within the last year, she’d shown zero qualms about laying her hands on him. Her annoyed shoves when his talking went on longer than she would have liked had turned to sharp slaps on the back of his head, and the occasional strike across the face if he said or did anything she especially didn’t like.
She would taunt him, dare him to say anything of it to others. He was already an embarrassment of a man, hardly a man at all, in her own words. The rest of the Goetia family would never take him seriously if they believed he was weak enough that a few hits from a girl would send him crying like a hatchling. So silent he stayed, and any mark or bruise never lasted long anyway.
Now, he was cursing himself over and over again for his inaction. Why had he abided by his father's rules so dutifully? As if listening to what he said and doing as requested ever proved to his father that he was worthy of being loved. Why had he listened and waited till he was eighteen years old to seek out Blitzo? If only he’d searched sooner, perhaps his soulmate would still be alive today. This was all his fault, Blitzo was dead, and it was all his fault…
The tailor stepped aside and let him fully look himself in the mirror, and the man he saw back looked like one resigned to a slow and painful death wrapped up in a pretty suit.
·༻𐫱༺·
The weather on his wedding day was too nice, as if Hell itself was taunting him. With the misery he felt standing at the altar, it should have been raining. It should have been as gloomy and depressing as he’d felt all week. It should have felt like the funeral that it really was, after all, when he uttered the two words “I do.” So too would his happiness come to a permanent end.
He felt it a shame that the ceremony was taking place in his mother’s memorial garden, at the foot of the statue erected in her honor. He locked eyes with her gaze, permanently etched to mirror her beauty in a world she no longer existed.
He’d been here last night as well, to talk to the statue as he had in childhood. He’d done it often when he was young, like talking with the stone would somehow bridge the gap formed between himself and the woman he never got to meet.
The moonlight shone off the polished stone, giving his mother's face an almost angelic glow as her six carved eyes watched the garden of carnivorous plants, like a guardian did their domain. The smile that graced her beak was benevolent, a soft curve that accentuated her owl-like features in a way that brought the cold stone an unshakable warmth.
“Was father always this cruel before your passing?” He’d asked her softly as he continued to stare into her lifeless eyes. “I never asked to be born… Why am I being punished for a crime I did not commit willingly?”
She was not healthy enough to carry an egg to term, and from what his brother had told him, Queen Octavia knew it fully well. Yet she still chose to carry. Did she know the world she was leaving him in? Did she know father would take her death out on him any way he could?
Did King Paimon even want him, as his mother had?
Stolas felt his eyes water. “I hear how unbelievably kind you were. How you brightened any room you entered, how you made others’ lives better simply by existing in them… Yet it’s moments like this that I question why you bothered keeping me, if you knew you could never exist in mine…” He took in a shuddering breath and blinked back his tears.
As if sensing his immense sadness, the bulb of one of the carnivorous plants she loved so dearly nudged his hand. His attention was drawn to it, hand curling around the bulb and giving it a gentle pat before looking back to her, “My soulmate is dead, and now I’m left to wonder what the point of me even living is. I do not have him, the man who was supposed to make me the happiest I could possibly be… And I do not have you, the woman who loved me so much; you died just to bring me into this world.”
He took in another deep, shuddering breath before he finally asked the question he knew he would never get the answer to. “If you knew this was my fate, would you have still kept me?”
The sound of gentle piano music drew him from his thoughts and anchored him to the present. The bridal march was sounding far more like funeral taps as Stella began to walk down the aisle.
Every step she took was full of grace and a beauty that carried with it the promise of a cruel and relentless pain later on. She wore the mask of a proper princess well, expression elegant and poised, every part the beautiful bride. Her crest feathers were brushed back into an elegant cascade of pearlescent white, draped in a pure white veil, pinned perfectly in place by the glittering, jeweled tiara that adorned her head. Her white dress hugged every curve with purpose, to display everything she had to offer, to show the Goetia family that she was fit for the role destined for her.
Undeniably, Stella was a very physically beautiful woman. But Stolas knew that looks are often deceiving, and inside her was an ugliness that could never be matched.
As she came to a stop next to him, she smiled sweetly. “Stol-ass,” she said softly, a taunt made for his ears only as she grabbed his hands.
“Stella…” he replied in a glum tone, his own grip loose around her fingers.
The vows went by, rehearsed and robotic sounding.
“Do you, Stella, take Prince Stolas of the Ars Goetia to be your lawfully wedded husband?” the officiant asked.
“I do.” Stella’s words were practiced and sweet as she batted her long lashes up at him.
“Do you, Prince Stolas of the Ars Goetia, take Stella to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
Stolas hesitated as he looked in her eyes and saw her impatience with him growing by the second. For a moment, he looked out at the crowd of demon royalty who came to attend their wedding. Most of their expressions were showing varying states of boredom, only there because that’s what royal etiquette called for. None particularly cared about the couple in the slightest.
He locked eyes with his brother, Vassago, who watched him with pity, as if he, too, knew this was a funeral and not the wedding it was polished to resemble. Then his eyes drifted over to the imp who raised him, an older gentleman sitting front row, dutifully holding his father’s mirror. Then he caught his father’s image, King Paimon’s sharp eyes boring holes into Stolas through the reflection of the mirror.
He swallowed nervously before looking back at Stella, ignoring the way her sharp talons dug into the flesh of his palms in irritation. She was angry with him already, and the day hadn’t even fully started.
“Stolas,” she growled out and tightened her grip.
In a hollowed voice, Stolas uttered the two words he didn’t want to.
“I do…”