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Chapter Text

The wind carried the whisper of the distant ball music from the ballroom into the otherwise silent garden house. Lost in thought, Greta hummed along quietly to the melody, while she stopped a few times in her tracks, knelt down despite her expensive wardrobe and plucked individual weeds from the ground.

Here, in solitude, she allowed herself to use her voice.

Here, where no one had to hear her.

The day had been terribly exhausting and the Goetia was glad to now be able to enjoy at least a short break. Her grandfather was celebrating his 6666th birthday today – an age that was remarkable even here in Hell. And since her grandfather was also of very high standing and enjoyed a high reputation among the nobility not only in Wrath, but in all seven rings of hell, even Satan himself had accepted the invitation to her grandfather's ball. Therefore, there had been no way for her to talk her way out of attending the festivities. (Although she doubted that the current (stand-in) leader of hell would have noticed that daughter 12 of her grandfather's fourth son was not present at his ceremonial welcome in the ballroom).

Normally, she tried to limit her presence at high society events to those which her few friends were also attending. That usually worked quite well, but not today.

Nevertheless, Greta had long since developed a strategy for surviving days like this reasonably unscathed. The strategy was to complete the minimum of formalities (greetings, small talk and the like) and then find a reason to politely withdraw at the first opportunity that arose. And thereafter simply not show up again until shortly before departure.

Nobody missed her anyway when her friends weren't present. Well, maybe she was also missed by some of her siblings, who lacked a victim for their mockery without her.

It was simply impossible for her to go to a ball without receiving some form of malicious sneer or outright scorn.

Firstly, because of her appearance: even though there were undoubtedly uglier demons in hell, her looks were judged by how good she looked compared to the rest of the nobility. And unfortunately, she scored below average in that regard. As a wild combination of street pigeon and goose, no matter how hard she tried to take care of her feathers, in the end her dark gray plumage still looked oily and dirty. In addition, her beak was far too big for her face, which is why her eyes sat at an unsightly angle on her head.

Secondly – and this was the main reason – because of her voice. Her infamous, ghastly voice. One of her sisters had once described her voice as the equivalent of a grotesque fusion of goose-quacking, chalk squeaking on a blackboard and the death scream of a banshee. In short, even those around her who did not simply order her to be quiet were grateful when she communicated by gesture or in writing. She even did her friends the favor of using her voice as rarely as possible.

Greta herself perceived her voice as... normal, but she had learned very early on that this did not apply to the people around her. And so, she basically spent her life as if she were mute.

Only in moments like this, when she felt alone and unobserved – unheard – did she like to remind herself that she was not mute.

Greta liked her grandfather's greenhouse. It was huge. Almost like a labyrinth. She didn't think many other guests would think of going into this jungle and risk not finding their way out again. But she had been here often enough to find her way around.

So it was the perfect place for her to take a long break!

However, she probably wouldn't be able to avoid going back to the ballroom today before she went home to complete a few more formalities for her grandfather. She'd better be there when Satan left. Although she would just stand in a corner somewhere and bow her head in farewell, at least then no one (her mother) could grumble that she hadn't been there.

Greta arrived at her favorite spot inside the greenhouse. A small area with a fountain. Water gushed from the mouth of a stone sea monster, modeled after the ones from Envy. But it wasn't the fountain that she liked about this place. It was the lavender planted around it, exuding its soothing scent.

She was still humming the ball music, although she could no longer hear it. She placed her bag on the edge of the fountain, which also contained her notepad and pens, which she usually used to communicate.

It was really hard without her friends. Only her friends were willing to dance with the “screeching goose” in public. She liked dancing, though. But once again, she had no choice but to imagine an imaginary dance partner, get into the correct posture and spin around in circles on her own – just like when she was practicing at home and didn't want to keep the few servants assigned to her from doing their actual work.

Completely lost in her thoughts, she was suddenly snapped out of her trance by what was probably the deepest, most respectful bass voice in all of hell: “‘Nobody’ would bother me here as long as I wanted my peace and quiet... That's what they assured me when I asked for a place to make a phone call without being disturbed...”

She jerked around and couldn't suppress a small shriek. Oh, no! She quickly clapped her hands over her mouth. The demon in front of her didn't let on anything, but torturing his ears with this surely cruel noise certainly didn't make her terrible situation any better.

Standing before her was none other than Satan himself. Huge, buff and wings spread out imposingly behind him. In the somewhat dim light, she could see the glow emanating from the patterns on his body. Like veins of lava running through blood-red stone. His four shining golden eyes bore into her.

The de facto current leader of hell didn't have to adhere to things like dress codes. But for balls, he at least swapped his usual biker vest for a sleeveless, black button-up shirt. The top three buttons were undone.

“So I wonder, 'nobody'...” Satan continued, obviously referring to her. Ouch. “Do you realize how incredibly sad it makes you look to be find dancing here alone while the music from the real dance floor is just barely not in earshot any longer?”

Greta instinctively wanted to reach for her pad and pen to write a quick reply to the Sin of Wrath, but was horrified to realize that she had left her things on the fountain. So her first reaction was to only nod her head in response to his depressingly true question.

Satan remained silent.

Damn it, a nod was obviously not enough for him.

“Soooooo....,” he dragged out the word. Panicked, she clenched her dress in her hands. “This is the moment when you bow, greet me respectfully and reverently and finally introduce yourself.”

Obediently, she at least began to bow immediately. As respectfully and reverently as she could somehow convey. But what was she supposed to do next? SATAN waited.

Just introduce yourself, she shouted to herself in her mind.

Hesitantly, her mouth opened. “I...I...”

…a grotesque fusion of goose-quacking, chalk squeaking on a blackboard and the death scream of a banshee…

Her sister's spiteful voice in her head drowned out her own. She squeezed her beak shut in exasperation, clasped her hands together in an apologetic gesture and then raised a finger to hopefully convey “One second please”.

She hurried to her bag and pulled out her pad and pen. Already as she turned around, she started writing on it at lightning speed. “Greetings, Your Majesty. It is a great honor for me. My name is Greta, a granddaughter of Agares. It was not my intention to disturb your peace...”

Hot air swept the utensils from her hands. When she looked up, she realized with horror that the hot air had been Satan's angry snort. Larger than before – even larger than huge – he was bending over her. His head now almost half her size hovered in front of her and he thundered, “Are you trying to fuck with ME? I've already heard you humming, screeching and talking. What do you think to gain with this silent tour?”

She had unleashed the dreaded wrath of the deadly sin and his infamous life coach/therapist was nowhere to be seen. Would she die here?

Since he obviously demanded it and she had no intention of dying, she broke her silence with a trembling voice. “I apologize a thousand times over, Your Majesty. Please, please, believe me, I only wanted to impose my voice on you as little as possible. That is all. Please...”

Instinctively, she crossed her arms over her head in defense, crouched down on the floor and squeezed her eyes shut. As a result, she missed the effect her words had. The angry fire in his gaze began to flicker with the very first word and by her last word, his eyes glowed their usual calm gold again. His bared teeth and grimly tense features relaxed. In a whirlwind of fire he shrank back to... his original oversize.

Confused, he tilted his head to the side. He scrutinized the young noblewoman in front of him with growing interest.

It had been strange enough how relaxed he had arrived at this place after following the gentle hum here. In fact, he should have been annoyed at not finding the expected calm that he usually sought out after a certain amount of time among too many demons and their chatter, to prevent his inner rage from overwhelming him. Instead, he had reached the mysterious singer more calmly than at the beginning of the party. Her appearance had been anything but overwhelming, but it had still taken him several minutes to interrupt her dancing and, more importantly, her humming.

He then noticed the lavender and attributed the strange calm in him to its familiar smell with its well-known soothing effect.

But now something even stranger had happened: It had taken only a few expressions of remorse on the Goetia's part to let any anger at her rudeness towards him go up in smoke. She had done in five seconds what took his therapist Yogirt five hours on a bad day (if he managed it at all and didn't leave it to time to quell Satan's temper).

Slowly, he lowered himself into a squat to bring himself more in line with the crouching woman. He placed his massive arms on his knees and supported his balance in this stance with his tail. “Calm down. I'm not going to hurt you. You are nobility, after all. What about your voice? Does it do anything magical?”

Greta faltered, confused, and blinked cautiously up at him. “N...No. It sounds always... so awful. I'm sorry.”

“Pigeon – you're a pigeon, right?” He waited a moment for a reaction. She just nodded at the half-right statement and he continued. “I really don't understand what you're talking about. Your voice sounds beauti..." He instantly broke off that sentence before finishing it. “...perfectly fine.”

Calming, he allowed himself to add unspoken.

However, his four eyes widened in a mixture of frustration and confusion as he saw tears welling up in the Goetia's eyes. “That... Are YOU joking now?” A more than cruel joke to her ears after all the scorn her voice had earned her over the course of her life. “In retaliation for my rudeness? It's all right. You can also just honestly express your aversion, as most do. I'll switch right back to pen and paper if you wish.”

Under other circumstances, his growing frustration would have turned to rage long ago, but the odd soothing effect of her voice kept Satan from replying long enough to make sense of what was being said first. He put his thumb and forefinger of each hand together and stretched out the other two, as Yogirt had taught him to do for mediation purposes. Then he exhaled deeply. “Okay, pigeon... No, Lady Greta. Do I understand that right... You're completely serious when you say your voice sounds so 'awful' that you usually communicate using a pad and pen because you don't want people to hear your voice? And people agree with you that your voice is almost unbearable? Correct?”

Greta couldn't make sense of his questions, but dutifully replied: “Yes, that's correct.”

“Okay, I see... Or not really. But at least I realize that you and I have completely talked past each other. The reason is beyond me, but to clarify – and I am NOT joking, I swear on my name.” He pointed at her with one of his claws. “All I hear when you speak is – to be completely honest – a calming, gentle voice beyond measure. Not 'awful' in the slightest.”

Speechless, she stared at him. Until a moment ago, she had firmly believed that she would never ever hear anything positive about her voice in her entire life. And now, among all the demons of hell, SATAN of all people was telling her that he found her voice calming and gentle. “But that... how? Why?”

“Good questions. When you find the answers, tell me.”

Greta lowered her head in shame. After all, he had already mentioned to her that the situation itself was a mystery to him as well. “I'm sorry, Your Majesty. It's just... I hope you understand that it's a bit difficult for me to process. After all, my voice has always been one thing above all else for me: a curse. When I cried as a child, my nannies' first reaction would be to run away or to shut me up by force. Even my friends keep apologizing that they find it difficult to hear more than a few words from me without wanting to cover their ears or grimace. The depressing truth is that I had to read out loud to myself to teach myself to speak properly. I honestly don't know if my pronunciation of some words is even correct, since I've basically never... talked out loud to anyone long enough...”

Her hackles rose in embarrassment as she realized the extent of her rambling. She hastily clapped her hands over her mouth. “I have to apologize again. I didn't want to bore you with all this trivia. I... I didn't know that I would be so prone to babbling in a normal conversation.”

Expecting to be snorted at again, she looked up at Satan. But instead he... suddenly burst out laughing. Greta blinked, perplexed. And a little hurt. The sad anecdotes from her life were not something she had wanted to make him laugh about.

“Sorry, sorry.” Satan wiped a tear from two of his eyes. “I'm not laughing at... well... what you said. That all sounds pretty pitiful honestly. Wouldn't want to be you.” Casually, he shrugged his shoulders. Greta didn't know whether she should be less or more hurt now. “But I still had to laugh because...”

The dragon sighed heavily. “My short temper is no secret. Therefore, in order to somehow keep myself under control so that I can do my job properly, I've been wasting an incredible amount of time for thousands of years doing meditation exercises, drinking herbal teas I can't stand and whatnot. And now—”

He interrupted himself and leaned further down towards her so that she could feel the hot air coming from his nostrils even without him snorting. The deadly sin smelled mainly of smoke and fire mixed with a hint of joss sticks – probably one of the aforementioned 'whatnot' soothing methods. “And now I have to realize that none of that has ever brought me down nearly as effectively as those five minutes of our conversation. I couldn't tell you the last time I was as relaxed as I am now. So relaxed in fact, that I simply said such confidential things out loud to a complete stranger without thinking much about it.” A snort did follow after all. In combination with his serious tone of voice, it was an unmistakable warning. “Don't tell anyone about this.”

“Of course not! That goes without saying.” She did her best to hold his gaze to convince him of her sincerity.

“Not stupid.” He tilted his head to one side. She had the feeling that his eyes were beginning to bore into hers even more than before. “Not stupid at all.”

“Thank you?”

Satan's face came even closer. She felt like a mouse in front of a hawk. Instinctively, she backed away a little. The reigning ruler of hell was planning to do something to her and she didn't know whether to take it positively or negatively.

“What do you think of...,” he finally said. “...using the only good thing your voice has ever achieved for you to your benefit?”

“The only good thing?” she said cynically. “And what would that be, if I may ask, Your Majesty?”

“My sympathy!”

Greta was speechless again. She hadn't expected that.

Satan took advantage of her silence to make his proposal: “Phone calls, meetings, voice messages, whatever... I want to use the effect of your voice for myself. Not for free, of course. I'd pay you as much as my thera... counselor Yogirt. Mmmh... but you're a noble...” Pondering, he ran his claws over his chin. “Is money even an incentive for you? What do you want? You're being mocked you say? An order from me...” He clenched his fist demonstratively and intimidatingly. His biceps, which could not be ignored, flexed. “...and that ends. What do you say, Lady Greta?”

It took Greta a while to be able to form a meaningful sentence again. It was all too much to take in. And the suggestion also didn't quite make sense to her. In this scenario... “But wouldn't that make YOU look bad, Your Majesty? You would hardly want to make the reason for... your sympathy public. If you stand up for someone like me who, at best, is smiled at with pity in high society, without giving a reason...” She kneaded her skirt nervously in her hands and left the end of the sentence in the air.

But Satan surprised her again.

“Yeah, maybe. Sure, it wouldn't be ideal,” he said unconcernedly. “But I am SATAN. Hardly anyone would dare to talk foolishly about me for it in public. And the gain for me personally would be worth it.”

It took her a few moments again for her head to catch up with what he was saying.

If she asked him to, then would Satan actually make the mockery stop? That...

...that would be too good to be true.

Greta lowered her eyes and shook her head. “I could not dare ask for such a thing from you, Your Majesty, even if the offer honors you. I thank you. Besides, being thrust into the spotlight like that is not something I would know how to handle. Or something I would want to deal with. Money... Money would be quite enough for me as a reward. After all, I don't actually have any money of my own. I'm completely dependent on my family for funding.”

With her own money, if she saved long enough, she might finally be able to achieve a little independence.

“That's fine by me. If that's all...” His eyes lit up and his wings unfurled to their full width. Satan grinned. “Then we officially have a deal.”

Chapter Text

The deal with Satan had changed Greta's life...

...surprisingly little.

The only new developments were the two contacts “S” and “Y” in her cell phone – Satan's and that of his counselor Yogirt. (Both anonymized because the Goetia didn't want to have to explain who in Satan's name she had saved with SATAN's name in her contact list). And of course her few new duties as a “counselor”(/living sedative).

These consisted mainly of spending between half an hour and an hour a day on the phone with the Sin of Wrath and preparing topics of conversation in advance to the calls. She was also supposed to make sure she could be contacted easily in case of emergencies, so that Yogirt could call her at any time if Satan went completely berserk over something, in the hope that her voice could defuse the situation somewhat. She had even been asked to record some voice messages. But even if they had a positive effect, they were far less effective than a real conversation.

Yogirt had initially been noticeably skeptical when Satan had introduced Greta to him. Once their deal had been finalized, the dragon had arranged a secret, face-to-face meeting for the three of them at one of the gyms he owned so that she could talk to the therapist and work out a suitable plan for their collaboration.

His skepticism had not surprised her. After all, all the therapist heard when she spoke was the horrible screeching that everyone heard. Besides, it must have been a matter of professional pride for him to hear that she had managed to do with ease what he had been working on with great difficulty for ETERNITY: taming Satan's temper as efficiently as possible.

But a few tests later, during which Yogirt had deliberately provoked the dragon with permission, just so that Greta could calm him down again at record speed, the therapist also had recognized in her the miracle cure that his boss and he had been looking for together for so long.

And once the initial introductory phase with Yogirt had been over, Greta had quickly discovered that the therapist was very happy to finally have someone to talk to about his work who wasn't his boss/patient himself. That was possible because Satan had given his therapist permission to break parts of his strict confidentiality agreements while talking to her in order to improve their collaboration.

Because of this permission, Greta also realized how much Satan truly trusted Yogirt. Even though it was already an open secret that the reigning leader of Hell probably didn't even value the opinion of his siblings as highly as that of his therapist – who was officially known as his advisor.

Seeing the two of them interact openly with each other, away from formal events, made Satan a little... more approachable. Weakened the aura of overwhelming superiority a tiny, tiny, microscopic bit.

The meeting had lasted a very long time, even though Satan himself had not been present for that much longer, because he had had to fulfill his duties as ruler elsewhere. In the following private conversation with the therapist, she had again used pen and paper to communicate. The poor man had endured her voice long enough.

Yogirt had explained some basic things about his work to her. For example, which anger-mitigating techniques had proved somewhat useful so far. He had also taught her some of these techniques which she might have to use if just saying something wasn't enough to calm Satan down. Furthermore, Greta had asked him what she could talk to Satan about in the scheduled daily phone calls – in other words, his interests and topics that interested him. After all, she wanted to avoid boring the deadly sin.

In a nutshell, she saw herself as a kind of assistant to the therapist, supporting his professional methods with her little “talent”. Yogirt seemed very grateful and relieved about this view on her part and the respect she expressed for his job.

Understandable.

In his place, she also wouldn't have wanted to suddenly be treated from above by a young, arrogant noblewoman after thousands of years of hard work as a professional therapist for probably the most dangerous patient with the worst anger problem in all three worlds. Just because she happened to have a voice that was strangely soothing to Satan's ears.

She didn't even want to imagine how one of her sisters, for example, would have behaved in her place.

Since that meeting at the gym, she had met up with Yogirt a few more times so that he could continue her little study of psychology. Satan, however, she had only seen in person from a distance at a few events organized by the aristocratic society afterwards.

But she had heard him every day since then.

As she did just now, sitting at her desk in the late evening. With a book, a few notes and her cell phone on speaker.

And that seemed only a little surreal to her by now.

Greta now reached the end of her notes: “And so the detective revealed the final results of his investigation: All the confusion and misdirection that had made the crime seem so impossible could be cleared with one simple statement— All the suspects had hated the victim. There had never been ONE perpetrator who had committed a seemingly impossible crime. They were ALL the perpetrators and what would have been impossible for one individual was very achievable for a whole group. And then the book concludes with the detective more or less leaving it up to the group to decide whether they want to turn themselves in. Because he could understand the motives and the victim was undeniably far more evil than all his murderers. So in the end, they all got away and the detective...”

She couldn't finish her last sentence because she was interrupted by Satan's quiet laughter. “Wait, wait, hold on a second—Am I understanding this right: the resolution is that the victim was stabbed by ALL the passengers and not just one? The multiple stab wounds weren't from one very angry person, but from multiple people who all stabbed once very angrily in succession? Even the two old ladies?” Again, he had to pause briefly to laugh. “Oh, that's really good. A fitting punishment for the 'victim'. The idea could have been mine. Although... the guy probably died pretty quickly. I'm sure there would have been a way to make him suffer a little longer if they all wanted their revenge so badly.”

“The killers aren't necessarily portrayed as the bad guys in this book. If the group had chosen an even more sadistic method of killing, this kind of portrayal wouldn't have been convincing enough anymore and readers probably wouldn't have approved of the detective ultimately letting the group get away with their crime.”

“Mmmmhhh... Yes, makes sense, I guess.”

Greta heard Satan snort and the soft clattering of metal. He was probably once again lifting weights in parallel to their phone call or sitting on one of his many fitness machines.

In their first few conversations, which had mainly consisted of nervous small talk (on her part), she had found out that he usually called her from his private home gym.

So basically, the dragon used her as background noise during his training. But if that worked for him and helped his anger, then she had no problem with it and no right to complain. After all, she was even paid for these phone calls.

By now, Greta had developed a better strategy to fill the conversations and get out of small talk hell. While Satan was doing his sport, the Geotia summarized various books, plays, legends, fairy tales and just all kinds of stories for him. She made an effort not just to list boring facts, but to make it somewhat narrative. Like a kind of short audio book. Her summary was usually followed by a short discussion with Satan about the content, as was the case right now.

She had already made him laugh a few times before with a particularly good story. Even if the things he laughed about weren't necessarily the ones meant to be laughed about. The first time he had suddenly laughed at a especially brutal passage, it had confused her to no end. But by now she had developed a certain feel for his black humor.

The phone calls went better each time and she was now really enjoying them. Satan didn't talk much, but what he did say proved that he actually listened to her attentively and was interested in talking to her. He also treated her relatively politely. Something he didn't have to do because of his position. There was still some residual nervousness, but she was no longer afraid that Satan would immediately freak out over some stupid little mistake on her part or a boring topic.

She probably wouldn't run out of topics any time soon either. As it turned out, the deadly sin knew very few stories from the entertainment genre. Even of the absolute classics, he knew very few.

Satan had explained his lack of knowledge in this area by the fact that he had never had much time between all his duties, his anger control or fitness training – according to Yogirt, Satan's most important hobby for stress relief.

So basically Satan's life consisted of work, high society events, sport and therapy.

She would never dare tell him that, but when she had realized that this was his whole life, it had made her a little sad. She didn't know much about the private lives of the Deadly Sins, but since it was known that Lady Beelzebub, Lord Asmodeus and Lord Mammon, for example, often hosted big events and parties, she had always assumed that the Deadly Sins, with all their power and wealth... enjoyed their lives.

But it was not for her to judge how Satan lived his life. After all, from her point of view as his subject, it was somehow reassuring to know that their de facto ruler was a workaholic who considered his duties his top priority.

In any case, it now fell to the young noblewoman to fill in the gaps in the Sin of Wrath's knowledge of fictional literature. She liked to alternate between stories from hell and from earth. She simply doubted that Satan would have had much interest in heavenly literature.

She had so far identified crime novels, thrillers – with the bloodiest crimes possible – adventure novels (at best with lots of fighting, wars and deaths) and generally somewhat darker plots as his favorites. He also usually liked the antagonists more than the protagonists.

All things that shouldn't have surprised her in retrospect.

At least it hadn't even occurred to her to try to get him interested in her favorite romances.

Greta put her notes aside and reached for her cell phone to place it more directly in front of her. “By the way, the author has published many other excellent works and is considered very famous on earth. I don't know what happened to her after her death, but if you liked this book, Your Majesty, I'd be happy to introduce you to more of her stories when I get the chance.”

“Fine by me. No objections. It was entertaining as always. Has the author done this often?”

“What do you mean?”

“That way of ending the book. Letting the murderers get away with their crime.”

She contemplated for a moment. “I don't know all of the author's works and I wouldn't like to already give away the exact endings of the ones I do know... But there are definitely some dark endings. I don't know if there will be another ending similar to this one, though.”

“I see. Interesting.”

“I'll make sure to pick out more stories where the perpetrators got away.”

“That wasn't my point.” Another clatter and a short pause. When Satan continued speaking, his voice seemed much louder and closer. He had probably finished his training and picked up his cell phone. “I didn't realize until now how many works on earth have gained fame nowadays that are certainly unwelcome from a heavenly point of view. It seems like yesterday, when the people treated authors of such stories very differently...”

Playfully theatrical, she joked: “’For the glorification and morally reprehensible depiction of vigilante justice, we sentence you to death by fire!’”

“Yeah, something like that.” He snorted in what she thought was amusement. “Was that your attempt at a threatening verdict, pigeon?”

Unseen by him, she pouted slightly at the comment. “No, Your Majesty. It was only meant as a joke. In front of you, the absolute expert in the field of threatening verdicts, a serious attempt to appear 'threatening' would never have occurred to me.”

A dry laugh. “Not stupid. Not stupid at all.”

The words brought back the memory of their first meeting and she wondered if the dragon had remembered it too and had chosen the words deliberately. The thought made her smile. Presumably that was not the case. (The details of their first conversation had certainly not been that significant to the Deadly Sin. Only the effect of her voice was relevant to Satan). But the small chance still made her happy.

“Thank you?” she repeated her words from back then playfully.

A long pause followed. She had expected Satan to want to say something again next. But as this didn't seem to be the case, she hastily thought about how she could fill the silence, as was her job after all. However, before she could start speaking again, the deep bass voice came through the cell phone again. “Anyway, I'm interested in unexpected endings like this. If you know any more, I'd like to hear them.”

Greta sensed an opportunity: “I actually know a lot of stories that have become very famous for their unconventional endings. Even outside of crime novels, thrillers and adventure stories. In the romance genre, for example...”

She waited anxiously for his reaction. But as feared, all she got was another amused snort instead of approval. “Ah, are romances a genre you're actually interested in when you're not picking out the next gory story to suit my tastes? I'm sorry, but I don't see how the ending of a romance could be so grim as to interest me in the story. People are unlikely to have celebrated a romance where the lovers... I don't know. Both ended up dead for some stupid reason. Preferably by suicide. Soooo, it's still a no from—”

For the first time, the Goetia interrupted HIM. With a bright laugh. The sound surprised Satan for several reasons. Firstly, because the pigeon had never before dared to cross certain boundaries of formality (for example, interrupting him). Secondly, because he couldn't for the life of him understand what the reason for her laughter was. And finally, because the sound of her laughter to his ears surpassed even her humming.

The blood in his veins was usually so hot that he could ignite a fire with it. This ensured that he was always warm, even in icy snowy landscapes. He also had a naturally high resistance to heat because of his blood and his magic generally associated with flames. He therefore never got too warm either.

This made the wave of heat that Greta's laughter sent through his body a completely foreign feeling that he didn't quite know how to assess. But he knew for sure that he couldn't remember the last time the ever-present rage inside him had been so much out of reach.

Behind him, one of his weights crashed to the floor, which he had been sure he had placed securely in its holder. Only when he turned his head did he realize that while the Deadly Sin had been absent-mindedly concentrating on the laughter, his tail had started wagging wildly back and forth without his involvement.

What in Lucifer's hell is that?

That— Doesn't matter.

He determinedly brought his tail to a halt. No one had seen the hell ruler's mishap.

Not even Yogirt.

At first, the demon had been present during his phone calls with the young noblewoman, although Satan could tell by looking at him that Greta's voice was indeed difficult for other people to bear. By now, however, Yogirt disappeared very quickly as soon as the appointment with the Goetia approached.

Satan distrusted the strange smile with which Yogirt always apologized himself before he left. It just didn't seem as if the therapist was simply fleeing from the prospect of having to endure Greta's voice again.

“I'm... I'm sorry, Your Majesty,” Greta's meek voice snapped him out of his thoughts. He scowled when he realized that he had missed the end of her laughter. “I didn't mean to interrupt and upset you.”

“I...” Satan began, but he found it unusually difficult to formulate a clear sentence. “...wasn't upset. I'm not. Just... confused. What was so terribly funny about what I said?”

“Ah, well, you know, that ending you said wouldn't excite people—let alone be the end of a famous romance...” Greta left the sentence unfinished.

What she wanted to say was obvious.

Satan asked incredulously: “You're serious? That story exists?”

“Not just once actually. The most famous example is probably... Have you ever heard of a couple being described as 'Romeo and Juliet'?”

“Yes, I think so... So those two characters die? By suicide? Why? And why is that particular work the 'most famous'?”

Greta was glad that Satan couldn't see the little smirk she couldn't suppress. Otherwise, he might have thought she was making fun of his reaction. But in reality she simply found the intensity of his reaction to their conversation about romance extremely sympathetic.

Again, something that made the giant dragon slightly less scary.

After briefly gathering her courage, she asked cautiously: “Sooo... Should ‘Romeo and Juliet’ be our topic tomorrow?”

Silence. But this time Greta waited patiently for the answer. “All right, fine. I guess I brought this on myself... That... Just don't tell anyone. Not even Yogirt.”

Surprised, she blinked. This was the first time he'd asked her not to mention one of their conversations to Yogirt. But she could understand it somewhat. Satan had a reputation to lose, after all.

Not that anyone would have believed her if she had told them that she had discussed the romantic classic 'Romeo and Juliet' with Satan himself during their daily phone call.

“Of course not, Your Majesty. Just as you wish. As always.”

“Good… I guess that's it again for today.”

“Ah, of course.” She hung her head a little disappointed. Right, the end of their conversation had come again. This was perhaps their longest conversation so far and yet it felt so incredibly short. Her eyes fell on a small note she had stuck to her desk and she hastily lifted her head again. “Oh, but I wanted to tell you one more thing if I may.”

With that, she seemed to have caught him off guard again. She could almost hear the confused curiosity in his voice. “That would be?”

“I just wanted to let you know that the sequel to the play I presented to you a few weeks ago, which you liked so much, is premiering in Gluttony at the end of next week. The one where the supposed protagonist died at the end.”

“The one Amducias wrote?’

“Exactly!” She nodded enthusiastically before remembering once again that he couldn't see her. “I thought that even if you don't normally go to plays, you might be interested in this one, since you already liked the first part. But if you don't want to see it, I'll be happy to tell you about it in any case.”

“You're going to the premiere?”

“With my friends, yes. I'm really looking forward to it. As far as I know, the tickets sold out incredibly quickly, but I figured that if YOU expressed an interest in the event, the theater certainly wouldn't turn you away.”

Unseen by her and unnoticed by himself, Satan began to smile gently. Her enthusiasm amused him. “I'll think about it.”

“I'm glad to hear that. But now I don't want to keep you from your duties any longer. I'll hear you tomorrow, Your Majesty.”

“Hear you tomorrow.”

After he hung up, Satan found the familiar silence in his personal gym oppressive, as so often lately. A side effect of his calmed anger?

In any case, his head was now clear enough to get back to work. But first he would ask Yogirt to order some theater tickets.

Chapter Text

“Our little star seems to be running fashionably late again,” said Scylla, glancing at her cell phone watch.

Greta immediately wrote a reply to her friend on her notepad. “He's still got ten minutes.”

Scylla – one of the rare Goetia that didn't resemble a bird, but looked like a sheepdog with black scales instead of fur – rolled her eyes with a smile. “That's what you said last time. And the time before that. And the time before that. And before that—”

“No, he was on time for Queen Bee's charity party,” corrected Chary – short for Charybdis – her twin brother. Their outward resemblance was limited to being black-scaled and not a bird. But unlike his sister, Chary was a hyena.

“Star and Greta were the two most looking forward to the performance today. So I'd bet he'll make it on time today for once,” Reggie joined in – short for Reginleifr. The grey heron demoness stretched her long neck and looked down over the golden railing of the balcony at the red rows of seats in the huge theater. “Hey, I think that's Verosika Mayday sitting in the front row!”

“WHERE?!” Chary was at her side in a flash. Ears pricked up attentively, as if that would somehow help him looking.

Greta and Scylla exchanged an amused glance and then also peered down at the rows of seats to spot the famous succubus singer. At any other theater premiere, Verosika would probably have been able to book a balcony as well to watch the show. However, as the play had been written by a high-ranking Goetia, the balconies were reserved for the nobility.

This kind of separation between the nobility and the commoners was nothing unusual. However, Greta thought it was a good thing that in Gluttony, thanks to Lady Beelzebub, it was forbidden to make events like this completely inaccessible to the common folk. It would be ridiculous to have a premiere for the nobility alone and therefore get the theater only half full. Nevertheless, there were enough members of aristocratic society who boycotted the performance today by not attending because they did not want to participate in an event with “the rabble”. She didn't regret the absence of these people one bit.

Greta had to admit that she was grateful for the private balcony they had to themselves thanks to the connections of the last remaining member of their small group of friends. Simply because it meant that no one could come near them and mock them. Not mock her or Scylla and Chary, who both got a little ridicule as well for their atypical appearance for noble demons.

Her friends and she were certainly an odd group.

Fortunately, even among the nobility of Hell, there were a few good souls who thought nothing of such unjust, condescending behavior – neither towards the common folk nor their own people. Reggie, for example. Or...

“¡Estoy aquí! ¡Estoy aquí! ¡Justo a tiempo!” [I'm here! I'm here! Just in time!] An excited voice sounded behind them. Collectively, the four friends turned to the scarlet macaw demon, who at that moment, slightly out of breath, pulled aside the curtain that allowed access to their balcony instead of a door. Vassago adjusted his huge yellow glasses, which must have slipped a little on his hurried way here. “I'm sorry, I...”

“...somehow lost track of time,” Scylla, Chary and Reggie finished his sentence in sync.

“Exactamente.” [Exactly] Vassago ran his hand through his feathers, slightly embarrassed, but smiled happily.

Greta would have joined in the collective commentary, but she hadn't been able to write so quickly. Instead, she greeted her childhood friend with a slight delay. “Good evening, Vassago. I'm glad you didn't miss the beginning.”

“¡Hola, Greta! As always, the only good friend far and wide.” As usual, Vassago gave her a big hug in his usual exuberant manner. As he did so, he whispered to her jokingly. “It would be best if you prepared a permanent note with the phrase so that you can join in next time. I deserve it.”

Greta managed to cover her mouth at the last second to stop herself from laughing out loud. Smiling, she nodded at him. Vassago let go of her with a grin and then clapped his hands as he turned back to everyone. “¿Y qué más? [And what else?] Have I missed anything exciting yet?”

Chary, who was still standing by the railing, pointed excitedly down into the rows of seats. “Verosika Mayday is sitting down there!”

“¿Dónde?” In a matter of seconds, Vassago was at the hyena's side, scanning the crowd.

Reggie started to laugh and Scylla rubbed her forehead in annoyance. “Unbelievable...” She ran to her brother and pulled his ear. “Didn't you forget someone subtly more important, airhead? Someone who really NOBODY expected to be here today? The big topic of conversation of the evening?”

Chary and Vassago both looked at Scylla in confusion. Then Greta stepped up next to her friend and showed the two men her notepad. “His Majesty, Satan, has come to the theater today. He's sitting in the top VIP balcony.”

“Ohhhhh, yeah right.” Chary nodded and then shrugged. “My bad.”

Vassago's head jerked around to the biggest balcony with the best view. His red eyes widened to an unexpected size. “¡Lucifer mío!”

Like everyone else present before, the macaw couldn't help but stare up at the sin of wrath for a few moments, stunned and blatant.

Where there were usually about ten seats in the top VIP balcony, Satan was now sitting alone in his usual Wild West style outfit on a huge, crimson upholstered chair that the theater must have had to express order for today. To fit into the theater, the deadly sin had shrunk somewhat, but he still towered effortlessly over all those present. He stared down at the crowd with his chin resting on the palm of his hand. He either didn't even notice the many intimidated and confused looks that had been thrown his way all evening or simply ignored them without a problem.

Greta had also been surprised to see Satan, but more because she hadn't seriously expected the dragon to actually follow her recommendation. She couldn't tell anyone, but she was secretly very proud of herself. Knowing that the reigning ruler of hell was here today just because of something she had said was probably the most impressive accomplishment of her life so far.

After seeing him, Greta had actually dared to write Satan a short message: Good evening, Your Majesty. I am glad to see you have managed to come here. I hope the performance can live up to your expectations.

To her ongoing surprise, she just realized that Satan had already replied to her. He probably just didn't have much better to do while he waited for the performance to begin. I am confident. Even Yogirt had heard about the premiere and the number and quality of the guests speaks for themselves. I'll tell you my verdict later.

So Satan still wanted to talk to her today despite the late-night event? Did she understand that correctly? This would be the first conversation in which not only she would be familiar with the subject, but he would also have to talk more.

Her hackles rose a little with excitement and she began to type a reply.

Vassago, meanwhile, had regained his composure and looked around questioningly: “Does anyone know why Lord Satan is here? Did anyone know in advance? Queen Bee would surely be here if she knew— Espera un momento. [Wait a second.] If he's here, does that mean he knows the first part? I wasn't aware that Lord Satan was into theater?”

Chary shook his head, clueless as usual, and Scylla just pointed at Reggie. “Don't look at me. Ask our gossip expert over there.”

The macaw immediately followed her suggestion and folded his hands reverently in front of the gray heron. “Por favor [please], enlighten me, Reggie, with your frighteningly extensive knowledge.”

In the meantime, Reggie had taken her seat and reached for her champagne glass. She let Vassago fidget for a few seconds before answering. “Nobody knows what brought him here. Everyone was surprised. A few of the Imps down there even fainted briefly when Lord Satan showed up on the balcony. All the rumor mill has to offer is the information that he's been noticeably more present in public and at events than usual lately. He seems to be less... well, angry. There's speculation that Yogirt has found some particularly effective method to control Satan's temper.” She leaned conspiratorially towards Vassago and even lowered her voice. “But the wildest theories claim that Lord Satan might have a lover and that he attends the events so that he can see them more often.”

Greta's fingers froze over the display and she stared at Reggie with wildly ruffled feathers.

What?! There were rumors like that. Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. If Satan found out about this... It would surely make him incredibly furious that there was even sporadic speculation about such a thing. Rumor number one was more or less true, but this... The very thought of Satan being interested in more than just her voice was absolutely ridiculous. She was lucky that the deadly sin appreciated good work and loyalty. He certainly wouldn't blame her for such rumors. She had secured that much sympathy by now. Or so she hoped.

“¡Qué interesante!” Vassago clenched his fists euphorically.

Scylla barked indignantly. “Excuse me? Why didn't you mention the wild theories earlier?”

Reggie grinned. “I wanted to wait for our little star."

Chary looked down at the rows of seats, brooding seriously. “The lover couldn't be Verosika Mayday, could she?”

Vassago and Chary burst out laughing. And Greta was also able to relax a little at the comment.

Scylla smacked her forehead with her hand and then dragged her brother away from the railing to his seat. “One day, brother... I've had enough of this. For the rest of the evening, you're banned from anything related with 'Verosika Mayday'. I don't even want to hear that name from you again.”

Chary gave a little yelp of pain. “Ouch! Why? That was a serious consideration!”

The two began to have one of their usual debates. Reggie watched the spectacle with amusement and Greta refocused on her message to Satan. For the author's sake, I hope it doesn't turn out to be an overly “threatening” verdict. I'm certainly looking forward to hearing it.

Would he understand the reference to their conversation last week?

Greta was about to add something when Vassago suddenly hooked up his arm with hers and she hastily switched off the display to hide the chat. Her childhood friend pulled her towards her seat with a smile. “Put the phone away, querida [my dear]. The show's about to start and we still have to make our final bets on what we think will happen.”

She smiled and sat down next to Vassado as usual. She took out her notepad and handed him a pre-prepared page with her theories. They leaned their heads over the paper together and Vassado skimmed over her words with a grin. He began to comment and give her his views.

Scylla's voice snapped them out of their 'conversation' shortly afterwards. “Is it my imagination or is Lord Satan looking over at us right now? He looks kind of... angry.”

Chary threw a handful of popcorn into his mouth. “Isn't that kind of his thing? The whole angry-wrath thing?”

Scylla flicked him against the ear. “But not that he's angry at US.”

Reggie poured herself another glass of champagne before telling them to calm down. “Calm down, kids. He's got four eyes. It's hard to be sure where he's looking. You must have imagined it. And now be quiet. It's starting.”

And indeed, before Greta had a chance to look over at Satan and check Scylla's words, the lights dimmed and the red curtain on the stage opened.

She turned her attention to the performance with anticipation.

----

Satan, meanwhile, was having a hard time focusing his attention on the start of the performance. He had actually been quite interested in the play, but he didn't like the fact that the lights were switched off for it. He snorted annoyed.

Now it was difficult for him to observe what the rest of the audience was doing.

Not that he was particularly interested in how the demons' curious glances had been piercing through him ever since his arrival. It was only natural. As the ruler of hell, his mere presence made him the center of attention. Especially since no one had expected him to be here. (If his siblings had found out, at least Oz and Bee would have shown up here for sure to get to the bottom of his reasons).

However, because of the dim light, Satan couldn't really keep track of whether Greta was on her cell phone to answer him or not. And that interested him, as it ultimately affected his schedule after this event. He would certainly need her calming voice to soothe his nerves after this event and all the people's noise.

But since the last of her friends had turned up, Greta's attention seemed to be focused on the Goetia Vassago – the heir to a bloodline that rivaled Paimon's and who had their domains in Gluttony. Because of his position, Satan knew his name and vaguely remembered that he was considered an eccentric with atypical views for demon nobility. What these views entailed exactly, however, the dragon wasn't able to recall with certainty.

Nonetheless, the deadly sin had been quite surprised to identify Vassago as part of Greta's group of friends at one of the many events he had attended recently. From what Greta had mentioned about herself and what he had since observed and learned, she was not particularly well known or popular in the noble community. In fact, she was rather unpopular because of her voice.

Vassago, on the other hand, had a high status through his family alone. Seeing him so present in a group of demons without much influence made no sense to Satan. But there had been no reason to question Greta about it until now.

However, as he was able to observe Greta and her friends more closely for the first time today, his confusion (/irritation) regarding Vassago was reawakened.

None of the other three demons on the balcony interacted with Greta as intimately as the macaw. Satan had only made Greta laugh once before, but Vassago had managed to almost elicit a laugh from her nearly effortlessly only moments after his arrival when he had whispered something in her ear.

Satan's tail lashed out and he unconsciously clenched his fists.

It was a shame that Greta did everything she could not to make a sound in the presence of others. Although he probably wouldn't have heard her laughter up to his balcony among all the voices in the hall anyway.

But what had Vassago whispered to her that was so funny?

Afterwards, he had seen Greta check her cell phone and discover his message. He had watched with satisfaction as her concentration was no longer on the group. At least until her friends' conversation had disturbed her somehow. She had looked at her friends in panic, but none of them seemed to notice the pigeon's restlessness.

But it was so obvious!

Satan snorted out a stream of black smoke.

But before he could even think of reacting, Greta had already calmed down and was concentrating on her cell phone again. A few seconds later, he had received the expected message. However, the dots that indicated that Greta was still writing something had also appeared in the chat immediately.

He had waited patiently. He had even smiled faintly as he read her message. Until the dots had suddenly disappeared.

He had looked at the balcony again and, in a fit of rage, had almost crushed his cell phone. Cracks now ran across the display in response to his firm grip. But he didn't even notice.

Satan's eyes glowed golden and bore into Vassago, who had put his head close together with Greta and was debating with her over a piece of paper in his hand.

“Um, Satan, sorry.” Yogirt had popped up next to his head, catching his attention. “The... The show's about to start. Maybe you should put your cell phone away now and concentrate on the stage. Take a few deep breaths to prepare...”

As usual, his therapist had accompanied him and was on standby in the background in case he needed to be calmed down. But Satan didn't understand why he was talking to him now. He wasn't— He discovered the cracks on his cell phone and sighed.

Not again...

“Right, yeah.” He held up the half-destroyed device in his hand. “Can you arrange a new one?”

“Of course. I'll get it for you before the end of the day.”

“Good, thanks.”

Satan raised his hands in a meditating gesture and tried to direct his concentration to the stage. The room went dark, which he was not a fan of.

What he was able to see of the performance was good. However, his eyes quickly adjusted to the lighting conditions and he could soon see the audience again more or less clearly. As a result, he found himself looking over at Greta's balcony far too often. If she had simply followed the show, there would have been nothing too interesting about it.

But that wasn't all she was doing.

She was constantly scribbling down words on her notepad, only to then hand her pen to Vassago with a smile as a matter of course so that he could write her a reply. In order not to annoy the rest of their friends with their comments about the theater, this was their usual way of conversing in such moments. It was something quite natural. But for Satan it was strange and seemed far too intimate.

His jaw muscles tightened. The golden lines on his body began to glow faintly.

Why was HIS pigeon more focused on this Goetia than on the performance she had claimed to be looking forward to so much?!

His...? What had he just—

The shocked murmur of the crowd made him look towards the stage, where an unexpected murder scene was being played out. The thought remained unfinished as the plot now managed to hold him captive for a short time.

Greta's prediction was confirmed: Satan liked the performance surprisingly much.

However, when two characters started dancing on stage, it brought back another memory concerning Vassago and Greta.

Shortly after meeting the pigeon, he had seen her dancing with a red bird at a smaller ball a few days later. But at the time, his interest had been focused solely on her voice and he had dismissed the observation without reacting. Only in the course of their phone calls and with his growing sympathy for her had he begun to think about Greta more as a person.

And now the memory seemed oddly... bothersome.

Satan could no longer deny that he had long been more angry with Vassago than just being irritated by him. The macaw hadn't done anything to him, though. For the life of him, the deadly sin could not pinpoint the source of his dislike and the unknown wrath. Something that only made him more furious. He didn't like this new kind of wrath at all. Not only did it burn, but it also made his guts sting unpleasantly.

His claws ripped the upholstery of the armrests of his chair. His eyes caught fire and smoke rose from his nostrils. His wings spread menacingly behind him.

Yogirt, meanwhile, watched his boss's growing irritation with concern. He had followed Satan's gaze and had been able to identify the “unknown” wrath for what it was fairly quickly. He had no idea how to deal with it, though...

He had never had to deal with a jealous Satan before.

Especially a jealous Satan who was obviously miles away from realizing that he was jealous. Because in order to figure that out, the dragon would first have had to realize that he had grown very fond of Greta lately.

But Yogirt had not yet come up with a suitable strategy to inform the deadly sin of wrath that he had most likely fallen in love.

And quite seriously in fact. Beyond the usual, purely physical interest.

Which didn't happen too often anyway, since Satan was basically married to his job and his anger issues usually overshadowed certain other needs of the dragon.

It was exasperating.

Yogirt took a deep breath. Now was not the time for too much thinking. If things continued like this, the theater would soon be on fire and the premiere would be canceled. The therapist had to act now.

Smiling, he flew into Satan's field of vision again, making a conscious effort to block his view of Greta's balcony. “Satan, sir, I have a feeling your chakra is preeeetty out of balance. I get it, I get it. There are a LOT of influences here that you rarely have to deal with. But it would be a real shame...” And with the following sentence, Yogirt tried out a new method, the effect of which he was very interested in. “...a real shame if the performance Lady Greta was so looking forward to had to be interrupted or even canceled because of a little bad chakra, wouldn't it?”

Almost immediately, the golden fire in the dragon's eyes went out and his wings visibly folded together again. Satan was still visibly tense and did not stop emitting smoke, but he was no longer on the verge of exploding.

Yogirt rejoiced inwardly.

Fantastic, mentioning Lady Greta's name had been successful! By now, Satan seemed to have mentally linked the Goetia to the effect of her voice to some extent. Just talking about her calmed the deadly sin down somewhat. Of course, the fact that Satan didn't want to make the demoness sad only added to the effect.

A few tense, silent seconds passed before Satan finally slumped his shoulders and leaned back in his chair, snorting. “Okay, yeah, got it. Be calm. Breathe. Mentally count sit-ups. It's all under control.”

“Wonderful, sir.” Yogirt continued to hover in place, smiling, trying to keep Satan from seeing Greta.

It took a while – briefly Satan had even turned his attention back to the theater – but eventually the deadly sin asked, “Why are you floating there all the time now?”

Masterfully, Yogirt feigned cluelessness. “Why? Am I disturbing you here? I've done my best not to obstruct your field of vision of the stage.”

Satan narrowed his eyes slightly, opened his mouth... but ultimately said nothing. Instead, he just looked away and shook his head. He merely mumbled softly. “All good.”

Yogirt blinked. Oh dear... Satan now looked... dejected.

That was new.

Satan watched the performance with his chin resting on his hand. To the normal onlooker, he surely looked the same as always. But Yogirt knew his boss well enough to read his body language better. The corners of his mouth pulled down differently than usual. His tail didn't twitch unconsciously every now and then. The slightly drooping wings...

What was he supposed to do?

Then the broken display of Satan's cell phone lit up. The dragon looked at it with little enthusiasm— only to suddenly lift it up very quickly and unlock it. Greta had answered him. The performance was still in full swing. Nevertheless, she wrote to HIM. Not just Vassago.

You were right, Your Majesty. Your suspicions about what might be wrong with the second prince were correct. I don't know of anyone else who was able to predict that. I am sure we will have much to discuss later. I should be available from around 11 o'clock. Just let me know when it suits you best.

From the smile that suddenly tugged at the corners of Satan's mouth and the undeniably amusing wagging of his tail, Yogirt deduced that Greta must have written a message. (The therapist was extremely glad that Satan didn't seem to have realized yet that Yogirt had already noticed his dog-like reactions to the pigeon).

As he now considered it safe, Yogirt therefore floated back to his original position. This allowed Satan to look over at Greta again. She was just putting her cell phone away. However, when she raised her head again, her first glance was not directed at the stage but at him. She briefly made sure that her friends were all looking at the stage before she smiled discreetly at him and waved.

Satan returned the gesture by briefly opening his wings and closing them again. (So that no one would be surprised at who he was suddenly waving to).

After that, Satan found it easier to concentrate on the performance. He had to – after all, he didn't want to appear clueless when he spoke to Greta later.

And the phone call that evening lasted a long time. Longer than any before. Satan never suggested that it was enough for today. Neither did Greta. But at some point she stopped answering and the deadly sin of wrath could only hear steady, calm breaths through the line.

The Goetia had fallen asleep.

And the sound of her sleeping breaths lulled him, too, into a deep, dreamless sleep at a rapid pace. The best in hundreds of years.

Chapter Text

A skip to the future

(Context: Satan and Greta have been together for some time and Greta has been living with him for around three months)

With a little too much force, Satan put his signature on the last document that had to be signed today. The paper was cut in a few places as a result, but the secretaries who were responsible for putting the documents away afterwards didn't dare point this out to him.

Frustrated by the paperwork and the late hour, he slammed his fountain pen down on the desk, causing a trail of ink stains across the table, but he didn't care. By the time he would return the next day, someone would have taken care of it. As always.

Perhaps he would cause fewer stains if he worked with ballpoint pens, but he liked the light scratching of the fountain pen tip on the paper better than working without resistance when using a ballpoint pen. Since he lacked the talent for delicate work, the scratching of the nib helped him as a kind of orientation.

“Done. Now clear away the documents and send out the last letters. That concludes this case. Time to call it a day. Yogirt, we're leaving.” Satan pushed himself up from his desk chair and marched straight towards the large glass door that led to the balcony of his office on the top floor of the courthouse. He had had the building specially constructed so that he had a direct exit from his office instead of having to go down to the first floor first.

It was late evening again. Several hours after he was supposed to have finished work. It was the third day in a row like this. And all because of this stupid case, which couldn't be dealt with any faster because it involved only nobles.

Some foolish young noble from Greed had gambled away some family heirloom to another noble from Envy without authorization to do so, and the two families had been fighting over ownership rights ever since. The young noble technically had no authority to make the deal, but the signed contract had been full of unnecessarily annoying clauses and insidious conditions – it was no soul contract, but still, contracts carried more weight in hell than on earth or in heaven. At least as far as Satan was concerned.

The result was that he had hardly seen or spoken to Greta for the last three days because of this case. According to the house staff, she had gone to bed unusually early yesterday, so he hadn't even been able to speak to her briefly. If they weren't sleeping in the same bed and he was thus reassured by her mere sleeping presence, he would have exploded dozens of times over the course of this case. The two nobles could be really grateful that, thanks to his pigeon, he now had his anger problems much more under control than he had a short while ago.

The dragon was a little earlier today than yesterday. So hopefully he would be able to have dinner with her again. His tail flicked once in eager anticipation as he stepped onto the balcony and spread his wings. His frustration momentarily pushed aside by a wave of affection for his partner. He quickly pulled out his cell phone to let Greta know he was on his way home.

Sometimes Satan couldn't recognize himself. So infinitely infatuated. But once he had become aware of his feelings, it had been like a dam collapsing and he was hopelessly lost. Not so long ago, the deadly sin would have burst out laughing if someone had told him that he would soon fall head over heels in love and start a serious relationship. Not to mention how absurd he would have deemed the idea that a single woman could have so much power over him. And not just in terms of controlling his wrath. By now, all of Hell – from Sloth to Pride – was probably aware that if she wanted to, Greta could wish for anything and Satan would do everything he could to fulfill her wish.

Satan snorted briefly in irritation and frowned when he realized that Greta had not yet replied to his message from lunchtime.

Strange.

Now it was a tinge of worry and an odd, uneasy premonition that made his tail flick. Impatiently, he looked back over his shoulders at Yogirt, who still hadn't followed him but was fixated on his cell phone instead.

“Yogirt!”

The demon looked up from the device in his hand, startled.

If Satan hadn't had to work overtime for three days, if his frustration at the lack of quality time with Greta hadn't been so great and if his bad premonition hadn't irritated him so much, he would probably have noticed the slight panic and worry in Yogirt's gaze. Furthermore, he would probably have had more patience to wait for his therapist.

Instead, he made a dismissive hand gesture and spread his wings to their full span. “Whatever, you can follow after you finish whatever it is you're busy with.”

With these words, he took off and was already in the air a few moments later. He no longer heard Yogirt's frantic “Please wait a moment, sir. You must know Lady Greta is—”.

Satan could fly incredibly fast. If he wanted to, faster than all the machines that humans were building nowadays, and most of which were also being built in hell these days. Not even fighter jets could compete with him. But he had not yet had the opportunity to take on a “rocket”. There was no sensible use for them in the rings. Hence no rockets in hell.

(At most, a foolish demon could have tried to reach Heaven with one. But such an undertaking would be prosecuted. The only ring that had to deal with Heaven and its troops was Pride, and that was how it should stay).

He shot through the glowing reddish sky of his domain at his usual top speeds. Out of Wrath's capital, past the familiar volcanoes with their sun-like, floating lava balls, towards his home.

His home: a vast area in the middle of a huge desert with a gigantic neoclassical-style villa at its center. However, thanks to magic and his immense wealth, it was not sand that surrounded the gleaming marble building. No, it was a huge park full of palm trees and grass and numerous other plants.

Satan landed on the forecourt of the villa. Immediately, several employees – mostly imps and hellhounds – rushed over to welcome him. He snapped his fingers, which was the signal for everyone to stop, in order not to be engulfed by the flames he summoned, and which swirled around him, concealing the process of shrinking his body size.

It would have been too inconvenient to permanently have to maintain a villa that was adapted to his natural size. Since shrinking really wasn't a problem for him, he had chosen this option long ago rather than having to pay and house a whole army of cleaning staff. It also made it easier to receive guests or move in with his partner – as he had recently discovered.

He folded his wings and marched straight towards the front door. This prevented him from noticing the panicked looks the staff exchanged behind his back. His by now very elderly butler and manager of the staff, Sebastian – a Great Dane hellhound –, appeared at his side: “Welcome home, sir. Dinner is ready to be served if you wish. It... Has Sir Yogirt informed you—”

They entered the entrance hall with its 20-foot-high ceilings and he looked around searchingly. If Greta had read his last message, she should – as was her habit – at least be on her way here to greet him by now. Quite often, she had even beaten the staff to be the quickest to welcome him. But just like yesterday, there was no sign of his pigeon. A glance at his cell phone also told him that she had not yet read his latest message either. The uneasy feeling grew. “Sebastian, where's Greta? Has she gone out?”

His butler didn't answer him straight away.

He ALWAYS answered him straight away.

Now the dragon finally turned his attention to the hellhound and the rest of his staff, who entered the hall behind them. It was not unusual for the employees to avoid his gaze. But none of them were new. Usually only his new employees trembled in front of him, unless he was throwing a full-blown tantrum – then, of course, they all trembled. But he wasn't much angrier than usual – just a little frustrated about the overtime – and yet they all seemed on the verge of fleeing.

Satan's wings were very, very slowly opening up again.

“Lady Greta...,” Sebastian began. His four eyes focused on the hellhound. “... is in your room...” At first, it seemed as if the Great Dane wanted to keep talking. But instead he pulled out a handkerchief and wiped a few beads of drool from his snout.

He began to pant (because, as a hellhound, he couldn't sweat).

Even SEBASTIAN was frightened.

The bad premonition and his worry were unleashed in form of an angry snort. Smoke billowed from his nostrils and his eyes ignited. Though shrunken, he still towered massively over the hellhound as he leaned over him. His wings stretched behind him, sending a gust of wind sweeping through the room, causing all the vases and other loose objects to shake. “Sebastian, I'm only going to say this once: Tell me what's going on? Why the tension when Greta is just in our room?”

The old hellhound began to pant faster. But then swallowed hard and answered him, “Lady Greta, has been very sick all day and is resting to recover.”

The fire in his eyes went out and Satan straightened up with a jerk. His tail sank to the floor.

Sebastian continued talking in the meantime. “She apparently already got the feeling that she was going to be ill yesterday, but had hoped to avoid things getting worse if she just went to bed early enough. To reassure you, sir, a doctor has of course already been here and examined her. He administered some medication, monitored her throughout the day and until the lady recovered fully, he will stay in the third guest room. The lady emphasized... A... According to her own words, there is no need to worry. Although she is a Goetia, her strength is so weak that she can't help catching the flu from time to time. She... will survive, she said...”

Satan himself was surprised at how toneless his own voice sounded. “‘She said’? Are you implying that without her words, there'd be any doubt she'd survive? What are her symptoms?”

“Well... high fever and chills are probably the strongest symptoms. She also has aching limbs, shortness of breath, headaches, sore throat and a terrible cough. That's why her voice—”

Satan could no longer listen to this calmly. After everything Sebastian had just listed, the better question would probably have been: What kind of symptoms did Greta NOT have?

“Has she eaten?” The dragon shook his head. “No, never mind. Even if she hasn't, bring dinner to our room. I'll eat there with her. I also want to talk to this doctor myself later.”

“Yes, sir!” Satan heard Sebastian say as he had already half risen into the air. The ceilings of the villa were high enough that he could theoretically fly around indoors in shrunken form. There were usually very few reasons for him to be in such a hurry inside his home, but one of these few reasons had just arisen.

Since he had met Greta, she had managed to send waves of heat through his body hundreds of times, despite his innate hot-bloodedness. When she smiled at him, laughed, hugged him, kissed him...

But at that moment, for the first time, he felt a chill run through his limbs because of her. Ice-cold worry made his wings beat unnaturally heavy.

As silently as he could despite his massive figure, he landed in front of the door to the bedroom that he had occupied alone until recently. The thought of having slept alone in the gigantic bed for so long now seemed... strange to him.

The dragon carefully opened the door. He was too big. To get in, he had no choice but to open the door fully, which meant that the dim light inside – the shutters were almost completely closed – was strongly illuminated by the light from the hallway. He cursed inwardly, worried that the light might disturb Greta's peace. But the pile of blankets on the bed stirred only slightly and did not seem to be affected by his appearance.

He quickly closed the door again and stalked towards the bed. If he had been cold before, now his blood froze in his veins at the sight of the woman he loved.

Her dove-grey feathers, which she always made such an effort to care for, looked disheveled and had a damp sheen from sweat. There was no trace of the subtle play of colors he admired, which she always shrugged off as “They look oily”. In addition, her body trembled and shook incessantly. Her hands were tangled in the sheets and her chest rose and fell frantically. Her breathing sounded choppy and hectic. Someone had placed a damp towel on her forehead to cool her temperature down a little.

Unfamiliar powerlessness took hold of the reigning ruler of hell as he sank to his knees beside the bed at his partner's side. Never before had he faced the problem of caring for someone so much weaker than himself.

His siblings didn't get sick.

His niece Charlie didn't get sick.

Yogirt had above-average magic for a normal demon, so he rarely got sick either. And the few times it had happened, the therapist had called in sick and Satan hadn't really noticed. Especially as his greater concern at those times had been his own anger control.

Guilt made the deadly sin clench his hands into fists in frustration. The patterns on his skin began to glow. He should have noticed it. If he'd had more time for Greta over the last few days, he would have noticed. No, looking back, he had even unconsciously registered her strangely high body temperature last night. He remembered how he had wondered whether Greta had turned up the heating in the room to compensate for his absence. The idea had appealed to him and so he hadn't given it a second thought. Or rather, the possibility that the Goetia might be ill would probably never have occurred to him. The concept of a “flu” was just too foreign to him.

Satan reached out for his pigeon. He wanted so much to run his claws through her feathers and comfort her. But at the same time, he didn't want to wake her. He wanted to do something for her. He had to, to get rid of this feeling of powerlessness that ate through his bones and fed his wrath.

He discovered a bucket with cold water in it on the floor next to him. His gaze wandered to the wet cloth on Greta's forehead. As he could think of nothing better to do, he carefully removed the piece of cloth from the sick Goetia's head. To soak it again in the bucket, he held the container with one hand, but accidentally ran his claws over its metal surface, causing a shrill scratching noise.

In his panic, the cloth was quickly forgotten and his four eyes turned frantically to the sleeping pigeon. Only she was no longer asleep. Exhausted, she blinked at him with her red eyes with white pupils – typical for noble demons. The fact that her pupils were constantly visible was just another reminder that she possessed relatively little magical power compared to most in noble society.

“Sa...Satan? Are you—” She broke off her sentence abruptly and avoided his gaze just as hastily.

What kind of reaction was that?

“I'm sorry, Greta. I hadn't intended to wake you.” But now that she was awake, he no longer hesitated to put his hand on her cheek and run his claws over her feathers. Despite being in his smaller form, he was still huge and so were his hands, which meant that almost half of her head fit into his hand. “I'm also sorry I wasn't home sooner, even though you're so unwell. If I had known, I would have come back right away.”

She remained silent. Still didn't look at him.

Was she... angry with him? Satan couldn't make any sense of her behavior. She didn't really seem angry to him – he was an expert at that, after all – but what else could it be?

Nervous and worried, his tail hit the floor behind him. He tilted his head to the side questioningly. “What's wrong?”

Silence. Her hands clenched tighter in her blanket.

If anyone else had dared to come at him with this silent treatment, he would have exploded in no time. But since it was Greta, the situation only made him incredibly nervous. The Goetia spent almost all of her time as if she were mute. As propably a kind of compensation, she had never been so silent in his presence – ever since she had overcome her initial nervousness – and always answered his questions.

Then he blinked as the realization hit him. “Is it your throat? Does your throat hurt too much to talk?” He could slap himself. Since being ill was so terribly foreign to him, this thought had once again come to him far too late. He looked searchingly at the bedside table, where a carafe of water and a few glasses stood, among other things. “Did the doctor give you some pills for your throat? If so, where can I find them?”

Satan was already pulling open the top drawer when Greta's soft, hoarse voice stopped him.

“No, my throat doesn't... I mean, it hurts, but... that's not the problem... I...”

When the deadly sin suddenly heard her sobbing, he immediately turned his full attention back to her. Forgetting the search for pills, he slammed the drawer shut again. His head jerked around and he discovered tears glistening in the corners of her eyes. Instantly, he cupped her face lovingly in his hands. He smoothed her tousled feathers as best he could. Her temperature was far too warm and for the first time he wished his hands were a little cooler to give her some relief. “Then what is it? Tell me, please.”

“I...it...” Again she avoided his gaze. Didn't lean into his touch like she usually did. He hated it. “I'm sorry... I tried really, REALLY hard... not to get sick.”

Completely irritated, he frowned. “Ahhh... What are you talking about? That's no reason to apologize. It's not your fault.”

“I... I know that, of course. And actually, I've never minded getting sick. To be honest...” Her voice grew quieter. She hesitated, as if confessing an embarrassing secret. “To be honest, I've always looked forward to getting sick a little. Even though I'm physically terrible every time.”

“Why would you look forward to something like that?”

Her eyes darted around uncertainly a few more times before she finally sought his gaze cautiously and apparently found the spark of encouragement in his eyes that she needed to continue speaking. “Only when I'm sick, when I have such a bad cough that I go hoarse... can people stand the sound of my voice. Only then can I talk to people normally. But...” More tears gathered in her eyes and fell down onto her feathers. The sight and her words made his heart beat painfully against his chest. “But ever since you started using my voice to calm your wrath, I've been afraid of getting sick. Because then my voice... because now my voice is useless to you. I'm sure its calming effect is gone right now.” Panicked, she added. “Maybe my flu has even damaged it permanently. I can't guarantee that I'll be useful to you again as soon as I'm well again. What that could mean for you... That... that scares me. And that's why... I'm sorry I couldn't prevent myself from getting sick.”

Satan snorted angrily. His tail lashed out, his wings quivered. He was boiling with rage inside. He fantasized about punishments for everyone who had contributed to Greta growing up in an environment that had drummed into her that she was useless. At most useful for a political marriage.

The worst thing was that Greta was right regarding her voice. He had been too worried to realize it till now, but he couldn't actually detect the calming effect.

However, she was completely wrong about her fears!

His pigeon thought she might lose her "usefulness" to him? Even worse, it sounded like she assumed he would just drop her if her voice didn't regain its effect. That was...

“Nonsense!” he growled and bent down to his partner. He bumped his snout against her beak and hovered close to her face. His two pairs of eyes fixed fervently on hers. “Even without your voice, I love you! It's no longer your voice that makes you irreplaceable to me. You yourself, your presence, is now all it takes to calm me down. Even if your voice still makes its contribution, that is no longer decisive. Even if it were to unexpectedly lose its effect permanently, I wouldn't stop loving you because of it. NOTHING would change.”

She looked at him out of her large pigeon eyes. “Really?”

Once again, he nudged her beak with his snout and wiped a few tears from her feathers with his thumb claw. “Do you really have so little faith in me?”

Her mouth opened. Closed again without a word leaving. Embarrassed, her eyes darted elsewhere again before she finally – finally!!! – actively nestled her head into his touch. Smiling, she shook her head. “No, of course not. I just... once again – as always – have too little faith in myself. Thank you for your patience with me, my love. I... I love you too.”

“Mmh, good.” Taking her condition into consideration, Satan left it at a kiss on her cheek. But his snout remained close to her ear and he purred to her: “And as I promised you: We'll work on your self-confidence together – even if it takes forever. I already told you, you won't be able to get rid of me again. I may not crave for as much things as my foolish clown of a brother. But a dragon would rather die than give up the treasure he has claimed as his own. And he looks after it veeeery carefully too, my treasure.”

“Ahh...mmh...” Frantically, Greta began to squirm out of his grasp and hid her face in her hands. He could practically hear the cute pout in her voice. “As if I wasn't hot enough already...”

At last, the heat of his blood reasserted itself against the coldness of his concern and a rumbling laugh made his chest quiver.

The dragon fell silent again, however, when he noticed Greta tugging at his vest to get his attention again. He tilted his head to the side questioningly and she asked carefully: “You... you don't have to... work today anymore, do you?”

His pigeon was so incredibly cute.

“No. Why?”

She looked at him from the corner of her eye coyly. “Then... then can you please... even if it's probably boring for you...” She was abruptly interrupted by a tortured, rattling cough and her body began to shake.

Suddenly Satan was reminded that Greta was feeling absolutely awful right now and that the brief conversation alone must have drained her of her strength. His tail twitched nervously back and forth again. Desperately, he began to stroke her arms with his warm paws to stop the trembling.

When she had calmed down before he could find his voice again, Greta finished her previous sentence with a croak: “...will you please stay here with me?”

His partner's weak, helpless plea sent his protective instincts into overdrive and he was certain that nothing and no one would be able to make him leave her side for the next few days.

Satan took her hand, breathed a kiss on her fingertips and then climbed over her into bed, having at least taken off his vest first. He lay down on his side, stretching the lower of his wings back so as not to lie uncomfortably on top of it, and the other he placed over Greta as an extra blanket. He pulled over a pillow and placed it on his lower arm. His pigeon crawled closer to him on its own, turned around and laid her head on the pillow. It didn't take long for Greta to fall asleep again in this by now familiar spooning position.

Some time later, the food requested by the deadly sin was brought to them.

Satan – completely taken over by his instincts – wanted to feed his partner, but was stopped by Greta, after she had watched, amused and touched, how clumsily he tried to do so. She was right to fear that little of the food would have reached where it was supposed to.

After the meal, the doctor paid his patient another visit and Satan received his desired report on the Goetia's state of health.

Together with the doctor, Yogirt also visited her, as he was very concerned about Greta too – after all, they had long since become good friends.

The therapist – self-declared number one fan of his master's relationship with the Goetia – had to fight to keep a calm poker face as usual and suppress his exuberant gushing about the way Satan took care of Greta. (His previous concern that the dragon might go completely berserk out of worry and frustration at his helplessness in this unfamiliar situation had fortunately – probably thanks to Greta – not become reality).

Satan never left Greta's side that night. He kept her warm, got her a drink when she was thirsty and changed the damp cloth on her forehead multiple times. The next morning, he ordered the court to be informed that he would not be appearing today and would just do some paperwork in his home office.

Until Greta was fully recovered, the dragon stayed with his partner almost permanently and took excessive care of her well-being. So much so that Greta often found it rather embarrassing and she sometimes had to put the brakes on his enthusiasm.

That the Goetia was fully recovered could be determined by the fact that the calming effect of her voice on Satan returned and the staff flinched again at the sound of her words. (Guiltily, as always, because all of Satan's employees adored Greta and had therefore quickly developed feelings of guilt at not being able to endure her voice better).

And from then on it was always like this whenever Greta fell ill.

Which almost made being ill something the pigeon looked forward to again. Only this time for a much nicer reason.

Chapter Text

„¡Muy sospechoso! (Very suspicious!) They're looking here again,” grumbled Vassago, peering with a furrowed brow over to the corner of the ballroom where some of Greta's siblings were standing together, grinning and whispering.

Reggie flicked her fingers against a corner of Vassago's signature glasses, shaking her head. “Stop worrying Greta any more than she already is.”

The macaw held his glasses protectively and then gave Greta a guilty look. "Lo siento, querida. (I'm sorry, my dear.) Don't worry." He stepped up beside her, put an arm around her shoulders and smiled confidently at her in an effort to play down his earlier comment. “We'll all take care of you.”

Greta looked up at him and did her best to return a weak smile. She nervously played with the too-long sleeves of her new purple ball gown, which her parents had unexpectedly gifted to her a few hours ago. It was too big – she assumed – because her parents didn't know her exact size and had simply bought her a dress in her sister Ella's size. (The sister who was closest to her in stature.)

Her parents never gave her anything without a reason. She generally had to take care of her own ball gowns within the limited budget her family provided.

And that wasn't the strangest thing that had happened this evening.

Today, her parents had even insisted that she ride with them in their carriage to get to the ball. That was strange, for one thing, because they never cared which balls Greta went to or didn't go to unless there was some official reason that made her presence necessary. For another, Greta usually had to ask one of her friends in advance to pick her up because each of her family's carriages was used by either her parents or siblings and no one wanted to take Greta unless it was absolutely necessary.

The young Goetia had an extremely bad feeling about the whole situation. She could only think of one thing her parents might have planned for her.... The very idea choked her throat, but no one noticed anyway because she didn't speak.

In this seemingly hopeless dilemma, there were only two things that cheered her up a little: the first was the presence of her friends. Without Greta having to say anything, they had also noticed that there was something suspicious about her parents' behavior today. (Well, all of them except Chary had noticed. Chary had agreed when Syclla had pointed it out to him).

Greta had almost started crying when all her friends had worriedly promised not to leave her alone for even a second tonight. Vassago in particular – as the one with the most influential title among them – had completely switched to brotherly protection mode and was constantly casting dark glances at her family members.

The second thing was the presence of Satan. As he was attending a lot more events lately, his increased presence had only further consolidated his power and influence in high society. And Greta was secretly proud that she had played her part in this development thanks to her voice.

Yogirt had even confided to her in secret recently that Satan had made more progress in anger control in the last few months than he had in the last thousand years. The therapist was incredibly grateful to her for that. But Greta was sure that none of this would have been so successful if Yogirt hadn't reinforced the effect of her voice with his therapy methods which had been adapted to the new circumstances.

Despite all her achievements, however, the deadly sin of wrath was of course not obliged to help Greta in any way if her parents were up to anything devious. And she certainly wouldn't have the audacity to involve him in her problems. Still, even if it might have been incredibly arrogant of her... The thought that the reigning ruler of hell would probably side with her if the worst came to the worst was reassuring.

“SOME FOOD FOR THE NERVES!” Chary's excited, loud voice drew her attention to the scaly dog demon. With Scylla at his side, he came rushing from the buffet. In his hands was a huge tray full of different dessert options. It was amazing how Chary could carry and balance this gigantic tray so effortlessly.

Scylla always commented affectionately: 'What he lacks in his head, he has in his arms.’

“¡Muchas gracias!” Vassago immediately grabbed one of the large, white coconut cookie dough quark balls – also known as snowballs – and handed it to Greta with a grin. Of course, her best friend knew that this was her favorite dessert. And considering the fact that almost a quarter of the tray was full of snowballs, Scylla and Chary knew that too.

She nodded with a bright smile. Her friends knew it was her way of saying thank you. The sweet snowball loosened her constricted throat, at least for a moment.

Scylla reached for a brownie. But before she took a bite, she said to the group: “I'm sure this time, by the way.” She tilted her head discreetly towards Satan. "Even from several angles, all the way from the buffet table to here, it looked like Lord Satan was looking angrily over at you guys. This has nothing to do with the four eyes or an optical illusion. So I wasn't imagining it in the theater. But at least his anger isn't directed at my brother and me. Little star, have you done something?"

With a spoonful of fruit yoghurt in his mouth, Vassago clutched his chest indignantly. "¡Qué cruel! (How cruel!) Those are vicious insinuations. Of course, I didn't do anything to anger Lord Satan. At least not that I know of..."

Greta couldn't think of anything she could have done to make Satan angry either. Besides, when she carefully looked over at the dragon – surrounded by a horde of noble demons, all of whom he easily towered over – to verify Scylla's statement, he didn't seem angry to her. Instead, her gaze seemed to surprise him briefly before he straightened a little and greeted her unnoticed with a quick flick of his tail and a small twitch of his wings.

The Goetia returned the hidden greeting by pretending to adjust her too-long sleeve and waving briefly at Satan as she did so. Greta was sure that he had smiled briefly before turning his attention back to one of the people in front of him.

Chary set the tray down on a nearby table and put his hands on his hips: “Maybe we should just ask him?”

Unexpectedly, he turned around and Reggie, Vassago and she herself realized too late what he was about to do in order to stop him. Fortunately, his twin sister could practically read his mind. So before her brother could wave wildly across the room at the deadly sin of wrath and shout something at him, Scylla grabbed his ear and pulled his head down to eye level with her. “Now, now, now, let's not do that, airhead.”

Chary howled.

Vassago and Reggie started laughing out loud, and if she hadn't been so practiced at holding back her own laughter, Greta would have laughed too. Her friends were really great.

As if to further encourage her thoughts, Vassago gently nudged her with his elbow. “When you've finished your snowball, would you like to go dancing?”

The pigeon beamed at him and nodded her head vigorously. And so she found herself on the dance floor a little later, while Vassago whirled her around much faster than the music actually intended. The macaw never kept to the rhythm of songs that were too slow for him. But Greta had long since got used to that.

Someone who still hadn't gotten used to the sight of Greta together with the Goetia prince was Satan. It took him an awful lot of effort not to pierce the two of them with his gaze permanently. The unknown rage, which he still hadn't been able to put a name to yet, stung unpleasantly in his chest.

With difficulty, he suppressed the urge to storm onto the dance floor.

Holding back an angry snort, he turned his back on the dancers and just hoped Greta wouldn't keep dancing much longer. He had put it off for a long time, but he urgently needed to talk to Yogirt about this unknown anger soon.

------

Just a few songs later – because dancing with Vassago, as much fun as it is, was and remained more of a sport than anything else – her best friend and she left the dance floor again. Arm in arm.

Vassago beamed: "¡Estupendo! (Fantastic!) There really is nothing better than dancing with a good partner! ¿Verdad? (Or?)"

Greta smiled with amusement. She had left her pens and paper with her friends, so at that moment she could only answer with gestures. But Vassago knew her well enough to understand what she meant when she pointed a finger at her beak.

He bumped his shoulder against hers in a friendly manner. “Oh no, singing together is overrated.”

She gave him a grateful smile. They both knew the macaw was saying that for her sake. He adored singing. However, he had the misfortune that no one in their circle of friends was a great singing talent – no matter how much Chary was convinced that he was a born rock star. This meant that karaoke was unfortunately not possible with them. Every now and then, however, they allowed Vassago to give them a little private concert, where he was cheered on by his friends.

Somewhere behind her – from the direction where she had last seen Satan – she heard glass shatter. Vassago and she turned their heads around, only to see several imp butlers already rushing over to clean up the broken glass and spilled wine at the feet of the deadly sin. The nobles standing around him had taken a few steps back from him. However, the situation did not seem to be too critical. Some of them even dared to continue talking. Greta wasn't sure from a distance, but she thought they were asking what exactly had upset Satan. Some also looked down at the Imps disparagingly and told them to work faster.

When Greta's gaze finally fell on Satan himself, her eyes widened briefly in surprise. The dragon was staring straight at her. Without a doubt. His four glowing golden eyes bored into hers. His gaze was so intense that her neck feathers fluffed up in a confusing mixture of an intuitive sense of danger and embarrassment.

The Goetia understood why she sensed danger out of reflex. As well as she now got on with Satan, he was still one of the eight most powerful existences in all of hell – to be precise, the third most powerful (including Lilith). And in his gaze definitely sparkled the wrath to which Satan owed his title. However...

That wrath was not what dominated the glow in his eyes at that moment. And whatever the rest of it was, it completely paralyzed her and made her blood rush to her cheeks.

That he was looking so directly at her... If he didn't break eye contact soon, someone would notice. Why didn't he do it? Was... was that look a command? Had someone made him so angry that he wanted her to come to him and calm him down? Even though they were in public and it would only be damaging to his reputation to receive help from such a low-ranking noblewoman?

An unexpected voice close behind her finally snapped her out of her momentary trance.

It was her mother's voice.

"Greta, my little goose, what a lively dance that was! Prince Vassago, it's so good to see you again!"

With a jerk, Greta turned around towards her mother. And her father, she realized at the same time. And a third demon, the sight of which sent an icy shiver down her spine...

Because of her parents, unfortunately, Satan's reaction to the fact that she was no longer paying attention to him escaped her: an uncontrolled flick of his tail, which fortunately did not hit anyone, and a briefly confused frowning dragon, who had completely forgotten where he was for a few moments.

Shortly afterwards, he registered the fact that his the pigeon had been easily and instantly been caught by his gaze. Her attention had no longer been focused on her dance partner. The thought strangely soothed the unknown anger before he could break another glass. (Star-shaped glasses, for example.)

However, when Satan took another discreet glance in Greta's direction to find out who had stolen her attention from him, his tail twitched in alarm and his wings unfurled minimally.

However, the sudden (inexplicable) tension had little to do with the three new Goetia in front of Greta. At first, the deadly sin didn't even recognize the nobles. It took him a few seconds to connect their faces with their matching names and titles.

His tension was a reaction to Greta's rigid posture. Her suddenly tense grip on the goetic prince's arm at her side. The dragon could not see her face from this angle, but Vassago turned his head just far enough to the side at that moment for Satan to see his eyes flashing angrily. The macaw made an obvious effort to disguise his anger behind a polite poker face, but if there was one thing you couldn't hide from the deadly sin, it was wrath...

If Satan had been able to see Greta's face that instant, he probably would have instinctively rushed to her. Because at that moment, the pigeon looked as if she had to fight with every fiber of her being not to burst into tears.

Her father started to speak, but she didn't even need to hear what exactly he was saying to know where this was going.

So she had been right in her fears.

The day had come when her parents had found someone who would finally “buy” their shameful daughter off them.

“Greta, your mother and I would like to introduce you to someone.” Her father motioned for the third demon to step forward. Out of the corner of her eye, Greta simultaneously spotted a couple of her siblings a few meters away, grinning nastily and giggling under their breath. "That's Earl Bifrons. A renowned scientist and president of Thot University. I'm sure you've heard of him."

The strange Goetia looked like a cross between a shriveled, balding old man with rotten teeth and a sick bat. And although he looked so obviously hideous, his dismissive gaze made Greta feel ashamed enough to look down. Almost bored, he greeted her: “A pleasure, milady.”

Of course she had heard of the infamous earl. He was older than her grandfather and was considered one of the smartest demons in hell. Over the years, he had amassed a great deal of money and power, even though he was also known for being a disgusting, sadistic, sexist psychopath who had been widowed more times than there were volcanoes in the Wrath Ring – speaking in exaggerated terms. What had happened to all his wives who were far too young for him anyway? There were at least twice as many horror stories about that. Rumor had it that he also liked to experiment on all kinds of non-noble demons.

Greta had always realized that she had never meant much to her parents, as was unfortunately often the case among those nobles who had more children than they could remember names for. She had done her best to stand out as little as possible and always obey well so as not to be a burden and lose the few privileges she had been granted. And yet...

So that was what she was worth to her parents? They were planning to betroth her to the worst possible candidate in all of noble society just to finally get rid of her? She had expected to be forced into marriage one day, but not... not to someone like Bifrons.

Even if she had wanted to speak, she was speechless. She clung desperately to Vassago so as not to give her siblings the satisfaction of breaking down in front of everyone. Did her parents really expect her to accept this without complaint?

"¡Increíble! (Unbelievable!)," Vassago ranted loudly, attracting the attention of everyone around them. “You can't possibly be serious, señor, señora?!”

Bifrons frowned in irritation. "I beg your pardon, my prince? What do I owe this furor to?"

Her father just smiled calmly, “Please forgive me, but I don't understand the problem.”

It was a terrible charade. Hardly anyone had said anything yet. No one had even uttered the word engagement yet and nevertheless they all knew what this was all about. But of course her parents continued to feign ignorance.

Her mother whispered with feigned shock: "Prince Vassago, is something wrong? Do you have any objections?"

Greta froze. Her thoughts were racing. She jerked her head up and looked at her mother's smug grin.

And then Greta realized.

She understood the perfidious game her parents were playing. The reason why they had chosen this particular moment to talk to her – with Vassago at her side. She realized how she was supposed to be forced to publicly agree to this engagement here and now.

Her parents knew that Greta was a very important friend to Vassago. That she and him shared more sibling love than she and her actual siblings. Her friendship with Vassago, a Goetic prince, was probably the main reason why she hadn't been betrothed much earlier. And her parents also knew that the macaw was willing to do almost anything to protect her. And that Greta couldn't let that happen for Vassago's sake.

Her parents had deliberately chosen this moment to introduce her to Bifrons in order to use Greta's relationship with Vassago against her.

If she didn't play along and accept the engagement, her father and mother were gambling on Vassago – in order to protect her from Bifrons – asking her to marry him instead. So that she wouldn't suddenly be forced into marriage at a later date when he wasn't with her.

And Greta was unfortunately all too aware that her parents would win this bet. (That would suit them just fine. After all, their daughter marrying a prince would be a much better deal than the old earl. Perhaps that was even their real goal!)

She could see in Vassago's glowing eyes that he was already on the verge of doing exactly what her parents hoped he would do. And he would take his promise seriously and take her as his wife and treat her well, even though he was gay, considered her a sister and would never be able to love her that way. Just as she would never be able to love him as anything other than a brother.

That kind of marriage would be a prison for both of them.

Of course she would support it if he wanted a real lover. But Vassago could never be with his love officially, out of a sense of duty to her.

Maybe... maybe he would even hate her for it one day.

The thought tore her heart apart.

No, Greta would not force her friend to make that kind of sacrifice. Only one of them would live in a marriage akin to imprisonment and that someone would be her.

Tears welled up in her eyes as she gritted her teeth and pulled on Vassago's arm to stop him from continuing. Her best friend looked down at her, confused. “Greta?”

She just shook her head firmly and smiled gently – and desperately – at him. She didn't speak, of course, but what she wanted to say was perfectly clear: “It's all right, Vassago.”

Greta let go of Vassago's arm and turned back to her parents and Bifrons.

The macaw tried to hold her back by the shoulder. "Greta, no! You don't have to—"

She took a trembling step forward, forcing Vassago's hand to fall from her shoulder. For the first time in a long while, she was grateful that no one expected her to say anything. Instead, she merely made an effort to bow politely in greeting to Earl Bifrons.

Her parents were already grinning triumphantly. Bifrons licked his lips suggestively.

Greta began to bow her head before her fate when...

...when suddenly a heatwave rolled over her from behind.

“ENOUGH!!!”

Satan's voice boomed above her head, abruptly silencing any conversation in the room. To her left and right, gigantic claws slammed thunderously onto the floor. Wide-eyed, she looked up and saw Satan's head hovering there. Pitch-black smoke billowed from his nostrils and his four eyes were ablaze as he fixed his gaze on her parents and Bifrons.

A quick glance over her shoulders made her realize that Satan was now many times taller than he had been a few minutes ago (so tall that he could hardly have stood upright in the hall). His upper body was leaning over her, his weight supported by his arms and knees. In short, she suddenly found herself between two massive arms, shielding her from the surrounding nobles.

Tense silence held the hall captive. Time seemed to have frozen. The only sound: the cracking of stone as Satan's claws dug deeper and deeper into the floor.

Whenever the deadly sin of wrath became wrathful, it made even the garrulous nobility of hell shut up and pray he didn't see you.

It took Greta a few seconds to process the shock before she realized that Satan was only not ending the silence because he was fighting tooth and nail not to explode completely. But... why was he so angry? Because of her? He couldn't possibly have noticed what had just happened here, could he? And where was Yogirt anyway? At a time like this, it would have been his job to calm down the dragon.

(Greta couldn't know that Satan had come to the ball at very short notice tonight without telling Yogirt, after Greta had texted him that their daily phone call might be postponed a bit because she was going to a ball with her friends – including Vassago).

“Su Majestad (Your Majesty), I beg for your forgiveness.” It was Vassago who suddenly broke the silence. He stepped back into her field of vision around one of Satan's arms. With a barely perceptible sigh, he checked that she was all right and that the deadly sin had not accidentally crushed her in his anger. Then he respectfully got down on his knees in front of the dragon, whose attention was now completely focused on the macaw. “I must have spoken louder than I realized. It certainly wasn't our intention...” He stretched out his arms to point at Greta, her parents and Bifrons. “...to disturb you with our affairs.”

The old earl was the second to react. Presumably because of his age, he did not get down on his knees, but he bowed his head as low as he could. “Absolutely. I concur with Prince Vassago. Please forgive this old fool, Your Majesty. I know how much you loathe such drama. Rest assured, we will continue our discussion in private at a later time.”

“Exactly, we are terribly sorry, Your Majesty. Our family affairs are really insignificant to you. If we had realized that we had disturbed you, we would have left the room long ago,” her mother added submissively.

Greta wasn't quite sure what to do. Should she also apologize and pretend she didn't know the deadly sin? It would probably be best.

But apparently she had taken too long to react from her father's point of view.

With a few long strides, he was at her side, pulling her roughly away from Satan by the elbow. The dragon's tail flicked and his wings twitched. “My daughter and I are truly sorry as well. Right...” he hissed at her urgently. “...my dear?”

“Right,” she replied automatically. In all the chaos, she remembered too late where she was.

She slapped her hand over her mouth, but her father had already flinched angrily at the sound of her voice and, as punishment, clutched her arm even tighter until it hurt and she had to repress a soft whimper. As quietly as possible, her father whispered to her. “Shut up, before you end up making things worse with your cursed—”

“RELEASE HER!”

Satan once again made the room jump in shock as he roared out without warning. Especially because what he demanded was nothing anyone would have expected. His wings had unfurled menacingly behind his back. The lava-like patterns on them now glowing.

Greta looked up at the dragon with wide eyes. She couldn't help but begin to hope that the deadly sin had actually become so enraged for her sake.

Her father just blinked in confusion. He even looked around again to see who else Satan could be referring to. Hesitantly, he loosened his grip. “Your Majesty, I don't understand—”

Satan bent down even lower until his head hovered just in front of her father. “I said...” He snorted, sparks crackling in his nostrils. “RELEASE. HER.”

Her father let go of her arm as if it was suddenly scalding hot. Greta quickly took a few steps away from him. Out of pure reflex, she rushed towards Satan. At least her subconscious seemed to have realized that the dragon was on her side.

Satan, meanwhile, was able to relax at least minimally when Greta returned into his direct vicinity. (The next day, he would realize that Greta had run to him and not to Vassago and, for some inexplicable reason, he would rejoice in this).

The rest of those present – especially her mother and siblings, but also Greta's friends – couldn't believe their eyes as they watched the events unfold.

“Prince Vassago,” Satan continued. Now much calmer than before, which only caused further astonishment. “I have my suspicions, but please: Explain to me exactly what ‘affairs’ you were discussing.”

Vassago, still kneeling, stared at the deadly sin open-mouthed for a few seconds. The macaw briefly searched Greta's gaze. She still looked nervous and tense and yet... she was no longer trembling as much as before.

Vassago had many questions. Millions of questions for his best friend.

But for the moment, all that mattered was that – for whatever reason – Greta had apparently just received the best possible backup imaginable in all of hell.

With reinforced self-confidence, Vassago allowed himself to stand up again. Before he answered the question, however, he bowed his head again respectfully. “¡Por supuesto, Majestad! (Of course, Your Majesty!) If I may speak frankly...?”

He looked up at Satan questioningly. The dragon snorted: “You may.”

Inwardly, Vassago smiled, while outwardly he tried his best to keep an expression appropriate to the seriousness of the situation. He spread his arms out as theatrically as always. “Mi querida amiga (my dear friend), Lady Greta, was about to be betrothed to Earl Bifrons here against her will. At that, I voiced my indignation loudly.”

Once again the floor cracked beneath Satan's claws as his gaze drifted menacingly to Greta's parents and Earl Bifrons. “I understand.”

It was probably a mixture of fear and confusion that made her mother exclaim without thinking: “But... but why do you care—”

“SILENCE!” demanded Satan in a resounding voice. “I don't remember giving you permission to speak.”

Frightened, her mother flinched.

No one could pinpoint exactly when it happened, but the ballroom had suddenly become a courtroom under Satan’s supervision. And her parents and Bifrons were the defendants.

Earl Bifrons took a step forward and bowed again: “Your Majesty, please?”

Satan let the old demon fidget for a few agonizing seconds before he said, accompanied by a twitch of his tail: “Speak.”

“I'm terribly sorry, but I would also like to inquire why it is that you are...” Bifrons fixed his eyes on Greta for a few moments. “...so very interested in this matter.”

Satan's tail smashed another part of the floor as he answered. “You only need to know one thing: Lady Greta of the Agares line works as one of my direct subordinates. As such, she is under my protection. NOBODY...” Again he leaned forward and blew black smoke in the direction of the three 'defendants'. “...but me is forcing any of my subordinates to do anything. Understood?”

This statement was so incomprehensible to the onlookers that they could no longer keep their silence and began to whisper wildly among themselves: “Work? What kind of work could this little thing do?” “What about the rumors? Could it be true? Could she be the mistress...?” ”Isn't that the girl whose voice makes a banshee's scream sound like music in comparison?”

“Greta.”

The whispering stopped.

Satan had not shouted. On the contrary, he had deliberately lowered his voice.

But this time it hadn't been fear that had caused the silence. It was the unexpectedly friendly tone with which Satan had spoken the name. A tone that was in complete contrast to everything he had said in the last few minutes.

Some might even have secretly described his tone as 'gentle'.

Greta peered up at Satan curiously.

Even though she couldn't see as much trapped between the dragon's arms, she could still feel far too many eyes on her. It made her uncomfortable, but she did her best to endure it. If this attention was the price for being saved from her betrothal, then so be it.

“Just to make it perfectly clear and finally bring this drama to an end,” Satan continued. He leaned down a little further towards her and used his wings to shield her from as many prying eyes as possible. Because of course he had noticed her tension and he didn't like the sight of her trembling hands.

“Do you approve of this betrothal between Earl Bifrons and yourself?” For a moment, he looked dismissively at Greta's father, who had previously dared to cut her off so brutally. “Answer LOUDLY, if you want to.”

Greta stopped trembling. Speechless, she stared at the gigantic dragon in front of her. She wasn't sure whether her heart had stopped or was beating faster than she could perceive.

A tear dripped down into her feathers.

Then her voice broke out in despair. “I do not approve. I don't want to marry this man. I don't want to marry anyone against my will.”

She didn't have to look around to know that everyone present had either flinched or even covered their ears at the sound of her voice.

But for the first time, she wasn't interested in these reactions.

The only reaction that mattered to her at that moment was Satan's brief, satisfied smile. “Then you won't marry.”

A fact. Words that became law the moment he uttered them.

Greta had escaped a marriage akin to imprisonment.

Satan leaned back. Fire erupted around him. A second heat wave rolled through the hall. Much smaller, but still larger than everyone else in the room, the deadly sin emerged from the flames. With a serious expression, he pointed at Vassago. “Prince Vassago, escort Lady Greta out. This ball is over.”

-----

Extra: Fanart

An especially huge thank you to CrypticAttire! For two absolutely fantastic, breathtaking, completely overwhelming fanarts of Greta and her friends, which I post and link here <3

Fanart 1

Link to fanart on Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62853355
@CrypticAttire

Fanart 2

Link to fanart on Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63901534
@CrypticAttire

Chapter Text

“So, mi querida [my dear]...” Vassago crossed his arms with a serious look on the tabletop and leaned forward. "I think you owe us some answers. ¡Carajo! [Damn!]-" Impulsively, he slapped the table, only to shake out his hand with a pained face and immediately apologize to her. "Lo siento [sorry], I didn't mean to swear. I'm just... very agitated after this evening..."

Greta smiled at him sympathetically. She could understand that her friends were all quite overwhelmed by the situation.

After the ball, at which Satan himself had saved her from an unwanted marriage and placed her under his protection, she and her best friend had stormed out of the hall in a hurry. They had set off for his villa in Gluttony in his carriage. In an unusually tense silence. (Despite this, both had been noticeably relieved that the other was well and that they had come out of the incident in one piece).

They had agreed with the rest of their friends via text message to meet at the Goetia prince's home to give Greta the opportunity to explain everything.

Thus, the young Goetia now found herself with all her friends in Vassago's beautiful greenhouse, overflowing with life – it was basically like a small rainforest enclosed in glass. Greta loved this place. They had all met here for tea thousands of times. A small pavilion had been built especially for the meetings. At the table in the middle, each of them had the perfect fitted chair for them.

Which was just one of the reasons why this place had always felt more like home than her parents' house.

Vassago's staff had been enormously confused by their young master's early return, but had nevertheless provided tea and some cookies and fruits at record speed. Vassago and herself had waited quietly afterwards, using the time until the others arrived to calm their nerves at least a little bit.

Which wasn't easy at all. Hundreds of possible scenarios about what would happen to her life now were still playing one after the other in her head. Her parents would certainly try to apologize and suck up to her once they had recovered from the shock. After all, their previously useless daughter had suddenly become much more valuable. She was already stressed and frustrated at the prospect of having to face her parents again.

But although these dark thoughts existed, by far the greater part of her emotional chaos concerned Satan.

Greta felt like a silly chick in the middle of puberty, as heat immediately shot to her face and her feathers fluffed up every time she even briefly thought about how Satan had protected her from the eyes of the nobility tonight. His strong, soooo strong arms and gigantic wings streaked with lava-red glowing patterns, with which he had shielded her from the scorn-filled world. The way he had completely destroyed her parents. The way he had gently asked for her opinion. Had wanted to hear her voice. The hypnotizing fire in his four eyes.

She knew that in the end he had only wanted to make sure that nothing happened to her voice and that he could continue to keep in touch with her without any problems in order to use her as a sedative. He HAD to help her for that. That was the only logical explanation for Greta. She knew that. And it was perfectly fine.

Still, her racing heart didn't seem interested in logic at the moment.

But she would surely get a grip on it again. This...heat was just the natural reaction of a young, – and to her own regret – very helpless woman to being protected by an (objectively speaking!) extremely handsome, powerful man. That would wear off again. Certainly.

Greta had also used the time waiting for her friends to arrive to write Satan a text message thanking him for his help and informing him that she would get back to him as soon as she had spoken to her friends.

Scylla and Cary had joined them next. Greta had been very touched, when the first thing the twins had done was NOT to pepper her with questions, but to give her a tight hug. Despite her best efforts to stifle her tears, Greta had started to cry, which had made Cary completely bawl his eyes out.

Reggie was the last to arrive. As the most socially connected one of them all and the queen of gossip, she had had no choice but to have a few more conversations before she could split off from the other nobles.

But even though everyone was here now, Greta didn't know where to start for the life of her until the words had finally burst out of Vassago and he had almost broken his own hand. Violence was by no means his strong point at all.

With his words, Vassago also seemed to have broken the spell of silence that had been hanging over her friends until then. All of a sudden, everyone was talking at once.

Scylla was upset and wanted to know: "Little star is right, I'm completely out of my mind. You work for SATAN? How? What? Since when? Wait— Are you the reason he was staring at us the whole time at the theater and today? What in Lucifer's hell is going on?"

Cary wagged his tail, grinning excitedly: "I have no idea what's going on either, but it's really cool what Satan did for you today. We were all so relieved. Does that mean those rumors about Satan's new lover... you know— Is that you? Whew, so it wasn't Verosika Mayday after all! Totally awesome. Is Satan that... angry in private too? Terrifying? Did you two—"

As so often, a headbutt from his sister silenced Cary before he could ask any more questions that could have made Greta's feathers explode with embarrassment.

Satan's lover... Greta vigorously banished this absurd delusion from her mind.

Reggie's questions were unfortunately of a similar nature: "I was already thinking about it on the way here. You've seemed busier than usual lately. I didn't think anything of it, but considering the events of tonight... Lord Satan began to be more present on the social stage just a little while later. Do you have anything to do with that? What is the nature of your work for the Deadly Sin? How did you two meet? What... do you think of him, dear?"

Not wanting to shout – for the sake of her friends' ears – Greta started clapping wildly until her friends finally fell silent.

The young Goetia sighed before reaching for her pen and notepad. “I... it's a really complicated story,” she wrote. "I'll do my best to keep it short, but you'll have to wait a moment for me to finish writing everything down. Okay?"

She blinked uncertainly at her friends. But after just a few seconds, they all smiled at her and Vassago placed a hand on her shoulders with confidence. "¡Vale! No problema. [Okay! No problem.] We'll wait as long as it takes, Greta. No hurry."

Greta gratefully put her hand on his for a moment before she started writing. She did her best to summarize everything that had happened since the evening she had encountered Satan in her grandfather's greenhouse without filling up her notebook. She explained the mysterious effect her voice had on Satan's rage and the deal they had made because of it. She described what her duties were – keeping in mind her professional confidentiality agreement – and how she usually communicated with Satan.

It fell to Reggie – as the most level-headed of her friends – to read Greta's story out loud to everyone. When she finished, the young Goetia waited nervously for her friends' reactions.

Then Vassago suddenly threw his arms around her neck.

"¡Increíble! [Unbelievable!] What a story!" he cheered. "It's like I've always told you: Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, you're wonderful just the way you are! Born with a voice that can tame the wrath of WRATH personified. ¡Esto es el destino! ¡Qué romántico! [This is fate! How romantic!]"

Greta's cheeks flushed again and she shook her head. She frantically scribbled a reply on another piece of paper. "This is nothing ‘romantico’. This is all completely professional. We're still talking about SATAN here. The SATAN."

Reggie slowly drank a few sips of tea before continuing after all the reading. “Yes, that's right the SATAN.” The gray heron demoness smiled mischievously. “The great, mighty dragon who almost incinerated a couple of nobles who wanted to marry off his ‘underling’ in front of the hellish high society.”

“That... was... because...” Greta was wondering how to finish the sentence when Scylla interrupted her.

"Oh fuck, by all seven rings, he was jealous! Little star, I was right!" The scaly hound gesticulated wildly with her hands, pointing at Vassago, who still had his arm around her as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "Satan looked at YOU angrily. Because he was jealous of your closeness to Greta!"

The macaw swallowed hard and loosened his grip a little. “Oh no—apparently he's not aware of my preferences.”

Reggie smirked. “Why should he be, dear?”

Cary lowered his head onto the table and groaned. "My head hurts. That was such a long story. So Greta isn't Satan's lover? But he's still jealous? I'm confused."

Greta wrote. "Satan wasn't... isn't jealous. I don't believe that. I get along better with him than I ever dared to hope when I started working for him, but that doesn't mean he or I are somehow romantically involved with each other!"

Her friends looked at her doubtfully. Except for Cary. He continued to pull at his ears, groaning, as if he hoped it would help him think.

Vassago, Scylla and Reggie then exchanged a few meaningful glances, which Greta didn't like at all. Outraged, she glared at all three of them with her angriest look. But this only made them all smile. (If a certain dragon had been present, he would have been completely overwhelmed by the cuteness of her expression. A picture of Greta with that look on her face would one day become his phone home screen).

Vassago soon claimed the right to speak for himself again. "Be that as it may. Regardless of Satan and the nature of your relationship. Greta – mi querida – I want you to move in with me, por favor [please]."

The young Goetia looked at him in shock, but he continued unperturbed. "Your parents have definitely gone too far today. I can no longer bear to let my best friend live in this environment. Especially as, after what happened today, they will surely start trying to exploit your connection to Satan. I will not allow that. No. ¡Definitivamente no [Definitely not]! With the reigning ruler of Hell backing you up, it will finally be possible to do so. Your parents will have to let you go. Por favor, Greta, I'm happy to do it. I want it that way. Let me help you."

Once again, Greta couldn't hold back the tears. The care shown by her best friend was overwhelming. And the fact that he had obviously had the same thoughts about her parents as she had herself touched her deeply.

She wasn't thrilled to once again be the weak, helpless little pigeon that needed to be protected and rescued, but the prospect of finally being able to leave her childhood home behind after all those years of harassment was an offer too tempting to refuse.

Tonight – she could feel – would turn her life upside down for good. But with these friends by her side, she was sure she would get through it. And with Satan on her side.

Smiling, Greta nodded to Vassago. "That would make me incredibly happy. Thank you very much, Vassago. A thousand thanks. You're all the best. I love you all so much!"

--------

A few days later

The ball, at which Satan had lost his temper in front of the assembled nobility and protected Greta from an unwanted engagement, had now been almost a week ago. Most demons in his place would probably have had to deal with a tidal wave of speculation and questions surrounding his supposed relationship with a minor young noblewoman.

Fortunately, the Deadly Sin of Wrath was not “most demons” and a scowl and a few words of warning had been enough to silence the annoying voices. Still, he knew roughly what was being whispered behind his back. Yogirt had given him a little summary of the bubbling rumor mill in the gentlest way possible.

He had become briefly angry. Very angry in fact. Firefighters-needed-to-come-angry. But only briefly.

He had been instantly calmed down when Greta had called and told him that her friends were shielding her from most of the chaos and that his declaration of protection was apparently also having an effect. The young Goetia had probably never before received so many letters inviting her to tea or other social events. And so many regretful statements from people who hadn't treated her with the respect she deserved until now.

How predictable.

But unfortunately...The unknown anger had made his heart clench when Greta had told him that she would be living with Vassago from now on.

Satan had been on the verge of objecting – without knowing exactly on what grounds – when Greta had gushed about the stupid looks on her parents' faces when she had picked up her things with Vassago and his employees. “I... I feel like I can finally breathe properly, even though I didn't even know that my air was being cut off before,” she had expressed happily. "I owe it all to you, Your Majesty. I will never be able to repay this debt. I would have no problem at all if you no longer wanted to pay me. Even without anything in return – My voice belongs to you alone. Forever and ever. That's the least I can do."

The words had stuck in his throat. His tail flicked and his wings twitched. Heat flooded his body. He skillfully ignored certain areas that felt particularly hot.

...belongs to you alone.

If it made her so happy, how and why should he have spoiled that moment for her?

By now, the world had halfway stabilized again. Except from Yogirt, who had started starring at him increasingly insistently, as if his therapist wanted to tell him something really urgently. So far, however, the little demon had not been able to bring himself to say anything. And Satan didn't ask.

The dragon was glad for the peace and quiet. About the fact that hell now knew that Greta was under his protection. About being able to continue his work undisturbed.

However, he feared that his next appointment would shake up this peace.

As if Satan had conjured him up with his mere thoughts, someone knocked on the door with a cheerful rhythm. He put down his pen and leaned back in his desk chair. “Come in.”

Today, the dragon had decided to stay in his villa. On the one hand, to give the people a little more time to calm down after the incident with Greta. On the other hand, because in his opinion, a business meeting between two deadly sins should take place in private, secluded areas if possible.

The door swung open at high speed and a neon-green grin surrounded by a fuzzy, blue mane beamed at him. "Hey there, my biggest brother. Long time no see," Asmodeus hummed in a honeyed voice. “So good to see you!”

Satan raised an eyebrow skeptically and with an otherwise impassive expression as he tried to determine whether his little brother was simply exuberantly cheerful as always or whether he was excessively/out of the norm exuberantly cheerful.

If the latter was the case, Ozzie was not to be trusted.

Satan replied matter-of-factly: "How nice that you seem to be looking forward to your quarterly report for once. You're even coming in person this time."

With the exception of Beelzebub, most of his siblings had long ago switched to sending him their quarterly reports on the latest relevant developments in their respective rings in writing. Only Bee – undeniably the absolut social supernova – reliably made an appointment with him every three months to go through her report with him over coffee and cake – lots of cake. (His niece Charlie called sometimes and also visited him once in a while). His other siblings rarely asked for a face-to-face meeting. Like Asmodeus, for example, whose report happened to be due today. Until two days ago, however, Satan had expected the usual written report.

Ozzie blinked innocently at him along with the two faces in his fluffy mane. "But of course! I just realized that we haven't spoken one on one in ages. I think the last time was before the turn of the millennium. That's just sad. That had to be changed."

Satan pushed his chair back and rose from his seat. "Better think of it as something positive. Because it means I had no reason to demand a direct conversation with you to... sort out problems. Mammon can't claim that."

Ozzie laughed: "Mam will never learn. I can't imagine how he'd behave without your sporadic telling off."

Satan massaged his forehead as a headache began to form at the very idea. “I'd rather not imagine it.” He tucked his wings in tight as he walked past his brother. "Let's go to the lounge. It's more comfortable there."

“At your command!” With an exhilarated stride and heels clicking on the floor, the younger deadly sin followed close behind him.

A few hours later, Satan's mental defenses had lowered somewhat. Ozzie hadn't asked him curious questions yet, even though they'd finished discussing the quarterly report a while ago and had moved on to relaxed chatter instead.

Although they had asked less for it over time, Satan had always had an open ear for his siblings and their problems or simply normal stories. (Unfortunately, a certain other person had increasingly neglected his duties, which was why the dragon, as the eldest, had been forced to take on more responsibility).

No matter how much they sometimes got on his nerves – especially a certain greedy clown – he would still do anything for his family. Even if he had to declare war against heaven. (Another reason why he never neglected his training. There was no such thing as eternal peace. Satan always wanted to be ready for the good of his family and his people).

His cell phone vibrated, distracting him briefly. There were very few people who sent him messages. The one who did it most often was Greta.

And this time, too, it was the young Goetia with a question for their daily phone calls: Your Majesty, how familiar are you with fairy tales?

Satan didn't realize how the corners of his mouth lifted automatically or how his tail began to move slightly.

His visitor, on the other hand, fixed on the reactions like a predator on its prey. Ozzie had been waiting for a moment like this. And his patience had paid off.

Satan apologized to his brother for having to answer briefly. The deadly sin of lust just calmly crossed his legs. "Yeah, sure. Take all the time ya need, big guy."

When the dragon put his cell phone aside again a moment later, he noticed that Ozzie was staring at him very intently with a very wide grin. He sighed.

Damn it. Here we go...

“Anything you want to say to me, Asmodeus?”

The full-name card seemed to hit and unsettled Ozzie's grin, at least momentarily. But eventually the younger one regained his composure, cleared his throat and bent forward, resting his chin on his folded palms. He waggled his eyebrows and then confronted Satan with his own words from days before: "You only need to know one thing: Lady Greta of the Agares line works as one of my direct subordinates. As such, she is under my protection."

The dragon snorted out a cloud of black smoke in frustration. Stoically, he crossed his massive arms in front of his chest and replied: "So, what about it? The statement contains all the necessary information. Lady Greta... assists Yogirt in his work. You know WHAT Yogirt's work is. Therefore, you should also know that more details are confidential."

“Mmmh...Mmmmh...Totally.” Ozzie nodded in agreement. “Buuuuuut...” He blinked innocently, then continued with a lascivious undertone, “How confidential is ‘confidential’?”

Satan's four eyes were set ablaze and he glared at his brother with a merciless death stare.

Ozzie leaned back frantically and waved his hands to placate him. “Okay, okay, okay, let me start a different way.”

“I'd rather not.”

The deadly sin of lust ignored him. "I recently heard a story about an incident at a ball—I couldn't believe it at first. In all eternity, I've NEVER heard anything like it. Oh no. Never!" He snapped his fingers dramatically to emphasize his point and then leaned forward again. Putting on the best puppy dog eyes he was capable of. "My brother... my dear, admirable, big brother, who I look up to, who I respect – really, you are my role model! Would you possibly, perhaps, maybe like to tell me – you know ME! The Deadly Sin of LUST—Would you like to tell me something? Maybe? Pretty please?"

Satan stared at his brother.

His brother stared back.

The dragon's eyes narrowed to slits. “The relationship between Lady Greta and me is not of the nature that you or an unnecessarily large portion of society assumes it to be.”

“Mmmmhh...” Ozzie fixed him with a calculating gaze. Tapped his fingertips together, brooding. The faces in his mane, which until then had mimicked his brother's expression, suddenly began to grin. Satan suspected that this was not a good sign. But the younger deadly sin didn't let on anything as he continued to ask calmly. “So the incident had nothing at all to do with the fact that the idea of Lady Greta marrying someone – someone who isn't YOU – might have bothered you?”

The Deadly Sin of Wrath gritted his teeth. "I only wanted to help my subordinate. This kind of ‘marriage’ was obviously against her wishes."

“Yes, Prince Vassago was obviously of the same opinion—”

The statement caught Satan off guard. Anger flared within him and the next moment he had doubled in size in the midst of a whirl of flames and found himself bent over his brother, snorting out flames.

But instead of Ozzie reacting in fear, he blinked once and then gave him his smuggest smile. “Gotcha!”

Satan became rigid, quickly shrunk back down and sat back down as if nothing had ever happened. Frustrated, he avoided his brother's gaze. “I don't know what you mean.”

What was that all about? Why had he reacted like that? This cursed unknown anger...

“I mean...” His brother paused dramatically with relish. “That you couldn't be more obviously jealous of the little prince and your ‘subordinate's’ relationship.”

Satan frowned in irritation. He tilted his head to one side questioningly. “Je... jealous?”

Ozzie froze for a second and then burst out laughing. "Oh holy Kama Sutra... Poor Yogirt has probably had to self-therapize himself lately to avoid going insane. So in denial... Unbelievable! You really didn't realize that you were jealous? Your first time, big guy?"

Satan wanted to say something back, but he couldn't think of anything for the life of him. His thoughts were racing wildly, completely overwhelmed.

Jealous... was that... that unknown rage? Jealousy...

In his mind's eye, Greta was dancing with Vassago at a ball and smiling.

The dragon ran his claws desperately over his face. His brother, meanwhile, just carried on talking, unmoved and without really realizing how close he had driven his big brother to a mental breakdown. "I can't believe that for the first time in all these millennia, Mammon and you are catching real feelings AT THE SAME TIME. That's just hilarious."

(Author's note: Shout out to a friend's story <3 If they read this, they know ^^)

Satan stammered, “I... no... I didn't—”

Ozzie interrupted him: “Quick test for stubborn people with a lack of emotional intelligence: Could you name one person you'd rather spend time with than Lady Greta?”

The older deadly sin instinctively wanted to answer with something like ‘Any member of our family, of course’. But then he thought of his phone calls with Greta. He heard her laughing in his head. And fell silent.

"Do you sometimes feel strange things when you talk to her or see her? A racing heart? Hot flushes? Uncontrolled movements of... wings or tails?"

The question alone sent heat coursing through his veins and the patterns in his wings glowed.

“And last but not least—” The deadly sin of lust smiled kindly at him, full of fond affection. "Please be honest with yourself, brother. You won't regret it, I promise you: Can you imagine embracing her, holding her, kissing her and finally devouring her whole?"

His wings dropped. The strength left him and he had to rest his arms on his knees as the sudden enlightenment – accompanied by a wild mental movie – threatened to crush him under its sheer force. “I...” Satan gasped, stunned. “...am in love.”

His little brother applauded: “Congratulations, my dear brother!” Excitedly, Ozzie jumped over to him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Now tell me all the tea... I know ya want it!”

With that... the dam in his heart broke, the existence of which Satan hadn't even been aware of until a few minutes ago.

And there was no turning back.

Chapter Text

About two weeks after Greta's life had been turned upside down by the events at that ball and she had left her parents' house behind, she entered the next ball with Vassago by her side. Wearing a dress matching the red feathers of her best friend (and, as Vassago had pointed out, also the scales of a certain dragon).

It was the birthday of Reggie's mother. And unlike most of the other invitations she had received lately, since Satan had declared her his subordinate, Greta could be sure that she would have been invited even without all these incidents. Reggie's mother loved Greta. She had taught Greta how to knit. Something Reggie had never been interested in.

In addition, Greta didn't have to worry about running into any of her family members at the party. Except for Greta, everyone from the Agares line was officially banned from entering Reggie's family's territory. And not just for Greta's sake. Greta's and Reggie's families were both from Wrath and hadn't been on good terms for millennia.

Even Greta's friendship with Reggie was the result of initially hostile intentions. Reggie—cunning as she was—had heard about the existence of the “ugly duckling” in the Agares family and originally approached Greta only to win her over as a kind of spy. But then the gray heron demoness realized that Greta was far too kind and nice to be exploited in this way. Reggie told Greta the truth and apologized. Greta forgave her, of course, and so they became friends.

However, Reggie's dislike of her family only grew after she learned in more detail how Greta was being treated.

But neither Reggie nor any of the others in their friend group could ever have imagined that Greta would become one of the most sought-after members of high society overnight – which also had positive consequences for the reputation of her friends.

Greta almost died of shame when Reggie told her that never before had so many guests responded to an invitation from her family as they had to this birthday party. Apparently, this was because word had leaked out that Greta was coming. This led to speculation that Satan would also be appearing and that the drama of the last ball would continue. (Reggie had not told Greta and the others that Satan had indeed responded positively to their invitation, just for fun.)

However, Greta had no way of knowing this. On the contrary, the young Goetia was relatively certain that Satan had been far too busy over the last few days to attend a birthday party today. He had even canceled a few of their phone calls, something he had never done before. Greta feared that she might be to blame. Had the consequences of his intervention in her parents' engagement efforts become too much of a burden for him?

In truth, Satan was simply utterly at a loss as to how to continue talking to Greta on the phone as if everything were normal. At this point, he only had to think of Greta's name and his dragon tail began to wag back and forth as if he were the biggest, scaliest dog ever. He wanted her around him all the time. He wanted to talk to her more. In person, not on the phone. Hold her hand. Admire the colorful pattern on her feathers that appeared when the light hit it at the right angle. Feel her plumage between his claws.

Satan wanted to do so many things. The thoughts kept him awake at night...

Ozzie was right: Satan had to talk to her in person as soon as possible. Tell her how he felt.

So when Greta informed the dragon about her presence at her friend's mother's birthday party, the deadly sin of wrath decided to seize the opportunity. He was the de facto ruler of hell. There was no way he of all people could run away from confessing his love to his beloved.

Even if she did not reciprocate his feelings now, he was determined to win her heart.

Satan was currently the strongest while also the most mentally stable demon in hell (what good was the title of officially strongest demon if you locked yourself away all day to make rubber ducks?). How hard could it be to sincerely woo a woman?

... Is this what fear feels like?...

While Satan was still on his way to the party, Greta and Vassago presented Reggie's mother with their gifts and were immediately engaged in a long conversation by the talkative woman about everything that had happened to them in recent weeks.

When they finally escaped the hostess, Greta looked around for the rest of her friends. She spotted Reggie with Chary at one of the bar tables. Greta briefly wondered where Scylla was and why Chary was being babysat by Reggie, when Vassago nudged her in the side: “¡Mira! [Look!]”

Greta followed the direction he indicated and quickly covered her beak with her hand before she could let out a surprised sound. Scylla danced with a noble eagle demon from Lust, whom the whole group knew the dog demon had a crush on. Even Chary teased his sister about it.

“¡Uhhhh, bailemos también! [Let’s dance too!]” Vassago began pushing her toward the dance floor. “Maybe we’ll pick up some interesting snippets of conversation.”

Greta rolled her eyes in amusement, but let herself be pulled along without protest. Until Vassago suddenly stopped dead in his tracks and she bumped into him. She looked up at him questioningly. Her best friend was staring at the entrance with eyes wide with panic. And he wasn't the only one. Even most of the dancers had stopped to gawk at the newest guest: Satan.

As was usually the case at such parties, he wore a dark shirt with torn sleeves and a loosely tied tie to at least give the appearance of adhering to the dress code of high society, even though, as a deadly sin, he could have worn whatever he wanted.

The only place where every demon really adhered to a dress code was Satan's court. And even there, Satan was the one wearing the most casual outfit.

Greta quickly realized how hundreds of pairs of eyes were suddenly focused on her, then back on Satan, and back and forth again. In an embarrassed attempt to escape, she grabbed Vassago's jacket, clung to it, and hid behind him. Satan had already fixed his piercing gaze on the macaw, which was why he had stopped so abruptly, but now his eyes blazed with additional heat and anger.

Vassago saw his life flash before his eyes. Scylla's quiet, malicious laughter echoed from the dance floor. Reggie also sipped her drink with an amused grin. Only Chary once again had no idea what was going on and why everyone was suddenly so quiet. Normally, everyone present would bow once when a deadly sin entered a room, and that would be that.

Everyone knew that Satan would probably show up here because of Greta, so why was everyone so surprised? Or was he, Chary, the only one who had been smart enough to expect this? It seemed that way. His chest swelled with pride.

The macaw reacted fast and very maturely: he hastily switched positions with Greta and now crouched behind her, out of Satan's field of vision. But that didn't solve the problem. Vassago feverishly searched for a solution. After all, he couldn't just run up to the deadly sin of wrath and say to his face: Tranquilo, mi amigo. [Relax, my friend.] No reason to be jealous. I'm only into men.

Although, if Vassago had been sure that Satan felt the same way about Greta as she did about the dragon – as far as the macaw could guess as her best friend – he might have dared to do so. Maybe...

But as the situation stood, he wasn't entirely sure. He only knew that Greta was definitely an important subordinate of Satan... The two of them would surely want to talk...

As long as he wasn't too direct, but still direct enough...

And maybe that would be the push the two of them needed!

Vassago shook his head vigorously to shake off his fear. Then he adjusted his golden sunglasses, put on his brightest smile, grabbed Greta's hand, and rushed forward. Or so he described it in his mind. They were just walking a little faster than normal.

This time, Greta tried a few times to pull away from his grip. The feathers on her neck were fluffed up with excitement, embarrassment, and panic. What if she was right and Satan was annoyed with her because of all the rumors among the nobles? Too many eyes were on her. She found it difficult to breathe.

“¡Su Majestad, saludos! [Your Majesty, welcome!]” Vassago arrived with Greta in front of Satan, who was just offering his obligatory greetings and congratulations to Reggie’s mother as the hostess and birthday girl. The demoness looked at Vassago gratefully, as the deadly sin’s displeasure was clearly visible.

Greta's gaze was uncertainly directed at the floor, which Satan commented on with a frustrated snort. His wings twitched at the sight of Greta clinging to Vassago's hand. Had the two even coordinated their outfits? And why did she seem so frightened? She hadn't behaved so uncertainly around him in a long time.

“Good evening,” Satan finally replied after an uncomfortably long pause following Vassago's greeting.

However, Vassago remained undeterred. “Su Majestad, I wanted to thank you again personally for your recent help. You saved Greta from a TRUE hell. ¡Gracias!” The macaw bowed theatrically, which only made Greta even more embarrassed. “As a token of my gratitude, it would be my great honor to invite you to tea sometime soon. As you know, Greta now lives on my estate. She would certainly be delighted, ¿verdad? [right?]”

Greta's eyes widened in surprise and she fled behind Vassago's back again, but nodded hesitantly. But the damage was done.

Satan's tail smacked against the tiles of the floor. Is this demon insane? Is he deliberately trying to provoke ME?!

Behind his shoulder, he heard a familiar clearing of the throat: “Satan, sir,” Yogirt chirped with a forced smile. He had come along this time, out of concern for what might happen if Greta rejected Satan’s feelings. For yes, Satan had not revealed his plan to him, but Yogirt knew the dragon well enough to guess what he was up to. “That sounds like a very polite, normal invitation, don’t you think?”

Satan snorted, but nodded slowly. He understood. Stay calm. In his anger, he had probably misinterpreted the Goetia Prince’s words. “I’ll consider it.”

After hearing Yogirt's voice, Greta slowly looked up. She even smiled almost cheerfully at the psychiatrist.

WHY HADN'T SHE SMILED AT HIM LIKE THAT WHEN HE CAME IN?

Vassago and Yogirt were screaming inside as they performed this tightrope act, trying not to let Satan's jealousy get out of hand despite Greta's more than unhelpful reactions.

Vassago clapped his hands and smiled. “¡Maravilloso! [Wonderful!] But now... I assume you want to take the opportunity to exchange a few words with Greta in private—” Due to a sudden flash of inspiration, he turned his head, looked at the dance floor, and then back ahead again. He grinned, then grabbed Greta by the shoulders and pushed her forward until she was only a few steps away from Satan. “Or maybe mi querida amiga would like to dance with someone other than me for a change?” Greta looked at him in panic, but he ignored her. “I'm sure I can find another partner. A handsome—” Vassago fixed the four burning eyes of the oh so mighty demon, took a deep breath, and emphasized extra strongly, “MAN who piques my interest.”

The fire in Satan's eyes went out almost instantly. His wings folded back together. Huh?

At that moment, Yogirt would have liked to bang his head against a wall.

“Oh, or...” Vassago extended his hand to Reggie's mother, who was still standing there looking a little lost. “Mi señora, would you like to go and have a drink with me? And you...” He looked at Yogirt kindly. “...would you like to join us, señor?”

Reggie's mother immediately seized the lifeline. And after a moment's hesitation, Yogirt also accompanied the two nobles. “As long as we stay within sight...” he said.

And so Greta was left alone with the dragon, feeling overwhelmed. Although he was usually surrounded by nobles, today everyone kept their distance for some reason. Most of them were trying to act as if everything was normal, but everyone in the room was obviously watching the interaction between the deadly sin and the young Goetia out of the corner of their eyes.

What did all these people expect to happen? Greta didn't understand the commotion. She was little more than a sedative that Satan could talk to. Fortunately, they got along quite well, but she was nothing special. Everyone had completely the wrong idea, and that was probably why she had now become a burden to the dragon...

Greta realized that, amidst all the turmoil of her emotions, she had not yet greeted Satan. With her voice... she might be able to improve his mood a little... even though she was in public.

She began to bow slightly and whispered uncertainly, “Good evening, Your Majesty.”

Greta noticed that a few people nearby had heard her anyway and flinched at the sound of her voice. Saddened, she lowered her gaze to the floor again.

Satan had been torn from his thoughts by Greta's honey-sweet voice. From the whirlwind of questions that Vassago's statements had raised. Had he interpreted the prince's statement correctly? Had he misinterpreted the relationship between the two the whole time?

As he turned his full attention back to her, he didn't like the sad expression on her face at all. Satan wanted her to finally smile at him!

Vassago's suggestion flashed through his mind.

Yes, as long as it is Greta, I can imagine that...

Suddenly, flames shot up around Satan. Startled, Greta took a step back. But the flames quickly died down, revealing a slightly shrunken Satan. He was still the tallest in the room—maybe except for those with extremely long necks. But now he was small enough that she could have danced with him—

Satan crossed one arm behind his back. He held his other hand out invitingly toward her. He even bowed slightly. “Your friend made a good suggestion. Would you do me the honor of a dance?”

Greta blinked incredulously at his outstretched hand. She was pretty sure Satan had never danced in public with anyone except one of his sisters or Princess Charlie.

That means... he isn’t mad at me after all, right? He wants to dance? With me?

Someone other than Vassago or Chary wants to dance with me!

Greta was so lost in thought that she didn't even notice how the whole room seemed to hold its breath at this unprecedented sight.

Slowly, uncertainly, as if in a dream, Greta raised her hand and placed it in Satan's claws. It was the first time they touched. As expected... he was hot. As if she was warming her cold hands on a warm cup of tea with just the right temperature. Her heart beat faster. Embarrassed, she tilted her head back. A faint smile pulled the corners of her mouth upward.

Satan struggled to resist the urge to grab her, jump out of the window with her, and fly her back to his home to lock her away somewhere like a precious treasure. It was an instinct he had been unaware of until that moment.

Her hands were tiny and soft. And although his body temperature usually made him feel that everything and everyone he touched was cool or cold... her hand was warm.

It wasn't just her voice that was special to him. It was as if Greta herself had been born just for him.

Satan gently led Greta onto the dance floor. Meanwhile, Vassago and Yogirt became allies and together persuaded the musicians to wake up from their stupor and continue playing.

It was the most romantic and slowest dance Greta had ever danced. Neither Vassago nor Chary were big fans of “slow” and “in rhythm.” It was almost weird for Greta to dance the way she had originally been taught. What's more, it was soooo easy with Satan as her partner. You couldn't tell that he hardly ever danced. He was the most perfect, gallant dance partner anyone could wish for. And so strong. Even if she hadn't been able to dance, he led her through the music so effortlessly, as if she were floating.

For the most part, they remained silent while Greta's smile grew more confident and broader, causing the corners of Satan's mouth to lift slightly. The dragon asked only one strange question during their dance: Why had Vassago, of all people, offered her the chance to move in with him? How did she feel about the Goetia prince?

Greta stood on tiptoe and whispered to him, “Vassago is my best friend. He is the only one I would wholeheartedly call my brother. Much more so than my ‘real’ brothers.”

After that, Satan fell silent. But Greta had the feeling that he was now leading her across the dance floor a little faster and more energetically.

When the dance finally ended and Greta bowed gratefully and respectfully to the deadly sin of wrath, he held out his hand to her again: “Do you know of a place here where we can take a peaceful walk?”

Greta suspected that, as usual at such events, he wanted to distance himself briefly from the other guests in order to calm his temper. Given how much he was being stared at today, he must feel very tense inside. So the young Goetia just nodded. He led her hand in hand off the dance floor, as courtesy dictated. As pleasantly warm as his hand was, she didn't want to cause him any more trouble and pulled her hand back. Satan clenched his fist in frustration, trying not to reveal his feelings. Greta walked ahead of him out of the hall, feeling the eyes of probably everyone present burning into the back of her neck.

She could use a little peace and quiet herself.

Before Satan took his last step out of the hall, he cast one last, angry, fiery glance into the room and snorted flames.

The message was unmistakable: Stop gawking!

A short time later, the pigeon was walking relaxed with the dragon through Reggie's family's greenhouse. Because, of course, they also had a greenhouse. It was the perfect status symbol for nobles. However, Greta preferred Vassago's greenhouse. She knew of no place more colorful and lively.

It was Satan who finally broke the silence with a quiet clearing of his throat: “This... reminds me of our first meeting. In Agares' greenhouse.”

Greta had already had the same thought. She had just thought that bringing it up would be unnecessarily sentimental for Satan. The fact that he now brought it up made her smile: “Absolutely! It wasn't that long ago... but it feels like centuries. So much has changed in my life since then. I am so much happier now than I ever was before. I owe it all to you, Your Majesty.” She gave a slight curtsy. “Once again, thank you for everything. Especially for your recent intervention at the ball.”

Satan's cheeks felt unusually hot, and he instinctively looked ahead away from her to calm himself: "I appreciate your gratitude. However, my life has also changed for the better since we met. That a day would come when I would find a way to control my anger—for that, you deserve my sincere appreciation. Preventing your family from using you like a pawn was the least I could do in return. As I expected, our deal has paid off for both of us."

Greta walked on a little more proudly. “I am glad to be of service to you.” She hesitated, then overcame her previous uncertainties. “To be honest... I was a little afraid earlier that you might be angry about the recent incident and the trouble it caused you. I’m glad I was apparently wrong about that.”

“And I'm glad I was there to intervene—as I mentioned when we first met, even though the consequences of revealing our connection are certainly not ideal, it's nothing I can't handle.” He exhaled a cloud of dark smoke and his eyes flashed briefly. "What would have really pissed me off would have been not being able to prevent your engagement and condemning you to a life with that old count. To a certain extent, it's a shame that our aristocratic society lags behind most of the normal Hellborn, and even many humans on Earth, when it comes to political marriages and the like. Forced marriages for various reasons also exist elsewhere, but they are particularly common among high-ranking demons. However, it is extremely difficult to solve this problem. There is a dire need to preserve noble demon blood and keep it as ‘pure’ as possible so that it does not lose its power over time. If a battle with Heaven were to occur at some point, the consequences could otherwise be fatal."

Greta was deeply impressed, as she always was when Satan shared such thoughts with her in their discussions. “You truly care deeply about the inhabitants of Hell. As a loyal subject, I am honored to learn your honest views on such issues.”

“Yes, I worry a lot...” He sighed. His tail began to drag slightly across the floor. “My siblings think I might be thinking too much about others at times. They say I should think more about myself and not always work for the good of everyone else. When they’re feeling particularly brave, they like to remind me how sad it is that my only real friend is my therapist.”

Greta ignored the slight twinge in her heart. Of course Satan didn't count her as a friend. It would have been presumptuous of her to hope for that.

“It's not exactly ideal, but... I can understand it,” she continued the discussion objectively instead. “I know all too well how superficial our aristocratic society can be. Just how many people are suddenly seeking contact with me now that I am known to be one of your direct subordinates is unbelievable. In such circles—in which you, for the most part, find yourself—it is difficult to find trustworthy friends who are friends with you for your sake, not for the sake of your title. Also for you it is particularly difficult. After all, you are everyone’s ruler. For most Hellborn even the one to be worshipped and prayed to."

“It's...” Satan paused for a moment. It was unusual for him to speak so openly with anyone, even if it was Greta. Even with Yogirt, he was rarely so honest with himself, much to the therapist's frustration. “It's lonely. However... I suppressed that feeling for a long time. Recently, though... I've become extremely aware of it again, and now... I'm finding it increasingly difficult not to feel lonely.”

Her beak snapped open in surprise, and it took a moment for her to regain enough composure to close it. That the reigning ruler of Hell would pour out his heart to her like this went beyond anything in her contract with him. Moreover, it was incredible how he had just revealed such weakness to her and yet still radiated unyielding power. What a man!

Her heart pounded faster and faster and Greta hurriedly ran a little quicker, then turned around while walking backwards and looked back at Satan. Instead of just looking at him from the side, she could now stand directly opposite him. If he was speaking so openly with her, the least she could do was listen attentively and hopefully be able to help him: “If I may ask... How did you become aware of your loneliness again?”

Satan stopped abruptly. She followed suit. Had her question gone too far? Or was he just thinking?

Satan's wings twitched, his tail lashed out. Back and forth. He nervously massaged his neck. Why... was SATAN nervous? Her thoughts fell silent when his four eyes suddenly bored into her, burning red.

Greta hadn't expected any specific answer. But she certainly hadn't expected his next words.

“I realized it,” his velvety, deep voice rumbled as he stepped in front of her. “When the silence became too loud to bear after every time I had to end our phone calls.”

(Years later, Ozzie would hear about this line and praise Satan for what a smooth romantic he was secretly.)

Greta's eyes widened to their maximum. She stood there like a deer in the headlights. She couldn't believe her ears. He couldn't possibly mean what it seemed he meant. That would be absurd. Completely ridiculous. What could she say in response that wouldn't reveal the ludicrous hopes she was harboring? “Oh... um...” she stammered desperately. “It... certainly wasn't my intention to make you feel lonely.”

A dark laugh rolled out of Satan's throat. The sight of how his words obviously embarrassed Greta, and how she nevertheless tried to maintain her composure, was too cute. “No, I'm glad about it,” he continued. Now that he had come this far, after having taken the first step, it was easier for him to complete the rest of the way. Greta's reactions also gave him hope that his words were having the intended effect on her. However, she didn't seem to fully realize what he was getting at. He would have to be more direct. “Not about the loneliness itself, of course. I’m glad about the reason why I feel it again. I’m glad about these new feelings that I’ve never known before and that urge me, for the first time in millennia, to be selfish and want to do something entirely for my own happiness.”

Greta clasped her trembling hands together and pressed them to her chest. Her gaze fell to the floor once more. She was so terribly confused. Each of his words pointed more and more in one direction. But she just couldn't accept, for the life of her, that she might be right. “I'm terribly sorry, but I don't think I understand—”

A large claw gently cupped her chin and lifted it upward, forcing her to look into two pairs of fiery eyes. But they were not flames of anger. It was the flickering of a warm fireplace that enveloped her in a feeling of security. “To put it bluntly,” Satan's voice dripped unusually soft and sweet from his mouth. "I have fallen in love with you, Greta. With you, who has gifted me complete mental peace for the first time of my life. Talking to you makes me happy. And with each passing day, the desire to make you just as happy grows within me. When I am near you, my loneliness is forgotten. I have never felt this way before. Not once in all the millennia. I was born the embodiment of wrath and hatred. It never occurred to me that I, of all people, could meet someone I wanted to love and live with. The mere fact that you make me reveal all this to you—I doubt I have ever voluntarily shared so much about myself with anyone before. But you are the exception. My very special treasure, whom I never want to give up again. This time I ask you: If I may ask, how... do you feel about me?

It was impossible to misunderstand these words. Satan, deadly sin of wrath, reigning ruler of Hell, actually felt... love for her.

This mighty dragon was in love with her. With her. The insignificant, ugly little pigeon-goose with the grotesque voice. With her, who had always been nothing but a burden to her family. Whom everyone—except her friends—had always told that she lacked any charm whatsoever. She, who seemed condemned by the world itself to eternal silence and hiding.

At least... that's what she had always believed.

Tears dripped down into her feathers, causing Satan to react with panicked, wide eyes. But before he could act somehow, Greta responded to his confession: "Honestly... everything you just said feels like a dream. An illusion. All my life, my family insisted that I was unlovable, that I was just a burden because of my appearance and my repulsive voice. And now..." Her voice trembled and broke. Again and again, but she continued. "And now... it's supposed to be this very voice that made one of the most powerful demons in hell... like me? If I hadn't met Vassago as a child, I would still be convinced that I don't even deserve friends. Let alone the right to fall in love! Because falling in love would mean... burdening someone else with me. Me... the eternal burden. Even though my friends constantly tell me that this is all nonsense and that I should ignore the words of my family and superficial nobles... It's hard to remain rational and discard this way of thinking that has been burned into me."

Her arms wrapped around herself as if she needed to hold herself together. Nevertheless, the corners of her mouth now turned up slightly. "It made me more confident that SATAN, of all people, saw value in me. That suddenly there was someone who wanted to HEAR what I had to say. Even if it was just the soothing effect of the voice, not the words meaning that was important. That was more luck than I had ever allowed myself to hope for. I ignored any further warm feelings that developed during our conversations. No, I suppressed them. I had already been so lucky. To wish for more than that... How could I, of all people, be allowed to be so greedy? But if you mean all this seriously... then...“ She looked at him pleadingly, crying. Instinctively, she reached out her hand, but didn't dare to extend it fully. “Then I can allow myself to have these feelings, can't I? I can allow myself to admit that I've fallen in love with you too, and I can allow myself to wish to be something special to you and to be with you, can't I?”

If Satan hadn't already been in love, he would have fallen hopelessly for Greta now. Everything about her cried out, demanded that he protect her with all his might, shower her with happiness and love. This desire boiled within him like a newborn instinct that he couldn't deny. Didn't want to deny.

Very slowly, as if his trembling, crying pigeon would otherwise spread her wings and fly away at any moment, the dragon bent down. He stretched out his arms toward her and wrapped them around her. With ease, Satan lifted Greta up so that she sat on one of his massive arms. This way, they were at eye level instead of him towering over her by almost three heads. He lovingly tilted his head and nudged his snout against her beak. “You are allowed all that and so much more, my treasure.”

Whatever she had wanted to say, Satan silenced her next words with a kiss. Unable to hold back his feelings for even a second longer. But he was gentle and tender. The complete opposite of what the world knew and expected of him. At the same time, however, he was also strong and dominant. Captivating. The veins on his skin glowed like lava, heating up. Like a tidal wave, this heat flowed through Greta, sweeping away her fears and insecurities for this moment. She felt safe and warm. She felt lovable and desired. She had no idea what to do, but completely immersed in the moment, it was easy for her to just follow the powerful dragon's lead, who clearly knew exactly what he was doing.

...

When they returned to the ball hand in hand quite a while later, absolute chaos broke out. The last few weeks had been nothing compared to what was to come. All of hell talked of nothing else but the fact that the deadly sin of wrath, the judge of hell, had chosen a partner. A few months later, Greta moved again. And she was to remain in her new home for the rest of her life.

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Once again, I've been blessed with some incredibly amazing fan art <3

Thank you so much! @CrypticAttire

https://archiveofourown.org/works/69186376/chapters/179327961