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Vaggie stirred. Her eyes fell on the bookshelves that filled the room. She read the spines of a few. Critique of Practical Reason by Immanuel Kant. The Republic by Plato. Principia Ethica by G.E. Moore. She turned away. She wondered if all the houses of hell were full of books or only Charlie’s. She had never bothered to look and see before. She could hear the shuffling of shoe’d hooves elsewhere in the house and knew it meant Charlie was on her way again, bringing some new strangeness. Vaggie shifted her back against the pillows she lay against until the still aching stumps of her wings fell across them in a way she could just about tolerate. She tried to smile. She took a deep breath. As she’d expected, the door to the little room flung open with a clatter and in came Charlie, carrying a tray in her long-fingered hands. She was odd looking. Of course, it wasn’t nice to say that to someone’s face, but Vaggie couldn’t exactly help but think it, could she? Her face was nice, almost beautiful, but it had an unmistakable goatishess to it, it hung around her like the stink of an aged cheese, underneath the doll-like exeterior, something in the nose or the subtle shape of the pupils in those big eyes maybe? Maybe something in the odd, tight way she held her jaw when she smiled? Her body was long and thin, hidden in the folds of her garments, the overlarge red suits and occasional gowns… she would be hard pressed to say which way her joints bent, especially, now that she thought about it, the legs...
“Ah you’re awake? I brought you something to eat!” Charlie said. She pulled up a chair with only a slight screech of the chair leg against the floor, holding forth the tray. On it was a plate with slices of over-rare meat and a glass of… wine? It certainly smelled like wine.
“Oh. Thank you.” Vaggie said. She reached hesitantly and picked up a slice of the meat, letting a little blood drip off. In heaven, they had eaten manna and various concoctions of sugar. Nothing like this. She brought it to her mouth and nearly choked on the iron, heavy taste of it. Her mind lurched with the recognition of the taste as that same blood that flowed from her own busted lip after a blow to the face. She chewed and swallowed and smiled at Charlie’s eager, expectant face, who smiled right back in return.
“How was it?”
“Good.” Vaggie said. Charlie smiled.
“Do you need, um, your bandages changed?” she said delicately, her eagerness hardly hidden but at least dampened. Vaggie backed into her pillows.
“Uh, sure.” she said. She didn’t understand why Charlie always insisted on doing it, but she could hardly deny her. She was afraid of the woman. She was tall and beautiful, in that false, goatish way, and… well… she folded her hands in her lap and closed her eye.
“I’m just going to…” Charlie said as she unwound the bandages from around her face, slowly lifting the ichor-stained cloth. Vaggie shivered at the painful, cold sensation of the air meeting the empty recess of her eye. Charlie wound the new bandage around, tightening it here and there until it was finally secure, and then, as if to tuck it in but in a way that could only be deliberate, she let the tip of her nail brush just a little up against the wet, bleeding edge of the wound, nicking the exposed wound, and Vaggie recoiled with a hiss. “Oh! I’m so sorry! I’m… I…” Charlie sputtered. Her face was red with some kind of flush arousal or excitment. Vaggie stared at her.
“Can I ask you a question?” Vaggie said. Charlie’s smile faltered.
“Um, I don’t know, can I ask you a question?” Charlie said.
“...Sure.” Vaggie said.
“What is it like on Earth?” Charlie said. She was smiling, but it was a little off-putting.
“Its, um, bright. Brighter than this. There’s a sun…” she said.
“No, what are the people like?” Charlie said.
“Well, I mean, some good, some bad. Most people are selfish I guess, but they mostly mean well… they do what they need to do get by....” she said. She didn’t know what she was saying. She had never been to earth, of course. Was she describing herself? Justifying herself? Maybe?
“And what about the…” Charlie began.
“Can I ask my question?” Vaggie interrupted.
“...of course.” Charlie conceded. She folded her hands and put them in her lap.
“Do you enjoy hurting people?” she said. Charlie’s face went white, the blush dripping off it.
“What?” she said.
“I mean… I can tell you’re trying to act nice and I really appreciate it, really I mean, don’t get me wrong, but I get the sense you just, um, well you enjoy it. Like all the hellborn and demons do.” Vaggie said, her eye falling away from Charlie’s gaze.
“Well…” Charlie said. “Yes, I suppose… um… I shouldn’t lie?” she said, squirming in her seat, her knees pressed together. “I don’t want to like it, but... you know?” she said. “I mean, people on earth like drugs and sex and all those sinful things like that, don’t they? So I suppose I’m just the same as them, hahaha, right? I’m a rational creature though, I’m not a slave to my instincts, its just… its tempting. I’m sorry, I just… sometimes I slip up.” she said. She was smiling, her teeth bared, trembling a little.
“Why?” Vaggie said.
“I don’t know… why do people like music? Its just… I don’t know. Everyone born down here is like that. My father isn’t, but he’s almost an angel. He doesn’t really get it.” Charlie said. “I just hope, I mean I think… have you ever read any Kant?” She looked up at the shelf were all the books were kept with some kind of reverence.
“No.” Vaggie said.
“Well, Kant said that the essence of good action is that its done just because its good. For no other reason, not because it makes you feel warm and fuzzy, not out of love or compassion, just because its the right thing to do. After all, if you only do good things because they make you feel warm and fuzzy, what if you woke up tomorrow and found kicking puppies gave you that feeling? And if you only act out of love, what if your lover asked you to rob a bank? Right? Hahaha…” she trailed off. “But I don't want to be like that... I can act against my nature, no matter what I wake up tomorrow wanting to do, no matter what makes me feel warm and fuzzy, no matter what makes me feel good, I’ll do what’s right. That’s all there is to it, right? Or… I’ll have to try.” she finished. She looked like she was trying to make herself smaller, scrunch up in her chair, ashamed to exist. Vaggie felt sick. She could smell the rot in that red suit, the wrongness of her whole corporeal form, something carnivorous and predatory in her that did not strike out only because it was too busy chewing endlessly on itself. She would have preferred the snarling wolf. She wanted to recoil, the muscles in her back flexing at the wings she didn’t have, her hand grasping for the spear she didn’t have, one more demon, one more sinner to run through… she realized that she was used to it, used to grabbing for it and thrusting it through flesh and she reached up to her mouth with her other hand, suddenly nauseous. The bile rose up to her and she nearly gagged, all those thousands, she had never counted... suddenly so close, maybe like Charlie, maybe, maybe not, who was to say, they were unrecoverable now, all done and gone. She knew her own justifications, her own stories about motives and reasons and unavoidable necessity. But it felt pale now. All the internal theater of her nature shattered before its wordly manifestation. Charlie looked away. There was no sound or movement in the room for a moment.
“Its OK. Its alright. I’m not mad.” Vaggie said, reassuring herself as much as Charlie. With her little strength, she leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. She couldn’t justify the gesture to herself, no reason sprung to mind, not even some inkling of a shadowy, sticky motive, but it felt right, chaste and old fashioned and simple. Charlie’s goatish eyes somehow shimmered in the dull, lightless room. “I’ll just change my own bandages from now on.” Charlie’s face fell. She could tell that some distance had been made, some lacuna opened.
“Right.” Charlie said. “I’ll… um, I’ll leave you to eat in peace. I wouldn’t want to be too much of a bother. Do you… need anything else?” she said. Vaggie thought of all the things she needed.
“No. I’m fine.” Vaggie said.