Flies Remember

Arista requested the audience formally and respectfully, though her hands were more unsteady on the walk toward Beelzebub's throne room than they'd been for any of the others that difficult week.

He greeted her the moment she entered, warm and immediate. "Strawberry! To what do I owe the—"

He stopped, studying her face, his own easy warmth faltering slightly.

"...Something is wrong."

"...I need to tell you something," Arista said, voice already unsteady despite every rehearsal she'd given herself. "I'm leaving. In a few months. I wanted you to—"

"Stop it."

Beelzebub's voice came out in a register Arista had never heard from him before.

"You are chaotic. Tunnel-visioned. Sometimes oblivious to the obvious. But you were never a liar, Strawberry."

He adjusted his coat and pulled a chair back from his desk, his voice regaining the warmth she was used to.

"Sit. Please. Tell me what's really going on."

She sat, and told him the truth, that the world itself was ending in a few months, this place, everyone in it, replaced by something new she'd have no say in. He listened without interrupting, his usual theatrical composure draining away as the weight of it settled in.

"...So that's what they were talking about," he said, almost to himself.

"...Who?"

"The players. I heard them talking about a new world. They didn't mention it would cost us this one."

"...So this world is ending," he said finally, quiet, none of his usual dramatic flourish remaining. "In a couple of months."

"...Yes," Arista confirmed, throat tight.

Beelzebub signaled the guard stationed at the door without looking away from her. "Everything you heard here is highly confidential. If any of this leaks to the Demon Realm, I will hold you solely responsible. We do not need mass hysteria."

The guard nodded. "Yes, my Lord." He returned to his station, his face showing no emotion at all.

"I do not understand," Beelzebub said, something raw and unguarded breaking through. "Together we have made Hell the center of everything. Every realm can finally interact freely, without barriers between them. We have sat in this room over tea, making new plans. I believed I mattered enough to hear the truth the moment you found out."

"You do matter," Arista said, tears finally breaking free. "You matter enormously. That's exactly why I couldn't."

Beelzebub's shoulders slumped as he sat back in his chair, nails carving small lines into the tabletop. "Our people have never been happier. Then why must this happen?" For the first time since the game's beginning, Beelzebub, Lord of the Seven Hells, ancient and theatrical and endlessly composed, sounded helplessly lost.

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"I don't know," Arista admitted. "I have no say in it. I'm not even certain the ones making the decision fully understand what they're ending."

Silence swallowed the throne room whole.

"I heard the players mention the new world over a week ago," he said, his voice wavering. "Why didn't you come to me with this sooner?"

"I didn't know how," Arista admitted. "I still don't. I've spent a week trying to find gentle words for something that doesn't have any."

"Will it hurt?" Beelzebub asked, after a while. "When it happens. Will any of us feel it?"

"I don't know," Arista admitted. "I genuinely don't know."

"Will there be warning? A moment to prepare, at least?"

"I can warn you when the last week begins," Arista said. "Beyond that, I don't know what the final moment will be like."

"...Yes," he said quietly. "Please."

He was quiet for a long moment afterward. "I fought the Celestials in the Heavenly Demon War. Even after the barriers isolated us from the rest of the world, I have always had an answer. I find I do not care for not having one now."

"...Who ends this world?" he asked finally.

"The devs," Arista said, too tired to choose her words carefully.

"...Are they gods?"

"In here? They pretty much are."

Beelzebub let out a deep sigh. "There is no point in fighting a god."

"I'm sorry," Arista said again, because it was the only thing she had left to offer.

"Stop apologizing," he said, though without any real force behind it. "It does not help. It simply makes me feel as though I should comfort you, when I am the one currently falling apart."

“I don't want to hurt you, Beelz. Do you want me to stop answering your questions?”

"No," he admitted. "Strangely, I don't."

By the time she rose to leave, both of them were exhausted, the conversation having taken everything either of them had to give.

"...I'll come back," Arista said, the same promise she'd given everyone. "Before the end."

"...Please do," Beelzebub said, quiet.

She turned toward the door, hand finally reaching the handle, and stopped.

She turned back, crossed the room fast, and threw her arms around him before either of them could think better of it.

Beelzebub went utterly still, a Lord of Hell, ancient beyond ordinary reckoning, who had never once actually been embraced by anyone at all.

Then, carefully, as though learning an unfamiliar motion, he raised one arm and rested it gently across her shoulders.

"...I'm sorry," Arista said, muffled, face pressed against his shoulder. "For all of it. For not telling you sooner. For not being truthful with you from the start."

"...Do not apologize," he said, voice unsteady, quiet in a way she'd never heard from him before. "Not for this."

"...Oh. Right. Sorry."

They stood like that a long moment, before Beelzebub, gently, pulled back. He crossed to a glass display case along the far wall, unlatched it, and lifted something out with careful hands.

"...I want you to have this," he said, pressing it into her hands.

Arista stared down at it, and felt fresh tears break free immediately.

His limited edition Baby Beelz plushie. The very first one, the original commission, the one he'd kept for himself ever since.

"...Beelz, I can't take this with me—"

"I know," he said, quiet. "I know that where you are going, you cannot carry it with you. But I still want you to have it, Arista."

She froze, staring at him.

He'd never once, in three years, called her anything but Strawberry.

"...How," she said, voice barely a whisper, "do you even know my name?"

Grief still marked Beelzebub's face, but a trace of warmth returned to it.

"Flies remember," he said simply.

Arista let out a wet, broken laugh, clutching the small plushie tight against her chest, the whole enormous, complicated weight of three years' friendship finally, fully breaking through.

"...Thank you," she managed. "For everything. For every single moment of this."

"Turning the lie you told the Celestials about being my spokesperson into the truth," Beelzebub said, "was the best decision I ever made."