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Mending the Broken

Chapter Seven

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

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"Blitz? I thought you were taking me to fucking Stylish Occult, where the fuck are we? Shit, this place reeks..."

He couldn't blame Loonie too much for saying that. The stables were rather fragrant, but there wasn't much in Hell that was not strongly scented, even for a Hellhound. Their best ability came in sifting through such scents, finding the one they wanted to track, the one of importance, though sometimes everything could be overpowering in a new environment to them.

Such was the case for Loona, holding her open shirt over her nose as she scowled darkly, her red eyes more intense than usual. Just as well she was wearing a tank top underneath it, meaning that no fur had to be bared when she used part of her attire for covering her face.

"Sorry, Loonie, we'll make it real quick, okay?"

Blitz, however, didn't have much control over that. Loona had stalked down to the van with him when he'd said that he was going to run an errand before heading to the city centre and Stylish Occult anyway, though he hadn't been able to put her off. Not that Loona said anything back to him, not at all, when he tried to tell her that he wasn't going to Stylish Occult straight away. No, she just ignored him, not even gracing him with a twitch of her ear while she stuck her feet up on the dashboard and scrolled through Voxtagram.

But he needed that stress relief and he had to think of Stormblaze, had to give his good boy his run. Loona eyed up the Hell horse dubiously as he led the stallion in from the pasture, the Hell horse dancing suspiciously on the end of the lead rope, on the edge of going up in the air and striking at it with his flaming hooves.

"Easy there, boy, it's okay, come on. She's a friend too, you know that."

It helped, a little, Blitz thought, that his clothes probably smelled like Loona, at least to a creature with such a sensitive sense of smell. The Hellhound hung back while he groomed the horse, though the stallion picked up on his nerves, as he always did, though it had been a while indeed since he had been in such a state at the stables. It was just as well that it was only Loona there and she was most likely preoccupied with not getting any of the stink into her clothes and fur. In fact, Blitz was surprised that Loona was even there at all and hadn't stalked her way back to the van.

It was weird...but not weird enough that he felt he should comment on it. He had not hidden his weekend activities from her, not really, as she'd usually just been hungover when he'd been heading out. A lot of the time when he'd been down to ride Stormblaze he'd been hungover too, but that hadn't stopped him before.

"You don't have to stay here, Loonie, I'll be quick, promise."

But the Hellhound surprised him, half-turning from where she had been studying the weird (at least to her) contraption that was a bridle, leather buckled together into a headpiece that could be used to control and direct even a Hell horse stallion like Stormblaze.

"It's all right, dad," she said, though she could not meet his eyes. "Take your time. This is kind of cool...for you. Still fucking reeks though. So, this is why you've been stinking up your clothes."

Blitz laughed, startled into it, though his anxious mind, leaping from one thing to another and back again didn't quite know where to settle. Her calling him "dad"? That she had sussed something already from the smell on his clothes? Clever girl... But she was a chip off the old block anyway!

"Thanks, Loonie, but we'll go straight to Stylish Occult after this, promise. You want to come out with me? I'm sure we can get you another horsie, maybe another one that's quieter than Stormblaze though."

But that was too much for Loona, wrinkling her nose and backing off with her tail quite firmly clamped down.

"Uh-uh, I don't think you're going to get a hound on one of those things anytime soon. Flames are pretty fucking intimidating if you're up there not getting burned yourself, Blitz, but the signed look isn't one that I'm going to the gig rocking."

Blitz laughed.

"Yeah, I forgot about that. But the flames really are bitchin' though, aren't they?"

He was proud of it, though he did not spare a moment to show off as he saddled up the Hell horse a little more quickly than he would have normally. Yet there was a rush nipping at his tail, urging him on, making him want to be hasty when he would usually have been down there taking his time. He didn't want to keep Loona waiting but that contrasted with his need to keep things calm and quiet for Stormblaze, to give the stallion every moment of attention that he deserved.

The horse felt it too, champing at the bit on the path leading away from the barn and bobbing up onto his back legs, striking the air as he reared. Blitz moved fluidly with the motion, pursing his lips, not trying to force the stallion back into line. He knew that that one had been his fault anyway. One of the few things that he could accept was out and out his fault, though it was the kind of fault that came with no sense of blame attached to it. Funny how that worked differently between horses and the actual somewhat sapient people of Hell that could talk back and actually have a loud opinion over whether or not he was to blame.

Even Hell horses lived in the moment. Stormblaze wasn't one to hold a grudge.

That was just as well as he trotted out, rising to the trot, trying to forget things, his guns already in hand. Those, at least, steadied him, Stormblaze stretching out his legs with a smart clip-clop on the hard-packed dirt.

Loona, however, left behind, didn't have much to do. Sure, the Hellhound could wander around the stinky stables, but there wasn't all that much interest for her there. Scowling, she leaned back against the wooden barn wall with the old, peeling, chipped paint, phone in hand, as it always was. She hardly went a few moments without it, a little lifeline in the Hellscape that was, well, Hell. It was funny how easy it was, from time to time, to forget where she was, that her life down there wasn't all that much of a life at all. For those on the lowest rungs of Hell, even being born was a punishment.

But there was nothing new on Voxtagram and she found herself moseying along, looking at the Hell horses that were stabled. They were cool, in a weird, fiery kind of way, but there was no way she'd ever sit on them. That was one area where she would not hesitate to admit (only privately) that Blitz was braver than her. But who liked singed fur anyway?

She hadn't even known about him coming to the stables and yet he'd ridden off with that horse like it was an everyday thing. Something stirred and churned deep inside, though Loona refused to look at it as if it was guilt. He was just Blitz, not her real father, she had nothing at all to be guilty over. Blitz didn't know half the things she did anyway so what did it matter that she didn't know about what he did?

In a way, however, she felt as if she should have known. It seemed important to him. Important enough that he had made a point of going to it when he reeked of nerves. The stank of anxiety was layered thickly over him, layer after layer condensing itself into a congealing mass of worry. She'd never told him about being able to scent emotions like that, though it was mainly derived from more tangible, physical concepts. The thing was, after dealing with such a sense of smell and perception for so many years of her life, it just wasn't a thing that Hellhounds actively thought about.

But he was worried and she didn't know why. He was usually bouncing with joy if he got to go out with her and she was more impatient than ever to get to Stylish Occult, to get a new outfit, maybe even see if he could be persuaded into buying her that silver hound necklace she'd had her eye on for a while now too. Yet he wasn't shining with over-exuberant joy, no stars in his eyes, no hearts either.

It was weird. And Loona didn't like weird.

So, that was why she wandered. Maybe she would pick up a bit of the paths that Blitz had traipsed before, though she didn't want to admit to her own worry and concern for him. That would be too much, more than she had bargained for, though she was the one who had agreed to the whole adoption thing at seventeen too. It could have gone a whole lot worse than it had, she had to be fair about that.

"You are creepy looking..."

She wrinkled her muzzle and pinned her ears back at a mean-looking horse with six eyes on either side of their face, long jaws lined with dripping, green fangs and a snake-like tongue that whipped back and forth. Not all the Hell horses, despite what she had thought, were fiery, but came in all different colours, flames snarling around the flanks of some even in green and blue shades. Hellfire had never been limited to merely sordid shades of crimson, after all.

The Hellhound, however, was not alone in the barn. That was found when she rounded the corner of the last stall, a gangly looking demon standing there with their hand on the neck of a horse. The horse was tied to the wall by an O-shaped ring, though the rope was loose and only slipped into a quick-release knot, the headcollar loosely buckled. It was as if whoever had tied them up knew that the horse had no reason to want to go anywhere, which was just about the last thing anyone thought about any other being in Hell.

The demon scowled at her, beak clicking.

"What are you doing here?" The demon hissed, feathers puffing up a bit around her neck, hair swept back from her shoulders, dressed in a baggy hoodie that came down most of the way to her knees and a pink beanie hat with stars on it. "I'm supposed to be alone!"

Loona blinked and rolled her eyes.

"Well, excuse me, princess," she drawled, "but not like there's a sign or anything. If you want to keep people away from you though, I think your attitude will more than do that."

It was only the dimness of the barn that rendered her a little slow on the uptake there, her eyes adjusting to the gloom. The other demon only sighed and stepped back, though made sure that she remained between the Hellhound and what Loona supposed was her horse. Maybe she really was a princess, to be able to afford her own horse and everything, huh?

The horse came into focus before the demon did, a soft, golden yellow that even Loona had to admit was nice to look at. Dust motes swirled in a shaft of sunlight cutting through a hole in the roof of the barn as the horse snorted, stirring them up further with the passing of their breath. Murmuring softly to them, the demon rested her hand on the horse's withers (Loona hated that she knew that term for horse anatomy, fuck) and scratched down to their shoulder, the firm muscle lying what seemed like a hair's breadth beneath the skin.

The Hellhound peered closer, nose twitching, taking in her scent. The demon... They were familiar. But not familiar too. How could both be true simultaneously?

She stiffened.

Shit.

The owl demon.

"Wait..."

Loona swallowed, though the demon did not move, pink eyes locking onto her in the gloom of the barn. Suddenly, it was the last place the Hellhound wanted to be - even more so than a few minutes ago.

"Fuck, that's right... You're that weird owl's..." Loona trailed off, eyes wide. "Satan's tits, you're Octavia Goetia."

The owl surveyed her coolly, though Loona expected that. It was a better look than she got from most when speaking to a Hellhound, apparently the lowest of the low in Hell. Whoever had fucking made up the class system down there was fucked up as, well, Hell.

"Yeah. What about it?"

Loona shrugged and stepped back. Best to put a bit of space between her and the demon who may or may not have wanted to kill her. Who knew what had actually gone down between her father and Stolas at that club? All she knew was what he had muttered in her sleep and what the media had given her, though she'd pretended, as always, not to be interested when Millie had tried to fill her in on "things she'd needed to know". It hadn't seemed like it had cut to the crux of the matter anyway and if there was one thing that Loona hated it was beating around the bush. Everyone was so cagey in Hell, even her sometimes, never actually saying what they really fucking meant.

"Nah, nothing... Guess I'll leave you to play ponies or whatever you're doing back here."

If Octavia didn't know who she was, she wasn't going to introduce herself as Blitz' daughter. She sure as Hell had some sense of self-preservation there, even if it came off as casual indifference most of the time. It was something the Hellhound had practised. She stalked off with her nose in her phone, opening her music app. She didn't have her headphones with her, but it wasn't like Loona cared about anyone else hearing her music. It would be tinny from the little phone (why couldn't Blitz spare the cash to get her an upgraded model? Damn it) but it would have to do to entertain her, at least for the time being.

"Wait."

Loona froze, ears pricked. Fuck, she should have gotten out of there while she had a chance, though the Hellhound slowly turned. Trying to appear nonchalant, she glanced back. The owl's eyes bored into her, pink with a slight glow around the edges. Freaky.

"Yeah?"

Octavia took a step towards her.

"What's your name?"

Loona rolled her eyes.

"Uh... Loona. Why?"

Her tone was short and clipped and it was all she could do not to pin her ears at the owl. What did the creepy DTF bird-mouth's (that had been one of Blitz' names for him in his contacts list for a while) daughter want with her?

Octavia nodded, though it was more as if she didn't know what to say, rather than she was trying to be uppity, snobbish, even. The Hellhound just didn't get the sense of that from her, though her instincts had not always led her the right way.

"Cool. I think...I might have seen you in the shopping district before. Do you ever go to Stylish Occult?"

Well, that had Loona's attention.

"Sure, whenever my...uh...father..." She didn't want to say Blitz' name but she didn't want to call him her dad either, quite a fucking conundrum to be in. "Whenever he can swing the cash. Business, you know. Well, guess you wouldn't know, being an Ars Goetia and...yeah..."

Shit, that was dumb, though Loona could at least be thankful that she was not trying to impress the owl. She would have fretted a lot more over it if she had been, though, in that case, all she wanted to do was to not piss off Octavia. Who knew what freaky magic shit she could pull if she knew that Loona was Blitz' daughter, the imp who had fucked up and broken their family? From what she knew and what had been splashed across the tabloids for months already, it was already pretty broken, but there was no denying that Blitz was the catalyst that had started its final downfall.

"What are you listening to?" Octavia nodded at her phone, even as her horse nudged her, clearly impatient for something. "Never get any cool music at home. Only what I find, and download."

"Uh... It's a mix... Fuck You Dad, Tunnel of Blood, Broken Houses, Dick Sucker... Probably not your sort of thing..."

Octavia's eyes lit up, shimmering with a tiny star instead of a pupil. Extra freaky, though kind of endearing. Though Loona would never have admitted it aloud.

"Fuck, no one my mom makes me talk to knows of those bands! I don't know Broken Houses though... They any good?"

"Hell yeah!" Loona grinned. "Saw them live last month, total rager, went with a bunch of Hellhounds. We shut the place down, it was fucking intense."

Octavia, to her surprise, looked rather jealous at the idea of that, much to Loona's surprise. She would have thought that the princess was into all sorts of classical music and shit. Not that that was all bad, she'd heard some remixes, but she liked what she liked and all of that was pretty much too harsh for noble ears, all demons that were higher up in Hell's rankings. Sinners might have liked the same shit, but who the fuck wanted to hang out with them? They reeked, too often, of the living world.

"Wow, wish dad let me go to things like that..." She said, a note of envy dripping through her tone, a little lower. "He says there's demons out to get us though, that I can't go anywhere without a bodyguard. He doesn't know I can make a portal though, at least to here, so I can see Amber."

Amber? Weird name for a horse in Hell, but it wasn't as if the horse was a Hell horse. The mare even extended her neck out towards Loona, curious and good-natured. Wrinkling her muzzle, Loona took a step back. She still reeked of a horse, even if there wasn't that edge of brimstone and sulphur that the Hell horses carried with them. But Octavia was right about demons being out to get them, even if she didn't know the full details of that. Loona remembered what had happened back at the Harvest Moon Festival all too clearly, Octavia not knowing how close she'd come to losing her father.

"How do you have a real horse here? Aren't only Hell horses allowed in Hell?"

Octavia's beak tightened in a tiny smirk.

"Dad's credit card. No one cares as long as there's enough money and, well...no one's checking his card. If I say I bought something with it, he's not going to care anyway."

Loona barked a laugh, shaking her head.

"Damn, chick," she chuckled. "Didn't think a high and mighty princess would take daddy's credit card, not like that. Maybe you got some balls on you."

And she wasn't dressed like a froofy princess either, Loona noted, taking in the black jeans, the shirt that looked like it could well have been from Stylish Occult, the beanie hat. A jacket with motifs along the leather back was slung over the door of a stall, though Loona did not pick it up to check. She had all the information she needed.

"Huh, you might be alright after all, princess," Loona grunted. "You wanna listen to some music while I wait for my dipshit dad to get done riding his fucking pony or whatever? He's got me going to see this new band soon, Demon Drool, might be good enough to rotate into my playlists or shit."

"What - tonight?"

She didn't expect Octavia to know that, her ears pricked, red eyes wary.

"Uh, yeah... How'd you know about that? Do you know them?"

"Yeah, they've been this up and coming band for a few months now, just playing at small gigs, nothing major," Octavia said, though her hand rested on her horse's neck as if the warm mustiness of the equine gave her some comfort. "I _finally_managed to get dad to give the okay to me going to see them, though he has to come along too. It's a total bummer, but it's not like I know anyone that would actually want to see Demon Drool...or listen to any of this stuff...you know..."

She trailed off, her gaze sliding away, one hand tightening its grip around a brush that she'd been using along her horse's coat, brushing in the same direction that the hairs laid. In a shaft of sunlight, weak and red-tinted by the ring of Hell that they were in, dust motes swirled. It couldn't even pretend to be golden for the location. Figured.

Loona considered that. If the prince was going to be there, some shit was going to go down, whether she liked it or not. Did Blitz know that Stolas was going to be there? Somehow, she doubted it. It sounded like just another one of his schemes to spend time with her, though perhaps it was something that she could work to her advantage.

Huh. Blitz and bird-brain in the same place at the same time...

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The Hellhound smirked. Maybe Loona would have to be bold enough to tell Octavia who her dad really was, for there was going to be a conflict at The Black Horse pub, the little dive where the gig was going on, one way or another then. It was up to her, though not saying and then seeing shit go down in public while two magic-wielding demons were potentially up her ass was really not the way Loona wanted to go out.

The Hellhound raised her eyebrows, pushing her hair out of her face with a sigh.

"Alright, now don't start any freaky magic shit, but if you don't want to hang with your old man at the gig, I got a way for that to happen..."

A little something to sweeten the deal, perhaps, but talking to Octavia while Blitz was off playing real life ponies hadn't turned out to be all that bad at all.

She might have even gotten a new friend out of it.