Kate and Apollyon’s break from normal life was coming to a close. They had spent the last two weeks travelling around Hell, eating good food and snuggling was various kinds of cute cats, many of which intended to visit the demons in their own homes every so often. On this last day of their vacation, Apollyon finally fulfilled Kate’s second request: to take her to a place she would find neat.

This little spot on the edge of the third circle was nothing remarkable, just a picnic table and an additional bench someone had placed on the last jagged cliff of the Kurian mountains, which reached from the second circle all the way here. There was a little creek forming a narrow but long waterfall nearby and some bushes growing sweet nuts at all times. There was no path up here, you would need to crawl through the dense foliage, so any visitors had to know about this place.

This was perfection.

Apollyon unpacked the bag she had prepared after shooing Kate out of her own kitchen and gestured for the young Nightmare to get comfortable.

Kate took a seat and watched her friend proudly present a very lovely picnic. “Okay, this is definitely worth being locked out of my kitchen for an hour.”

“I am glad you approve. Though, I need to make a request before I tell you about this place and we can enjoy your picnic.”

“Of course, what is it?”

“Please do not tell anyone of this spot. If anyone stumbles upon this naturally, they can come here and enjoy it, but I don’t want to spread the word too much just yet.”

“I won’t, I promise. But why?”

“As a child, I went to the school in Dis. One of the big events every endeavour was a visit to the various important corners of Hell. One endeavour is our equivalent of the human school year. You would attempt to complete as many as you could, or until you passed all twenty-five, before choosing what path you wanted to pursue in later life. I was in my twentieth endeavour when we visited the scattered agricultural communities just below this cliff here in the third circle. The demons here didn’t settle together in towns but lived in their own homesteads and farms, only coming together for important events. During that trip I met Hera, who would become my closest friend for a very long time.”

“Oh wow, you two seemed to have a long history when I met her at the museum, but I never thought you were that close.”

“We were never egg mates, but our friendship seemed unbreakable. At least until I fucked it up, or I thought I did. I didn’t, but that is spoiling the story. When I met Hera as a child, she had completed the same number of endeavours I had. We both wanted to join the armed forces and potentially achieve higher ranks, which means we needed to finish all twenty-five. So, we kept in contact and visited each other often. Eventually, she told me she wanted to show me a place special to her and she took me here, to this very spot. The next time we met, she took me here again. I was quite surprised when I saw that she had placed this table and the bench here. Hera had made this our spot.”

“It is a wonderful spot.”

“It truly is, yes. When the time came and we finished our endeavours, we both signed up for the armed forces. Testing our abilities made Beleth aware of me, you know that story, but Hera was best suited to be a field commander. We were both upset that we wouldn’t train together, but that would be temporary and that gave us motivation to continue. We both agreed that once I became General, Hera’s position didn’t matter, she would be able to work with me no matter what. I had other plans but didn’t tell her until I was finally promoted to Beleth’s position. I made Hera my right hand, promoted her to high commander. Even as two of the most important demons in Hell’s armed forces, we came here often to relax and talk. Then, I dismantled the military. I couldn’t even look her in the eyes when I told her. Our relationship became cold and distant, I thought it was my decision that pushed her away, but I was wrong.”

Apollyon sighed before continuing. “After I took you to Ersetu, Hera asked me to meet her here again. We both finally said what we should have twelve thousand years ago. For her, our friendship never ended. I had buried it under my own doubts and regrets. It will take some time before we can be as close as we used to be, but we are on a good path. This spot here on this cliff belongs to Hera and me as much as any place in Hell can belong to anyone. I took you here because you are my closest friend, but I ask you to not take anyone else here.”

Kate smiled reassuringly. “I won’t even come here on my own, only when you take me. This is an amazing view, and I would love to enjoy it more often, but your and Hera’s memories are more important and deeper than my enjoyment of looking over some really beautiful fields. I appreciate you taking me here and sharing this with me so much.”

“It is a piece of me that you deserve to be entrusted with.”

“I wish I had something like this to share with you. You know a lot about my childhood but this is the first time I have heard about yours, that makes it feel far more special than anything I could tell you about.”

“You are right, I haven’t shared enough of my life before immortality. Do you wish to hear another story?”

Kate nodded eagerly as she chewed on another bite from a fruit skewer.

Apollyon smiled. “Very well. How do you think other demons see me?”

“Hm… there is always a certain reverence from those who haven’t worked with you in the past, everyone sees you as still very important and someone to turn to in case of trouble. There is also no demon who doesn’t know you. Most know about me or Nirrti but don’t recognize us in person, but you? Everyone recognizes Apollyon, the last General of Hell. The one who won so hard that she made her own position unneeded.”

There was a hint of pride in Apollyon’s smile. “During my endeavours, I was never popular. My mothers pushed me to make friends, but I struggled. I was reserved and quiet. They were overjoyed when I met Hera. My teachers were rather baffled by my desire to join the armed forces, my achievements were enough to pursue a path of education or research. One of the teachers came to the library shortly after I had become a librarian. She shook her head when she saw me and laughed. For the rest of that cycle, we spoke about how she was right, how I belong in a place of knowledge but had to make detour through the armed forces. She told me she was proud of me, they all were. That was incredibly reaffirming, something Beleth never was. She was furious that I dared dismantle the military and discard all she had given me. That hurt but her words weren’t the ones that stuck with me, I never really cared about her opinion. Even as her student, her factual knowledge was what I took in, not her philosophy. If she had her way, the angels would be extinct by now. Even as a child I found that mercy was more important than pure power. Of course, that mercy becomes more and more meaningful the more powerful we are, but without a guiding moral, the ability to take a life and inflict pain is meaningless.”

The old devil shook her head. “Beleth failed to make me her successor and I became a better General, a better person, for it. That teacher, her name is Vengeance, succeeded. She managed to instil a love of literature in me that never left. I remember the first book we read under her guidance, The Waters of Higan, a novella about a fisher and her daughter’s fear of water. That one made me curious about stories and the meaning they carried. Two endeavours later, we read Depths. That was the one that truly gripped me. It’s dramatized version of the first explorations into the Deep Abyss. Amazing what the inability to die does to you… those explorers had made their way down those caves tens of thousands of border world years before I was born, and even when I was in school, the Deep Abyss was something dangerous and far from the fun destination for curious tourists it is now.”

Apollyon paused and took a bite from a chocolate biscuit before continuing. “The explorers the book talks about stopped going down there after coming back home from a meeting with something they called a dreamer. That meeting was so profound that any other discovery would be almost meaningless. They had found what they wanted to find: something extraordinary. I haven’t given that book much thought for millennia, but it seems like we met such a dreamer. Funny how as a child, I was puzzled by their decision to stop but now I understand. I think I would feel the same way they did.”

Kate had been listening intently to the words of her close friend but now felt like the right time to speak. “I honestly never took you for much of a reader. I have never seen you read for fun in the library.”

“I don’t, I read alone at home. In my experience, it is when I am alone with my thoughts and maybe a cat that I can truly absorb a work. As much as would like to read with you, even just your presence is distraction enough for me to not fully immerse myself. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, I understand. We all need different environments to turn from just a reader into, well,” Kate chuckled. “a dreamer.”