Strawberry's Descent

She'd barely made it three steps past the throne room doors, the same hellhound tracking her approach with the same patient, assessing stillness as last time, the same firm decision not to ask about petting it, when the voice arrived, considerably faster than she'd braced herself for.

"You needn't have hurried, Strawberry."

Arista stopped mid-step. "...I haven't said anything yet."

"You needn't say anything. I already know."

She stood very still in the middle of the hall, running back through the specific, careful opening line she'd rehearsed the entire way here, watching it evaporate into complete irrelevance in real time.

"...The council pitch. The ring network. All of it."

"The ring network. The diagonal lines through the center. The adamantium reinforcement at the crossing station. The rather charming detail about staircases descending to different platform depths." A pause, and something in the enormous weight of the voice shifted, unmistakably amused now. "I confess I particularly enjoyed the part where you told an entire council of dwarves that I had personally sanctioned a project I had, at that point, never once heard described in full."

Arista winced. "...Okay, in my defense—"

"I am aware of your defense already. I heard you rehearse it. Several times, in fact, on your way here."

"...The flies."

"The flies," Beelzebub confirmed, and if she wasn't mistaken, there was something almost fond in it. "I did warn you, Strawberry. I know everything that happens within my realm, and considerably more that happens outside it. Your workshop is within my realm. Your rehearsed apologies were, by extension, also within my realm."

Arista pressed a hand briefly to her own face, working through the specific, dawning embarrassment of realizing an entire justification speech had been delivered, unknowingly, to an audience the whole time.

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"...So you're not mad."

"Mad?" The vast shape on the throne shifted, something that in a smaller being might have been a shrug. "You asked me to make Hell a better place. You have proposed making it the literal center of continental travel, every kingdom on the surface routed through my realm, dependent on my realm, indebted to my realm for the fastest way to reach any other kingdom on the map. Six months ago, no surface race would set foot here voluntarily. You are proposing they will soon have no practical alternative."

He paused, and the pause stretched long enough that Arista genuinely couldn't tell, for a moment, which direction it was about to land.

"I am not mad, Strawberry. I am considering whether 'Mother of Industry' undersells you."

Arista let out a breath she hadn't fully realized she'd been holding, relief loosening something in her shoulders she hadn't noticed had gone tight. "...So the elevator being an entire metro system instead is fine."

"It is considerably more than fine. It is, unless I am mistaken, exactly what I asked for, merely at a scale I did not think to specify, because I did not think anyone would think to offer it." Another shift in the shadows, and this time the hellhound at the door let out a low, rumbling sound that might have been a laugh, if hellhounds were capable of such things. "You need not seek my approval before speaking to councils on my behalf, Strawberry. You are my spokesperson. Speak. I will correct you if you overstep, and you should know, you have not yet managed to overstep, no matter how hard you seem to be trying."

Arista grinned, some of her usual confidence flooding back now that the actual conversation had gone considerably better than the rehearsed one. "...Good to know. I'll keep trying, though."

"I expect nothing less."

She turned to go, already mentally drafting the next round of pipeline calculations, then paused, glancing back toward the throne with a thought that had been quietly nagging at her since the guard incident.

"...Quick question. The flies. Are they, like, always around? Constantly? Should I be assuming literally everything I say anywhere is being reported back to you?"

"Yes," Beelzebub said, with what might genuinely have been delight. "You should absolutely assume that."

Arista stood there a moment longer, recalculating a truly uncomfortable number of previous private conversations.

"...That's going to change how I talk to Bram."

"I found the wingsuit conversations particularly entertaining, if it helps."

"It does not help, Beelz. It does not help at all."

His laughter followed her all the way out of the throne room.

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