𝔄𝔟𝔞𝔫𝔡𝔬𝔫 𝔞𝔩𝔩 ℌ𝔬𝔭𝔢, 𝔜𝔢 𝔴𝔥𝔬 𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔢𝔯 ℌ𝔢𝔯𝔢.

  It had not been a dream.
  Ducat was alive and breathing below the main deck of the Siren’s Song, across the gun deck from their quarters, resting their head on the silken pillows of Mirari Arossa’s bed. He was at rest already, tucked onto his pillow like a cat, head angled toward the middle of the bed. Toward Ducat. Their foreheads were almost pressed together, touch avoided only for the points on them and the added eyes on him. Despite the danger their body could pose to him — or more apt, his sheets, Ducat cringed, hearing another thread snagging on a spine — he brought them to his room. Their hand drifted up, feeling their own face, finding a wide grin still staining it. It felt as if they had walked out of the Hells, straight into the heavens. It was a level of joy they never thought they would feel again.
  The room rocked at a gentle sway, the ocean sleepy and calm, unlike the carousing party-goers dancing above her — at least, any soul with enough life left in them at nearly dawn. Mirari was sleeping like — well, Ducat hesitated to think like a baby, seeing as he was still under the magical effect of Reduce and was sharing a weight class with EDWard. They assured themselves after a moment that it was probably fine, seeing as he could not possibly have had the time to develop a complex about being tiny — there was less than twenty odd minutes remaining before he should pop back to his regular-sized smallness. And that was a comforting thought, too, because they wanted to cuddle up nearer to him without the fear of crushing the life out of him in their sleep.
  Sleep wouldn’t be long coming for Ducat now, after tonight. It was by all rights the perfect recipe for a deep slumber: celebration, substances, a long day, and rigorous activity. Their body still tingled pleasantly in all the right places. Their gold and silver eyes drifted shut.

— ˖⊹ ┉┈ .⁺˖⛧˖⁺. ┈┉ ⊹˖ —

  They opened their eyes beneath a blood-red sky. What passed for the stars of this sky were bat-winged beasts of all manner of shape and size, and enormous balls of fire that streaked between them toward the ground. The view below was in no way more pleasant; jagged stones in all the colors of grey reached up with pleading claws, rivulets of blood and gore running down the hills to gather in rivers. The pungent smell was sulfurous, and so much burnt flesh, and a vast copper so dense it crawled instantly to the roof of their mouth with the first breath in. They gagged.
  Further down from that vision, Ducat could see themself. Their skin was dull, colored as if a coat of white wax was obscuring the ruby hue. Their clothes were intact. After attuning to the rest of their senses, however, they realized their body was not. There were points in their back that felt like a hot spear was driving through, radiating outward like bolts of lightning to nerves around their body. As if believing they had landed here embedded on some sharp stones, they jolted forward — but the pain persisted. And their instinctive movement had another price as their body’s control misfired; they fell to the ground with barely the reaction time necessary to plant their arms before their face. The teeth of the crystalline floors instantly bit and gnashed at every inch of layered cloth and revealed skin. Drawing more blood from them to join the river.
  Down the slope, they saw advancing to them a smattering of hulking purple and green chain-mailed creatures. They were on the Shelves of Despond, the rocky hunting grounds of Baator’s new arrivals. Ducat could not help a gasp of fear and they scrambled back to their feet, unbalanced, grasping against a twisted boulder to stay steady. This body was not suited for flight, they thought, and tried to will their form into another; to find the glow of their very being and reach out to the other pieces of them, the others that walked the earth — but the connection stopped short. For once, the vastness of being was finite. At the end of Ducat, they were alone.
  Their mother was not here.
  Though assuredly doomed no matter their movements, they whipped around to find some place to hide from the encroaching devils. Blessedly, they saw a low crevasse and lunged into it like a rabbit from a fox. Their clothing and leathers were already becoming tatters, grating against the walls, and their horns were grinding awfully against the ceiling before the tiny cave stopped dead a few feet in.
  Crouching low into the small pocket, they tried to steady their frantic breathing — but outside there was the chorus of the damned, screaming in agony. Some sounded miles away, and some were yet on the same outcropping as Ducat. Each throat-wrenching cry restarted their heart’s desperate beating, and they couldn’t help but sob in empathy. It’s not fair, they almost felt compelled to scream. At that moment, Ducat was not sure if they meant it for themself or every fellow soul dashed across the rocks.
  A green face materialized at the mouth of their shelter. His face became a jagged grin as his nostrils flared and his slit pupils widened. At the bottom of his gritted jaw were writhing masses of thorny snakes, glinting with as much malice as the face carrying them. Then he retreated out of view, adjusting for some further action. Time to fight, then. Not sure magic was an option any longer, they readied the only weapon that was guaranteed to never abandon them.
  Ducat arched their tail, tensing each muscle in their body to drive it at the devil the moment he appeared again — and as he led with a massive arm and shoulder, they struck the telson true into the center of his palm. It was likely surprise, not real pain, that caused him to rear back from such an attack, but Ducat gained another second-and-a-half of future-relative peace.
  In response, a treble hooked glaive launched down the thin stone corridor. His aim was off with no visual, but Ducat had little room to maneuver. The first hook pierced through their calf, lodging against the fibula, separating layers of meat from each other and the bone.
  The glaive moved backward again the same instant Ducat let out a shrill scream and the bearded devil howled with triumph. They were yanked free of the crevasse, drug by the leg, back into the open. Ducat sputtered, dazed, while another shake of the glaive dumped them back onto pointed rock. Blood splashed up from their landing, much of it fast becoming their own.
  Mercy was not why they were deposited, however, as the glaive had been traded away so that the devil could spring to grapple them instead. He lunged upon them, wrapping both hands around their neck, and lifted. But it was still a fight, as Ducat refused to give in even then. Their own small-clawed hands dug at the meaty ones closing around their throat while their scorpion tail jabbed and jabbed at each body part in reach. They were begging that he could be paralyzed by it. The poison never worked, though, and the attempt merely provoked further punishment. The beard of the creature lashed across their shoulders in a similar manner, leaving many more round punctures than Ducat could hope to levy. Saints, it hurt.
  Without finality, their vision went black.

— ˖⊹ ┉┈ .⁺˖⛧˖⁺. ┈┉ ⊹˖ —

  Their eyes opened again to the view of Mirari’s quarters. They glanced around wildly for some danger in the room to have roused them, but the only change was Mirari having moved from his pillow to fill the other half of the bed. He was now pressed up to them, head in the crook of their shoulder. It was the dream that woke them — the memory. Ducat’s heart was still quickening from the deluge of pain from the other side of the veil. They needed to return to this plane, or convince their nerves they had already done so. Deliberately, Ducat slowed their breathing. They took note of his tailor’s station on the far wall and the rolls of expensive fabrics tucked in shelves and listened for the crashing waves. They adjusted closer to their companion, bringing his top arm around their waist and draped theirs over his, smiling as he reciprocated the adjustment unconsciously. Then they tilted their face against the top of his head and inhaled deep.
  He smelled like… spilled spiced rum, sea water, and traces of apple pie. He and Mireille were always declaring the presence of magic’s apple smell — even that it had been cast recently in a room — but Ducat only ever smelled it on things that were obviously magical to even the naked eye. The Waveheart. Their Medallion of Thoughts. And… Mirari. They were not usually near enough to notice it. They were glad he was passed out and unaware they had sniffed him like some kind of dog.
  It is safe here, they affirmed mentally, purposefully. As if they could banish the bad spirits that bring you nightmares simply by thinking so.
  Mirari could, if they asked him. He was always promising someone the impossible and miraculously delivering it to reality. He needed rest, though. People would be relying on him for teleportation. It was possibly even as hard for him to sleep after his three days of torture as it was for Ducat, and it was best they did not wake him to talk about bad dreams. Besides, they were already drawing immense comfort by lying here. So they matched their breathing to the slow rise and fall of his, and tried to rest.

— ˖⊹ ┉┈ .⁺˖⛧˖⁺. ┈┉ ⊹˖ —

  The route through Avernus was not long, but it was hard. Their body hurt everywhere now, and they were stuck with a limp owed to their mode of death. Ducat’s new barbazu captor marched them at the point of his glaive, pushing their speed to its limits, over serrated stones. Once free of the mountainous formations, they could see more of the plane. Above them, getting further away as they walked, was an enormous sparking hurricane that seemed to be hailing bodies — more souls which would be following in the tiefling’s bloody footsteps soon. There were battles in faraway valleys where armies of devils and demons fought each other. One potential future for them, now that they were a resident of the Hells. Rather than dwell on that grim fate, they tried to find some piece of Avernus that reminded them of Cael, and hold onto it. They had been subdued, but Ducat’s shoulders did not bow to anyone. Not anymore.
  The trees here were only those that were petrified, all other forms burned to ash millenia ago, or died with only blood to drink. Each tree seemed to be twisted into a face of agony, which Ducat looked away from. Then there was a kind of xylaria-morph fungi in a bright red color which they only saw sprouting from dark, ashy craters. They could not stop to examine them, but when the opportunity presented itself, they used carpets of them to take the shortest respite from walking on sharp crystals.
  Their walk gained a crowd as it went on, more devils and souls herded like sheep, until they were a handful of yards away from an immense, oily river with crowds along its banks. More kinds of devils swarmed around the area, barking at each other in infernal and jabbing soul shells with their weapons. The tiefling watched them as they approached, trying to categorize the creatures by their interactions. Unsurprisingly, the small purple ones were frequently the targets of being pushed or kicked around, and were in large numbers. Devils of greater size and uniqueness in their casting commanded more respect. There were only a handful of some emaciated, moth-like white devils standing on barges, quietly watching the proceedings. At the edge of this port-like section of the river, Ducat could see a tower rising out of a long building and a silhouette within, but did not discern anything about the figure there.
  A sudden throaty inhale right at the base of their neck shook their composure, disgust and fear lancing along their spine at the sound.
  “𝔉𝔦𝔢𝔯𝔫𝔞,” said the barbazu, having gleaned something about Ducat through smelling them.
  He then passed Ducat’s control over to those small, spiney purple devils, who worked in a small group to herd the tiefling away from the building to another, specific grouping of soul shells lined up in front of a particular barge. The line moved efficiently fast, as the devils were quite organized. The individual at the front was sniffed again, or had some sort of parchment checked, by the devil at the gangplank and moved into the barge, which fit less than fifty at a time before it weighed anchor and set off.
  Dread and terror were rising within Ducat once more. Something about the unknown destination, the potential finality of it, brought them to worry their hands together and struggle to maintain their dignified posture before all the eyes around them. They had not had a lot of time to read about Baator in the Spire before the party had called them out to the castle to siege.
  Fucking Chalice Head. If only Xavier Graene was here as their guide, they would have some way of leaving here. Alas. Ducat had only read through the first three circles in Chalice Head: Deal Not With Devils, and none had mentioned Fierna. They had ideas of the torments that awaited them, but not its particulars. They knew it would keep getting worse. They knew it would last longer for them than most who ended up here, Ducat’s soul being relatively uncorrupted — in their own opinion. They were a hard person to love, but not evil. This would only be true as long as they lasted, though — as the award at the end was to be made evil.
  Hot tears dripped down their cheeks again, not able to be contained. It was fear of pain, partially, and a growing seedling of guilt. Recent revelations about souls meant Ducat knew that, as a resource, their soul would be providing much power to this horrid machine. For eternity following, the creature made out of Ducat would do nothing but cause pain and drive corruption. It was the last thing they wanted.
  At the tail of that thought, as if by fate, another soul shell in the switchback line next to Ducat nudged them subtly to garner their attention.
  Their gaze snapped up, scanning over the face of a thin middle-aged woman who had smile lines around her mouth but none by her eyes, which glinted with a sharp intellect. She gave Ducat a tiny, friendly, conspiratorial smirk and stated plainly, “You look down, hellblood.”
  She seemed immediately the kind of person Ducat would not trust — a person who over-familiarized with you, who seemed calm when they should not be, by all outward measures — but they thought here, it was the throngs of souls on one side and the devils on another. They did not vocalize, but responded to her by knitting their eyebrows together and raising them, unsure what the fucking point of her statement was.
  Taking that as an opening for further fraternization, the woman continued. “You’re more aware of your fate than most, aren’t you? Listen… there’s a way you can get out of the bulk of it. That river is the Styx. Take a dip in it and your mind’s wiped clean.” She was talking out of the side of her face, looking ahead to keep eyes away from the two of them. “They never let you touch it because you’re useless that way. Can’t get off torturing a husk, as it goes.”
  Okay, they’ll bite. Ducat whispered back, “What of it?”
  This seemed to delight her, eyes glinting again. She tilted her neck as if cracking it, gesturing in a direction for Ducat to look. “See the smaller boat on the Styx with the cloaked one? That one’s not a devil, it’s a yugoloth. They care more about gold than souls.” Ducat sighed slowly, trying not to be annoyed being told information they knew already. Their conspirator continued, “I paid it already to look the other way. I’ll give us a good distraction and we can rush into the water without being stopped. Die on our own terms.”
  Bittersweet hope bloomed in their chest.
  “Why are you telling me?” Ducat asked, distrustful.
  “Like I said… you looked pretty down.” She cast a sympathetic look to them, this time turning her face to them fully. In this place, such a simple explanation beggared belief; but Ducat wanted to believe they could find a glimmer of kindness even here, and held onto that spark of hope. At the very least, they believed her about the power of the Styx. There were plenty of guards around the bank despite the fact that a swimming soul shell had a huge disadvantage fleeing a flying devil. They nodded assent to the woman.
  The pair waited — the line felt slower now that the passage of time could lead towards something less gruesome. Barges came and went, but the cloaked merrenoloth’s skiff stayed stalwart in the river.
  At the time when they were near the bank of the river, Ducat’s new companion surreptitiously flicked a stone up from the ground with her foot and snatched from the air and, improvised weapon in hand, chucked it at the back of one of the spined devils guarding the bank. It struck true; the devil whipped around and, seeing nothing but another one of its kin, reached out and slapped another in the face. They began arguing violently in earnest. The woman hissed urgently to Ducat, “Now!” and took off running through the nearly cleared pathway toward the Styx.
  Ducat pursued her, only then remembering how much their injuries slowed them. Ah, that must be what she wanted me in on her plan for, they mused. Regardless of their infirmity, they had the opportunity to rush to the river — so rush they did, pushing against their body’s limits and wearing their feet down to bone.
  They were barely halfway from the line when the guards got wise, shrieking at each other, and pursued.
  She was a few yards ahead of them before she reached the edge; Ducat watched her not dive into the black water but instead leap over it, using her running start to clear the distance and land heavily in the skiff. The driver started moving it from the bank the moment after, evidently paid to do more than look away. She got her bearings and sat up, looking over the edge of the boat at Ducat. They both knew the tiefling would never make it to the skiff — but maybe they could have the mercy of the Styx.
  Time seemed to slow as they thought about it. Oblivion was a few more steps away. They thought about Orchid’s blue eyes — the human ones, with whites and irises and pupils — and how the companion had anguished of late at their lost memories. They thought about Mireille losing her last name and how often they heard her crying that she couldn’t remember it. Mirari’s frustration when he had a sense he was missing something in his mind. How Ducat and Juliet were both shaken to their cores to learn they’d died and forgotten it. And Iamoris, who only ever remembered the past three days and designed his immortal existence around it. The memories they carried were precious to them. So no matter how selfish it may be, Ducat stopped two steps from the water.
  They could see so far, this close to the river. The sky was blood-red, glowing, but they could imagine it was the sunset. Scream-carrying wind blew through their short locks of hair. Eyes closing a second, they pretended they could hear the ocean crashing.
  Orchid. Mirari. Mireille. Itza. Flynn. Juliet. Ilphas… Leander. Goodbye, my friends.
  Eyes opening, they looked at the woman in the skiff as she and the merrenoloth drifted away. Ducat raised their arm, waving, and shouted at the top of their lungs in Celestial: “May the Saints be with you!”
  She looked at them with an expression of pure bewilderment, but Ducat was beaming, a grin spread wide over their face. They willed with their whole being, like a prayer, that someone escape.
  Inner peace, of course, did not last long in Avernus or all of Baator. Only seconds after their cry, blunt metal crashed into the back of their skull and their anomalous smile collided with the ground. The rest of the soul shells needed to be discouraged from acting similarly. The tiefling was dragged from the river by tens of scrabbling, slicing claws, then waylaid with kicks, polearm strikes, and volleys of fiery spines, even as they did nothing to fight back nor protect themself. Punishment from the devils was swift, devastating, and did not end as quickly as it had started. At the end of it, they were mangled so that the small flock of spinagons took them by the limbs and flew them to the next barge as it was loaded.
  Look at that. I’m healing, Ducat thought, once their disassociation was concluding. Save for the mortal wound in their back, everything was knitting itself together. Time passed enough that their ship was about ready to begin its journey through the circles, full of waxy, haggard faces. Healed just in time to start all over again, I am sure. They chuckled quietly, then silenced as the glowing red gaze of the immense bone devil at the barge’s helm settled on them. Ducat was not in the business of unreasonable provocation.

⛧

  They slept much of the ride on the Styx, waking at last for a transfer in Phlegethos from the barges of the River Styx to the green steel ones on the Rivers of Flame. Ducat endured another huge devil — this one somehow uglier, pig-nosed and lipless — smelling them to confirm they were destined for the Lake of Fire. This check was different in that it was accompanied by the filling of paperwork and the smashing of stamps, which were handed to a courier spinagon to deliver to some other place the tiefling knew nothing about. Phlegethos was much like Avernus, in Ducat’s opinion, but at least thirty times hotter and with a sky that was colored entirely black by the volcanic ash.
  Awake now, Ducat spent some time conversing with their fellow damned. There were sorts from all the continents on Cael, interesting people Ducat imagined they would have never crossed paths with while living, as well as mortals from other planes. There was even one still-living mortal, clutching their infernal passport with white knuckles, allegedly allowed to leave the Hells so long as they did not lose it. Some boat-riders would ask Ducat on occasion for a translation of an errant infernal phrase — most coming from collections of huge panels standing atop massive green metal poles along the banks of the liquid fire rivers. The most memorable to Ducat was the immense panel painted with a pink she-devil spreading her hands widely in welcome; so too were her legs spread, a classical Hellmouth illustration placed cheekily between her thighs. The top of the panel read 𝔚𝔢𝔩𝔠𝔬𝔪𝔢 𝔱𝔬 𝔄𝔟𝔯𝔦𝔶𝔪𝔬𝔠𝔥, 𝔱𝔥𝔢 ℌ𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔱 𝔬𝔣 𝔉𝔩𝔞𝔪𝔢𝔰.
  While some kindness to the others was permitted in that way, Ducat earned another punishment on the journey, becoming deeply acquainted with the heat of the river. These boats were metal and only insulated from a majority of the infernal heat. Ducat, a tiefling resistant to the fire since birth, foolishly offered to trade their seat with some poor petitioner and incidentally caught the attention of the osyluth ferryman. It pushed Ducat out of the boat, where they boiled alive until they could thrash their way underneath the rail-guards back onto the deck — unassisted by any of the frightened faces there. They emerged dripping with liquid fire, body covered in speckles of dark holes where their blood had boiled so hot and fast it exploded out of their skin.
  Well, thought Ducat, at least my eyeballs didn’t burst too, as they laughed so hard they cried.
  The soul shells spent their last moments telling their tales before they were gone forever. There were those who consigned their souls for someone else — trading their fate in hell, or trading for more time alive, such as one brother who signed himself away to heal his sister’s sickness. Then there were more classic Faustian dealers who gave away everything to have more knowledge, more power, more coin. Some had only one contract, some had signed so many they had entirely lost their humanity, fallen this far into Baator by their hubris. Ducat gained both sighs of sympathy and scoffs of disbelief when they shared they had never signed a contract at all, their father had, and they had only learned their fate in the past three and a half weeks.
  “If you never signed a contract, you should contest your fate in court,” sniveled the one living mortal.
  One of the stationed barbazu stamped its glaive menacingly, but did not counteract further. Ducat, once more pushing the limits, turned to them to inquire further. If there was a way out, they had to know.
  “How does one contest their fate in court?” they asked.
  The mortal, eyeing the barbazu, responded, “I don’t know, I’m not a devil or a lawyer. But we are going to the city that holds the Diabolical Courts, so you should look for the opportunity.” Then they squared off their shoulders and stared off at the drifting volcanic scenery.
  Sensing there would be no further divulgences, Ducat turned away too, mind spinning with potential plans. Could they contest their fate to any devil? Was it a right they had, or a suggestion? Did Fierna’s signature — the Lord of this circle — on their contract mean anything different? Saints, they should have looked further into matters at the Spire. They should have gone to see the not-so-subtly hinted “Devil Lawyer” in Midhold before they had all gone to the Yawning Portal. Better yet, they should not have fucking died. It was too late for all of that now, but maybe, maybe, maybe it was not too late for Ducat’s immortal soul.

— ˖⊹ ┉┈ .⁺˖⛧˖⁺. ┈┉ ⊹˖ —

  Enough of that.
  They were awake again. This time, they weren’t roused in a fit of nightmares but from the smell of freshly-conjured magic fire — its source, the tips of Ducat’s fingers sparking. If they set the hair of another crush of theirs on fire, so help me Tymora, they were going to self-flagellate to a degree this plane had never before seen. People would hear of the Flayed Lord and think of Ducat Bucket instead of Ilmater. They shoved their fingers into their mouth quickly, dousing the heat with a little hiss.
  Mirari was not on fire. Everything’s fine. They removed their hand from their face and exhaled — with only a little bit of smoke — measuredly, and dried their fingers on their undergarment. As if to prove how incredibly normal they were now, they moved their hand to his cheek, brushing it with a light, loving touch. He was beautiful. They didn’t want to think about the Hells; they wanted to think about how they were with him.
  It was one regret they had carried with them all the way to the Shriver. How, if given a few more seconds to speak, they were going to tell him how they loved him. Woe, Ducat still hadn’t admitted as much, even if it was a self-evident fact. Telling a veritable god how you were in love was a formidable act to consider, for that was how they thought of him. Mirari was not a real god yet, but they were certain he would be, when he was ready. Its anxiety relief besides, that was why they carried the Waveheart and itched to return it to their neck — to keep it safe for him. Perhaps he had been unable to stop Ducat from dying, from going to Baator, even from becoming a devil; but as far as they knew, no devil had ever returned to their mortal life. Some became good, sure. But not this. They were not even sure he knew the magnitude of his accomplishment. How much they owed to him.
  Broaching the subject, thinking of the words to say — ones that would express everything without scaring him. To say their wings were his to soar on; their shield his to brace behind; their burning sword his to point forth. To say his touch had made them feel remolded and remade and that making love to him on the sand felt like their purification. There was an inferno in their heart for him, and they were scared he would think it could harm him. Ducat knew the markers of obsession and learned well the sting of their target failing to meet their ideal of them. Feelings of such intensity could and had been dangerous before. Cerebrally, these feelings were real, they accepted and acknowledged them, but had no idea how to let them out without fearing a kind of reprisal.
  Fortunately, Mirari was enough of a jester day-to-day that Ducat had ample opportunity to become flabbergasted and count his faults among all the things about him they loved. He was a man and a god all the same — and they knew now how many of the gods were barely more than men at all. He would make a good one, if he chose it.
  Ducat had a second chance to do things the right way. They would tell him the depth of what they felt when they could; when they had the time to tame the fire. Don’t worry, my Rari. They kissed him on the forehead, over the rust-colored eye. I won’t let my fire burn you. It was clear to the tiefling, now, that sleep was out of reach for tonight. They shifted to a seated position on the bed and gently pet his face with their thumb to stir him.
  “Mirari, may I borrow your pattern drafting papers for something?” they said in a low, quiet voice. Doing things the right way — for everyone — required better plans. No more drifting at sea, they were going to plot. the. course. And it would give their traumatized mind something else to focus on.
  “Sure… whatever you want…” came his half-sleeping reply. Cute.
  They clambered over him, using both arms and the alien hands on their wings to rise over him without disturbing him further. They gave him one more kiss on the temple then crossed the room to go through the available supplies. Ducat had life again. They were going to take control of it, this time. A promise to themself and every beloved soul on this ship.