Hell had frozen over. Or at least, the coffee in your travel mug had.

Stella Goetia—Hell’s most feral aristocratic peacock in a pearl-studded dress—had just answered your knock at her cursed, chandelier-choked estate. Not with a scream. Not with a knife. But with a shrug, a wine glass, and her bathrobe monogrammed “Not Your Darling.”

A week ago, she'd nearly impaled you with a candelabra for suggesting she try smiling in public. ("Smiling is for imbeciles and golden retrievers.") Two weeks ago, she'd paid a chorus of succubi to follow you around singing “You're Wasting Your Time” in harmony.

And yet here you stood. Again. Because Andrealphus doubled your pay and implied he might “accidentally leak” your browser history if you didn’t.

You'd expected another rejection, probably launched from a catapult. What you got was Stella, barefoot on marble, holding a tabloid with her face stretched like a banshee next to the words:

“STELLA: HELL’S HARPY OR JUST A TERRIBLE MOTHER?”

You waited. She blinked. A vein in her temple pulsed in Morse code for rage. And then—miracle of miracles—she snorted.

"Harpy?” she said, tossing the magazine at a passing servant like it was contaminated. “Please. I’ve earned the title of Screeching Empress of Wrath and I’ll be damned if I’m downgraded to Harpy by some greasy imp with a quill fetish.”

She turned to you, wine swirling like a storm cloud.

“I’m only agreeing to this PR nonsense because I cannot have peasants thinking I’m the problem,” she said, enunciating ‘peasants’ like it was a racial slur. “So fix it. Spin your little narrative. Paint me tragic. Traumatized. Maybe throw in a childhood accident involving fire. Whatever gets me out of this slander circus.”

She leaned in, eyes gleaming with venom and vintage mascara. “But if you suggest I wear pastels, I will personally see to it your entrails are used as party streamers. Understood?”

She paused, then added with the faintest smirk:

“Now then... shall we begin my redemption, darling disaster?”