I Hate Me So Much - Tumblr Posts
I have no reason to live but no energy to kill myself
Charlie struggles with her magic in the aftermath of the battle and her relationship.
Alastor finds himself thoroughly amused.
His Blue Serge
Chapter 1:
She didn’t know what she was doing. All she had was a hope and a dream.
A dream for her, a dream for her people, a dream… with no substantial backing.
Charlie MorningStar, Princess of Hell. Daughter of the Morningstar himself and child of the First Sinner. When she tried to talk to her mother about her ideas, wanting to save the souls that fell, the woman looked down at her kindly, appreciating that she’d want to save the souls that followed her to the blaze as a result of her mistakes. But amongst all the emotion was pity.
How could a damned soul reach heaven? The forever lost paradise. Yet her mother let her dream, said nary a word against the silly dreams that Charlie would rant about as she moved her toys along the carpet, explaining how everyone would eventually get along.
Then there was her father. Sat away in his own dark corner of Hell. When she did happen across him, sneaking into his workshop when her mother wasn’t looking, she saw his dreams. Of gilded skies and how they could be filled with ethereal entities beyond that of Angels and Man. The Fallen Angel did not speak much of his kingdom's people. Hellborne or Sinner-Spawns. His eyes ached for a way to reach beyond the skies he was confined to.
When he fell, he was not simply banished from heaven's pearly gates. He was trapped in the realm, to the rings that would bend to his will, yet never beyond. Damned to never see his stars again, damned to never venture further than he once dared.
When he spoke of heaven, there was the ache of longing.
The Princess wanted a way to redeem others, so they could go to heaven. Be it for the sinner-spawn, or her father. It was harder to distinguish as they grew older, and grew apart.
She inherited that ache. The want for something more. For better.
When her parents first gifted her the mansion in Pentagram City, it was intended for her to be able to grow on her own. “Spread her wings,” her father said. They wouldn’t force her to move out, but when she decided she was ready to build her kingdom and rule her people- because they were never her father's people- they would support her in building her own palace.
They offered her royal staff, cooks, maids, and servants to wait on her hand and foot.
Many were hand-selected because of their renowned abilities that had become known on Earth.
Upon hearing this, she wept.
Her parents would support her in her pursuit to rule her kingdom. But how could she be able to face the sinners knowing there was nothing she could truly do to protect them? From each other, from the punishment of their realm, from extermination. What kind of a queen would that make her?
When she did move out, it was with two servants and a hellborne animal that resembled a cat. It was actually a catalyst for magic, a familiar of sorts. She would help Charlie use her own magic, and control the lofty powers that she held and hardly used. She didn’t want the power if it couldn’t help her Kingdom.
Her hesitation brought about the ridicule of her people, but her mother nodded along to her rants and woes, telling her it was all to be done in her own time. She wasn’t planning on ending her performances any time soon.
And then the Queen disappeared. It was a new century, and the queen who once traveled the realms, singing for her people, had not said hello to the new dawn at the break of the decade.
Charlie sought out her father after the citizens began to notice the lack of their queen's voice, but was dismissed. It was almost as if he was unaware of anything going on outside of his own world. Which Charlie argued should be much larger than what it currently was. The angel seemed to withdraw even more after that, the presence of his queen gone, taking whatever supports were holding him up.
On the bright side, due to him being so secluded, the realms didn’t really notice the withdrawal from the king. They held him in as high of a regard as they ever did, and with fear of his legend.
Then that left Charlie. Charlie MorningStar. Heir to the Kingdom of Hell. Daughter of the feared MorningStar and the absent Queen who was the voice for the fallen. The coward who held love in her heart and refused to claim her power.
The idiot who declared that she would save her people with no plan. Only a dream.
The princess knew what a joke everyone thought she was. She didn’t exactly remember when it had gone public, but her dreams of redemption had sinners in the streets laughing in her face, Imps sneering from across the way- Her ‘forgotten people.’ It’s not as though she was neglecting her duties as princess, but even she had to admit how it came across to the Hellborne, trying to remove the human souls to “Save them from their fates here in the Pit.” But in her defense, this was Hell! A place made to punish. The Hellborne suffered, but not nearly as much as those who were damned here as punishment. Her people needed relief.
Especially during extermination.
The streets of Pentagram City were mostly quiet on the days leading up to the extermination. Many forgot territorial pacts to team up and try and hunker down until the carnage passed. Many bought spells to put on their doors, others resorted to good old-fashioned wood and nails, and some simply took what they could carry and left. As if that would spare them. The worst of it was those who had decided their fate. Their Hells had proven more than their souls could handle, and they waited out on the streets, for what some called “The Angels Mercy.”
It broke the Princess's heart. The ache in her chest she felt for those who lay in the streets days before the extermination would fall upon them. Some would beat, yell and even kill to try and get those sinners away from their homes and stores, not wanting the angels to be led directly to them. But sinners would sit and take it, and those who were offed respawned somewhere, where they’d stay until either they were killed again or the Angels found them.
A few years ago, Charlie found herself begging at the feet of a younger sinner. Beaten beyond recognition, but ultimately left to his chosen fate in this spot he had chosen. She stayed there next to him, holding onto him while begging for his permission to carry him off to safety. She didn’t move until an angelic spear pierced his skull, splattering blood in a neat stream across her neck and chin.
She was totally passed over, as she would be every extermination, just as the Hellborne would be. Despite there being no danger to her well-being, she began waiting inside during the exterminations. She offered her home to any who would wish to seek shelter with her but was again laughed off. The Sinners would rather face the consequences of being on the streets during extermination than be caught hiding behind the cowardly, powerless princess.
But as soon as the last Angel would disappear into the sky, she would run off with a first aid kit, offering help and medicine to any who might have survived the attack. It was rare that a soul be left alive after encountering an Angel, but there were the odd cases, and then those who were taken advantage of by those they tried to hide with, being beaten then thrown to the wolves yet somehow being spared.
That was how the Princess met Vaggie. Wearing clothes that didn’t fit her, bloody as if pulled off the corpse of another sinner, collapsed in pain against a mound of trash in an alley not far from the mansion.
The Princess was used to helping people then being pushed aside, sometimes robbed for any painkiller she had on her, ridiculed for her kind heart. There was the occasional reluctant thanks, someone who, without her help, would undoubtedly have perished to whatever wounds had been afflicted by the Angels.
They knew they wouldn’t respawn if they had.
Vaggie was the first to allow her to help, who had smiled when she thanked her, who limped back to her home to a makeshift hospital area set up in the foyer. She was the only sinner who ever wept into Princess Charlotte’s arms as she assured her the Angels were gone, she was safe now.
Oh if she had known the irony.
If she had known the truth about the one-eyed girl who stayed by her side for three years, helped her try and develop a plan to convince her people that redemption wasn’t a bad idea, to try and find a way to convince heaven itself.
It pained her to visit the place her father had been cast out of, the reason for so much of his woes. She hated that she loved it. She found herself smiling after the very beings responsible for so much pain and anguish. It had helped a little when it had been revealed that they didn’t know about the exterminations, only a select few and the exterminators themselves.
The exterminators. One accompanied Adam, just as one had accompanied her.
Of course, this was something that would have been obvious to her if she had simply truly looked at the other, even just once. Her people were right. She was an idiot and a coward. And it had cost her. After they returned to the mansion turned hotel, she refused to look at the Angel that followed, refused to hear her story out, and locked herself away in her room.
Her girlfriend had lied to her. She had said she was a prostitute in life, hence why she was in hell. She should have known. No sinner was so open about their life, especially right off the bat. Not to the poor excuse of a Royal she was. And then she led her on about her dream, let her make a fool of herself to the Angels. She could have been completely honest about who she was, and the sweet naive princess would have believed her, would have held her all the more dear for it.
Now she was back to the beginning, holding nothing more than her dreams. Her plans were down the drain, and she’d have to figure out how to protect not just her people, but her dream itself from the angel's wrath. Even her own safety was on the line, something she never really had to worry about before.
Sweet Razzle held up a tissue box for her as she wept, silently as she could. As soon as she had closed the door to her room she was able to hear the echo of her wail before she could choke it down. She would not let the others hear it again. The ache of her horns pushed to be free, but she let her sorrow wash over it like soothing water as she kept her anger underneath the surface.
“Oh Charlie, you look an absolute mess!” the radio-filtered voice sang. She crunched her eyes up into a glare and tried to push her tears back before she hid her face.
“Go away, Alastor.”, she groaned. The red-clad demon perched himself on her bed, right up against her leg, forcing her to bring it closer to herself to avoid contact.
“Now, now, is that any way to act after picking a fight with all of Heaven and dooming everyone you love?” He leaned closer to her, and she could feel his smile through the sheets of her bedspread.
Everyone you love. Would that include Vaggie? There was a reason the girl was in Hell. She had fallen. Could she truly be mad at her for hiding that? Like a cop in prison would hide their service on the force. But this was different.
“I have enough on my mind without hearing your sadistic idea of a joke,” she sat up to cover her ears and roll over,”asshole!”
Where she would usually see the hard but loving smile of the one who lied to her, she now saw the wide smile, and almost manic eyes of the Radio Demon. “Whose joking?” he drew as Charlie threw herself back from the others face. As she landed on the floor, he nonchalantly continued, “You have a captive audience downstairs waiting to hear what kind of inspiring performance you have planned next.”
Charlie climbed up so her chin and arm were resting on her bed. She spotted the deer-esque demon slightly sitting up on his side, resting his head on his arm as if it was the most casual thing in the world for him to be imposing in a Royal’s space. She really was a joke.
She cried her woes to him, her frustrations with her partner, and how hopeless she felt against the invincible angels. Even without embracing her true powers, she could feel the energy in the room shift as he turned away from her and sang.
“ I know something youuuu don’t know. ”
She knew, even before he would offer to make a deal, that she was trapped. Whether or not she left this room with her soul, or whatever she had to pass for one, intact. But she truly considered herself. What she had, and what she no longer had left to lose. Thankfully, he didn’t ask for her soul, just a favor.
“What’s a favor between friends?”
She wouldn’t have to hurt anyone, and she would have a chance to save her dream. Her home. She knew her answer, and let the pressure on her skull release as her horns sprouted, not unlike the antlers that sat upon Alastors crown.
She knew her answer when she took the glowing hand in hers.
Now one may think that the energy that exploded from their joined hands was a result of a deal taking place. That wouldn’t be entirely incorrect either. But it was not just the sinners' arcane magic sealing the deal. At that moment, Princess Charlie, Daughter of the Morningstar and Heir to the throne now that the queen was MIA, embraced more than the sinner's hands. She allowed herself to reach down into herself, burning in her heart as she reached for the powers that lie deep beneath the surface of her essence. The small cat-like creature ran towards them from under the bed, and as soon as she crossed the threshold of where their magic met, beneath their clasped hands, the green energy became pink as it cracked the glass dome that loomed above the princess's home, leaving evidence of the deal being made as the energy spread.
Alastor, surprised, held her hand tighter, antlers shooting up more as his limbs became just a tad too long to be comfortable.
The small creature ran out the other side of them and into the safety under Charlie's desk, and thus the deal was made. By the time their hands separated, Vaggie had broken down the door to her room. She knew the answers she was looking for now, and what to do if they wanted a chance. They had danced into her mind's eye, moving oddly like a running deer across her vision. She didn’t regard the gray pallor angel in her doorway. Walking past her, her horns now resting at an uncomfortably short length as she- for the first time it felt like- strode into the hall and down the stairs with the grace and regality befitting of her station.
She would save her people, no matter the costs to herself.
The battle was long. The battle was cruel. The battle was over.
Many souls were lost, including Sir Pentious. The first real patron of the hotel after Angel. Razzle was struck down, leaving Dazzle confused and hovering at Charlie's heel, feeling the loss of his other half.
Charlie had mostly ignored Vaggie until the battle, only talking to her when others were in the room. The rest of the hotel seemed to take the fact that she was an angel in stride. When she returned from Carmilla's with wings it was celebrated. Charlie didn’t even think to ask whether or not her wings were intact after finding out her girlfriend was an angel.
She had talked to Rosie when in cannibal town. The kind cannibal asked her questions, to soothe the princess. “Do you love this girl? Have you ever doubted that she loves you?”
Not until that fateful day in heaven. Since then, she had been nothing but unsure. When she told the overlord that, she bit her lip, mentioning how the hotel was all about redemption. Charlie agreed that she wanted redemption to be available to everybody, but could she personally forgive her? “Perhaps this girl is trying to redeem herself, too.”
That had really helped. Gave her a clear mindset so that she could influence the colony of sinners to help her (with the help of Alastor).
Charlie, Princess of hell, had a dream of redemption. After the angels retreated, only two staying behind in the carnage to help rebuild, she felt that her dream was possible. With the help of her friends, she rebuilt the mansion, better than before. She had raised the ground from beneath her with the help of her father's magic, and once Alastor returned they completed the renovations.
The hotel was back, bigger, and better than ever.
And she and Vaggie had separate rooms.
No words crossed between the former lovers, but there was an understanding. That trust had been broken, and space was needed. Vaggie didn’t know if this was permanent or not, but she was allowed to stay, to continue to help with Charlie's dream. While she was desperate to talk to Charlie about their current situation, she was never given an opportunity. She was very concerned about the Deal made with the Radio Demon. It may not be her place to step in anymore- if it ever was, but even if it was just a favor, would Charlie come out of it in one piece?
Soooo say I have a Charlaster fic in a Google doc that I casually work on at random intervals. Usually at three am. Would people read it?
It's about 12k words so far.
Concept: Charlie's powers are a little haywire, and while dealing with that and her break up, Alastor proves to be a good friend.
