*****************************

Archdemon Empress Luna

*****************************

"What the fuck, Sloth?!" Luna screeched at him as their canoe floated in the middle of the lake with no apparent direction.

It was pure luck that the paddle didn't join the dead imp when he threw her away.

"Don't worry." Sloth finally said, giving him a half-shrug. "It wouldn't affect you."

The obsidian lake was quiet once again after the wicked souls returned to the deep.

Luna's muscles remained tense as she held the basket in a protective gesture, expecting Sloth to attack her any minute.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Slackjawed, Luna stared at him as he had gone off the deep end.

She even thought that the bastard was the most sensible Archdemon in Hell except for the fact that he was slow and lazy, but it turned out he was cut from the same cloth as them.

"You traumatized me!" Luna snapped so loud that Sloth flinched. It was a wonder that the baby dragon in her basket hadn't woken up yet.

Sloth claimed to be a shaman in the past, and most shamans should have a good head on their shoulders.

Definitely, not him.

As she glared at the bastard, Sloth arranged the ratted pillows behind his back, ignoring her concern about his mental well-being. "It had already been eaten by the wicked souls to gain strength enough to become imp themselves."

Luna's eye twitched as she clenched and unclenched her fists. "What had she ever done to you?"

She waited for him to speak, and Luna prayed that his excuses would make sense.

Tilting his head, The Archdemon of Sloth replied at her question with a question. "What had the imp done for you that you would save it enough to throw away your life in a second?"

Luna remembered the imp gathering the vibrant flowers and placing them on the table so that Ravin could make her a flower crown.

She remembered the imp's expectant smile when Ravin had asked her if the desert roses she had picked were pretty.

She watched her fear the darkness of the lake just as she did.

But Sloth's question made her pause and thought twice?

Was it worth it to sacrifice her life for an imp she didn't know and had no impact on her life, whether it was dead or alive?

As if Sloth had seen the inner workings of her brain whir and figured out the answer, Sloth clapped his hand once to get her attention. "Don't act on impulses and use your brain."

The single orb floating above their heads descended, and the lights flared like a mini-firework when it got too close to the deep midnight waters.

She hated to admit that Sloth was right.

"Wow." Luna sneered, "I can't believe I just heard from a lazy Archdemon like you to use my brain."

"If you still doubt me, why don't you touch dirty water?" Sloth waved a dismissive hand. "Imagine submerging yourself in this Obsidian Lake while they dragged you to the bottom and tear you apart."

Luna stared into the lake, perplexed at first glance.

The dark, murky waters pulling her into depths were fraught with nightmares, suffering, and pain of the wretched souls suffering from their sin.

"I heard it in the grapevine that you couldn't swim when the demonic sirens caught you."

A small intake of breath.

"That's an infinite grapevine you have there." Luna was shocked, but she didn't let it show. "I can't believe the gossip from the Second Circle of Hell had reached the Land of the Storms."

"Go on and try it!" Sloth urged in a sing-song voice, swaying from side to side. "See what happens~"

One thing about being an Amazonian was that she wouldn't back down from a fight.

Luna reached out to touch the nasty liquid in her hands, accepting Sloth's challenge.

It was just a quick touch, but she couldn't erase the memories of destruction and carnage from these wicked souls.

The waters had painted multiple war scenes, accidents, illness, untimely deaths, and murder.

Fall of civilizations.

Piles of cadavers on toppled cities.

Creatures in chains, groveling at the feet of their unholy masters while they bleed.

Soldiers pillaging villages and raping innocent girls.

Iniquitous and manipulative men and women.--faces once beautiful and cruel but were now unrecognizable for how dirty they were and eyes that were full of greed and devoid of hope.

"One thing you should know to survive here in Hell, Lune, is that you can't save everyone," Clicking her tongue, Sloth told her a matter-of-factly. "You should value your life, above all else. That imp shouldn't matter to you."

He shrugged. "It's the lowest creature in the Hierarchy."

Luna snarled as she curbed the disturbing images rising in her mind again. "So, you killed the imp to teach me a lesson?"

"All of us are indispensable in some shape or form, but you have given the imp's short life, meaning. You even assumed the imp's gender, attaching a memory of 'hers' in your brain when it had no direct involvement in your life." Sloth explained as he let his fingers skim over the obsidian waters. "This is why you are affected by the things around you, always ready to sacrifice yourself and be the heroine." He looked at her dead in the eye. "You became anxious, and it messed you up in the head."

"So now, I'm the one who was messed up?" Gritting her teeth, Luna forced her hands to relax from their clenched grip on the basket handle. "Your servants had told me that you love the animals you have taken in your Kingdom---"

He didn't let her finish. "Loving them makes me feel like a good person, you know, on the inside."

As she shivered, Luna wrapped the white velvet cloak tightly around her.

Luna paused, recalling that Sloth had given the same cloak to her while they were in the desert to hide her from the Demon Knights.

"You are fucked up."