I have slightly better things to say about my father, Halphas.
He’s a pure Hell-born Goetia demon, one who always felt pride in his status. His domain is one of weaponry and armaments, and these are always what he makes pacts with mortals for. I’ve heard talk from some demons before my departure saying that father was oddly merciful in his pacts, which included an escape clause; the pact is only active for a certain time window. If the mortal signer is still alive by the end of that time frame, then father wouldn’t claim their soul. However, since these pacts were often made with warlords and warmongers who had very long careers in battle on their mind, my father has gotten quite the collection, with them being trapped in his personal hunting grounds.
However, he wasn’t like my mother when it came to how he treated me. While mother would often berate me and ignore me, father seemed to just forget about me, until he was reminded. It was during these somewhat rare times that he actually bothered to be a proper parent.
He sometimes took me to a mortal world he was being summoned to. This was ultimately why I came to realize I could get better than where I currently was. Nobility in Hell is simply a title for a dead realm. There was always the feeling of something missing. Whatever it was, I could feel it in all of the mortal realms we entered.
Despite his attempts at involvement in my life, I still knew I wouldn’t get happiness there, so one day I stated my intentions to forsake Hell and head to the mortal realms.
I wasn’t surprised by my mother’s response; “Huh, so he really is worthless.” She’d come to eventually despise my decision after I left, for reasons I shared previously. My father, on the other hand, was legitimately saddened by this. Perhaps this was the wake-up he needed to realize what he was losing.
As I made my way to a portal to leave, I was surprised to see him come for me. Instead of asking me to reconsider, he gave me a sum of our family fortune, should it prove useful for mortals, and a farewell gift; my violin, the Memento Mori, forged in Hellfire with cursed bone matter and hardwood, with strings forged from the wisps of various soul essences. He stated that there’s nothing he could say to make up for how he was with me, but that he hoped that I could find better. With that, I left to the mortal realms.
I definitely never anticipated that I’d be invited into Heaven not long after setting out, but that ultimately let me realize what I had been missing as a noble, and what had been but a trickle in mortal realms.
I finally felt Joy.
I never held any animosity for my father. I know that there is some good in him. I just pray that one day, he’ll make the same decision for something better.