Bernadette sits in a small but sturdy cage of blackened iron, which itself rests on a long and winding track, like a sushi-joint conveyor belt. It inches along, its torturous pace and periodic artful landscaped glimpses of its destination — the Furnace Eternal and Loathing, Living Destruction Itself — the hell-conscripted work of Disney Imagineers.
Her legs poke out of the side of the cage and dangle over the edge of the conveyor, kicking idly. Her forehead rests against the bars, eyes closed; her hands neatly in her lap, balled fists the most visible sign of tension at her slowly-approaching fate.
A hand tugs at the leg of her jeans.
"Bernie?" Golnaarth hisses.
"Naarth?" Bernadette clutches at the bars. "If they catch you here, we're both going in—"
"I heard from someone you confessed," Golnaarth says, staring at her. "What the fuck, Bernie, you're not from All The Way Upstairs."
"No," Bernadette says, and looks away, tugging at a strand of her hair. "No, but somebody is. It's the classical long game, isn't it? Today I lean into the You Have To Tell Us If You're A Cop myth and selflessly let them chuck me in the Furnace to cover an angel's arse; ten thousand years from now, the angel looks at themself in a mirror and goes, shit, I feel kinda guilty about that. Bob's your uncle."
Golnaarth sniffles. "Fuck you," she says, and shoves something through the bars.
"What's this?" Bernadette gingerly turns the tangle of sticky, prickly rope over in her hands.
"Magic knot tying the mouth of an astral filter-feeder shut," Golnaarth says. "Undo it and it swallows you. Can't digest you, so you fall out the other end wherever its tail's been nailed down."
Bernadette stares at her, then at the knot. "Where's that?"
"Ohio."
"Well. I guess that's better than the Furnace." Bernie wipes her hand on her jeans and reaches through the bars to cup Golnaarth's face. "You're gonna get in so much trouble."
Golnaarth presses trembling lips together and shakes her head. "Already framed Jamdaggu," she says, leaning into Bernie's hand. "Friendzoned incel jealous of our hot gay sex, trying to impress his way into your pants."
"They're going to suspect you—"
"Succubi," Golnaarth says, in an eerily good imitation of Malharaxxus' voice, "are so stupid, Golnaarth. It taxes all their brain power to answer 'how many fingers is this?' whether they're in front of their face or up their bunghole—" and gives a teary but still smug smile.
"Fuck, you're hot," Bernie says, and grabs for her collar, dragging her up to the bars for a kiss. "We'd have adopted such an awful puppy. Untrainable. It would have eaten our shoes and wrecked the floors peeing on them."
"Ohio's not for ever," Golnaarth says bravely, voice wavering. "I'll think of something."
