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chapter one, Tarralencia

Eleven years later.

Apo had been walking for ages. Standing against a nearby tree, he thought of what to do next. The sun was at its highest and was beating down upon him, making him sweat endlessly. He had been searching for a settlement for ages, but any settlements he had found were either humans that thought he was a demon spy and tried to kill him, or the other way round. At this point, he had almost given up. He sat down on the heated sandy ground and pulled out his waterskin, lifting it up to his mouth only to find it empty.
"God damn!" He yelled, a nearby bird flew away from him as he stood looking to the sky. 'I'm going to die, that's it, I am going to die here' he thought to himself, angrily kicking the sand. But then again.. there's no harm in going just a few more miles. If he's gonna die he might as well do it making progress.
So he walked, for ages. He expected to only walk for an hour or more before he passed out, but no, he still stood. He walked for a few more days, each day he got weaker and he was more than peckish. He thought about giving up more than five times, but he just wasn't that type of guy. He was a fighter. One day he heard wingbeats above him. As he looked up fearfully that he had been seen, he saw a few winged demons flying above him. One of the demons stopped to look at Apo, Apo's fear strengthened when the demon seemed to call to the others, and they began to descend towards him. He stumbled backwards a bit, pulling out his sword as the creatures landed around him.
"Who are you?" A larger one asked him, pointing one of his long clawed fingers at him. Another slightly smaller one with many small black freckles spoke up,
"This human seems threatened. Proceed with caution." Apo whipped around as the last demon snapped,
"Shut up with that artificial bullshit Snare." Apo studied the demons for a second, they were all different in some way. The first demon was a deep red color while the second, he assumed was Snare, had pale beige skin. The last had a more blue hue, but they all had wings, and they were all demons. The red demon took a step towards him, "can you please answer my question? Who are you?" It said in a voice that didn't sound angry, but wasn't kind either. "My name is Apo." He responded shakily, the demon backed up a bit. "Why do you come here, Apo? I hope not to start a war." The blue demon shot a small flare of fire out of his nose, presumably to scare him a bit. "I-I've been traveling for a while, days more like. And I haven't been welcome at any of the towns or cities I've approached, I hoped that maybe I could find refuge by coming this way. P-perhaps I've been mistaken." The large demon seemed pleased with his answer and turned to Snare, who nodded to him. "This seems like the truth. Fortunately for you human we have just the place to bring you. In fact it's the place we are traveling to now." Apo breathed a sigh of relief. "I am going to pick you up now, please do not resist." Before he could say anything, he was lifted off of the ground in clawed hands. Apo almost screamed as they went airborne. The red demon seemed to sense this and let out a laugh. "Never been in the air before? I admit even I was scared the first time I flew," he paused for a second
"And by the way, my name is Flare, but most people call me Fred. The blue bitch behind us is Fang, and lil beige boi over here is Snare." Fred gestures towards the other demons. Apo looked behind him to see a smiling Snare and a Fang with a rather fierce expression. "Where is this place you mentioned?" He asked Fred. "It's just a bit further, you're lucky I found you, I guarantee-" He was cut off, "you mean WE found him." Fang snapped, Snare giggled. Apo spoke up, "let's just continue then, I'm assuming you should save your energy for the flight?" Fred nodded. "Indeed, let's fly then!" And there they went, flying into the horizon.

By the time they arrived it was dark outside. Fred landed and placed Apo down on the cool sands outside the gate to go talk to a strong looking red demon. Fang stood next to him, his long thin tail swayed back and forth.
"Halt! Names please." The demon, who seemed to be a guard, snapped at them, Fred rolled his eyes and beckoned the other's to come over,
"It's just Flare, Fang, and Snare. We were sent on a patrol a while ago? Remember that?" The guard nodded to Fred, and moved over as the gate began to open, revealing a little area that led to a bridge. They walked forward before the demon spoke up again, "Halt! Who are you?" He said in a slightly aggressive tone, flashing his sharp spear towards him. "I um.. My name is Apo?" He said, looking at Fred for help. "I don't recall an 'Apo' ever leaving these gates, are you a human spy? Where did you come from?" Fang flared his wings as he moved forward,
"we found this guy dying in the middle of the desert, we're bringing him into the city because we trust him. And what is he gonna do, stab someone with his toothpick of a dagger?" The guard laughed, Apo felt kind of offended because of this, he made that dagger himself.
"Very well, just make sure he knows how this city works, and the type of people that live here." Apo hesitantly entered the city after that. They crossed the bridge, Apo falling behind a bit since he was a bit scared of what lies in the city. The others stopped suddenly, leaving Apo stumbling back just a bit. Snare moved out of his line of sight with a smile, letting him look at the city in its whole.

"There's humans here?!"
Apo almost yelled, he was so surprised when he saw the bustling streets full of humans and demons alike trading goods or chatting peacefully. Two kids ran past him, one was a darker skinned human boy, the other was a digitagraded demon kid who had hoofed feet and lighter red skin, they both seemed to be playing a sort of tag where both kids were in. He watched as they tackled each other before he took another look around. There were people of all shapes and sizes, from the smallest of mice demons talking to tall lean humans to bulky ram demons who spoke to human archers who were built for agility, everyone was friendly with each other. "Welp, it's time to go." Fred said, walking away.
"What do you mean?" Apo said, "you're on ur own buddy." He said bluntly. Apo watched the trio walk away, apologizing when their wings bumped somebody.
Apo stood there for a second, taking another look at the surrounding area before he started to walk around. It was a bit difficult to walk around at first but as he got to the larger areas where more people were at stalls than walking aimlessly, it was less crowded.
"Hello there young sir! Are you interested in my fine goods? I have a wonderful selection of horn accessories and tail bags, are you interested? Are ya?" A jumpy human suddenly appeared in front of him, flashing various goods and accessories in his face.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I don't need any of those. I'm a human, see? No horns or tails." Apo gestured towards his head and the man laughed, "well it doesn't have to be for you! Any of ur demon friends having a birthday? Fear not! For I have gifts for any demon!" He jumbled the items into his face again, making Apo push them back. "I'm so sorry! I have yet to make any demon friends here, and I don't have much coin on me." The man grinned at him, "well then you better go! Go go! Make some friends! It's about time."
Apo walked away from the man who started to show off his things to the surrounding people who looked at it all in slight curiosity.
Apo sighed with a small smile plastered across his face, 'this is wonderful!' He thought to himself as he walked. He watched many people finish trades and chatted to traders when they approached. Sadly he only had a bare minimum amount of coin on him, so he didn't buy anything, instead he kindly declined their offers.
Suddenly he felt something under his foot. He lifted it to see a pale orange tail which snapped away from its place where he had stood on it.
"Oh! I'm sorry, I must've stood on your tail!" Apo exclaimed, turning to face the owner of the tail in question.
"Well maybe you should watch where you're putting those fat feet of yours!" He snapped. Apo was taken aback, the demon in question had small horns the same shade as his tail and wore an annoyed expression. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to-" He was cut off. "Listen here you cretin, I've had a pretty trashy day and I am NOT in the mood for some rando human to say some fake apology to me, I know how humans lie, I've been through this before." And with that, the short demon whipped around with his tail dragging limply behind him. 'Either that's why I stepped on it or I did that to it' he thought guilty. He stood there for a second, thinking.
"Wait!" He yelled, and he ended up walking for quite a while since he decided to follow the demon. He weaved through many different people to get to the demon, but he was smaller, and significantly faster.
The demon whipped around, making Apo stumble backwards,
"Why are you following me?!" He snapped, his tail upright in a way that would remind you of an angry cat.
"Because I want to know what I did wrong!" He said, the demon rolled his eyes. "You're just trying to get at me, trying to see what upsets me the most, like everybody does. You can go annoy someone else, I have things to do." He went to walk away, but Apo quickly blocked his path. "I'm telling the truth when I say this, I genuinely want to know if there's anything that I did that made you upset in any way, please?" The demon seemed taken aback. He stepped back a bit, then looked around and shook his head. "No. I'm not going to open up to you." Apo sighed, before speaking again "Well, I'm Apo by the way. And you are..?"
The demon hesitantly said, "that's a strange name, but whatever...

..My name is Owen."

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