Heart of a Monster (Fraxus Fantasy AU)

4

Even after several days, Laxus still was not accustomed to waking up on the castle floor. "Why haven't you just killed me by now?" Laxus asked, his voice coarse and weak from lack of food and water.

"I... don't know."

"All you ever say is 'I don't know.' What the fuck do you know, then?" Ignoring the demon's angry growls he continued, "Wait a minute... you can't kill me. That's the only reason that makes sense. You can't kill me, can you?" The demon's silence confirmed Laxus' suspicions. "So why not, then? You have me trapped here, starving to death, because you're too weak to kill me yourself? Is that it?"

"I told you I DON'T KNOW," the demon roared, the light in his chest pulsing angrily.

"What, you got amnesia? Did you hit your oversized head?"

"I... didn't fight back," he spoke slowly.

Laxus raised an eyebrow skeptically.

"When the humans came... I... didn't fight back," he sounded confused as if even he himself couldn't understand why he wouldn't fight back against attackers.

"Bull. Shit," Laxus taunted, angering the demon further. "I saw the guys who confronted you. Given the shape they were in you can't honestly tell me you were a gracious host."

The creature thought for a moment but it seemed as though he couldn't fully remember or understand what had transpired on that day. "What does it matter?" He asked angrily. He paused and sighed before asking, "Did I kill any of them?"

"Why do you care?"

"I don't know."

Laxus sighed, then thought for a moment. The people who had come running back from the castle had been injured but not fatally, and those unlucky few who had been captured eventually found their way back as well. "No. I think everyone managed to survive."

"Why didn't I kill them?"

"Why the hell are you asking me?"

The demon slumped in his throne and took a deep breath. "I... don't know who I am. When the humans came... they changed me."

"What do you mean changed?"

"What happened exactly is foggy. I don't even know when it happened, though I can guess based on your arrival and... the visions."

"Visions?"

"Pieces of that day. They've been coming back to me in fragments. Those two," he gestured to the figures in the stained glass, "they stood by me. I told them not to fight. I don't know why I did that," he spoke as though he was trying to recount someone else's memories. "One of the humans - a young man - he charged at me. I felt a wave of anger and then... nothing. The next thing I remember is seeing humans fleeing back towards the kingdom."

"So you conveniently don't remember any of the things that you did. The things that put dozens of people in the hospital. Your story is that humans stormed into your castle and attacked you and your 'friends' unprovoked. One young guy came at you, a towering demon, and busted you up so bad you blacked out. And then they all decided to run away?"

"I know how it sounds but that is the truth. I don't care if you don't believe me. Your opinion does not matter."

"Well if you really believed that you wouldn't be keeping me around for these meaningless conversations," Laxus muttered.

After a pause, the demon added, "I don't think I was always... like this. That boy... he took something from me."

"Oh so the big bad humans stole from you too?"

The demon, lost in thought and grappling with his hazy memories, ignored Laxus' snide remark. He hesitantly brought a hand up to the hole in his chest. "There was something here," he said in a faraway voice.

"Your heart?" Laxus asked, puzzled.

"Heart?"

"Ya know the organ in a person's chest that pumps blood through their body? The thing people associate with kindness and... love."

"Love? What is that?"

"You don't know what love is?"

The demon shook his head.

"Well I guess it's like... a feeling," Laxus blushed. He wasn't easily flustered but then again he had never before found himself having to explain love to a demon. "Like you would do anything for someone because... they mean the world to you and make you feel... whole."

The demon touched the hole where his heart had presumably once been.