[Thorin's P.O.V]
The flames of hell burned pleasantly on my skin as I descended back to my home. It's hardly that though, more of an eternal prison. I smiled at the thought. What a shity existence.
I walked on the hot red ground as it burned the bottoms of my feet. You get used to the pains of hell. Well, we demons do at least, the humans, on the other hand, are another story.
We don't keep humans on the same level as us. They are further below, I've only seen them once. Never again, it was awful. I don't even want to think about it...
They didn't deserve that. Just how we don't deserve this.
Soon enough I got home. Well to my house I guess. I don't go home often anymore. I opened the door before I got up the steps. And slammed it after I passed through.
"Who is i- oh it's just you." Vihaan came to greet me at the door. "You little shit." He raised his hand and slapped me across the face.
I smiled, he could never hit hard, he didn't have it in him to hit his own child like that.
Vihaan had piercing red eyes and short raven black hair. He wore a black get-up that the humans would call Victorian-era gothic. But we invented it first. Victorian era my ass. If he wanted to he could have all the ladies of this realm all over him, but he was too soft. The ladies of hell didn't like soft. The soft don't usually survive long around here.
"Where in the 7 circles of hell have you been! I've been so worried! I almost thought about leaving to go find you!" He was angry, but his kind of angry. I once told the human Jasper that full demons were very dangerous. Well, Vihaan was the only exception.
"I was with the humans. I wanted to spend some tim-" His eyes widened with more shock and anger.
"Didn't I tell you to stop doing that?" A sigh left my old man's lips. I can take angry but disappointment, I don't like that. His voice turned into a whisper. "What are you doing with them- you're not healing the sick are you?" He was so blatantly worried it was almost comical.
"Uhh..." Oops. I did heal Jasper's hand.
"Gods of the underworld, they'll execute you for that type of stuff! You can't be doing that." He spoke softly, a change from his previous tone. He smiled softly looking down. "You know, you get it from your father, and me raising you. But mostly your father." Ah, my other old man. "Come, I prepared a bite to eat."
I walked over to the tables and pulled up a chair across from him. "You know I find your urge to cook weird." Demons and angels alike don't need to eat, we can, there's no harm, but it is seen as odd.
Our house seems to have a reputation for being 'odd' around here. I mean a half-breed, a demon who took in that abomination and is scared to leave the house. That's what we were known for. Being odd.
"Well keeps me busy. It gets lonely around here with you all grown up. Off doing things you're not supposed to." He is the only known father figure in hell. Demons don't love, we're not creatures of friendship, romance or family really. Sure we have people we hang around but it's not the same. Vihaan was different. He has always wanted the company of another being, friends or family, even a pet maybe. Maybe that's why he took me in.
"Well, I'm still here." I took a bite of the food he prepared. It was a stir fry. Vihaan loved to cook like the humans, he remakes recipes from the same cookbook over and over again. He has for over a hundred years now. The thing is barely hanging on, I give it a few more years before it just gives up and falls apart. "But you know if you leave this place there are plenty of demons that would love to pretend to be your friend, or even in the human's realm, the humans are nice, but not fake nice, you know. You should go up ther-"
"No!..." I was taken aback by the way he yelled. Sure he yelled at me quite a bit as I was growing up but he rarely ever snapped at me. "No, sorry. Leaving here would only make things worse." He started to eat with a sad expression on his face.
"No it wouldn't, the humans up there are super nice. Besides you're a full demon, it's like the reason for your existence. To mess with the humans." I took a bite of the food. It gets better and better every time I taste his food. Though he should expand his recipes more.
"I see no need to torment the humans. They are closer to us than any other being. " He paused and put his fork down. Yet another abnormality in this household of ours. Most demons around here don't even know what a fork is. Well around here they're usually bigger, and not used for eating. "I've always been this way. You know that. I'm a sad excuse for a demon. Even before your parents were executed, I was like this. You were the middle ground of good and evil. I saw potential in you." He smiled. "I may not be able to save this place, but I'm confident you can."
"Save? What do you mean 'save'?" What in hell is he talking about?
He smiled softly. "I can't tell you now. But one day you'll understand, something bad is coming to the depths of hell and the heavens above, something beyond control. Something that could be past my time." He picked up his fork and began to eat again. I just stared at him.
"What the fuck do you mean 'could be past your time'? You're immortal, we both are. Demons are." We can be executed but that's only if we commit a crime, and Vihaan is hardly one to commit a crime. He's too scared.
"Hey, watch your language." He chuckled under his breath, but it made my skin crawl, I'm not sure why. "Just eat Thorin."
"What, how can you eat after you just said something like that? You're not-"
"Please Thorin, not at the dinner table. We can discuss this another time. I don't get to eat dinner with you much anymore, so please, let us enjoy this time." He smiled at me, waiting for me to begin to eat. I hesitated but I didn't want to make him sad.
He and I have to be the only demons in existence that have emotional connections. He misses me like I'm the son he sent off to college or something. It's true that I don't come around here as often as I used to. I do miss him, but I don't like staying in hell for too long if I don't have to. It does things to you, that's probably why Vihaan stays inside.
I started to eat again, he smiled and continued too.
What is he hiding from me?
******
"Thorin I have something for you," Vihaan spoke loudly from the study. I was cleaning up dinner. Vihaan was going to do it, but I insisted. I wanted to give him a break.
"One second." I dried and put the last dish away. Just like when I was younger, but Vihaan would be right by my side teaching me every step of the way, like he always did.
I walked into the study, it was a beautiful room, with many tall bookshelves, a beautiful wood-carved desk, a chandelier, hanging in the center of the room and a warm fireplace. Not that we needed one. You know living in hell and all.
"Come here. I've been waiting to give this to you for some millennia now." He was crouched down at the bottom of one of the book shelves. I crouched down next to him. "I figured now would be a good time." He turned and held out a small velvet box. I took it gently from his hands and we stood up. I opened it. "It's your parent's pendants."
Inside there was a single pair of earrings. Each earing was different, but the same. One was a white cristal and the other was purple. My parent's pendants...
"The purple one was your mother's and the white your father, naturally." He smiled. "They wanted you to have them when you were of age." I wasn't born with a pendant, all angles and demons are brought into existence with a single pendant. When a demon falls their pendant is the only thing that stays with them through that process. Vihaan's pendant was in the form of a black choker, but the pendant itself sat right in the center of his throat and was the same colour as his eyes, a piercing red. All angels and demons have one. Except me.
"How did you get these, I thought you never knew my parents?" He always told me that he met them once, the day I was born.
"Well, 2100 years ago when you were born, was the last time I saw your parents. In the short time I spoke to them, they told me their story." He walked over to one of the lounge chairs and gestured for me to sit in the other one next to him.
"What do you mean? I know their story, they fell into a love that was forbidden, and because I was born they were found out and killed." I've heard it many times. It's quite an unpleasant story.
"Well yes, that's true... but at your mother's request, I kept some parts of the story from you, until I gave you the pendants."
"Why? What harm would it have done to tell me before?" His expression was serious but warm. I could tell he was nervous.
"There are a few reasons. She knew the fate of their homes, and so did your father. When you put on those pendants you'll see what they saw for the future of heaven and hell. But allow me to explain a bit about your parents that you don't know."
********
Your mother was a succubus as you know, and your father an obedient angel. They didn't fall in love immediately. Your mum was just doing what she usually did, much like what you do with the humans. It was in her nature, but when her eyes met your father's, something sparked, so she ran.
During that first encounter, your father was very scared, maybe it was the fear she saw in his eyes that made her fall for him. And him, maybe it was the fire in hers. They met a second time on earth by accident. They became more than friends and kept meeting up in different places.
It's quite scary that they weren't much older than you at this time. When you were born they were both in their 3000's.
They never expected you to be conceived. They weren't even aware it was possible. But that day, they both knew. And that was the same day that they saw the fate of heaven and hell.
Your mother wasn't just a succubus, she was a worrier. Fought many wars in her time.
The thing about pregnancy, in this case, was that there was no, what humans call 'baby bump', lucky for them. They knew that if they kept the baby they would most likely be executed. Though after what they saw that day you were conceived, they made the right decision. They chose to keep the child.
I was there when you were born. The last day heaven and hell came together as one. They first thought that your mother had given birth to a baby angle, that this was god's doing, but when you opened your purple eyes, it was confirmed that you were a half breed.
When the sentence of your parents was ruled as death, holy water for your mother and the flames of hell for your father, they wanted to kill you as well. But your mother raised a valid point. You had done nothing wrong. That it had been her and your father that had foolishly let you into the realm.
They chose to place you in the more accepting but less forgiving realm. Hell is your eternal sentence.
Your parents got to hold you once. But they did name you. Your name means thunder. Your mother laughed while holding you up and said because 'your birth caused quite a storm' then she held you into her chest as your father brushed your hair back and said 'but after the storm, the sun comes out and life flourishes, a new beginning for both heaven and hell'. He kissed you on the forehead before they ripped you away from them.
Just before they were sent off to be executed I volunteered to take you under my wing and teach you the evils of being a demon. Just before they were taken, your mother said to check my pockets.
Your parent's pendants, and a note.
Vihaan, I greatly apologize I must leave in such a manner, my dear friend. I tremendously appreciate you taking Thorin, he is our last hope. Look deep into our pendants, they will reveal our fate. The fate of our realm. Bring peace. - Lilith
And so from that day on, I raised you to be both good and bad, in hopes to save our realms.
********
"Wait... So you knew my mother? How?" I have so many questions.
"...Yes I did..." I waited for him to tell me how he knew my mother. He could tell that I was waiting for him to finish, but he looked like he didn't want to spill. "Uhg. This scar on my face." He pointed to the scar that went diagonally over his right eye. I nodded, He had never truly told me how he got it. But I do know it was way before I came into existence. It was kind of a sensitive topic with him, so I'm surprised he's actually going to tell me. "Well... remember how I said your mother was a worrier back in the day." I nodded again, still holding onto the box with my parents' pendants. "Well, we fought closely side by side. She was a close friend of mine. But we lost contact after our last battle. And the day you were born was the next and last time I saw her."
Wait, what. "Hold up." I laughed. "There's no way you were a warrior... And I always wanted to ask you, why don't you just heal the scar if you've always hated it?" He looked annoyed.
"I can't heal a wound from a holy water-infused blade." He didn't say much else. So he really had been a warrior, I can't believe it.
He got up and headed out of the study. "Hey wait." He stopped and looked back at me with a stone-cold face that made my skin crawl. "How old are you?" In the 2108 years, I've been alive I've seen a lot, and if I do the math he must be at least 4200. Maybe he wasn't always as timid as he is now. There could be a reason he is the way he is now.
"Why?"
"I dunno just curious. You never told me." I smiled trying to lighten the mood a bit. There was an odd cold atmosphere.
"Older than you could ever know."