Chapter Four: The Demon King’s Musings
The result justifies the means in which it is obtained
They spent three more days in the forest and each night the Hero would go out and away and come back an hour or so later with small animals meant to be their food. Which was no small feat considering she had nothing to catch them with. It was mostly rabbit or bird, as to how she got them without a trap or a bow made him blink in wonder. One night she even came back bruised and bitten covered in blood and with a wolf slung over her back.
She made him feel things he’d never felt before and he had to admit that he liked being near her. Frowning with frustration, he remembered one key fact.
Mao would kill him, or worse, her, if he ever found out.
Mao was like an older brother to him, the only person that Nemis actually cared about. It was Mao that he owed his life to and if he wanted the Hero dead, there wasn’t much Nemis would do to obstruct that. As he thought it, his heart began to ache. Clutching it, he bent over and coughed, trying hard as he could to force the pain away.
He didn’t want Mao to find out for some reason.
He liked being with her.
She treated him like a person, not like a king or a demon.
He glanced at her, his mind filling with words and thoughts he did not want to think. He couldn’t be going soft. He was going to kill the Hero. Only it would be when he felt like it.
What is this… He had to ask himself. The little bitch will die, she will.
During the three days it took them to reach the edge of the forest he found himself constantly staring at the girl. Watching her, he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. When night came she was ethereal, pale like the goddess Opheria. When day came she was fierce and strong, bright like the god Azon.
Mao can’t find out…
The land outside the forest was clear. They could see the sun and trees only dotted the earth. Thickets of wild berries appeared more often than not that he got tired of eating them early on. She assured with great certainty that Coron wouldn’t be much further. When he heard this, he couldn’t have felt anymore elated. He was tired of walking. Almost a week had passed since he’d joined the girl and he was getting bored with the wild game and fish. Anyways, the Hero had become quiet again.
The girl would look at him sometimes when they did talk, her eyes clouded with confusion. Was it because he said things that didn’t make sense? Maybe some demon words had no meaning in the human tounge. He would have to ask when he returned home.
The realm of Hell was a different place, cold and desolate, and it was the home of carnage and death, chaos and desire. Hell wasn’t like the other two realms; it was the place of trash.
Oh, that was made clear in the beginning. Demons are nothing but garbage in the eyes of the humans and the gods. They belong in the cold nothingness they call Hell. Nemis growled to himself, his patience sorely tested by his own thoughts. My world. My People. Them, humans, they are the true evil. Humans…Like…Her…
Somehow, that upset him, angered him even. For some stupid reason, he had thought the Hero was-oddly enough- something different. The more he played with her, the more he followed her steps, the less he felt sure about anything.
It unsettled him.
For the first time in a long time, he thought about Hell. He thought about the only things that grew there, little trees of a glass like substance. They bore fruit fabled to bring back anyone dead, so long as they were freshly dead, and was perhaps more delicious than anything in the world of the humans. Sadly enough, the trees only bloomed every ten years. Nemis had actually only tried it twice, as to why, he didn’t like to think about it.
For the first twenty years of his life he had not known that he was a demon, in fact he thought he was the same as everyone. Sadly, reality came crashing down and he was then banished from the only home he’d ever known for reasons he didn’t quite understand. He was alone for a long time.
He really did not want to remember. Forgetting had been easy, remembering was much harder. Every memory that surfaced made him angry in a sad way. The protection he built up started crumbling and corroding. He felt safe if nothing was touched, if everything was hidden.
He wondered if the Hero felt the same.
After the initial questions they never talked about their lives. Her real family or his fake one, neither was brought up again. The girl’s eyes seemed sad when he asked her about being the hero. So melancholy that he told her just to forget it.
Nemis knew that humans were fragile creatures. They broke so easily that they weren’t any fun, but the girl was tough and not just physically.
She interrupted his musing, her hand shooting straight out so that her delicate fingers rested on his chest. Finger to lips, she pointed to the side of the road. Pulling him backwards, they got some distance away before she opened her mouth.
“Did you see that?” She whispered.
“Not really.” He said, his voice low. “What exactly should I have seen?”
“I don’t really know. It felt demonic, but also human like, and it looked like a child.” The Hero was truly confused. Nemis looked over to where she was indicating. The power he felt was so weak had he had to completely ignore everything else. What he felt was surprising; it was a half breed. Some poor being born through the union of a demon and a human.
“It is a child.” The Hero’s head shot around so that she was looking him straight in the eye. Still very confused, her look eased up as she thought about his words.
Her blue eyes went wide. Her mouth opened and closed, like she was carefully thinking out her words. “Are you sure?” She asked. He nodded.
“Very much so, and I don’t think he’ll hurt us. I think he’s unconscious.” He added. Something, what he knew to be empathy, welled up inside him. He felt kinship with the child. He began to walk towards it when he felt the Hero’s hand gripping his arm.
“What are you doing?! It could be the Demon King!” She demanded, the look in her eyes making him cringe. Her fingers felt like a searing brand in his skin. He ripped himself free and glared.
“Not likely, I’m going to the kid. Which, as the Hero, is something you should be doing.” He took one last look at her and stalked off to the child.
The child was laying behind a thicket of bushes, its body in fetal position, so tightly curled that he wasn’t sure where its head ended and its ass began. The child was shivering, its eyes closed and it’s body covered in bruises. Blood was dried on the side of its head.
The anger.
The memories.
The desire to destroy.
It was all coming back to him.
The smell of urine attacked his senses as he picked the child up and he knew it was both the child’s own and that of several others. The child couldn’t have been more than seven or eight and outwardly nothing seemed to indicate that he wasn’t fully human. The boy’s hair was as dark as Nemis’ own, pitch black like the dark and silky fine. Or at least it would have been. Mud, urine, and blood was matted against his head.
A sharp pain shot through his stomach as if some phantom was kicking him. Teeth grinding, he carried the child back to the Hero. He was being perhaps more gentle than he had been in a long time. He didn’t care if human or demon died, as it happened frequently by his own hand, but the child reminded him of things too painful. No one had helped him when he was the boy’s age, but if someone had, his life may have gone different.
The closer he got the Hero the more upset he felt. She gave an audible gasp, her hand shooting to her mouth.
“What happened to him?” she asked in a whisper.
The pain grew worse. Stumbling, he almost tripped. Unsteady on his feet, he decided to sit and cradle the boy in his lap.
“I…Found him…In the bush…” The pain was still rolling through him and he had to fight to breathe steadily. “My guess is that….They…Were… Trying to kill him.”
“Are you okay?” The Hero’s voice was filled with worry. He did not want her pity. It was like a slap in the face, thus unneeded. He shook his head and bit his cheek.
He waited a moment for his breathing to go back to normal before he spoke again. “I’m fine, but he’s not.” He put the child on the ground and took off his tunic. Clumsily folding it, he placed it beneath the boy’s head.
A flash of a similar image passed through his mind, Mao had done the same thing for him when he was still a child.
He studied the kid intently. The demon blood in the boy was so weak that he would have been mistaken as a human by anyone else, but the Hero had noticed before him. She hadn’t been aware of what he was, but that the kid had demon blood in him. No hero he’d ever met before had been able to tell the difference, humans weren’t able to, only demons could. Then again she hadn’t felt Nemis
He looked to her only to notice she wasn’t there. Surprised, he looked around and felt for her. Closing his eyes, he felt around. Ignoring the plants and animals, he zoned in on her.
She’s getting water. He sighed, relieved that she hadn’t left him. He wasn’t ready to kill her.
She came back less than five minutes later, carrying her sword’s sheath in her hands while the hilt of her sword hung by her side. She handed her scabbard to him and ripped a piece of cloth from her clothes. Dipping it in, she began to wipe the boy’s face. Her hands expertly cleaning the grime away. Quickly, the cloth became dirty and she ripped another piece off. She did so until the blood was gone and the kid’s face was clean.
She caught his surprised look and smiled softly.
“I’m used to this.” She mouthed.
Of course she was used to it. She was the Hero after all. She saved people, took care of them, healed them, and protected them. She was trained to think on her feet, if she had nothing to carry water in, she would have to improvise. If she had nothing to wash with, all she had to do was use her own clothes. He was amused; the girl wasn’t that bad of a hero.
He went to look for firewood while the Hero watched over the boy, his mind full of her. He watched her slip her own tunic off and place it on the boy just before he’d left. He was dimly aware of another tunic beneath it, one that had only two thin straps holding it up. Her other tunic had clung to her throat while its sleeves fanned out and hid her hands. It seemed to be made out of a thick but comfortable material. She assured him that the child would be warm enough when the night came, but it hadn’t been the boy he was too worried about. He didn’t want her to get cold.
He threw the bundle of sticks he already collected on the ground, a deep growl stuck in his throat. Why was he going out of his way to make sure she was comfortable? Even helping the kid was so out of his character. He was changing and he did not like it. He wasn’t the type of person to bow down to another, to do things for others, to do something that did not benefit him. He didn’t need a fire to make him warm. He was fine in the cold, in fact, he really did not like the heat.
But they do. The voice was small, but it reverberated against his skull. The air was already crisp and night was barely falling. Cold seeped through the earth still and the previous days had been freezing. The cold months were barely just ending. Both the child and the Hero would be frozen if there was no fire.
Defeated, he picked up the bundle again and headed back to the Hero.
She was huddled against a tree, the young boy enfolded in her arms. Two pairs of eyes blinked back at him in the fading light. Dark eyes, eyes the color of the midnight sky, with pupils slanted like a cat’s met his. They were demon eyes.
The Hero smiled her face bright. He watched the kid without letting the Hero or the boy notice. The boy’s eyes never stopped watching him, like they were storing everything he did to memory. Nemis made the fire and sat back, his eyes on the kid. The Hero grinned; satisfied that Nemis wasn’t going to get up anytime soon.
“Nemis, this is Chris.” She petted the boys head, her eyes tender and gentle and motherly like. “Chris, this is Nemis. He’s the one who saved you.” The boy glanced at Nemis and blinked, then he looked to the Hero and smiled. She looked down to him, her eyes bright. She was on the verge of tears, but she was hiding them well.
“Chris?” Nemis asked. If he ever found out who had tried to kill the boy he would not merciful. Chris’ eyes met his and he shook his head, knowing what the man would ask next.
“He…He…can’t speak. I only found out his name because he wrote it in the dirt.” The Hero’s voice strained, and she hugged the boy tight, the strain of her clenched teeth evident on her cheek.
“Couldn’t he do the same if we asked him questions?” he asked. It was the Hero’s turn to shake her head.
“I tried. He only knows how to spell his name.” A harshness broke through and he knew what she was thinking; the boy had been an outcast and not allowed the basic rites any normal human was given.
Nemis sighed.
Chris, can you hear me? He hadn’t intended to speak to the boy as he would another demon, but that was the only way he could think of to get the information out of the boy and he wasn’t even sure it would work anyways. The boy seemed more human than anything. Only his eyes betrayed him, but even then he was lucky. Most halfbreeds were born looking like the demon parent.
The boy’s eyes opened wide and stared straight at Nemis. Yes…
Good. First, don’t let the big sister behind you know that we are talking. Chris nodded and leaned back. The Hero didn’t seem to notice their interaction and continued to hold the boy. Now, can you tell me what happened? Who did this to you?
The villagers…They said I was trash… Nemis felt a deep rooted sadness in Chris, but a small twinge of happiness was growing. This is the first time I’ve been able to talk to someone else- The boy cut off his sentence and closed his eyes. Nemis could imagine what made him go mute.
You must never tell anyone that you can talk to me. Big sister there doesn’t know that I am like you. She doesn’t like mu kind too much. You are fine, you’re more like her than a demon, but me, I’ve no human in me. Nemis smiled.
You mean… You’re a…Like me? The boy asked. Nemis nodded slightly.
Exactly. As Nemis spoke, he could see the beginning of a big smile on Chris’ face.
Nemis found out many things before the kid fell back asleep, like what the name of his village was, who had beat him and who had been nice to him. That the man that owned his house had kicked his mother out when she’d gotten too sick to work and pay rent. That his mother had died because no doctor would give medicine to a demon and a demon lover. That when she died the men of the village had beat him so hard that he stopped speaking.
It reminded him of Eldis and the other gods. What it felt like to be betrayed by those you trusted. To be thrust into a new world without a moments notice, and to be all alone. Searching, waiting for someone to tell you everything was going to be alright, and as much as it was contrary to Nemis’ nature, he was going to do that for Chris.
The Hero was asking a question and it dimly registered that she was talking to him. “ -with us?” she asked. He looked at her expectant face and shrugged.
He replied with an lightly apologetic tone and bent his head. “ Sorry, Hero, I was not listening. What did you say?”
“Should we take him to Coron with us?” she looked down at the already healing wound on the side of Chris’ head and continued. “I really don’t like the idea of taking him back where he came from, and we don’t even know where that is, anyways, I know of someone who would be willing to take him in.” Nemis balked at her words. Who would take in a half breed.
As if she knew what he was thinking, she replied. “Vestiaa is a friend of mine, her mother was a demon. But that’s not the point, she lives on the outskirts of Coron, so not many people stop by.” Nodding, he silently agreed. It would be best for Chris if he lived away from people. If this “Vestiaa” was the Hero’s friend, then she couldn’t be bad, especially if she was a half breed. It was fully decided later when Chris woke up. At first he didn’t want to, but with some gentle prodding from the Hero and a silent promise to come see him from Nemis, he agreed. When morning came, they set off with Chris hugging Nemis’ back.
Nemis was a little irritated in the beginning. He wasn’t a pack mule, to be used for the Hero’s delight. But he changed his mind half way through, Chris wasn’t heavy in the slightest. The kid turned out to be pretty fun to talk to and the Hero would trade off and give the kid a piggy back ride ever so often.
Before long they arrived in Coron.