These days, Lottie walked with a skip and a bounce in her steps, especially since the grim spinner Trix shoved a bolt of leftover red linen into her arms, which Lottie promptly used to tailor a new hooded cape for herself.
The tunnels and caverns of the Den might be dark and its residents rough and vulgar in their speech and behaviour, but down here, the world seemed brighter than it'd ever been up there. Up there where the sun shone over the land at the same time as it cast shadows where the dark things hide.
Like the way she'd spent over half her life trying to hide.
"Why do you always cover up your scar?"
Startled by the familiar voice, Lottie looked up from her sewing to meet the twinkling eyes of Demon, who she'd not seen nearly enough in the months past.
In that moment, she forgot about the very scar as she smoothed her hair behind her ears and threw him a wide smile that lit up the cavernous chamber more so than the chandeliers overhead did.
"Demon!" She just about slammed down her needlework and shot out of the wooden bench to throw her arms around the grinning man she regarded as one of her saviours.
"I'm not Demon anymore," he said with a scratch of his head. "I'm now Tiger."
"Oh, please." Lottie tutted with a shake of her head. Now she understood why Dawn had a habit of rolling her eyes at Demon whenever the two of them were together. Even though Lottie was not in the habit of rolling her eyes at anyone, it was difficult to resist doing so when it came to this happy, smiley man who had an unhealthy obsession with trying to be fearsome—the keyword there being 'trying'.
"Hey, look at everyone who's afraid of Wolf. Surely a Tiger is more ferocious than a wolf, no?" He lifted his hands and curled his fingers into claws. "Rawrrrrr."
As difficult as it was to resist rolling her eyes, it was even more impossible not to chuckle at his antics. Sitting back down at the table, she picked up the ripped shirt she'd been mending and poked a needle into the fabric. "Why do you all call him Wolf? He looks nothing like a wolf."
"What? He looks every bit like a wolf!"
"You're blind."
"You're blind." He sidled up to her on the long bench and slung an arm over her shoulder. "Pray tell, little Lottie. What exactly is so interesting about sewing? Everyone here is intrigued because the only ones who do sewing are those who are too old or injured to do anything else. I mean, it's why Trix looks so grumpy all the time, because she doesn't want anything to do with weaving, spinning and sewing."
"How is it not interesting? See here"—she ran a fingertip over a clean tear in the shirt—"this is broken. But me, plain little old me, I have the power to revive this broken garment. All you see is the needle and threading, but I think it's like working magic, giving something damaged a new lease on life. It's fascinating, is it not?"
His brows pinched into a slight frown as he studied the way she deftly poked holes in the fabric, and as she pulled the thread tight, the tear disappeared as if it'd never been there in the first place. "Yeaaaaaaaaah... na."
"Well, what do you do exactly, Demon?"
"Tiger. I'm now Tiger," he corrected, then brought out a glass jar seemingly out of nowhere. A mess of black 'stuff' sat at the bottom of the jar, but after Demon tapped a nail on the glass a few times, the 'stuff' moved.
Lottie reeled back. "What... what is that?"
"It's a battle of venoms. Thirty venomous spiders, centipedes and scorpions placed in a jar to battle and devour each other until the last one remains. That strongest, most vicious victor will also make the most potent poison." As Lottie shuddered from the horror of that imagery, Demon's eyes glinted with excitement. "Survival of the fittest in a jar," he said, shaking the jar a few times.
It was the first time she felt a smidgen of fear around Demon, yet the jar quickly drew an interested crowd.
"Ooooooh who's winning this time?" asked Viola, the pretty blonde who liked to dress her hair in two long pigtails.
"It's down to the last two: a spider and a scorpion." Demon pointed a finger at a dark fuzzy blob that unfurled itself in that moment and crawled towards another dark blob that snapped its pincers.
"Look at the size of that spider! Surely it would win," a man chimed in.
"I don't know..." another mused, stroking his chin. "Look at the way the scorpion is dancing out of the spider's reach. And that stinger. My silver's on the scorpion."
"All right then." Demon set the jar down on the table and fished out a piece of parchment and a thin stick of charcoal. "Jasper for the scorpion. Anyone else?"
All at once, the crowd reached into their sleeves and hidden pockets to draw out their coppers and silvers, slamming them down into two piles on the table as Demon scribbled down their names on the parchment.
For hours, as the two venomous creatures charged and dodged, the crowd cheered and booed. Lottie laughed along, picking up her sewing to work, on and off, as she immersed herself in the boisterous atmosphere around her.
"You look nice, you know, when you're smiling and not hiding your face," Demon (or Tiger) said at one point.
She blushed. "My scar... it's ugly."
"Are you mad? Look around you. Just about everyone here is missing a finger, a toe, an eye or an ear. We don't like newcomers here, you know, but they've accepted you because your scar makes you one of us." He lifted a hand and stroked a thumb over the skin of her scarred cheek. "It tells us that you've lived and faced dangers and survived them. It's not ugly. It's the mark of a survivor."
Just as he finished, several loud shouts went up, drawing Demon's attention back to the rowdy crowd. Lottie glanced over at the jar to see that the scorpion had managed to close one of its pincers around a leg of the spider, then looked away quickly and returned to her sewing.
A survivor. She'd never thought of herself that way, but it was so empowering. For the first time, she understood why Cain kept telling her she was beautiful. She'd thought he was being nice, but if he'd once lived with these people and shared their views, then maybe, probably, he really did find her beautiful.
For the first time in many years, since the parents of Wilkin first urged their children to stay away from Lottie the Bad Egg, she felt as though she was surrounded by good company.
They've accepted you. Her body warmed at the thought. She didn't think any of them would regard her as a friend, but she wanted to think of the Den's denizens as her friends. The thought made her happy, and the world grew brighter yet.
But then a cold tingle rose up her spine and goosebumps prickled her skin.
Having grown up as the walking spectacle of Wilkin, it was a familiar feeling of being watched.
Lottie half turned on the bench, and met the dark gaze of a bloodied Cain staring at her from across the cavern—
No, not her. At the arm that Demon was still resting over her shoulder.
"Cain!" she called out to him with a little wave.
Her cheerful greeting seemed to have broken him out of his trance, but after a moment of hesitation, he turned on his heel and walked away.
It was as if she'd been doused in a bucket of cold water.
For the first time in many years, she had a taste of what it felt like to be surrounded by friends.
For the first time in her marriage, her husband ignored her and turned away.
A/N: That battle of venoms thing is a form of poisonous witchcraft practised in Imperial China for both malicious and medicinal purposes. The earliest record of its use comes from the Sui dynasty (581 - 618 AD) and there were many other species of venomous creatures which were used, including snakes, toads, lizards, centipedes and more. This form of witchcraft can be found in many Chinese fantasy stories.