Devilla
I watched as the plant grew in real ti, the stalk and leaves forming quickly, followed by the rapidly budding and then blossoming flower - a multicolored thing, with white petals tinged by blue at their tips, and pink filants and stan protruding from its center. The combination of colors seed oddly familiar to , though I couldn’t quite place where I’d seen it before… But then, my mind was sowhat preoccupied with the matter of Assa’s dryad powers.
Could they truly have been a gift from the heavens? Maybe. I certainly wouldn’t have put it past my aunts to copy demonic abilities and pass them off as blessed ones. However, between her glowing green hair, a trait she had in common with many dryads, and the suspicious notion of ‘cursed’ bloodlines, I suspected there was actual monster girl blood running through her and Feyra’s veins.
I wondered just how far back it went. Humans and demons had been in an extinction war for two thousand years, after all. Hardly ideal circumstances to form a romance. Add in the fact that her ‘blessing’ was apparently known to run through a noble family line… There was most definitely a story there, but I didn’t have anywhere close to enough information to even try and piece it together. There was one kernel of info that stood out in my mind, though - when demons had children, their species would match the one who birthed them. Usually, that included both their form and wild magic. But if the birth mother was a human, with no wild magic to speak of… Well, who knew what would happen?
“Impressive, right?” Assa asked, drawing my attention back to her and her bright smile. “Tooootally worthy of staring at. And the creator of it all? Heehee, definitely worth a second look, riiiiight? And that’s when she’s clothed! Can’t you just imagine what she’d look like naked? Bet she’d be pretty hot, right?! Why don’t you give it a try?”
“Why are you like this?” Feyra complained, putting her head in her hands. To look at her, you’d think the heavens themselves had abandoned her. “For the last ti, we’re going on a quest, okay? We don’t have ti for you to fuck around.”
“Perhaps this is a thread better tugged upon our return?” I suggested, hoping to play peacekeeper between the two of them. The girl was certainly pretty enough to bed - with a prominent and what looked to be a rather full rear - but at the sa ti, Feyra was right about us being on a mission.
For so reason, however, my proposition garnered a glare from Feyra. “Is sothing the matter?”
“No,” she all but snarled, before turning her attention back to Assa. “How quickly can you finish? The fucking Heroine is waiting for us.”
“I think you’re overestimating the speed with which Lucy will conduct her business,” I remarked, frowning a little at Feyra’s suddenly increased aggression. I didn’t understand what was going through the girl’s mind - for soone who feared , she seed oddly eager to pick a fight. “She’s liable to chat with anyone she has dealings with. Surely we can give your alchemist a little ti to complete her potion making?”
“Well, if the Heroine’s waiting…” Assa murmured, glancing between Feyra and the flower. “I an, I do have a toooon of questions! Like why the heck is the Heroine waiting for you Feyfey? And is your hot friend seriously on a first na basis with her? Buuuuut I guess it can wait… I just need you to tell how well my growing worked - I tried to concentrate as much magical power in the flower head as possible this ti!”
Feyra glared at the flower, her pupils elongating as her eyes narrowed. “It’s fine. I think. Kinda hard to fucking tell when soone’s radiating so much damn magic.”
“Is that a request for to leave?” I asked, arching an eyebrow. “Because I actually had a few questions of my own. Starting with the matter of concentrating magic power, and its effect on potion making.” Not that it was more than an idle curiosity on my part. It was just intriguing to find there might be more to potion making than I’d realized.
“Do whatever the fuck you want,” Feyra replied, shooting another scowl before stomping towards the door. “I need a breath of fresh air.”
I stared after the girl for a mont, before turning my gaze towards Assa. “Is she always like this?”
“Nooooo?” Assa replied, tilting her head to the side and tapping a finger to her chin. “I an, usually she’s only, uh… half as bitchy? Sorta looks like you stress her out, though.”
“I was afraid of that.” I sighed, shaking my head. “Considering the fact that I’m about to be embarking upon a journey with her… Well, I suppose it’s ti we had a little chat.” About why, exactly, she was so scared of - and about what, precisely, could be done about it.
Feyra
I was fucked. Really fucked. I an, I talked back to the fucking Demon Queen! I stord out on the Demon Queen! And why? Because she was maybe planning to cheat on the Heroine? They weren’t even officially together! And also, polyamory was a fucking thing! Though going after one girl right when you started dating another was still a little fucked up, so far as I was concerned.
Also, the embodint of sin wanting to fuck all my… not friends… was a thing in and of itself. I an, sure, one of them was literally the Heroine, and the other had blessed blood running through her veins, but… if eating monster material was bad for your soul - sothing Assa had already been tempted into - then who knew what the fuck eating one out would do to you?
Confronting Eena wasn’t going to spare them, though. If anything, it would get and them killed. Though I guess our souls would at least be free to move onto heaven? As fucking poor a consolation as that was.
“Feyra?”
I flinched. Which probably wasn’t the best fucking move, considering how displeased the speaker looked over it. Displeased and hurt. Or at least she was acting hurt, anyway… It had to be acting. In what fucking world did monsters care what people thought of them?
“We need to talk,” Eena said, after a tense mont. “About the way you’ve been acting towards .”
“Yeah?” I asked, trying not to tense up even more. Running wasn’t going to do any fucking good. Not against soone strong enough to wipe out the city from where she stood. “What’s there to say? You’re powerful, I’m weak and terrified. I’d think you’d be used to it.” Didn’t monsters and demons all cower before their mistress?
I felt a tingle, as magic washed over . It didn’t do anything to , though, at least as far as I could tell. A quick toggling of my sight told that it hadn’t fucking disappeared either, though. It had, instead, ford a bubble around us. Probably so discount version of the Heroine’s privacy spell.
“I’ve stilled the air around us,” Eena explained. “So that we can talk without fear of anyone hearing us.”
“Why? So you can threaten into behaving?”
Shit. Why did I say that? What the fuck had happened to my surival instincts? Was I fucking tired of living? Except… I didn’t feel afraid, as I said it. More like resigned.
I wasn’t going to be able to keep on my toes the whole trip. I was going to slip up, and say sothing I shouldn’t, and piss her off. And when I did, the Heroine was going to suffer alongside . And then humanity was going to suffer, because there’d be no fucking Heroine… I wasn’t exactly the self-sacrificing sort, but maybe it was better if it was just who died horribly.
Though I couldn’t help but notice there was an awful lack of ‘dying horribly.’ Eena didn’t even look mad at . Just… frustrated?
“I don’t understand why you keep assuming the worst of ,” she said. “I know that I’m powerful, but surely you’ve co across others with enough strength to cause you harm.”
“Powerful?” I laughed. I couldn’t help it. The sound just tore itself out of my fucking throat. “Powerful doesn’t even fucking begin to describe it! You make the damn Heroine look like a fucking ant. Just looking at you almost makes lose hope for humanity! I an, how the fuck is she supposed to even beat you if you can just smash her flat the mont you get tired of playing with her?!”
…Fuck. I said it. I fucking said it. I… shit. I… was going to die. I was going to fucking die. Or worse. I was going to die, or worse, and it was all because I couldn’t keep my damn mouth shut, and… Oh. I was on the ground. On my knees. When had that happened? It didn’t even fucking register. A second ago I was standing, and now I was on my knees, staring at the fucking Demon Queen as she got ready to… stare at ?
“Isn’t this the bit where you kill ?” I asked. Because fuck it. I was done. I was done pussyfooting around the most powerful being in the mortal world. I was going to fucking die, and she was going to kill , but before that I was going to say whatever the fuck was on my mind.
Except for so reason, she still wasn’t killing . She was just sort of… staring at ? With this… not quite sad. More… distant than that. And more familiar. She looked resigned. “You are really determined to see the worst in , aren’t you?”
“Am I wrong?” I asked. “Because trust , I’d love to not fucking die. But you’re too strong to be anyone but the Demon Queen. Or maybe a dragon in disguise, here to fuck around, but that probably ends about the sa for now that I’ve spilled the fucking beans, so…”
“Half wrong,” she replied. There was… sothing to her voice. A lightness that didn’t fit. I think she was trying to make it a joke, or sothing, but it mostly just sounded out of place. “I am the Demon Queen, yes, but… as unbelievable as this may sound to you, I have no intention of killing you.”
“Why not?” I asked. Which was a pretty fucking reasonable question, if you ask , even if it was a bit like glaring at a gift horse’s mouth. There was no way in hell I was going to believe she’d just spare , though. If she wasn’t going to kill , it was for a reason. And she’d probably do sothing worse. “Don’t wanna give away your little ga to the Heroine? Afraid she’ll get suspicious if I up and disappear?”
“It’s my chance at brokering peace that would disappear, actually. Alongside the trust Lucy put in when she paired us up.”
“....Peace?”
“That’s right,” the Demon Queen - the fucking embodint of evil - said, with a nod of her head. “Peace. I want Lucy’s help to end the war between our peoples… and before you ask, the look you’re giving right now is, in fact, the exact reason why I haven’t gone to her directly. I want her to know as a person, before she knows to be the Demon Queen. That way she’ll hopefully believe my wish to be sincere.”
Once again, I couldn’t fucking stop the laughter from bubbling up inside of . This ti, though, I didn’t even spare a single fucking thought to stopping it. “You want to prove you’re sincere by lyingto her?”
Eena’s cheeks flushed at that. But she also smiled, for so reason. “If it were anyone but Lucy, I’d concede the point. But Lucy… she already knows I’m keeping secrets. In fact, she explicitly granted permission to do so, so long as I don’t outright lie to her. Sothing that actually almost tempted to admit the truth, strange as that might be. But I don’t know enough about how she sees . How the world sees . So I need to make sure that when the truth cos out, she still sees .”
I was pretty damn sure I could answer both those questions. Starting with the fact that Lucy saw ‘Eena’ as the one who fucking killed her mom. Like hell I was going to give away information, though! If Eena didn’t know Lucy knew, then it was better to keep it that way.
“So what? You just want to keep quiet, and let you plot your little plot? Act like nothing's wrong?”
“I want you to give a chance,” Eena replied, frowning. “Look, you’re going to be traveling with us, are you not?”
“...That’s the plan.” Assuming she didn’t just kill .
“And, in your mind, I have the power to kill you instantly, yes? I’m just stringing you along for so sort of ga?”
“...Pretty much…” Where the fuck was she going with this?
“Then let the ga continue.”
“...Huh?”
The Demon Queen smiled. Big, and bright, and absolutely fucking terrifying. “Then let keep playing the ga, as you see it. Let get close to Lucy. Talk with her. Convince her of my sincerity. And, while I’m at it, I’ll also try to convince you.”
“And why the fuck would I do that?” I demanded, narrowing my eyes at her, utterly ignoring the part of my brain screaming at about self-preservation.
“Because, so far as you’re concerned, the alternative is getting bored and killing you and Lucy. A misconception on your part, I assure you, but… by your own words, you have nothing to lose.”
I opened my mouth. Then I fucking shut it again, and started actually thinking with my head for what might have been the first ti of the night. Because… she was sort of …right? I an, as little as I enjoyed the idea of being this fucking monster’s entertainnt… life gave us a chance. Playing the ga gave us a chance. A chance to figure out so way out of this situation. A chance to escape…
Not much of a chance, mind you. Like, basically nil. But if I had to choose between dying now, and dooming the Heroine in the process, or maybe finding a way for us both to survive down the line… or to at least fucking warn her…
“Fine,” I said, at last, barely believing the words coming out of my fucking mouth. “But if you’re going to play the ga, do it right - stop fucking flirting with girls when you’re already dating the Heroine.”
Was it a stupid stipulation? Probably. The Heroine was already going to get her heart broken. And I didn’t really expect the Demon Queen to follow it, anyway. But if I could spare her a little bit of pain… not to ntion the bit where the Heroine finding out the hard way and confronting Eena would probably end the fucking ga with our deaths, anyway…
“I think that’s a matter between and Lucy,” Eena replied, brushing aside my good deed. Figures. “Though you’re right that I should talk to Lucy about it. I didn’t even consider that she might want exclusivity…”
The way she looked, when she said that… the way her lips thinned, and her eyes shot down towards the ground? The way she fidgeted, nervously, as if she were a little scared of the result. If I didn’t know this was all a ga to her, I might have actually thought she was taking things seriously.
As it was? There was one thing that bugged . When the fuck did she turn into such a good actress?
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