4 Chapter 4: Hearth

"Stop calling us demons!" Elky shouted at a man who was making fun of his tail with a grim. He had touched the tail, while the tail was a no touching area for him, calling him little demon, "why don't you demons go back to the hell you came from," he had said to piss him off. He was shorter than the man, yet had the guts to stand on his toes to be as tall as possible, lean towards him and shout. The man was stinking with alcohol.

Ashe, who was witnessing this, was looking at the scene with a worried face. She would want to help; but he had been forbidden by Elky. "Do not attract attention," he had demanded. So she stood there among the crowd who were gathering around to see what was going on. It was always fun to watch a demon and drunkard quarrel.

"You bloody demons," the man spitted on his face and Elky made a fist to punch him in the face. His eyes were bulged and he was biting his lower lips hardly, his long canines were showing. As he was lifting his arm, Elky felt a hand on his shoulder and a whisper in his ear, "calm down," Deeba said next to his ear and gently pulled him back, hiding him behind her body. The man started swearing at her. She grabbed his collar and pulled him towards herself grinding her teeth. "Leave the kid alone," she said angrily, "or the soldiers will take your dead body tomorrow." A woman in her job was not afraid of what people would think about her. She could hear murmurs already and knew that she cannot really do anything; at least not in front of that many people. But a drunk man did not know that. What he saw was a beautiful woman with silky blond hair and jade piercing eyes telling him something with anger. He chuckled and lifted his powerless hand to touch Deeba's; before he could touch her she let go of him and took Elky's hand to storm away. Ashe followed them silently.

"They call us demons but we are Fyrens!" Elky said and Ashe looked at him in surprise. Deeba was still pulling him , angrily not listening to him.

At the door to her small house, she finally stopped and looked at them. "You were about to hit a human?" Deeba shouted, "Do you know what would have happened if I wasn't there? Do you even think?" That was the first time for the both of them to see Deeba this angry. The veins on her temples were showing up. For such a beautiful face, it was scary.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her face back to normal, was beautified with a smile again. Bending down to place her eyes in the same level as theirs, she was the kind woman again. "You two should be careful," she said, "he was a former soldier." She shuffled his hair and let the two of them go.

On the way back to home, Ashe was still thinking about the word she had heard. "Fyren?" she asked, "you create a name to say you are not a demon?" Elky looked at her in confusion, "but we are Fyrens," he repeated himself. Ashe was baffled, "what is a Fyren?" Elky sighed disappointedly, held her hand and pulled her to a way which was not to home. "Where are we going?" she asked. "Somewhere you will learn what you are!" he answered under his breath.

The place was an abandoned library near where Deeba lived. Most of the windows broken and walls collapsed, the library was still fighting for survival. It had only one floor and was small; hardly any parts of its walls standing. Ashe was not surprised at the scene. She was of course amazed seeing such a place existed this close to her and she never knew. But she was not surprised to see that the building was destroyed. In that area, no one cared about reading.

Inside, the big room was decorated with old wooden bookshelves and had a damp smell. She could hear water dripping from the ceiling somewhere. Spider webs were covering every space they could fit in. The fallen parts of the wall and the roof were covering the ground and some books were fallen on the ground. The non-broken windows were shut and sealed with planks of wood as wind was howling from the space between them. Elky, knowing where he had to go, pulled her to the centre of the room where a few tables were covered with books buried in dirt.

"These books are all about us. See," he pulled out a book covered in dirt and puffed the dirt off it, "Fyrens!" he pointed at the title. Ashe held the book and looked at it. The title was hardly visible, it was once golden on the dark blue hard cover. She could see the word "Fyren," faintly on it. He pulled out another one showing the cover and shouting, "Fyrens!" and threw it away, looking for another one.

"What is this?" she asked while Elky was pulling out another book. "A book about us," he stated and looked at the new book, "I don't like human history books," he noted, "they are full of lies. But the books that just describe us or have paintings, they are good." Ashe looked up at him, still confused. "So, why do we call you demons then?" she wanted to know. "Humans call us that," he sighed, opening the book he had, "see, here this is a demon, ugly with horns and fire breath fighting a human. Look at its big eyes and red skin. We don't look like that. But humans believe that it is us and based on this book, demons always hated humans."

Ashe remembered that in the orphanage Miss Perkins had mentioned something similar. "Demons have hated us forever, from the beginning of time," Miss Perkins had said walking in the small room they called the classroom and looking at Ashe with hatred, "they always wanted our lands. Filled with greed, those creatures are. They attacked us many times. But around one hundred and fifty years ago, Ara the Conqueror, defeated them. They were forced to start living here while they were not able to have children or grow up." During the lesson, Ashe would never listen as she found them boring. But now she could remember clearly. Though Miss Perkins had never mentioned the curse.

Ashe decided to take the two books Elky had shown her with herself. A new world had been opened to her which she was unfamiliar with, while being a part of it. The books were old and some papers were torn. Some words were difficult to read and some parts were written in a language she was not familiar with. Elky told her that it was Fyren's language, he also tried reading a part of it to her, "it is a difficult language and I have forgotten most of it," he said.

When they were back, Ashe decided to read what she could from the book. Most of it was written in Fyren's language and someone had written the meaning of some sentences on the margins of the book.

Based on the book, Fyrens were technically demons, or the demon king's descendants. The legend said that when the sister, the goddess of Beneath, fought and defeated the demon king, she found out about his only child. Being a kind hearted, despite her brother's advice she did not kill the innocent infant. Instead, she took away his powers and left the least powers possible in him. He was the first Fyren.

There was a whole paragraph translated in human language.

"Dovale was heaven, or so the humans thought. There were gates to this magical land, sealed to humans for thousands of years ago. Yet humans dreamed of finding the land owned by mystical Fyrens. Fyrens, those great warriors, descendants the demon king yet saved and loved by the goddess, would visit the surface everyone hundred years to celebrate the peace between the twin gods of Surface and Beneath. When they heard the desire of humans to get a glimpse of their land, they rejected their request. 'There is a reason for the gate to be sealed for you,' they had said. Yet humans did not give up. For what is unattainable becomes the true desire of the heart. That is the nature of humans. On the path to finding the gate, many men lost their lives. But no one ever found it." was written in the book.

"They did," Elky said with a flat voice, "and they closed the gate to us." Ashe looked at his sad face. It must have been awful to be away from his homeland. She patted him on the head and he placed his big head on her shoulder. Soon, he was fast asleep.

Deeba was in front of her door talking with affection with a man whom she ditched and pushed away when she saw Ashe and Elky approaching. "Was that OK to get rid of a customer?" Ashe asked. Deeba looked at Elky and smiled. "He will get his answer somewhere else. Come on in," she let them in.

Her room was clean and was smelling nice. A few candles were on and the window was open. They sat on the bed; Ashe a little less comfortably remembering her last time in that room and also knowing how Deeba was answering the questions of her customers in that bed.

"How can I help you?" Deeba asked sitting on the armchair by the window. The window was high enough so that the passengers could not see inside. "Did you know that Elky is not a demon but a Fyren?" she asked eagerly. Deeba started thinking for a moment placing her hand on her chin and narrowing her eyes, "I knew they called themselves something else," she answered, "but didn't know the word."

"And have you heard of Dovale?" Ashe asked again. This time Deeba didn't even pause for a second. "Everyone knows that it is the old name for Partash. It's a beautiful place. People go for holidays," she paused then and looked at Elky. "Elky is not allowed there. Humans only. Why do you ask?" Ashe's face got red with anger. She almost started shouting, "Dovale is the land Beneath! It belongs to them!" Deeba frowned. This was brand new information for her. "I don't think it is," she said hesitantly, "Partash has been open for the last ten years. These guys came to the surface more than a hundred years ago and the gate was closed to them." She sure knew a lot for someone in that job.

"Why?" Elky asked in a low volume, he was scared of the answer. Deeba rested her chin on her fist, placed the elbow on one knee and placed her knee on the other. "What they taught us in school," she answered trying to remember, "is that they attacked humans to get Surface and then the sorcerers stopped them by closing the gate and cursing them." She could have been a teacher, Ashe thought to herself, or an orphanage manager. She knew way more than Miss Perkins and was kinder than her. "The curse," Elky repeated under his breath.

"Elky?" Deeba called him when she saw his serious face thinking, "how long have you been here?" Elky looked at his hands. "I know I was eight when I came here," he gulped, "but I don't know how long ago it was." there was silence then. Ashe always thought that Elky was a small boy.

"They live the dream if you ask me," Deeba broke the silence with a smile trying to get rid of the tension in the air, "they don't age on Surface. No matter what. But they don't grow mentally either. Time stands still for them. I would give anything to be eight again and forever. Growing up is not that fun. " Ashe smiled forcibly.

Ashe thought, Elky could have been one hundred years old. From Deeba's eyes he was living the dream getting stuck in the body of a little boy and never growing. But Ashe could see the pain in his eyes now. How much he was struggling to remember how old he should be. How long it had been. She held his hand. "Is there any way to lift the curse?" she asked Deeba, "we are not fighting anymore." Deeba shook her head. "There will be a war when they announce the chosen one. But who knows really." A knock on the door made her look in that direction, her face suddenly emotionless. "Now, get out. A woman needs to work," she said and pushed them out of her house gently.

The chosen one. She started looking into her book about the chosen one. But it was written before "the War of Dovale". Elky didn't know anything either. After a couple of hours, it seemed that he had forgotten that conversation and was playing by himself with a ball he had found. He did remind her of Luke. But it would have been a pain if Luke remained the little Luke forever. It would have been awful if he grew up to be someone like Kaith, but better than getting stuck in a little boy's body. What if Deeba was right and it was a dream to stay in the same age forever? She shook her head to get rid of those thoughts.

Ashe tried her best not to think about negative things. She tried not to remember the look she saw on Elky's face when he tried to remember. After that day, he always seemed distracted to her, or it could have been her imagination. She felt a yearning in his eyes, looking for something he had lost, and she hardly could bear those feelings. He seemed happy though, living his usual life.