Departure, Flames, and Demons

Upon reaching the corridor I was greeted with the disgruntled face of Eres, cross-armed and angry, she spoke to me: "We leave in a few minutes, human. My sisters will not be here to send us off, they're busy protecting my country, a job I should be doing, and would be doing, if I didn't have to escort a lowly human to Ungues."

She emphasized the words 'lowly' and 'human' in her rant, leaving little to the imagination on how she felt about me. She scoffed loudly, turned, and walked towards the other side of the room. I know I'm not in the right state of mind still, despite my minor revelation of writing down some bullshit. I began to walk towards Eres, anger clouding my judgment, when a large hand placed a firm grasp on my shoulder. I turned around quickly, simultaneously breaking contact and making eye contact with the looming figure. Grine stood in front of me, stoic and straight faced. "Come, Ryne." He beckoned me, turned and walked into the shadows.

Grine led me into a small room I had not yet been in. We were seated across from each other at a small table. Yellow and white flowers decorated the room, their beauty doing little to mitigate the tension. In the center of the room was a glass case with a drooping black rose inside of it. Two guards stood at either side of it, their eyes locked on myself and Grine.

Grine cleared his throat and spoke: "You are angry, that is fair. But you will not show your anger to Lady Eres, if you wish to keep your head upon your neck."

I rolled my eyes and spat. "Do you think threatening me is going to calm me down?! I've been fucked with my whole life Grine, some empty threat is nothing more than another small pill to swallow. Do you know what it's like to know no one?! To trust no one?! The only person you should trust is yourself, right?! Do you know what it's like to not be able to do that? To have your mind be your enemy, on top of seemingly every other god damn person you encounter?!"

Grine, huh? He's the one I flip my switch for? He's the one who gets the brunt of my wrath? And for what? Some empty threat? Am I that fucked up? Second life, first mindset. What a joke. I screamed out and gripped my hands into my hair once more. All through this, Grine sat still, stoic as ever. Choosing to simply take my anger, worthy of it or not. Before I could begin to pull, Grine quickly stood up from his seat and locked eyes with me. "If you must unleash such pent up stress, I must ask you to call for me again. Princess Eres will not tolerate this. So if anyone must, it shall be me." With that, Grine threw me the spear from his back and a small pack from the table. "Keep it from her, and save it for me, if you must." Grine bowed, and left the room. I put my head in my hands and wept.

We left soon after that, unceremoniously. Eres didn't even acknowledge my presence as we departed past the front gate. I turned around as we walked away and looked back at what I was leaving. It wasn't home, it wasn't comfortable, but it was all I really knew since coming to this world. It looked so much smaller on the inside, on the outside it appeared to be a great castle. Large pillars on each corner of the castle held small crows nests where armored soldiers stood on guard. It was finally dawning on me that I was really living in a fantasy world. Crazier still, I was being accompanied by an actual princess, albeit one who hated my guts. As we walked further and further away from the castle, the air grew denser and denser. Large trees bunched in every direction as we traversed deeper into heavy forest. All of a sudden, Eres came to a halt. The musky scent of smoke wafted through the air, followed by the faint sound of distant crackling. She turned to me and slowly raised her finger to her lips. She raised her other hand up, signaling me to stay put. She proceeded forward through the treeline, out of my line of sight. I began to cough as the smog began to creep into my lungs. The temperature continued rising as my robes clung to my sweat soaked skin. The source of the smoke soon showed its face as bright blue embers began to spread across the treetops. Branches came tumbling down, each one slamming into the ground with a booming echo. The whole forest seemed to shake, the flowers burned, the vines reduced to ash, it was nightmarish, and I was stuck right in the middle of it. Another large branch fell from above, landing right in front of me. I fell backwards onto my ass and pulled my legs to my chest. It was strange, realistically there was no way I could escape from this. The flames were surrounding me, the loud crackle of their sparks pounded my eardrums. Was I going to die again? I looked down at my hands and frowned. No shaking. No quivering. Guess I'm really not afraid of dying anymore, huh? So be it.

I closed my eyes and lied down on the remaining small patch of green beneath me. It was kind of funny, despite the situation, it was pretty nice. It was like I was in the eye of a hurricane, safe for the moment, but forced to sit back and watch as the world around me crumbled. I loosened the ties on my robe and exposed my bare chest to the air. It was such an inviting heat, I almost wanted to jump in, but ignored the impulse. My moment of tranquility didn't last very long before I was rudely interrupted by screaming. There must have been dozens of different voices, all singing the same notes. There were so many at once, I honestly couldn't tell if Eres' was among them. Then, without so much as a hitch, my fiery tranquility returned, and the screaming stopped.

Unfortunately, my paranoid brain wasn't willing to let it be. My anxiousness began to overtake me as I quickly got to my feet and screamed out into the flames.

"Is anyone there?!" No response.

"Hello?!" Silence. I took a deep breath.

"Eres-?!"

A gloved hand wrapped its way over my mouth from behind, muffling my words. I didn't think it was Eres' hand based off of the knife held to my throat.

A man's voice whispered in my ear, "are you with her, kid? Are you with that demon?" His breath reeked of booze and tobacco, it made my eyes water. It was odd, my natural state was panicked and afraid, but, as this stranger held the blade to my throat, I felt nothing. No fear, no worry, nothing. I tilted my head up and stared at the twin moons above me, their blue glow providing a dim light as I resigned to accept my fate. Demon, huh? Gee, I wonder who he could be talking about. The man loosened his grip over my mouth and pressed the knife into my throat, its cool surface felt awesome against my hot skin. I winced as I began to feel blood trickle down my neck.

"Answer me you traitorous son of a bitch! Don't you know how awful their kind are, son?! You can't trust witches like them they'll kill y-"

A swift 'zwing' sound reverberated throughout the forest, followed by hot liquid exploding all over the back of my head. The man's lifeless body fell to my side with a thud. A branch snapped to my left and I quickly turned to see an unscathed Eres emerge from the flames. She walked up to the body of the dead man and ripped the shirt off his chest. She grabbed her weapon, some kind of weird looking gun, and wiped the blood and guts from its barrel. She made brief eye contact with me, scoffed, and continued forward. With each step she walked, yellow spores would come up from the ground behind her, extinguishing the flames. What remained of the green grass was painted in a lush red and limbs were scattered every which way. I walked slowly on solid ground beside Eres, while she chose to march entirely on the bodies of the dead soldiers. There were dozens of them, it wasn't an ambush, it was a massacre. She held her head high as she walked, not seeming fazed in the slightest.

"Filthy humans." She muttered under her breath. I gulped and kept my head down.