After I finished getting dressed, I stepped outside and headed over to sit next to Rune, who was patiently waiting on the bed, knees tucked up to her chin and already half asleep. Patting her head again, I slowly sank down, feeling my weight sink into the mattress far more than before, my weight more than doubling. "Ok. So I thought about this. Rune, you probably want to sleep with me, right? Especially if I'm in this form…" She didn't even answer, practically falling asleep the moment she leaned on me. 'Right… I wonder how strong her dragon blood is to have this sort of effect on her?'
"So, Vive, you can take this bed if you want."
She shook her head. "I don't like beds… I'd rather sleep on the floor… It's more comfortable for me."
"Ok… Then… Do you mind if I join you? I have a theory that if we stay close to each other, more of the demonic traits will go away. This form is what I used originally to cure you after all. Or, more precisely, the same thing that gives me this form repels demonic energy."
She glanced to the side. "I… Don't like… Being near other people…"
I sighed. "That's fine too. Just do whatever you think is best. We can test the theory tomorrow." Without another word, I pulled Rune under the blankets and tucked her in next to me, closing my eyes, though I never went to sleep. Instead, I spent time meditating, manipulating my soul, and repairing the damage I had done to it... It was like everything was spread apart, forced into thin strands like cotton candy that I had to gather and meld back together. It was so chaotic it took me hours, although, oddly enough, it was strangely relaxing, and I still felt rested despite not sleeping.
I opened my eyes, staring up at the ceiling, and resting for a moment, when I was finally done. 'Even in this form, I'm starting to feel more like myself. Mr Dragon… You aren't disappearing on me, are you?'
He groaned, letting me know he was still there without saying a word.
'That's good then.'
I let out a thick breath of steam, heating the air around me as my body felt warm but somehow still cool, my soul finally able to rest. 'Is tomorrow the practical already? Are the others nervous?' I focused on my senses. 'They seem the same as always. If anything, Mo is more relaxed than she used to be. Isy forgets all her worries the moment her head touches a pillow, and Little Rune… Basically goes into a clingy hibernation whenever I'm in this form. Wait. Hold on…'
I carefully sat up, looking over at Vive. 'Her heart rate is crazy fast… Both of them. Did she have a bad dream? Although… If I try to comfort her, I might just make it worse. Oh? She's already calming down… Aaaand she's asleep again…' I slowly lay my head back down and pulled the blanket over my shoulders. 'Getting so used to bad dreams they don't really bother you anymore… I know that feeling too…'
I scratched Rune's ear, making it twitch as she sank even deeper into whatever peaceful dream was putting such a big smile on her face. 'I'm glad at least she doesn't have to deal with that sort of thing…'
'If anything, Vive is the normal… Her heart rate is increasing again already?' I sat up and went to get a glass of water for her, but when I came back, her entire right arm was pitch black, enlarged with claws like a dragon. 'That's a bit more than a bad dream…'
I knelt down next to her. "Hey… Vive, are you awake?"
"I'm fine… Just a bad dream…" She whined softly, as though she were in pain, but refused to roll over to look at me. Every breath she took was short, and her heart was pounding hard enough that they were moving her whole body with every beat.
"Right… I brought you some water; you should drink some."
She let out a deep breath, slowly pushing herself up and listening, despite her face telling me she was against it.
'If she's turning more demonic, that means one of three things is happening… It could be that her dreams were so bad that she was falling back into despair, which originally turned her into a demon. It could also be that she's like me, and just part demon now, and the demon in her is trying to take over like my dragon… Or it could be every time she closes her eyes, she goes to the abyss instead of falling asleep… Without soul arts, of course, she wouldn't be having a good time… I can try reverting forms… But doing that so soon would cause some serious whiplash, and I wouldn't be able to use this form for the exam tomorrow… Of course… It's also possible the demon that was possessing her is back, but I don't think it would… It said it gave her to me as a present or something, right? Though, I guess it could have lied…' "Vive… can I see your right arm?"
She slowly handed it to me, seemingly unable to tell the difference. The moment I touched it, the black markings all vanished like paper flecks being shredded and torn away. 'Mr Dragon… You really are amazing, you know.'
He let out another, more satisfied groan as I moved my hand up her arm until it was back to normal. 'There is one benefit from having pure dragon eyes, though.' "I need you to look me in the eyes for a moment."
She had no trouble finding them, of course… They did glow in the dark… As our eyes met, I peered straight into her soul. It wasn't like mine at all. It was dark, sure… But it was one single entity. There was no demon, no dragon, or god. It was all just her, which put most of my worries to rest. Although the fact that her entire soul was malleable was the opposite of what I would call good… Technically, that meant she was already a demon more or less… So, in that sense, I wasn't exactly put at ease either. Although Rafi somehow did pull off the same thing without turning… She wasn't exactly what I would call a role model…
"Vive… This is going to sound crazy, but this is my form where I am most similar to a dragon, and the dragon's blood chases away bad things. Right now, there are a lot of bad things trying to get to you. So it's a good idea for us to stay as close as possible tonight. Does that make sense?"
She sighed. "Does that mean… I have to sleep on your bed?"
"No… I can sleep on the floor if you want. I'm plenty used to it anyway…"
Her face softened as she looked away. "Fine…" Is what she said… But despite falling asleep right away after a nightmare… No matter how long we stayed side by side, she never relaxed enough for me to be able to say she fell asleep.
After another hour, I hesitated to nudge her, eventually calling out to her again. "Vive… Are you awake?"
"No, go back to sleep…"
'This kid…' "Come on, get up for a minute, let's go for a walk." 'I'd love to give her time, but if she becomes exhausted, her soul will only become tired and even more vulnerable… This needs to be settled, at least partially…
I brought her another glass of water as we stepped out onto a large balcony overlooking the tower entrance. 'This kind of sight is something I never got to see on earth…' I sighed, looking out at the stars and moons, clearly visible in the night sky even from the big city, since there was no light pollution to block them from view. "So… I'm not really good with this sort of thing, so… Don't… I mean… Sorry in advance if I make you upset or something…"
She let out a soft groan, eerily reminding me of Mr dragon as she stared down at the glass of water in her hand, rather than beautiful view right in front of her.
"Seems like up till now your life kinda sucked right?"
A small grin quickly came and went from her face, letting her marble white fangs poke out just slightly from her mouth. "You could say that."
"To be honest mine kinda sucked too, actually it's still not what I would call great, but it's a lot better at least. But even don't know what you went through it feels like yours was probably even worse than mine."
"You're right, you're not very good at this."
I sighed, leaning on the railing next to her, letting my own glass hang over the side as I nudged her shoulder. "I did warn you."
"That's not water…" She said bluntly, finally taking her eyes off her glass, moving them to mine.
"It's… Basically water. My dragon's blood makes it so I can't get drunk." 'I raided the teacher's secret stash out of habit…'
"So it's alcohol."
'Dangit, I should have said it was something else…' "That's not important…" I cleared my throat.
"Can I try it?"
'I mean, she's just a kid, but she's probably also immune… And one sip couldn't hurt anyway… Maybe I really am a bad influence.' I sighed, handing her the glass for a moment. 'Then again, it's probably hard to be a bad influence on a demon, so…'
"It's bitter… And spicy…"
'Not sure spicy is the right word for the burning feeling it gives you, but it's cute.' "You're not technically supposed to be able to drink this till you're older, so don't tell anyone you tried it, ok?"
She suddenly flinched, her eyes going wide. "You broke the rules?"
"U-uh… Yeah…"
"So I broke the rules, too?"
"No, technically, you having a sip was just me breaking the rules again."
"Are you gonna be ok?"
'She looks even more scared than before…' I sighed again, looking back out at the night sky. "Vive, what do you think happens to people who break the rules?"
"They get punished."
"Alright, so what happens when the person breaking the rules is stronger than the people trying to punish them?"
"That's… I…"
"It's not really a trick question. Basically, even if I get caught, no one here is strong enough to punish me, if they tried, I could just beat them up if I wanted to."
"That's…"
"And so you know… That goes for my friends, too. No one is allowed to punish you unless they are stronger than me, not even demons."
"You really aren't any good at this at all…"
'Now she's shaking again… Seriously?' "To be honest, I thought I was doing pretty good there, though…"
"When you say things like that, it makes me feel like you're going to hurt me, but then you don't. It's… Confusing. I don't understand, and my chest hurts…"
"Why would you think I would hurt you?"
"That's what happens… If you want a kid to listen, you just have to be nice… Give a hungry kid some food and tell them it'll be fine and they'll do whatever you want… Then, after a while, they… Well, it's not like I didn't know this when I followed you… But you're still being nice, and you haven't hurt me yet. I don't…"
'Finally admitting you're a kid too huh…' "I get what you're saying, but I'm not being nice… Honestly, I'm not much of a nice person to begin with. I'm just being human. When I see a little girl's soul crying for help with tears falling down her face, it makes me feel bad… So I tried to help… It's not like I'm short on money, so buying you clothes wasn't a big deal… And, I kind of ruined your old clothes anyway, so it was the least I could do… Even trying to fix your sense of taste was more about my own curiosity than me being nice… I'm not expecting anything from you, and if I wanted you to do something. Hm… What would I do? Well, I'd just ask you first, then if you said no, I'd probably just drop it… It makes me feel really bad when I pressure people I like into doing things they don't want to."
Looking back at her eyes, her soul only became more violent, like it was thrashing around, trying to gash at her insides. "I don't understand…" Tears started leaking from her eyes as she tore the buttons off her shirt, clawing at her chest before I stopped her. "It hurts…" She whined again before her tense body relaxed, not even fighting me in the slightest.
"But it's not like hurting yourself more will make it hurt less, right?"
"R-right… That would be stupid…"
'Yet you almost just ripped your heart out… Do you have any idea how sharp demon claws are?' "Vive… What happened in your nightmare?"
"I don't want to talk about it…"
"Alright… What happened to turn you into a demon?"
"Don't want to talk about that either."
"What about–"
"I SAID NO!" She shouted, her voice lowering as her breath caught short, her authority seizing the air around us with a deep pressure as strong as that of a demon.
"Well, you never actually said no, just that you didn't want to."
Her voice even shook herself, but after hearing my calm response she settled down and let out a soft snort.
"It's rude not to at least hear the question before you respond, you know."
"S-sorry…"
"You're forgiven. I was going too–" My words trailed off as her face went blank, her eyes finally lifting up to my own.
"I'm what?"
"For-giv-en. It's like, it means don't worry about it. Now, anyway, I was going to ask if you could tell me what your life was like before you became a demon… I have a feeling I know… But… Thinking about it turns my stomach, so not knowing for sure is…"
"Uh… Yeah! No… I mean… Sure… I'll tell you… The people who fed me kept me in a cramped room, and the only time I came out was when they wanted to stab me. I got food though… So it's not like it was bad at first… Still hurt though…"
"Stab, like… With needles?" 'I feel like I'm getting more confused…' "I don't get it… What about your reactions when we first met?"
She sighed, rubbing her eyes and yawning as she finally started to relax. "What reactions…"
"Like being so sensitive about your mouth?"
"Getting stabbed there doesn't sound fun at all…"
"Or how you kept looking down at Bear's waist…"
"Checking his belts for the pointy things."
"What about the whole behave thing…"
"Usually they'd tell us to stay quiet and behave, or it would hurt even more… Which… Was kind of true, I guess… If we didn't, they'd usually beat us."
I slowly rubbed my face. "And you hating beds…"
"They always let us lie in a bed before a really bad one… Sometimes the pain would last for days… It made it hard… To…"
The more she talked and the more expressions she gave, the harder it became to hold myself back. before I knew it I was hugging her. "That's such a relief. I thought it was so much worse." 'uh… Well, worse is a mater of perspective here I guess… It still sounds really bad…'
"The hell kind of life did you have?"
My heart was pounding as I let go, holding her shoulder as I pushed myself away. "Don't say hell like that, it's bad. As for my past, it doesn't really matter, does it? Do you feel any better?"
"I-I uh…"
'Her hearts' aren't pounding so hard, but I can't tell if she's more comfortable or just more confused…' "You want to try and get some sleep now?"
"S-sure…"
'Seems like I was successful in the end.'