The Innocence of Teacups

Black merged to deep blue, and deep blue span round round round, splaying into an inky blue-black sky. Metal towers spiralled on top of stone fortresses. A bell tolled. Voices screamed. He clicked his claws against a stone paved floor. How dark the sky was. It looked as though someone had snuffed out the stars. Spirits on strong legs scurried past him into buildings. Other even more obscure creatures leapt behind walls as though running for cover from something hideous.

A single spirit remained calm, staring from over the street at him with eyes narrowed, and all six arms folded across her chest. When the street was deserted of movement, she scurried over to him.

“I see you’re not completely demon.”

This was the same spirit from Spirit Land who had spoken with him. He nodded his head.

“I told you to kill Freyr before the moons aligned.” The spirit clicked her tongue. “You haven’t or my friends would have left Sasha alone as promised. Leave town. Demon kind aren’t welcome.” The spirit pointed towards the tolling bell.

These obscure creatures were running for cover from him. If only he could run from himself. He chewed the inside of his cheek damn near slicing away skin. Sharp teeth. Blood tasted sweet in his mouth. It tasted salty when he’d been human.

The spirit looked as though she was going to leave him. He couldn’t let that happen when he didn’t know where he was, or how to find Sasha. Let alone what a mess his body was in. He followed the spirit, after only a few steps she span on him.

“Leave me alone. All your fault. I risked my reputation striking a deal with you to save a spirit slayer. Thought it’d be better one of them living than a wicked warlock. You didn’t kill the warlock. Your fault. You.”

As a demon he could not even make the gestures he’d used to speak with without a voice. All he could do was look imploringly into the spirit’s eyes, hoping she would take pity on him. The spirit let off a hiss, and some creature about six inches high came running over to them, with limbs which were way too long for its body, and a head which looked as though it were made of wood. That head chattered as it came to a standstill beside the spirit.

“Keep an eye on this idiot for me. He gets into much trouble. They call him Eagle in the human world.” The spirit turned her attention to him. “This is Lignum he can speak the human tongue. I’d do what he tells you if I were you.” At that a black void appeared in midair, the spirit jumped through it. As soon as she went through, the void disappeared.

“Voids fascinating,” said Lignum. “Only spirits and vampyres are able to open portals between Nocta Umbra and your human world.” Lignum jumped onto his shoulder blade. “You’re fascinating too. I’ve never seen a human inside a demon before. Lil said I might see something extraordinary today. I didn’t think she thought you’d partially change though. We were expecting a wild demon or a dark sorcerer’s corpse.” Lignum’s head chattered. “Best get moving before sentinels start firing bolts at you. Either that or the Horn Hunters will come. Demon horns are worth lots of money. Problem being demons are difficult to capture.”

He moved along the path with heavy clawed paws smacking into stone.

“Flying would be faster,” hinted Lignum, who turned round on his shoulder blade so he had a decent view of the tolling bell.

Flying right. He unfurled his wings and gave them heavy flaps. They failed to work, just kicked up dust.

“You definitely don’t think like a demon. Take a run up. Everyone knows you need to take a run up to gain altitude.”

Of course he needed to run in order to take off. He ran along the path. When he’d gained some speed he flapped his wings. Claws left the path and his bulky body was soon raising. Lignum slipped onto his back, head chattering in excitement, as they narrowly missed making contact with a wall of some building or other which may have been a shop or someone’s home. He kept thrashing those leathery wings of his in order to get a proper feel for them. Practising flying might not be such a good idea within a city. He got somewhat higher and almost crashed into a roof. Having missed the roof, he collided into the beginnings of a tower which had him falling back towards the roof. He shook his head and eyed the tower as he regained some balance. He thrashed his wings harder, and flew in a circle round the tower he’d whacked. He kept going round it in a spiral. The further up he got the neater his circling became.

Wow what a view he had once he reached the top of the tower. This was just as breath taking as when Alaric took him onto a cloud maybe even more so. His heartbeat gladly as he looked down at a city full of spires. Dots below came out onto pavements now the demon threat had past. If his mouth would have allowed it he would have smiled. He soared on, away from city life, towards countryside. There were no trees but an awful lot of pebbles. Some of those pebbles looked as though they were moving, or it could just be his eyes playing tricks. Tufts of yellow grass sprouted from in-between pebbles. As he flew further on, tufts gathered together and got thicker and thicker, until he found himself flying above a drab yellow meadow.

“Now would be a perfect time to land,” said Lignum.

Land. How did landing work? He twisted his head to look searchingly at Lignum. Lignum responded with a chattering of the head. No help there then.

Right landing. He stopped thrashing his wings, held them straight out, and thrust his body towards the ground.

Zoom.

Ground was fast upon them. He gave his wings a slight flap as Lignum clung onto him for dear life. His front claws skimmed grass, and bash, he smacked face down on the ground with his hind legs going over his head. Lignum wailed as he almost got squashed but managed to roll away in time.

“Needs work,” Lignum gasped as he crawled over to stand by his upside down snout-like nose.

He rolled upright then nodded his agreement. That’s when his eyes felt tears pricking at them. Now the flight was over his situation dawned on him; he was a great ugly monster.

“I suppose I should show you where demons live,” said the six inch high creature.

Live with demons! But they were wild beings which lived to destroy and kill. When his mind had tried to float away, he was intent on thinking about blood and killing.

“Demons aren’t supposed to cry,” Lignum said, on observing a glob of water escape his crusty tear duct. “Now now there’s no need to get upset.” With a tiny finger Lignum poked at one of his claws. “You probably wouldn’t last too long with real demons. Let me try think of an alternative place for you to live.”

He wanted to return to his world not live in this one where the sky was void of suns or moons. Prince Alaric might be able to help him somehow. Lignum had said vampyres were capable of opening up those portals spirits used. Problem being he lacked a sixth sense so was unable to locate Alaric.

“How would a cave suit you?”

Lignum was suggesting he should set up house in a cave. He supposed finding somewhere to live would be practical if he was doomed to remain a demon forever. He slumped his chin on the ground.

Curse Freyr. Curse him. Curse him. CURSE HIM.

What had he ever done so wrong in Freyr’s eyes that he deserved this fate? He could understand if anyone else, say the mayor’s wife, had exposed him to those moons or Sasha. Sasha had saved his mind by covering him with his cloak, blocking out moonlight. Poor Sasha dragged off by spirits. Perhaps he could do some good there. Like there was any point in that either. Spirit slayer. The Sapphire Knight probably deserved his fate too.

“Are you listening to me?”

He closed his eyes and managed a sigh. At least no more tears came. His head flopped, so one side of his face nestled in grass.

“Is this you giving up on life?”

Yes this was him giving up. Let buzzards and crows come peck at his hideous false body. He could only wonder where his demon heritage came from. Having no idea who his parents had been, demon could have come from fathoms of places. Chances were he didn’t even have parents. For all he knew he could be a sorcerer’s experiment gone wrong. Whatever he was he did know one thing: Freyr was beastly and deceitful for un-locking his demon form.

Lignum jumped up and down around his front paws. “We ought to find you a hiding place. It’d be best to give up on life away from prying eyes.”

He let out a gush of air through his nostrils which sent Lignum, who was in front of his face, flying.

“Hey!” wailed Lignum from on his back, lanky limbs waving in the air like stems of petal-less flowers. “I don’t have to help you. I could be researching something less morbid.”

So he was a research project.

“I was hoping I’d get to see some action. Have an adventure.” Lignum up righted himself. “I like caves but don’t get out the city much being so small.”

The world must be a dangerous place for someone who was only six inches high. At least he wasn’t tiny. Although if he were tiny he wouldn’t draw attention to himself. Pros and cons, life swirled with them. You had to pluck pros away from cons, which meant making the best of being big and scary looking.

He bounded off from Lignum, half flying, and came back to him with a supply of pebbles scooped into his claw-hands, and arms. He dumped pebbles onto the grass then started arranging them into words. Hopefully Lignum could read the human tongue as well as speak it.

WHAT IS THIS WORLD

He stood back to admire his handiwork. Those words looked legible to him. Lignum hopped around them and soon caught onto what he was doing.

“This is Nocta Umbra,” replied Lignum.

He rearranged his pebbles.

DO HUMANS LIVE HERE

Lignum shook his head. “Nocta creaturas only.”

So Lignum and spirits must be night creatures. How many different species of night creatures existed in Nocta Umbra? There’d been loads running away from him when he’d crashed landed into that city.

TELL ME ABOUT CITY

“The one we were just in?”

He nodded and bumped down on his haunches.

“That’s Spira and is famous for its many towers. Most nocta creaturas live in cities unless they’re wild like demons. Demons tend to group together in packs and stay in one place. They’re cannibals mostly but on occasion one will stray away from the pack. That’s why all our cities have a bell. Sentinels ring it when a demon flies into a city, warning everyone to run for cover.”

That explained what had happened to Freyr’s house. Demons must have invaded it then decided to settle there, killing his family in the process.

“Our cities are each ruled by a king or queen. Kella rules over Spira. She’s a spirit. Would you like to know about Spira’s architecture? I know plenty about the towers.”

He shook his head. Architecture was of little importance to him.

WHERE DID THEY TAKE SASHA

Lignum picked a blade of grass and munched on it. “Won’t tell you. He’s a spirit slayer.”

Even though Sasha went round butchering spirits that had nothing to do with how the guy played a huge part in saving his mind from being consumed by demon thoughts. Inside he was still Eagle, and ought to return a favour. He gestured at his pebble words while staring intently at Lignum.

“I won’t tell. Spirits are my friends.”

He dashed pebbles with his claws. There was no time to be placing pebble messages on the meadow. For all he knew Sasha could be dead already. This situation called for action. He ambled across the meadow towards Spira.

“Where are you going?” Lignum called after him. “We need to find a safe place where you can hide.”

No hiding in shadows anymore. Freyr had told him to stay out of sight often enough, following his instructions led him to disaster. There must be a way to turn his life around, especially now he was a demon. He staggered to a halt. There was no turning round what Freyr did.

“Now don’t go getting upset all over again,” said Lignum on skipping up beside him. “You could be dead. If I were you I’d leave that Sasha to his own devices, concentrate on sorting yourself out.”

He’d take this transformation as punishment for killing most probably innocent people on demand. Lignum was right he wasn’t dead whereas Sasha could be. He carried on his way.

Lignum jumped onto his back. “You’re serious about going after Sasha aren’t you?”

Most serious. There was no need for Lignum to be with him if he refused to help and wanted to tell him. The cruellest aspect of being turned demon was having his voice snatched away yet again. He half wished he’d never found his voice in the first place.

They were three quarters of the way across the meadow when he heard drums beating in the distance. The drum-drum-drumming had Lignum bouncing up and down between his shoulder blades, head chattering. “Fly up high. Up high.”

He stopped walking and peered across the remainder of the meadow over to where the pebbles were. A line of what must be night creatures were marching along, beating drums, and waving banners. As they got closer he saw they were all wearing gold masks with silver cheeks.

“Fly! Fly! Fly!”

Despite wanting to get a better look at this strange procession Lignum sounded desperate to leave. He turned from the procession, ran forwards, beat his wings, and was soon up in the air. Maybe he could get a decent view of them from the sky.

“It’s the Golden Parade,” Lignum hissed, in the hole in the side of his head which acted as an ear. “They look for lost nocta creaturas, take them, then sacrifice them to the Gods. You are certainly lost but it’s not true, they’ll sacrifice anyone vulnerable they find not just the lost. A very powerful cult. Gods no. Different worlds yes.”

While Lignum explained all this he circled round the parade as they marched along. A couple of spirits were part of the Golden Parade. There was a night creature which looked a lot like a demon save he possessed hooves rather than claws; like the statues under their church at Violet Town. He couldn’t see its face because of the mask but figured it must be one of those creatures depicted in stone. At the head of the procession was a creature with fox-like pointed ears. He walked on two legs very human-like but his body was all feathers even though he lacked wings.

The Golden Parade looked up at him. Lignum hunched down in-between his shoulder blades, trying to keep out of sight. He let out a fierce growl, trying to make out he was wild. His growl soon made them carry on with their gruesome business, leaving him to fly on his way without any hassle.