“Laure…? But, how… what–?” Sairek stumbled through his words, unable to contain his shock. The package ‘from the castle’ suddenly made a lot more sense now, along with the seal of the letter… who better knows him than his own maid? But what was she doing here?
“I am overjoyed to be able to see you again, Master Apprentice.” Laure said with a bow and wide smile on her face. Sairek felt his mouth was still agape, but he could not force himself to move it back closed for at least several seconds before the first sound that escaped it was just a mere croak before words could start to formulate.
“I’m… I’m sorry, I’m—I’m just so surprised…!” He started.
She smiled gently at him, moving over and guiding him gently to sit down on her bed. The smile turned into an amused frown as she studied him. “Oh dear, your traveling around has done a little disservice to your appearance. What happened to your hair? It’s all disheveled.”
“Only a little bit? That’s not too bad, then.” Sairek chided with a faint smirk. “My hair just didn’t want to cooperate with me this morning.”
“I can see that.” She agreed, reaching underneath her apron to brandish a comb, which Sairek blinked at. She knelt down in front of him and immediately began combing his hair, remedying the terrible job he had done by himself when he woke up this morning with just his fingers. Sairek closed his eyes, letting her do her work. After all he had been through the past week already, being spoiled and pepped up like this by her again felt oddly… good. It had only been around a week but it felt much longer than that. It only took her a couple of minutes to fix his hair before she pulled away and he opened his eyes again.
“There, much better.” She said, putting the comb back underneath her apron again.
“I’m happy to see you again, but why are you here? Father isn’t trying to take me back somehow, is he?” Sairek asked with a tinge of concern edged into his voice.
“No, although he was very... ‘upset’ when you left.” Laure said evenly. “I was sent here to make sure you are alright, though. Actually, it was my suggestion. I figured if I could meet up with you and see for myself that you are doing fine, that it would hopefully quell his concerns. It would also give me a chance to meet up with my old colleagues again for a couple of days. I’ve not seen some of them in years.”
“Well, other than not expecting snow, I’ve been doing fine. I even made yet another new friend from the monastery.” Sairek smiled. He wasn’t sure how much he wanted to divulge to her, though. He trusted Laure, but if she had known everything that had happened in Lamen, he was sure that even she would try to take him back to the castle…
Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure Laure’s stance on demons, either. At the same time, it shouldn’t matter in his view, though. So he said nothing about what Cyial was. Cyial was his friend, and a very compassionate individual; that's all that should matter.
“Hm, is that why I passed you by in Lamen? I figured you’d be in the monastery, but alas, I was ordered to get to Shimira as soon as possible.” Laure asked.
“Yeah, I stayed in Lamen for a few days. I spoke to Lavian about a couple of things too. There were some… promises I needed to keep, after all.” Sairek answered. “Also, there were some problems affecting Lavian’s workflow that I need to consider now as well. She’s so flooded with paperwork, she’s more of a desk clerk than a captain of the knights. I will need to speak to father about that when I return to the castle… maybe you could tell father about that problem for me in my stead, though?”
“Well, I can try if he is... in the mood to do so. Indeed, my stay here is only very temporary. I was only to check up on you, Master. Then return when you leave. I’ve been here a few days now, so I did get to catch up on my colleagues already. Which reminds me… what was going on with the shipment of ethereal?”
“Ah, right, that…” Sairek drawled. “That was another reason I spoke to Lavian… one of the knights was acting far out of turn. Erm… very, very far out of turn. Not only were they not doing their job, but they were harassing one of the acolyte members; that’s the person I became friends with. They’ve been dealt with now though, so the shipments should start coming to the castle again.” Sairek explained. Then he tilted his head a little bit to his right side. “...So you’re not here investigating the snow?”
“Well, I asked my colleagues about that too, of course.” Laure nodded. “It started about two or three weeks ago, but I guess officially, no. Those were not my orders.”
Sairek hummed. “Well, I suppose there’s not much you would be able to do anyway. At least father doesn’t seem to be taking my departure out on you with impossible orders… but isn’t this just another case of the weave of ethereal being out of balance? It doesn’t seem much different than the same circumstance that spawns monsters.”
“Yes, but there are ways to prevent this kind of thing. Well, aside from using magic less. I suppose it was only a matter of time, given the state of Doran for the past several weeks. Regardless, this happens because of the pollution of magical energies as a whole. When people use magic, not every single bit of it gets used up in the spells we use. Some lingering energy gets discharged into the air, unclean. That energy can whisk its way to another similar energy and then one of two things happen; it either builds up to be even bigger, or a magical reaction occurs.”
Sairek nodded. He had learned about this a couple of years ago. “Items like my jewel don’t necessarily care about those energies though. If anything, they help keep the weaves of ethereal clean from that stuff, if even just a little bit.” Sairek said, glancing down at the royal jewel. “I suppose catalysts are more… perfect in casting spells than people are. Even if any energy remains from whatever is used from the catalyst, it would probably be immediately absorbed back in anyway.”
“The reason droughts happen often is because fire is the most used element in our world’s history. After all, it tends to be the most destructive, and with all the war, as well as Kior needing it to power up most of their machinery as of late…” Laure trailed off.
Sairek blinked. He never really put the circumstances together like that. Why Kior was such a desert wasteland suddenly made a lot more sense. “I thought it was a wasteland due to how polluted the air was, but it’s because of that, too?”
“Well, I’ve never been there, so I can’t say for sure, but my experience tells me that’s probably what’s going on. Catalysts like you said only clean the air a little bit… but they also have their own problems as well.”
“They do?” Sairek blinked.
“If they become too full, they don’t stop bringing energy towards themselves. They just gather it around themselves. With that much ethereal in one place, if it has polluted energy around it, it can also begin to pollute the other energy around it or even inside of itself, and if that energy happens to go off…” Laure trailed off.
“Oh, that’s… not good.” Sairek replied, bringing his left hand under his chin in thought of the possible ramifications.
“Well, it’s not worth thinking about. After all, yours is one of only three others that exists in the world. Most other such catalysts only absorb one element anyway or are handmade and are significantly more inefficient than a real one and are generally only used for storage anyways, but I suppose they can be shaped in a manner of different ways.”
“...Like your apron.” Sairek answered, causing Laure to smile.
“Yes, though it cannot hold nearly as much as the real thing.” Laure answered, looking down at the royal jewel.
Sairek looked back down himself and pinched it between his index finger and thumb. He was silent for a moment, and was still looking down at the jewel when he spoke again. “Hey, um… are… are you mad at me?”
Laure offered him a perplexed look, which Sairek didn’t meet. “I… I don’t understand what you mean? Mad at you for what?”
“For running away.” Sairek clarified simply.
“I do not consider it that. You want to find your independence. There is no shame in wanting that. As far as I am concerned, you have a right to life, just like everyone else. It's a shame your father doesn't see that. Even if this is probably indeed a bit extreme, but...”
“I’m not so sure it was because of something as… stoic as that.” Sairek replied, a little under his breath. “I’m not even sure myself anymore. Sometimes I do wonder if I truly am just trying to run away. The responsibility scares me, Laure. You know that...”
Laure put her left index finger under her chin as she looked upwards slightly in thought. “Isn’t figuring out why you did what you did in the first place also looking for your independence, though?” She asked.
“Uhm, I suppose that’s not wrong...” Sairek allowed, lifting up his gaze to meet her again.
“Regardless, no, I am not angry about what you did, or why you did it, no matter the reason.” She said, tucking her finger into her hand and forming a ball underneath her chin as she lowered her gaze to also meet Sairek’s again. “I am absolutely miffed at how sloppy it was–!”
“E-Eh…?” Sairek let out and leaned back a little.
Laure’s expression became stern as she leaned her body towards him closely, causing him to lean back where he sat seated on the bed. “For one, you made quite the commotion, it was obvious it would only be a matter of time before you were found out. You performed your little escape attempt right in front of your father for crying out loud, causing him to alert the castle guards almost immediately...!
"Ah, b-but that wasn't... planned..." Sairek tried to get out.
"You couldn’t even escape by yourself, you had to get the help of that young lady to bail you out! Then the first thing you do is jump off from the wall!"
"O-Okay, I admit that was reckless, but I didn't have time—"
"Then you became even more reckless by sliding off down the cliff at insane speeds into the forest–! What would happen if you had seriously injured yourself–?! It took every ounce of my willpower to not stop you so you wouldn’t get yourself killed!”
By now, she had leaned so far forwards into him, that Sairek’s back was now planted onto the bed, almost like he was pinned. He stared wide-eyed and blinked owlishly up at her stern expression. He couldn’t help but gulp nervously once before he spoke. “Erm… I guess an apology is a little too late?” He peeped weakly.
He gasped slightly when she suddenly moved, putting her arms between his back and the bed, pulling him back to sit upright swiftly, and pushed him right into her hold in a firm hug with her arms moving to wrap around him.
“...But I cannot stay angry at you, because no matter what you did, you did it because you want to live your life and be yourself. Anyone who is angry at you for wanting something as simple as that is a fool.”
Sairek sat there, momentarily stunned at her sudden gesture. He soon recovered though, moving his staff to rest on the bed next to him and moving his arms to wrap around her as well, mimicking her gesture.
“I know…” was all his voice allowed him to croak.
* * *
Sairek was standing on top of the bed with his boots off, socks digging into the mattress of the bed, looking out the window. A blizzard had begun by now and he was anxiously wondering if Cyial and Nayleen were alright when the sound of the door knob to his room being turned and the door opening pried his gaze away from the world outside. He had concerns about leaving the door unlocked but he was relieved to see it was indeed just Cyial who had stepped into the room. “I didn’t expect you to be back so soon.” Sairek replied.
“I got a little uncomfortable when a bunch of new people started coming into the town…” Cyial explained as he lowered his head. “A few people also started giving me strange looks. I guess my eyes were starting to glow from it getting dark. Nayleen and I did find out some things, though. Oh…! Did you figure out who paid for the rooms?”
“Yeah.” Sairek answered, turning around and plopping his rear down on the bed, bouncing up and down it a little bit from the springiness from the mattress. “My maid from the castle is here and it turns out my father figured I’d be heading here, so she set her up here. I guess she passed by us in Lamen. She rented the rooms for Nayleen and I.”
“That’s… a dedicated maid, then.” Cyial blinked, moving into the room to sit onto the bed next to Sairek.
“Yeah.” Sairek agreed with a light chuckle. “She used to work here as a guard, so she got to visit some old friends too.”
Cyial removed his gloves from his hands and pressed his right hand gently to his cheek. It felt extremely cold, and then he cupped his right ear, which felt even more frigid. The room wasn’t exactly warm either, but being a demon, it didn’t really bother him too much. “Did you two have a lot to talk about?” He asked, still cupping his one ear.
Sairek shook his head. “Not really. She did hand me another… ah, ‘generous’ pouch of seru, but I haven’t even spent a single one of what I took with me yet… so now I’m just sitting on what I assume is an extraordinary amount of money on me...”
“That’s not a bad thing… which brings me to what Nayleen and I found. Um… do you have a map? It’d be easier to explain with a visual reference.”
“Uhh… I think I have one somewhere.” Sairek murmured. He had already deposited most of the items out into a corner of the room. He got up from the bed and began rummaging through bags. Eventually after a couple of minutes of patience, Cyial was rewarded with… a book.
“Um…” The demon began.
Sairek opened the book and turned a few pages until there was a picture of a map drawn on both pages.
“This… is your map…?” Cyial replied dryly.
Sairek glanced away. “Look, we have maps in the castle… but they’re not exactly made out of paper… or portable, even for this.” He grumbled, tapping the royal jewel.
“Ah… those fancy models of the continent on a table, like for war I guess?”
“Yeah, exactly…”
“Alright, fine. I know most of the layout anyway.” Cyial said, taking the book from Sairek and studying it. It didn’t show much, just the general shape of the land, where the capitals were and some visuals to represent mountains. Cyial shifted himself on the inside of the bed and lay himself down on his stomach, then patted on the outside of the bed for Sairek to lay down with him, which he did. Turning the book around so they could both see, Cyial tapped his bare index finger on a spot on one of the pages. “Around here should be where we are right now… and for reference, Doran is here, Lamen is down over here and you can see where Marid is.”
“Hey, that’s not too bad. We made good distance for a week or so of travel from Marid.” Sairek noted. They were already almost half of the way to the border.
“Over here is a town called Salin… your typical country village, although being close to Shimira, a lot of people can pass through. To get there, we would be passing through the Eastern exit of Shimira, I think the path is kinda like this…” Cyial mumbled, beginning to draw along the paper in a faint line, that didn’t really help much other than the general direction they would probably be going. “This is probably the safest and easiest route, but the longest if you’re planning to reach Kior because as usual, the valleys make the path winding. On foot, it could take a few days to get through.
“Alternatively, we could go north, it has an exit, it leads to the mountain you see here on the map. Technically, we could traverse it, but I think that’s way too dangerous. I doubt you have mountain climbing gear with you and with all this snow already, it’s already a problem.”
“Assuming it didn’t kill us.” Sairek stated dryly.
“The only other option is to go out of the western exit. There’s no mountain, but it’s basically wilderness all the way to the border, and then after that, wilderness becomes wasteland and desert primarily, all the way up to getting near Yggdrasil. There’s probably a lot of monsters and vagabonds out there. It’s not exactly rough terrain, but everything else makes it rather... unpleasant. Being out there by yourself is harder to be spotted by yourself than a trio of three. Also, the larger a group, the more slowly it moves. The three of us aren’t nearly as athletic as Nayleen is.” Cyial said. “Also with my eyes, I would be a beacon for vagabonds in the dark to spot us from a distance, even if we slept without a fire, Finally, traveling that way may take weeks with no civilization. I wouldn’t be able to stay up every single night to keep watch.”
“I guess we’ll ask Nayleen for her opinion, but it seems like we’ll be going towards Salin.” Sairek said. “Is there really no other option?”
“I told you, Salin gets a lot of people… the mountain or wilderness wouldn’t be that bad, if it weren’t for the snow, though.” Cyial admitted. "Going back east would get us out of the snow as soon as possible."
“So then, assuming we’re going to Salin, what—” Sairek began, until a knock on the door interrupted him. He pushed himself up from his stomach off of the bed and went towards the door, answering it.
Nayleen stood there and pushed herself in and past him before he could even greet her. Immediately, she went and flopped face down on the bed, Cyial having to urgently roll against the wall to avoid her landing on him. “It’s so comfy and waaaarrrmmm~!” She squealed.
“Uhh…” Sairek croaked. He slowly pushed the door back closed behind himself with his foot. “Nice to see you, too…”
Nayleen mumbled… 'something' in response, but it was too muffled for neither Sairek or Cyial to understand. Sairek looked at Cyial for help, but the other boy could only offer him a confused shrug and two blinks with his eyes. Sairek looked back to Nayleen. “Are you feeling alright?”
Still with her face down and without even looking, Nayleen lifted an arm and pointed at the window above her with a finger, which caused them both to look. Although they were both too short to get a good look, it wouldn’t have mattered anyways. The amount of large white snowflakes buffeting the window now could be seen through the dark gray sky. “Oh, that picked up pretty fast from just a few minutes ago...” Sairek frowned, watching the large flakes of snow zoom by the small little window as they were gusted by a harsh wind. "I guess it’s a good thing we arrived in town when we did. Even an hour walk in that would have been big trouble.”
Nayleen rolled over on the bed and sat upright. “Downstairs is completely packed with people right now. If you thought earlier was bad…”
Sairek gulped at that. Thankfully, he had no need to go back downstairs tonight...
“Yeah. You should really thank your maid for giving us these rooms. They must have cost a small fortune to rent them, let alone hold them for us.” Nayleen said. “We pretty much have this entire floor for ourselves. The owner must be making a lot of money. I'm kind of jealous.”
“Huh…? How did you know Laure—”
“Oh, I talked to her earlier outside, just before the storm started getting real bad. She’s so cool~!” Nayleen beamed.
Sairek blinked. “I guess I should have assumed that.”
“Anyway, we’re taking the eastern route.” Nayleen continued.
“H...How did you know what we were talking about already?” Sairek asked, surprised again.
“What else were you talking about with a map of the continent out?” Nayleen answered with a question of her own.
Sairek opened his mouth to give a response, but he didn’t know how to respond to that, so he just decided to drop the subject instead. Nayleen certainly was far more perceptive than her outward personality would otherwise have most people believe, despite the fact the first thing she did when she just barged into the room was flop face first onto the bed. “Okay, well, let me ask this instead then; did you take the western route to get in Ceareste in the first place?”
“No. I told you, I exploited the council before. Remember?” She answered flatly. “Although, I did consider that method. Security there is kinda lax. The vagabonds out there know it, too. Or maybe it’s lax because of their presence. Either way, it’s like a gaping hole in the border security. ...Shouldn’t you know this stuff more than me?”
“I mean, I sort of do. I know my father set up border security a bit further in, giving the vagabonds a bit of a wide berth. Besides, it’s more expensive to maintain the border further away from the rest of civilization and not much is out there anyway. If they’re all set up there, that means they’re not much of anywhere else, but I’m guessing there’s a way to slip through the security regardless of that, knowing you.”
“Yup.”
“I’m not even gonna ask…” Sairek sighed. How she managed to even get on top of the castle walls stumped him, let alone sneaking past border security.
“Besides, if you went through there that way, you would basically be entering into Kior unannounced. I don’t think they would appreciate that.” Cyial interjected.
“Oh yeah, that’s a good point.” Nayleen nodded in agreement.
“Mm… I guess you’re right.” Sairek accepted. “Tensions between Ceareste and Kior are already pretty… um… let’s just say each country tends to do the bare minimum interaction that is required. That, and it could probably be seen as a war crime, even if I have no intentions of doing anything. A royal like me just walking in with no word or announcement would look very bad, yeah.”
“They have no reason to deny you anyway. Like I said, Yggdrasil is considered neutral territory. The land to Yggdrasil is not, but they shouldn’t be able to deny you. You may get escorted there and back though, to make sure you don’t do any funny business.” Nayleen replied thoughtfully.
Sairek flinched at that a little. “If it was my own men, I wouldn’t mind, but another country’s guards… that’s a lot of trust. I also suppose it couldn’t be half-and-half; Then Kior would just keep adding more of their soldiers around me until they had the upper hand in numbers anyway.” He frowned.
“I doubt Kior has a ‘Balgira’ that hates you for whatever reason to act out like that. Say what you think about Kior, but believe me when I say that they keep the soldiers strict and disciplined… maybe even to a fault.” Nayleen said.
“That’s almost just as concerning, but I guess there’s no point worrying about this now. We’re still a little over a week’s travel away from the border, still. Assuming we keep up this pace of how much we move, anyway.” Sairek said.
“Well, maybe longer if this blizzard continues.” Nayleen reminded him. “But if it loosened up before, it’ll probably do it again at some point.”
“But what will we do if we go out after it’s clear, and it picks up again and we get trapped in the middle of it?” Cyial asked her. “It’s not natural weather, so predicting it is pretty hard, and it’s supposed to be mostly meadow to the east, so there’s not a lot of shelter either. East is the fastest to get out of this snow, but it's still a long distance from what we both heard, at least when I was still with you.”
“Oh right, I was gonna say, there’s a lot of people going out that way tomorrow—weather willing, of course.” Nayleen began. “There’s a few groups of travelers and a merchant, and they were thinking of just banding together to form a convoy for protection, share supplies and the like, just in case.”
“Okay?” Sairek pressured her for more.
“Soooo~ I was thinking… why don’t we just join them?” Nayleen asked him.
“Huh?”
“Well, one of them is a merchant who has a caravan, carrying supplies. I asked him earlier about it. He wouldn’t mind letting us hitch a ride inside the caravan, for just a few coins, since we’re going out that way anyway. It would be easier than walking. Also, they all have horses, so it'd also be faster than walking, too.”
“Just a few coins for a ride out of this weather?” Sairek mused.
“We’re ‘kids’, as he put it. He’s being generous.” Nayleen told him. “Well, I guess he’s right. We don’t take up much room or weigh that much—”
“...Stop giving me that look.” Sairek warned her.
Nayleen stopped eyeing him suspiciously. “...so it wouldn’t be much trouble for him.” She continued. “We’d basically have a wall and roof over our heads. It would just be a bit cramped and probably still cold, but if the weather did get bad, we’d have an entire group of people to assist us with it, and we could assist them in kind to find shelter, or even build a temporary one. Though also from what I’ve heard, the further we get out from here, the better the weather gets until we’re back into summer weather. So just plowing through the blizzard until we get out of it might be an option, depending how far out we get before one hit.”
“So I guess the travel plan is ‘strength in numbers’, eh?” Sairek mused out loud thoughtfully.
“Are you sure they won’t—” Cyial began.
“Cyial, they won’t care. They probably won’t even notice.” Nayleen tried to reassure him. “Besides, we’ll be inside a carriage. You probably won’t even be in sight for the entire journey aside from walking in and out of the carriage, if all goes to plan.”
Cyial inhaled a deep breath, then let out a long exhale. “Sorry…”
Nayleen reached over the bed to wrap a hand around Cyial and pulled him in closer, grabbing him in a hold and suddenly began roughing up his hair roughly with a knuckle, much to his dismay. “H-Hey!” Cyial squeaked in protest, struggling to fight her off from her playful roughhousing.
She willingly let him go a few seconds later and he desperately tried to put his hair back into its place. “You keep being moody Cyial, and I’m gonna getcha again, ya hear me?” Cyial pouted and grumbled something unintelligible, still trying to recover his hair back to normal with both of his hands. Ignoring him for now, Nayleen craned her head back to look towards Sairek who was still in a thoughtful posture. “Sooo~?” She asked.
Sairek took a few seconds and shrugged. “As long as they don’t care that I’m the Prince of the country, I have no objections… did you even mention that?” He asked.
“Oh, um… I can’t remember.” Nayleen replied. “I might have, I might have not.”
Sairek’s face drew a blank expression as he stared at her. “...I’m just going to assume not, or it probably wouldn’t be ‘just a few coins’ to get a ride. Good grief… Well, maybe it’s better that way. I hope they don’t notice, though.”
“You make it sound like people should always care that you're a Prince or something, but clearly I don’t and neither does Cyial.” Nayleen reminded him.
“Because you guys are my friends and know me by now, or so I would hope.” Sairek said simply. “You both know even I myself don’t care about myself for being the Prince of Ceareste, but strangers who don’t know me won’t see it that way.”
“Fair point, I guess. Either way, if we’re joining them, we have to be up really bright and early, because he's leaving as early as six in the morning. He is not going to be waiting for us. We snooze, we lose! Which means we should probably get to sleep super soon... which I’m going to do!” She announced with such enthusiasm as she practically jumped up from the bed, causing Cyial who was sitting on the other side to bob up and down slightly from the sudden shift of weight from the mattress.
“Understood. Good night then, Nayleen.” Sairek said.
She suddenly froze as she reached for the door. “Oh shoot, I forgot to mention…” She began, turning around to face Sairek. “I uh… I lost my key.”
“You what–!?” Sairek demanded. “Nayleen—”
She suddenly reached over and flicked him hard on the nose, smirking. Sairek reached up and held his nose with both hands, blinking in complete confusion. “Hehe, gotcha~! I'm hust kidding, g’night!” She announced, spinning back towards the door and practically skipping of the room out into the hallway.
Sairek just stood there, frozen for a few seconds, still holding his nose. Then used his foot to push the door back closed, wordlessly, and locked the door back up.
“She’s an enigma…” Cyial muttered.
“That doesn’t even begin to describe her.” Sairek grumbled, rubbing his nose before taking the book and returning it back into the bag, then he took the same spot on the bed Nayleen had been sitting in only seconds before. “I guess it's fortunate for a couple reasons, but I won’t be able to say farewell to Laure before we leave.” He frowned. “But oh well… We did speak for a while.”
“It may be a couple of days before we get a chance to clean up again. We should do that before we go to sleep. If we showered in the morning, the dampness might become ice by the time we leave in the morning.” Cyial suggested, then paused. “Well… I guess in this weather it may not even work…”
“I checked earlier. It’s operated by magic, so the weather shouldn’t affect it.” Sairek informed him.
“Do you mind if I go first?” Cyial asked. Sairek shook his head.
“...Also, do you have a comb?” Cyial asked with a frown. Sairek gave Cyial a look at that, with an amused expression on his face. “H-Hey! She messed up my hair…!” Cyial argued.
“Are you that self conscious about it?”
“You’re one to talk. You combed your hair too. It looks much better than it did this morning.”
Sairek blushed faintly. “Th-That wasn’t me… my maid sort of… forced me.” Although ‘forced’ wasn’t exactly the best word to describe it. He just went along with it. “...Fine. I’ll get you your stupid comb.”
“So you didn’t have one this morning, but now you do?” Cyial asked.
“She… gave it to me.” Sairek said, averting his gaze from Cyial.
“Could you get it for me?” Cyial asked. Sairek wordlessly pushed himself up from the bed, retrieving the comb from the bag he put it in and walked back over and dramatically raised the comb over his head before presenting it out towards the demon. “Thank you.” Cyial replied in an overly polite tone as he pinched the comb out from within Sairek’s fingers. A couple seconds later, they both broke into gentle chuckles at each other’s antics. “Thanks.” Cyial said again, seriously this time as he stood up from the bed. “I won’t be too long.” He said, getting up from the bed and heading inside the bathroom, closing the curtain shut.
Sairek occupied his time by moving his staff to be leaning between the bed and the bedside table along the wall. There, he positioned himself to stand back up on the bed and staring out the window once more, watching the blizzard whisking by. It did make him gulp a bit nervously. Convoy or not, being stuck in something like that would be dangerous. He hoped they would have good fortune for tomorrow.
He hadn’t been paying attention at all, lost in thoughts about tomorrow for several minutes, where he absent-mindedly turned around a few minutes later hearing a subtle noise behind him, only to be greeted by seeing Cyial standing in front of the bed, naked, with a towel drying his upper body with a towel in full view. “U-Uahh–?!” Sairek cried out in surprise, flailing and falling on his rump harmlessly on the bed, before covering his eyes. “S-Sorry! Wait—No! Just what are you doing, Cyial!?”
Cyial stared at him blankly. “I feel like I’m having déjà vu. Didn’t we already cover this in the showers in Lamen?” The other boy asked.
“B-But—” Sairek stammered, still covering his eyes with both of his hands for a few seconds, before peeking out from both of them, causing him to blush underneath. “Weren’t you bashful at the inn—”
“That’s because I didn’t want you two to know I was an incubus. It was my tail I was worried about, not the rest of me.” Cyial frowned. The black incubus tail behind him moved to wrap loosely around his hips, almost self consciously. “My tail is the part that I’m shy about, but… well, I trust both you and Nayleen… maybe I should try hiding it less...? At least… when I’m around you guys. Maybe when I gain more confidence I can stop hiding it completely, but for now, that’s... too big of a step for me…” Cyial explained, pulling the towel away from his body now, which he used the comb Sairek gave him to begin to comb his hair back into place now.
“A-All the same… would you do this around Nayleen…?” Sairek grumbled.
“Well no, because she’s a girl. You’re not a girl, though. You're a boy, just like me.” Cyial explained simply.
“How is that any bloody different–?” Sairek groaned, pulling his hands away from his face to look at Cyial, averting his gaze from looking down.
“A lot of reasons. That, and since it’s Nayleen, she would either kick my butt, or tease me until the end of time.” Cyial said.
Well, he couldn’t disagree with that.
“Still, I get the impression Nayleen isn’t the bashful type either.” Cyial mused, pausing the combing of his hair. “Regardless, my robe really needs cleaning, so I washed that too and have hung it to dry in there.”
“O-Oh… so that’s why you're just naked…” Sairek grumbled.
“When was the last time you washed your clothes, anyway?” Cyial asked. "Or... was it when I washed them last, back when you first arrived in Lamen?" Sairek didn’t answer that question. He still remembered that little confusing incident when he woke up in the monastery and… well, even besides that, it was indeed right after recovering from Balgira’s duel. After staring at each other for a while, Cyial spoke up again. “You should probably wash it. There’s soap you can use in there.”
“B-But… I don’t even know how... Laure did all of that for me.” Sairek grumbled.
“I can show you how.”
“But then I would need to be naked…! With you!”
“...Is that a problem?”
“W-Well, n-no… b-but… yes…?” Sairek stammered all over the place.
“Sairek, just like I don’t care about you being the Prince, I also don’t care if you’re not wearing clothes. Despite what I am and what most humans think, it seriously doesn’t really work like that for incubi and succubi.”
“Say that to the other three…” Sairek grumbled under his breath, though he hadn’t really meant to. He knew Cyial heard it, because though it was subtle, the expression he had on his face changed. “I-I’m sorry… I didn’t mean it like that…” Sairek sighed, hanging his head to look down at the floor.
“Is… that what this is about?” Cyial asked, not holding any malice in his voice.
“...It might be… I don’t know...“ Sairek mumbled, looking back up, but still averting his gaze from Cyial. He moved to wrap his arms around himself protectively “It… wasn’t even that the physical contact they did got very far, but the way they just looked at me was…” Sairek shuddered as he recalled their gazes that were burned into his memory. “My clothes at that point was the only thing protecting me from... that. That stare... like I was nothing but food; just prey, and they were the hunters. It was so… feral.”
Cyial sighed. “I don’t dub it ‘The Beast’ for nothing… Actually as much as I hate to say it, your assessment is pretty accurate… A pack of wolves would prefer to feast on a deer, but they will still corner a single vulnerable rabbit if the pack is hungry enough…” He grumbled. “But Sairek, regardless of what they may have said or done, there’s nothing wrong with you. You can’t just shelter yourself like that. You said that’s what your father had done to you, but now you’re doing that to yourself. While I’m sure that’s not exactly what you had in mind, you had to know there were a lot of risks to leaving the shelter of the castle, right?”
Sairek flinched at that.
Cyial continued. “I’m not trying to force you, I'll never do anything like that, but it pains me to see you struggle so much with a basic activity such as undressing for a shower or unwilling to wash your clothes because of that, even if it’s only for a few seconds. Besides, you have pajamas, remember?”
“I… y-you’re r-right… I d-do…” Sairek stammered, embarrassed. He gritted his teeth in effort. “Then… if you’re willing… would you help me… wash my clothes?”
Cyial smiled gently, reassuring. “Of course, Sairek.”
“I-Including my underwear!” Sairek added abruptly.
Cyial blinked once. “Sure…? I thought that was par for the course. Clothes and underwear usually go hand and hand.”
“G-Good… th-thanks…” Sairek blushed furiously.
“But you can still shower by yourself, right?” Cyial teased.
“Of course...! I’m not that helpless...”
“Hurry up then! Just let me know whenever you’re ready for me to show you how.” Cyial encouraged him with a gentle chuckle, pulling him up off the bed onto his feet, then pushing him towards the bathroom. “Once I teach you, you'll know how to do it by yourself afterwards. Traveling like this and learning to be independent was one of the reasons you left the castle, right?”
“R-Right…” Sairek reluctantly agreed. He was glad it was Cyial at least. If this was Nayleen instead, she would have a huge tome of things she could use to tease him with just in the last ten minutes alone. Instead of teasing him about his vulnerable state, Cyial was trying to be as encouraging as possible.
When he entered the shower, he could see what Cyial meant. The demon’s robes and underwear were hanging along the bar that connected the cubicle of the shower, left to dry there.
The time he spent alone in the shower with having the relaxing warm water cascading over him helped calm his nerves considerably. He spent much longer than he needed, but it just felt nice. However, he knew he couldn’t just sit in the shower forever. Eventually, he turned off the water and called Cyial in.
The demon entered the bathroom, still just as bare as Sairek now was. He looked down at the Prince’s clothes he had on the floor and picked up the cape part first. “Are you ready?”
“Err… y-yeah…” Sairek stammered, looking away.
“Usually you’d do this in a tub, so this will be the harder way, but if you learn to do it this way, then you’ll also learn to do it the easier way.” Cyial said. “Come here, we’ll put the clothes on the floor of the shower and angle the spray downwards more so it will land on them.” Cyial said, kneeling down to put Sairek’s cape on the bottom of the cubicle just like he described. “Because of that, we’ll probably get wet again, so I’m glad you didn’t dry yourself off yet.”
Sairek blushed, feeling the close proximity of Cyial. Something in him was expecting something to happen but… it never did. Cyial remained clinical and incredibly non-chalant as he lectured Sairek. “Either way, it’s not complicated, just more labourous.” Cyial kept explaining as he reached for the soap, as well as grabbing a cloth from the basin. “Alright, turn the hot water on for me for a few seconds to get the cape and this cloth thoroughly soaked with water.”
“Okay…” Sairek said, turning the knob of the shower and flinching as the water cascaded back down onto them both. Cyial reached into the spray, getting the cloth nice and wet as the cape at their feet got suitably drenched, as well. “Okay, turn it off for a moment.” Cyial said. Sairek did as ordered, turning it back off. “Alright. Now we pour a bit of soap both onto the clothes and onto the cloth itself, and give both a little bit of time for the soap to soak in.” Cyial explained, pouring said moderate serving of soap over the cape and a little bit onto the cloth. “Right, that’s done now, turn the water back on again, please.” Cyial said about thirty seconds later.
Sairek once more did as ordered and watched as Cyial knelt down on his knees. “Now, the ‘fun’ part, is that you take the clothes and just… scrub… really… hard!” He explained, beginning to rub the cloth up and down all over the cape, keeping it pinned with his knees, and one hand to keep it straight as possible, while he roughly scrubbed the cloth over the surface of the cape. “You do this to spread the soap over, and to scrub any dirt and grime off. If you want to be thorough, for your pants and shirt, you have to scrub as best as you can like this on the inside too.
"Normally you’d do this in a basin to save water and soap, but it’s magic water, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Make sure you try to be as thorough as possible…” The demon kept explaining. Sairek kept watching as he kept scrubbing the cape well and good, occasionally replenishing the soap along the cloth in tiny amounts every minute or two. “It’s a bit of a work out… but when you’re done…” Cyial began, reaching up to turn the water off himself while holding the drenched red cape in his hands. “Wring it out as best as you can…” He explained, showing as he did so. Sairek watched as Cyial rolled the cape tightly almost like it was piece of rope, as the water drained out of it. “Stretch it back out and smooth it so it doesn’t wrinkle... “ He said, showing Sairek again as he uncurled the cape and pulled it back out and ran his hand down along the surface to straighten it out. “...Then just hang it out to dry, and wait. If you wanted to, you could also use wind magic to help speed up the process, too. And that’s it. Think you can manage do that?”
“I… I think so… It’s just labor I guess… right?” Sairek answered.
“Right. I don’t mind helping you out, too. You got a lot more than just a single robe, socks and underwear, after all. The tabard, the mantle, shirt, pants, socks and your underwear still remain… We can put them all in the shower here all at once and do them together.”
“Th-Thanks…” Sairek blushed. “I’m sorry I made such a big deal of this.”
Cyial reached over, dripping wet again from the recent work he just did and being cascaded by the water, he grabbed another small cloth for Sairek to use. “It’s fine, Sairek. I’ll just have to show you how little of a deal it is. Seeing is believing, right?”
“Err, r-right.”
“Now, let’s get to work!”
For the next half an hour, they their time both being crouched in the shower cubicle together, getting drenched, and meticulously scrubbing Sairek’s clothes clean. By the time ten minutes passed, Sairek had begun to forget that he was even nude, let alone with another boy in close proximity. All shame he had about himself had, at least for now, been forgotten about. It was only when they finished up, that he remembered that obvious fact again, and though some of it returned, it wasn’t nearly as strong as before.
“Phew… that was a lot of work indeed...” Cyial sighed, shaking his right wrist a little.
Sairek mimicked the gesture. His right wrist burned from the effort of all of that scrubbing. “Yeah… I have to agree... I guess I took all the work Laure did for granted. She did this for me and other people in the castle everyday…”
“Well, it would be a lot easier and quicker with the proper tools, so don’t feel too bad. Like I said, this is the hard way.” Cyial laughed a little. “Ideally, you’d just put the clothes in a large basin or tub, filled with soap, and just let the clothes soak. Maybe a little scrubbing after, if you wanted to be thorough, but after soaking, anything left would come off very easily.” Cyial said. “You were going really hard on that one pair of underwear, though. I know it’s underwear and you probably just wanted to be thorough, but be careful that you don’t accidentally tear the poor thing.”
Sairek could feel the tips of his ears becoming incredibly hot at that comment. “Uhm… O-Okay, thanks…”
There was no way he could tell Cyial why he was scrubbing that pair so hard…
“Anyway, let’s get ourselves dry and head for bed. I’m exhausted after that.” Cyial suggested.
“Umm… you’re going to bed… just like that?” Sairek asked.
“I don’t have pajamas like you, Sairek. Even if you did have a spare pair, I don’t think they’d fit. You’re still a bit taller than me and it would cause complications with my tail… It’s not the most comfortable, but at least it still has room to move a bit in my robe.”
“Well… I was going to say… if I could… sleep like this too… so I could try to get used to it and all…” Sairek mumbled.
“Oh.” Cyial blinked. “I mean, if you want. I don’t mind… actually, can I tell you something?”
“Y-Yeah?” Sairek asked.
Cyial leaned in to whisper into Sairek’s ear a bit playfully. “Sleeping naked is actually really comfortable. You’ll probably like it.”
Sairek blushed again and pushed Cyial away gently. “C-C’mon, enough…”
“You won’t be saying that in a few minutes.” Cyial said playfully.
“Oi! Take your stupid towel already...!” Sairek countered, throwing a fresh towel at Cyial’s face, who he failed to catch in time and reeled back half a step from the impact. It also served to silence him for at least a little bit.
When they were both dry again, Cyial led them towards the bed, then moved back to the doorway to reach for the light and flicked it off. Sairek was left in nearly pitch black, except from the glow of Cyial’s eyes which came back to approach him again. “You want the inside or outside of the bed? I don’t care either way.”
“I’ll take the outside, I guess...” Sairek said.
Cyial slipped into the bed first then, pulling the covers up. “Come in.” He offered Sairek after he was tucked in. Sairek hesitated at first, but slowly slipped himself onto the bed, laying on his back. Cyial moved to slip the covers over his torso, and then shimmied over, so he was pressing gently against Sairek's side, also on his back. “How does it feel?” Cyial asked him.
“Uh… weird… but it doesn’t feel bad I guess…” Sairek murmured.
“I don’t mean for this to sound weird or anything but… it feels really nice to me, because I can feel more of you.” Cyial began.
“Umm…” Sairek let out.
“I mean that… because I really dislike sleeping alone and I really like sleeping with you… and now your presence just feels… more there. Umm... am I explaining this right…?” Cyial asked.
“I think I understand. My presence is reassuring to you and it’s more obvious that I’m there, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay… it kind of feels the same way for me too, I suppose. You’re… also really warm.”
“I’m kind of cheating. My body temperature is naturally a bit higher than a human's. Sleeping with someone though is still kind of foreign to me too, though... The only other person I had much physical contact with was Father Abbot and that was just the odd hug.”
“I’m the same way… there were both of my parents at first, but then mother died and after that, father and I drifted apart… so all that was left was Laure, and that was just anything business related, and maybe the odd hug if I was upset… usually because of Father.” Sairek replied, closing his eyes. “She tries to be motherly to me, and I’m sure she loves me just as much as her, but she also doesn’t want to replace her. She also loved my mother, too and doesn’t want to ‘steal’ me away from her.”
“I suppose your maid is kind of like Father Abbot to me, then… I think. Father Abbot really likes me. Well, he likes all the acolytes. Some of the younger ones don’t have parents either and are orphans, just like me. He wasn’t necessarily a fatherly figure to me still though, despite the name I give him. It would be bad for him to pick favorites, let alone if he picked me as his favorite...”
“People would get jealous? And I guess it would look ‘unprofessional’ to a lot of people, too.” Sairek surmised.
“Yeah...” Cyial nodded, speaking softly, then Sairek glanced over as he felt Cyial stiffen next to him for a moment, which was soon explained as he heard Cyial yawn. “...Oh dear, I’m way more tired than I thought.” Cyial chuckled.
“You were up last night… but I guess you probably didn’t get much sleep with everything that happened when we were in Lamen with you.” Sairek reasoned.
“Yeah… I didn’t want you to worry, though. Well, I didn’t feel tired at the time anyway. Usually I can last another day. Maybe I should eat more human food, too. It doesn’t really help that much, but it’s not something I can just neglect entirely, either. I don’t feel the same hunger you guys do. At least, not for human food. I have to kind of just guess when my ‘other hunger’ is gnawing at me.
Sairek was silent for a moment as thoughts ran through his head. “Isn’t umm... that… a bit harder to control when I’m kind of just laying in bed with you naked like this…?” He asked. “I don’t want to assume, but…”
“Like I said, it doesn’t work that way for us. Actually, I guess it does make a difference… but I would argue that it’s actually the opposite. It makes it easier for me to ignore.” Cyial replied with a thoughtful tone in his voice.
“Really? How? I’m… more vulnerable like this.” Sairek argued.
“Because I care about you, and like I said, I’m more… ‘aware’ of you like this, so that helps me keep calm to push it back and fight against my urges. To brute force it away with logic. The nice feelings right now help suppress it. Besides… more than anything, I don’t want to do something you’d hate, especially with the wrong intentions…”
“...Intentions?” Sairek asked, confused.
“It’s… uh, hard to explain. It’s… It’s not like the act itself is wrong to do, Sairek, but why can be wrong, you know?” Not just for Incubi or Succubi, but for humans too. You wouldn’t like being forced to do something you don’t want to do, right? That's why what those three did is...”
“...But if both sides are willing, then… yeah, I get it.” Sairek said.
“I sometimes wonder which side I was born on, though… A demon and a human can produce either or, but there are no halves and I have no idea if it was willing or not... Ah, but I guess I was abandoned either way, so… that’s probably a very good hint.” Cyial said, a sad smile on his face. If it was two demons, it would have more than likely been mutual.
“Cyial…” Sairek whispered. He hesitated for a moment, but he rolled onto his side on the bed and moved over to pull the demon into a hug.
“Heh… thanks Sairek… but are you sure you want to—”
“Quiet…” Sairek grumbled in warning. “I’m trying not to think about that right now… You said nudity wasn’t a big deal, right...?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So stop mentioning it!”
“Hah… okay. Sorry. Thanks, Sairek...”
