Smiling Mage Chapter 1: Andel Myur

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It felt hot and comfortable. If that was what one gained after dying, maybe he should have done so a long time ago. As such thoughts were growing in him, he felt himself changed position. That made him posed a bit, not sure what entity he became now. He indeed clearly remembered dying. Was he now lingering as a wandering specter? That said, such apparitions were supposed to be cold rather than warm. As he was pondering, he stretched some more. Never before had his body been so easy to move around, the novel feeling was quite addicting. However, he suddenly felt himself falling, the heat leaving his body and suddenly, coldness started to creep in. Arms around him were guiding him out of his comfort zone. His eyes struggled to open and a blinding light forced them shut once more.

A faint, shaky voice of a woman was the first thing that came to his ears,

"I can't hear him, ma', I can't hear him."

The voice, breathless, sounded as though she was on the verge of crying. But for this unknown person, the demon lord didn’t spare any thought, instead, he wondered a bit as he still felt arms holding him -thus leading to him realizing the fact that he actually still had a physical form-, wasn't he dead yet? Then another question entered his mind, how was it possible to hold him so tight considering the magnitude of his body? But he couldn't pursue that line of thought for a hand came down smacking his rear. More than painful, it was startling, and to be honest, stinging a bit.

The shrill cry that came in response to the slap wasn’t what he planned. However, it was the only thing that seemed to leave his lips instead of the hurl of curses that should. At this moment, he couldn’t quite care why he actually felt the pain from a mere slap.

An elderly voice sounded above him,

"See, my grandson is perfectly fine, needed a bit of push, it’s all.”

As she was talking, she was fumbling around, putting him on a soft material, her hands were working on cleaning him and wrapping him around in a white sheet. It gave him the time, when he calmed down enough, to observe her. The woman's hair -that she had braided and let over her shoulder, which was dangling in front of him as she moved- was completely white, that seemed to be more of a natural color than it being from age, though there were some wrinkles on her face that let supposed she wasn't all that young anymore. What was more intriguing though was her deep purple eyes. It was his first time seeing those on a human. The color itself wasn't what puzzled him -since he did see such on the beast companions of those people who came to hunt him down in his home-. It was just peculiar to see such a color on a human. As far as he knew, it was a color only those affiliated with demon's blood possessed. That aside, to be able to tower over him like that, was this creature over him really human?

"So well behave," she praised once she was finished and once more he was lifted, this time in her embrace. It was difficult for the demon lord to see exactly what was going on. His eyelids seemed so heavy, keeping them open was difficult, so, in the end, he shut them. He felt himself leaving that woman's embrace to enter someone else's. "You've got a magnificent son, my dear." The woman said softly as she patted his head while the person now holding him muttered,

"He's so tiny... and so red". He recognized the voice of the first person who talked after his waking. "Weights almost nothing, is he really alright?"

The other, who was tidying things up, didn't stop as she answered,

"Don't fret so much. You weighed even less than him in your days. Tell me instead, did you decide on a name?"

"What do you think of... Myur? He looks a bit like father, don't you think?"

Temral paused but in the end, made an acquiescing sound before exiting the hut with the dirty clothes to be washed. As she opened the door, it let the luminosity enter. The demon lord who had his eyes closed struggled to open them when sensing the warmth on his skin. It was the sun's light. The entire room was bathed in it. The two opened windows of the small hut let enough rays entered for that. The door opened directly to him and the sun on his skin was a novel sensation he couldn't remember ever experimenting. Strange noises left his mouth once more as he tried to talk.

The woman who was holding him was talking too,

"Oh, are you approving? Andel Myur. It's good, right?"

The demon lord found that his body wouldn't answer to his commands at all. He couldn't even move his neck to see the woman's face correctly. Though, she relieved him of the efforts as she came closer, kissed his forehead and stayed at a close range.

The woman looked a bit like the one who just left the room. The deep purple eyes were all the more glaring with those long silver-white hair of theirs. She had a side-swept bang with shoulder-longs messy hair, though, contrarily to the first woman, her skin was tan compared to the pale one of the other.

"You're so beautiful, my child." The woman said softly, kissing his forehead once more. Her right hand came to touch his cheek delicately as though he was something infinitely precious.

Never had eyes been so gentle while looking at him.

✧❈✧ 

Sometimes later, the other woman came back holding a tray that she placed on the bed.  A delicate fragrance wafted from it. 

"I'll bathe him while you eat."

More than a suggestion, it was simply information Temral was giving for she didn't wait for an answer before taking her grandson in her arms.

Valenia didn't even get to kiss her son goodbye that he was taken from her and the wooden tray seemed to have a life of its own as it walked from the bed where Temral placed it, up to Valenia's tighs and stopped there.

"Eat it all for he shall be coming to eat his fill later." Talking until here, Temral tucked the baby in the sheets and left the room with him in her arms.

Left alone, Valenia stared at the big bowl filled to the brim. Mushroom soup. Her lips twitched. She would have liked porridge better. She had eaten mushroom in all kinds of forms these last months. She wanted no more of it. Still, looking at her C-cup-sized breasts and recalling her mother's words that this special breed of mushroom was particularly good for maternal milk, the young woman gritted her teeth and took hold of the wooden spoon. For Myur, she told herself. Just wait some more and you'll have some meat. A rock bird or a four-tailed bunny, she promised herself, those two should be the ingredients for her next meal. It had been so long, she was salivating just at the thought. Hypnotizing herself that this was certainly the last bowl of soup she would force down her throat, she gulped one spoon after the other.

Only she didn't know yet that that kind of hypnotism would last for months onwards.

✧❈✧ 

The manner she was holding him didn't really permit the demon lord to look at his surroundings, instead, the only thing in his view was the woman's face. Though, in the background, he could catch a bit of foliage here and there. That he couldn't see, didn't mean he couldn't hear. His surroundings were noisy or rather, lively. There was the singing of birds and insects, the rustling of the wind in the trees. He could also hear the animals running on the ground not far away.

The demon lord couldn't understand. What about his poisonous miasma? It was inborn and a particular trait of his being; so long as he was alive, it should still be here.

As she walked and babbled, the sound of the streams became clearer. She was quite energetic in that sense, her mouth opening and closing though he didn't really pay attention to what came out. Her feet were making sounds, crunching the dry woods underneath it. Then she stopped, put him on a soft material and took off his makeshift clothes before hurriedly putting him in hot water. One hand was holding him safely while the other smeared some kind of lotion all over his body.

As she was bathing him, the demon lord, struggling with his eyes, got to see his entourage. An amazingly green pasture. He was still struggling to keep his eyes open, but it was worth the efforts. It had been so long since he last saw a living thing near him besides those who came for his life. Mesmerized, he didn't struggle as the woman rinse him then placed him in another bucket filled with hot water. She was just holding him now, letting him appreciate the instant, gently and repeatedly passing water on his skin. To the demon lord, the heat was a bit comparable to that first sensation he felt. It was quite pleasing.

As she looked at him, the woman kept on being talkative. When the sun which was hidden behind a cloud came out, she smiled and said,

“Look, the sun is shining so bright to welcome you in this world, my little one.”

As she maneuvered him, he got to glimpse at the sky. A blue sky. It was his first time in a long while that he saw it. He wanted to stretch his tiny arms towards it but his body was unwilling. Frustrated, the demon lord found himself sniffing, on the verge of tears. This body was really doing whatever pleased it!

A heavy snort was heard, startling him before he got to see the being that released it.

“Maeda, don’t scare him,” reproached Temral, her gaze shifting to her right side.

Even if he wanted to follow the movement, the demon lord was unable to move his neck at will. He could only wait for it to come to view, and indeed, the newcomer came closer with sounds akin to a trot. 

Temral bragged while lifting him, "my grandchild is beautiful, isn't he?"

Grandchild. Child. For a time now, these two women kept on saying things like that. It was not an everyday occurrence that someone was rushing to be affiliated with him and two on the same day?

With another snort, the animal entered the perimeter his eyes covered. A demon, had first thought the demon lord but the animal lacked the distinctive aura of death that accompanied demons, so, he wasn’t sure what kind of breed it was. It was his first time seeing it.

Indeed. It resembled a horse a lot but Maeda was a nightmare. It was jet black, blue flames wreathed its hooves and trailed from its nostrils. Its eyes were akin to two lapis lazuli and it had a ragged mane and tail like tattered pennants. 

What kind of demon are you? That was what the demon lord wanted to ask but foreign noises left his lips once more. The nightmare's face came closer, seemingly sniffing him.

"Maeda." The woman uttered in a warning tone.

The nightmare seemed to understand and retracted its steps a bit leaving more room for Temral but otherwise, it stood there, looking at the demon lord carefully.

"You'll have another companion to share your mistress with, are you worried?"

The nightmare snorted as though considering the idea ridiculous before trotting away. As she was taking her grandson out of the water, Temral couldn't stop laughing. With laughter in her voice still, she said to the tightly covered baby.

"Let us go and nourish you now, shall we?"

✧❈✧ 

For the first time in his life, the demon lord sucked milk on a woman's breast. The moment the elder woman returned him in the hut, she gave him to the younger, who, listening to her mother's advice, held him so that she could correctly breast-feed him. The woman literally forced her nipple into his mouth and pressed on the breast, ordering him to 'drink'. The demon lord wanted to protest but at the same time, he couldn't resist sucking on the drops of milk. He felt so hungry.

Never before had there been a reason for him to eat. Now though, things appeared different.

As he 'ate' and the woman around him kept on chatting, he came to an understanding. There was no way he could be the same as previously. It wasn't that these people were giants but rather... he became smaller... thinner... and considerably weaker. If the words they were saying could be trusted then... he became human. Someone else's son and grandson.

"Are you full, Myur?" asked the woman holding him, when his lips left her nipples. Her face was smiling as she wiped his mouth.

Myur. Andel Myur. That was apparently, the entity he became. A human. Looking at this brightly smiling woman in front of him, the demon lord felt that... he didn't hate it even a bit.

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Prologue

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“I’m sorry, the results are inconclusive,” the doctor's voice became smaller, sadder but he still continued nonetheless, “you will never be able to walk ever again,” he whispered apologetically to his bedridden patient. It was a frail-looking woman who was completely immobile on the bed, only her head was out of the blue blanket. Her amber eyes dimmed a little and she suddenly looked way older than the forty years she actually had.

That last bit of news just served to effectively crush the last ray of hope Fayre was nursing for three months now. She was still beguiling herself that she was going to be okay, that she would, like always, stand back on her feet and her next strike would be all the more glorious. It didn't matter the time it took, so long as she could be nursed back to health, so long as she could move by herself then... Then. Then what? What did it matter that she thought so far when in actuality she couldn't even move as pleased anymore? They had won, hadn't they? That new experimental treatment didn’t work on her. Tears welled in her eyes that she fought to not let spill. Why? Just why?

In order to let her have some privacy, the man in the white coat walked out of her small hospital room, to let her digest her misfortune.

Soundlessly, Fayre turned her face to the side, facing the wall and let the tears fall on her soft pillow. Why was fate so cruel to her? She wasn’t the one who cheated, she wasn’t the one who took other people’s properties, she wasn’t the one who lied, or tricked or stabbed in the back… Why was the universe so cruel to her when she did nothing to deserve such?

At that time, she had been so close too, so close to deliver everything to light, to expose their lies and manipulations, to let them taste a well-deserved stay in jail… but everything went down the hill with her car crash, the evidences stolen, and now this…

After a certain amount of time, the door slid open and closed, sounds of footsteps coming closer. With a small and broken voice, without turning her head, she requested, “let me alone, please.” She was so very tired. The doctor, she thought, could come back later, at another time when she would be in a more amenable mood to hear about the instructions regarding the following steps, for now... She simply didn't want to think.

The person, however, didn’t exit the place; instead, the chair near her bed was pulled and the person sat. Fayre turned around and her breath hitched. Williamson Simmons. 

"What are you doing here?" she asked unwelcomely, her voice turning cold.

She could hardly spare the man more politeness. After all, this was the child of her husband’s mistress. Those last years, she fought tooth and nail against that father and son pair. However, three months ago, her car had been sabotaged. She needn't divine intervention to know who she owed it to. Her ex-husband, she learned bitterly, wasn't one to play fairly and it wouldn't come as a surprise if this child picked those bad traits of his dear parent.

The young adult was wearing a black suit and tie, his ink-dark hair pulled behind with gel. He took the time to look at her, from head to toe, expressionlessly -not that there were many things to see since she was under thick warm sheets. Not answering her question, when he opened his mouth, it was to ask one of his own, 

“Do you believe in life after death?”

Pursing her lips and narrowing her eyes, Fayre didn't answer either. 

Though the young man was most certainly her ex-husband's biological child -she did indeed verify this by having more than one DNA tests done in secret-, he didn't really look like his father all that much. His gray eyes, which held shades of silver seemed to be always glaring frostily, and that, associate to his reserve and maybe should it be called hostile personality, it effectively served to hold people at distance contrarily to the more smiling Danielson, whose hazel eyes seemed to hold a unique charm and attractiveness and coupled with his extrovert-ness, made him easily surrounded. But at the same time, Will couldn't be more like his father: from the way he talked down to the way he moved. Then again, genetics were sometimes louder than anything else, weren't they?

The young man was in his early twenties now, twenty-two to be exact if his personal papers of that time were to be trusted. Something Fayre truthfully doubted. Since day one, she never knew how to get along with this child. Her acts of kindness were ignored, her very being was ignored... She never heard him call her mother, not even during the time when she was ready to believe that he was really an orphan that Danielson had adopted and not her husband's own flesh and blood.

It had been a time since they last were in the same room together, just the two of them. Since hearing the truth behind his origins, she wouldn't let herself be in the same room with neither of the three people: her husband, his mistress and their progeniture. The divorce papers had been drafted and sent, her lawyers taking care of everything. Since then, she never saw those family members without a representant of the law by her side.

Will seemed to sigh softly before unbuttoning his suit and making himself comfortable on the small chair. He began talking again,

“Glaring at me isn't going to make me leave... Though I don't expect gratitude I also... I really..." his words died as a frown marred his face. What an unusual sight.

Fayre suddenly felt like she understood everything and couldn't help but mocked herself,

"Obviously, it's you, isn't it?" she said in an aggressive voice, "You what? Want me to praise you? A shrine built for you perhaps to commemorate your kindness?"

In a place where she couldn't see, his hands ticked and they were clasped on his thighs, though he said nothing as she derided herself,

"Still an idiot at this age, aren't I? What of those sweet girls' lies? 'You meet the criteria. You can enter our program. It got good results.' A foundation paying for my hospital bills if I said yes to their experimental treatment..." She sharply glared at him. "Your lies are way more elaborate than that of your father, that's for sure... But ultimately you're like him, aren't you? You gave me that hope only to see my face when it will be snatched away."

He stayed silent for a time, looking at her condemning eyes as her tears were streaming down the side of her face, wetting her pillow. He spoke with this detached tone still that she loathed from the bottom of her heart.

"It was really like that. In the beginning. I helped you just to watch you crumble. Payback for those years ago, I suppose.”

She sneered, “You are really your parents' child. A payback you say? For what? Trying to protect my properties?”

His hands ticked.

He didn't answer immediately, his gaze shifting from her to the windows, from where he could see the passageway, crowded with people. If she didn't know better, she would think he was uncomfortable. The devil, as if!

“Their blood does run through my veins.” He exhaled in the end.

"They could be proud of their child then." She spat at him.

He returned his gaze to her. Her tears were still falling. The rims of her eyes were completely red. Seeing this, the clasp of his hands tightened. He said softly, akin to a whisper, as though he didn't really mean to but couldn't quite help himself,

"... The doctor wasn't supposed to tell you... About your test's results."

Her eyes sharpened again,

"Why? You wanted to break it out by yourself?"

A complicated emotion merged on his face. One she couldn't really recognize, for, in the end, she truthfully knew very little about this person. He leaned closer, his face softening,

“… Mother,” he called softly, freezing her on the spot, as some fleeting nostalgia merged in his being. His voice was low and attentive, measuring every sound it seemed, tasting every syllable, "do you believe in life after death?", came once more that inquiry from his mouth.

"... Never... Never call me that again!" reprimanded the shaking voice of the Fayre.

During the first two years following his entry into her life, what didn't she try to do to get close to him? Don't care about calling her 'mother', he wouldn't even talk to her let alone answer when she took the initiative to speak about anything. And now he suddenly called her 'mother'. For what? Mocking her? Really his good parents' child!

Will smiled bitterly. Fayre couldn't, for the life of her, understand what this was all about. His voice had a sad timber as he spoke once again in the heavy silence of the room that had followed her exclamation,

“Mother...I don’t think that there is life after death... or rather I used not to... Death is the very end after all…. What is the point of hoping for an after... But recently, I started thinking that if a place like heaven exists, it would be good if only for people to have a better place to go to.”

Her expression was still unwelcoming, and the rims of her eyes were still red, but anger had already made it so that the tears of despair stopped falling. They will, later, he knew when she would remember her own powerlessness.

He paused, seemingly waiting for a comment from her, but Fayre, at this point, didn't care anymore. If he didn't want to go, let him talk to himself. 

In the end, he resumed,

“These past months, I asked an investigation of you, of your past, of your family... And of mine... It had really been thoroughly done. At first, I was animated by the idea of revenge against you, you see, for all those things you did to me as a child. The stairs, the choking, the pool, every little accident... The poison. Remember the poison from when I was ten?”

Her voice sounded weary and tired, “You’re a lunatic and as crazy as your parents. I already told the police I had nothing to do with it back then, and I will say it again, you’re delusional!" She sighed, wondering with herself why she still cared enough to contradict his words in the first place, "Must you invent something to make my life a living hell, you think being confined in this bed for the rest of my life isn’t enough?”

“It really wasn't you who poisoned me when I was a kid?”

She didn’t even deign to give his nonsense question with an answer this time.

He sighed, a deep sigh, akin to torture as he fell back on the chair, looking like he took a couple more years in a matter of minutes, “I see.”

He got up to leave and paused by the poor, “for what it’s worth,... I’m sorry.”

A pity that for her, it was worth nothing.

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