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A few hours later Tia left her home to play outside for the first time. Her heart pounded fast and her legs moved jittery. Her mother had drawn her a map with a line where she had to go. With the help of it, she found her destination after just a few minutes of walking. On her way, she encountered a bunch of people. They called out to her from their yards or out of their windows or took a stroll on their bikes. “You look exactly like your mother.”, said an old woman smiling. “Yeah, lucky for her. Imagine she had more of her father.”, laughed an old man who was with her. Most of the people she encountered said some variation of this. Tia just smiled wryly every time. She was surprised that so many people knew her parents. But then again she didn’t know much outside of the Television and her demon lord knowledge. But she wondered how those people recognized her. As far as she was concerned she looked in no way similar to her mother. Everything of her was different. From the tip of her ears to her skin and tale to her body proportions. A true mystery.

In front of the entrance to the park waited Herold already.

  “Hi, Tia. Had a good lunch?”, he called out as soon as he noticed her. He waved with both his hands high in the air as if afraid she wouldn’t see him. “Hi. Yeah, it was alright. And you?”, answered Tia returning a small wave. “Of course. My mom makes the best food in the world.” He gave her a confident smile. “You say that only because you haven’t tasted my mamas' food.”, she returned just as confident. “Say do I look like my mother?” Herold smiled grimly. “I got told the same on my way. Sure you do. ” Tia's eyes widened. “How? What of me?” He crossed his arms in front of his chest and thought for a moment. “You eyes?” “You don’t seem confident in your answer.”, grimaced Tia. “Well, you make the same face as her. Can’t really describe it but you do resemble her.” “Is that so.” She stared at Herold's face. “But you don’t look anything like your mother.” “You think so? Lots of people told me I look like her.” “Nah, I can’t see it.” “Hmmm.” Herold let his eyes wander over the houses on the other side of the street.

  “Now only Birim is missing. Should come soon.” “I don’t think it will make much of a difference if he is here or not.”, said Tia disinterested. Herold eyed her. “You don’t really like him.” “No. Not really.”, she answered honestly. “Why is that? He is a good guy, you know.” “I don’t think so. He is a crybaby. He doesn’t think about anything else than himself.” Herold frowned. “How did you come to that conclusion?” “The first thing he does is running away and crying for help. The first time I saw him, he clung to his father not caring for the trouble he gave him. He is…”

  “Wait a moment,”, interrupted Herold her. “He was only worried that he was left alone you know. And there were the fake heroes who made fun of him. And he did run away but he got someone to help us.” “He told that caretaker that he was bullied. It is her job to look what's going on. I bet he never said a word that we were still in harm's way. She did ask me if I did something to him. And he didn’t correct her. He just hid. And today he was only concerned that he may get in trouble if he doesn’t keep me from doing magic. Not keeping us from trouble, mind you, but him. And what about not being alone? Are your parents constantly at home? My certainly aren’t.” “Well, no. But we are all different. And I don’t believe that he only cares about himself. Give him a Chance, okay. I mean you didn’t like me at the beginning either, right?” Tia was dumbstruck and gaped at him. “You knew?” “The way you looked at me made it quite obvious you know.” A grimace formed on Tia. “Then why did you play with me? I only played with you because my mother told me.” “Because I did not know you.” He shrugged. “And look, now we meet at the park to play.”

  “Yeah, but only because you weren’t such a goody-two-shoes you seemed to be at first. And to be honest, I still don’t really like you. But you are my general so I have no other choice.” Herold grinned. “Is that so, yellow?” Tia glared at him, ears twitching. “Don’t call me that.” His grin became wider. “What should I not call you, yellow?” Both looked at each other, one grinning widely the other glaring as if daggers flew from her eyes. They did not move and their breathing almost stopped. Some pedestrians walked down the street. In the distance, some birds sang.

  “I will burn you!” Tia jumped at Herold. But he was ready and jumped to the side. “You have to catch me first!”, he bawled and run laughing into the park. Tia didn’t waste a second and followed him as fast as she could. “I will make you suffer, you damn hero loving idiot.” “Just like a trooper, arencha?” He got the distance between both of them, turned around and jumped up and down. “Hey slowpoke, thought you were going to catch me?” “Just you wait” She came closer and he ran again. Tia pushed more power into her legs, but somehow he managed to always get away. “Just, huff huff, you, huff huff, wait.”, wheezed Tia. Her speed had trooped to almost a walking pace. Each step felt like she pushed the double of her body weight. Her legs burned and her lungs protested. She made one more step. One more. Her vision was blurry. Her legs gave away and she fell onto her knees. Fighting for air she pressed her hand against her stinging side. Panting heavily the world turned over. Somehow she felt a nice cold, entering the front of her body. With light steps, Herold jogged in front of her. “You shouldn’t lay down. It’s not a bed you know.”, he chuckled. “Shut, huff huff, up.” She turned herself on her back. Herold was leaning over her with a wide grin. What a stupid face. She had to insult him.

  “Puhahahaha.” But for some reason, she burst into laughter. “Hehehahaha.” Herold joined her and sat next to her. “You have horrible stamina.” “I don’t need no stamina. I am the demon lord. It is enough that you have it.”   “Why is that?” “Because we complement each other. So you don’t have to be worried because you are stupid.” She gave him a teasing smile. “Shut up.”, he laughed. “So we get people who can do stuff that we can not do? That sounds nice.” “Right. Way better than the stupid heroes, where everyone has to be strong and whatnot. You just have to be good at something. The better the better of course.” Herold gazed at the entrance of the park. “Birim is still not here.” “Doesn’t surprise me. I bet he told everyone by now that we want to have a hideout to practice magic there.” Herold made a grimace. “No, he wouldn’t do that.” Tia sat up and followed Herold's eyes. “Whatever, I don’t think he will come anymore. We should just go search without him.” “Maybe he got hold up? Let's wait a little longer okay?”, Herold suggested.

Tia sighted. “No, we waited long enough. We don’t have that long to search anyway. Worst case, he just has to go home and come earlier tomorrow.” Herold frowned for a few seconds. “Fine, but you will say sorry to him if he does come and waits here for us.” “Sure, no problem.”, said Tia. But she was sure that it wouldn’t come to this. So she had really no problem agreeing to his demand. They went back to the entrance and turned their heads towards both sides of the street. “Where do we go to?”, asked Herold. Tia smirked. “Behold my great power.” With triumph in her eyes, she reached in her trouser pocket and pulled a domino stone out. On one side was one dot and the other was blank. Herold raised his brow puzzled. “What's that?” “A powerful item that has never failed me to find what I seek.” “Woah, that's cool.”, claimed Herold with glee in his eyes. Tia threw it into the air where it circled around itself for a few times before hitting the ground. She took a quick glance at it and pointed in the direction where the point was. “That way.” “Alright. Let’s go!”, Herold shouted. Tia picked the stone up and both went down the street.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Is that domino stone filled with magic.”, asked Herold enthusiastically. “Not really. But as often as it worked it could be. One time I lost my favorite plush toy, it pointed directly where it was. Another time it was with an action figure. And so on.” What she didn’t say was that most times she threw it for a few times until it pointed towards her bed, where most thinks would mysteriously vanish under. “That's awesome. Do you have more of these?” They reached another crossroad and Tia threw the stone once again into the air. “You bet. I have a glass piece that makes things bigger or smaller.” “Oh, I have something similar. It is called a magnifying glass but it only makes stuff appear that way when you look through it.” Tia frowned. “So you have the same artifact. Well, I guess some are more common than others.” Herold stared at her dumbstruck. “So it was just a magnifying glass. You made it sound like it could really make stuff change size.” But Tia didn’t let this bother her. “But I also have a pen that changes color while you draw.” “Whoa, nice. That is really cool. So you can draw with one pen a whole picture.” Tia put her nose into the air. “That's right. It is the fourth greatest item I have. The Stone, of course, is the best.”

They went on and chatted over her artifacts for a while until Tia noticed something behind them. A rustling of leaves from the hedge that seemed to follow them just a few steps behind them. She turned around pointing her finger at the direction. “Who’s there.”, she yelled. Reacting quickly Herold jumped forwards and flung himself into the hedge where Tia pointed at. A high pitched scream came from the spot. “Don’t touch me, you filthy idiot!”, screamed a girly voice. A dull sound emerged, followed by a grunt from Herold who flew out of the hedge on his butt. Flabbergasted he stroke his stomach. A light-blue-scaled head popped out of the hedge. The head glared with furious eyes at him. Tia remembered her.

It was the girl who had argued with Herold before and then insulted Tia. “What is wrong with you? You dumb idiot!”, the girl yelled at Herold. He opened his mouth but no sound came from it. “You spied on us.”, shouted Tia. “What? Are you even dumber than dumb? This is my house, you stupid idiot!” “Don’t lie. I heard you follow us through the hedge.”, claimed Tia. She had an urge to incinerate that girl who constantly insulted her. But she couldn’t do that when there were eyes everywhere.

The girl was taken aback dropping her enraged expression. “I just heard you and was wondering what you were doing.” She got angry again. “And I was right being worried. You attacked me.” “No, erm, I am sorry. This wasn’t what I tried to do.”, grunted Herold apologetic. “But wow. You live really close to me. My house is just a few blocks that way.”, smiled Herold and pointed down the street. “Wait, me too.”, chimed Tia in. “How mysterious.” “Are you really that stupid? We all go to the same kindergarten so of course, we live close by. It is obvious if you could think for a second, you idiotic dumb idiots!” “Hey, what's with you and constantly insulting us? That's very rude.”, barked Herold. “Yeah, you should be grateful that we even spoke to you!”, growled Tia. “Tia, no!”, grimaced Herold. “What? I have had enough of you idiots. You can go and play by yourself for all I care. You are dumb anyway.” With one last glance, she vanished back into the hedge.

Tia and Herold looked at each other both raising their brows. “Somehow I get the feeling she wanted to play with us.”, said Tia. “Who cares. I don’t want to play with someone like her. She is just rude and bad.” He glared at the spot where she was. “Well, I don’t like her insulting me either. But I would rather play with her than Birim, to be honest.” “What? Why?”, exclaimed Herold with wide eyes. “Well, she has character at least. And she is not afraid to say what she thinks.” They walked along the road again. “She had made a good impression on me the first time I saw her.” Tia shrugged her shoulders. “She just insulted me.”, growled Herold. “Yes. As an idiotic Hero. And she was right, you were just like the fake heroes, you know.” “I was not!” Herold stopped and leaned towards her angrily. But then he grimaced. “Did I really gave that impression?” “Yes, you did. Well, as it turned out you are not as bad as them, but still.” Herold's head sunk down. “Don’t worry. Thanks to me, you already improved. Just keep following me and you will turn out to be a great general.” “You really think so?”, sighed Herold doubtfully. Tia giggled. As it seemed he didn’t want to be a fake hero. That improved his points by a bit. “Yeah really.”

The sound of a bell rung followed by a voice. The voice came from the streetlights. “It is now 16:30. All children should go home now.”

  “What, it is so late already?”, said Tia surprised. “We haven’t even started to search for the base.” “Well, we did play around for a long time and we met up at three. Nothing we can do about that, so let's go home. Where do you have to go?”, asked Herold. Tia shrugged. “I don’t know. I will go back to the park and go back from there.” “But didn’t you say you live close by?”, wondered he. “Yeah, since we haven’t gone far from the park yet.” She pulled out the map her mother draw her and showed it to him. “Look. It is just four blocks away from the park.” Herold observed the map intrigued. “I see. That is really close to where my house is. I think I took that road, too. We just have to walk down that street and go left and we come out here.”, said Herold while pointing at a street on the map. “You are pretty knowledgeable about our surroundings.”, pointed Tia out in awe. “Well, in that direction is a store and my dad takes me with him very often.” Herold started moving and Tia followed him.

  “By the way, you said that you played with me even though I didn’t like you just because you didn’t know me. But you are way too against that girl. Why is that?”, wondered Tia. “I wanted to play with her too. She was avoided by the other children because she insulted everyone but I thought that there was maybe more to it.” He grimaced. “As it turned out, she is just a bad girl. Even though I was friendly she insulted me. But you did not.” Tia grinned mischievously. “You only didn’t realize it.”

  “Ah is that so, yellow?”, he grinned back. Tia flung around and grabbed his tail. “Wha?” Herold's eyes widened in shock. A dark chuckle escaped Tia's mouth. “No escape now! Feel the wrath of the demon lord.” She flung her free hand forward. But Herold laughed. He turned fast around himself. Tia was pulled along for a bit before she stumbled and fell, letting go of his tail in the process. “You have to get up earlier than this to be a match against me.”, teased Herold while he jumped up and down. Tia glared at him with a smirk. “Big words for a small fry.” She jumped up and at Herold who quickly turned around and started running.

As they arrived in front of Tia's house she had lost all her stamina and was carried on Herold's back.