The power he’d gained from the demon swirled inside him… it wasn’t strength, exactly. Instead, it was as if some options had been opened up for him. His body felt freer than ever, less so in how he moved and more in… what he could do. But what exactly was that… His concentration was broken as the giant knight on top of him groaned and moved his body, their massive arm coming down to slap him in the face.

God, this was just horrible. “Lidia… Help…” The girl walking behind him saw the scene and laughed, gently moving the giant arm aside and allowing Elliot to see again. “... He’s your brother, you know? That usually means you have to carry the body.” Another laugh, filling the air with a sweetness he had started to grow to grow uncomfortable without. “The dashing prince who slew the demon knight and save the princess… Only fair for you to continue the act, no?”

He scowled. “I’m a demon, you know. Usually, they’re just a tad more selfish than that. You’re lucky he’s so heavy, or I’d have already tossed him onto you.” She stuck her tongue out at him, running ahead as if to get out of brother tossing range. He wanted to stick his own tongue ut at her but the bandages were back, tighter than ever. He groaned, shifting Frederick’s weight on top of him so he could have an easier time walking.

It only caused the arm to fall back down on his face.

“...Lidia…”

______________________________________________________________

The trek to the city had been quite an effort to make. Even with his demon strength, he’d found himself with his arms shaking by the time he’d made it to the gates. Carrying what was probably 500 pounds of steel armor and muscle would do that to a person… As well as the giant thick slab of metal called a sword that had weighed about a good 200 pounds on its own. The city’s entrance was beautiful, with a giant river standing in between the gate and himself.

The bridge between was nothing short of immaculate, either. Giant pillars of green stood at the sides, made of a crystal that looked way too much like an emerald. The bridge was nowhere near empty, though. Apparently, their presence was good enough to cause a major commotion. “Lidia! Oh, gods, Lidia!!!” Lidia beside him was suddenly tackled out of nowhere by what seemed to look like a child, it wasn’t until he turned around that he realized that it was, in fact, just a short girl.

Quite a muscled up one, too, despite looking as if she barely scraped past five foot. Despite being about two heads shorter than him, the girl had a body on her like a pro wrestler. Unfortunately, that body was being used to snap Lidia’s spine. “Please… let go… Can’t breathe… Sadie.” Lidia moaned. The girl who he now knew was Sadie gasped in surprise, jumping back and knocking into him. The density of her was enough to have him thrown forward, and he’d almost dropped the giant knight on top of him because of it.

Jesus, this girl was solid.

“Ah, sorry about that! Natasha and Gerald have already called for a medic… I take it it was from exhaustion, right?” The short girl said. Slapping the knight’s leg as if he were a prized hunk f meat. Lidia nodded solemnly, looking at her brother with worry. “A shadeling… Frederick must have been devastated at my loss… It is thanks to this man that I was able to get away at all, though… Sadie… this is Elliot.”

He gave his best smile as he reached his hand out, before remembering his face was covered in bandages. “Hello, My name is Elliot Dresmr. You must be sadie, right? I’ve heard quite a bit- …ow.” Lidia stepped on his foot and give him a venomous glare, to which he waved her off. “...about you. Ow.” He moved away from her, using the confused Sadie as a makeshift shield between them. Then, as if a lightbulb flashed in her head, Sadie realized.

“Lidia! You told him about Erik!?” Lidia stepped back, her hands raised defensively. “It wasn’t me! That idiot Frederick opened his stupid mouth!” Sadie turned to look at Frederick, and by proxy him, with spite. He gave a big smile. “When they talked about you I hadn’t expected someone so strong… You must have quite a big heart, yes?” He grinned as the girl turned red. Quite a way to break the mood, no?

“You… You keep your nose out of places where it doesn’t belong, you hear me?” He saw her clench her fist, the muscles in her arms flexing and shifting like a machine. Ooh, maybe he’d accidentally made an enemy right about then. That wouldn’t do. He gently laid the big knight aside, turning to the girl with his head lowered. He kneeled when he realized he had still been towering over her. “I apologize. It wasn’t my intention to ridicule you… From what I heard you seemed like such a great person, so I couldn’t help but openly admire your strength.”

Lidia had most likely caught onto his bullshit. They had barely even mentioned her at all, let alone said anything actually positive. Everything he was saying now was just to sweeten her up. He looked up, happy to see the girl confused and embarrassed. Most people with too much strength never really took the time to speak with their words. It caused them to stutter and fail at times like these, where tact was more useful than fists.

She obviously thought this was too much, but couldn’t find a way to tell him. This was when he set out the bait. “I think we started off on the wrong foot… Do you think we can talk this out again over a meal?” She looked at him weirdly before speaking. “Uh… yes. I’m sorry, I didn’t think that… that uh…” Hah, she was trying to apologize for something she didn’t do. “How about this. I’ll forget everything they told me, and in exchange-” He went a bit closer, into her personal space. “-You can tell me yourself exactly what you want me to know. ”

He grinned, the teeth in his mouth turning dangerously sharp. “How about it?” The poor girl nodded, looking as if she’d seen a wolf. She was red in the ears, which just went to show how confused she was about the situation. It was a pretty neat way to make others not hate you, he had found out. It even worked on guys sometimes, if he was a bit more careful about it- “Gah…” Something hard smacked him on the head, and he turned to find Lidia staring at him with a deadpan expression.

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He smiled, shifting close enough to her that she could hear him whisper. He didn’t see her flinch, though. “I really thought I had screwed it up with your friend there. Good thing she’s willing to give me a second chance, yeah?” Her face didn’t change, and he felt fear in his heart. He sort of understood how Lidia felt about him, and he also understood that she was deranged and a bit of a controlling person. He had tried passing what had just happened off as a small, flirty conversation but it seemed she wasn’t buying it.

“Uhuh… Let’s get going.” The voice was almost as cold as his own demon voice, making him shudder. This girl had his life in her hands, and he had to make sure she wouldn’t spill it. He went to get after her but she was already with Sadie, looking back at him with the same cold look. “Please get Frederick, Elliot. We can’t have him passed out in the middle of the bridge.” He… Couldn’t refute that. Sighing, he lugged the massive man onto his back before following along with the two girls. He felt way too much like a pack mule at the moment.

It wasn’t long before they had met up with the other two Lidia had mentioned, as well as a couple of men who took Frederick off his hands. Jack and Natasha, if he remembered their names correctly. She was tackled again by the new girl, amusingly enough. She was as tall as him and almost as lanky. Her skin was olive and her eyes were green, but the most striking feature about her was her ears. They were pointy and long, which made him think of an elf. “Lidia! Dear gods, you’re alive!” She shouted. The force in her tackle was nowhere near the amount of the short, muscular one, but it still held just the same amount of fervent worry and relief.

She had to bend over to hug Lidia, which was actually sort of endearing. Jack was different. He was just as tall as Lidia, which was around 5’8. With dark hair and a pair of sharp, dark brown eyes, and a sharp jawline, he was also pretty dashing. He expected Jack to also move in but the man kept his distance, his arms crossed. He could still see the relief in his eyes, though, and he knew he was an okay guy.

He’d keep his distance from the two either way, though. The ‘elf’ was at his eye level, the only one of them to be that way. She was the one most likely to notice his… ailment. The reason he didn’t want to be around Jack. The way he acted, the way he dressed, the way he looked at him with narrowed eyes, sizing him up even when they were having a big reunion… that guy was the one most likely to figure out his secret.

He also seemed the most likely to kill him for it.

The pleasantries had finally finished at some point, and this time he hadn’t been introduced by Lidia. Sadie had to take up the mantle for this one. “This is Elliot. He saved Lidia when she was in trouble… He also protected her when Frederick had been possessed.” She said, her eyes looking back and forth between them as if she was being a mediator. By the way the two acted, he realized it was necessary. The elf had a strained look on her face as she saw him, or more specifically, his bandages.

“Did… you get those while fighting for Lidia?” Sadie gasped, turning to him quickly. Even Lidia flinched when she heard that, which he found amusing. “Forgive her, Elliot. Most elves are immune to curses so-” She was interrupted before she could finish. “Where did you say you found this guy? He just so happened to be hiding in the woods when he found you?” Jack said, looking suspiciously at him. Damn, he hoped he was wrong about the guy.

“Lidia? Where did you find him again?” Lidia looked shocked, and for a moment he had expected her to spill the secret.”Um… I was running away from a group of goblins… Then he jumped from the sky and took care of them for me.” Oh, godammit. The man turned to him with a raised eyebrow, “Out of the sky? How do you figure he found you? People don’t hide in the woods unless they’re on the run or a bandit. What’s under the bandages, Elliot?”

Oh, god-fucking-damnit. He turned to Lidia in a “Now what the hell am I gonna do!?” way, only to realize she was doing the same thing. “Nothing to say, Elliot? You wouldn’t mind if I just peeked a-” Just as the bastard reached for the bandages on his face, a hand grabbed his arm, hard. He turned to Lidia in surprise, only to find it hadn’t actually been her, but Sadie, of all people. Her face was furious, looking at her friend as if he was lower than dirt.

“Jack… You don’t just make someone remove something they don’t want to. It's not your face, is it?.” Jack looked at her with a frown, trying to pull back to absolutely no avail. That was a bit scary, Elliot couldn’t lie. “Understand?” She asked, once again. Her tone was calm but forceful, anger no longer showing on her face. He almost expected her to start speaking demon and start attacking them, like with what happened with Frederick. “Yes…” The two of them said, Elliot speaking up purely by accident.

They all looked at Elliot confusedly, and he laughed. “Sorry, force of habit…” With his mind not panicking anymore, he was finally able to think of a proper way to douse their suspicion. He turned to Jack, who was looking at him with a mixture of guilt and spite. Trying to act as sympathetic as he could with his uncaring tone of voice, he reached a hand out to the man. “Sorry about… acting so suspicious, if it makes you feel any better, Lidia has helped me unwrap the bandages before. She could tell you what I look like, if you wish. She was unfortunate enough to see the cruelty on my face.”

Jack turned to Lidia in surprise, before she got the hint and quickly nodded. The man’s angry face buckled completely, the realization that he’d almost done something terrible dawning on him. God, that felt sweet. His face immediately turned guilty and angry, more at his own self rather than at Elliot. “I… I’m sorry. Forgive me for acting so suspicious. You can understand where I came from… right?” Jack turned to Lidia, looking for any form of acceptance, “...right?”

He turned to her, happy at the suppressed look of horror on her face as he shoved all the responsibility onto her. “I must thank you again, Lidia… For helping me with such an endeavor. It must have been quite a difficult experience for you. Oh, and…” He forgot to thank the most important one. The one who saved his life just then. He bent his back forward a bit, looking the short, muscular girl in the eyes. “Thank you, Sadie… I’m not quite comfortable showing my face to people I haven’t gotten to know yet… It means a lot that a stranger like you cares so much for my privacy.”

She blushed, opening her mouth to speak before closing it and turning away. Eventually, she managed to eke out a response. “N-no problem… I understand you have secrets you’d rather not tell. I hope… We… can eventually earn your trust as well as….” She turned to Lidia with a flash of emotion in her eye. “As well as Lidia, one day.” He laughed, remembering how “accepting” the girl had been with him in the beginning. “It was more forced upon me when I went to save her… And she had quite the startled look on her face when she’d first seen me. You’d swear she’d seen a demon.” She gave him a glaring look, those eyes looking as if they could kill. “...though I can’t say we haven’t grown closer because of it… haha.”

The look pacified a bit, but her underlying anger was still there, leaving a lasting sense of danger with him. It only got worse as Sadie continued the conversation, the girl funnier and more charming than he was willing to admit. He got the same, weird feeling from her whenever he talked about Lidia, though… and it was a tad bit more terrifying, considering the girl could probably crush him like a grape.

There was no winning, all because he’d tried having fun on the bridge… There was no way out as long as Lidia knew his secret, and he wasn’t about to kill a person for such a thing… He sighed, promising himself that the moment he was alone and with enough money he’d buy a map and leave this city, and all the crazy people living inside it.