Melodia sat across the table from two of the people she’d terrorized most, smiling politely at them.

“Drop it,” Arvel muttered, eyes narrow.

“The illusion is gone,” Melodia said, gesturing to the smaller horns on her head, “What you see before you is my true form, bereft of much of the power I’d been storing up for so long.”

“I meant the act,” he said firmly, “Drop it.”

Melodia’s sweet smile slowly faded, the light in her rich purple eyes dulling.

“Does the sight of me being happy truly offend you so?” she asked.

“Not sure it’s that so much,” Arvel said, “I get pissed off at such a damn farce.”

Melodia looked up at him, her melancholy gaze meeting his as she said, “I’m not sure humans and demons can ever understand one another. But I want to try. I want to make an honest effort. I want to know what it is about your mundane little life that made you so happy. I want to know what it is about ‘merely existing’ that made it worth all the pain and suffering. I want to know what would possess an entire town of people to struggle so hard to try to settle here.”

“Hope,” Rain said softly, “They do it because of hope.”

“Hope?” Melodia asked, “What could they possibly hope for in all of this?”

“The hope that the trees they plant today will bare fruit for their children, and their children’s children,” Rain said. She looked down at the table, before looking back up at Melodia, and said, “Lunette told me the kinds of things you two talked about. The way you spoke of children like we had them only to live vicariously through them when our own lives ended in disappointment. But that’s not it.”

“Loving someone means wanting the best for them,” Arvel said, “Sometimes it means making sacrifices for them.”

“And you love your children?” Melodia asked, “What drives you to love a parasite?”

Rain’s brow furrowed, and she opened her mouth to speak, but she paused when she felt the squeeze of Arvel’s hand on her shoulder.

“Figure it out,” Arvel said.

Rain looked up at him, surprised.

“Then...” Melodia murmured.

“I ain’t gonna run you out of town just for bein’ here,” Arvel said, “Not so long as you’re putin’ an honest effort into things. But if you harm a single person... If I see the first sign of one of your underlings in the area... If you so much as look at one of the people here sideways, I’m gonna cut you down.”

Slowly, a weak smile rose on Melodia’s lips.

“I’m gonna tell Fidge, Lunette, and Freddy,” he said, “But beyond that, it’s up to you to make yourself passably human. None of your magical charmin’.”

“The power I kept has dwindled greatly,” Melodia said, “I already gave much of it away before I came here. If I want to be able to sustain myself and keep up my glamor, I can’t be going around trying to enchant the entire settlement. I managed it just long enough for them to not question why I was here, and now that they know my name and have had a few pleasant chats with me, no one wants to second guess my presence.”

Melodia then looked at Rain and smiled.

“Miraculous, isn’t it?” the demoness asked, “Even without using enchantment magic, the power of ‘being pretty’ is impressive.”

Rain’s brow furrowed, and she slowly stood from the table, saying, “We’ll be keeping an eye on you.”

Rain walked out of the little hovel first, and Arvel followed a few steps behind her, as she walked away from the gravel road and away from the settlement.

“Are you mad I didn’t kill her?” Arvel asked.

“No,” Rain said, stopping in her tracks. With her back still turned to him, she tilted her head and said, “No... But also yes. Nh... It’s complicated.”

Arvel shook his head and asked, “What ain’t?”

Rain spun around on her heel and asked, “What do we do? There’s a demon living in our settlement now. Do we really just let her stay? We can’t trust her.”

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Arvel rubbed the back of his neck and said, “She sent away her army. She’s weak... Barely an echo of the power she used to have. And she wasn’t like that when I left her in that cave. I told her I hoped that the kindness she used to show humans wasn’t completely an act, that it really was somewhere inside her, and this is how she’s trying to show me. She gave up her ‘throne on the mountain’ and I think that for now at least, she’s gonna put in an honest effort.”

“For now,” Rain said, “And later?”

Arvel looked Rain in the eye and said, “I’ll take responsibility for her.”

Rain clenched her fists tight and asked, “Why?!”

Arvel opened his mouth to respond, but he was interrupted.

“Arvel,” Lunette said as she approached them, walking off the gravel road and through the dry grass, carrying a spear low at her side, “Frederik told me.”

“We got it handled,” Arvel said, looking over his shoulder at her and waving a hand, “It ain’t a problem right now, and I’m gonna watch to make sure it don’t turn into one.”

“Hmm,” Lunette grunted, brow furrowing. She then gave Arvel a firm nod and said, “I don’t trust her, and I don’t know what she could’ve said to convince you to let her stay, but I do trust you.”

“She didn’t do anything to convince him,” Rain said, gripping her apron tight in her hands, “She hasn’t done anything to make amends. Nothing to deserve being given another chance.”

Arvel looked back at Rain and glared sharply at her, asking, “Are you really gonna be the one to argue that people don’t deserve second chances?”

Rain was taken aback, her mouth slack in shock for a moment. She looked past Arvel at Lunette, who only looked away quietly. She then looked at Arvel again and said, “I do not believe that’s fair!”

“What Melodia did was awful,” Arvel said, “But you either believe people can change, or you don’t.”

“She isn’t a person!” Rain shouted back at him.

“My lady!” Lunette snapped sharply.

Rain startled, and looked at Lunette, who appeared tense.

“This conversation is unsuited to this place,” Lunette said, “Nor is it suited to such hot tempers. I’m going to walk you home.”

“I still have laundry to finish,” said Rain.

“I’m walking you home,” Lunette repeated firmly, turning to walk back toward the gravel road.

Rain watched Lunette walking away, before beginning to follow after her. As she passed by Arvel, she looked up at him, but he didn’t meet her gaze.

Lunette did not speak a single word for the duration of the walk, and they made it halfway back home before Rain broke the silence.

“Why did you choose to step in?” she asked, “Why do you speak in defense of a demon? One who tortured you, no less.”

Lunette kept her eyes on the path ahead as she said, “I care little and less for the feelings of Melodia. But Arvel’s feelings are of the utmost importance to me.”

“I have no idea why Arvel feels so strongly about her,” Rain said with a huff, “After everything that she did, back then, and even now.”

“People are what they show you, not what they tell you,” Lunette said, “The image of Arvel you have in your mind’s eye is that of a carefree man who didn’t want to be a knight, who didn’t want to be a hero or a protector, and just wanted to be left alone. But can you honestly tell me that that’s who Arvel has turned out to be?”

Rain looked up at Lunette in surprise, before looking back to the road, and said, “Of course not. If that were true, none of us would be here. Not me, or you, or Fidget.”

“He pretends to be a man who is careless and unkind,” Lunette said, “But that’s never been the man that he’s shown to any of us.”

“What are you saying, then?” Rain asked, “That he thinks Melodia is a ‘gentle soul’ hiding beneath a mask of horrors?”

“We’re not talking about Melodia,” Lunette said, “We’re talking about Arvel. We’re talking about the man who loves more intensely than anyone I’ve ever known. He loves beyond reason. He loves even past the limits of his own patience. ”

“So he still loves her, then?” Rain asked, her shoulders sagging under the weight of their conversation.

“Perhaps,” Lunette replied, “Or perhaps he loves the place she holds in his memories. He may love the time in his life that he spent with her, the time in which he was happy, when his father was still with him, before he entered into years of loneliness. I do not know what it is that binds his heart so, but I do know one thing...”

Lunette hurried a few steps ahead of Rain to turn and face her, the two of them stopping in the road not far from the front gate of the farm.

“I know that we are people he loves,” Lunette said, “I know that we are recipients of his patience, time and time again. I know that he has already put his life on the line for both of us, and he would do so again in a heartbeat. Knowing this, I could never fault him for keeping such abundant love in his heart.”

Rain’s eyes misted, and she asked, “Can you truly be okay with this? With him granting such grace and patience to the woman who did everything she did to you?”

“The tension between Melodia and myself is my own,” Lunette said, lifting her hands to squeeze Rain’s shoulders, “The relationship that is beginning to form between Arvel and myself is also between the two of us alone. Just as yours is with him. We cannot waste our days worrying about how people feel about other people when we’re only just barely getting to the root of how we feel about each other.”

Rain sighed softly, and she slowly wrapped her arms around Lunette’s waist, pulling herself closer to the taller woman to hug her tightly. Rain laid her head on Lunette’s shoulder, and Lunette wrapped her arms around Rain, petting her back softly.

“You’re far too wise in the ways of love,” Rain whispered, “One day you must tell me of the myriad romances you’ve experienced to have such wisdom.”

Lunette chuckled and said, “I believe you would be sorely disappointed.”

Rain laughed softly, before it lilted away. She then said quietly, “I hope you have thought about how we’re going to explain all of this to Fidget.”

Lunette groaned, leaning her head back and looking skyward, and said, “Oh, I am certainly not looking forward to explaining any of this to Fidget.”