“Look, I really am sorry about this,” Azure said, glancing at Lusya beside her. “I hope you understand why I did it. As a Sacred Knight, my primary duty is to kill demons, even if I don’t think it should be.”
“I understand,” Lusya replied. She did not appreciate or approve of it, but she understood. A lack of understanding on her part was not the issue here.
They walked through the dark forest in silence for a few moments. Autumn was upon them—though the leaves had yet to start changing colors or falling—and the days were getting noticeably shorter and colder with each that passed. The sun had all but set by the time Azure and Lusya had reached the forest where the demons had been spotted, though—as they had not rushed—that had taken several hours on foot. The air was cool and, with the trees and their canopies of leaves blocking out the sun, it might as well have been the dead of night within the forest.
The forest was quiet, save for the soft swishing of the two’s boots on the grass. Every now and then, that was interspersed with a dull thunk when the butt of Azure’s spear landed on a tree root as she used it like a walking stick. Presumably, she had brought it in preparation for the distinct possibility that the demons in question were low-ranks. A Sacred Blade, let alone a Paladin’s, would be a horrendous level of overkill against most of them, although there was nothing stopping her from using it as a simple spear or moderating its power to an appropriate level. Using a more appropriate tool was also a reasonable solution, however.
“Are you mad?” Azure asked.
“I am rarely angry,” Lusya said.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I am not angry.”
“Are you sure?” Azure asked. “Because you’re doing the slight head-tilt thing.”
“I am not angry,” Lusya repeated.
Azure knit her eyebrows in a skeptical expression, but she did not push the issue further. She refocused in front of her and kept walking.
“You are quite quick to break your word,” Lusya said. “I do not think highly of that.”
Azure frowned. “Minimal means no more than necessary, and this is necessary.”
“That may be true, strictly speaking,” Lusya said. “But you have violated the spirit of our agreement, and I doubt you are unaware of that fact. The implication was that our only delay would be the stops you had already planned.”
“You’re not wrong,” Azure said. “But if I didn’t agree to this, I would have been violating my oath as a Sacred Knight.”
“You are the one who made potentially contradicting oaths,” Lusya said. “And, in any case, the fact that I still live suggests you are willing to break that oath when it suits you.”
Azure pointedly looked away, refusing to meet Lusya’s gaze. “That’s different.”
“Perhaps it is.”
Azure sighed. “I’m sorry, Lusya. I’m doing my best here, but nothing you’ve said is wrong. I shouldn’t have made you a promise I couldn’t keep.”
“Your apology is appreciated,” Lusya said.
“Not even accepted, huh?” Azure said, seemingly more to herself than to Lusya. “I’ll give you some space. Figuratively, that is.”
She fell silent, and Lusya had no desire to restart the conversation. They continued on their way and, true to her word, Azure made no further attempt to speak to Lusya.
The women from the village had given them directions to the specific spot where they had seen the demons, but Lusya was skeptical of their utility. The directions in question were rather vague, with useless instructions like “go right at the second big tree.” What qualified as big? Second from what?
In part, it seemed simple incompetence. The women did not know how to articulate where to go. In addition, their memories were not perfect and, by their own admission, there was nothing in particular that stood out about where they had been. No landmarks or other identifying features to speak of, which seemed to be true from what Lusya had seen so far. The forest was quite homogenous. It seemed dubious Lusya and Azure would find the place or that they would even know if they did. The instructions were so useless, they had been walking in a straight line without regard for them almost since entering the forest, apparently having mutually decided there was no point in trying to use the directions despite not discussing it. Fortunately, the issue was rendered moot soon enough.
“There are indeed demons here,” Lusya said.
Azure nodded. “I can tell.” She pointed a finger. “That way, right?”
“A little to the left.” Azure adjusted her arm. “Right. There.”
“Thanks,” Azure said with a smile. “Your senses are a little more precise than mine.”
“Your thanks are unnecessary,” Lusya said.
Azure flinched. Lusya still was not sure what was different when she said it. She might not have been happy with Azure, but that didn’t mean every word out of her mouth was hostile. “How many? I can tell it’s more than one, but they kind of blend together for me.”
“Six,” Lusya replied. “All low-rank.”
“That much, I could tell,” Azure said. “There’s no mistaking a high-rank demon.”
There being multiple could have been a hint alone. While not universal, high-ranks did not often congregate for a variety of reasons. It could draw attention to them and make them a bigger target, not to mention that many high-ranks simply had trouble getting along with each other. Much of that also applied to low-ranks, but high-ranks being strong exacerbated the issues and made grouping up less appealing.
They had grouped together more under Father, but he was the Demon King. Things were different with a Demon King around. And even then, those who had done so readily had been a minority of unusual sorts, like Rahgrahb. Most had needed to be persuaded or forced into compliance.
Lusya started walking in the demons’ direction. “The sooner we eliminate them, the better.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Azure said with an uncharacteristically uneasy smile.
Lusya took the lead in tracking down the demons. Even compared to a Paladin, her innate sense for Malice was more potent and precise than any mortal’s learned one.
It didn’t take long for them to reach the demons. The demons hadn’t tried to flee, although they must have known Lusya and Azure were coming. Despite lacking the capacity for motomancy themselves, low-rank demons did share Lusya’s sense for Malice to varying degrees, and Lusya and Azure had not moved so quickly that the demons could not have tried to escape, though Lusya and Azure would have simply sped up and caught them had they done so.
Nevertheless, Lusya and Azure found the demons waiting in a clearing, staring as they emerged from the forest. It seemed these low-ranks were going to prove their kind’s lower intelligence yet again. Running might have been futile, but it gave them a better chance than waiting to die.
This lot were all about human-sized and shaped. They had a veritable rainbow of skin colors from blue to red, and all had some other obvious distinguishing feature. One had four arms, another eyes on stalks sprouting from the top of his head, and none on his face.
“You guys are gonna regret—” the eye one managed to get out before Azure sliced his head in half.
“The sooner the better, right?” Azure asked with a smirk.
“Indeed,” Lusya replied.
Azure skewered another’s—this one with spikes of bone protruding from each shoulder—heart on her spear before any of them could move. Lusya dashed to the nearest demon, one with leathery, vestigial wings, and crushed its skull in her hands and allowed the body to collapse like falling autumn leaves. By then, the others had finally started to move, not that it did them any good.
The one with four arms twitched in Azure’s direction before she slashed his throat open. She danced back, minimizing how much of the ensuing spray of blood got on her white uniform. Another with long tusks for teeth took one step back before Lusya grabbed him and punched, impaling her hand through its chest before tossing aside the corpse.
At least these weaklings wouldn’t put up a lengthy fight. Lusya still would have rather not had to deal with them at all. They had lost half the day regardless of how long the fight took at this point. The last demon, with four legs and needle-like hair, turned to run. Lusya kicked him in the back, sending him flying into a tree. Where he grunted in pain as his face scraped off bark. He started to push off, but she kicked him again, pinning him to the tree. She felt ribs and vertebrae crumple beneath her boot as they let out a series of loud cracks and pops. Then a third time, and a fourth, keeping him from escaping as he broke a little more with each blow smashing bark and splintering wood. Finally, she kicked a little harder with a shockwave. He flew through the tree and skidded along the ground as he landed. He coughed as he stopped, and blood stained the ground beneath him.
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Lusya batted aside the tree as it fell toward her and approached him. She was prepared to continue, when her mind went back to all those months ago. The demon writhed on the ground, trying in vain to find the strength to stand. His legs weren’t moving at all. She must have broken his spine and paralyzed him at some point. The sight stirred something odd within her, something cold. She changed her mind and brought her boot down on his head, ending his suffering in a single quick stomp. The job finished, she turned to find Azure staring at her with needless concern.
“That was something,” Azure said, almost fearful.
Lusya walked past her and started heading back the way they had come. She wasn’t interested in Azure’s impressions of her actions. “It is done. We are going.”
Azure muttered what seemed to be a truncated version the prayer-like speech she had offered the high-rank demon before, then followed without comment. Lusya was in no hurry to draw one out. It was not as intense, but she had the same feeling she had had back then. Confused and dissatisfied. Except it was even more mysterious now than it had been then. There had never been any danger in toying with that demon. There was no reason for what she had done to bother her.
“You’re upset,” Azure said. It was not a question this time.
“It is nothing,” Lusya said.
“Even if you were upset over nothing, that still wouldn’t be nothing.”
“It is none of your concern.”
“Lusya,” Azure said, coming to an abrupt halt as they passed through a moonlit clearing, “talk to me. Please.”
Lusya stopped and turned to face her. Azure held her hands before her chest in a pleading gesture, her eyebrows knit together and eyes wide.
“That fight reminded me of an unpleasant incident,” Lusya said. “Nothing more.”
“Oh, no, you’re not getting off that easy,” Azure said. She took a seat on a large rock near the center of the clearing and patted the space next to her. “Come on now, sit.”
Lusya blinked, then turned and walked straight into an invisible barrier. She took a step back and gave it an experimental punch, but it didn’t budge. She wasn’t leaving. There was little choice but to go along with Azure’s whims. Lusya joined the Paladin on the rock. While it was large enough to sit on, there wasn’t much space for two people. Lusya’s options were to sit right beside Azure as she had indicated, or back-to-back with her. Lusya opted for the former.
“So, what happened?” Azure asked.
Lusya hesitated. There wasn’t much about the story that needed hiding, but she was unaccustomed to being so candid about her journey. And she was going to be candid. If she was going to be forced into this discussion, she might as well participate properly. She was sure Azure would be troublesome if she suspected any significant deception or omission anyway. After a moment of contemplating where to begin, she decided to sum up events starting from meeting Ander. Azure had a strange enthusiasm through much of the story, even stopping it to ask pointless questions like how tall Ander had been, though it fell off close to the story’s conclusion.
“Due to mistakes on both our parts, he was killed by the bandits,” she said as she neared the end. “After that, I destroyed the bandits’ base as planned. I made sure each of them died a slow, painful death.”
“And that’s the part that bothers you?” Azure asked.
Lusya nodded. “I am unsure why I did it, or why I felt the way I did afterward. I was…dissatisfied, yet also lost all desire to continue. I killed the rest because it needed doing, but I no longer had any urge to do so in a particular manner, and recalling the preceding events caused a strange emptiness inside me. Moreover, I am unsure if such events may repeat themselves. I wasted time and could have put Ariya in danger. That cannot be allowed to happen again.”
“Well first of all,” Azure said, “it sounds like you did it because you were angry, and then you were sad when your head cooled. Both of which are normal reactions to your friend’s death.”
Lusya tilted her head and blinked. “I will grant that I felt both those things, but such feelings are seldom strong enough to influence my actions.”
Azure pursed her lips. “We’ll come back around to that. Before that, it’s not just what happened in general, but what you did that bothers you, right?”
Lusya nodded. It was both the actions and the way she felt about them. One could say that the fact that her actions bothered her bothered her. She supposed that meant, at the heart of the matter, it was her actions that were the cause of her problem.
“And it’s fair to say you regret the way you handled it?”
“That is correct.”
“Let’s break that down, shall we?” Azure said with a smirk that made it clear refusal was not a real option. “Do you regret killing them?”
Lusya shook her head. “No.”
Killing those she needed to had never bothered her, and it was not going to stop now. It was a bit unfortunate when she had to kill in situations where she could have avoided it, like the people she had stolen from in Zentril and Gavamir, but even that was a fleeting sentiment. The bandits had been an obstacle. Killing them had been the natural action, and she felt nothing thinking on those whose demise she had made swift.
“Do you regret doing so out of anger?”
“I do not grant that that is what happened,” Lusya said. “But even supposing that it is, no.”
“So, what you regret is solely being needlessly cruel about it.”
“That is a fair assessment,” Lusya said. “As I said, it was a waste of time and an unnecessary risk.”
“Yes, you said that, yet you got upset after you did the same thing to that demon,” Azure said. “Wasting only a couple seconds and putting no one but him in danger.”
“I am not upset.”
Azure rested a hand on Lusya’s head and stared into her eyes. “I believe that you believe that, but you’re upset, Lusya.” She smiled. “I know you don’t mind killing people, but is it possible you don’t like hurting them more than you need to?”
Lusya blinked. “It is possible, but it seems rather incongruous with my actions.”
“You wouldn’t be the only person to have a mean streak when you’re mad and regret it afterward,” Azure said. “Like, say, when you’re angry with mean old Auntie Azure for dragging you out to kill some demons.”
“My anger does not influence me in that manner.”
Azure sighed and looked up at the moon, as if for guidance. “Do you want to know what I think? What I’ve always thought?”
“I suspect you will tell me regardless of my response,” Lusya said.
Azure laughed. “Right answer. I think you underestimate your emotions. A lot.” She smiled at the moon, wistful. “I don’t live in your or anyone else’s head, so maybe they are a little weaker than most people’s. But they’re nowhere near as weak as you think. The reason you can think that is because of the wall.”
“The wall?” Lusya asked.
“The wall in your head,” Azure said. “This is metaphorical, of course.”
“I am sure I would have noticed if it were not.”
Azure chuckled. “Anyway, for most people, from my observations, emotions and reason mingle constantly. They inform and bounce off each other. People might do their best to separate them, but they can only do so much. Emotion and reason are joined at the hip. All you can do is try to put one in front and hope the other is content to act as support instead of a roadblock.”
“This is an erratic analogy,” Lusya said.
“It will make sense soon. What you do is different. Without even trying, you’ve managed to put up a wall between your emotions and your reason. Maybe a dam would be a better analogy. It’s not perfect, and it doesn’t stop them all, but it gives you an extraordinary ability to ignore them”
“I will grant that seems an accurate summation of the relationship between the two,” Lusya said.
“Good,” Azure said. “It’s something only you can do, Lusya, and I’m sure it’s been your strength in many ways. Even from what you’ve told me, I can see it. It was the same just now too. Most people can’t just stop being angry and stay on task. Most people would have lost focus and slowed down a little when the sadness hit them.”
“I am aware of that.”
“But that doesn’t mean there aren’t any problems with it. You’ve done such a fine job sealing up your own feelings that sometimes you don’t know them when you see them. And that means that, sometimes, when they finally reach a boil and spill over the wall, you don’t know how to deal with them. You might not even recognize them.”
Azure paused. Lusya blinked.
“And, what do you propose I do about it? Destroy this wall?” Lusya asked. She had not yet decided if this theory had merit, but Azure had her attention and curiosity.
Azure shook her head. “Not at all. Even if you could, it’s something that makes you wonderfully unique, Lusya. I would never ask that of you. What I would suggest is that instead of hiding on the other side of the wall all the time, you try to climb to the top every now and then. Look at what’s beyond it, maybe enjoy a taste sometimes. I’m sure you already take a peek from time to time, but take a good long look instead. Stay a while and take it all in. That way when anger—or sadness, or joy—leave you with no choice, you understand what you’re dealing with.”
Lusya was quiet for a moment, mulling over Azure’s words. “What exactly are you basing this hypothesis and solution on?”
“Watching you be you,” Azure said with a wistful smile. “Now and back then. This isn’t the first time this has come up, you know. You’ve grown a lot, but some things haven’t changed. If anything, I think you might have made the wall a little higher since then.”
“You believe your advice will solve my worries?” Lusya said.
Azure nodded. “I do. If you understand your own anger, you’ll be better at noticing it and when you’re acting on it. If anything, you’ll be better than anyone else at catching yourself.”
“Catching myself?”
“I doubt it will happen overnight,” Azure said, “but if you’re not happy with how you act when you’re angry, all you can do is try to notice it and stop it when it happens. Maybe eventually you’ll be able to stop it beforehand. No, I’m sure you will.”
“It is only this one aspect of my behavior I take issue with,” Lusya said.
“I notice you’re not arguing the point anymore,” Azure replied with a grin. “What I said still holds. Pay attention and curb your excess. That’s all anyone can do: try to be better.”
“I see.”
The clearing was silent for a long while. Azure said nothing further, and neither of them made any move to leave. After several minutes of quiet, Lusya decided to try Azure’s instructions and “climb the wall.” She had conceded that Azure’s model of her emotions and reason was likely accurate, so perhaps there was merit in her proposed action as well. What Lusya actually pictured, however, was an impossible tall tree under a cloudless night sky, and rather than looking down at some sea of emotion as Azure had suggested, she was getting a closer look, however slight, at the stars.
“You are correct,” Lusya said. “I do not understand why, but…I regret causing my victims unnecessary pain.”
Azure smiled. She raised a hand as if to stroke Lusya’s hair, but pulled away before making contact. “That’s okay. You don’t have to be able to explain why something feels wrong. Because that’s something only you get to decide for yourself.”
Lusya nodded. “You are also correct that I did so out of anger. I was enraged at Ander’s death. I enjoyed his company. He was…a friend. My first friend my age. He was foolish and obnoxious, but I felt I could speak with him as something approaching an equal.”
“Oh, I…I’m sure your mother would be upset about your handsome friend dying too,” Azure said with a playful smile.
“We did not have that kind of relationship.”
“And yet you knew exactly what I meant.” Azure’s grin softened. “I’m sorry.”
“I am still angry with you too.”
Lusya wasn’t sure why she felt the need to say that, but it was true. It had been since Azure had agreed to exterminate the demons. Lusya found herself wondering why she had ever denied it. She also couldn’t help but wonder why she was as angry as she was. It seemed a bit disproportionate to the slight, even considering the broken promise. It just felt worse from Azure for some reason.
Azure let out a snort of laughter. “All right, you can climb down from there now.”
Lusya cocked her head and blinked.
“I’m kidding,” Azure said. “Stay up there as long as you want.”
“I think I am done,” Lusya said. She felt oddly tired all of a sudden. If she lied down now, she was sure she would fall asleep in short order.
Azure stood. “Let’s get going then. I’m glad we had this talk. And don’t be done for too long, all right?”