“Here’s our next stop,” Azure said as she approached the statue in the center of the latest town they had stopped in. She turned and made an emphatic gesture, presenting the statue upon its pedestal.

The statue depicted a young man with long, unkempt hair. He was dressed in ancient armor, mainly a kilt, pauldron, and a cape that left much of his muscular upper body exposed, with a sword hanging at his waist. One hand rested on the sword’s hilt, while the other was extended forward as if he were issuing commands to an army. The man looked out and slightly downward with a grim, determined expression.

“This is Garfit,” Azure went on. “I bet you haven’t heard of him, have you?”

“Nope,” Ariya said. “Not even a little bit.”

“I am also unfamiliar with him,” Lusya said.

“Well, I guess this is an opportunity to learn something,” Azure said. She cleared her throat and smiled before continuing in an authoritative tone Lusya assumed was meant to be instructional. “Garfit was the chief of a tribe living in this area. When the Odessian Empire started growing, he united the four other tribes in and around the Elzen Valley at the time to stand against them.

“Now, everyone at the time thought they were just a bunch of barbarians waiting to get rolled over by the Odessians. But Garfit was smart, and his warriors were strong. They held out for three years, well after several of their more powerful neighbors had fallen. Even after the Odessians subjugated the area, Garfit and his most loyal followers led an underground resistance for another six months before they were captured.”

“Impressive,” Lusya said, looking over the statue. “It is an interesting story.”

It was likely living in the valley had provided certain advantages. Aside from the defenders simply being more familiar with the land, it must have been difficult even to approach for the Odessians. Neither the entrances nor the mountains were ideal routes for an invasion. Still, standing against the most powerful empire in the world at the time was a significant feat.

“I’m almost upset I’ve never heard about it before,” Ariya said. “People should tell it more often.”

“Unfortunately, Garfit is a local hero in the valley but pretty much unknown everywhere else,” Azure replied. “Really, we don’t know a lot about many of the Odessians enemies.”

Lusya nodded. “Indeed. Even many of the records we do have are more about how impressive it was for Odessia to defeat a foe than about the foe themselves. As such, they focus more on their military might and how they were defeated more than anything else. Even then, their reliability is questionable. There is evidence that certain similar figures were invented by the Odessians to give the impression they had defeated a worthy opponent, rather than conquered a helpless backwater.”

Azure nodded. “Yup, simple propaganda. Luckily, there’s solid evidence of Garfit’s life outside of what the Odessians wrote about him.”

“I see.”

“This all stinks,” Ariya said. “The Odessian Empire sounds like a bunch of big jerks.” She frowned and cocked her head. “How did they go away if they were so strong, though?”

“Multiple reasons,” Azure said. “We study a lot about the cycle at the time in the academy. Or we did when I went. All their conquering sped it up. It calmed down once they started to slow, but then the empire got too big to manage, and that led to other problems that sped the cycle right back up. The last Demon King they faced came less than a hundred years after the one before. For an empire already in decline, that pretty much dashed any hope they had of recovering. They started fracturing apart during that war and didn’t stop after. Before long, there wasn’t anything left that you could call the Odessian Empire. Really, we’re lucky that Demon King didn’t win.”

“They messed up pretty bad, huh,” Ariya said. “It’s like Mama always used to say…uh, I forget the exact words, but it was something about not doing something you knew was bad. I think there was a knife?”

“We get the idea,” Azure said with laughter in her voice. “And you’re not wrong.”

“Indeed,” Lusya said. “Demons are not the only ones whose lack of restraint can destroy them.”

“Enough about that,” Azure said. She moved away from the statue to stand next to Lusya and look up at it. Garfit almost seemed to look back with his stern expression. “What do you think?”

“The story is intriguing,” Lusya replied. “I am glad I heard it. The statue is well-made as well. I cannot help but wonder how accurate it is.”

Azure shrugged. “Nobody knows. We think this was carved a couple hundred years after Garfit died, at the very least. The written descriptions we have of him now are too vague to say, but it’s not impossible the artist at the time had something better to reference.”

“I am surprised artwork of this quality has received such little attention,” Lusya said. “The story also seems the type that would be popular.”

Ariya nodded eagerly. “It would make a great book. Ooh, or a play! I would go see that like, fifty times.”

“You would see it once at best,” Lusya said.

Ariya pouted. “I was being hyperbolic.”

“I see.”

“Everybody does like a good underdog story,” Azure said. “But I guess some have to slip through the cracks. Especially one where the underdog lost at the end. Plus, no matter who was right, the Odessian’s dominated half the continent for centuries. It’s no wonder it’s their heroes everyone remembers.”

“That’s so sad,” Ariya said.

Lusya nodded. “It is a shame.”

She would not use the word “sad,” but it was unfortunate that Garfit was not more widely known, and that similar interesting stories and knowledge languished in obscurity. Popularity itself did not matter to her, but she liked this story. If others like it were more well-known, she would have an easier time finding them. She might have found this one earlier as well, though she did not mind discovering it here and now.

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Azure grinned. “Eyes wide open. I knew you would like this more than the lake.”

“You were correct.”

Lusya could appreciate a statue for much the same reasons she could appreciate fiction. A landscape simply was. She did not care much for the aesthetics of the land, so there was nothing to keep her interest. While she tried not to let it cloud her judgment, the looks of people and artwork mattered more to her. But beyond that, the fact that someone had created this statue was what made it truly interesting, offering unique insights and connections to its distant sculptor. Granted, one could have argued that some deity had sculpted the terrain, but that wasn’t the same. It was a little too distant.

Azure just smiled, which Lusya took as the end of the conversation. She returned to examining the statue. It was quite lifelike, with even every crease in the clothes true to how the fabric would behave. Based on the size, Lusya was guessing the statue was meant to be life-sized. It depicted its subject as about six feet tall and muscular in a tight, coiled way, but not as notably large or bulky otherwise. It was hard to judge by a statue, but he seemed quite young too. Considering the circumstances, Garfit had likely died young.

She walked closer and circled the statue, looking it up and down. With the armored skirt the sculpture wore, “up” allowed her to see that it was even anatomically accurate. Well, all the pieces were there, at least. There was no way to know if they had been quite so impressive in life. Either way, it seemed rather wasteful. Perhaps the artist had meant for it to be nude, as had been typical at the time, and changed their mind? Or perhaps, as many great artists had been, they had simply been obsessed with the details to an absurd degree. Ariya, of course, was right beside her, and giggled when she noticed the same thing.

There was a plaque on the pedestal, between Garfit’s feet. Lusya recognized some of the characters, but could not make out what it said. She was reasonably certain the large text dominating the plaque was “Garfit,” in old Fyemish, but she could not decipher the smaller text underneath.

“You know,” Azure said without warning, “a leader fighting an unstoppable force. It whittling him down bit by bit until he couldn’t stand against it anymore. A tragic, young end. He kind of reminds me of Romoro.”

Lusya cocked her head and blinked twice. “You knew Father as well?”

Though it was not strange for Azure to know it, Lusya had seldom heard any mortal refer to Father by name. For that matter, likening him to a local hero did not seem like something a simple enemy would do.

Azure nodded. “I sure did. Maybe that’s part of why this place caught me eye.” She shrugged. “Back when I was the Twentieth Paladin, the higher-ups got wind of where he was, so they sent me to kill him early.”

“You did not succeed.”

Azure chuckled. “Nope. He was way stronger than me. One of the disadvantages of long Demon King cycles are that it’s easy to forget just how strong a Demon King is, when all we have to remind us are words on a page.”

“Indeed,” Lusya said, though, from her perspective, that was an advantage. “And yet you live as well.”

“I had a chance to kill him, you know,” Azure said. “Back then, he didn’t want anything to do with destroying the world. Honestly, he might have been the less violent one between the two of us.”

“That is not difficult to believe,” Lusya said. “You seem to enjoy battle more than he ever did.”

Azure blushed. “I’m strong and I like to show it. The point is that he knew one day he would try, as the Demon King. So, he tried to let me kill him.” Her expression turned to a wistful smile as she gazed up at the statue of Garfit. “But when I saw what he was doing…I couldn’t go through with it. Nobody told me the Demon King would be a lost, confused soul trying to find his way like everyone else.”

“I see,” Lusya said. “I cannot imagine that was a popular decision.”

“Oh, no one else knows,” Azure said. “They just think he beat me up and I managed to get away. We did end up traveling together for a while after that, but no one who knew or cared to contact the Executive Council saw us, so they think I spent that time recovering from my injuries.” She shrugged. “You’re right, though. It would be the end of my career if anyone found out.” She did the same locking motion to her lips as before and winked. “So, don’t go telling anyone.”

“One less Paladin would only benefit me,” Lusya said. “You are fortunate I have no means of informing the Executive Council.”

Azure giggled and returned to admiring the statue. A gentle breeze blew through, and she sighed as if prompted by it.

“So…” Ariya said. “The Demon King was nice?” Her eyes opened wide like saucers. “Wait, Lusya’s papa was the Demon King?”

“Yes, he was,” Azure said. “I don’t think he ever completely stopped being nice, either. Lusya?”

Lusya blinked. “I never made a point of evaluating his kindness, but I would be inclined to agree.”

For someone who hated the world and wanted it gone, Father had been rather personable. He was courteous at worst to those who did not antagonize him. Even when he had waged war, he had seldom shown any cruelty beyond what was necessary for his current objective, nor had he ever seemed to enjoy war. While he had forced many demons into obedience through threats and violence, that had always come after they refused peaceful negotiations.

Ariya scowled and hummed in thought. “This whole demon thing is way more complicated than people make it sound.”

“You could say that about most things,” Azure replied. “But it’s good that you’ve realized that. It’s the first step to understanding, and that can only help you in life.”

“Yeah, you’re right!”

Azure grinned. “That’s the spirit. It’s a skill a lot of people several times your age could stand to learn too.”

It was doubtful Ariya would live long enough to understand demons or benefit from such understanding, but Lusya refrained from making that correction.

“I guess it’s good if there are more good demons like Lusya,” Ariya went on.

“It is, but don’t misunderstand,” Azure said. “Romoro was nice, but that doesn’t mean he was good. He might have been when we first met. But in the end, he tried to destroy the world. He was a sad soul, constantly bombarded with all the anger and hatred in this world, but he was bad, and he needed to be stopped.”

“This really is complicated…Lusya, why didn’t you tell me your papa was the Demon King?”

“It was never something you needed to know,” Lusya said. She had also worried Ariya would draw the line at accepting the Demon King’s daughter as a so-called “good demon,” but she wasn’t having an extreme reaction, so it seemed that fear had been unwarranted.

“You should have told me,” Ariya said, smiling. “The only thing that could have made you cooler is being a princess!”

“I am not a princess,” Lusya replied.

“You are to me.”

Lusya blinked. “Think what you wish.”

Ariya gave a small, excited hop and a triumphant grin. “I will!”

“If you knew them both,” Lusya said to Azure, “do you also know how my parents met?”

Azure smirked. “Curious, are we?”

Lusya nodded. It would have been hard not to be. This was her origin, after all. She might have forgotten much about her mother, but she didn’t think she had ever known much about how her parents’ union had come to be.

“Well, they met through me, so yes, I do know.”

“Was my mother aware of who he was?” Lusya asked.

Azure scowled in confusion. “Of course. Why do you ask?”

“I have always been skeptical of a human woman willingly engaging in such a relationship with the Demon King,” Lusya said. “I had always assumed that either he hid it from her, or forced himself upon her.”

Azure’s scowl deepened at that last suggestion. “Does that seem like something Romoro would do?”

“It does not,” Lusya said. “I favored the former option.”

Azure’s expression softened. “Well, rest assured, your mother was completely informed and willing. Although, they didn’t have ‘such a relationship’ for long. You’re the result of the first and last time they slept together, and he left soon after. Before that, for a while, they were…more than friends, but I’m not sure I would have called them lovers."

“I see.”

“So?” Azure prompted, he gestured at the statue with her spear. “Do you think I’m right?”

“I do not see the connection,” Lusya said. “But it is not strange that you see him differently than I do, considering the differences in time and relationships.”

“That’s fair.”

Lusya nodded. “I miss him.”

Azure smiled and put a hand on Lusya’s shoulder. She didn’t say anything. Lusya appreciated that.