Jesse couldn’t move, no matter how much he screamed at his body to do so. The blanket on his back kept him stuck to his bed, sweat ran down his face and ended in a pearl on his pointy nose. The scars on his body were hurting again, as if someone had opened them for the first time, his nose was full of the smell of his own flesh burning, while his ears were filled with the chilling voice of a man and the pompous laughs of a crowd, the same smell and sounds which plagued his memories and nightmares. Once again, Jesse found himself on the border between dreams and reality; it didn’t happen often, but enough for him to know how to calm himself down. He closed his eyes and forced himself to remember where he was: he was home, in his own bed, with a companion that had given him a night he would surely remember, not everyone is so gentle in love. After a while of repeating it to himself, Jesse could feel his body melt into his bed. A delicate green hand softly landed on his bare chest and startled him.
“Are you alright?” asked a soft voice next to him, sounding like a bird’s song in the early morning.
Jesse looked up, a pair of beautiful green eyes looked back at him with a gentleness he had rarely seen before. The young non-human lowered his eyes toward the dark void that made up the space between the mattress and the blanket.
“Nothing to worry about angel.”
No matter how he tried to hide it, his voice betrayed him. In a flash, the silhouette of the man came back to him, the way he whispered ‘pet’ in his ears and how his leather gloves creaked with every movement from his fingers made his skin crawl. He shivered as a cold sweat ran down his back.
“I can-”
“I said there was nothing to worry about.” he snapped back.
Jesse rolled around in his bed, now facing the window. The early lights of the day had already passed by and now the golden glow of the sun heated his cheeks despite the coldness that reigned everywhere else. He thought to himself that once again he hadn’t heard the usual morning clamor from the town. Jesse promptly stood up and went to the pile of clothes that lived on his floor, neither clean enough to put in his drawer nor dirty enough to be cleaned. He picked up a flowing mid-thigh beige blouse and a random pair of dark tight pants he had on the side.
“Get out.” he sighed.
“What?”
“I said get out.” he repeated firmly, “We won’t talk after this and I honestly don’t care about your concern for me. Take the backdoor.” Jesse said coldly while putting his pants on, shaping his long fleshy tail into a coil to tuck it in, taking particular care to avoid looking at the young woman that was still lying in his bed.
He only heard a shuffle in the sheets and the clothes, and the sound of bare feet on the hardwood floor before he heard the door close softly.
Jesse sighed and leaned on the table that hosted his old and dirty mirror and his bowl of water. The young non-human took some of the water and washed his face with it, drying it with a piece of cloth that was hanging on the side of the bowl. He looked at himself in the mirror; he observed the drops of water pooling to the tip of his short curly purple hair, some falling on his freckled cheeks and his dark eyelashes, his right pupil the color of damp earth, and the left one the color of fresh honey. He shook the water off his long pointy ears, making his earrings dangle and clink together. His eyes fell on the single long and thin braid hanging by the right side of his face. A small smile bloomed on his lips as he touched it, reminiscing about the night that little girl had braided it. Jesse quickly quit his daydreaming and put his sleeveless jacket on, then took his long brown coat on his forearm and walked out of his room. He walked down the staircase to the bar part of the inn, as he would on any other day.
“Had a good night Sleeping Beauty?” taunted Cecilia.
The woman was drying her cups and plates behind her bar, as usual, her amethyst earrings dangling softly by either side of her face. Her blood-like scarlet hair contrasting with her sea-green blouse and her baby blue eyes.
“You know he probably didn’t sleep,” Vagraad chimed in.
The teen was leaning on their beat-up broom, their blue mohawk reaching for the sky, their pointy rows of teeth barely visible because of the unnatural pale blue color of their skin, and their black eyes waiting for an answer from Jesse.
“You’d know it for sure if you went to bed with me, Oh sweet lord of my dreams,” teased Jesse as he took an apple from the fruit basket on the counter.
“In your dreams old man.” they answered barely amused, resuming their sweeping and earning an exaggerated gasp from Jesse.
“Seriously, wake up earlier and help the poor kid there.”, said Cecilia as she shook her head towards Vagraad. “They’re doing most of your work before you even wake up. You should give them a hand, it’s been 5 months.”
“Why? They look perfectly capable.”
Cecilia hit Jesse on the head with a wooden spoon, shooting him a look that made Jesse fear for the punishment if he chose to disregard her command. Cecilia had always been very protective of the young people she fostered in her inn. She had seen children and young people come and go from under her care for two hundred years, but she forgot none of them. Cecilia had an amazing longevity thanks to her father, an elf that had seduced her mother and taken off before she could wake up, or at least that’s what she had told to her foster children, always with a point of pain in her voice. She didn’t have the ears, but anyone could believe she had the sight of one.
“What’s left to do then if the kid stole my work?” asked Jesse.
“You could get the beans for tonight’s meals”
“You mean at the cû farmer’s house?” Jesse hesitated.
“Yes.”
“You know what I did, right?”
“Yes, and that’s exactly why you are going to go there and apologize to him.”
“Him?”
“Yes, ‘him’ as in the husband. And father.” said Cecilia, with that same look in her eyes once again.
Jesse gulped down, he couldn’t hide anything from that woman, could he? With some stress stirring in his stomach, he laced up his leather boots, put on the woolen coat he had on his arm and walked out the front door. The sun blinded him momentarily: it took a few seconds for his eyes to painfully adjust to it. The daylight revealed the dirtiness of Outer-Alvoort’s streets, the ground was made of dirt and any amount of feces from either animals or any humanoid race that found themselves unlucky enough to live there. As he walked down the street, he could feel the looks of everyone else sticking to him like leeches on his skin. A long time ago it would have made him ashamed of himself, but now he couldn’t care less, he was one of the few demons left in the country, if not the last.
“Murderer!” shouted a voice from up high.
Jesse almost got hit by a bucket full of who-knows-what but stepped away in time.
“Hello Miss Jenkins! How’s your husband?” beamed Jesse as he flashed a big smile to the middle-aged orc woman, earning only a rictus of disgust and a deathly glare as she brought her bucket back inside.
Being a demon didn’t feel like an obstacle to him anymore: he had made a point of trying to sleep with someone new every night, no matter what or who they were, and he specialized in that ‘I slept with your mom/dad last night’ kind of deed, it made him feel powerful, or at least alive. When he arrived at Mr and Ms Helion’s house to get the beans, he didn’t even have time to knock on the door before Mr Helion opened it and threw the bag of twenty pounds of red beans in his face. His dark brown cow-like ears shook in anger and his nostrils dilated to let his aggressive sigh out. The cû grabbed Jesse by the collar, bringing him close to his long and contracted rectangular pupils.
“Don’t you ever get near my family again or Vriska be a witness, I’ll break your fingers one by one, Murderer.” he spat out.
Jesse smiled widely, willfully ignoring Mr Helion’s promise to the Goddess of Revenge to hurt him, as he saw Ms Helion in the back, blushing at his sight and trying to avert her eyes from him, her long white ears momentarily trying to hide her face but failing to do so. Mr Helion violently pushed him back into the street and slammed the front door shut. Jesse swiftly stood back up, brushing the dirt out of his coat. As he picked up the bag of beans, he caught sight of Mr Helion’s son, Jack. The young cû was pretty small for a 23-year-old and usually shy but even more so when Jesse shot him his flirty look and grin, making Jack blush and look away as he giggled before returning to bagging the different beans and cereals his family cultivated.
The walk back to the inn wasn’t as quiet, he had names and spits and buckets of waste thrown at him, all of which he skillfully avoided. Jesse sighed, thinking that at least tonight would be calmer; as much as the pimps and other innkeepers didn’t like him, he kept most guards from the fancier side of town at bay, not because of any fighting skills but because demons were rumored to have all kinds of powers, none of which Jesse had of course, but it was enough to scare them off even during tax season, and that was a very good thing for those who needed it to stay this way.
Once he got back to the Night Elf Inn, Vagraad had finished cleaning the entire dining portion of the inn. The little hlêg was about to clean the rooms on the top floor when Jesse interrupted and insisted he cleaned those rooms. Jesse had done those rooms more times than he could count and was used to the filth left in them. Part of him wanted to keep Vagraad’s innocent eyes from seeing it but another saw Cecilia’s stare as he entered. He shuddered at the thought of it. She didn’t get angry often, but when she did, you’d better hide and pray.
They spent the evening at the inn like any other evening, with drunk customers eating sloppily and spilling their drinks, travelers either trying to eat quietly or exchanging stories, bards improvising songs about epic voyages of heroes under the watchful gaze of the gods and giving news from around the world. Jesse didn’t seem to have any problem navigating the customer’s emotions and demands as he brought them more ale, but Vagraad had a harsh time that night delivering the food to the tables who had asked for it. To help the young lad, Jesse went to the back of the inn to get the extra bread they had left. The back was open on a narrow alley full of empty crates that had been full of food before Cecilia had cooked everything for the night. Jesse pushed the crates aside to find the extra bread they had received from the baker, a creaking noise arose from behind him, his right ear shot back and his body froze in aprehension. Was it one of the husbands or wives he had cheated on that had come to beat him up? It had happened quite a lot before; he had learned that you can’t exactly escape the consequences of sleeping with everyone’s family member that easily.
“Mr Helion? Is that you? I swear I’m not getting near your family again. Unless you want a piece of what your wife had last week,” taunted Jesse as he slowly turned around, a cocky smile on his face.
Jesse’s body froze again, this time not out of fear but out of shock. He was used to poor kids hiding around in the crates and stealing a bit of food, but none of them were ever human. Human kids lived on the fancy side of town and learned to never meddle with the creatures on the other side of the arch that separated them. The shape at the end of the alley looked like a human in its early twenties, clothes peppered with blood stains that didn’t seem to come from it, pointing a dagger covered in fresh blood toward Jesse. It moved it to make Jesse react, the hood of its burlap cloak falling off, revealing a mass of long and very curly black hair.
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“Wow be careful, you don’t want to hurt someone else, do you?” asked Jesse while putting his hands up. The human didn’t answer, their brows furrowed with uncertainty and fear, their hands shaking. “If you don’t mind me asking young lass, what are you doing here?” queried Jesse slowly scooting down to her level.
“None of your business.” warned the young woman, threatening again to stab Jesse.
“I kind of think it is.”, he chuckled “See, you’re behind the inn I work at, you could just ask for shelter if you wanted one,” Jesse said the last part with a voice he only used on scared children, it was a voice he had heard Cecilia use countless times to soothe the aching hearts of the children she sheltered.
The girl’s eyes looked like those Vagraad often had, as if she wasn’t sure if this kindness was real or even deserved. Jesse kept looking into her eyes while taking her hands between his, her dark brown skin contrasting with his light purple one. He slowly took the knife out of her hands and helped her stand up. He tucked what he could make out as an intricately ornate dagger under the back on his belt, making a note of not sitting until that blade was out of there before covering it with his blouse. If Cecilia hated anything more than stealing, it was bringing weapons into the inn. She was the only inn owner to have a room especially made to keep the clients weapons in for the duration of their stay. The few who tried to bypass it truly didn’t know what she was capable of. As Jesse led the human girl inside, he looked around carefully to be sure she wasn’t being followed. He then led her upstairs to his bedroom to let her sleep and give her some food. He could talk about her to Cecilia once the morning came and the last clients were gone.
“Feel free to sit on my bed,” Jesse offered politely showing her the bed.
The young woman looked at him with a blank stare and stayed put, standing there near the bedroom door.
“Okay….”, trailed off Jesse to fill in the silence. “Not one to talk, hun?” he chuckled.
She stared at him.
“Do..you want to eat something? Cecilia made some red beans with minced meat.”
Her stomach grumbled so loud it surprised her, she looked away in embarrassment.
“Alright, stay here. I’ll go get you a plate.” announced Jesse right before exiting the room. Before she could try to sit on the bed to wait for him, Jesse popped his head back in through the door, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” smiling and winking at the human before closing the door one final time.
As he walked down the staircase to the kitchen, he mumbled something to himself along the lines of “why did you say that? That’s the most stupid thing ever.”. Jesse sneaked to the barely lit kitchen and rummaged through the dirty plates to find a clean one, right as he finally found one, the door behind him opened wide, letting the soft light from the bar shine into the near darkness in which Jesse was hiding.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Jesse froze for a second before turning towards the voice, hiding the plate behind his back.
“But I wasn’t doing anything, Oh Great Cecilia,” he lied, bowing graciously to hide his near shaking voice.
“You know it won’t work on me young lad. What do you think you’re doing trying to sneak out food from the kitchen and hiding a knife in your pants?” her tone was dangerously close to angry, and her hands were resting on her hips.
“Well…”, Jesse said before taking in a big breath, “I found a human girl in the back of the inn, and she’s in my bedroom now.” he blurted out.
Cecilia’s face froze for a second before she fully entered the room and closed the door behind her. “You found a what?” she asked as calmly as she could, even though the anger escaping through her every word made the air around her thick.
“She’s upstairs and starving.” stated Jesse quickly.
Cecilia sighed, rubbing her hands on her face in a self-soothing manner. “I’m used to you bringing any kind of people here, hell, I even saw an adult orc come out of your room all flustered, but a human girl? That’s the most disrespectful thing I have ever seen you do.”
“Oh, no, I didn’t-”
The door slammed open, letting the yells of the customers enter for a moment, and a young blue-haired hlêg briskly came into the kitchen.
“I don’t know what happened but there are two dudes who are trying to kill each other with their bare hands out there and whatever the outcome is, I don’t want to see it.”
Something Jesse had always found quite amusing was the way Vagraad dressed. They usually wore dark gray pants and a large shirt covered by a short leather coat, and big, durable boots. They always looked tough and ready to fight, yet they had never been able to watch two people fight without throwing up or fainting.
“This conversation is far from over.” said Cecilia as she pointed her finger at Jesse before going out the door, leaving Vagraad and Jesse alone.
“Wha-”
“You don’t want to know my liege.” said Jesse in a sigh.
“I’m not your Liege.” replied Vagraad.
The demon took the food and the spoon he needed and left the kitchen too. When Jesse entered the bedroom to give the food to the girl, he found her sitting on his bed, fidgeting with the bottom of her cloak. She sat up as soon as he entered the room, ready to pounce before recognizing him.
“And here’s your food, your majesty.” teased Jesse, giving the girl her food. His smile almost disappeared when he saw her panic at being called ‘majesty’. She took the plate from his hand and started eating faster than any creature he had seen before. He took a chair and sat in front of her. “So, what’s your name?” he asked
“Leo,” she said, shoving the food into her mouth.
“Like the constellation?” Leo nodded quickly with her mouth full. “Well, I’m going to get back down to join someone, you can take any clothes I have to change if you want to.”
Jesse stood up, and before he could take some clothes off of his floor, Leo spoke up. “Who did your braid?”
Jesse froze, his hand hovering over the pile of garments and his back towards Leo. “What tells you I didn’t make it myself?”
“The clasp that keeps it together has the emperor's magpie on it. You’re a demon, if you valued your history you wouldn’t be wearing it.” she continued, putting her plate down and trudging up to Jesse.
Jesse took a look at his braid, his heart softening at the memory that kept him alive. Still, the young demon’s instincts were on alert as he held something else tighter. “It happened 10 human years ago, I was drunk and followed the wrong person and after a few hours I found myself alone in the streets. A little girl came up to me to ask me how I felt, I couldn’t speak so she just talked about her pet iguana, Lizzie, I think the name was. While she talked, she took a piece of my hair and braided it before her nanny found her and took her away.”
Leo’s hand stopped above the dagger hidden in Jesse’s pants, frozen in shock. How could he know her lizard’s name?
Jesse turned around with the dagger in his hand, “Is that what you were looking for?”
“When did you-”
“I’ve been around enough runaways to know when I see one.”
Leo was carefully walking backward, now wary of him.
“My turn to ask you a question,” he looked closely at the dagger for a few seconds, “What would a young human girl, hungry, clad in torn, dirty, bloody rich fabrics and hidden by a burlap cloak do in the shadiest part of Outer-Alvoort?”
“Depends, what do you want to do with me?”
“Honestly?”, started Jesse with a glint in his eye. “Honey, you really need to work on your disguise, you couldn’t have found anything to make you look less noble and found some servant’s clothes to change into? You’re lucky I have so many clothes.”
Leo shit a puzzled look at Jesse, his tone had completely changed from one word to the other, so much so that if she hadn’t known if he was friendly or not before, she had even worse doubts now.
“Now,” he said, giving her the dagger back as if she hadn’t tried to steal it and threaten him with it a few seconds ago. “Dress or pants?”
“Pardon?” she asked as turned around toward him.
“Pants.” noted Jesse after a few seconds of thinking.
Jesse bent down, picked up some pants, a thick shirt, and a light blouse, and handed them over to Leo, who grabbed them by reflex.
“Barely talking can be fine but it’s too suspicious. Small talk works best to relieve doubts. Always watch if anyone is following you and always look like you trust people but never actually do it. You’ll have a bed to sleep in tonight. Cecilia should be here in a few minutes, let her burn your clothes.” advised Jesse, removing his blouse and changing it with an over-the-shoulder shirt, putting on his many rings, and re-adjusting his moon and sun necklaces.
“When it comes to me tonight,” he looked through his window, seeing the figure of a 23-year-old cû with cow-like ears and a cow-like tail that dangling gingerly, waving at him while blushing madly, “I have someone to meet.”
Jesse opened the window, climbing on the other side, carefully putting his feet on the cross beams that came out from the front of the wall of the inn. Before he fully jumped down, he turned around towards Leo again.
“Cecilia will probably look angry but don’t worry it’s just against me, she’s really sweet usually. Her patron is Amara, Protector of the unwanted if that reassures you.”
“Jesse Numen! Don’t you dare run off now!” boomed a voice from the other side of the door.
“That’s my cue, sleep tight your Majesty,”
Jesse fully climbed down the wall of the inn, jumping a few meters left and running towards Jack, taking his hand and sweeping him away, laughing as they ran in the honey yellow streets of Outer-Alvoort. This scene wasn’t unusual to their neighbors and the other inns but the face of a high-profile runaway appearing in the window was suspicious enough for a passer-by to walk up to the Arch that separated Outer-Alvoort to Alvoort.
The rough hay wasn’t an actual concern for the two men, but the smell was for the purple-haired one. The animals’ waste in the stable made the air acidic, but the smell of each other nearly covered it. Jack looked so attractive to Jesse, laying in the hay with a slight blush on his cheeks and eyes half-closed by the pleasure, that he couldn’t help but steal him a kiss and a few others everywhere around his neck. Jack’s hands mapped Jesse’s back, trying to remember every muscle and every curve in which they seemed to fit so naturally. When his hand stopped on the base of Jesse’s back, the demon froze and stopped the kiss.
“Don’t”, Jesse whispered in Jack’s ear.
“I want to see it,” responded Jack, his hands continuing down, fingers now touching a part of Jesse that he couldn’t bear to know existed anymore.
Jesse’s heart felt like it was going to get out of his mouth, his eyes threatening to spill tears without his consent before he forced all of it down. He took Jack’s arm off of his back and sat on his lap.
“I said don’t,” Jesse repeated, firmly.
“But-”
“There’s no ‘but’, I said ‘don’t’ and that’s all you need. I don’t owe you any explanation.” the cold anger in his voice surprised the cû, “You know what? We’re done here.” Jesse stood up, picked his shirt up from the floor, and put it back on.
“What? Why?” asked Jack, still lying in the hay.
“If you can’t understand, then I pity every partner you’ll ever have.”
The demon took his coat and left the barn, ignoring the calls coming from the building. His eyes teared properly on his way back home. His breathing went out of sync and memories flashed back to him. He found an alley and hid inside its darkness; no one would ever catch him having a panic attack in public. Jesse pressed his back against the wall, letting himself slide down to a more comfortable position. The bruises that fateful night had left on him felt like they had melted into his skin now, he could still feel them even after all this time. The laughs, the insults, the sound of these leather gloves, the dim lights, the smell of blood and seared skin, everything was overwhelming him. If he had been at the inn, the comfort of his bed would have helped him, but he was far away by foot and felt so helpless. His body contracted in an awfully familiar way, sucking all of his strength away from him. It took Jesse an hour and a half to calm down. His brain was hazy, his eyelids felt as if they were made of lead, and he had lost most of the strength in his limbs from his muscles tightening so much for so long. The tears had left a weird crusty feeling on his cheeks and a burning sensation in his eyes. He forced himself to stay awake, fearing he’d sleep there in this dirty alley all night if he closed his eyes for more than a few seconds. Once he felt strong enough to walk back to the inn he stood up slowly, using the wall behind him to prop himself up.
It took Jesse around twenty minutes to walk back to the inn. Once he arrived, he stopped dead in his tracks and his heart fell down to his stomach. Soldiers. Royal soldiers in their armours and a magpie crest on their chests, raiding his home. Cecilia was in handcuffs and brought in a cage on wheels by two soldiers, and Vagraad was yelling so loud their vocal cords sounded like they would snap any seconds now. The young hlêg was desperately trying to move out from the grip of an unperturbed soldier that looked to be twice their size and weight. Jesse was about to run up to them, but one look from Cecilia prevented him from it. She had looked at him this way only once before in his life and he wasn’t ready to face the consequences of it again.
Jesse hid behind a few of the sex workers from the brothel next door to observe the scene. Most of them tried to help him hide since he had often brought clients there and used to chat with them often.
“I’m so sorry Jess…” whispered one of them as she covered him with her shawl while he watched the scene, powerless.
“May Amara curse them and their descendants.” hissed another under her breath.
“How dare you raid my inn like that?!” screamed Cecilia with a commanding voice.
A soldier came out of the front door, dressed in silver armor that had seen more than its fair share of battles. His blond hair clashed with his dark ginger beard and his wrinkles led on to his age when his stature didn’t. Jesse’s heart stopped when he saw a piece of charred fabric in his hands.
“Corvus Numen, we have found you guilty of kidnapping and murdering Princess Leana, the third child of his Majesty the Emperor of Dobrin. Since the situation is exceptional, we shall imprison you and await your trial due on the next full moon.” he announced, his voice booming through the street.
Vagraad yelled and begged even louder, tearing Jesse’s heart in two and making the silver soldier laugh. His chuckle echoed from building to building and followed by those of the soldiers under his command, he then mounted his black horse and led the group. The soldier that was holding Vagraad let them fall to the ground, face-first in the dirt, their body only moved because of their sobbing. Jesse waited until the soldiers and Cecilia were gone into the twisted streets before running to the young hlêg, helping them up and bringing them inside the now deathly silent inn.