Miach would have loved to have seen the trip to Iitys’ place, but unfortunately, between the dark and the pouring rain, there really wasn’t much to see.

When they broke through the clouds, it was just pitch darkness laid out below them, with little spots of light to indicate buildings. A sight he got to stare at for what felt like hours. At one point, the little dots of light in the pure black below them started to form a picture-a large, sprawling city. He couldn’t see it well, but in the flashes of lightning he could make out roads and buildings.

“That,” Iitys said, nodding her head at the city, “is being Dawngold. We will to stay for many days, then go to the home.”

Miach hummed, fighting against his growing exhaustion and looking down at the city.

“So we don’t live in Dawngold?” He asked, getting up from his seat to look out the window again.

“No, we to are living in Rivervault. Will need be going to up again.”

Miach shuddered, looking up at the thunderstorm above them. Hopefully that wouldn’t be in his future for using the lift.

“Ah; the thunder is to being the night here. It is a old, old magic, or we do not be get the night at all.”

Oh. Great. That was great.

Once the carriage landed, it jolted a little while some larger demons much like the ones in the Post Office lumbered over to reach above it, unhooking multiple chains before opening the door for them into the cold, wet city.

Iitys hurried out, uselessly trying to shield Miach from the rain using her arm, and guided him to a proper covered wagon. It wasn’t ornate or anything like that; just a normal covered wagon, smelling slightly of apples and wheat, and being led by what Miach assumed were horses. Probably. He wasn’t too sure, and he was too tired to ask.

His six year old body was starting to win.

When the wagon was slowing down, his eyes couldn’t stay open. He was dead to the world by the time said wagon finally stopped. Honestly, he hadn’t even dreamed.

For Miach, he’d just closed his eyes in the wagon, and opened them in a brightly lit room.

He slowly sat up, taking in his new location.

The walls were a soft green, the open window had a set of brown curtains that weren’t doing anything to keep out the light of the sun, there was a small table with a chair, a change of clothes rested on the foot of his bed, a short, empty bookshelf lined one of the walls; a guest room.

Miach got out of the bed and meandered to the window, peeking outside.

There was no glass for the window, just shutters that were thrown open to let in fresh air. In the courtyard below there were groups of children playing as adults in priests robes like Iitys’ watched over them. The courtyard itself held nothing on interest; just an open space with some fountains, enclosed by the rest of the building Miach was in.

One of the kids below started shouting insistently, probably about how some other kid cheated at whatever game they were playing. Miach didn’t bother looking to see what had set the little tyke off.

Then a pebble hit his forehead.

Miach glared down at the courtyard, trying to find the little shit who’d hit him…there. That brat, right there. The kid with the little baby goat nub horns and shit eating grin. Said kid made the universal ‘come here’ movement with his free hand; the other one was too busy holding onto what was probably more pebbles.

Miach flipped him the bird and pulled his head inside, ignoring the now actually pissed off shouts.

Instead he refused to acknowledge the now constant clatter of pebbles being thrown through his window and scattering on his floor, and changed into the new set of clothes before slipping on the soft sandals and heading outside of the room. He shut the door behind him as a particularly loud bang resonated from the room.

He cracked open the door to look, and…that was a brick. The kid had thrown a brick through his window.

Well, judging by the outraged adult shouting coming from said window, he’d get told off for it, so it wasn’t any of Miach’s concern. The baby goat brat could face the consequences of his actions, and maybe learn to cool his head while he was at it.

Miach had other things to worry about.

Like the confused, amazed eyes of the priests and priestesses in the hallway he’d just stepped into. He really hoped that at least some of them spoke Common; he needed some food in him, and then he had to find Iitys.

----------------------------------------

None of them spoke Common. Not a single one.

This, while very inconvenient, did not stop Miach from wandering through whatever building he was in until he found the smell of food to follow.

Nothing would stop him from getting some grub, and after much searching, he found the kitchens he sought. They could not hide from him, a hungry six year old who did not speak or read the native language. There were no signs that could keep him out, no doorknob too high for a jump to solve.

Once in, he ignored the cooks and reached for random stuff he knew he couldn’t eat until what looked like the head chef dragged him out through a side door and sat him on a barrel. Miach made to get off and go right back into the kitchen, but the snake demon made a frustrated screech and shoved a fresh-baked loaf of bread at him and a couple of smoked sausages.

Miach obediently stayed where he was, digging into the food.

He disregarded the naga scolding him and looked around. He was in the courtyard he’d seen earlier, but the kids were gone. Instead, there were a few younger looking demons in priest robes scattered around and poring over books, lounging on the edge of the fountain that had been out of sight earlier.

Student priests having themselves a study session, it looked like.

Eventually, once Miach had eaten one entire sausage, the naga realized that Miach couldn’t understand them. The demon threw their hands in the air and went back into the kitchens, but not before pausing in the doorway and miming drawing a line in front of it, pointing at Miach, and emphatically shaking their head.

Miach kept his expression blank and bit into one of the sausages, absently rubbing at his chest. That ache was back, but it wasn’t as bad.

The door slammed shut with what was probably a curse, distracting him from ruminating on the growing pain. He’d just take some medicine or something, it’d be fine. Miach hummed, kicking his legs and mulling over what the naga chef had said, mouthing it to himself.

The main issue was the little clicks and whistles of the demon language; learning new languages was always hard, but he knew those were going to give him a hard time. There more than likely wasn’t an equivalent in Common. Just like learning French all over again, with its weird tense that didn’t actually exist.

He was quietly cursing the French in his head, eating the bread, when another hand that didn’t belong to him popped out and snagged a piece.

Miach froze.

He slowly turned his head, and came face to face with the baby goat brat from earlier, chewing on his freshly pilfered goods. Up close he could see more details about the kid; bouncing red hair, a tail that both was and was not like Iitys, and the claws and cat-eyes he was very quickly becoming familiar with.

“What,” Miach said evenly, staring at the kid who was probably supposed to have left with the others, “the fuck?”

The demon kid took that as permission to start chattering away at Miach, complete with emphatic hand gestures and judgmental looks. Miach opted to brush off the kid even more aggressively than before, hopping off of the barrel and shoving past him.

The kid wasn’t having it, and roughly grabbed at Miach’s shoulder.

In that brief moment, it wasn’t some snot-nosed brat who was grabbing him. It was that zombie-like old man, and he could hear running water nearby.

So, he did what he should have done the first time that old man grabbed him.

He whipped around and bit as hard as he could.

There was a high pitched scream, a burst of blood in his mouth, and he was thrown backwards with a stinging sensation on his face.

His mind rectified itself as he stayed down, shocked. The kid had just clawed him across the face. The old man hadn’t had claws. He wasn’t in that shitty town, the zombie old man was probably dead, and there was an angry demon child bearing down on him with a bleeding hand.

The claws on the other hand were coated in blood as well, and that was all the time Miach had to notice before he had to bring up one of his own arms to block the incoming blow. It landed with enough force to make Miach smack himself in the face with said arm, the claws of the other kid digging into it hard enough to draw more blood.

He used his free hand to grab a fistfull of dirt and throw it into the kid's eyes, using said kid's confusion to kick his legs out from under him and start throwing his own punches. The other kid snarled and blocked as many as he could, but Miach felt the kid’s nose break under one of those blows.

Claws? Fangs? Who cared? If someone wanted to fight him, he’d gladly throw down. Plus, he was a kid at the moment, so he wouldn’t get in too much trouble for teaching this rudeass bitch some manners.

Well, that was what he was in the middle of thinking until said bitch grabbed one of the fists Miach was throwing and bit it as well.

Miach howled, trying to use his other hand to pry the little demon’s jaw loose, but a much larger hand intercepted him and did it instead.

Iitys, in all her adult disapproval, physically separated them by the scruffs of their shirts.

Pulled away from the other kid, who was bleeding about as much as he was, Miach finally took notice of their surroundings. The student priests were all on their feet, looking varying degrees of shocked and amused. He even caught some of them handing what was probably money to others.

“Miach, you are to be explain. Now.”

The other kid glared at him, but Miach could see a bit of fear in those eyes. Not directed at the human, of course, but towards Iitys. The kid avoided her gaze and refused to fight her grasp. He looked a little bit like a puppy that had just gotten in trouble for roughhousing.

Miach…felt bad for him. He’d just been trying to get Miach’s attention, and he’d gone overboard. He was a kid, and kids were stupid. Plus, he’d beaten the kid enough to teach him a lesson.

He huffed, feeling a globule of blood streak down his cut cheek at the movement.

Fine.

“Friendship brick.”

“Friendship what?”

“He gave me a friendship brick,” Miach lied through his teeth, “So we had to wrestle. It’s a human thing.”

----------------------------------------

Iitys hadn’t bought it at first, demanding proof.

So Miach had taken both her and the other kid to his room, showing off the chipped and cracked brick.

“It’s like proposing to someone, but with friendship,” he’d said, like a liar, “then to prove you accept it, you have to punch them in the face a few times.”

Iitys had narrowed her eyes at him. He knew she didn’t believe him. But she also couldn’t call him out on it, because as she’d said at the Post Office, she wasn’t familiar with modern humans.

But she’d ultimately gone along with it. She’d healed their wounds with a wash of magic that chased away the growing pain in Miach’s bones, sealing shut the weeping wounds until they were only scabs, and then proceeded to drag them both by their ears out of the probably-a-temple.

Which led to the present; Miach and the kid were side by side, held in place by the iron grip of a fed-up priestess, as she talked to a pair of people who were definitely the kids parents. The kid himself was staring at Miach with wide, curious red eyes. Miach continued to look forward, refusing to meet said eyes.

Iitys pushed the kid gently at his parents and forced Miach to lower his head at them, forcing him to apologize whether he wanted to or not. When he was allowed to raise his head again, the other adults were nodding, looking at Miach with a combination of wariness and curiosity.

Iitys made to pull Miach away from the kid and his family, but the kid darted out and grabbed Miach’s shirt, pointing to himself.

“Rehhhg-lahhhh,” the kid said, exaggerated and slow.

Miach raised an eyebrow.

Iitys nudged his shoulder pointedly.

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“He is saying of his name; Regla. Be introduce, be nice.” She whispered, nudging him again.

He felt a little bad that she felt the need to warn him about being nice.

“…Miach,” he sighed, motioning towards himself.

The kid, Regla, smiled widely and lightly punched Miach on the arm, much to the consternation of every adult around them, chattering something more before turning and going back inside with his appalled parents.

Iitys sighed, guiding Miach away from the house with a much gentler hand.

“It is being good to see you having made friend, but do not be doing it like that way again,” she said, looking tired, “so there will being no more of the friendship bricks.”

Miach nodded along, but noticed she was taking him past the temple-thing.

“Where are we going?” He asked, idly scratching at the new scab on his face.

Iitys lightly tapped his hand away from it.

“To be seeing the King, little Prince, so that he will stop the many sending of the many mail.”

“Wait, why do we suddenly hate the Post Office?”

“What? No, he is sending the letters asking of you to see him, over and over again. We are to stopping that.”

She tried to hide it from him, but he could see the irritation in how she held herself.

Miach…quietly updated his view on the Demon King to add ‘persistent’.

Iitys didn’t seem concerned, and said Demon King had also taken part in saving Miach’s life, so he wasn’t going to give into the temptation to run away down one of the many alleyways they were walking past.

Instead he just let her push him through the crowded streets of Dawngold, closer and closer to the huge palace that loomed over it all.

Where the buildings around it were colorful and full of life, the palace itself was made of a combination of steel and stone. It reached high into the air, with spikes that topped most of the roof and curled designs set into the stone with glittering metal. Most of it was silver, but certain segments of the inlay were either gold leaf or actual, full on gold, and that level of detail was what he could see at a distance.

He couldn’t remember what the castle in Aliq looked like, as he couldn’t find any memory of his time with the McDonnells where he left the Manor, but he felt like it was safe to say it had nothing on the Demon King’s palace.

That wasn’t the only vast improvement.

The streets were far more lively than Irijwa had been. Demons were everywhere loudly shouting at each other, arguing with what looked like city guards, haggling at stands, and making messes.

It was a good, proper city.

He could even hear some sort of musician down the road they’d walked past, and when he looked for them he saw a drider playing an instrument he’d never seen before. Iitys caught him looking at it, and just prodded him further towards the palace.

“You are liking music? You are not having the arms to be playing that one-I will find another.”

“No, wait, I don’t need-“

“Music is being good for the calming down, I would be knowing. It is okay.”

Miach turned to look up at her, curious.

How would she know music would be good for calming down personally, like how she was suggesting?

“Do…do you need to calm down a lot, then?”

Iitys pursed her lips, looking straight ahead.

“…I used to be needing it, but I am being better now,” she said, seeming to need a moment to figure out how to answer that.

Miach wasn’t so sure she was being entirely truthful about that, though, as Regla’s terrified face flashed through his mind. Maybe Iitys was far more violent than she acted. Maybe he’d fallen into the hands of an abuser.

He shook his head, pushing those thoughts back as Iitys led him past the entrance of the palace.

He’d have to trust he made the right choice.

----------------------------------------

Miach stared up at the easily forty-something foot tall monstrosity of a Demon King looming before him, eyes unwilling to blink.

The Demon King, King Fayid Joaalu, was horrifying.

His pitch black skin seemed to be an expanse of the night sky, cracked by random white lines that resembled veins more than stripes, and his horns formed a halo that turned partially into a crown. The demon had four long arms that ended in hands that were definitely the size of the cart Miach had hitched a ride on to that small shit village, tipped with massive claws. He had a tail that curled around the massive throne he sat on, jagged spikes on the end glistening with what Miach was certain was some kind of poison.

He was draped in rich looking clothes, in a style that didn’t resemble any fashion Miach had ever seen, and jewels glittered from where they decorated his horns. He was not only intimidating, but regal, which made approaching him even more impossible.

His smiling mouth was full of fangs that were easily the size of, say, a six year old human child, and his three violently vibrant red eyes were…kind.

They were kind.

They were excited.

Miach looked again.

The tail was twitching with barely contained energy. The hands were curled either around each other of the armrests of the massive throne. The demon was hunched forward, staring intently at Miach.

The King looked positively giddy.

The giant demon opened his mouth, and that rockslide he remembered hearing from when he had been half unconscious resonated throughout the throne room.

Iitys answered back, giving Miach a little push towards the other demon who had helped save his life.

The King shifted and moved closer for a better look at his new Prince, the clothes so big they acted as curtains that separated Miach from the demons that hovered behind the throne. Then the King frowned. One large hand delicately moved forward and the tip of a claw delicately brushed against the new scratches on Miach’s face.

Iitys started talking, probably reporting the playground fight he’d gotten into.

She paused.

The King looked towards her.

She looked at Miach.

Then, with a pained expression, she finished her explanation. The King looked confused, one of his hands drawing a rectangle in the air.

Oh no, she was telling him about the friendship brick.

She nodded.

The King’s entire body shook, there was a sound like a dying plane engine, and the ruler of all of demonkind started laughing uncontrollably. The large hand that had been hovering over Miach’s face left to support its owner as the demon almost fell out of his throne.

Miach held his ground, not understanding at all why the brick incident warranted such a response, as the King gasped out something to Iitys.

Iitys covered her face with her hands.

“He is wanting to have knowing if the altar he threw to your Callum is makes them friends,” she translated, peeling her hands away from her face and leveling Miach with a Look, “he is not to being serious. Do not have answer for this.”

“I mean, Callum did try to stab him.”

“Miach, no, do not to be giving the King the ideas.”

The King rumbled something else, calming down, before turning the hand next to Miach palm up and twitching the fingers. Miach glanced at Iitys, who made a ‘go on’ motion with her hands as she made her own way to it and sat down delicately. Miach cautiously sat next to her.

The King stood up.

And up.

And up.

Miach’s own hand darted out of its own accord to get a white knuckled grip on Iitys’ robes as the King stood to his full height and began leisurely walking down a hallway that was clearly altered for him.

Or were all Kings as huge as King Fayid?

“Uh, hey, Iitys; when you said I’d probably get tall, did you mean…?” Miach tilted his head towards the King, who appeared to either be talking to himself or singing. Miach couldn’t tell which. Iitys shook her head, reaching up to mess with Miach’s hair.

“No, as I am being of the main donation, most looks will be being from me.”

Miach felt a little relieved at that.

The King slowed down and opened a door just as large as he was, walking inside and setting Iitys and Miach on a table that was clearly decked out to be a guest platform for more average sized visitors. Miach just followed Iitys as she beelined for a rather comfortable looking couch and immediately made herself comfortable. He opted to sit on the opposite end, and settled in.

The King sat in a large chair that looked far more comfortable than the throne and leaned forward again, voice echoing in Miach’s bones as he spoke.

“He is wanting to have knowing of your favored food,” Iitys translated, “and also to have knowing of your day of births.”

Huh. Well.

Alright then.

Miach proceeded to tell the Demon King about his likes and dislikes, and the Demon King clung to every word.

Maybe the guy wasn’t so bad.

----------------------------------------

After the initial visit, Iitys advised that they would leave in ten or so days, as she had to get learning supplies specially made.

Miach would be lying to himself if he didn’t admit that made him feel a little stupid. Logically, yeah, there probably weren’t any books or tools to help someone learn Demonic as a second language, so of course she’d have to branch out and get some made just for this one specific instance.

Other than that, he fell into a routine.

Wake up in the morning, drink his medicine or get a dose of healing magic from Iitys, get escorted to the palace, spend some time with the King, and swing by Regla’s place after that was done to get shown around Dawngold. With that routine came time to let his situation sink in, time to actually look at what was going on around him.

Day was marked by the dispersing of that massive thunderstorm, and night was marked by the clouds gathering for it. As far as he could tell, the country of Joaalu was flat and floating in a magic…thing. He’d find out the specifics later, but there wasn’t actually a sun to orbit around, and due to the flat nature of the land it wouldn’t have worked if there was.

So instead of the sun, above or at the same level as the thunderclouds, were giant bubbles that gave off the same intensity of what the sun felt like. Apparently they had UV or some other kind of magic as well, because the plant growth was insane in Dawngold if no one watched it. Weeds grew five times faster than he’d ever seen before.

The more he thought about it, the more he got lost in his head, and the more impatient he got for Iitys’ learning material to get finished. So he focused on the demon citizens, instead of letting his mind go down the rabbit hole of things he couldn’t answer until he spoke Demonic anyways, and came to a sobering realization.

He’d been right on his initial assessment that some demons wouldn’t be happy a human was adopted by their King.

They kept it to themselves, and most of them just left the room or street when he was near them, but some of them were a bit more concerning; Miach made it a point to keep an eye out for those ones. They would openly stare at him in disgust, lips curled and fists clenched, and whispered to each other in the shadows, out of view of the city guard. There were even a few of said guards that would openly dismiss Miach, but only if he wasn’t with Iitys. Pussies.

Miach kept his distance. It was better to avoid antagonizing people like that until he had the means to fight back. A playground tussle, sure, that was no problem, but he was in the body of a small child, and he knew his limitations; he couldn’t go up against an adult human, much less an adult demon.

Regla, for his part, seemed ready to try his luck any time someone looked at Miach sideways.

Miach made sure to keep the baby goat demon within arms reach at most times, so far managing to snatch the kid away from the fights he kept attempting to pick with adults far bigger than him. The worst part was that Miach couldn’t ask Iitys to translate to Regla why he kept refusing to let Regla fight the assholes, because then he’d have to tell her, and if he did that then he had a sneaking suspicion she’d overreact.

If she overreacted in the way he was starting to suspect she was capable of, it would give him a reputation of tattling to his foster mom whenever people were mean to him. That was a fantastic way to ask for an ass kicking without even speaking the native language; to be an entitled brat.

People were allowed to have their opinions, and Miach wasn’t going to get in the way of that. Not everyone was going to like him, and that was fine, they didn’t have to. What he did instead was do the adult thing; he dealt with it. As long as he didn’t fuck with them, they didn’t fuck with him.

Other than that, Dawngold was a beautiful place to explore.

The buildings were usually painted with some type of art, the roofs made the city look like it lost a paintball fight from above, the streets were lined with old mosaic designs, and aqueducts overhead made sure everyone had access to fresh water.

But the most prevalent thing, run by people who did not give a single damn about Miach’s status or his species, was the street food. There were so many weird foods, and Miach had made it his mission with Regla to visit as many as he could.

Regla, once he realized what Miach was doing, was all too happy to show his little human friend where the best of the street foods were; not the ones that were in main market streets or in a bazaar, but the ones that were hidden away in alleys and on the outskirts of the city. The kinds of places where their fellow patrons of the vendor were too drunk or too tired to notice the human among them.

Iitys always wrinkled her nose when he came back from those places, practically throwing him at the temple bath house the second Regla dropped him off. But either she never told Regla to stop taking him to those vendors, or Regla had opted to ignore her if she did.

Miach’s favorite was a vendor that was tucked outside a tavern on what appeared to be the poorer side of town, with a family of fuzzy bat demons that served some weird fried potato balls. It was like french fries, but better and more filling.

Six days into their ten day stay, and Miach had been shown around the city so much, he was fairly confident in wandering it by himself.

So on the seventh day, when Iitys had told him Regla would be a little late, Miach opted to just go to Regla’s place instead of waiting for the little goat horned imp.

He was pretty good with directions once he knew his landmarks, after all. It would be fine.

----------------------------------------

Miach frowned, looking around the street he was on.

He could have sworn he’d been going in the right direction, but apparently he had not.

So.

He was in a very large city, full of people who did not speak his native language, and he couldn’t read or speak theirs. He had managed to wander himself into a spot in the city he’d never been in before, and he recognized nothing around him. The adults in the area treated him as a dangerous, curious thing, and avoided interacting with him.

He was well and truly lost, and there was no help coming. But that was fine! He had an adult mind, he’d just keep going down streets heading towards the palace until he found something that looked familiar.

Easy.

He turned another corner and…huh. Why was the palace behind him? He’d just been going towards it? Miach retraced his steps and went down a different road, but the palace was sort of behind him and to his right. So that wasn’t right either.

He could feel the child brain straining at the bit to devolve into panic, but he fought against it. Panic wouldn’t help him, action would. He’d gotten out of the McDonnell Manor, he could find at least one street he was familiar with in a city that wasn’t nearly as hostile.

With a great sigh, he retraced his steps yet again and found a different road, this one actually leading directly to the palace, it seemed.

Feeling very accomplished, Miach moved forwards to victory.

But the more he walked down the road, the more he realized it was full of the kind of people he’d been training himself to avoid. They steered clear of him, but their eyes never stopped watching him until he was out of their sight.

Miach kept staring straight ahead, avoiding their gazes and giving them no reason to make their grievances personally known.

Well, until a bird demon, swaying with every step they took, got into Miach’s path and started towards him with a shout. Multi-colored feathers covered the demon’s body, they had wings as well as arms, and they finished off his bottle of whatever they’d deigned to drink by pouring it directly into their open beak.

Then they set their beady eyes on the human in front of them.

Miach backed away, using his peripherals to subtly search for a good place to run. The adults nearby certainly weren’t going to help.

Then the bird idiot in front of him broke the bottle of booze they were holding, and they were heading towards Miach.

Miach, for his part, didn’t know if the bird demon was just trying to make a point stick or if he was actually stupid enough to attack a Prince, and he didn’t want to find out. He ducked under it and reached up to deliberately rip out as many feathers from the demon’s arm as he could.

The adult squawked, throwing the broken bottle at Miach. Miach barely dodged, feeling it tear open his shirt, and reached for the large feathers on the guy’s wings.

He distantly remembered from his college roommate’s pet bird, from the multiple warnings Kenneth had given him, that there were feathers that, if broken, could make the bird bleed to death.

He was aiming for those.

What Miach got instead was said wing slamming down and out, throwing him into a wall.

Dazed, he forced himself to stand back up, but the adult was already hovering over him with a raised fist.

Then a small, screaming ball of rage tackled the adult from behind, biting and tearing out as many feathers as it could get its claws on.

Regla.

The adult, properly shocked sober, immediately reached behind themself to grab at the smaller imp demon, but Miach used that distraction to dart forward and start yanking at the large wing feathers.

The bird demon lashed out with their wing again, but Miach had learned from the last time; he dodged and started yanking out feathers from the other side.

Regla, however, was not so lucky, and was yanked off of the adult demon and literally thrown into a pile of wooden crates.

Miach, in response, grabbed two fistfulls of feathers and let himself fall down, yanking them out as hard as he could with the force of gravity.

The bird demon howled, there was a shower of red, and they staggered away, presumably to search for a doctor as one hand desperately tried to staunch the flow of blood.

Miach let them leave, dropping the fistfulls of broken feathers to the ground.

He went to Regla instead, and dug the still spitting mad baby goat horned idiot out of the pile of broken wood. Regla, once removed, glared at any adults in the area and physically dragged Miach down the road and out of their sight, the hand latched onto the human’s wrist shaking just slightly.

The adults that had watched the whole thing never said a word, nor did they lift a finger to help. But something in their eyes had changed. If Miach had to put a word to it, it looked like they had a little more respect for him.

He was a little bruised up, with a split lip, and Regla was cut from the wood and probably had too many splinters to count, but they were both far better off than a literal adult who’d picked a fight with a child.

Well. Miach was also covered in another demon’s blood. So that probably didn’t look too good to the city guards who ran to meet them when Regla got them both to a far more familiar street.

It was all good.

It wasn’t anything a bath couldn’t fix.

Besides, he’d gotten the bird demon back, so it was fine, right?

…

Right?