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Nesdin loved his job, he really did. He quite enjoyed being a demon, being a bloodthirsty, heartless killer. He adored the scent of fear, the taste of blood and the feeling of squirming, pathetic life being crushed beneath his claws. He didn’t know how to do anything but enjoy it, since he’d known nothing else. He was created to cause such carnage, so he relished every second until he returned to the void he was spawned from and awaited his next mission.
This new mission, however, had been nothing he could have anticipated.
For starters, though he’d been summoned in many different places by many different people, he always arrived in the exact same place as his summoner. His summoner would give him his target, specify any other conditions to his mission, and he’d be off. That was often the only time he’d interact with his summoner. All he ever needed from them was that initial briefing and he’d be good to go.
This time he was dropped in the absolute middle of nowhere with no summoner to be seen. He had no idea who summoned him, what his objective was, why he’d ended up in this random place that lacked anything needed to summon him and also lacked the summoner themself. At a loss, he had no choice but to assume a form and take a name (his true form would cause panic if seen in the open and his true name was incomprehensible to mortal men). He needed to enter into the world blindly. Someone had clearly botched his summoning process so badly that it’d sent him all the way out to wherever-he-was, and he needed to find his summoner himself and give a few nasty rebukes that’d make any sane person’s skin crawl. He was not a demon to be toyed with. His ritual wasn’t exactly entry-level for good reason.
He’d wandered around for however long (he had no good reason to track time when he could put that energy into tracking his summoner), taking on a few roles and getting kidnapped by cultists once. Eventually, while he was trying to play the part of a traveling fool with a well-trained feline companion, he’d found a promising lead that’d led him to a cursed little estate and the cursed little Hamlet it housed. Getting hired by the Heiress was easy enough, at least–he definitely had the stomach for violence and killing.
He didn’t pay much attention to Bele at first. Sure, she was on the list of potential summoners, but she was low on his investigation priority list. She was a vestal, a nun . It was fair of him to be skeptical of the idea that she was his summoner. So, when she dropped dead during some huge, important quest, he didn’t think much of it. He was more thankful that the sky was apparently done with turning red (it was eerie, felt wrong even to him).
Things had…changed since then. Since she’d come back.
Oh how they’d changed.
He heard the concerned and judgemental whispers from where he sat by her tombstone day and night. He felt the stares of anyone who happened to catch sight of him. Or perhaps he imagined those things–he didn’t care enough to deliberate over it. He didn’t care much about anything anymore (if only he’d stayed ignorant, he would have avoided this).
He didn’t even fully know how he came to know that Bele was his summoner. He squinted beneath his mask, looking out toward the obscured horizon line as he tried to connect the events in his head. He’d gotten one hell of a hubris kick and tried to wrestle a Shambler in his true form, and Bele had been there to see it (he still had scars marring and twisting about his torso from that one, ugly things he took so much pride in). There was an incident in the Farmstead too. Bele had gotten lost in there and he’d turned right around and dragged her out himself. In her maddened ramblings, she’d told him about how she’d summoned a demon once, a demon that sounded an awful lot like him.
There had to be more than that, but Nesdin couldn’t think clearly enough to find anything concrete. He didn’t even remember when Bele had recognized him as her demon. He did remember that she hadn’t liked him calling her “master,” though. She’d barely tolerated “mistress” at first, though it’d grown on her, he could tell.
She’d never given him a task. He’d asked her repeatedly over an extended time period and she’d always admitted that she had nothing for him. He’d grown used to living without a task, but that was only out of necessity. Though, he found himself minding the pointlessness of his presence in the world less and less. There was almost something charming about it, about being human for no good reason.
It wasn’t charming anymore. Nesdin had never outlived a summoner before, much less a summoner who never gave him a direction.
Dwelling on the past was making him feel a little more than queasy. He shook the thoughts from his head, curled up tighter against a chill only he could feel and leaned more of his weight against Bele’s tombstone. He stared blankly off into the distance, past the distance, almost longing for the embrace of the void he’d clawed his way out of at his late summoner’s calling. That expanse of viscous nothingness always enveloped him wholly and entirely, scrubbed all the pesky human things from his mind to keep him sharp, keep him ruthless, to keep any consequences from past missions from carrying over. It always stopped him from feeling anything that was too human, from getting too invested in the act.
He was invested now. He’d never been so invested before, and here’s where it left him–not moving from one spot for days, snarling at and threatening anyone who dared come near him or Bele’s grave. He couldn’t protect his summoner before, but here he was, sentimental enough to take up this worthless vigil (anything to make that nauseating emptiness in his gut loosen, even just a little). How the mighty had fallen.
He hated how he’d ended up. It went against every single scrap of demonic pride he had, made him want to send himself back to the void one way or another so he could rid himself of this impurity, but he couldn’t bring himself to do that. Those stupid emotions that’d started to bud in his chest had bound his hands better than any shackles ever could. Plus, Bele had come back once, surely there was a chance she could return again–he just had to wait. So, he’d wait. He’d bear with that constant muffled hurricane raging through all of his insides until she either came back or she didn’t (if she did, he’d make her give him a task, because surely that was the real issue here, surely that’d make everything go right back to normal).
The sound of approaching footsteps disrupted his internal monologue, dragged him back into awareness. He bristled, sitting upright and raising his hackles in the direction of the noise. The sight he saw gave him pause.
Vee barely managed a smile, pulling at one edge of the blanket that lay over his shoulders, hiding his other arm from view. “Hey Nesdin.”
Nesdin huffed in response, opting to scan the surroundings instead, just to make sure he didn’t have anything to worry about.
He heard Vee approach, saw him kneel down in front of both him and the tombstone in his peripherals. The abomination’s footsteps were so distinctly uncertain, as if they themselves doubted every step, and Nesdin internally berated himself for not being able to recognize them. He should know Vee’s footsteps by now, should know his scent, the sound of his chains, the way anxiety tended to roll off him in waves at all times. Vee was Bele’s husband, after all. Bele being Nesdin’s summoner meant that he had to spend a lot of time around Vee as well.
And he couldn’t even recognize when it was Vee who was coming his way, didn’t notice anyone was even there until Vee was a mere few feet away. All that, and Nesdin still thought he had the right to call himself an apex predator.
What a mess.
“Have you eaten today yet?” Vee asked.
Nesdin shook his head, not even giving Vee a glance. Of course he hadn’t eaten yet. They’ve done this song and dance what felt like hundreds of times by then.
“Nesdin…” Vee sighed, tried to convince his voice to firm up. “You can’t keep doing this.”
Nesdin caught Vee’s eye with a sudden stare over the shoulder, making the other flinch. Why not?
Normally, Vee would’ve apologized and backed down. That was just because normally, Bele was right there to keep pushing the issue when he wouldn’t. The situation they were in now wasn’t at all normal.
Vee swallowed down his anxiety, squared his shoulders, tried to keep his voice from shaking too much (and even if he couldn’t meet Nesdin’s stare, the demon had to give him credit for all the effort he was putting into this). “It’s…it’s not good for you. Being hungry isn’t gonna make you feel any better.”
Nesdin heaved a sigh, too fatigued to deal with all this stuff and nonsense. “Just hand it over.”
The interruption made Vee visibly jerk from the whiplash, but he recovered quickly enough (he’d grown used to Nesdin’s attitude in some capacity, what with how long they’d been doing this). He held out the hand he’d been hiding behind the blanket, presenting the bowl he’d snuck out from the dining area of the barracks–a smoked fish and two bread rolls. Nesdin took the bowl, clumsily swatting his mask off his face and scarfing down the meager portions (he hadn’t realized how hungry he’d been until he’d smelled the fish–naturally, it was gone first).
Vee sat with him in silence, though his attention was more focused on the tombstone than anything. The elephant that wasn’t in the room anymore.
All of a sudden, Nesdin’s stomach began to sour. Wordlessly, he passed the bowl back to Vee, bumping his arm with it when he got no reaction. Vee’s heart stuttered so violently that Nesdin heard it hitch, but Vee got his bearings almost instantly. He looked to the bowl and then at Nesdin with a worried frown.
“Come on, you gotta eat,” he insisted.
Nesdin shook his head, shoved the bowl into Vee’s arms before he could object further.
Not to say Vee didn’t try. “Hey! Nesdin!”
Nesdin hissed at Vee, low enough to nearly be a growl.
Vee’s eyes caught on Bele’s tombstone, and that was enough to convince him to sit up a little straighter. “This has to stop, Nesdin.”
Nesdin huffed and turned away.
“D-don’t turn your back on me!”
Nesdin tried to ignore him.
“Bele wouldn’t want you acting this way.”
Nesdin’s eyes widened at the very mention of his summoner’s name before his expression twisted into fury. He whirled back around, some of his human facade slipping to reveal slit pupils in yellowing eyes, his teeth having grown pointed when he curled his lips back to scowl and roar at Vee.
“Don’t speak for her! You don’t know what she wants of me!”
“That’s not true. She told me everything!”
“Words mean nothing, mortal filth! The bond of a summoner and demon is something you cannot understand with words!”
“That’s not the full story!”
“And how do you know?!”
“Because I married her!”
Vee never yelled, never raised his voice (he said he hated how it sounded, hated how it frightened even himself). His final screamed sentence had alarmed the both of them, seemed to echo out through the graveyard and beyond. Nesdin’s face quickly fell back into a scowl, an agitated rumble building in his throat. He wasn’t really angry anymore, not when he’d essentially driven a skittish, kind man into snapping at him, but Vee didn’t need to know that. He was never good at admitting defeat. The fact that he kept this vigil made that clear on its own.
Vee’s courage collapsed in on itself and he withdrew from Nesdin slightly. “I-I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled, I didn’t mean to yell.”
Nesdin sighed through loosely-clenched teeth, the sound more akin to a half-hearted hiss. Vee flinched at the noise, and any thoughts Nesdin might’ve had about saying anything vanished (he hadn’t even been the one to cause this fear, he couldn’t relish in so little as this).
A thick blanket of tense silence settled over them. Nesdin had turned away, unwilling to even look at Vee anymore, but he could feel Vee’s gaze and all its anxious, apologetic concern. It was almost disgusting. Vee was a weak-willed man, a partial human with a bigger heart than most full humans, a doormat and a pushover. Nesdin never approved of Vee’s attitude, of his way of handling things, but he never outright hated him. How could he when Bele was always so happy to have him as her life partner?
That’d never stopped Nesdin before.
Maybe he was the one who was weak-willed now.
Vee cleared his throat. “She cared about you a lot, you know.”
Nesdin didn’t give any indication he was listening, even if he had no choice otherwise.
“She…” A pause, then a decision to talk whether or not Nesdin would (or wanted to) hear. “She always treated you like a friend, because that’s what you were. And it’s what you still are. You’re our friend. She never liked the idea of you being a servant.”
Nesdin gave a low growl, still didn’t turn to face Vee. “It doesn’t matter what she liked or didn’t like. I’m an assassin. I go in, do my job, and get out. Instead, she just ran me in circles and wasted my time.”
A change in the air, so brief that it was gone before Nesdin could probably clock it. Vee probably hadn’t liked him speaking ill of Bele (to be fair, a deeper part of Nesdin recoiled at his own words too).
He didn’t let it get to him this time. “...Are you sure the time’s wasted?”
The absurdity of the question finally got Nesdin to look back at him. “What’re you talking about?”
Vee watched him, gaze so soft and gentle that Nesdin quickly regretted looking back (regretted how even such kind eyes could make him feel like he’d been caught red-handed). “Well, I mean…Bele wanted to you to be happy. She wanted you to be part of the team, a-and I think that you are by now. And you’ve grown a lot and made other friends, and I…it might be just me, but that doesn’t sound like wasted time.”
“It’s wasted when you aren’t supposed to be doing any of that.”
“I thought Bele didn’t give you a task?”
“She didn’t, but she should’ve.”
“But she didn’t. There wasn’t anything you were supposed to be doing then, right?”
Nesdin gave a nasty scowl. “That’s the problem .”
Vee pulled his blanket tighter around his shoulders, his boldness wilting a little under Nesdin’s glare. “Okay, uh, then…how about this-”
“Stop it.”
Vee clammed up. He didn’t stop looking at Nesdin with those eyes, that frown, and to Nesdin, that was almost as bad as words.
An accusatory point at Vee’s face. “Stop that too. Stop all of this. Stop trying to convince me that any of this is fine and normal, because it isn’t. It might be normal for you mortals, but not for me. I’m not supposed to have friends, or be ‘part of a team,’ or any of that insignificant drivel. None of that’s supposed to matter to me.”
Nesdin’s lips pulled back into a snarl beneath his mask, a glower partially visible thanks to the broken segment. Again, his teeth had grown sharp. “I’m not human. I’m not mortal. All I do is imitate, it’s how I hunt. Sprouting actual mortal emotions is only a hindrance to me, so I’m not built to have them. I’m not meant to be out and about for this long. I’m not meant to outlive my summoner before I was ever given a task .”
He had more to say. Useless grievances that wouldn’t help him at all, except for maybe letting him feel better for a single moment, two if he was lucky. He had so much more to rage against, to lash out at, but the fever pitch never came. He was still angry, was still frustrated, but the way Vee had started to look at him was tempering the worst of it. It reminded him so much of how Bele would watch him sometimes when she knew something was bothering him (she was his summoner, she knew him more intimately than any other by that virtue alone). Someone had to be able to quiet his frenzy-prone head with a simple glance, and with Bele gone, her husband had taken up the mantle.
Of course he had. Vee really did know her best.
With nowhere else to go, Nesdin’s anger dulled and fell right back down, heavy and thick. His chest started to hurt.
“This isn’t how any of this was supposed to go,” he growled, shoulders slumping and head slightly bowed, voice equally low.
“I know,” Vee offered, lowering his own voice to match but keeping it so caring and warm.
“I’ve never been stranded in this miserable world before.” Nesdin’s throat started to close up.
“It’s okay.”
Nesdin shook his head, his breathing becoming more labored. “You still don’t get it. All the times I explained it and you still–!” His breath caught. He swallowed thickly and started again. “Your kind can live a purposeless existence in peace. Mine can’t.”
Vee offered up a timid smile. “That’s more normal than you think. A-at least from what I’ve seen around.”
Nesdin sighed harshly through clenched fangs, shutting his eyes tight like it’d stop his vision from blurring (hold back what was building). “You don’t listen! I’m lost without a task! I’m not from this world, I have no place here! I…” The tears started to spill over and snuffed out the last of his dying fury. He slouched where he sat, staring at the ground. “...I didn’t expect it to hurt so badly…”
He trailed off, said nothing more, gritting his teeth and doing whatever he could to will his way through the grief. It wasn’t any use, though. He was powerless against it, against these puny human feelings that he once considered himself so far above. It was humiliating, only compounded the issue. He wanted to dissolve away into the shadows so he could lick his wounds better, but he refused to leave his summoner’s grave. He’d never leave her, not so long as he had no task. All he could do was sit still and pray that everyone would somehow forget he existed.
A hand touched his head. He completely froze, even his breathing going still (the hand flinched, but didn’t pull away).
“...There, there.” Vee’s voice, sounding distant in Nesdin’s ears despite how the abomination hadn’t moved from his spot. The hand gently patted Nesdin’s head. “It’s all gonna be okay. Just give it time.”
Nesdin didn’t respond until the hand tried to pull back. His own hand shot out, grabbed Vee’s wrist, made sure that touch was maintained.
If he’d had the mind to pay attention, he would’ve practically heard the heaviness in Vee’s smile, in Vee’s voice, barely concealed beneath the empathy he held for the sad little demon hunched in front of him. “She’ll be back. It won’t hurt forever.” Another shaky hand reached around to Nesdin’s back, pulled him close until his forehead bumped Vee’s chest. “We’ll be okay.”
Nesdin accidentally let the tiniest of whines slip, and from there it was all downhill. He bit his lip hard enough to bleed, still too prideful to completely fall apart, but the subdued sobs still shook his entire frame. His fingers curled in the dirt and grass, his hands placed there so he could prop himself vaguely upright (and because he refused to cling onto Vee–again, his pride shuddered at the thought). Crying was something entirely new for him, something he’d seen but never had to experience, and he immediately decided that he hated it. He hated how powerless it made him feel, how his inability to stop it only made him feel worse and worse. He hated how it made him feel like he was suffocating, like he was drowning in a lake of emotions that he’d been thrown into. He hated how unmistakably human it was. He hated how Vee’s presence was actually able to keep him from panicking.
He didn’t hate Vee, though. He hated how he couldn’t.
If anything, he had all the more respect for Vee. After all, Vee had to deal with these sorts of emotions so often, and he still was able to continue on day after day. It was normal, it was bearable to him in a way that it wasn’t to Nesdin.
Maybe humans weren’t as weak as Nesdin always assumed they were.
Even if that was true, though, Nesdin knew he was stronger. He had to be. He was a demon, a feared assassin of shadows, a merciless being with eyes everywhere. He was a league above the humans, so if they could survive grief and crying fits, then he could too. He’d figure it out. No matter how shameful he felt, he’d figure it out. The first step to that was pulling himself together (this pathetic display had continued long enough anyway).
Whenever he finally forced himself to relax, Vee spoke up. “Are you feeling better now?”
Nesdin gave a non-committal grumble, pushing himself away from Vee. Enough.
“...I guess you aren’t ready to leave yet, are you?”
Nesdin glared at him, moved closer to Bele’s headstone. Never.
“Th-that’s okay! That’s okay.” Nesdin could tell that Vee was lying to his face (didn’t have the energy to call him on it). “Take your time. It’s hard, I know.”
That hand tried to reach for Nesdin again for whatever reason. Nesdin smacked it away hard enough to leave a red mark, hissing for good measure. Don’t touch me.
Vee drew his hand back, rubbed it, shocked and a little hurt ( shame upon you, Nesdin, shame, shame, shame…) . He pushed those feelings down, all for the sake of the monster who’d caused them, because gods knew Vee was too kind to be in a place like this. “Okay, y-you’re done…got it. That’s fine. I’ll, uh…I’ll be here for you if you ever need me again, though.”
Nesdin turned away, going right back to being as uncooperative as he had been when Vee first showed up. Go away.
The message didn’t get through. “I’m gonna stay here for a bit longer. She…” Shuffling of fabric and gentle clicks of chains (Vee pulling his blanket tighter around himself), a more distracted voice, not quite directed at Nesdin. “...I loved her. I really loved her, and I really miss her, and…I wanna be as close to her as I can be right now.”
Because Nesdin wasn’t the only one suffering here (stupid of him to act as if he was). “...The house is empty without her, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Mm.”
Silence.
Nesdin knew Vee wanted him to “come home,” if for no other reason than to provide a little bit of company (as if Nesdin hadn’t been a freeloader for all this time). Vee often tried to keep from being alone, and usually that meant he’d be following Bele around. With Bele gone and him not having many other friends, he was left adrift.
Nesdin glanced at Vee, just out of the corner of his eye. Vee had turned to the headstone, one hand tightly grasping his blanket while the other ghosted over Bele’s carved name, tracing the letters, brushing away obscuring dirt that hadn’t had the chance to gather yet. Nesdin watched him for a few moments, turned away before he could notice. Maybe Vee did understand. He seemed plenty lost enough to.
Nesdin said nothing, offered no comfort like had been given to him. Instead, he sat and watched the surroundings, stayed quiet. He let Vee have his moment without any further trouble until Vee took the forgotten leftovers and bid Nesdin a quiet farewell. The sun set that day with Nesdin alone, if not for the guilt that’d rooted itself deep in his fledgeling conscience.
He should’ve done better (since when has he wanted to be better?)
He shouldn’t have given Vee trouble (when hasn’t he caused trouble?)
He should’ve protected Bele (why did he care so much it hurt?)
He shouldn’t be pushing away his friends (why did he even have friends?)
He shouldn’t be there.
(He shouldn’t be there).
He was there.
He stayed there. He kept his vigil out of habit, out of guilt and regret, out of some shred of loyalty or pride. He stayed because it was easiest. It gave him time to be alone with himself so he could think. He needed to figure this out.
Was he a demon or a human? And what was it he wanted to be? He couldn’t be both, couldn’t truly be both. Mulling it over made his head hurt, but at least that was a distraction from the much deeper pains that would not leave him.
Whatever he was, he wanted his summoner back. That’s what he knew for sure.
He wanted Bele back. That’s the real reason he stayed, no matter the excuses that entered his head. He just wanted to have his friend back.
She did come back, eventually. When she did, Nesdin was waiting. He looked more of a fright than normal, but that didn’t stop Bele from returning the embrace after he practically pounced on her and hugged her as tightly as he could (without harming her, it was clear he was deathly afraid of harming her). In the full month after, he kept up his guard duty, but by her side this time.
He never ended up asking her for a task. It was quickly forgotten in the joy of being reunited with his closest companion, and in the routines and friendships he’d been neglecting (they’d all waited for him in the end). Human or demon, it would be a shame to lose all this expertly-wasted time so soon.
No need to pick sides yet. At this rate, he’d have an eternity to figure it out.
(As if that didn’t say everything on its own).