He didn't understand it.
For the first time since learning about the demons that had been invading Elrios, the Lunatic Psyker didn't understand something about them.
He only caught a brief glimpse of her, fleeing with another demon from the hot springs of Lanox after sending the resident mermaid there into a frenzy. An elegant demon woman, with dark, blue-gray skin, icy blue eyes, and eyes bluer than even the skies.
And yet, that single glimpse was all it took for him to see sorrow in those eyes, before she fled.
Demons reveled in bloodshed, didn't they?
So why did she seem so melancholic...?
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He glimpsed her again in the city. Just a shadow ducking into an alley, but he could see her. His insatiable thirst for knowledge, his undeniable curiosity, compelled him to follow her, and so he did.
He hadn't expected to see her so vulnerable, though.
Crouching and making herself seem smaller, she hid behind a crate, curled up. Dark crimson blood stood out in stark contrast to her blue-hued form, from wounds that didn't look like slashes-but rather, ugly bruises, some severe enough to split skin. Her companion was nowhere in sight, and her fear seemed to hint that her life was in danger.
Had he been killed, and she was next?
No, that couldn't be right. She wouldn't dare have hidden in the city if that were truly the case.
His footsteps must have been unusually loud, as when he took a single step toward her, she flinched. How...uncharacteristic for a demon. And yet, with those wounds, she looked less like a demon and more like a beaten dog. The prospect of a new test subject, a new specimen to examine, excited him, even as she regarded him with what looked like fear in her eyes.
A twinge of pain in his chest, however, caught his attention, stopping his thoughts cold as he examined her further. She looked vulnerable. Scared. Helpless.
She looked like he did, so many years ago.
It was pitiful, really. And yet...
He found himself kneeling in front of her.
"Are ya hurt?"
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Her name was Jin.
She admitted her name to him as he treated her wounds carefully, having led her to a small warehouse he'd rented out for the time being while the 'gang' tried to figure out the cause of the Fire El's instability. It was a quiet place, where he could focus on his work in peace.
It also seemed to alleviate Jin's fear slightly, by being somewhere secure.
He pried a bit, attempting to learn a bit about her. Anything he could learn about demons would help. Jin held her tongue however, not daring to speak any of her kind's secrets.
It wasn't until Add asked where her wounds came from that she reacted, freezing up in terror. Add knew it all too well. A recent trauma came with those wounds, something that even a demon was afraid of.
It was far too familiar to him, to be terrified of something like that, that even the mere mention of it would drag up painful memories. The many years of isolation that robbed his sanity also spared him from freezing up at the mention of slavers when he escaped the library, but how would he have reacted if he hadn't been in the library? How would he have reacted if he'd escaped, only to hear mention of the slavers shortly after?
How humorous, that Add could relate not to a human in this era, but to a demon.
Ah, but he couldn't really talk to her now. Not with her so frozen with fear.
He'd wait a bit longer.
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Jin actually returned to the warehouse of her own volition.
Add had polished off an upgrade to his Dynamos-namely, amplifying the power of Doomsday to become far more destructive for the same cost of energy as before-and was ready to set out to test it when the door slid open and the demon staggered in. Fresh wounds, not unlike the ones she bore when they first met, covered her arms and torso.
Whoever had caused the wounds was consistent, Add had to give them that.
The exchange was brief-Add simply asked Jin how many wounds she had, and where. Jin replied using few words, pointing out the worst of the wounds-broken ribs.
Why a demon would willingly come to a human baffled Add more than why he felt such a strange connection to her. Perhaps it was because he didn't try to attack her. Perhaps she didn't see him as a threat. Whichever was the case, though, he didn't care.
Before she left, however, he spoke.
"If ya need me t' bandage ya up again, just swing back over. I should be in Lanox a while longer."
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She visited somewhat often after that. Almost twice each week, if Add wasn't with the rest of Elsword's little troupe, he could expect to see a certain blue-colored demon in the warehouse.
Most times she was wounded again, with those same consistent wounds, but a few times she was in perfect health. It was confusing, seeing those same wounds every time. They clearly came from the same assailant...perhaps her superior was punishing her for failing in whatever tasks she was given? But if that was the case, she would have been killed with how frequently she showed up with wounds.
It wasn't until her fifth visit that Add finally asked her what caused the wounds, so he could better know what treatment she needed. It was clearly blunt force, but from whom or what, he wasn't sure.
Her response wasn't what he had expected, though.
"...My brother."
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Jin visited even more frequently.
As if a weight was lifted off her shoulders, telling Add who had been wounding her so often, she visited him about every other day, just to sit in the warehouse with him-as she wasn't wounded any of the times she visited, save for rare occasions. Add wouldn't tell her to leave, merely to just sit somewhere out of the way and stay quiet so he could concentrate.
She was already rather quiet, and so she would oblige, unless Add decided to have a chat with her-which was how he learned about her brother.
His name was In, and he was her twin. Unlike Jin, however, he was cruel. Heartless. He was the entire stereotype of a demon-he enjoyed wreaking havoc, enjoyed bringing pain to the humans. Worse, he forced Jin to join him in his twisted "sport", using the fact that he was stronger than her to his advantage to control her.
And through this conversation, he discovered something about Jin-she was quite benevolent for a demon, not wanting these invasions to happen at all. Yet she couldn't dare speak a word of this, out of fear of In beating her again.
The trauma was enough that even talking about him, without him being anywhere even remotely close to the warehouse, was bringing tears to her eyes.
He wasn't sure what possessed him, but just seeing her tears rattled something in him. Putting down the tools he had been using, he walked toward the crate she was sitting on, wiping the tears away without a word.
Seeing how grateful she looked by such a simple gesture sparked something else in him.
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Even with how often Jin visited, Add noted that she never smiled. She retained that same sorrowful expression, that same gloomy tone. Why it hurt Add so much, he didn't understand, but it did, and he wanted to see her smile, just once.
After she left from another routine visit, which had become more than just her sitting on a crate and watching Add work-instead actually having conversations with him about their own pasts, and Jin realizing they weren't too different in how they had been badly hurt-Add set a plan into motion.
Speaking to Ariel, he made two trips-one to Altera, to collect some benign Alterasia spores, and one all the way to where his journey began, the quiet village of Ruben, where he purchased a single rose to plant.
It took a bit of work with the Alterasia's DNA and that of the rose, but in a short amount of time, he had what he wanted-a rose that wouldn't bloom red, nor pink, nor even white.
It would bloom a beautiful blue.
The rose didn't take long to grow, thanks to the Alterasia DNA he had spliced with it, and within just a few days, it blossomed, its velvet petals splaying open. However, its color didn't quite come out as he had intended, but this wasn't to say it wasn't a beautiful rose. Its petals were a pale powdery blue, the color of Jin's hair. The edges of the petals were much more saturated and bright, like her eyes.
He had seen blue roses only once, in a book his mother showed him. They had various meanings, but two stood out strongest. One was that of royalty-Jin was graceful, truly elegant and beautiful.
The other, however, was something he had never realized until the rose bloomed, as when it did, and he remembered its second meaning, he felt warmth in his chest that colored his cheeks.
"It could never be, but you're forever in my mind."An unattainable love. A love that can never be made real. That was it, wasn't it? He could speak to Jin about his past, felt oddly comfortable with her. He listened to her every word, could relate to her pain.
He finally found a kindred spirit.
"Add?"
Jumping slightly as he heard Jin's voice just outside, he quickly snipped the rose from its stem, hiding it behind his back like a child at the playground trying to confess a crush to a girl. Greeting Jin with a small wave, he invited her into the warehouse, before approaching her. Clearly this caught her off-guard, as he always remained at his workbench when she walked in.
However, when he revealed the rose, which he had traveled all the way across Elrios just to grow, her gray skin dusted with pink. Add graced her with a smile, carefully tucking the rose behind her ear.
"Only the most beautiful rose for one as beautiful as you."
He had never seen her eyes light up as much as they had done just then, and for a moment she froze in surprise.
Then, as he had hoped to see, the corners of her mouth quirked up into a very small smile.
"...Thank you."