Nanashi woke up groggily, fumbling as she heard her Uncle Chosuke was up before she was. He hated it when she did not have breakfast ready for him. She rolled out of bed and stumbled out of her tiny bedroom at the top of the stairs of her uncle's small house. She heard him roar her name as she pounded her bare feet down the old wooden stairs. She stopped abruptly in the side of the main room that held the kitchen area and the hearth and stove. She did not speak, but quick lit the fire in the hearth.

"Lazy child," he scolded her. She did not bother to look back at him. "As lazy as your mother was." Nanashi made no reaction, knowing if she let him get a rise out of her, he would be harsher with her. "I need to go to the forge and work early. You know that." She had the fire going, and she turned to start cooking up something quick and simple for them to eat. All the while he complained. "Money's been tight ever since my son skipped out on us. The blacksmith forge doesn't make that much money anymore in our small port town. Paying an apprentice when I had a son who should have learned from me instead," he grumbled.

Silently, Nanashi served him breakfast silently and docily. Nanashi thought about Yusuke, wishing he was still here with. He had run off when he was seventeen, having come of age in their small Southern port town of Sarayashiki. That had been a year and a half ago. Growing up with him, about two years older than her, had been a ray of sunshine on her dismal life those far.

As they ate, her uncle droned on and on again about her mother. He liked to do this when he was annoyed with her. Nanashi just kept silent and ate quickly, so she could run off to the tavern by the dockside she worked at. "Atsuko," he said her name like a swear word. "Showing up here in the middle of the night nearly seventeen years ago. Sick, looking like a drowned rat pregnant, and could hardly remember a single thing she been up to the for the two years she had been missing. Thought she had run off with some sailor. More like she had gotten sick of whoring, especially out to demons." Uncle Chosuke was looking at her, trying to see if she would crack at this. She was almost finished eating. She kept thinking about seeing her boss and only friend in town, Haruto. Thinking about him kept her calm. "Comes crawling back in the middle of the night, and your aunt, her sister, and my wife refused to turn her away. Atsuko didn't deserve a sister like Yuiko." His rambling meanness had become a double edged sword. He had worked his way into remembering his dead wife. "Atsuko died shortly after having you, but not before she got Yuiko sick with that illness she dragged in. Making her follow her into the grave." He shook his head, muttering in a way he purposefully meant for her to hear, "demon's daughter."

Nanashi had finished eating. She quickly put her plates by the wash basin to clean them later. She ran upstairs to go get dressed and ready for work. When she came back down to clean the dishes, she noticed her uncle was gone thankfully. Probably off to his forge next door. Ships came and went in this small Southern port, so he never lacked for work. He was actually better off than those who lived by the docks, but he hated people thinking lesser of him. Especially being forced to raise his niece by marriage and his son alone as a widower. Another woman probably did not want him, Haruto had once told her in comfort.

Nanashi left the house, quick as she could, avoiding walking past the forge. She noticed three people were standing there already outside the door, waiting to see her uncle about something or another. Sometimes the ones who were new to town liked to pandered to her, as if currying favor with her would help them get to see her uncle faster. The ones who lived in the town avoided her gaze.

She huffed and walked faster. Her uncle had not kept it a secret that she was a bastard. Nor that she was rumored to have been fathered by demon. The rumors were left to ruminate through out the town as she grew up. Yusuke used to shout and even fight with the other kids at school if they teased her, but that only got him and her in trouble with Uncle Chosuke at home. Now that he had run off though, rather than become his father's apprentice. Said that it seemed more like Uncle Chosuke wanted free labor more than anything else. So Yusuke absconded off to who knows where. He tried to get her to go with him, but she was too skittish at the idea. Said he was going to run off to the capital, but she had no clue if he actually made it there. Nanashi had wished she had gone with him. Perhaps if she went, she would not have been forced to drop out of school by her uncle and forced to go work at Haruto's tavern.

She did not mind working at Haruto's tavern, but did mind that her uncle took her wages. Haruto occasionally gave her a little extra, telling her not to give it to her uncle or tell him either. She hid it away in her room under her lumpy old mattress, to save it for the day she ran off to find Yusuke.

At work, Haruto greeted her kindly. He was an older man, but kinder man. Had come to their port city about fifteen years ago to take over the tavern from its previous owner. He was good man, kind, gentle, and pious. Believed in the elvish goddess, the Great Hawk Spirit, which was something humans like the lot who lived in this city rarely believed in. A goddess who loved all her children in the land and sent angels down from the heavens to watch over them from time to time. Sounded like the stuff of legends or fairy tales to Nanashi.

The humans lived in their country, the vast Hayato Territory, predominately in the south where it was often warm and sunny. The elves, like the King Hayate, lived in the middle where all the rivers were. The demons in the North, where the mountains were, all cold, gloomy, and frozen. She could never imagine living in such a cold place, nor that her father, who ever he was or what ever he was, could be from such as a miserable sounding place.

Nanashi must have been too quiet when she heading to the kitchen to start cooking because Haruto followed her in there. He was a big man, almost as big as her uncle and brutish looking. Biggest heart in the world though.

"Uncle being harsh again?" he asked her, giving her a once over look that told her he was checking for any bruises.

"Just with talking," she answered as she worked. Two other workers flitted about the kitchens with them. The tavern was prosperous, especially with sailors and the like who came to port. In this part of town, no one cared as much about her bastard status and rumored demon parentage, or they just did not know as they were not in town long enough to hear that age old gossip tale. Raven black hair her hair's color was common in demons, but not unheard of in humans.

"Tell him to shut up next time," Haruto teased. "Are big winded man like that can handle that coming from a little girl like you."

Nanashi laughed softly at the thought of that and shook her head. "Maybe."

"Or clock him with the breakfast plate next time instead of serving him," Haruto kept going. Nanashi shook her head. That would be such a bad idea. Rarely did her uncle strike her, but never her face, lest it make him look bad in the village. She figured if she ever attacked him outright, he might not hold back and would share about how she attacked him first. "Or sneak into the forge and mess up some of those nails he's working on for the ships that come in?"

She laughed at the cheeky humor. She could never do anything like that. She did not want to risk it. In about four months, she would be seventeen and would be considered an adult. She could move out her uncle's house by then and go somewhere else to live. Haruto had already offered her a chance to live with him above the tavern in the small inn he ran. She debated whether she should do that or if she should go to the capital and look for Yusuke. She missed Yusuke and thought about him often.

She and Haruto kept working through out the day, enjoying the profitable lunch shift they were having as not one, but three ships had come into the docks that day, maxing out the amount of places that could be docked down by the bay. She was busy cooking at the start of it, but Haruto chased her out of the kitchen and told her to help the other two women who worked in the tavern with her. The two of them were formal with her, not going beyond a shallow work friendship with her being a 'demon's daughter' and all.

Haruto sent her to work in front of the bar, where there were only four seats left to sit in the whole place. The main party she served at the far end of the bar were a set of six older, rowdy sailors asking her where would be a good place for them to rent a room or two for the few nights they were in port. She managed to convinced her them to stay at the inn upstairs. One of them was bold enough to ask her if she would be joining them later. She only blushed, assuming that one must have already been drunk, and shook her head. When she told Haruto she booked three rooms, but left out the drunk sailor's offer, he seemed to be beaming at her. He told her to try to get the last room available for the night booked as well while she was at it. She doubted that would be possible.

When she had turned back to the main room, she saw the door open, bringing a warm and sunny breeze wafting around the man who opened the door. In walked a man who made her heart stop at the sight of him. She stood by the bar, hand resting in a fist in front of her mouth. The man who walked it was a head shorter than her, dressed in a black cloak, black pants, black boots, and a white scarf around his neck. A black bag was thrown over his shoulder. A sword hung on his left hip. His hair was jet black, except for a white starburst pattern that was scattered over his bangs. The rest of his hair stood up in a gravity defying way. A white head band wrapped its way over his forehead and around the back of his head. The worst part about him was his crimson red eyes. When he met her gaze, she was certain if she was holding anything, she was have dropped it in that instant. A shiver of terror danced down her spine when she blinked first. She knew what he was.

"Hey! Looks lads!" One of the sailors she had been serving called out loudly over the noise of the room, making everyone seem to grow quiet. "Old green legs left his hiding hole on our boat. Guess he wanted off at this port after all. Come have a drink with us, runt!" he called over to the man in black.

"Hn," the man in black clicked his teeth and scowled at the sailors sitting at the bar. He turned and looked back over at Nanashi. The sight of him made her stomach feel like a pit of despair. "Girl," he addressed her in a voice that was so quiet, but so harsh. "Is there a room available?"

Her throat felt dry and her tongue felt thick, but she knew she should answer. She nodded and choked out, "one-one, sir."

He grunted dis-pleasingly. "Show me," he barked at her.

Nanashi felt like that was the last thing she wanted to do. She looked back in the kitchens at Haruto, but his back was turned to her. Her other two coworkers were mixed in the throng of people at the table in the main room. One of them motioned to her with her hands to go.

"This way, sir," she said shakily.

She walked briskly to the stairs that led to the inn, not hearing, but knowing the man and black was following her. It felt more like he was a predator stalking his prey. She ran up the stairs, stumbling half way up, and bashing her shin into the step beneath her. She heard, but did not look towards the snickers coming from the main room. Once they finally got to the top of the stairs, she turned down the hallway and could no longer see down below at the main room. That made her even more nervous.

She thought through her nerve racked brain, trying to think which rooms were available. She looked at the shut doors on this floor and thought about ones on the third floor.

"Which room is the most private one?" he demanded the question.

"Third floor," she choked out, turning to walk towards the stairs that lead to the highest floor in the building. He followed her up the stairs.

When they got to the third floor, she picked the room at the opposite end of the stairs, intuitively thinking he would prefer that that one. She cracked the door open to double check that it was unoccupied. There was no sign that another person had rented the room, so she let the man in black into the room. He cut around her in a rush into the room. His speed was almost uncanny. He went straight for the window, studying it as he ran his fingers along the bottom of it. He pulled it open, but it jammed three inches from the bottom. He shoved it hard with his palms, forcing it to open all the way. Then he hung his head out of the window, swaying it left and right as he surveyed the area below.

He brought his head back inside the room and slammed the window shut. She jumped at the sound reverberating through the still room. "I'll take it. How much a night?"

"25 gold pieces," she murmured. He shot her a look that told her he found that reasonable price unreasonable. "We're right by the docks-"

"But at a distance from the whore houses," he commented.

"Haruto doesn't like whores in here, so he charges more than the brothels and the inns right by the brothels. He doesn't allow whores in the rooms, so please don't try to bring one," she rambled.

"What makes you think I want a whore?" he snided.

She swallowed thickly, worried she had just offended this terrifying patron. She was unsure how Haruto would feel about renting him a room. She should have asked Haruto first, before offering him a room.

He stepped over to one of the two double beds in the room. He tossed his bag down on it with a plop. He dug out a purse, pulling out three coins; a three ten gold coins. He stepped closer to her and tossed them to her one at a time. She managed to catch the first two, but dropped the third one, letting it roll towards the door. She went and retrieved it.

"Um," she hummed, "I don't have change." She tapped her pockets for emphasis.

He looked at her like he wanted to carve out her liver. "The extra five is for food. Bring something up worth that much. No beer." She stared at him instead of moving for the door.

"What are you waiting for?" he snarled at her. She watched as he sat down on the bed and started removing his boots.

"Are you a demon?" she blurted out rudely.

He narrowed his eyes at her. "What do you think?" he asked her shortly.

"I don't know," she whimpered foolishly. She started to back her way in the direction of the door, suddenly not wanting to turn her back on him.

He held up his palm. For an instant, black flames danced in his palm. "On my mother's side, for certain" he stated before he closed his palm, extinguishing the flames.

She ran from the room.