Note: No Demon-Dogs were hurt in the making of this fanfic.

Chapter 2

The Mess of the Matter

Kharl felt the cold fingers of morning begin to slide around his consciousness. In his mind someone was calling him.

"Kharl." He stretched and pushed the covers back. Sunlight streamed in through the cracks in the curtains. He pushed the curtains back and flooded the room with light.

"Kharl!" He knew who it was. Smiling blithely, he padded across the carpet and caught the door handle. Something tugged at him and the world blurred for a second before smoothing back out. He frowned. But he was still being called.

"Khar-rl!" He laughed. In his mind he could already picture Rath's smiling face.

"Alright, I…" he flung the door open.

"Wake up!" Something heavy landed on top of him. This time everything blurred out permanently.

"Oof!" He jolted up to find Rath's face inches from his own, frowning in impatience.

"Can I have a sword?"

Having been jolted so suddenly out of his dream, it took Kharl a second to stop wondering where the fire was and focus on the question.

"Ugh. What time is it?"

"Early." Rath leaned closer. "Please, Kharl?"

"What?"

"A sword?"

He was still too groggy to think straight. "Fine. Go ask Garfakcy."

"Yeah!" Rath bounced off the bed and headed for the door. As Kharl watched him go, he felt just the slightest twinge of guilt. For a minute, he lay staring up at the ceiling, just bathing in the sunlight that poured over the bed. Rath was happy, he was home, it was everything Kharl had wanted. So why then…?

…because it isn't real. Kharl tried immediately to banish the thought. Wasn't real? Of all the silly… Of course it was real! Rath was here. Rath was real! Kharl could reach out and touch him, and Rath wouldn't dissolve away into imagined dreams. He'd be there—solid, tangible—in the flesh Kharl'd wrapped him in. Wasn't that real?

…but he's not really happy. He just thinks he is. Kharl rolled over, so that he was facing away from the sunlight. But he couldn't escape his own thoughts. And the truth stung long after it had been spoken.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Garfakcy asked, as he watched Rath disappear through the castle's gate, sword held tightly.

"We live on a dead continent," Kharl replied. "What's the worst he could do?"

"That's what I'm afraid of…"

The toe of Rath's boot barely broke the forest floor. The thick branches and undergrowth made a slight slishing noise as he passed. Beside him, Sinistora's paws left little indentations in the earth. Silent as death, the demon-dog was no more than a whisper at his side.

Rath pushed more thick branches out of his way. He'd been walking for what felt like forever and still he hadn't run across a single demon. In fact, he hadn't run across anything else, either… not a soul. So strange…

The sun shone down through the thick canopy of trees, dappling the dark forest with spots of light. Rath jumped down into a small depression and finally came to a stop. He was beginning to suspect that there weren't any demons nearby.

Sinistora's wet nose bumped questioningly against his palm, and suddenly the world seemed to stretch out, blurring away at the edges. His feet felt disconnected from his waist. He stumbled. This world, this dizziness… It felt too real. He was suddenly struck by the familiarity of it all.

"I've been here before." The familiar weight of the sword at his side. The dog by his feet. "I've done this before."

And then he caught hold of a branch, steadying himself, and reality returned. And it felt fake. He looked around, confused, wondering what the heck had just happened. Then he looked down at himself. But nothing had changed. Well, except that Sinistora had caught the hem of his shirt in its mouth. Rath felt his unease melt away. That was right: he was demon hunting. And there weren't any demons. Looking down at Sinistora, a thought suddenly popped into his head.

"You're a demon…"

Kharl firmly closed the book he'd been reading when he heard a loud commotion coming from the courtyard. Loud, frantic howls echoed down the length of the library. It sounded like Sinistora. Kharl had a moment to think that that wasn't right. They couldn't possibly have found a demon. So then…

At that moment Garfakcy burst through the library doors.

"Kharl! Rath's trying to kill Sinistora!" The words took a second to sink in. Then Kharl was on his feet and halfway to the balcony before Garfakcy could blink. Sure enough, Sinistora was running in circles around the courtyard, followed by a sword-swinging Rath (if Kharl could understand demon-dog language, he'd be hearing something along the lines of, "Help! Somebody help me! There's a lunatic trying to kill me!").

"Ra-ath!"

It was Kharl's strangled shout that finally made Rath realize something was wrong. He stopped to look up at the balcony, knowing he was in trouble.

And so, many words later…

Rath was so bored. No killing Sinistora…

He opened a door on the right, just to close it as a broom almost fell over on him.

No killing Right Bird…

He opened another door and closed it on an empty room.

There weren't any other demons around!

Another door… closed in the same fashion.

So no demon hunting… there had to be something else to do around the castle! And why'd Kharl have to take his sword?

Rath opened yet another door… and stopped. Eureka! The room was lined ceiling to floor with bottles containing strange green potions, tar-like liquids, silver sand, and every other kind of splendid substance imaginable.

"Whoa," Rath whispered. He walked in, looking around with wide eyes. So many different things to try! He pulled a small satchel full of some sort of dust off the shelf. It wasn't anything extraordinary. It just looked like dust. Rath took a pinch and stared at it, waiting for something to happen. Nothing did.

On second thought, maybe it wasn't such a great discovery.

"I wish I had a demon to fight." He dumped the dust in his hand onto the floor, sighing in boredom. And that's when something finally happened.

A little demon resolved itself out of the dust, complete with squinty little eyes, yellowish skin, and a head of black hair. It only came to the top of Rath's leather boots. But no sooner had it materialized than it started leaping about on its spindly little legs, shaking its fist at Rath and chittering in some primitive demon language.

Delighted with this result, Rath quickly took another pinch of the dust. As it, too, resolved itself into another of the little demons, Rath laughed. Finally, demons to kill! But they were so small it was going to take a lot of them to be any sort of fun. A lot of them… Grinning widely, he dumped out the rest of the dust…

The first Garfakcy suspected anything was wrong, he was scrubbing floors, when he heard a surprised yelp echo down the length of the corridor. He stopped to listen. Rath had better not have gotten into something again. There was silence for a while, just long enough for Garfakcy to frown in confusion and start to scrub again, before there was the pitter-patter of what sounded like many little feet on the stone floor. Garfakcy's frown deepened. What in Arinas?

Suddenly, around the corner came a mob of little chittering demons, all with little loincloths and tiny spears. They swarmed down the corridor, carrying something that looked suspiciously like a bound and squirming Rath. Garfakcy gaped. What had that idiot done?

It was Rath's muffled cry of "Put me down!" that snapped him out of his stupor. Dropping the rag, he quickly created an Ash Sword and prepared himself to defend the corridor. As the first wave of demons crashed over him, he hacked away at the little monsters, right and left. Blood spattered across the stone and pooled into little sticky puddles.

"I just cleaned this floor!" he raged, and took out his anger on the demons. Little demon arms and legs went flying in the furor. But despite his best efforts, he was quickly surrounded. They crawled up his back and yanked on the long strands of his hair. They gnawed on his ankles. For every one he knocked off, two more took its place. Soon they had wrestled him to the ground by force of sheer numbers. The sword was pried from his grip in the melee and turned back into ash. They bound him, gagged him, and lifted him into the air on a thousand little hands, next to Rath.

Kharl had sequestered himself away in the library earlier that morning, after the incident with Sinistora. But he was beginning to get hungry, and realizing that Garfakcy hadn't come to announce dinner was ready, decided to investigate. It didn't occur to him that anything was wrong until he failed to find Garfakcy in the kitchen. Even then, some part of him figured Garfakcy had just gotten a little behind with the new arrival of Rath. Come to think of it, where was Rath?

And so his search began, slowly at first, and then with increasing speed as his alarm grew. But it wasn't until he flung open the door to the main hall that he got the surprise of his life. Hundreds of little demons filled the large room. Several of the heathens were swinging from the chandelier. Some were beating out ancient rhythms on pots from the kitchen. Some were doing little Indian dances around makeshift campfires. Yet others were attempting to roast a whining Sinistora on a spit. And chained to the far wall were the two people Kharl had been looking for.

Both were covered in the splotchy paint of sacrificial symbols.

Garfakcy was gagged but still managing to glare daggers across the room. The effect was lessoned by the glob of blue paint drying across his forehead. Rath just looked depressed.

"Can I have my sword back now?" he whined.

Kharl was so relieved to find them alive and otherwise whole, he started laughing. Which, of course, did nothing to lighten Garfakcy's mood. He tried to shout through the gag, but it came out garbled as, "Msmr Mrl, moo smfing!" And it only caused Kharl to start laughing harder…

A couple days later, after Kharl had exterminated the entire castle, and then re-exterminated it, Garfakcy was woken up late at night by the sound of war songs emanating strangely from the wall. It didn't take him long to realize the demons had decided to stake it out and were thriving somewhere, deep out of sight. He couldn't believe it! He clasped the pillow over his head and tried to get back to sleep. But by the time the morning light seeped through his window, he was still glaring out from under his pillow, having long since begun plotting ways to make Rath pay.

Rath, on the other hand, was overjoyed. Over the course of the next three days, it became a common sight to see Rath sitting in front of a wall with Sinistora, both staring intensely at some small demon-hole. But then, Rath didn't have any problems sleeping. And Kharl had simply plugged his ears with a spell.

As the days progressed, and there was no sign of the demons deserting their fortifications, Garfakcy became increasingly more irritable. He was often found stocking the halls, glaring at the demon-holes as though daring them to show themselves. Rath and Kharl took to actively avoiding him.

Even so, it wasn't until five days later that anything came of it.

Garfakcy woke up that morning just like all the mornings before—without having ever gone to sleep—and fortified himself with the thought of making breakfast. It was the only thing that helped him relax anymore: cooking. He padded down the hall, swung open the door… and stopped dead.

The kitchen had been decimated. The silverware was scattered everywhere, the knives stuck out of the floor at odd angles, the china plates smashed into thousands of pieces. One single demon stood on spindly legs on the counter top, arms full of what little food remained. Upon Garfakcy's entrance, the demon stuck its tongue out, made a very rude noise, and started to scamper away.

And that was when it happened.

Something inside Garfakcy snapped. A second later, he had a cleaver held tightly in his two hands high above his head, and was screaming wildly as he took off after the little demon. The demon, perhaps sensing something of what it had invoked, flew across the room, legs scrambling on the slippery floor, food forgotten. Garfakcy's cleaver hacked down again and again, each time just inches behind its mark. But his strides were much longer than the demons'. Just as his cleaver started to come down in what would surely be the finishing blow, the demon tripped, stumbled, and rolled drunkenly into the nearest hole. The cleaver came down on the wall milliseconds too late.

It was at this point Kharl decided to make an entrance to check on breakfast.

"Garfakcy, what're we having for…?" he swung the door open and trailed off.

"Pests!" Clang. "Vermin!" Clang. "Despicable demons!" Clang. "Come out and face me!" Garfakcy, cleaver in hand, was chopping away at the wall, eyes glinting madly. Clang. "Dogs!" Clang, clang. "You can't hide forever!"

"On second thought, I think I'll just come back later," Kharl said, and high-tailed it out of the room.

It wasn't until the loud clanging sounds completely subsided that Kharl and Rath decided it was safe to check the kitchen. Kharl pushed the door open a crack and peeked in. Nothing moved. Daring to believe it might be safe, he stepped in. Garfakcy was draped across a small pile of stone, covered in gray dust, and snoring loudly. Rath started toward him, but Kharl held him back.

"Lets let him be. He needs the rest." Silently, the two slipped back outside, while Garfakcy's snores reverberated down the hall…

WARNING: The following is NOT part of the actual story. It is a piece of random stupidity that came to me while writing. Read at your own risk.

Rath Moments #1:

After days of being woken up at 1 in the morning by Rath, begging to let him go to Kainaldia, Kharl finally relents. Once there, Rath disappears for a while. Kharl starts to panic, wondering if something happened. But soon enough he sees Rath coming towards him, smiling widely and whistling. Kharl is so relieved, it takes him a second to realize Nadil's head is swinging by its hair from Rath's grip.

"Kharl!" Rath shouts joyfully. "Look what I found!"

Sweatdrop.

Dear Readers,

First of all: if there's a pairing in this, it's RathxCesia. Though I can guarantee that won't happen for a while.

Also: Compared to the solemnity of the first chapter, this chapter was very, well, not solemn. Personally, I liked the first chapter better, but I want to know what you think. Was this chapter better or worse? The next chapter will definitely be a lot more like the first. Oh, and fair warning. This will probably NOT be updated quickly. I apologize for that, too.

-Leeayre

Review Responses:

To anonymous: Me too! Course, I just like Rath period. And he's a fun character to work with. I look forward to hearing from you again. Let me know what you think!

To xxDKGurlxx: Looks like I have to finish it now. (smiles) But I'm excited about it, especially about the end. So I hope you like it!

To Sarehptar: Well, it's done. Chapter 2 at least. (sigh of relief) I really don't know what to think about it. I feel like this was some poor attempt to be humorous that failed miserably. So I'm really glad chapter 3 is like chapter 1. What'd'ya think?

To melodyrain: That's what I assumed at first, too. But then I talked to Sarehptar, and she showed me an alternate side to it. It could be that just as Kharl feels for his birds, he feels the same way towards Rath, except extremely more so. Probably because Rath would have been the epitome of his creations, and then to have had Rath taken from him. It would have been tough. Especially if Kharl had some sort of emotional involvement with Rath's creation. (See Cloaks, by Sarehptar, Chapter 13) In that respect, Kharl probably sees Rath as something like a son. At least, that's what I'm basing this story on. (sheepish grin) Although, the line is pretty thin. And thank you. I really enjoyed reading your review! And please review again! (hopeful puppy-dog eyes)