Frost: As promised I have continued to work on more chapters for this story. I am currently reading through Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series so I am gaining a better understanding of how the world of Daemon's works and its re-igniting my love for this particular story. I'm almost finished with the first book, The Northern Lights and will soon be on to The Subtle Knife which is to help me write the next big parts to this story.
I'm also excited to announce that soon you as readers will have the great opportunity to help in writing the story but I'll get to more on that in the next chapter or 2. I'm certain it will be a fun for everyone and if any of you think you know how you'll be helping write the story feel free to ask or speculate.
Until then enjoy this little chapter and see you all next time.
They first met Vanilla when they are nine. They've left their Uncle and the College and the sleeping town they once called home behind in favor of a world they struggle to understand. When people see them wandering along the road on their own they initially stop to offer help, but when Cay opens his mouth to speak or takes a particularly bold form they shy away, leaving them to fend for themselves once more.
"My fault, I shouldn't be so presumptuous." The daemon had sighed, form a predictably boring black cat.
"They shouldn't be so conformative." Sonic snippet right back, quills bristling with anger. "They see you as a wolf or hear you speak to the Mobian half and see a difference, not a starving child who shouldn't be on his own."
Cat becomes snake, winding its way up a thin blue leg to curl across thin shoulders where the collarbone juts out alarmingly. "I think they are too set in their ways. Reality has taken hold of them so they cannot see past what is known to them."
"Doesn't make it right." Sonic kicked at the ground, decisively ignoring the growing pain in his mid-section.
"Should we turn back then?" Sonic can feel the way Cay trembles, body wanting to change but holding fast, coiled up tight like a spring. He doesn't want to go back, that much Sonic knows in not only his other half's body language but in himself as well.
"I'd rather starve. If we are fated to leave this world as young hollow imprints then so be it. I'd rather be that than the nothingness he was forcing us to be." Sonic huffed, face cold and unfeeling as Cay hums agreement and comfort through the bond, a bond that is close and not as stretched as it will eventually become.
"Should I take passive forms the next time someone stops us then?" Cay hates the very idea of normality but if it means a proper meal then he's willing to bend.
"No, I don't want you to change for anyone, least of all some stranger," Sonic growled at the snake around his neck. Cay hissed, yellow stripes appearing on his black scales that shimmered in the bright sunlight.
They walk on what seems like an endless road, stopping only briefly by a small stream to drink and wash. Days worth of sweat and dirt cling to a once royal blue pelt in a way that has both parties sighing in delight as the water washes it all away. They remain hopeful that along the way they will stumble across a fruit tree or a farm where they can raid the crops but luck is not on their side. Cay mourns that he is unable to travel through the air to find food, the bond to close and to new to allow them much of a distance. It is nearing sunset, Sonic's strength wearing thin and Cay stumbling along at his side as a mangy looking jackal when Vanilla comes upon them.
The kind-hearted rabbit had bought the house in the country after her husband passed away leaving her and Admetus alone awaiting the birth of their first and only child. She is nearly due, stomach swollen with life as she checks her mailbox, sifting through letters from her family that never truly cared all that much when she catches a flash of blue. Glancing up the woman gasps in surprise at seeing a young child wandering the countryside on his own and looking half starved.
"How peculiar." Admetus mused as he bounded forward to meet them, Vanilla right by his side.
The child is a boy, a young hedgehog of an alarming shade of blue, the likes of which she has never seen before. His eyes, while dull from hunger and exhaustion are a striking emerald green and his daemon walks by his side as a jackal, her coat matted and ragged.
"Child, what are you doing out here? Where are your parents?" Vanilla cries, startling the boy who blinks up at her owlishly.
"They could be around or in the next life for all I know. I've never been privy to their whereabouts." He looks young, far too young to be speaking the way he does. Admetus thumps his great tail, ears pulling back in thought. "As to why I am out here, I would think you'd recognize a runaway when you see one."
"And what does a young one like you have to run from?" She asked in return. The boy's daemon cocks her head, sitting patiently by his side.
"Conformity, normality and pain." He answers sending a shiver of dread through her very being.
"Who in their right mind would dare hurt a child." Vanilla growls, completely ignoring the strangeness of the first two things he'd answered to which the boy blinks in surprise while his daemon gives a faint smile.
"I doubt our Uncle has ever been in his right mind." When the daemon speaks it's a male voice to flows from its mouth and he is staring right at Vanilla as he does so, not at Admetus. The large red kangaroo jerks every so slightly while Vanilla herself jumps in fright before a look of fury takes over her face.
" I have a right mind to track him down then and give him a good thrashing." She threatens to which the boy and his male daemon laugh.
"I like you." He declares while his daemon changes, becoming a spider monkey that climbs up to sit on his shoulders. "You focus on what's important instead of the differences."
Vanilla isn't sure what to make of that but smiles, all the same, Admetus grunting softly beside her. He looks at the other daemon, watches as he shies away from possibly contact so stays his ground, respecting the space which just has the small boy smiling even wider. Vanilla offers her house to them along with a warm and healthy supper to which the boy is more than happy to accept. She makes up a bed for him on the couch, heats the kettle to make hot chocolate and gets the fire going, watching the boy from a distance as he and his strange daemon interact and recover. She watches as the daemon takes bolder forms, a lion, a bear, eagle, elk, leopard, fox and finally a snow white wolf with burning golden eyes.
The wolf stares at Admetus who stares right back unflinching. They didn't care if wolves are meant to signal mental instability. To them they see a child in need so they are not going to turn him away due to superstition. When seeing no negative reaction to his form the wolf curls up by the fire, eyes closing to does in the comforting heat.
"My name is Sonic by the way, and he's Caedmon but I just call him Cay." The boy says when Vanilla brings in the mugs of hot chocolate.
"Vanilla and this is my Admetus." She gestures to her daemon who bows his head in greeting.
"Thank you for helping us, most people see Cay and the things he can do and leave." Sonic is a quiet and polite boy, Vanilla hopes her unborn child will be just as polite.
"Most people sound unjustly cruel." She mutters into her drink which brings a smirk to the boys face, his eyes dancing with some hidden knowledge.
They stay for two weeks, regaining their strength but insisting they must move on. When questioned about it Cay just says that the wind is calling and that its time to leave. Vanilla makes sure to give them lots of food for their journey as well as extracting a promise from Sonic that he will come and visit. He smiles when she asks for this, his eyes dancing in a way she has come to cherish.
"I like you Vanilla and your Admetus. You're like the Master and his Raniel, you understand us and accept us. I couldn't bare to never see you again." He says, holding out a hand for a pinkie promise, the most childish thing he's ever done in her presence. She indulges it though, wondering if her own child will want to seal promises in such a way.
"We also look forward to meeting your daughter, so we'll be back sooner than you think." Cay smiles crookedly from his perch on the boy's shoulders, his ermine face looking stunningly handsome.
Its only two hours after they have left, when they can no longer be seen as little dots on the horizon that Vanilla and Admetus realize that no one knows the gender of the baby growing inside her.
Sonic kept his promise, he visited Vanilla often and watched as Cream slowly began to grow. Eventually, he meets more people that while unnerved by Cay and his ways were still somewhat accepting. He takes them with him to Vanilla's and he watches as she gains a family that finally cares. They watch from a distance as she cooks them breakfast with Ella, making sure everyone has enough to eat and that none go without. Sonic wonders if how she acts to him and the others if how a mother acts to her children.
"It hardly matters, she served her purpose and we gave her the family she desired in return," Cay growled from his lap as a serval. "We don't need a mother anymore."
They don't, Sonic concedes, but it would be nice to have one he thinks. When memories are strained to their very limit the young hero can recall soft hands and a softer voice that would lull them to sleep, a voice that left them feeling safe, warm and loved. The memories are faint, almost gone and Sonic mourns them. Cay doesn't care for them, happy to see them fade away into nothingness. Its moments like these, where they differ in opinions that Sonic wonders if Cay is truly his and not his own person entirely. If they are two parts of one whole, shouldn't they want the same things, long for the same desires?
"At times I think you'd be better off as the Mobian half," Sonic admits, hand scratching at the soft ears. Cay glances up at him, lamp yellow eyes questioning. "Sometimes I think we got mixed up, got put together the wrong way and that I was meant to be the daemon."
Their friends have left the room leaving them alone to their thoughts. Cay arches, slinking from his boy's lap to land gracefully on the floor. "Who's to say I'm not the Mobian half? What defines a Mobian and a daemon really?"
"I'm being serious Cay." Sonic wills the other to understand, to try and see why this is bothering him so much. Because they aren't right, they fit together so well yet don't at the same time. They think too independently from each other to be a perfect fit. Cay pauses, his smile fading as the reality of the situation dawns on him.
"You know, its impossible to draw a perfect circle." The daemon begins, Sonic frowning in confusion as to why they are talking about circles and not his current worries. "You can make it look as perfect as you can but it will always be slightly off. However, as long as the lines meet it is still a circle. It doesn't matter if one side doesn't perfectly mirror the other."
Emerald eyes wide in understanding, the fear settling as the bond thrums between them. A bond that is stretched, twisted and different, but still a bond. And when Cay changes, changes into something he's never been and shouldn't even be able to, Sonic feels no fear, only contentment because it is just so Cay and just so himself all in one.
The white Mobian hedgehog sitting across from him has the same peach stomach, arms, and muzzle as himself. He has the same quill style bar the two smaller ones on either side of his head that jut up like Shadows. His eyes are the trademark pink of albinoism and his hands and feet are bare. Cay sits in the skin of a Mobian, in the skin that would have been his had he been born the true Mobian half and smiles, gently taking hold of Sonic's hand and squeezing. Sonic squeezes back, eyes dancing in a familiar way.
"I think we are the closest to a perfect circle as you could get," Cay smirked, his teeth far sharper than normal Mobian hedgehogs would be.
"Perfection sounds dreadfully dull." Sonic mused to which the daemon laughed.
"Never said we were perfect dear one, only close to."
"I like that then, being close too." Sonic smiled, watching as Cay melted back into a serval, the hand that had been holding the daemon's now resting softly on the spotted head.
Frost: A few months back I had a review from a reader called KittyKex who asked if Cay was able to transform into a Mobain or not. I knew right from the beginning of this story that yes, he would be able to but held off in revealing this because I felt it needed to be special. It's always so much fun to read reviews and see people starting to unravel or correctly guess hidden secrets and clues so keep it up everyone!
