I will begin by saying that the main character in this story, a demoness by the name of Marller, is not and never was the type to put words down on paper. Maybe that is a bad beginning, eh? Oh well; you can't say it isn't true. This demoness, Marller, preferred the more closed side of life - or the rougher lifestyle. But then, she had pretty good reasons.
She was a demon, for one, and demons were not made to spend their time hunched precariously over a piece of paper, an eraser sliding weakly over an upper or bottom lip, fingers spaced and absently tracing the little blue lines. Two, she was... Marller. Marller performed none of the above without a knife at her throat and a foot in her stomach, all because of her name and what words on paper might do to that name.
Three, and the last reason. You should note, reader, that the number three will be appearing quite often in this story, however beside the point that is - onward, three. Marller, truly, did not know how to put words down on paper. Oh, she could read efficiently enough, and write as well, but to be open - to be so careless as to place thoughts in places where others might read them! -- certainly not. She could write equations with jaw-dropping ease, she could eye a formula and have it simplified in an instant, but she could not pour her mind into a pencil and transfer it to that accursed piece of paper, whether it be lined, blank, or yellowed, for her thoughts were hers, and no one else's.
Marller did not long to write, however. She was an amazingly simple demoness: she fought as her blood commanded her to, she despised nearly every relation she possessed, and, most importantly, she enjoyed stroking the fires of annoyance in almost any heart besides her own. She kept her secrets and emotions in a small locked box at the back of her mind - she had the only key.
Yet, even though Marller's inability to put words on paper seems so far to be the main point of our story, the demoness wasn't thinking about it at the moment. No; to be precise, she was thinking of something she craved much, much more than to correct her inability - and she wasn't aware, remember, that she possessed any inability thus far.
Marller craved food.
It was the perfect time to settle down for lunch as well. Not quite noon but well past eleven, those slaving behind counters and in front of stoves prepared for their midday break, and students in schools thrummed their fingers anxiously upon the surfaces of their cold wooden desks, ready to rush through the door and into the sun. Sensei appeared slightly anxious as well, but then, that is human nature - originally a people spread over the surface of a rugged, fresh planet, the first even mildly sentient race had no more shelter than a tree or an overhang, so the primary instinct was to be where the sun could be felt on shoulders.
Marller's primary instinct was to get out of that same sun and find something to place in her mouth, chew, swallow, and then, finally, appease her tortured stomach.
She had been searching for sustenance for a few hours now, and discovered the hard way just how one obtained food at the many stations established for dining purposes without money: one ordered, then, after the manager found that there was no money to pay for the meal, one went without gathering sustenance to the kitchen and washed dishes for three hours. Her fingers were still just barely wrinkled from the experience.
The manager would be in the hospital for much longer.
And now, not caring to have a mob of screaming people after her, Marller trudged towards nothing down this hot and barren city street, shoving every now and then past someone who either wanted her attention or just brushed her shoulder to be annoying. Being rather irritable without a full stomach, Marller too often assumed the latter and, suddenly, found herself nose-to-nose with a woman who looked, to say the least, bookwormish.
Marller nudged forward, and the woman nudged back, slanting amber-rimmed eyes and pursing small, delicate lips. Marller lifted one of her own and revealed to this upstart mortal a gleaming fang - she was hungry and in no mood to play pride games. No mood at all.
"Gomen ne, but you ran into me. I'm waiting for an apology," came the tart line from the woman, and Marller bristled. Now she was hungry, short on time that was really nonexistent, and peeved. Oh, extremely peeved. And as far as she was concerned, the manager of that ill-smelling restaurant was about to have a roommate.
But her soon-to-be backhand slap was halted by the loud snarl of protest that reverberated through her stomach and paused hotly in the cavern of her upper throat. She managed a gasp and put one hand to her infuriated abdomen, her teeth clenched. She ground them and gazed at the woman; her expression was one of attempted impassivity, but the strained jaw and the deft movements easily traced the lines of the mask.
"Oh," said the woman, "is that why you're being so rude?" At Marller's noncommittal grunt (which probably meant, "Get the hell the hell away from me; I'm always like this," I figure), she smiled and continued, "Well, I too know the pains of an unsatisfied stomach. And I have an extra sandwich. Would you like it?"
Note, reader, that Marller, under any other circumstance, would have directed a real snarl towards this stranger, administered the backhand, and stalked off, completely unconcerned of the consequences her actions might spawn - and she'd have stolen the sandwich. Now she raised her eyebrows, the firmly clipped, sandy things, and cautiously lowered the lip she had pulled skyward earlier, hiding the fang once more. The woman had not seemed at all perturbed by its existence - why should she use it if there were no eschewing returns?
"Will I have to wash dishes?" she asked almost reluctantly.
From the woman there was an incredulous blink, then a peal of soft, rising laughter, as if many bells were being rung at once and one was trying to sort out which toll belonged with what clapper and side. She responded, "No. We'll use napkins. You will have to be quiet, though." And the woman turned, a hand outstretched - she cut a wide arc through the air with it, over and just under a tall impressive building, on the steps of which they were standing. She spread her fingers, planting the index and middle upon her upper lip. "This is a library, after all."
Well, Marller thought, it doesn't look much like a library. She squinted, eyeing the four ridged columns that rose to support the domed roof, and the ornate wings that stretched behind the building on either side. The pillars were red; the wings, a polished white. What it looked like, she concluded, was an attempted nightclub. She turned her penetrating, accusing gaze on the woman, and smiled when she took a hesitant step back - oh, it was delicious, her sudden hesitance; her sudden fear.
The demoness leaned forward to better inspect this woman: she was almost equal in height to Marller herself, and balanced neatly on the thin line between mildly attractive and pretty. While Marller continued her pursuit, she leaned increasingly backwards - a stumble, and the demoness caught her thin wrist between two strong fingers. She glared into the amber-rimmed eyes tolerantly; morose almost, they were. Odd tone of the spectrum for a mortal to possess - but nevertheless...
"I don't do quiet," Marller said simply. She pulled the woman up and sent her under her right arm with a weak push, then let the appendage drop with a barely audible sigh. The offer had been extremely tempting - and very sudden. She scowled, her eyes on the end of the street. People just didn't up and send an invitation to lunch fresh on the sidewalk.
Yet, one step later, Marller became aware of a sharp tug at her middle, then gasped - during a second step - when the sharp tug became an all-out pull. She glanced down, snarling, then whirled; that fool human was pulling her belt! The thin metal strand was caught between her fingers - and Marller, furious, bent to deal with those figures in the most painful way.
She met a sandwich.
Instinctively she clamped her fangs over it and chewed, reveling in the taste; it wasn't wonderful, but it was food if anything, and Marller had wanted food. She raised a hand and pulled the remaining portion from her mouth - her eyes were on the woman again, slanted, inquiring.
And there was no return from the woman save a muted smile. She asked softly, "You were going to hit me, weren't you?"
Marller swallowed. "Nah. I was going to bite you."
"But you got the sandwich instead."
"Mmm," Marller growled around another piece of her meal.
"And will you try to bite me after you finish it?"
"Try?" came the snort.
The woman was silent. She looked for a long moment at Marller - not into her eyes, mind, that was too dramatic, and not particularly at her face, either. At Marller. Then she spun on her heel, strode quickly - if purposefully - up the steps of the library, yanked open one of the double doors, and hurried inside. The clack of sharp-edged shoes on linoleum rang in Marller's ears and nudged anxiously at the space behind her eyes; it was another tug, if not a smaller, less aggressive one than that which had been administered a few moments before, and she regarded it through half-lidded mental eyes.
Oh, that woman was not going to get away with having the last (unspoken) word. Marller would take her tongue and shove it somewhere so very polite - when angered, the demoness was Hell with a cape and two feet. When challenged, she was... well... she was very, very good at winning challenges. Let's just leave it at that.
She threw back her head and laughed softly, maniacally - this was followed by something that might've been a war cry in the barbed, guttural language called Norse, and then Marller smiled. It was a rather fangy smile, this one, complete with the deadly wrinkles about the eyes and the mischievous feline curve to the lips. A black cape swished, boots thudded once, twice, three times upon stone steps, many metal ringlets jingled crisply, and Marller had crossed the threshold of the double doors - crossed into the library and disappeared.
A delivery man who had watched the entire event fold out collapsed into convulsions and was later picked up by the mysterious Men in White.
She was a demon, for one, and demons were not made to spend their time hunched precariously over a piece of paper, an eraser sliding weakly over an upper or bottom lip, fingers spaced and absently tracing the little blue lines. Two, she was... Marller. Marller performed none of the above without a knife at her throat and a foot in her stomach, all because of her name and what words on paper might do to that name.
Three, and the last reason. You should note, reader, that the number three will be appearing quite often in this story, however beside the point that is - onward, three. Marller, truly, did not know how to put words down on paper. Oh, she could read efficiently enough, and write as well, but to be open - to be so careless as to place thoughts in places where others might read them! -- certainly not. She could write equations with jaw-dropping ease, she could eye a formula and have it simplified in an instant, but she could not pour her mind into a pencil and transfer it to that accursed piece of paper, whether it be lined, blank, or yellowed, for her thoughts were hers, and no one else's.
Marller did not long to write, however. She was an amazingly simple demoness: she fought as her blood commanded her to, she despised nearly every relation she possessed, and, most importantly, she enjoyed stroking the fires of annoyance in almost any heart besides her own. She kept her secrets and emotions in a small locked box at the back of her mind - she had the only key.
Yet, even though Marller's inability to put words on paper seems so far to be the main point of our story, the demoness wasn't thinking about it at the moment. No; to be precise, she was thinking of something she craved much, much more than to correct her inability - and she wasn't aware, remember, that she possessed any inability thus far.
Marller craved food.
It was the perfect time to settle down for lunch as well. Not quite noon but well past eleven, those slaving behind counters and in front of stoves prepared for their midday break, and students in schools thrummed their fingers anxiously upon the surfaces of their cold wooden desks, ready to rush through the door and into the sun. Sensei appeared slightly anxious as well, but then, that is human nature - originally a people spread over the surface of a rugged, fresh planet, the first even mildly sentient race had no more shelter than a tree or an overhang, so the primary instinct was to be where the sun could be felt on shoulders.
Marller's primary instinct was to get out of that same sun and find something to place in her mouth, chew, swallow, and then, finally, appease her tortured stomach.
She had been searching for sustenance for a few hours now, and discovered the hard way just how one obtained food at the many stations established for dining purposes without money: one ordered, then, after the manager found that there was no money to pay for the meal, one went without gathering sustenance to the kitchen and washed dishes for three hours. Her fingers were still just barely wrinkled from the experience.
The manager would be in the hospital for much longer.
And now, not caring to have a mob of screaming people after her, Marller trudged towards nothing down this hot and barren city street, shoving every now and then past someone who either wanted her attention or just brushed her shoulder to be annoying. Being rather irritable without a full stomach, Marller too often assumed the latter and, suddenly, found herself nose-to-nose with a woman who looked, to say the least, bookwormish.
Marller nudged forward, and the woman nudged back, slanting amber-rimmed eyes and pursing small, delicate lips. Marller lifted one of her own and revealed to this upstart mortal a gleaming fang - she was hungry and in no mood to play pride games. No mood at all.
"Gomen ne, but you ran into me. I'm waiting for an apology," came the tart line from the woman, and Marller bristled. Now she was hungry, short on time that was really nonexistent, and peeved. Oh, extremely peeved. And as far as she was concerned, the manager of that ill-smelling restaurant was about to have a roommate.
But her soon-to-be backhand slap was halted by the loud snarl of protest that reverberated through her stomach and paused hotly in the cavern of her upper throat. She managed a gasp and put one hand to her infuriated abdomen, her teeth clenched. She ground them and gazed at the woman; her expression was one of attempted impassivity, but the strained jaw and the deft movements easily traced the lines of the mask.
"Oh," said the woman, "is that why you're being so rude?" At Marller's noncommittal grunt (which probably meant, "Get the hell the hell away from me; I'm always like this," I figure), she smiled and continued, "Well, I too know the pains of an unsatisfied stomach. And I have an extra sandwich. Would you like it?"
Note, reader, that Marller, under any other circumstance, would have directed a real snarl towards this stranger, administered the backhand, and stalked off, completely unconcerned of the consequences her actions might spawn - and she'd have stolen the sandwich. Now she raised her eyebrows, the firmly clipped, sandy things, and cautiously lowered the lip she had pulled skyward earlier, hiding the fang once more. The woman had not seemed at all perturbed by its existence - why should she use it if there were no eschewing returns?
"Will I have to wash dishes?" she asked almost reluctantly.
From the woman there was an incredulous blink, then a peal of soft, rising laughter, as if many bells were being rung at once and one was trying to sort out which toll belonged with what clapper and side. She responded, "No. We'll use napkins. You will have to be quiet, though." And the woman turned, a hand outstretched - she cut a wide arc through the air with it, over and just under a tall impressive building, on the steps of which they were standing. She spread her fingers, planting the index and middle upon her upper lip. "This is a library, after all."
Well, Marller thought, it doesn't look much like a library. She squinted, eyeing the four ridged columns that rose to support the domed roof, and the ornate wings that stretched behind the building on either side. The pillars were red; the wings, a polished white. What it looked like, she concluded, was an attempted nightclub. She turned her penetrating, accusing gaze on the woman, and smiled when she took a hesitant step back - oh, it was delicious, her sudden hesitance; her sudden fear.
The demoness leaned forward to better inspect this woman: she was almost equal in height to Marller herself, and balanced neatly on the thin line between mildly attractive and pretty. While Marller continued her pursuit, she leaned increasingly backwards - a stumble, and the demoness caught her thin wrist between two strong fingers. She glared into the amber-rimmed eyes tolerantly; morose almost, they were. Odd tone of the spectrum for a mortal to possess - but nevertheless...
"I don't do quiet," Marller said simply. She pulled the woman up and sent her under her right arm with a weak push, then let the appendage drop with a barely audible sigh. The offer had been extremely tempting - and very sudden. She scowled, her eyes on the end of the street. People just didn't up and send an invitation to lunch fresh on the sidewalk.
Yet, one step later, Marller became aware of a sharp tug at her middle, then gasped - during a second step - when the sharp tug became an all-out pull. She glanced down, snarling, then whirled; that fool human was pulling her belt! The thin metal strand was caught between her fingers - and Marller, furious, bent to deal with those figures in the most painful way.
She met a sandwich.
Instinctively she clamped her fangs over it and chewed, reveling in the taste; it wasn't wonderful, but it was food if anything, and Marller had wanted food. She raised a hand and pulled the remaining portion from her mouth - her eyes were on the woman again, slanted, inquiring.
And there was no return from the woman save a muted smile. She asked softly, "You were going to hit me, weren't you?"
Marller swallowed. "Nah. I was going to bite you."
"But you got the sandwich instead."
"Mmm," Marller growled around another piece of her meal.
"And will you try to bite me after you finish it?"
"Try?" came the snort.
The woman was silent. She looked for a long moment at Marller - not into her eyes, mind, that was too dramatic, and not particularly at her face, either. At Marller. Then she spun on her heel, strode quickly - if purposefully - up the steps of the library, yanked open one of the double doors, and hurried inside. The clack of sharp-edged shoes on linoleum rang in Marller's ears and nudged anxiously at the space behind her eyes; it was another tug, if not a smaller, less aggressive one than that which had been administered a few moments before, and she regarded it through half-lidded mental eyes.
Oh, that woman was not going to get away with having the last (unspoken) word. Marller would take her tongue and shove it somewhere so very polite - when angered, the demoness was Hell with a cape and two feet. When challenged, she was... well... she was very, very good at winning challenges. Let's just leave it at that.
She threw back her head and laughed softly, maniacally - this was followed by something that might've been a war cry in the barbed, guttural language called Norse, and then Marller smiled. It was a rather fangy smile, this one, complete with the deadly wrinkles about the eyes and the mischievous feline curve to the lips. A black cape swished, boots thudded once, twice, three times upon stone steps, many metal ringlets jingled crisply, and Marller had crossed the threshold of the double doors - crossed into the library and disappeared.
A delivery man who had watched the entire event fold out collapsed into convulsions and was later picked up by the mysterious Men in White.
