Assassin's Silver:
Chapter One
By YamiHikari
Disclaimer- Standard disclaimer, don't own Demon Diary, yadda yadda, but Aysel is my original character. And I don't give a hoot about Lord Menefer and Sef. They're not really that important.
Author's Note- PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEEAASE read the ending Author's Note. It has some interesting family history, or at least a legend, and I would love it if you would read it. But you don't have to. Sorry for the long delay, I REALLY wanted to get something out before the end of January, but I hit writer's block while rewriting this chapter, as I did have an idea, but I discarded, as it was... difficult, to say the least, to pull off. I also rewrote the prologue to make things clearer, but it's not up yet, well... it's not up at the very moment I'm typing this, so you know what I mean. ^__^;; So, the moment you've all been waiting for (or not)... I present to you the FIRST CHAPTER THAT TOOK OVER A MONTH TO WRITE! I'm such a procrastinator...
- - - - - - - - - -
Aysel sat on the wall, legs dangling over the edge, outwardly calm, inwardly seething. How dare he?! At least the reward would be doubled, if not more. Good spies were almost as valuable as her. She had gotten into the Demon Lord's castle easily enough. Apparently, the 5th Raenef was in the habit of bringing people home, so it hadn't been particularly difficult. How pathetically easy this was going to be.
Raenef approached her cautiously from behind. She had seemed almost cold when he had first met her, and still hadn't dropped the mask that he felt sure hid her true feelings. After all, no one can be anti-social forever, right? 'Right,' he mentally assured himself.
Hearing the sound of his footsteps, she turned quickly, seemingly more so than humanly possible. The young Demon Lord stopped in mid-step. Her eyes seemed to look right through him rather than at him, and, he wasn't sure if he imagined it or not, but there seemed to be a slight breeze brushing against his face, but then it was gone.
She relaxed. The wariness was replaced by another rather bland mask, which was only different from the usual on that she wore because of the faint question that was portrayed in the slight lift of the eyebrows. "Lord Raenef?"
He made a face. Three days here, and she still called him that. Still, he thought he saw a faint hint of a smile. Maybe she'd stop acting like a servant, always going around silently, never talking to anyone unless they either talked to her or if they were about to talk to her. She had the uncanny knack of knowing if someone was behind her and when he or she was going to speak.
"Nothing. It's just..."
"Hm?"
"You look lonely. Do you want to come outside with me'n Eru[1] and Chris?"
Honest surprise showed on her pale, slender face and silver eyes. "Outside," she mused, expression now thoughtful. "I suppose."
Abruptly, Aysel extended her hand. After staring at it for a couple seconds, he managed a mystified, "Huh?"
"You just visualize the place where you want to go and say 'Go', right? It's more practical if only one person uses their mezraez."
Raenef balked. "I could-"
"And I need to practice," she added. When he still hesitated, the elf sighed impatiently. "Well?"
Stepping forward, he gingerly took her hand. There was a blinding flash of light, then the air rushed in to fill the space that they had previously occupied.
"GET OFF! YOU WEIGH, LIKE, A TON!!"
"My arm is not supposed to BEND THAT WAY!! GERROFFAME!"
"It's not my fault! OW! Stop hitting me!"
A yelling tangle of limbs, heads, and waving fists separated itself into the dusty forms of Raenef, Erutis, and Chris. Aysel kept a straight face and stayed at her vantage point on a branch of a nearby tree. She sketched a rune in the air in front of her and whispered "Hide me."
"Babo[1]! How could you screw up something as simple as picturing the place and saying 'Go'?!"
"I didn't do it this time! Really!" Raenef protested. "Right?" He turned to look for Aysel. "Uh..."
There was no one else on the ground, and when he quickly scanned the trees –just in case- he saw nothing but leaves, branches, and the waving areas of light and shadow made by them, the light, and the wind. Playful zephyrs tugged at their hair and clothes, then sped flippantly past the companions' faces.
The young demon lord absentmindedly brushed pale blond bangs back from vivid green eyes[2]. "It's windy out today," he commented. Then he jerked his mind back to the dilemma that presented itself to him in the form of the two humans.
Fortunately for him, they had been suitably distracted by his idle observation. "It wasn't windy at all until you got here..." Erutis said slowly, a puzzled look on her face.
The elf in the tree winced slightly. So he had noticed... maybe she hadn't given him enough credit in her first assessment, but he still didn't worry her quite as much as his tutor did.
She bit her lip, frowning faintly. How she hated these espionage missions. Nowhere near as intense as the quick and perilous... "elimination" of potential enemies. Spying was just a slow and boring waltz that circled around the top of the hourglass[3], never going anywhere but occasionally the orchestra made a slight alteration in the music, and you had to shift your dance along with it. The hunt's only music was the pounding of your heart in your ears and the rush of blood through your veins, and its only instruments? Whatever you had or needed.
It would have been so easy... so easy to dispose of both the demon residents of the castle. She consoled herself with the thought that if she waited long enough, there would be two less demons in the world. Listening to the bits and snatches of conversation the wind brought her, Aysel heard that their talk had turned to trivial things, unimportant to her mission. She left.
Softly stepping across the sunlight stone tiles, Aysel soaked in mezraez[4] as she walked in the light. She stopped suddenly, tilted her head to one side, and then turned.
"Master Eclipse, to what do I owe this great honor?" she inquired with a tone that might have been considered mocking on a lesser being and a carefully expressionless face.
"Curiosity," he replied shortly, leaning against the marble railing, but in the shadow of a tree. He was placed effectively in the shadow by this movement. "If I may ask some questions?"
"Very well then. One down, four more to go. You get five total."
"What are you?"
"An elf." The unspoken 'duh' was clearly present in her voice.
"You know that's not what I meant.
"Three more, Master Eclipse."
He gazed coldly at her. Unperturbed, she returned it. "I said, three more, Master Eclipse. Lucky three. Make them count."
"Why are you here?"
"Because I was born. Two more strikes, and you're out."
More than a little frustrated, he demanded, "You know what I'm talking about, don't you?"
"Maybe. It's down to one."
After thinking for a few seconds, Eclipse said, very clearly and deliberately, "What is the real reason that you are here at my lord's castle?"
Her silver gaze slid sideways, then down to the floor. Aysel shut her eyes, then opened them and looked back at him. "You don't know if I'm going to tell the truth or not when I answer your question," she stated, not asked.
"Just answer it."
A brief sardonic smile lit her face for an instant. The sun passed behind a cloud, driven by a wayward breeze, throwing them both into shadow. "I'll tell you the truth, even if you don't believe me. I'm here because I. Want. This. War. To. End. Ever since the gods drew up the contract between your kind and the clerics, you've been attacking my people. No, even before then, you were waging war on two different species. Bloodthirsty, you are.
"But for whatever reason, I want it to end. I want it to stop. I want to never again have to see families that I've known cut down mercilessly as they try to run to safety, hear the trees' screams as the blood soaks into their roots, and then more screams as they too are butchered. Crystal water turns dark red and deadly with blood, and your kind doesn't care. Children are scarred, both outwardly and inwardly, and they see what they should not have to, and they suffer what would seem unbearable even to ones far older then they. Some of them become killers, heartless machines with no feelings about what they're doing or what they have done."
One single drop of water ran down her paler than normal face. A minute passed as she regained her composure.
"You wanted to know why I was here," she said quietly, but it still carried as much force as it would have had she been shouting. "Now you know. You have no questions left. If you'll excuse me."
Eclipse watched as she turned her back on him and resumed her walk down the hall. He had known this, all that she had told him. But it had never come like this, as a being his own age that hated what he was and what he represented. At least, that's what he thought she was and thought. His own thoughts eventually led him to the lone tear that had fallen.
'They're emotional, attached to everything around them. Maybe too much so. Demons... we don't cry. Most of us,' he amended as Raenef's face came into his mind. 'But does that make them weaker, or stronger?'
Aysel had told him the truth. She did want to end the war, but she hadn't told him the means she was willing to employ to do so. The only sure way to completely end a war, for once and for all, was to destroy the opposing side so they couldn't rise up again and begin another battle. Completely wipe out, no exceptions.
A slight pang of guilt seared through her mind as she thought of the innocence and generosity of the usually clueless Raenef.
'If and when I have to kill him, I will,' she told herself. 'I will.'
- - - - - - - - - -
[1]- Eru is a nickname that appears in Demon Diary, and I'll use it to cut down on all the "Erutis" this and "Erutis" that. Even if it did only appear once, I'm still using it, so there. Hahaha. o.O;; Don't mind me...
[2]- I had a lot of trouble deciding what Raenef's description would be, since the picture on the front of the original volume one have blue hair and eyes, whereas another picture had green eyes and blond hair. Yet another had RED eyes and blond hair, but I came to the (quite possibly incorrect) conclusion that it was just evil Raenef, so I decided to use the blond hair, green eyes combo.
[3]- I rather like the way this was phrased. The hourglass is a symbol for time, so she is saying that espionage is a time-consuming affair. It's slow, and it's boring. However, there are some shifts that can make it dangerous, and that's the music. The music is like a... metaphor? Analogy? Something or another, for the environment spies must work in. Sometimes it will change, and thus put the lives of the moles in danger. And I think the hunt is easy enough to understand. If you've already figured all this out prior to reading the footnote, I'm sorry, but I wasn't sure if everyone would get this, and I didn't want misunderstandings to interfere with the enjoyment (or not) of reading the fic.
Author's Note- This reminds me of a story my dad used to tell me about one of my ancestors. I'll put a little bit here, but if I told the whole thing, it may give the story away. So as it unfolds, I'll tell the rest of the story.
Supposedly, my ancestor was a famous general in South Korea. His enemies wished to dispose of him, as he probably was a pretty good general, and sent an assassin to kill him. She could do nearly everything; cook, dance, sing, and whatnot. She was accepted into his home as a household servant, but....
And that's all I can write without giving anything away. However, I have no doubts whatsoever that quite a lot of you are clever enough to figure everything out. Still, this fic isn't consciously derived from the story, and there are differences. How many, I'm not saying. Anyyywaaaays, that's it. Ja ne!
Chapter One
By YamiHikari
Disclaimer- Standard disclaimer, don't own Demon Diary, yadda yadda, but Aysel is my original character. And I don't give a hoot about Lord Menefer and Sef. They're not really that important.
Author's Note- PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEEAASE read the ending Author's Note. It has some interesting family history, or at least a legend, and I would love it if you would read it. But you don't have to. Sorry for the long delay, I REALLY wanted to get something out before the end of January, but I hit writer's block while rewriting this chapter, as I did have an idea, but I discarded, as it was... difficult, to say the least, to pull off. I also rewrote the prologue to make things clearer, but it's not up yet, well... it's not up at the very moment I'm typing this, so you know what I mean. ^__^;; So, the moment you've all been waiting for (or not)... I present to you the FIRST CHAPTER THAT TOOK OVER A MONTH TO WRITE! I'm such a procrastinator...
- - - - - - - - - -
Aysel sat on the wall, legs dangling over the edge, outwardly calm, inwardly seething. How dare he?! At least the reward would be doubled, if not more. Good spies were almost as valuable as her. She had gotten into the Demon Lord's castle easily enough. Apparently, the 5th Raenef was in the habit of bringing people home, so it hadn't been particularly difficult. How pathetically easy this was going to be.
Raenef approached her cautiously from behind. She had seemed almost cold when he had first met her, and still hadn't dropped the mask that he felt sure hid her true feelings. After all, no one can be anti-social forever, right? 'Right,' he mentally assured himself.
Hearing the sound of his footsteps, she turned quickly, seemingly more so than humanly possible. The young Demon Lord stopped in mid-step. Her eyes seemed to look right through him rather than at him, and, he wasn't sure if he imagined it or not, but there seemed to be a slight breeze brushing against his face, but then it was gone.
She relaxed. The wariness was replaced by another rather bland mask, which was only different from the usual on that she wore because of the faint question that was portrayed in the slight lift of the eyebrows. "Lord Raenef?"
He made a face. Three days here, and she still called him that. Still, he thought he saw a faint hint of a smile. Maybe she'd stop acting like a servant, always going around silently, never talking to anyone unless they either talked to her or if they were about to talk to her. She had the uncanny knack of knowing if someone was behind her and when he or she was going to speak.
"Nothing. It's just..."
"Hm?"
"You look lonely. Do you want to come outside with me'n Eru[1] and Chris?"
Honest surprise showed on her pale, slender face and silver eyes. "Outside," she mused, expression now thoughtful. "I suppose."
Abruptly, Aysel extended her hand. After staring at it for a couple seconds, he managed a mystified, "Huh?"
"You just visualize the place where you want to go and say 'Go', right? It's more practical if only one person uses their mezraez."
Raenef balked. "I could-"
"And I need to practice," she added. When he still hesitated, the elf sighed impatiently. "Well?"
Stepping forward, he gingerly took her hand. There was a blinding flash of light, then the air rushed in to fill the space that they had previously occupied.
"GET OFF! YOU WEIGH, LIKE, A TON!!"
"My arm is not supposed to BEND THAT WAY!! GERROFFAME!"
"It's not my fault! OW! Stop hitting me!"
A yelling tangle of limbs, heads, and waving fists separated itself into the dusty forms of Raenef, Erutis, and Chris. Aysel kept a straight face and stayed at her vantage point on a branch of a nearby tree. She sketched a rune in the air in front of her and whispered "Hide me."
"Babo[1]! How could you screw up something as simple as picturing the place and saying 'Go'?!"
"I didn't do it this time! Really!" Raenef protested. "Right?" He turned to look for Aysel. "Uh..."
There was no one else on the ground, and when he quickly scanned the trees –just in case- he saw nothing but leaves, branches, and the waving areas of light and shadow made by them, the light, and the wind. Playful zephyrs tugged at their hair and clothes, then sped flippantly past the companions' faces.
The young demon lord absentmindedly brushed pale blond bangs back from vivid green eyes[2]. "It's windy out today," he commented. Then he jerked his mind back to the dilemma that presented itself to him in the form of the two humans.
Fortunately for him, they had been suitably distracted by his idle observation. "It wasn't windy at all until you got here..." Erutis said slowly, a puzzled look on her face.
The elf in the tree winced slightly. So he had noticed... maybe she hadn't given him enough credit in her first assessment, but he still didn't worry her quite as much as his tutor did.
She bit her lip, frowning faintly. How she hated these espionage missions. Nowhere near as intense as the quick and perilous... "elimination" of potential enemies. Spying was just a slow and boring waltz that circled around the top of the hourglass[3], never going anywhere but occasionally the orchestra made a slight alteration in the music, and you had to shift your dance along with it. The hunt's only music was the pounding of your heart in your ears and the rush of blood through your veins, and its only instruments? Whatever you had or needed.
It would have been so easy... so easy to dispose of both the demon residents of the castle. She consoled herself with the thought that if she waited long enough, there would be two less demons in the world. Listening to the bits and snatches of conversation the wind brought her, Aysel heard that their talk had turned to trivial things, unimportant to her mission. She left.
Softly stepping across the sunlight stone tiles, Aysel soaked in mezraez[4] as she walked in the light. She stopped suddenly, tilted her head to one side, and then turned.
"Master Eclipse, to what do I owe this great honor?" she inquired with a tone that might have been considered mocking on a lesser being and a carefully expressionless face.
"Curiosity," he replied shortly, leaning against the marble railing, but in the shadow of a tree. He was placed effectively in the shadow by this movement. "If I may ask some questions?"
"Very well then. One down, four more to go. You get five total."
"What are you?"
"An elf." The unspoken 'duh' was clearly present in her voice.
"You know that's not what I meant.
"Three more, Master Eclipse."
He gazed coldly at her. Unperturbed, she returned it. "I said, three more, Master Eclipse. Lucky three. Make them count."
"Why are you here?"
"Because I was born. Two more strikes, and you're out."
More than a little frustrated, he demanded, "You know what I'm talking about, don't you?"
"Maybe. It's down to one."
After thinking for a few seconds, Eclipse said, very clearly and deliberately, "What is the real reason that you are here at my lord's castle?"
Her silver gaze slid sideways, then down to the floor. Aysel shut her eyes, then opened them and looked back at him. "You don't know if I'm going to tell the truth or not when I answer your question," she stated, not asked.
"Just answer it."
A brief sardonic smile lit her face for an instant. The sun passed behind a cloud, driven by a wayward breeze, throwing them both into shadow. "I'll tell you the truth, even if you don't believe me. I'm here because I. Want. This. War. To. End. Ever since the gods drew up the contract between your kind and the clerics, you've been attacking my people. No, even before then, you were waging war on two different species. Bloodthirsty, you are.
"But for whatever reason, I want it to end. I want it to stop. I want to never again have to see families that I've known cut down mercilessly as they try to run to safety, hear the trees' screams as the blood soaks into their roots, and then more screams as they too are butchered. Crystal water turns dark red and deadly with blood, and your kind doesn't care. Children are scarred, both outwardly and inwardly, and they see what they should not have to, and they suffer what would seem unbearable even to ones far older then they. Some of them become killers, heartless machines with no feelings about what they're doing or what they have done."
One single drop of water ran down her paler than normal face. A minute passed as she regained her composure.
"You wanted to know why I was here," she said quietly, but it still carried as much force as it would have had she been shouting. "Now you know. You have no questions left. If you'll excuse me."
Eclipse watched as she turned her back on him and resumed her walk down the hall. He had known this, all that she had told him. But it had never come like this, as a being his own age that hated what he was and what he represented. At least, that's what he thought she was and thought. His own thoughts eventually led him to the lone tear that had fallen.
'They're emotional, attached to everything around them. Maybe too much so. Demons... we don't cry. Most of us,' he amended as Raenef's face came into his mind. 'But does that make them weaker, or stronger?'
Aysel had told him the truth. She did want to end the war, but she hadn't told him the means she was willing to employ to do so. The only sure way to completely end a war, for once and for all, was to destroy the opposing side so they couldn't rise up again and begin another battle. Completely wipe out, no exceptions.
A slight pang of guilt seared through her mind as she thought of the innocence and generosity of the usually clueless Raenef.
'If and when I have to kill him, I will,' she told herself. 'I will.'
- - - - - - - - - -
[1]- Eru is a nickname that appears in Demon Diary, and I'll use it to cut down on all the "Erutis" this and "Erutis" that. Even if it did only appear once, I'm still using it, so there. Hahaha. o.O;; Don't mind me...
[2]- I had a lot of trouble deciding what Raenef's description would be, since the picture on the front of the original volume one have blue hair and eyes, whereas another picture had green eyes and blond hair. Yet another had RED eyes and blond hair, but I came to the (quite possibly incorrect) conclusion that it was just evil Raenef, so I decided to use the blond hair, green eyes combo.
[3]- I rather like the way this was phrased. The hourglass is a symbol for time, so she is saying that espionage is a time-consuming affair. It's slow, and it's boring. However, there are some shifts that can make it dangerous, and that's the music. The music is like a... metaphor? Analogy? Something or another, for the environment spies must work in. Sometimes it will change, and thus put the lives of the moles in danger. And I think the hunt is easy enough to understand. If you've already figured all this out prior to reading the footnote, I'm sorry, but I wasn't sure if everyone would get this, and I didn't want misunderstandings to interfere with the enjoyment (or not) of reading the fic.
Author's Note- This reminds me of a story my dad used to tell me about one of my ancestors. I'll put a little bit here, but if I told the whole thing, it may give the story away. So as it unfolds, I'll tell the rest of the story.
Supposedly, my ancestor was a famous general in South Korea. His enemies wished to dispose of him, as he probably was a pretty good general, and sent an assassin to kill him. She could do nearly everything; cook, dance, sing, and whatnot. She was accepted into his home as a household servant, but....
And that's all I can write without giving anything away. However, I have no doubts whatsoever that quite a lot of you are clever enough to figure everything out. Still, this fic isn't consciously derived from the story, and there are differences. How many, I'm not saying. Anyyywaaaays, that's it. Ja ne!