December 24, 2011; 6:27 pm
The Pine Barrens stood entirely silent. Many a beast lived within the confines of these formidable woodlands of infamous reputation. Yet on this night, nothing but the bone chilling air accompanied the holly trees, scotch pines, and Norway spruces that loomed imposingly over the acidic, snow covered soil upon which they grew.
It was a clear night, with the new moon hanging in the skies above Burlington County's most underpopulated area. The stars twinkled in a gentle, disarming way, a tapestry of milky, silver flecks, observing the white Christmas Eve down below in the heart of lower New Jersey.
Most did not bother coming to this part of the Pine Barrens, especially during this time of year and at this time of night. Between the biting cold, the less than merry surroundings, and the frightful tales of a beast that stalked the region, many would not dare to make their way here.
This night, however, was different.
In the distance, heading in a northwesterly direction, a little, shimmering light, twinkled between the trees. It was as if a moving bit of starlight had been gifted sentience and had chosen to hurriedly fly through the branches and prickly foliage of the area. However, if one were to more closely inspect the light in question, one would realize that it was not a tiny star at all.
It was a lovely, little creature of whimsical nature.
What appeared to be a firefly with a paler color of illumination emanating from its body was actually a little person. Hourglass shaped and fair of complexion, the little woman enveloped in light used a pair of thin, butterfly wings that were clear like glass and as fragile as a fresh snowflake. It was a faerie, and she was flying with a good amount of haste and a concerning degree of frigidness.
For a moment, she was struggling to go any further. She found a piece of bark that had fallen off one of the towering evergreens. It was not the driest thing she had ever landed on, but it at least kept her off of the snow. Placing her hands on her knees, she felt pain as the cold air filled her strained lungs. If she were given a warm place to rest, she would be able to heal well enough, but whatever had been pursuing her did not give her the slightest chance to recuperate.
Her attire, no more than a simple negligee that looked to be made of spider silk and kissed with the color of sea mist, was not winter appropriate. She came from a land of cold winters, so she could cope with the environment to a lesser extent, but she was used to being in the pleasant company of the rest of her kind. The faerie was thousands of miles away from home, and her heart ached just as much for the warm embrace of her people as it did for the exertion of her panicked flight.
Suddenly, the gentle crunch of snow alerted the faerie that her hunter was not far behind. Her wings ached too badly to fly any further, so she pinned herself right against the chilly, rough side of the evergreen to her back. She placed her dainty little hands over her mouth, fearing that her quiet little gasps would betray her location. Fear swallowed her tiny being as she vaguely sensed the presence of a dark being arriving on the scene.
The man walking into the small, bare area between the pines was no mortal human. Tall and almost anorexic in form, his sharp eyes, like nightshade berries scanned the area with predatory attentiveness. He was dressed in a form fitting assembly composed of jacket and dark pants to withstand the fifteen degree temperatures. His ears, pale as a bone, pointed up from the sides of his angular, handsome head like thorns.
It was a dark elf, a rare variation of the stoic and immortal beings of old folklore. Elves rarely strayed from the European continent, but this one had a purpose in this forest. He knew his quarry was nearby. He could just faintly hear the frantic beats of a heart the size of a hole through which the stem of an old key would enter. A hungry smile grew on his face, revealing pristine, but threatening teeth.
"Come on now, little faerie. This little chase has come to an end. The exercise was fun and all, but surely you did not think you could escape me?"
The faerie curled up in response, listening intensely for her pursuer's voice. This was in case she had to crawl around the tree blocking her small form to avoid being visually detected.
"Come on out, and I probably won't hurt you for your naughty little stint of freedom."
For a moment, hardly a sound that could be heard by human ears wafted through the forest around the two mythical beings. A twinge of annoyance painted the dark elf's eyes and smile.
"I know you're near, little fae. I can hear your heart. Your own fear of me betrays you." His black orbits shifted to one old pine tree where he could pinpoint the rapid beats of his escaped prisoner's bosom.
Upon getting closer with sadistic anticipation, he could faintly smell a little pocket of air that seemed fresher than normal. Much of the forest was not immune to the smog and filth of modern human cities and their crude, smoke belching machines. Yet the dark elf sensed the unmistakable change in a smallish bit of atmosphere close to the ground and behind the tree he was investigating.
"I smell you now." His voice had become a terrible whisper.
The faerie, trembling at this point, permitted hot tears which soon frozen into thin sheets upon her heart-shaped face.
"Hello, my little fae-" The dark elf stopped. His left ear pricked towards a presence somewhere behind him. He understood that the forest had become especially silent, much more so than with the settling of the snowfall from earlier in the day.
Some wretched creature was interrupting his search just when he was about to capture the little pest that had escaped her internment. The elf's eyes narrowed in cold fury. A pale hand with long, perfectly manicured nails, reached for a dagger sheathed at an angle on the front of his hip.
He swiftly turned to face and kill his witness, his weapon drawn and pointed like an accusing finger. However, the dark elf quickly realized that this stranger was not on the ground. As his eyes shifted upward, the anger and bravado in his heart drained from his body. A pure, stark terror gave the dark elf a chill far more palpable than the winter air in the forest.
Stooped onto a thick branch on a scotch pine, well over three stories up from a ground, a black, wicked shape loomed overhead. It was partially shielded from being fully observed by a pair of black wings, which curled forward from its back, obscuring its figure somewhat. The head was long, like that of a horse, albeit with a somewhat more triangular form. But most terrible was the eyes that glowed like a scornful flame, standing apart from the darkness of the treetops or the twinkling stars of the night sky.
All courage abandoned the elf, and he immediately began to flee back towards the direction from whence he came. Having since sheathed his weapon due to the futility of fighting this foe, he sprinted as quickly as any Olympian athlete. His haste was intensified when a dark whoosh of air nearly knocked him off of his feet. As the sinister beast landed on another branch on the tree in his sight line, the elf banked to the left, now breathing frantically to provide oxygen for his fear stricken body. The elf never turned back as he ran far to the southwest, never looking back to see if the fell being chasing him had given up.
The creature that had scared off the unwanted intrusion into his territory, soon turned its hideous gaze towards another presence, one that was smaller, motionless, and on the ground. In a swift manner, the frightening beast swooped down onto the ground near the elderly scotch pine to investigate further.
The faerie had exhausted herself, her body drained of the will to stay awake due to a combination of bitter cold and the fear that had overtaken her heart. Shivering dreadfully and having resigned herself to death or recapture, she could barely perceive something else approaching her prone form. It was a bleak, chimeric monster, having flown down to the ground with a broad pair of bat wings. It's fiery gaze looked down imperiously at her semi conscious form.
The horrid beast then seemed to withdraw and melt away. In a soft, hellish glow, the creature gave way to a man, dressed in winter clothes. As the man stepped forth to examine her, the faerie's eyelids dropped. Thus, darkness, and uncertainty greeted her mind.
He had simply been minding his own business. After covertly teleporting a freshly bought roast beef to his cabin, Benjamin had taken a flying journey back to his home. It was uneventful, with nary a creature to interrupt his travels back to his cozy little cabin.
Then, he smelled two presences, both of which he had never before experienced. The first was as if someone had dropped a fancy air freshener onto the ground. It was far from the most striking odor that he had detected, but it was pleasant, like a field of flowers on a cool afternoon.
The second scent was something foul, yet not in the overwhelming sense, like a giant landfill that had been soaked in rain. Instead, it was the subtle musk of a being that had no business being in his Pine Barrens. Growling lightly at the prospect of either fighting or scaring someone out of his territory, he banked onto a tree ten miles away from the smell, and fixed his eyes to look for intruders.
Indeed, he could plainly see one tall, darkly clothed figure stalking towards a tree. Whether it was a hunter or some homeless bum, Benjamin did not care. He wanted a nice, quiet, and likely lonely Christmas with himself and the food he was going to cook up. The last thing he needed was some lanky bumpkin skulking about and making him worry about his abode being discovered by prying eyes.
Focusing his mind, he tapped into some of the raw, vicious power within him. A heinous transformation overtook him, and he became the beast that so many had come to fear once upon a time. It was supposed to be the "Stray" form that a traitorous Devil would be reduced to after disobeying and leaving their master. Benjamin had grown to master it without being utterly consumed by the hatred and fury that this form encompassed. It was a process that had taken decades to achieve, and he would exploit this technique again to deter this malevolent interloper.
Benjamin swooped silently onto the nearest tree that overlooked the backside of the interloper below him. His hoofed feet touched gently onto a particularly sturdy branch, and he prepared to give a terrifying spectacle to the man on the ground. He was mildly surprised to observe that his victim could sense his presence in spite of his largely noiseless approach. Of course, when the man turned with a small dagger in hand, his appearance, however clouded by shadow and his leathery wings, did the trick.
He had never seen a dark elf in all of his time. They were a lesser being of mythology with little in the ways of power, influence, or outright threatening qualities. If he wanted, he could have killed him easily, but Benjamin found that the threat of being harmed by a monster was far more effective of a deterrent than outright leaving a trail of bodies.
Bodies meant demands for investigations and that was too big a threat to the secrecy of Benjamin's identity as the Jersey Devil of legend. Even a thorough job of erasing the evidence of a killing left behind a magic "fingerprint" that could be discerned by the right kinds of creatures or sleuthing techniques. Given the times he had been attacked and hunted by people, it was best to avoid widespread curiosity in the woods where he sought to live out his days.
Running off the dark elf was a formality. The murderous glare giving way to a grimace of fear was all Benjamin needed to understand the man's true nature. It was another walking pile of scum, willing to terrorize others, but unable to contend with a true threat like himself.
The dark elf's frantic departure meant one less pair of inconvenient eyes, yet this did not settle the matter entirely. He could still smell the presence of a less malevolent being just yards away.
When he did look on the other side of the tree, he found a small woman that could fit in the palm of a man's hand struggling to remain awake. Like the dark elf, Benjamin had little interest in faeries, though he did keep in mind the strange powers they could use. It was likely she had been chased by the dark elf from before. Her lack of sufficient clothing and apparent shivering indicated that she was in a poor state, and would die if left out in the cold.
Benjamin was conflicted, for after all, a dead faerie meant one less witness one mile away from his home in the Pine Barrens. At the same time, he suspected she had been driven here through no fault of her own. Furthermore, it was Christmas, and although Benjamin was not the merriest nor the most generous creature in New Jersey, he decided that one night of mercy for a creature so small and inoffensive would not be his undoing.
The terrible form that was his being withdrew as if a shroud of smoke was absorbed into his body. Left in his human form with the winter clothes he had worn for errand running earlier that day, he knelt down and gently scooped up the unconscious faerie in the palm of one hand. He carefully brought her to within one of his pockets to get her out of the chilled air. His eyes, returned to an emerald color, glanced about suspiciously.
Seeing that he was just a few thousand feet away from home, he extended his wings and flew up and above the canopy, heading back to his cabin.
The master of the cloaked cabin in the woods arrived in silent contentment that he had made it back without drawing attention to it on the night of Christmas Eve. He had dressed down to a slim pair of khaki pants and a red, long sleeved shirt after his return home. As for the faerie he had picked up along the way, he had settled her down on the arm of his leather recliner and placed a napkin as a makeshift blanket over her cold form. It was facing an electric heater, but not so closely that the change in temperature might otherwise deal a lethal shock to the little pixie's comatose body.
Benjamin had finished a hot and very satisfying meal. Roast beef with mild horseradish, a healthy helping of mashed potatoes, some steamed broccoli, and a little helping of an oven baked strawberry crisp had filled him with a raw joy that he rarely experienced during his long life. He had almost forgotten that he had brought a tiny guest into a home that no other man or beast had seen. Then he faintly heard the groans of a very small and young woman. Having put away his dishes, serving bowls, and cup into the sink in his compact little kitchen, Benjamin calmly strode over to the heart of the cabin to greet his diminutive acquaintance.
She was somewhat drowsy, by the looks of things. Her body was only partially stirred, with her arms holding her upper torso off of the arm of the recliner Benjamin had placed her on. She did not notice his approach until he stopped just two feet away from her spot on his recliner.
"I must say, it's a bit unusual to find a fragile little thing like you all the way out here in the sticks."
The faerie focused her sharp little gray eyes up towards her host. Her little mouth was ajar in shock. The brunette locks on her head had become messy due to the fact that they had become wet from melted snow. Her pale, slim hands drew up the napkin as if it could shield her from potential harm.
"Can you not speak? Do you not understand me?"
The faerie made a quiet little gulp. A little cough soon ravaged her after the fact. She still looked rather pitiful, even with the threat of hypothermia removed. Perhaps she was dehydrated after all this time.
The sound of a refrigerator opening snapped the pixie out of her worried trance. To her astonishment, a plastic bottle filled with water floated from the room behind her host and went smoothly into his left hand. Benjamin, having not even acknowledged the presence of the levitating container, opened the cap from the bottle and carefully poured a tiny sample of the chilled liquid into the cap in his right hand. He promptly placed it right in front of the faerie, who recoiled somewhat at the close proximity of his hand.
"Drink." Benjamin said.
The faerie looked up with a glint of suspicion and distrust.
Benjamin held back the urge to roll his eyes. "I promise it is not poisoned." He made a point by taking a swig of the bottle in his left hand.
The faerie let her pale shoulders slump in relief. Her little hands cupped some of the water, and she gratefully drank the water in the plastic cap.
Benjamin at least confirmed that she could understand what he was saying. The most important part was establishing that communication could be made on her end. As she settled herself after a few gulps of liquid sustenance, Benjamin considered the words needed to goad a response.
"Did that dark elf take your tiny tongue by chance?"
The faerie appeared to shudder at the reminder of the bleak, pointy eared stalker that she was trying to evade.
"Is he here? You aren't in league with him, right?" Her language was German, with a Lower Franconian accent. However, Devils, like Benjamin, could understand and speak all of the tongues and dialects of humankind with ease. To Benjamin's ears, she was merely speaking English with a bit of a German accent.
"No." He assured her plainly. "I scared him off. If he knows what's good for him, he'll never set foot in my forest ever again."
The faerie let out a large sigh of relief. "Thank you for saving me."
"I didn't do it for you, faerie." Benjamin clarified factually. "The elf was intruding too close to my humble abode, which you are now sitting in."
The faerie took the time to glance about the home of her unintentional rescuer. It was a large log cabin, well constructed with firm, modern windows acting as unusual elements to the building's composition. A coffee table with a small radio, currently playing some old fashioned Christmas songs, was currently at a low volume setting. In one corner, a dwarf spruce of some variety was sitting in a wide, black pot. Strings of tinsel were the only merry dressing that had been gifted to the little evergreen plant. The faerie could admit that this was the most intimate look in a big person's home she had ever experienced.
"Since we are on the subject of those whom I wouldn't normally invite into my cabin, why are you here? Your voice belongs on the Teutonic plains of Europe, not in the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey."
The faerie gave a mildly despondent look. Her story was not a pleasant one, but given the apparent power within the man standing before her, she was not wholly convinced she could freely object to telling her story. "I didn't choose to come here. I was taken from my home by force."
"By whom? Did that dark elf have confederates, or was it one dark elf who wished to keep a sentient little pet?"
The faerie cringed at the notion. "He had others working with him. Others of his kind kidnapped me and some of my neighbors. More than once he talked via magic runes with another party, though I could never hear well enough to clearly discern his motive or guess who his associates were."
A flash of realization crossed the faerie's mind. "Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself." She stood, however shakily and made a wobbly little curtsy. "My name is Mabalette."
Benjamin's face scrunched in confusion. It was a name very much unlike anything he had heard before. "Really? That is your given name?"
The fairy flushed a bit at Benjamin's skepticism that such an unusual fusion of two names could coherently be spoken in serious conversation. "I know." She admitted sheepishly. "My father gave it to me. He says it's to honor one of my very distant grandmothers in the days when men in Roman legions crossed into what was known as Gaul in the old days. It also acknowledges that I have a little bit of royal blood in my veins."
"Royal blood..." Benjamin let the information slip out of his mouth. He had met a few mythical creatures great and small, and had never thought someone who could trace their line back to royalty would ever stand in his home. "Are you a Princess or Duchess of some kind?"
"Oh, not really." Mabalette elaborated. "Having royal blood is not as impressive as one would think. Most faeries can trace their family lines back to one of the Queens and Kings of old. In any case, I much prefer my middle name, Aubrey. I inherited that from my mother."
"Very well, Aubrey. Welcome to New Jersey."
"What is your name, may I ask?" She asked innocently.
Benjamin's eyes narrowed an infinitesimal bit at her question. His knowledge of most creatures of supernatural origin, courtesy of his tutelage under Lord Haagenti, came quite in handy. Faeries were not the most imposing of creatures, but to casually give one your full name was a foolish thing to do.
Faeries had a more infamous side to their reputation, if one looked deeply enough. Some of their kind, upon hearing a person's full and true given name, would place them under a spell, binding them to their will. The thought of coming under the sway of one so small and unassuming was not just humiliating, it was intolerable. Benjamin let his hand be known, however subtly, that he knew faerie lore, and that he was not one to be manipulated.
"I suppose one middle name to another, you can call me Edmund." There was an underlying hint of warning in his voice, cold and threateningly certain.
Aubrey, to her credit, did not deny it. "Smart. Most people are much more forthcoming than that."
"I am not most people." Benjamin replied. "That's the primary reason why I am still alive, after many years of life."
"You don't look very old." Aubrey observed.
"I am much older than I look, little one." Benjamin replied smoothly as a slight look of weariness passed his eyes. His extensive life was a blessing and a curse in many ways; the experiences he had endured over more than two and a half centuries made him wish that in another life, he was but an unassuming human who lived a full life and then died without any fuss.
Aubrey blinked at Benjamin's statement. "I suppose your life, as a whole, has been more difficult than my has ever been."
Benjamin canted his head slightly, his juniper gaze still holding an ever so potent edge. "That depends. Where is your home? You did not mention specifically where you once came from before our mutual, pointy eared acquaintance spirited you away without your consent."
"I come from Germany, in case you could not tell. It is where the border meets with France. We lived in one of the few large faerie communities still left intact despite two great wars and untold amounts of change. I was but another, ordinary faerie, living close to my parents, when they came." Her voice was filled with disdain as she recalled the moment that changed her life forever.
"We were attacked, by a small party of dark elves. Why they had been drawn to us, none of us knew. Our Queen, Tochtermab, led the escape effort towards the French border, to seek refuge. Not all of us were able to avoid being captured, including me."
"It almost sounds as if they were trying to collect you and your people." Benjamin suggested.
"I can tell you that they weren't entirely pleased with how our Queen managed to get most of us away from them. As for collection, I cannot say. When we dared to ask why they had imprisoned us, one of them merely proclaimed that we 'were being generously recruited on behalf of the brigade,' whatever that meant."
The word brigade did not inspire any reference in Benjamin's mind. If it was a military force, then it was one he had never heard or conceived of. What business did any body of soldiers, human or otherwise, have to do with captured faerie folk?
"Is that all? What about getting over to America? Was it by boat, or by more magical means?"
"Boat. The elves wished to avoid detection by using mundane means of transportation. They were meeting up with contacts on the Atlantic coast disguised as mortal men from the Rhine. When they dropped and broke the jar carrying me, I escaped and flew as far away from their party as I could."
"You chose one hell of a place to head towards. You could have frozen to death."
Aubrey, her body still wracked with exhaustion, sighed tiredly. "I was disoriented and frightened. Going anywhere whilst free was better than being consigned to whatever terrible fate they had in store for us."
In his heart, Benjamin felt a pant of sympathy. His own life story came back around, too closely for his comfort. He pushed the grief down by reminding himself that one issue remained: the secrecy of his home.
"I suppose that leaves me with whatever I am to do with you."
Aubrey appeared to look apprehensive at Benjamin's comment. "What do you plan to do with me, Edmund?"
"Let me make something clear." His tone became grim and he allowed a tigerish color to wash over his irises. "I take my privacy with deadly seriousness. I could have killed that elf if I wanted to."
Aubrey's frightened face induced a little burn of pity in Benjamin, but he nonetheless made his point clear. "If you are even the slightest threat to the secrecy of my cabin here, I won't hesitate to destroy you."
A flicker of wicked, demonic power licked over Benjamin's body like a flame. There was no heat to speak of, but the air did appear to close in around Aubrey. Her heart quickened yet again, and she barely held herself back from weeping in fright.
However, Aubrey also sensed another power within her powerful host. It was one all too familiar with her people, but it felt out of step with the image of a tall Devil with an anti social way of life. Faeries were not the most formidable magic casters in the world of myth, but their senses were finely attuned, especially to the existence of magic beings and artifacts. There was a tangible chalice of demonic energy that the tall man drew from first and foremost, but it was not the only magical signature she could detect.
There was another power within Benjamin's being that she could faintly discern. It was a purer essence, one that belonged to a spirit of nature, such as a Druid or other such kin. But Aubrey knew that her host was unlikely to discuss such a matter with her. She had the bravery to ask why he was willing to kill to protect his privacy.
"Why are you concerned about me possibly telling others where you live?"
A silence hung in the air. Benjamin's power was visibly sustained for a time. As it waned slowly down to nothingness, he gave his answer.
"In spite of what you might think, I am a person who would much prefer to live and let live. I don't kill for the sake of killing, nor do I necessarily enjoy bringing death to other people."
That last sentence was only mostly true. He had saved one instance of sadistic satisfaction for when he took his first life as a warrior lieutenant in training. That, however, was a story for another time, and he had no interest in telling it to a pixie he had just met.
"Long story short, I have enemies through no fault of my own. In the end, my preference is not to end your life. I can think of a few options to maintain my privacy and spare you at the same time."
"Such as?" Aubrey asked hesitantly.
"I could render you unconscious and send you to a boat or airport to take you back to Europe. Of course, you would be on your own, but you would have no means to recall where my house was specifically located. We'd likely never cross paths again, and you'd be in the general direction necessary to return to Germany."
Aubrey nodded, considering the proposals by Benjamin.
"Next, I could keep you here. You'd be forbidden from ever leaving this place. If you do not wish to return to Germany and you cannot be trusted to keep a secret, I will have you remain in this cabin as my little prisoner."
Another nervous gulp was all that was made by Aubrey at this option.
"If you earn my trust, which is a very precious thing to achieve, then you can stay here as either a guest, or as a little roommate."
Aubrey blinked at that option. She had never closely interacted with anyone who was taller than four inches. To be offered a warm, stable shelter, by a large person no less, was too good to be true.
"What say you, Aubrey?"
Another moment of silence passed. Benjamin could see that his little acquaintance was carefully considering each proposition. He was about ready to insist that she answer when she began to explain her budding rationale.
"My home was ravaged. I don't know if I could go home, even if I wanted to. I also have little trust of those, what do humans call them... airplanes? I am not much of a sailor, either. It was only when I was forced across the seas by my kidnappers that I even witnessed a wave of seawater. Personally, I found it to be a most unpleasant experience."
"You do not wish to go home? Could you not create a new home yourself? You admitted that most of your kin escaped capture, so you could seek them out once you reach the continent."
"Where would I look? Alsace Lorraine is bigger than you would think, and that's assuming that Queen Lochtermab settled our people so closely to where we were first assaulted."
"So you would be my prisoner, then."
Aubrey gave a sheepish reply. "I-I would think I could just stay as your newest roommate. If you would have me, that is. I admit, I've never had much consideration for having an adventure beyond my little corner of the world. Perhaps, this will be a good thing for me?"
Benjamin allowed a chuckle. It was not mocking, but rather ironic. "You realize that you are trading one corner of the world for another, right? Outside of work or the occasional errand, I rarely venture outside of the Pine Barrens."
"I don't mind, or at least, I wouldn't think so." The faerie was not entirely sure. It was a scary prospect to be in close association with someone as powerful as the man before her. Still, at least he gave her options to choose her fate.
"You would be willing to forgo your liberty to me?" Benjamin sounded a bit more distressed at Aubrey's response than he should have. Perhaps it was because of his own high regard for personal liberty, but it may have been his utter inexperience with living with another sentient being.
"I think I'll take your second offer." Aubrey said firmly.
"It won't be some carefree experience. Are you certain you want to share a house with a Devil of all creatures?"
"Yes." Her answer was instant.
Benjamin sighed, as a part of him wished that she had chosen to go home. At the same time, some little part of him was glad that he wasn't entirely alone on this a Christmas night.
It might have been a desire he had withheld for centuries, but now was as prime an opportunity as any to end his life of solitude. This came with the caveat that this was an arrangement with the practical purpose of keeping his place of residence a secret, but that was a minor detail.
"Well, I suppose I'll have to get you settled in. I assume you don't need much in the way of sleeping quarters."
Aubrey gave a grateful smile. "Not particularly. There are a few benefits to being my size."
"Would you like something sweet? I hear faeries like to eat sweet foods." Benjamin offered.
Aubrey perked up, her eyes shining with hope that there was a sugary treat to restore her energy. "Oh I'd love it if you had something sweet!"
"I have a leftover crisp. I could warm it up for you. Wait here while I get a little scoop. You like crust, or just the fruit filling?"
"A bit of crust will be fine."
That evening, Aubrey found herself being served a small helping of a strawberry crisp. Between bites and drinks of fresh water, she and Benjamin shared tales of their experiences during the winter. Though neither gave each other much of their personal histories, the discussion between them quickly became as normal as waking from bed.
Well into the December night, Aubrey silently wondered whether it was fate that drew her to a Devil's house in the woods. She likewise could not help but question why a being skilled in demonic magic would have access to a bit of natural magic in his core. Yet such questions could wait.
In spite of her new acquaintance's darker nature, Aubrey felt safer than she had in nearly two weeks. She had food, she had a dry place to rest, and she could spend time during a Christmas that was not entirely alone.
'Truly, this time of year brings many a strange person together.' Aubrey thought as Benjamin explained his time building his cabin to her. She was glad that of all the relative strangers she could have met tonight, that she met one who was willing to give charity on one of the holiest of nights in Christendom.
All the way through the hours before dawn, it seemed that the forest that had been the Leeds Devil's home for well over two hundred years had gotten just a little bit merrier. It seemed that little things in particular could bring about jolly changes.
Thank you to anyone reading my last one shot for the year of 2020. I must say that I am heartily glad to know that this year will be left behind to the trash-bin of used calendars.
I leave this particular message to coldblue2015. It is a bit coincidental that you sent a message with your suggestion regarding Benjamin's heritage. My idea of him having a faerie companion was something I had considered for weeks before I began writing proper fanfics. This one shot is one such product of my overall planned narrative for Benjamin. With regards to your thoughts on Benjamin's unique circumstances and reasons for having the power he has, I have some of my own ideas formed around why he came to be the child who would become the Jersey Devil, but you gave me an interesting suggestion nonetheless, and I thank you for the idea. You've given me a little something to consider moving forward.
I will be taking a small break from writing anything other than Hazbin Devil chapters, but at the latest, it will be February of next year when I'll be putting forth new High School DxD content.
Have a very merry Christmas, and here's to a much happier New Year!