Now that I've successfully alienated my whole readerbase, I can get to writing the good trash like this.
Yes, I know Nero knows what flipping the bird is in canon, and no, I will not stop making Fortuna even more of a fantasy Italy than it already is.
The pain was gone. No knives jamming between my ribs with each breath. No coughs tearing up my throat. In fact, I didn't feel much of anything. The feeling of swimming through the air replaced dizziness.
My mouth still tasted like ass, though.
"How are you holding up, kid?"
Turning, I found Dante standing beside me. I swore he'd been across the room a moment ago.
"Fuzzy," I said, trying to make sense of the buzz along the surface of my skin. "Like… a blanket."
He had laughter in his eyes. "Well, that's great. We've got to go now, alright?"
"Oh, I'm going back now?" That was right. I was going home. Dad had said something about that. Wait, Dad? Ew, that wasn't right. "No, the purple guy."
"What about him?" Dante asked through a scowl. Anger didn't fit his face. He was supposed to be annoying and happy all the time.
Reaching up, I pinched his cheek and tugged it to form his lips closer to a smile. "He said I was going home. He said not to tell you. Stop frowning."
His expression didn't change, but the air felt angry, like the fuzziness became a swarm of buzzing insects.
"Dante," Vergil called. "Now's not the time. Are we going or not?"
They should have told me sooner that we would be leaving so early. Or late. Whatever the time, I wasn't ready, not in the worn, mismatched coat and pants they'd given me. "I need my uniform," I said. "Purple guy said I would get it back."
Dante and Vergil exchanged glances, the latter shrugging. "I didn't see it anywhere," he said. "Father may have put it away for safekeeping. I'm certain you can have another made when you return home."
Yes, because standing for hours while being poked with enough needles to fill a pincushion was just fantastic the first time. This asshole shouldn't have had a say in it anyway. "I need it back, and I have to cover my arm!"
"We have no time for something so trivial. Those who receive you can accommodate your appearance."
Because Credo wasn't around to smack me in the back of the head, I flicked my fingers under my chin. Vergil looked as unfazed by the gesture as Dante had every time I'd done it to him. Not the reaction I wanted. Maybe they were stupid, or maybe Kyrie had lied to me about that being rude.
Words never failed me, so I tried my hand at an insult.
"Yeah? Well, your appearance is like a cornflower."
He blinked. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," I said out of habit. Only when Dante snorted did I realize it wasn't the stinger I'd intended. "Wait, no, you're not welcome! I'm insulting you!"
"I love him," Dante said. "Can we keep him like this?"
"We can't keep him at all. Let us go."
As much as I wanted to challenge Vergil to a brawl, I couldn't seem to walk in a straight line. This must have been what it felt like to be drunk.
Dante said he didn't trust my legs to get me far, and before I could tell him I'd rip out his still-beating heart if he tried to carry me again, he offered his arm. I refused to look at him as I hooked my arm with his. The stairs tried to slip out from under my feet every few steps, but Dante would pull me upright before I could begin to stumble.
I couldn't say if liked him better than Vergil, or if I hated his guts more. As I tossed the idea back and forth in my head like a chess match, I found myself staring up at him.
"Can't take your eyes off me, eh?" he said.
My heel came down square onto his toes. "Suck my dick," I hissed.
His face scrunched as he bit his lower lip against a grin. "Please stop setting yourself up like this. I'm trying to behave since you're not all there."
If this was him behaving, I didn't want to know what he considered misbehaving.
We retraced the path to the stables, though I found the stars different this time. They swirled through the void, painting it with a milky blur. "The sky is melting," I said. "Does it usually do that?"
"Only when Trish hooks you up with the good stuff, I guess," Dante said.
The sky vanished as he pulled me into the stuffy, hay-scented stables. "Oh no," I heard him say, my gaze falling to find three horses saddled: Ebony, Ivory, and a smaller beige. A woman stood holding its reins. I recalled meeting her briefly - the angry one with a scar on her nose - but I couldn't think of her name. Something with an L. Judging by her glare, it was probably Lucifer.
"I'm going," she said. "I'm your retainer, jackass. I know I can't stop you from doing this, and for the record, I think this a terrible idea, but you can't stop me from going with you."
Dante shrugged, looking so smug I considered punching him for her. "Do whatever you want. Just don't fall behind like you always do."
"Yeah, not gonna happen. The kid's riding with me so you don't try anything."
"Hey!" I cut in. "I'm getting my own horse this time."
Lucifer lost none of her dry irritation as she looked to me. "You look like you can barely keep on your feet. You'd fall off a horse in an instant. Besides, if we're dropping you off, we'd have to lead the extra horse back."
Vergil took his turn to interrupt as he adjusted Ivory's saddle. "I'd prefer you didn't prep my horse if you aren't going to do it properly, Lady."
Oh right, Lady. That was it, not that it fit her as well.
Without sparing him a glance, she held up the back of her fist toward him, her middle finger pointing toward the roof. "Are we going to keep talking, or are we heading out?"
"What's she doing?" I asked Dante.
His surprise gave way to a brilliant smile that could have only preceded bullshit. "You really don't get out much. It's just a show of affection, kid."
Even with my thoughts a jumbled, swirling mess, I wasn't that stupid. Lady stepped forward and grabbed me by the collar. "Fuck off, Dante," she said.
As she dragged me away, I turned my hands up at him as she had at Vergil. Dante barked a laugh. "Lady, you're being a bad influence."
"Probably the only sensible thing he's learned all week," she shot back as she hauled me up onto the horse after her. I'd never shared a horse with a woman before. Women in Fortuna didn't ride horses much to begin with, and they certainly did not ride straddled. As I sat with my arms glued to my sides, I reconsidered the benefits of riding with Dante. Not Vergil, though. He could go fuck himself.
"Keep that demon hand off me," Lady said.
I heaved a sigh, trying to tug my sleeve down to cover it. "It's not a demon hand."
I should have been more insistent in getting something to cover it. A mere handful of people had seen my arm before tonight. Each responded with a mix of awe, fear, and disgust. Yet none of the Capulets who'd seen it responded with much of anything but curiosity or annoyance, not even Dante, who'd gotten the cursed thing through him.
I could never convince myself my arm was blessed like the church tried to say, not when Credo grew pale each time the scales climbed further over flesh, not when I had to hide it. But it wasn't demonic either. The church wouldn't have kept a demon around. They would have killed me long ago.
Lady's voice broke me from my daze. "Whatever. Just hold on with your other hand. I don't need you slipping off."
"Hold on to what?" I didn't think there was anywhere men were allowed to touch women. The sermons said looking at them was bad enough, and touching them was right out, but Lady made a sound from the back of her throat before pulling my arm around her middle.
An instant was all I needed to determine that I hated the position. We were too close, so close my chest brushed her back, and I had to tilt my chin back to keep away from her hair. "Maybe I'll just fall off and die," I offered. She held tight to stop me from tugging my arm free.
"You'll die quicker if you don't put your hand there and keep it there."
"Best do as she says, kid," Dante called, gesturing to the oversized crossbow hooked at her side.
Getting hit with an arrow sounded less painful than having to be close to Lady, but my other options were the human embodiment of a blizzard and Mr. "What is personal space?"
Walking sounded appealing until the horses started to move and my vision turned into a tilted landscape of smears. I couldn't tell if I'd slowed down or the word around me had, but something couldn't keep up.
Even as we stopped at the closed gate, I tilted my head back and forth to watch the the world turn to brushstrokes. I felt as though I were underwater, weighted yet weightless. Maybe I shouldn't have, but I found it comforting.
"You alright?" Lady asked while Dante and Vergil argued with the other blue and red twins above us.
A lopsided smile played on my lips. "I'm great!" I said. Other than a light chill from the night air, I'd never felt better.
"Fantastic," she muttered. "Guess it's really hitting you now. I'm not looking forward to when you crash. Let me know if you start getting tired because I don't want you passing out and dragging me off with you."
One of the demon guards dropped to the ground, followed by the other. "Oh, they're so small," I said. "I thought they'd be bigger." The two looked like teens and seemed to act like them too. They whined each time Dante and Vergil assured them that they weren't coming along.
"We never get to go out anywhere anymore," one said.
"Yeah, Your Highnesses, take us with you."
"We'll help!"
"You can help by staying here," Dante said. Vergil looked ready to kill them both. "You can go next time, okay? Now open the gate before I break it or both of you."
"Next time?"
"You promise?"
Something possessed me to giggle so hard that there were tears in my eyes. "They're like tiny Dantes," I sobbed.
Lady snorted. "You know? You're not wrong."
After Dante swore up and down that, yes, his small doubles could tag along for the next outing, the demons raised the portcullis. I gave them a wave as we rushed outside the castle grounds. The blue-eyed one waved back, so enthusiastic I thought he might fall over. The red-eyed one raised his hand and twitched it back and forth while eyeing his twin, as though he were worried about messing up the gesture.
We must have ridden for hours, until pink and orange light bled across the sky, and the castle vanished behind the rolling hills. Vergil led the whole time, keeping a pace that made the hoofbeats sound like rolling drums. Counting the sheep and cows we passed kept me awake along with the bitter, biting cold of the wind. I stopped caring that Lady was close. She was the only thing keeping the wind from cutting into my bones.
Every now and then, she asked how I was holding up. I was certain it was more for her sake than mine, as she punctuated each of my slurred responses with, "Don't fall asleep."
With the wind, I wouldn't have thought it possible. The air was too damn cold, and people didn't fall asleep on horseback. Passing out against Dante's back didn't count. That was different.
I didn't feel myself nodding off until my face dropped against Lady's thin shoulder. Through a distant grasp on consciousness, I heard her grumble a slew of curses, followed by a yell that had me jolting upright. "Let's take a break! The horses could use it."
Praise be unto the Savior, or whatever the phrase was, Vergil agreed with someone else for once. "There should be a lake just ahead. We can stop there," he called over his shoulder.
True to his word, a brilliant lake lay over the next hill. Reflecting the sky, it looked like a massive floor of stained glass. Once we reached it, Dante and Lady hopped off their horses to stretch like sunbathing cats. Vergil just straightened his coat. They made it look so easy, like the earth wasn't constantly swaying under their feet. Keeping a grip on the saddle, I stared at the grass until I felt certain it wouldn't be ripped out from under me like a rug.
"Still having fun?" Lady asked.
"Lots."
The comfortable buzz from before was gone, replaced by a mind-numbing chill that seemed to come from my bones. After I remembered how to stand, I forced my stiff legs over to the lake's edge. My tailbone ached with every step.
As I knelt beside the water, I heard Dante talking several paces away. "Hey, Verge, do you know where we're going?"
"Are you honestly asking that just now?" Vergil said.
The water was so cold that my human hand locked up on contact, joints jammed in place. Splashing it on my face felt like a slap, but at least it ate away at the exhaustion. Lady led her horse to the water, slipping the reins from its head so it could drink. She watched Dante and Vergil with the same irritated disapproval I often saw from church officials.
"They'd better not start fighting," she said. "You hungry, Nero?"
My expression twisted as I tried to recall what hunger felt like. Beyond the cold and weariness, I couldn't feel much. Before I could determine if food sounded appealing or nauseating, Lady shoved an apple into my chest. "Eat something, at least," she said. "You're shaking like a wet dog. Are you sure you're feeling alright? Not going to pass out, are you?"
"Jus' col'," I said around a bite. My mouth had been tinged with bitterness for so long that I didn't think I'd ever tasted anything as good as that bruised apple.
Lady cocked a brow. "It's barely autumn. I'll see if I can convince tweedledee and tweedledick to get a fire going so we can have a proper breakfast. Don't fall in the lake."
As she stalked off with a, "Hey, idiots," all three horses pressed in close to me, trying to nudge their way toward my food. My claws made quick work of snapping the apple to pieces, and after popping out the seeds, I let each horse munch on a piece while I ate the rest. The horses were so warm that I couldn't mind having them all close.
"It's getting cold out," I heard Vergil say. Looking up, I found him staring at an unfurled map. Vindication coursed through me as I fought to hide a smile. If Vergil of all people were complaining, it had to be cold.
"Really?" Dante said. "I'm not feeling anything."
He could fuck right off.
Vergil didn't look up from tracing our route. "Many don't have your hot-blooded nature, Dante, and it's getting to be autumn."
"You cold, Verge? You sure that's not just your personality?"
"I am not cold, but others may be more susceptible than we are."
"Then what are you whining about?"
"Give Nero your coat, you thick-skulled idiot," Lady snapped. "Make sure he doesn't freeze to death while I get the fire going."
"I'm fine!" I called. There was no way in Hell I was wearing that asshole's coat. I already had one. Lady wasn't wearing one. He could give it to her.
I would have stepped away from Dante's approach, but Ivory and the lake were at my back. "Take it easy, kid," he said. "You're probably still getting over the poison."
"That you gave me," I said.
"I recall you hacking up a lung before we gave you anything." In one smooth motion, he pulled his coat off his back and draped it onto my shoulders. Damn thing was warm.
"I don't need your stupid coat," I grumbled, even as I slipped my arms into the sleeves. The cuffs swallowed my hands. Dante's eyes shone at the sight. Trying to roll the sleeves up only made his smile wider.
"Whatever you say, kid. You feeling better at least?"
"I guess. Just shouldn't have taken that many doses."
He nodded. "Oh yeah, that was dumb. And just so we're clear, your 'medicine' was poison. What we gave you was supposed to help with the side effects. Seems like it worked. Made you way more entertaining as a bonus."
Looked like Lady had a fire going. "I'm going to burn this coat," I said.
"Hey, no! That's my best one!"
My medicine was not poison. I'd heard enough of that. Giving someone poison for that many years made no sense. Sure, the side effects were rough, but I'd grown used to them over time. I had to put up with them because I needed the medicine. I needed it. For something.
And Credo would never give me something harmful.
As I stormed toward the glowing embers Lady had ignited, Dante trailed at my heels, rambling some attempt at placating me. Lady was smirking at Dante's concern as I rolled my eyes. I wasn't going to burn his stupid coat. It was too warm to waste.
Before I could reach the fire, my feet pinned in place. Dante stumbled to keep from walking into me. He said something I couldn't hear, too focused on the roar coursing through my arm. As I held it up, the sleeves fell away to show the blinding glow of a warning.
"What's going on?" Lady asked, eyes narrowed as she reached for her crossbow.
Dante's gaze snapped around in search of trouble. "Calling demons to us again, kid? Where are they?"
"The lake?" Vergil suggested.
Lady snarled as an arrow clicked into place. "I hate water demons."
My eyes fell shut. With each quickening pulse of my heart, my arm seared with a burn. They were close, but not the lake. The tips of my fingers prickled.
My eyes snapped open. "Below us! Move!"
Either they all sensed the demons as well, or they saw fit to listen to me. We all darted from where we stood, Vergil ending up halfway across the field somehow. As I leapt back, a black wall swam up from the ground beneath me.
It hid Lady from view, but she must have been alright because I could hear her snarling. "What are these?"
The air filled with them, like tattered black sheets had been whipped into a whirlwind. I'd seen them in books and heard Credo describe them, like a shadow given a life of its own. From everything I'd been told, they were supposed to only appear among the snow. The fact that they'd ambushed us out here meant I was obviously right about it being cold.
"Mephistos," I called. "They usually live in the mountains. Only come down when it snows."
No one had bothered with giving me a weapon - probably Dante's fault - so I focused on the burn in my arm. Whatever was under the scales and blinding light rippled as I reached out for a demon far from my grasp. The phantom hand flickered to life long enough for me to swipe away a swath of the cloak. Like a rapier being bent, tension ripped through my arm until the inevitable snap. The recoil was a bitch. The phantom hand vanished, and the ground tilted under my feet as though it wanted to come up to meet me.
The usual pain was back again, like my arm being ripped out of socket. Whatever had numbed it when I used it the night before was gone, but I had no choice. The arm was my only defense.
"Going anywhere with you assholes is a pain," Lady said from somewhere ahead of me. I could no longer tell how far away she was through the dozens of inky cloaks, but I could hear the crack of her crossbow and the whistle of the arrows. "You're always attracting something."
"Can't help it that we're irresistible," Dante said from somewhere to my left. The air whipped with the tell-tale signature of his claymore. "The Hell? They just slip through everything."
"Maybe you just have shit aim," Lady said. "I'm getting them."
I could force my arm to tear at them in short bursts, but the phantom hand flickered like a weak candle. The pain had my chest rattling again, each breath a small burst of agony. I had to get over it, had to keep moving. When the slippery bastards weren't aiming to sweep me off my feet in an irritatingly literal fashion, they were trying to punch me full of holes with their freaky fingers.
"You still alive, kid?" Dante called as I managed to smash one into another. They fell to the ground in a tangled heap of wriggling red limbs.
"I fucking hate these things!"
"You and me both."
Something slipped past my face, quick and sharp as an arrow. It left a sting on my cheek before tearing into the demon behind me, ripping away its cloak. As the demon tried to skitter away, another one of the bolts shot past me and into its head. Crystalline blue like Vergil's cloak, it appeared to be a sword.
A shower of them followed, forcing me to duck out of the way to keep from being skewered.
"How irksome," Vergil drawled.
I looked up to see him framed by the ghost-like swords. They appeared from nothing and vanished just the same. I couldn't believe that stuck-up prick had an ability so goddamned cool, and I couldn't believe he'd nearly stabbed me through the eye with it.
"Watch your aim, jackass," I said.
"You appear fine."
I was going to break that jaw so he couldn't be so smug and handsome and- Handsome? What the fuck? Vergil wasn't allowed to be attractive because if he were, then so was Dante, and so was Sparda. They were all near-identical, and demons were not attractive. There had to be some law about that, some commandment.
"Illegal," I said.
Vergil looked to me with his brows raised. "Did you hit your head?"
I stomped out the rest of my wandering thoughts like a fledgling fire and rubbed my hand across my face. "Nope, just still drugged. Drugged and tired." That had to be it.
My arm flashed in warning just in time to save me from taking one of those fucked-up fingers to the neck. It glowed the angry red of a brand in the grip of my equally-glowing hand. The point was a breath away from my throat.
My leg hadn't fared so well. The stab-happy bastard hanging overhead was different from the rest, bigger and with more of those murder fingers. What I guessed was his pinky pierced my thigh. The cut was so clean that I didn't feel it until he retracted his fingers, and my leg tried to buckle.
As I used one of the phantom hands to catch myself, my irritation boiled over. I would not deal with any more of these things. All traces of cold vanished as fire raced up from my arm and into my chest. "Enough of you," I said. My voice seemed to echo, a growl under my words. My arm raised of its own will, reaching for something I couldn't fathom. Two screams of protest answered, refusing my call.
Very well. I did not require a sword.
As I brought my hand down, the demon shattered under my grip. A mad grin twisted across my face as satisfaction coursed through me like a symphony ringing in my veins. The remaining demons tried to flee. They met the same fate.
When the last one died, the song cut off, and reality slammed into me. My lungs felt shredded. The wound in my leg ate into me like poison until I couldn't hold myself up anymore.
Before I could eat the dirt for what must have been the hundredth time that week, someone yanked me upright.
"I'm not riding with him anymore," Lady said, her voice sharp and thin with distrust.
"Hell of a show, kid," Dante chimed in, "but stop wearing yourself out until you heal up, alright?"
They both sounded distant, so that left- "Honestly, you're nothing but trouble," Vergil said close to my ear. My inhuman arm hung around his neck, my side pressed to his. He was so close.
Close enough to punch.
I didn't have much left in me, but I gathered the last fringes of my strength to slam my fist into his cheek. Something in my hand cracked, but so did his his jaw. The force wrenched us apart. "Don't think I didn't forget about that kiss, you bastard," I spat as my knees bowed out from under me. "Feeding me like a bird - what the fuck?"
I could hear Lady snickering and Dante saying, "Vergil, if you don't put your sword away," but their voices faded fast. I didn't even feel myself hit the grass. Sleep dragged me into an endless fall that I couldn't have hoped to escape. That was fine with me.
My dreams played to the tune of a persistent hum, a quiet song that followed me through twisted and muddled memories. By the time I roused, I was pretty sick of it, yet the song remained. It rumbled against my back to the beat of the hooves below.
"Stop humming," I mumbled, rubbing the glaze from my eyes. "You're off key." Looked like I was back on Ebony, which meant Dante was being a pain as always.
"Oh, Sleeping Beauty is up?" he said. "How are you feeling?"
"Hungry." Drowsiness had me sluggish and heavy, but I couldn't find any pain. My pants had a hole in the thigh to assure me I'd taken that hit, but prodding at the spot resulted in nothing but a dull ache. I couldn't see any breaks in my human hand either. Once I cleared the gunk from my eyes, I found I could even see straight. "How long have I been out?"
Dante loosed one finger from his grip on the reins so he could point skyward. The sun had flipped horizons. "You were conked out all day. We're not far from the meetup point now. Vergil says we'll be arriving early, so we can stop for a bit if you want to eat."
"Will he kill me if we stop?" Vergil was a good distance ahead and possibly plotting my demise. Still worth it.
I felt Dante's laugh against my back. "He already tried earlier. If he hadn't been aiming to cleave you in two, that might have been the funniest thing I'd seen in my life. You have some kind of death wish, kid."
His voice was too worn to pull off the playful tone he wanted. Even a quick glance over my shoulder revealed the exhaustion in his face. When we stopped, I found that everyone shared it. Dark smears like bruises framed heavy eyes. I'd been the only one to get any sleep, and that was starting to make me feel like a dick.
Vergil kept his distance, brooding several paces away while the rest of us ate. I wasn't sure if an apology would have helped - not that I would give him one - but the storm of tension between us became a deluge when Dante and Lady both decided to nap.
With dusk and silence pressing in, I waited for Vergil to come lop off my head. A last meal of dried meat and bitter tea wouldn't have been my pick. If I made it back home alive, I was having pasta.
"Feeling better?" Vergil asked so suddenly that I inhaled my tea.
"Much," I said through a few coughs.
"Seems your healing is working properly again. Still not as advanced as ours, but it does you well."
"Yeah?"
He wasn't looking at me, eyes off somewhere in the horizon. I could read nothing in his tone or expression, no malice, no interest. "You do not have to believe me when I say this, as I doubt you will, but at this point you have a choice. If they continue to give you that 'medicine,'" He bit at the word with distaste, "and you continue to take it, you will always be weak. You will be frail and fragile as they wish for you to be. If you do not take it, your healing will remain sufficient, and your power will grow. Your demon abilities have already awoken. You cannot rebottle that. You can only choose to attempt to control it. Even with the medicine, if you try to suppress and ignore your demon side, it is possible you will lose yourself and become violent. The only difference will be how dangerous you will be to those around you. So take it or do not. I do not care, but if you are ever a threat to my family or kingdom again, I will put you down swiftly."
I took another sip of tea and tried to think of what gain he could have by lying to me. I could find none. The medicine being used to keep me in control made sense. I'd come to suspect that much. It did make me weak, but I'd always thought of that as a side-effect, not the intent. If Vergil were right…
"But why would they keep me around if I'm a demon?" I said over the rim of the tin mug. I should have used that as an argument, a statement, not a question.
"Because you are convenient to them for now," he said. "The moment you are not, I believe they will rid themselves of you."
My chest ached as though he'd punched a gaping hole through it. I didn't know why I felt anything because he was wrong. He had to be wrong. I didn't need to care what he said.
I didn't need to give a damn.
But I did because something in his words rang true.
That was fucking terrifying.
Why are y'all booing me? I'm hilarious.