The Demon's Bride

On another bright afternoon, Elise sat on the green field near the garden with Cynthia. Different kinds of flowers laid beside them. But Elise's blue eyes were glued on Cynthia's nimble hand who had weaved the flowers' stems into a crown. Turning the well-made crown on her hands, Cynthia checked over the structure before passing it to Elise's hand in delight. "What do you think? Beautiful isn't it?"

Elise nodded with all her might. "It's beautiful, Cy!" She saw Cynthia giggled and murmured "excuse me" to take back the flower crown for a moment to place it upon Elise's red hair. "This is how you used it."f𝙧ee𝘄𝐞𝚋𝐧૦ѵeƖ.c𝘰𝓶

A cat with golden fur and three large striped on his body ran toward them. On the cat's small mouth, another batch of purple flowers was held. The cat stopped beside them bending his head to allocate the flowers in one large batch. When he looked up to the adorable little girl touching the flower crown on her head with extra carefulness in order not to break it due to its fragileness, the cat spoke in human language.

"I never know that you are good at making those, Cy." Cynthia glanced down at the cat who was undoubtedly her friend Austin with a sighing reply.

"My little sister used to beg me to make one for her." she thought for a moment to stop the knitting on her hand. "Anyway, Austin I thought you could only speak in meows?"

"I wouldn't you're not a cat and how could you understand if I spoke in meows? I can speak well even in my cat form." He bragged. Cynthia was about to reply to his words but Elise had taken the cat on her arms to carry it to her side for a long petting and brushing to his pelt. Feeling the ticklish little hand rubbing on his neck, Austin protested with a "No, don't." but his cat's instinct took over him as he had purred with a relaxed face on top of Elise's lap.

"Meow." Austin subconsciously let out a voice that made both Cynthia and Elise burst into coordinated laughter. The laugh was loud enough to bring back Austin from his listless state and jumped from Elise's side.

"You adorable being if you look at me that way, how could I get angry?" He protested in a gentle manner whilst rubbing his paw and licking it. "You shouldn't rub me too much. I don't like tickles."

Cynthia had a hard time composing herself. From behind she rubbed again the unclosed wound on Austin's pride. "I thought you weren't going to speak in meows? It took you less than a minute to actually purred."

"I can't help it, alright? Although I'm a werecat, I'm still a cat." Austin cursed under his lips. "Do you know where did the Lord go?" Cynthia raised a question that quickly steered Austin's attention from the latter. "The human person named Mr. Brown who was working with him invited him to his party. I heard that the human is trying to make a relationship to happen between his daughter and the Lord."

"Hah." Cynthia scoffed aloud stopping her hand to shook her head. "How stupid. I don't think humans forgot the forbidden rule against the marriage of human and mythical beings don't they? He must be crazy enough to marry his own daughter to a mythical being."

Austin kept on playing with the lavender that Elise moved in front of him to give it a good chase and huffed harsh breathing to answer Cynthia. "Well our Lord doesn't look like one and not even us know if he is a mythical being. He looks very humanly except for the fact that he isn't humane at all. Well except for the fact he brought Elise." Austin smiled to the little girl and Elise returned back the smile warmly making a fuzzy warm feeling to the werecat.

"Also, I have a piece of big news for you." Austin jumped to the spot beside Cynthia and talked again, but the little girl spotted a flying being with the legs of a horse. It was the faeries that Ian told her about before in the carriage, the faeries named Sulix.

Being a curious little child, Elise walked over the bushes where the Sulix was stopping at for a talk. Cynthia was in the middle of her explosive news and kept on changing faces intrigued by Austin's news, not knowing the girl had left.

"Excuse me." Elise knelt beside the Sulix who was chewing on a stem of an unripe stem. The purple winged Sulix stared at her face and snapped her finger at the realization of who Elise was. "Ah! You! The sweet child!" she flew over Elise's head flapping her hand which connected to the back of the wings in delight. "Did you remember me? I talked to you before at the Demon's carriage."

"Demon?" Elise asked cluelessly, not understanding who the Sulix called a Demon.

The Sulix sat mid-air, making a seat that looked comfortable to her eyes. "He hasn't told you yet, well that's fine. Just act as though you hadn't heard any of that."

The small hands above the dress tightened. "He's not a Demon. Master Ian is very kind. He saved me from the slave auction." she protested, how could Master Ian become an evil person? Even though he had saved her from the place where people called Hell on Earth.

Seeing the fondness that the girl had for Ian, the Sulix who never want to have the bad side of the girl quickly apologized. "Is that so. Then perhaps it was a slipped of a tongue, forgive me."

Elise nodded to accept her apologies. The Sisters in the Church once told her that accepting apologies is something that as the children of Gods should do. And for her as long as the Sulix understood that Ian wasn't a Demon, her dislike quickly appeased.

The Sulix changed its sitting position to lay her body and cupped her cheek as though they were exchanging tales. "What's your name, little girl?"

"Elise." She replied back, her blue eyes staring at her wings that charmed her in. "What's your name?" Elise queried the little being to have her shaking her head as a reply.

"I don't have a name." the little girl heard her answer and returned with a surprised face. Before in the past, the Sisters on the Church brought little babies to the church and at one point, Elise asked what's the name of the little friends, but the Sister shook her head in pity and replied that they don't have a name as they were abandoned by their parents.

"You should have a name." Elise insisted, her eyes a little moist with tears of empathy.

Seeing Elise's insistence, the Sulix replied with a long hum to flew over to her face and gave her an idea. "How about you give one? A name?"

"Me?" Elise asked again and the Sulix insisted. "Yes. You. Do you have anything now?"

The Sulix repeated the name once but then shook her head as a rejection. "I've heard too many people with that name.

Elise nodded to her reply and thought for a longer time. "Elizabeth?"

"No, that sounded like a name that came from the Church." Elise heard her mentioning the Church in distaste but didn't put much attention to it and came out with another name. "Then, the name of this flower-" Elise took off her flower crown and showed the red Amaryliss flower to the Sulix. "-Amaryllis. Aryl."

"Amaryllis." The Sulix called out the names, her eyes stayed on the beautiful little flower on the crown. "Aryl. Yes, that sounds good to me. Call me Aryl from now on, Elise." Aryl saw the girl smiled widely for being able to help a new person from being nameless and returned back with a gentle kiss on her cheek before making a turn on the air.

"The thing before you told me. You were a slave before?" Aryl asked again, pulling the fact that slipped out of her lips.

Elise nodded, it was what Ghost Arain had told her. She didn't understand anything deeper beneath the word and replied to the friendly Aryl. "Yes. Master Ian bought me." She muttered out the words that she heard from the slave traders in oblivious.

Aryl frowned in disgust as she thought that the little girl was forced to live with the imbecile inside his house. Forced to life with Ian, meaning living in a place of dreadness, just by imagining that Ian would chop and cook the girl after she came to age made a chill run down through Aryl's back. "How hateful." she murmured in a whisper.

"What about your parent's Elise?" To this question from Aryl, Elise's head drooped down slightly.

Her blue eyes deepened in the color of the bottom of the Sea, gloominess floated for a moment. "They don't want me." She replied the same answer that she received from her aunt, Angelica.

By those four words, Aryl seemed to be reading more into the context. She understood that the girl had a pure heart, but it was filled with scars since her childhood. A pitiful girl who had done everything with all her best from the awful world. She was a pitiful little child. The sweet child would always be loved by faeries and some kin of mythical beings, but humans rarely liked them as a person as they feared the extraordinary power that they had. It had been said since a long time ago, the sweet child would live in a twisted fate yet she was too young to experience such misfortune. First, her evil family who abandoned her and the second, the damned demon who for sure never had a heart.

Aryl bit on her little nails and muttered out. "This couldn't go on."

At that point, Austin and Cynthia realized that Elise had gone from her spot and dispatch again to find her. Austin used his sharp cat eyes to spot the flower crown on Elise's laps sticking out of the bushes and called her out. "Elise!"