【"A new day, a new way to say hello!"】
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【Various Locations】
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【#E31230】
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【Various Locations】
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【#E31230】
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The silence descended over the house like a spring shower, suddenly muting the usually boisterous demon and sending his companions skittering into their corners to occupy themselves without fear of intrusion. In the year since they took over this abandoned sprawl of land all the humans had settled back down, claiming their territory and making themselves at home in the old husk of a building. In the last few months it had grown a bit homier, a little more lived in, and anyone who so chose could disappear into the woodwork of the tangled hive of halls in the languid structure.
Sabine brooded like this frequently these days. It was undoubtedly better than the alternative, but the fits of catatonia tended to deeply affect the mood of the house. At times like this, the demon could sit, staring vacantly into the middle distance as if reliving memories, almost entirely unaware of his surroundings. These slow states were good for a good hair-brushing session, some reading, or a long cuddle, if one as willing to tolerate the iron grip of the demon for a few hours until an opportunity for escape made itself momentarily available or Sabine woke back up.
So the humans had nearly a week to do as they pleased, as long as they didn’t draw too close to the blank-eyed creature slumped over in an armchair in the library. The book he’d been trying to read before the mood hit him lay face down on the floor below him, still open to the last page he’d read before it slid from his suddenly nonexistent grip.
In the early evening on that warm, lazy spring day, however, the lanky figure started, suddenly sitting straight again. He blinked twice, looking around as if he couldn’t figure out how he’d ended up in this place. Slowly, like a man on stilts, he rose and wandered down the halls to his rooms, located at the heart of the winged manor. Thin fingers tugged through his mussed golden curls as he tried to remember which century he currently existed in. Where were they, exactly? The memories dribbled like sludge through his mind, out of reach for a few desperate moments.
While he did not need to sleep, the humans did, and as the hour grew later, he sensed sleep settle over the manor, along with that strange urge to hold his breath to remain perfectly quiet. He could not sleep, though, as much as he would like to. He couldn’t. Not anymore. At one point, sleep had been one more human delight to explore, but recently it was only a slog into his own fractured psyche something he had no particular desire to face. The nightmares plagued his dreams more often than not, and it was much easier to hide from these problems than to wake up again and again with the chill of fear wrapped around his throat. If one of the humans wanted him to lie with them until they fell asleep, he would be more than happy lie still and hold them close for a few hours, but he did not sleep. He mostly occupied himself with wondering what his sweet pets dreamt about.
The demon busied himself with cleaning up, gazing into the mirror that hung above the washstand in his room as he filled the basin from a porcelain jug. While they had a few rooms already furnished with running water, largely in and in the rooms surrounding the kitchen on the first floor, it was simply too difficult to try and run lines throughout the whole of the old house. As it was, the piping that led to one of the many wells on the vast grounds was painfully obvious against the significantly less modern façade of their home. The large roll top bath he’d put in was very nice, as was the cistern that flushed the toilet, they weren’t much more than luxuries for humans that no longer needed to eat or drink and therefore rarely perspired, and only truly needed a bath when the managed to get themselves somehow incredibly dirty. The would only produce waste when they bothered to eat, which was more for some than others, so the running water was mostly used to washing clothes and filling buckets to wash the floor and filling jugs for the washstands on the upper floors.
Nonetheless, there was something pleasurable about running the damp cloth along the slim lines of his form. How human he looked, in so many aspects! It was amazing to think that he’d made this body with his own two hands. While there had been unforeseen difficulties, especially when it came to his innards, he could hardly fix those things now—the pets would surely starve to death if he left. He had no clue how long it’d take to rewire everything, it had taken ages to get the outside of the body to work properly to begin with it. The only things he’d managed to build somewhat properly were the skeletal and muscular systems. His cardiovascular system was fairly accurate, but some of the humans had seemed surprised that his heart was near his core, instead of higher in his chest. He still didn’t understand why their hearts weren’t central, but he didn’t push the issue. It wasn’t important anyway, and neither was his lack of a digestive system. It wasn’t like he ate that much anyway, and he didn’t mind being ill for the sake of the pets when he did eat.
The demon studied himself for a few long moments in his mirror, a deep sigh escaping his lung. What sad blue eyes stared back at him. Wasn’t he acting the fool? How could he be so morose when there was so much here for him? This was his home, his family. Wasn’t this what he wanted? He had a safe place to live, he had company, what more could he ask for? Persisting in this gloomy manner simply would not do. It’d be akin to giving up. He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t let that happen. Time meandered on with or without him, and the humans followed it, despite their relative immortality. They didn’t deserve to be ignored in such a way. He shouldn’t burden them with such things. It was time to lift his chin up and carry on as usual. He had what he’d always wanted, he should be happy! The demon smiled at himself. This was a common ritual. Every time he fell back into that dark place, he had to remind himself that this was the life that he’d chosen. There were no other options. He’d made this. If he wasn’t proud of it, who would be? And these humans were his responsibility anyway. It would be cruel to neglect them.
After combing out his hair, he dressed again in soft greys and blues, draped a coat over his shoulders, and wandered outside. The moon hung, fat and overripe, at the apex of the sky. Moonlight spattered over the path, turning the flora and statuary into silver-haloed silhouettes. If there was another soul in his path, he either did not notice them, or they were too skilled at hiding for him to spot them. The night air was slightly chilly, a reminder of the freshly passed winter. A faint shiver crept up Sabine’s back as he observed the flower buds trying vainly to bloom. The last snow was long behind them, but spring struggled to manifest itself, only fitfully warming the air.
Sabine sighed. Even after all these centuries, he still couldn’t control these foreign human emotions. Even with memories of home far behind him, he remembered how much easier it had been to live in a body that had been made specifically for him, a form where his soul did fit, where it didn’t leak out haphazardly, leading to these fits of rage and moroseness he so despised. His dislike of these issues, however, seemed only to make them worse. Things had been so terrible lately, he couldn’t go even a month without breaking down at least once. Why? It wasn’t fair. He just wanted to live, take care of the humans and enjoy the earth. Why were things falling apart like this?
This peace, in the wake of such strong emotion, however, was much welcomed. It was one good thing about this world, about this body. No matter how sad or angry he became, everything always came back to this odd, still feeling in the pit of his being. Calm. It was a good feeling.
The fact that he was struggling with these stupid emotions that so easily and frequently bested him was not something he could share with any of the humans. Not even those closest to him. Theirs was supposed to be a carefree existence. He couldn’t burden them with his troubles, it wouldn’t be right. Even if this anger seemed to be doing the job for him. And the forgetfulness. Coming back to himself to see them broken and cowering was one thing, but to see their face fall when he forgot something important was even worse. And it had been happening so frequently lately. He should start keeping a list of important things nearby just in case. The fear of losing whatever continuum of memory he still clung to was a complex bundle of thoughts he’d been doing his very best to avoid thus far. If he didn’t think about it, it wasn’t a problem, right?
Right.
Sometimes, though, in the dead of night like this, he wondered if he should just let them all go. It wouldn’t be fair, though. They would die slow, agonizing deaths by starvation. How could he willingly play party to that? He still didn’t know exactly how they would die, other than suppositions based on how they began to act once they grew hungry, but he was fairly sure it’d be highly unpleasant. And he wasn’t about to experiment on a human to find out for sure. He wasn’t that kind of person.
They had enough troubles on their own anyway, didn’t they.
He just needed to remind himself to keep his chin up, to stay happy. Everything would turn out just fine, as long as he stayed content with the way things were. Life would continue on as it always had. As the sun began to stain the horizon with early morning color over the trees, Sabine sat down on a stone bench, facing an angelic fountain he’d acquired long ago and never really had the heart to get rid of. Now the stone had been worn down so much that the poor cherub was barely distinguishable. It was a trinket of a time since passed, a gift from someone long forgotten and longer dead.
It was funny. Sabine’s memory was incredibly vast, but as the years passed it worsened not because he lost the memories, but because it was too difficult to find them. It didn’t help that every fit of emptiness or anger caused little blips of nothingness on the fabric of his consciousness, and everything seemed to be fraying, connections lost and chaos reigning in his memory recall. He sighed, his shoulders rising and falling resignedly. He gazed up at the lightening sky for a few moments, one of millions of sunrises he’d seen. They were always so precious, though. He never tired of them. A new day. His eyes slid shut, head tilted back in an almost rapturous pose as peace settled over him. Life would continue for his little household as it always did. Everything would be fine.
Everything would be just fine.
As the sky blushed shyly, the sun finally poking its head over the trees, Sabine rose. Things had been altogether too quiet. He needed everyone to be together for a while. That usually cheered him up. It was an easy way to make sure everyone was doing alright anyway. A nice breakfast would do the trick. Everyone would come together to make food, those who desired to eat could eat, and those who did not could sit for a while. They would be a happy household for an hour or two. It would be fun!
They were all probably starting to get hungry anyway. He’d gotten into the habit of waiting for them to come to him if they needed to eat because, while some of them came willingly, trying to feed the others before the bite of hunger stirred them was like trying to drag a cat out of the attic. So it was easier to let them come to him, but he knew that some of the humans didn’t like to approach him when he was in catatonia. So hopefully those who required food would alert him during breakfast, and they could feed without issue.
Most of them did a good job about staying on top of their hunger. Perhaps they were ashamed by the violent measures they would inadvertently enact if they waited too long. He didn’t mind having his throat chewed out or his wrists scratched up on occasion—it was its own form of affection—but it seemed to bother several of them. It didn’t hurt him overmuch, but that didn’t seem to change the popular opinion.
It was a human thing.
A light, early morning breeze tugged at his long blond curls as he trotted back towards the manor, and the chill made him pull his jacket closer. It was time to gather the troops. Those who’d noticed that he’d vacated his spot from the night before would not be surprised to see him bouncing around, but those who hadn’t would certainly be caught off guard by his sudden mood change. Especially since he had the bad habit of bursting into places when he was excited about something.
It was a bit of a pain to find everyone. He’d let them choose their own rooms, so they were scattered all over. He didn’t linger long after finding any one pet, just long enough to tell them to go down to the kitchens and help prepare for breakfast. Any argument was met with a cheerful promise that if they didn’t come down, he’d carry them down himself and tie them to a chair. Some of the humans were still in their rooms—some still asleep—and others had already risen and were wandering about. Most of the time, meals were not spent together, since there was no real need to eat, but the best way to handle Sabine’s occasional whimsy was to sit at the table for a while until he floated off again, his attentions so easily diverted once he’d gotten what he wanted. It was also a good time to ask Sabine for new items, whether pets, clothing, or other trinkets, because he was usually in a fair mood when everyone was gathered together.
Once he’d finally assembled everyone, however, he made the realization that two members of the household were missing. The Blackbird he was unsurprised about, the golden-eyed boy was endlessly playing games, trying to keep a step out of reach. His Fox, however, came as a surprise, she usually attended when he called to her. But, as it was, he had two arms, he could carry them both down if he had to.
Sabine brooded like this frequently these days. It was undoubtedly better than the alternative, but the fits of catatonia tended to deeply affect the mood of the house. At times like this, the demon could sit, staring vacantly into the middle distance as if reliving memories, almost entirely unaware of his surroundings. These slow states were good for a good hair-brushing session, some reading, or a long cuddle, if one as willing to tolerate the iron grip of the demon for a few hours until an opportunity for escape made itself momentarily available or Sabine woke back up.
So the humans had nearly a week to do as they pleased, as long as they didn’t draw too close to the blank-eyed creature slumped over in an armchair in the library. The book he’d been trying to read before the mood hit him lay face down on the floor below him, still open to the last page he’d read before it slid from his suddenly nonexistent grip.
In the early evening on that warm, lazy spring day, however, the lanky figure started, suddenly sitting straight again. He blinked twice, looking around as if he couldn’t figure out how he’d ended up in this place. Slowly, like a man on stilts, he rose and wandered down the halls to his rooms, located at the heart of the winged manor. Thin fingers tugged through his mussed golden curls as he tried to remember which century he currently existed in. Where were they, exactly? The memories dribbled like sludge through his mind, out of reach for a few desperate moments.
While he did not need to sleep, the humans did, and as the hour grew later, he sensed sleep settle over the manor, along with that strange urge to hold his breath to remain perfectly quiet. He could not sleep, though, as much as he would like to. He couldn’t. Not anymore. At one point, sleep had been one more human delight to explore, but recently it was only a slog into his own fractured psyche something he had no particular desire to face. The nightmares plagued his dreams more often than not, and it was much easier to hide from these problems than to wake up again and again with the chill of fear wrapped around his throat. If one of the humans wanted him to lie with them until they fell asleep, he would be more than happy lie still and hold them close for a few hours, but he did not sleep. He mostly occupied himself with wondering what his sweet pets dreamt about.
The demon busied himself with cleaning up, gazing into the mirror that hung above the washstand in his room as he filled the basin from a porcelain jug. While they had a few rooms already furnished with running water, largely in and in the rooms surrounding the kitchen on the first floor, it was simply too difficult to try and run lines throughout the whole of the old house. As it was, the piping that led to one of the many wells on the vast grounds was painfully obvious against the significantly less modern façade of their home. The large roll top bath he’d put in was very nice, as was the cistern that flushed the toilet, they weren’t much more than luxuries for humans that no longer needed to eat or drink and therefore rarely perspired, and only truly needed a bath when the managed to get themselves somehow incredibly dirty. The would only produce waste when they bothered to eat, which was more for some than others, so the running water was mostly used to washing clothes and filling buckets to wash the floor and filling jugs for the washstands on the upper floors.
Nonetheless, there was something pleasurable about running the damp cloth along the slim lines of his form. How human he looked, in so many aspects! It was amazing to think that he’d made this body with his own two hands. While there had been unforeseen difficulties, especially when it came to his innards, he could hardly fix those things now—the pets would surely starve to death if he left. He had no clue how long it’d take to rewire everything, it had taken ages to get the outside of the body to work properly to begin with it. The only things he’d managed to build somewhat properly were the skeletal and muscular systems. His cardiovascular system was fairly accurate, but some of the humans had seemed surprised that his heart was near his core, instead of higher in his chest. He still didn’t understand why their hearts weren’t central, but he didn’t push the issue. It wasn’t important anyway, and neither was his lack of a digestive system. It wasn’t like he ate that much anyway, and he didn’t mind being ill for the sake of the pets when he did eat.
The demon studied himself for a few long moments in his mirror, a deep sigh escaping his lung. What sad blue eyes stared back at him. Wasn’t he acting the fool? How could he be so morose when there was so much here for him? This was his home, his family. Wasn’t this what he wanted? He had a safe place to live, he had company, what more could he ask for? Persisting in this gloomy manner simply would not do. It’d be akin to giving up. He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t let that happen. Time meandered on with or without him, and the humans followed it, despite their relative immortality. They didn’t deserve to be ignored in such a way. He shouldn’t burden them with such things. It was time to lift his chin up and carry on as usual. He had what he’d always wanted, he should be happy! The demon smiled at himself. This was a common ritual. Every time he fell back into that dark place, he had to remind himself that this was the life that he’d chosen. There were no other options. He’d made this. If he wasn’t proud of it, who would be? And these humans were his responsibility anyway. It would be cruel to neglect them.
After combing out his hair, he dressed again in soft greys and blues, draped a coat over his shoulders, and wandered outside. The moon hung, fat and overripe, at the apex of the sky. Moonlight spattered over the path, turning the flora and statuary into silver-haloed silhouettes. If there was another soul in his path, he either did not notice them, or they were too skilled at hiding for him to spot them. The night air was slightly chilly, a reminder of the freshly passed winter. A faint shiver crept up Sabine’s back as he observed the flower buds trying vainly to bloom. The last snow was long behind them, but spring struggled to manifest itself, only fitfully warming the air.
Sabine sighed. Even after all these centuries, he still couldn’t control these foreign human emotions. Even with memories of home far behind him, he remembered how much easier it had been to live in a body that had been made specifically for him, a form where his soul did fit, where it didn’t leak out haphazardly, leading to these fits of rage and moroseness he so despised. His dislike of these issues, however, seemed only to make them worse. Things had been so terrible lately, he couldn’t go even a month without breaking down at least once. Why? It wasn’t fair. He just wanted to live, take care of the humans and enjoy the earth. Why were things falling apart like this?
This peace, in the wake of such strong emotion, however, was much welcomed. It was one good thing about this world, about this body. No matter how sad or angry he became, everything always came back to this odd, still feeling in the pit of his being. Calm. It was a good feeling.
The fact that he was struggling with these stupid emotions that so easily and frequently bested him was not something he could share with any of the humans. Not even those closest to him. Theirs was supposed to be a carefree existence. He couldn’t burden them with his troubles, it wouldn’t be right. Even if this anger seemed to be doing the job for him. And the forgetfulness. Coming back to himself to see them broken and cowering was one thing, but to see their face fall when he forgot something important was even worse. And it had been happening so frequently lately. He should start keeping a list of important things nearby just in case. The fear of losing whatever continuum of memory he still clung to was a complex bundle of thoughts he’d been doing his very best to avoid thus far. If he didn’t think about it, it wasn’t a problem, right?
Right.
Sometimes, though, in the dead of night like this, he wondered if he should just let them all go. It wouldn’t be fair, though. They would die slow, agonizing deaths by starvation. How could he willingly play party to that? He still didn’t know exactly how they would die, other than suppositions based on how they began to act once they grew hungry, but he was fairly sure it’d be highly unpleasant. And he wasn’t about to experiment on a human to find out for sure. He wasn’t that kind of person.
They had enough troubles on their own anyway, didn’t they.
He just needed to remind himself to keep his chin up, to stay happy. Everything would turn out just fine, as long as he stayed content with the way things were. Life would continue on as it always had. As the sun began to stain the horizon with early morning color over the trees, Sabine sat down on a stone bench, facing an angelic fountain he’d acquired long ago and never really had the heart to get rid of. Now the stone had been worn down so much that the poor cherub was barely distinguishable. It was a trinket of a time since passed, a gift from someone long forgotten and longer dead.
It was funny. Sabine’s memory was incredibly vast, but as the years passed it worsened not because he lost the memories, but because it was too difficult to find them. It didn’t help that every fit of emptiness or anger caused little blips of nothingness on the fabric of his consciousness, and everything seemed to be fraying, connections lost and chaos reigning in his memory recall. He sighed, his shoulders rising and falling resignedly. He gazed up at the lightening sky for a few moments, one of millions of sunrises he’d seen. They were always so precious, though. He never tired of them. A new day. His eyes slid shut, head tilted back in an almost rapturous pose as peace settled over him. Life would continue for his little household as it always did. Everything would be fine.
Everything would be just fine.
As the sky blushed shyly, the sun finally poking its head over the trees, Sabine rose. Things had been altogether too quiet. He needed everyone to be together for a while. That usually cheered him up. It was an easy way to make sure everyone was doing alright anyway. A nice breakfast would do the trick. Everyone would come together to make food, those who desired to eat could eat, and those who did not could sit for a while. They would be a happy household for an hour or two. It would be fun!
They were all probably starting to get hungry anyway. He’d gotten into the habit of waiting for them to come to him if they needed to eat because, while some of them came willingly, trying to feed the others before the bite of hunger stirred them was like trying to drag a cat out of the attic. So it was easier to let them come to him, but he knew that some of the humans didn’t like to approach him when he was in catatonia. So hopefully those who required food would alert him during breakfast, and they could feed without issue.
Most of them did a good job about staying on top of their hunger. Perhaps they were ashamed by the violent measures they would inadvertently enact if they waited too long. He didn’t mind having his throat chewed out or his wrists scratched up on occasion—it was its own form of affection—but it seemed to bother several of them. It didn’t hurt him overmuch, but that didn’t seem to change the popular opinion.
It was a human thing.
A light, early morning breeze tugged at his long blond curls as he trotted back towards the manor, and the chill made him pull his jacket closer. It was time to gather the troops. Those who’d noticed that he’d vacated his spot from the night before would not be surprised to see him bouncing around, but those who hadn’t would certainly be caught off guard by his sudden mood change. Especially since he had the bad habit of bursting into places when he was excited about something.
It was a bit of a pain to find everyone. He’d let them choose their own rooms, so they were scattered all over. He didn’t linger long after finding any one pet, just long enough to tell them to go down to the kitchens and help prepare for breakfast. Any argument was met with a cheerful promise that if they didn’t come down, he’d carry them down himself and tie them to a chair. Some of the humans were still in their rooms—some still asleep—and others had already risen and were wandering about. Most of the time, meals were not spent together, since there was no real need to eat, but the best way to handle Sabine’s occasional whimsy was to sit at the table for a while until he floated off again, his attentions so easily diverted once he’d gotten what he wanted. It was also a good time to ask Sabine for new items, whether pets, clothing, or other trinkets, because he was usually in a fair mood when everyone was gathered together.
Once he’d finally assembled everyone, however, he made the realization that two members of the household were missing. The Blackbird he was unsurprised about, the golden-eyed boy was endlessly playing games, trying to keep a step out of reach. His Fox, however, came as a surprise, she usually attended when he called to her. But, as it was, he had two arms, he could carry them both down if he had to.