Flashback
In his bedroom, near the top of the Gremory Castle, Raylix- sat in his chair and staring into the empty fireplace- was feeling something that he hadn't felt in a very, very long time.
He was worried.
With his elbows resting on his knees, he let out a breath through his nose and shifted slightly, his fingers absently rubbing together as his thoughts circled around the same thing over and over again.
It was three days. Three days until he got married. Three days until he was to be wed to Ruvella Phenex. Three days until his life… effectively stopped belonging to him altogether.
It should've been something to look forward to, objectively speaking. And maybe, in a slightly different life, he might have been. Ruvella was- sans only maybe Serafall- the most desired bachelorette among all Devils, and for good reason. Gorgeous, smart, heiress to one of Hell's most influential families and- unlike a depressingly large amount of high-ranking demonic nobility- could actually be alright company.
But this life wasn't a slightly-different one. This was his current life, with all the baggage that had come with it leading up to this moment, baggage that Raylix couldn't ignore. It had led him to this night, where he was hoping more for a call from Malech to let him know of an opportunity to leave all this shit behind him than that the start of his married life to Ruvella would be a pleasant one.
Raylix exhaled, leaning back slightly and lifting one hand to rub at his face.
Marriage to Ruvella wouldn't just mean sharing a bed with her and her name changing to Ruvella Gremory. It would effectively mean the timeline of him properly becoming Duke Gremory got moved up. A shared estate with his new wife. Constant appearances with said wife to show off their status as the couple that would lead the next generation of demonic nobility. Expectations of children (even if one Devil getting another pregnant was… difficult, compared to one human getting another pregnant). And more eyes on him than were already the case… and there were already far too many eyes on him for his liking.
Right now, he still had some freedom. Not much, certainly nowhere near as much as he'd had before Sabemka and Tomosei died, and the incident with Zekram not that long after. Enough to leave the Gremory Castle every now and then, to disappear across the Underworld for a few hours without his family jumping to the edge of losing their shit. Point is, he was still in a position where the possibility of escaping to the Old Satan Faction with Malech, after (or if) he called, was still significant.
But if that call came after he and Ruvella were sealed in unholy matrimony? He might as well forget all that. Under such close monitoring in the immediate post-wedding, not just from his family but from the Phenex Clan too, probably through whatever servants they gifted to the future Duke and Duchess Gremory, and from both families' political allies, other opportunistic nobles, future retainers et cetera… dropping everything and running away would be a pipe-dream.
So, if Malech was going to call to let him know that he had a way out for him, that call really, REALLY needed to come within the next few days… or it might as well never come. It was- effectively- now or never.
And if it ended up being never… Raylix's jaw tightened at the thought. Could he bring himself to go through with it if that became the case? Stand there at the altar, smile for the Underworld's gathered nobility, take Ruvella's hand, speak vows that he didn't even write himself, and condemn himself to the exact kind of life he'd spent the last effective year realising that he wanted no part in anymore?
…
He didn't know. And a knock on his bedroom door roused him from his thoughts before they could progress any further down that undesired road.
"Raylix?" his father's voice wandered into the room from the other side. "You decent?"
The auburn-haired noble straightened, slightly.
"Yeah."
The door opened a second later, as the present Duke Gremory stepped into the room. Dressed more casually than he usually was for noble gatherings- even if 'casual' for Zeoticus Gremory still looked richer and more refined than most beings would ever manage in their lives- the older crimson-haired Devil smiled slightly upon seeing his younger son.
"Good to see you." Zeoticus remarked, by way of greeting. "Sorry that this is coming on such short notice, but I need you properly dressed and ready for dinner tonight. The Phenexes are due around within the hour for dinner."
Raylix resisted the urge to sigh.
Right… dinner.
"Didn't Mother say that the rehearsal was happening tomorrow?" he asked.
"Well, yes." Zeoticus replied, raising one hand and opening a magic-circle near himself. "But apparently, Rika decided it'd be better if we started the day all together, rather than rush around getting everyone here tomorrow morning. Hence… dinner tonight, rehearsal tomorrow. You alright with that?"
Raylix bit his tongue before he could let out the first answer that leapt to its tip. He'd become rather good at doing that, in recent months.
"Sounds like it's already been decided, so…" he trailed off, prompting a short chuckle from his father as he reached into the magic-circle, pulling out a bag containing a freshly-made suit, and laid it on the bed beside them.
Even if it was bagged, Raylix could tell at a glance that it was probably expensive enough to buy a human-world mansion outright.
"That's the spirit, son." Zeoticus replied, stepping back and gesturing to the suit. "You'll be wearing that tonight."
"Got it."
Zeoticus adjusted the sleeves of his own jacket, meeting Raylix's eyes with his own before slowly sinking onto the edge of the bed, taking care not to disturb the suit in its bag.
"Gods above and below, I still can't believe it's finally happening." He admitted, chuckling again a little to himself. "It feels like only yesterday: you were barely taller than my knee and running around the gardens of our first home… and now we're here, just a few days away from you properly joining the Underworld as a man."
Raylix forced a faint smile, that hopefully looked convincing enough. As if him almost literally freaking DYING on multiple occasions during both the Great War and Devil Civil Wars didn't constitute him being considered a man already.
"Yeah… crazy."
"Mittlefrank also got back to us this morning, by the way." Zeoticus continued, clearly more enthusiastic about this entire conversation than Raylix was. "Took a lot of wrangling to get their schedule aligned with ours, but they'll be there for a full performance at your reception. Your mother and Rika practically had to move mountains, but I'm told Ruvella is ecstatic about it. This'll be the biggest event since Lucifer and Lilith were wedded, I can barely wait!"
Raylix's gaze drifted slightly away from his father, half-tuning him out as he went on a tangent about Lucifer and Lilith's wedding, aspects of it that they'd copied, how kingly their creator had looked in the moment and how radiant his wife- now widow- looked. Raylix couldn't bring himself to fully listen or care: it wasn't his wedding his father was even talking about at this point… hell, he hadn't even been alive for it.
But…
"Father?"
Zeoticus stopped mid-ramble about Lilith's wedding dress, and blinked.
"Yes?"
Raylix hesitated for a second, before speaking again.
"Do you ever wonder about… how things might be today, if something in the past had gone differently, even slightly?"
Zeoticus blinked once at the question.
Then twice.
Leaning back slightly, he folded his arms and sucked in a breath, before shaking his head.
"I can't say I dwell on it much, no." he replied. "Not much point, really: the past already happened. You can learn from it, sure, but constantly wondering about every regret you have from the past doesn't change anything in the here and now, and it definitely doesn't help you going forward… which is where your mind should be, Raylix."
Raylix remained quiet.
"You're a Gremory, son." The older Devil continued, his tone calm but firm. "And not just any Gremory, either: you're the one that will take this family into the future, to heights not even I could dream of doing. That's where your focus should be… at least, after you're married to Ruvella."
Raylix's fingers tightened slightly around his chair, but he- again- didn't respond.
"She's a wonderful girl." Zeoticus went on. "Strong, intelligent, beautiful, from an excellent family… and she's genuinely fond of you, in spite of the recent hiccups. In less than a week, she'll be your wife. You should be more excited, son."
Raylix lowered his gaze slightly, for a moment, before he looked over at Zeoticus again.
"I am, Father." He replied. "I just… don't think it's fully set in, yet. I doubt it will until it's done, really."
Zeoticus studied him for a second longer, before closing his eyes and humming.
"Ah." He nodded. "That's understandable."
He rose to his feet, gesturing to the bagged suit beside him as he did so.
"Get changed soon. Your mother'll kill us both if you're late for dinner."
With that, the Duke turned and headed for the door. Pausing before he could lay a hand on it and pull it open, he glanced back over his shoulder.
"And Raylix?"
Raylix looked over, having begun to rise to his feet in turn.
"Hm?"
"I'm proud of you." Zeoticus spoke, quietly. "Truly."
Raylix froze mid-rise at his father's words. They were nice to hear, sure, but he couldn't help but feel that they'd have landed a little better had Zeoticus not spent the last few months dragging him by the balls (metaphorically, obviously) through everything relating to this whole engagement at full speed, after going along with the entire noble class in disparaging Sabemka and Tomosei so soon after they'd died.
He couldn't help but feel that Zeoticus was only saying "I'm proud of you" because he was only doing what he wanted. Or at least, he THOUGHT he was doing what he wanted.
"…Right." He replied, forcing down another biting retort before it could spill out. "…Thanks."
Zeoticus smiled one last time before stepping out into the hallway, the bedroom door quietly shutting behind him as he did so. As silence returned to the bedroom, Raylix sunk back into his chair, sitting motionless for several long seconds while looking at the door his father had just exited through, his eyes fixated on… nothing in particular.
After a few seconds, he looked towards the window, at the view of the Underworld stretching out beyond the Gremory Castle grounds, where he'd be fleeing to before heading to… wherever it was the Old Satan Faction were located, if the call from Malech came in time.
After another few seconds, he looked back towards his bed, towards the suit that was laid out for him. Towards the future that had been laid out for him, and he'd be stuck on essentially-forever if the call from Malech did NOT come in time.
As Raylix leaned back in his chair and stared up towards the ceiling of his bedroom, before pulling himself to his feet again and reaching for the bag, deciding to try the suit on, he found himself feeling something else: resolve.
That last conversation with his father had confirmed it, beyond any reasonable doubt. If the call from Malech came, then that would be it.
He would be out of here.
Flashback end
Line Break
The warmth was the first thing Raylix felt as he returned to consciousness. As the first hints of morning sunlight bled through the half-open balcony curtains, prompting the Devil to open his eyes… and immediately squeeze them shut again as the sunlight zeroed in on his eyes and attacked them at full force.
He tried to raise one of his hands to his face so he could cover his eyes, and maybe open them again, but found that to be somewhat hard considering both arms were being clutched by the women sleeping on either side of him.
Though, on the plus side, said women were probably a good chunk of the reason why the sleep he'd found himself waking up from was some of the best he'd ever really had. That, and the bed. And the place that he and Lilith had been staying in for the past few weeks on their honeymoon, with Eve also present as their shared concubine.
The bed's mattress was enormous: large enough that even with three people sharing it, there was still plenty of room left over. Room that the three of them had made full use of over the past few weeks with various… activities.
The sheets felt softer than some enchanted fabrics he'd worn and slept on back in the Underworld… though he somehow doubted that said sheets weren't also enchanted. He really wouldn't put it past Lilith to have that sorted out before they arrived.
And somewhere nearby, he could hear the distant ocean rolling against the Balinese shores, mixed with faint tropical birdsong and the quiet hum of the resort's air-conditioning.
It was peaceful. Warm. Comfortable. And potentially extremely dangerous to even consider moving from his current position. On his left, Lilith was still asleep beside him, her long black hair spilled over her face, the pillows and sheets while lightly clutching his left arm within both of hers, with her tails resting over his lower chest and thighs. Under the bits of hair that rested over her face, Raylix caught her expression: it always looked far calmer when she was asleep than she ever did awake, with her usual smug smile or queenly impassiveness replaced with a softer expression that very few people in existence ever got to see.
And to his right, Eve was practically glued to his other side. Pressed warmly against him with her head tucked near his shoulder, one arm thrown over his upper chest and a leg partially over his lower torso and thighs, around the same location on his body as Lilith's tails. Judging by the faint smile on her sleeping face, the cream-haired Primordial Human looked like she was either having a pleasant dream, or subconsciously extremely happy with her new position as Lilith and Raylix's shared concubine.
Hell, maybe even both at the same time.
With great effort, Raylix dragged his eyes away from Eve's naked sleeping form and stared up at the ceiling, slowly letting out a quiet breath. No way was he getting out of this position normally: if he tried anything of the sort, he'd almost definitely wake Lilith, wake Eve or accidentally trigger some half-asleep horny response from one or both of them, that'd end with him getting dragged back under the sheets for another hour at ABSOLUTE minimum.
Sounded fun, to be fair, but… not without taking a piss first. And probably getting a drink.
As fate would have it, though, Raylix was well-accustomed to getting himself out of situations such as these. A small pulse of demonic power around himself, a single crimson transportation-circle formed beneath himself, a soft flash of demonic light later, and Raylix vanished from between the two women without disturbing the bed whatsoever. A heartbeat later, he found himself lying on his back, naked as he'd gotten into bed last night, on the ground just outside the bed.
Easy-peasy, Raylix smugly thought to himself as he got to his feet and made for the villa's en-suite bathroom. After taking care of business in there, he quietly made his way down to the kitchen area, after stopping to pull on a loose pair of dark lounge pants. Stretching as he moved over to the kitchen counter, he couldn't resist the sigh that escaped him as his vertebrae faintly cracked, and the stiffness that came with sleep slowly began to vacate him.
Gods above and below, his body felt absolutely wrecked. Not in a bad way, he wasn't hurt or anything. Hell knew he was tough enough to take anything Lilith could throw at him sexually. Just… used- very, very thoroughly so- and in the best possible way. Which was all he could have really hoped for, given the last few weeks.
Flicking one of his hands to magically open one of the cabinets before he'd gotten all the way over there, Raylix grabbed a glass before making for the villa's minibar. It took him all of a few seconds to decide on the drink he wanted before pulling out an expensive-looking whiskey bottle, with a name he couldn't pronounce.
Raylix poured himself a generous amount, then another small splash on top of that. Leaning against the counter, he took a slow sip as his eyes drifted across the villa. Lilith had really outdone herself when it came to choosing this spot for their honeymoon, considering how every aspect of it that one could think of was the absolute peak of human-world luxury and beyond.
Massive open rooms. Expensive furniture. Ocean-view balconies. An indoor-outdoor bathing area. A private pool. The aforementioned mini-bar that had been stocked more than enough to sate the alcoholic appetites of a pair of supernatural beings and their shared Primordial Human lover. All spread out over enough space that the three of them could comfortably live here for a few weeks without getting in each other's way… as if they ever would, though.
A snort escaped Raylix at the thought, as his mind wandered over the past few weeks that had comprised his and Lilith's honeymoon: another escaped him as his eyes continued to drift over the villa, and every surface that he, Lilith and Eve had screwed themselves stupid on.
On the bed, obviously. In the shower. Against the kitchen counter he was currently leaning against. On the dining table. On the balcony outside the bedroom. On the couch. On the chairs. Against the windows. On the windows. And one particularly memorable incident that had involved the ceiling.
Demonic magic was a truly wonderful thing. Especially when used by a millennia-old succubus GILF with an extremely active imagination, a practically infinite sex drive and less than zero shame.
Another sip of whiskey disappeared down Raylix's throat as the memories continued to surface in his head, and- in spite of how many times he'd had his jizz practically milked out of him the night before- he felt his other head stirring in turn.
So many different positions, spells and forms over the past few weeks, with Lilith coming up with some potential new sexperiment every few hours, Eve enthusiastically supporting practically every idea presented to her no matter how ridiculous it got, and Raylix himself… very much along for the ride, deciding it would be easier for all involved if he stopped pretending to be the reasonable one somewhere around day four.
Maybe day three.
Or had it been day two…?
Anyway, with how powerful two out of the villa's current three occupants were, it was a wonder they hadn't brought the place crashing down around them in the midst of their unbridled post-wedding passion, Raylix thought as he took another long drink and let his head tilt back slightly.
This whole thing almost felt… strange to the former Gremory Heir. Hell only knew he would NOT be anywhere close to this, had that call from Malech not come in the nick of time and he'd been able to leave for the Old Satan Faction as readily as he did. Shit, he could barely imagine where, how or even IF he'd be if he'd ended up marrying Ruvella and staying under the thumb of the demonic aristocracy.
'Not here, that's for sure.' He mentally mused to himself, taking another gulp. As hard (not in THAT way) as the path he'd chosen had been, and would almost definitely continue to be going forward, it was paradise compared to the suffocating life of being the Heir of a noble Underworld family… which more likely than not, had fuelled the surname he and Lilith had chosen for themselves, as a sort of marker of their marriage.
"Raylix… Elysia…" he murmured, softly. Still felt weird saying it out loud. Though after half a millennium of going by some variation of 'Raylix Gremory', it was always going to be, at least for the first few decades. It wasn't anything close to official, of course: no government in Hell was going to recognise that name anytime soon. He was pretty sure no government in Hell was 100% certain that he was even alive.
But he didn't care. Not in the slightest. As weird as it felt to say out loud, it felt much better to him personally than 'Raylix Gremory', a name that didn't even feel like his anymore: it hadn't for a few years. But 'Raylix Elysia', that was something he'd chosen, to go along with the path in life he'd chosen to walk down.
Raising his glass to… nothing in particular, he drained the rest of the whiskey from it in one go, drinking to his new name… and almost immediately coughing part of it back up again as he realised- too late- that what was left in his glass had been just a little too much to try and hold down with one gulp.
But he managed it. And it tasted good. So… meh. Worth it.
After refilling his glass, Raylix drifted onto the villa's private deck overlooking the resort's infinity pool and the Balinese coastline beyond, closing his eyes as the warm morning air immediately rolled over his bare skin.
It really bore repeating how good a job Lilith had done when it came to picking out this resort for their honeymoon, because Gods, Bali was gorgeous at sunrise. A soft orangey-gold sky, with the ocean reflecting the growing light in shimmering streaks while palm trees swayed lazily in the distance. Somewhere nearby, birds called to each other while the faint sound of waves drifted up from the beach below the cliffs.
If there was a better view outside one's bed to wake up to, Raylix hadn't seen it.
Taking another sip, he made his way over to one of the loungers near the pool and settled into it. The pool itself looked immaculate, the body of water glowing faintly under the rising sun, in a seeming plea for Raylix to put it on the list of places within the villa that he'd at least stepped into, and at most had sex with either Lilith or Eve (or both of them) in.
But he wasn't budging on that one. Not a chance in Hell, whether literal or metaphorical. No matter how many times either Lilith or Eve had tried coaxing him into the pool over the last few weeks, it wasn't going to happen. Swimming and Raylix had never exactly gotten along… not after a certain battle with Tsufaame Tereaku Leviathan during the Devil Civil War, early on into Raylix's life, that had gone disastrously wrong and almost resulted in him being forcibly drowned and crushed under fathoms of water.
Not exactly something he was in much of a mood to risk repeating, under ANY circumstances.
Stretching out across the lounger, Raylix set his glass down and allowed himself to simply relax, and bask in the sunrise in a rare moment of peace. That did, in fact, only last a moment before the sliding door that led to the deck opened behind him.
Soft footsteps followed a second later, preceding a small giggle.
"Morning~"
Raylix didn't even need to turn around, already (correctly) guessing who it was that had come out to join him on the deck by her footsteps.
"Hey, Eve." Raylix replied, lifting his glass to the cream-haired Human as she- clad in a silky white dressing gown tied loosely around her waist- dropped down onto one of the loungers beside him. "You're up early."
"Or Lil's just up late." Eve remarked, stretching a bit. "Not often the pair of us are up before her."
Raylix hummed, taking another gulp of his drink.
"Maybe I actually tired her out." He remarked. "For once."
Eve couldn't help but giggle at the idea, as she stretched out across the lounger she'd plopped down onto. Even with the gown tied as loosely around her body as it was, it still somehow showed off her near-perfect figure so damn well.
After a few minutes of comfortable silence, though, she sat up, reached around herself and shed the gown, revealing something underneath that showed off… damn near everything, INCREDIBLY well.
Raylix's eyes immediately dragged over her body, clad in a tiny black-and-white bikini, before he could stop himself. But it was obvious that she was taking after her girlfriend with how she wore it. With how it strained so generously against her chest, how the bottoms hugged her hips in a way that was probably illegal in at least a few countries. All of that combined with her soft curves, toned stomach, long legs and the morning glow from the sun framing the whole thing…
Yeah. It was INCREDIBLY obvious, as much as Eve pretended it wasn't.
"What?" she asked sweetly, as soon as she clocked Raylix's eyes lingering over the show she was putting on. "Raylix, you're looking at me funny."
"I'm looking at you exactly how you want to." Raylix deadpanned, his eyes not leaving Eve's form even as he reached down to grab his glass and take another drink.
Eve let out another giggle as she got to her feet, playfully tossing her dressing gown in Raylix's vague direction (it landed on the ground before it could even reach the lounger he was resting on) and, after casting him another look, hopped lightly into the pool.
And though he didn't move from his position above the lounger, and more importantly where he was OUT of the water, Raylix's eyes continued to remain on Eve as she started slowly swimming across the pool, back and forth. As little as he felt interested in actually getting in and joining her in the pool, he couldn't deny that she looked REALLY damn good in there, doing her thing.
It was the little things she did, too. The glances over her shoulder, how she stretched against the edge of the pool with every time she reached one side or the other, the smiles she threw at him from in the water every few laps she completed, how she almost deliberately bobbed herself up and down to make her bikini top-clad breasts bounce within the water: all of it added up to an attempted seduction that- even after the absurdly hot, heavy and mildly-drunken threesome the three of them had gotten into the night before- Raylix had to admit was working VERY well on him.
Eve knew it, too, as she rested her arms along the edge of the pool, chin atop them and looking up at him after finishing a lap across the pool.
"It's not that deep in here, Raylix," she purred lazily. "I'm sure you'd be fine if you decided to come in. I'd hold onto you, all the time~"
Raylix stared down at her for a moment, blinking once before taking another sip from his glass.
"You are way too confident for someone currently trapped in an oversized bathtub." He remarked. "I'm good up here, thanks."
Eve lifted her head off of her arms, her grin widening slightly.
"And you are staring way too hard for someone pretending not to be tempted by me."
"I'm not pretending anything." Raylix retorted, taking another gulp of his drink and readjusting his position slightly on the lounger. Eve let out a giggle before pushing herself away from the pool's edge, dipping beneath the water entirely for a second or two before resurfacing several feet away, and continuing her slow laps back and forth across the water.
Raylix's eyes followed her automatically. It was what she wanted, and he was more than fine with indulging her, in this way at least. Gods, Lilith could be such a terrible influence.
Or an amazing one, depending on how you looked at it. Either way, an ungodly attractive influence.
Before Raylix could continue that train of thought much further, the sliding door behind him opened for a second time.
"Morning… love."
Raylix, again, didn't look over. With him where he was and Eve in the pool, there was only one person that could have opened the door to step out.
Clad in a dark silk dressing gown that loosely hung over her otherwise-naked body, Lilith stepped out onto the deck, yawning. Her crimson eyes narrowed slightly against the morning sun as she made her way over to the lounger Eve had been on minutes before, and sunk into it. Her hair looked slightly messier than usual, likely from only recently getting out of bed.
"Hey, Lil." Raylix replied, glancing over at her as he noticed her getting into the lounger out of the corner of his eye. Though as soon as he did so, his brow furrowed slightly as he realised… something was off.
Not physically, hell no. Lilith was still the fifteen-out-of-ten pinnacle of beauty that had fallen asleep beside him the night before. Though in the slightly messed-up post-orgasmic haze that Raylix had successfully driven her to the night before, she could arguably make a push for sixteen or seventeen.
And even in such a state, she was almost entirely composed, unphased, in control of the situation.
However, right now, that unflappable energy she carried wherever she went, into any situation, was almost entirely gone. She looked… stunned. Like she was still actively processing something.
Not long after Raylix clocked it, Eve resurfaced after finishing a lap, and noticed it too. She hoisted herself up and out of the pool, concern overtaking the teasing grin she'd worn only moments ago.
"Lil?" Eve asked, quickly wringing her hair out as she moved over. "You alright?"
Lilith blinked once, shifting up on the lounger so Eve could sit down beside her. Raylix shifted up into a sitting position on his lounger, too, setting his drink down.
"I'm… I'm alright." She replied. "I just… okay, probably best I just say it immediately."
The tone of what she'd said alone immediately killed whatever lingering haze the whiskey and Eve's little pool performance had left Raylix with: he was fully locked into whatever was going on with his wife now.
Lilith folded her arms beneath her chest as Eve laid a hand on her shoulder.
"So…" she began, slowly. "I guess the first signs were that the pair of you were up before me, and that when I woke up, I was feeling way more tired than I usually do."
"More tired than after-sex tired?" Eve asked. Raylix resisted the urge to snort at the remark as Lilith looked down at her girlfriend.
"Yes, Eve." She replied, dryly. "More tired than after-sex tired. I know better than anyone what that's like for me, this… wasn't that."
Eve swallowed.
"…Oh."
"Then," Lilith continued. "I ended up having a little… incident."
Raylix blinked, raising an eyebrow. But before he could ask for clarification, Lilith rose a finger to hold him up.
"I was sick." She clarified. "Not shitting myself. And I made it to the toilet… with seconds to spare."
"Thank Hell." Raylix replied, just as dryly.
Eve herself breathed a small sigh of relief, which drew an affectionate eye-roll from Lilith before she continued.
"But it got me thinking… I don't get sick. Not even after having as much to drink as I had last night."
Eve blinked once, before her eyes widened slightly. A second later, the implication began to form in the back of Raylix's mind, and he leaned forward slightly.
Lilith noticed both of their expressions and actions, before slowly nodding.
"I ran a magical diagnostic on myself." She spoke, slightly calmer and quieter than before. "I haven't… been like this, not since I had Grayfia, but I wanted to be sure…"
Silence settled across the deck.
Rubbing at her eyes with one hand for a second, Lilith looked from Eve and shared a small nod with her- which prompted her eyes to widen dramatically- before her gaze settled on Raylix a second later.
"I'm pregnant."
Line Break
A mass of black chains flew out towards a certain casually-dressed scarlet-haired Platinum-ranked Magician. Irene quickly raised her staff, mentally running through a few options to try and prevent them from wrapping around her.
A barrier around herself? Directly controlling the chains themselves? Fire an offensive spell at Cinder to make her focus on dodging rather than attacking her?
Settling on the second option, Irene levelled her staff at the closest chain to her, figuring that controlling only one of them would be easier than controlling the entire mass at once, which she could then use to subvert the rest of it, but as she focused her mana through the staff and towards the chain, the rest of the chains didn't wrap themselves around her as she'd initially predicted they were going to do.
Instead, they went straight for her staff, and yanked it from her hand, which she realised with a short cry of surprise. She stumbled forward slightly, looking across the URF leaders' compound's training chamber as her staff, clutched in Cinder's chains, flew backwards across the room toward her. Letting out an annoyed sigh, Irene raised her hand and snapped her fingers, and just as Cinder's chains fully returned to their caster and disappeared, her staff disappeared from within them and reappeared in her other hand.
"You think I haven't had my staff yanked out of my hand before, Cinder?" Irene called across the chamber, sending a few smaller-scale offensive bolts Cinder's way in order to destabilize her before following up with a larger charged magical energy bolt. "How long do you think I've lived?"
"Oh, I don't know…" Cinder replied, raising a hand and firing her dark chains up towards the high ceiling. "Two… thousand, years?"
Her joking rudeness was met with Irene pointing her staff at Cinder and triggering a large, loud explosion directly in front of her, prompting the younger mage to link her chains to the ceiling and pull herself upwards out of harm's way. With her free hand, once she was high enough, she aimed down at the space in front of Irene and sent out more dark chains that linked to the ground and began rapidly pulling her down towards her.
"Unwise move, Cinder!" Irene called, deftly enchanting the linked bottom of the chains near her feet to explode, destroying them. "Should've aimed to come down a bit further away from me- Woah!"
The destroyed end of the chains that Irene had blasted reformed, glowed lightly with Cinder's power as one of her swords appeared on the end of them. The chain flicked unexpectedly, forcing Irene to dodge out of the way of the sword on the end of it as another chain was fired down towards the ground behind her. Cinder pulled herself down via it, landing on the ground a couple of seconds later and spinning around, grinning as she flicked the chain with her sword on it in such a way that it flicked towards Irene again, forcing her to raise her staff to block the blade and allowing Cinder another fraction of a second to close the distance between herself and her master.
"Alright, I take that back." Irene remarked, leaning to one side and easily dodging the fireball that Cinder sent out of her now-free hand at her, while yanking the chained sword back to her other hand with a flick. "That was pretty clever."
Cinder grinned as the fireball she'd sent out collided with the wall of the training chamber and fizzled out a second later.
"But-"
Cinder's grin disappeared in an instant as Irene slammed her staff against the ground, and leapt from her spot a second later. As she did so, the ground itself- in a perfect circle- folded up on itself like a beartrap with Cinder herself caught in it. Letting out a squawk of surprise, she immediately diverted her chains to wrap around the pieces of ground that were about to crush her, and with all her strength began trying to pull them down.
Floating above the sight for a couple of seconds as she watched her student struggle, Irene cancelled the spell and allowed herself to slowly drop back to the ground.
"Alright, alright, that's enough." She spoke, laying a hand on Cinder's shoulder as her chains dissipated. "You alright?"
"Yeah…" Cinder replied, stretching a bit and readjusting the shorts she was wearing. "Nearly got you there, I know I did."
Irene shrugged.
"Maybe. But you ARE getting really good with those chains."
Cinder grinned, summoning a few links of the dark chains in question and twirling them around her hand.
"You think?"
"I know." Irene replied, dispelling her staff and folding her arms under her chest. "Not even a few months ago, I don't think you'd have been able to pull off half the shit you managed in the last few minutes.
Cinder let out a small giggle, before dispelling the chains.
"I've had time to practice." She replied. "Glad to know my work on Midnight Manacles isn't going to waste."
Irene blinked.
"You spend ten months naming the gift Raylix gave you and…" she paused, seeming to think about it for a second. "Actually, you know what. That has a ring to it."
Cinder smiled, shrugging.
"Thanks. Though I don't know if I've actually gotten stronger. Or if I've just found a fighting style that incorporates the manacles-" she summoned a few links of them and twirled them around her arm for a second before dispelling them again "-that works for me."
"Any reason that it can't be both?" Irene asked, rolling her shoulders. "Hell, we can find out right now, if you're willing to go again. See how high your output can get."
Cinder grinned immediately, as Irene took a few steps backwards and summoned her staff again.
"Oh, let's GO!" she cried, raising a hand and summoning an intense-looking fireball into it. Irene raised her staff, ready to conjure a layered shield that would surely be able to withstand Cinder firing with everything she had-
The doors to the training chamber slammed open hard enough to rattle the walls, and a silver blur came flying into the room at alarming speed before coming to a stop between the pair of them.
"Hikari?!" Cinder jumped a foot into the air from the sudden noise of the doors slamming open, almost firing her full-powered fireball from the shock of it all, but Hikari wasn't even looking at her.
"Irene!" the White Dragon Empress blurted out immediately. "Need you, now!"
Irene blinked. Before she could even respond with so much as a "Huh?", Hikari continued.
"Raylix, Lilith and Eve are back, and Lilith's pregnant! Like ACTUALLY pregnant! She's in her room!"
She was gone half a second later, leaving Irene and Cinder standing in silence for a couple of seconds. They looked at the doors that Hikari had exited through, just as quickly as she'd come through them, and then back at each other before Cinder broke the silence.
"I guess training's cancelled for now?"
"Training's cancelled for now." Irene replied, opening a transportation-circle for herself and immediately warping out of the training chamber.
A heartbeat later, Irene appeared a couple of floors up, just outside Lilith's room, and immediately pushed the door open. And just as Hikari had said, Lilith was already inside, sat on the edge of her bed and arguably looking the calmest out of the three. Eve was sat on one side of her, her hair still damp from the resort pool. Raylix was sat at her other side, looking like someone had forcibly unplugged his brain and only partially managed to restart it afterwards.
All three of them looked up when Irene entered, with Hikari almost eating shit on the floor as she arrived a couple of seconds later.
"Well, first of all, congratulations." Irene remarked, by way of greeting.
Lilith let out a short giggle, both at the Magicians' matter-of-fact tone and the way Hikari had entered.
"Thanks." She replied. "Honestly, I was figuring something like this would happen sooner or later."
She glanced at Raylix, who had the decency to force a sheepish grin as Irene approached. Behind her, the door opened again and Kurumi entered, uncharacteristically silent as her eyes flicked from Hikari to Lilith's face, and then her stomach.
"Mom…?"
"Looks like you're both getting a sibling." Lilith remarked, to both her and Hikari.
"And I'm guessing you wanted me to check if said sibling is actually okay in there." Irene remarked, pointing at Lilith's stomach. Lilith herself shrugged.
"I mean, it'd be appreciated." She replied. "I was probably going to ask myself, but when I told Hikari, she volunteered and immediately bolted off. I'm guessing she found you."
"She did." Irene nodded. "Almost broke the sound barrier coming into the training chamber, too." She stepped forward, closer to the bed and kneeling down in front of the Lilim Queen. Raylix and Eve immediately rose to their feet to give Irene some space to work in as she rose one hand, gently rested her palm against Lilith's lower stomach.
The room fell utterly silent as soft magic spread outward from Irene's fingertips. For several seconds, the silence remained as Irene simply focused, her eyes closed as she magically felt the embryo developing inside Lilith.
Though once those several seconds had passed, Irene opened her eyes and moved her hand back, her brow furrowing slightly.
"Hm…"
Raylix tensed.
"What's up?"
Irene didn't answer. Instead, her eyes narrowed slightly as she laid her hand back on Lilith's stomach, focusing more magical energy into it. It only took her a few seconds this time before she moved back again.
"That's strange."
Lilith's expression sharpened as she looked down at Irene.
"What's strange?"
Irene got to her feet, raising an assuring hand as everyone in the room seemed to tense up alongside Raylix and Lilith.
"No need to panic, nothing's wrong with your child, Lilith." She clarified, slowly. "I just sensed something that I wasn't expecting to when it came to them, is all."
That didn't ease the room's tension in the slightest. Kurumi's eyes widened slightly. Hikari outright froze. Raylix and Eve looked between each other, then at Lilith, then back at Irene, who let out a sigh.
"What I meant," she continued. "is that I could feel another magical signature mixed in there besides Lilith's and Raylix's. One more than I think I was expecting to."
The silence in the room suddenly became a bit heavier as Irene looked over at Eve.
"Yours, as a matter of fact."
Eve blinked, and pointed at herself as the eyes of everyone in the room shifted from Irene and Lilith to her.
"Mine?"
"Yours." Irene repeated.
"That can't be possible." Kurumi said, immediately after blinking a couple of times.
"Yeah, on the list of things that sound impossible… that's gotta be up there." Hikari agreed.
Raylix was the first to tear his eyes away from Eve, and looked over at Irene.
"Explain?"
"I'm… I'm not sure I can." Irene replied, shaking her head. "Not without scanning the embryo further. Though with how early-along you are, Lilith, I can't guarantee perfect accuracy."
Lilith nodded once.
"Please." She replied, adjusting her position on the bed. "Whatever you think is necessary, Irene."
Irene nodded in return, knelt back down in front of Lilith and laid a hand on her stomach again to continue scanning the inside of the Lilim Queen's stomach again. Irene's eyes slid shut, and her brow furrowed as she concentrated, trying to figure out anything there was to figure out about the embryo inside her Pact Devil's wife.
The silence stretched out for nearly a minute this time as Irene did her work, before she pulled back, her eyes opening and widening slightly.
"…Okay, now that makes even less sense."
Raylix immediately stepped forward, tension clear all over his face, though Lilith was the first to speak.
"What makes even less sense, Irene?"
Irene slowly got back to her feet, looking somewhat uncertain as she did so.
"Well… again, you're really early along, so I can't guarantee this is accurate," she began, gesturing to Lilith's stomach. "But if what I scanned of the embryo is accurate, then your child has no demonic genetic markers. What's developing inside you, Lilith, doesn't resemble a Devil, or a Lilim."
Silence returned to the room, as everyone looked between each other. Lilith, ever the calmest figure in the room, even looked surprised at that revelation as she looked between Raylix and Eve. Hikari and Kurumi looked almost entirely stunned by the Magicians' words.
"Then what the hell DOES it resemble?" Raylix asked, frowning as he looked over at Irene. "If anything?"
Irene hesitated before giving the one-word answer.
"…Human."
And that word hit the room like a physical force. Kurumi blinked, Hikari looked completely lost, Eve's mouth opened slightly without any words actually coming out, Raylix… just looked confused, plain and simple, on a fundamental level. And Lilith… had gone slightly pale. Not out of fright, or anything like that: she looked like she'd arrived at a realisation faster than anyone else in the room had, and was slightly stunned by it.
"If you're right, Irene," she said carefully "then the child might be a Primordial Human."
Eve almost tripped over herself, she turned towards the dark-haired Lilim so quickly.
"What, like me?"
"Yes, like you." Lilith replied. "Irene just said that the child resembles Human, and that your magical signature is somehow hanging around inside them. So if it remains that way, then yes, then they'll surely be a Primordial Human rather than a…" she gestured to Irene and Kurumi "modern, human. No offense meant, you two."
"None taken." Irene remarked, stretching her body slightly as she glanced at Eve. "Though I am curious as to how you could have even been involved in Lilith's child's conception."
Lilith shifted slightly on her bed, raising her hand.
"That," she replied, immediately "Is actually answered pretty easily."
Raising her hand, she snapped her fingers and projected a magic-circle into the air in front of the bed, and a moving image that- as soon as everyone realised what it was- caused some to range from simply raising their eyebrows to leaning forward in open interest, to going red and shoving her face in her hands.
Eve did the last one, groaning in mixed embarrassment and humour as she did so.
"Oh, you- you actually recorded that night." She murmured, through her hands.
"Of course I did." Lilith replied, completely without shame as she raised a hand to flick through the recording of her, Raylix and Eve having at it on that night a few weeks ago.
Kurumi's eyes widened slightly, letting out a slightly lustful "Kihihi…" as she took in the sight of her adoptive mother, adoptive step-father and their shared concubine absolutely going to town on each other.
"You thought I was just going to let the best night of my life go unpreserved?" Lilith asked, to the room at large, as Eve let out another embarrassed groan.
No-one said or did anything to disagree. Raylix was the first one to speak, his eyes squarely on the sight of him and his cock being stroked and slobbered all over by Lilith and Eve as he did so.
"I want a copy."
"Sure." Lilith immediately replied, not even looking over at her husband as she continued to flick through the recording.
Irene leaned forward slightly.
"What are you even looking for here, Lilith?"
"Hold on…" Lilith muttered by way of reply, her eyes narrowing as she continued to flick through the footage, only pausing very briefly at certain moments, a grin briefly flickering across her face at those moments before her focused expression returned and she continued skipping through it. "I think it was around here, somewhere… alright."
She stopped, pointing at a certain part of the recording of that night: a part that, as soon as Raylix and Eve looked up at it, made the pair of them let out soft breaths of recognition. And when everyone else looked over at it, they all seemed to get what Lilith was getting at, too.
"Right…" Irene murmured, as her eyes followed Raylix's cum sliding- in seeming slow motion- out of Eve's pussy and directly into Lilith's right below hers, before looking over at Lilith. "That's the moment you think it happened?"
"I think it's the only moment it COULD happen." Lilith replied. "That's the only time any of Raylix's little-Raylix got into both Eve and me. Only thing that even remotely explains your magical signature being involved in… our child." Her eyes moved from her stomach to Eve and back again.
Eve slowly lowered her hands from her face, letting out a slow breath.
"Right. About that, though." She said, slowly. "You got any ideas as to how that could have happened? Like, biologically? Or even magically?"
Lilith rubbed her hand against her chin, silent for a few seconds.
"Well, no possibility I can come up with right now makes complete sense, given what we know at this point." She replied. "But…"
She let out a breath, folding her arms under her chest.
"Maybe one of your eggs," she began, gesturing to Eve "was fertilized by Raylix before it dropped down into my uterus afterwards."
"Can that even happen?" Hikari asked, having gone slightly red earlier when Lilith pulled up the recording of herself, Raylix and Eve, but her face was returning to its natural colour as she took a breath.
Irene began to shake her head, but quickly stopped herself.
"Not naturally… but."
She gestured to Lilith's stomach.
"I think the question of whether or not things can happen naturally left the building a few weeks ago."
"Took the words out of my mouth." Raylix remarked, looking over at Lilith. "Besides, wouldn't that make the child half-Devil, half-Primordial Human? Not fully what Eve is?"
"It would." Lilith nodded. "Which is why I'm not a big believer in that one."
She took another breath.
"However, the next possibility that jumps to mind might hold a bit more water: maybe something about Eve's Primordial Human biology altered your sperm, Raylix, before it dropped into me and fertilised one of my eggs."
Irene blinked.
"That's one of the weirdest sentences I've ever heard… and coming from me, that should be saying a lot."
"Oh, believe me, it is." Lilith replied, letting out a short giggle before her brow furrowed again. "But it doesn't explain why our child only has Primordial Human traits, no Devil or Lilim."
"Yeah." Raylix nodded. "Thanks to my sperm and your egg, there should absolutely be at least SOME demonic markers present, right?"
"Right." Eve replied, looking down at Lilith's stomach. "And yet, there aren't."
"Not that I can detect, at least." Irene pointed out. "They could develop later on in time, but that would be pretty irregular. Usually, those markers would show up alongside your magical signatures, which I already can sense."
She gestured to both Raylix and Lilith, who looked at each other then back at Irene.
"That'd just be another thing on the pile of irregular things about this whole situation." Raylix remarked. "And probably not even one of the least regular things, at that."
Irene let out a small giggle, shaking her head.
"Yeah, that's fair. That's fair."
Lilith drew the attention of the room again as she let out a slow exhale, and rubbed at her forehead.
"Alright, alright." She spoke, raising a free hand. "We've figured out all we can about this right now, and I'm not in any danger right now. So stressing ourselves out over this- crazy as it is- will probably hurt the baby more than it'll help."
Her expression softened slightly as she glanced down again, and lowered a hand to rub her stomach while looking over at Raylix and Eve.
"…Our baby."
Eve smiled faintly, while Raylix rubbed at his own forehead.
"That feels… really weird to hear when partially referring to me."
"Mm, I bet." Lilith hummed, quietly. "Wonderful, though."
Raylix hummed in return, as a sudden knock came from the still-partially-open doorway. As everyone looked up, three familiar figures stepped into the room: Cinder, followed closely behind by Esdeath and Tamamo.
"Cinder came blasting downstairs and told us you were pregnant." Esdeath remarked by way of greeting, looking mildly annoyed and somewhat curious at the same time. "That true?"
"It's true." Kurumi replied. "Though she's not that kid's only mother. Eve got herself involved too, somehow."
"And no," Eve spoke up, as Esdeath, Tamamo AND Cinder all opened their mouths in unison, probably to let out a united cry of confusion, "I don't know how or why either. Though Lily's got some theories."
"Of which I'm putting on hold any discussion of for the time being." Lilith called out to the room at large, raising a hand before Tamamo or Cinder could ask her anything. "Let me have… I don't know, a week, to adjust to… this," she gestured down at her stomach "before we start wondering about the hows and the whys?"
Raylix snorted.
"I'm gonna need a month."
"Of course you will." Lilith remarked, rolling her eyes slightly.
"Still…" Tamamo let out a breath, her eyes flicking from Lilith's stomach up to her face. "Congrats!"
"Yeah, what she said." Cinder and Esdeath remarked, in unison, before looking at each other and letting out some short giggles.
Lilith nodded, letting out a breath.
"Thanks." She replied warmly, shifting up the bed and relaxing against the headboard. After a couple of seconds, Raylix and Eve shifted onto the bed to join her. Sprouting her tails, she wrapped them around both her husband and her girlfriend, planting her lips against Raylix's in a soft kiss.
Everyone else in the room collectively figured it'd be best for the three of them to have some time alone, and all filed from the room as Lilith, Raylix and Eve lay together, basking in the first truly calm moment ever since Lilith had first spoken those two words back in Bali.
Probably one of very few calm moments that they were going to get over the next nine months, but hey, they'd all take what they could get. As they did so, Lilith's eyes drifted downward towards her stomach once more. Even though she was quietly over-the-moon that she had another child on the way, there was still curiosity bubbling under the surface.
Even if all speculation about how her, Raylix's and Eve's child was the way it apparently was had been put on hold as of a moment or two ago, she still ABSOLUTELY wanted answers.
She just wanted to wait and enjoy this moment a bit more, first.
Line Break
The revelation that the Queen of the Lilim was now expecting a child had shaken Hebeth up quite a bit, but as with all things, the hidden city had eventually settled back into something resembling normalcy.
Though even a few months down the line, there was the occasional Devil or Lilim that would brave the trip to the compound at its centre, and ask to speak with Lilith about something or other whenever she was around, though most of those requests had a desire to see her developing pregnancy-bump, confirmation that the fact she was pregnant was indeed true, at the core of them.
Sometimes, Esdeath had had trouble figuring out how she'd gotten herself into this. Just a short decade ago she'd been living by herself in the Scandinavian mountains, and now she was hanging out with a group of demonic terrorists, ancient monsters, powerful supernatural outcasts and a former Devil noble that was now somehow married to the aforementioned Queen of the Lilim.
The bluenette half-Devil- clad in only a dark pair of leggings that hugged her figure, a white sports bra and with her hair done up in a simple ponytail, rolled a shoulder as she made her way down the compound halls toward the training chamber, stretching her arms behind her head as she walked. She liked to get her training done early: less chance of being distracted or interrupted, or of walking into the smouldering wreck of whatever magical experiment Irene and Cinder had decided to try.
After rounding the final corner leading towards the entrance to the training chamber, Esdeath pushed open the heavy doors, stepped inside… and paused.
There was someone already there, standing with his back to the door, beneath the pale artificial lighting overhead.
Raylix hadn't moved a muscle, even when Esdeath stepped inside. He wasn't… doing much of anything, really. Neither of his swords were in his hand, no magic-circles conjured, he didn't look like he was coming down from having done anything super physical. He was just stood there, silently, with his hands in the pockets of his training pants, his head slightly turned in the direction of one the chamber's far walls.
Esdeath didn't announce herself immediately: instead, she quietly moved into the chamber proper, letting the doors shut behind her as she made her way over. As she did so, as she got close enough to get a glance at the look on his face, she almost paused as she caught a contemplative, almost solemn, expression on Raylix's face.
It wasn't one she'd seen on him very often anymore. Hell, she hadn't seen a look like that crossing his face since his edgelord phase, as Kurumi would have put it. Either way, Raylix still didn't seem to notice her.
He didn't even move.
"You know," Esdeath remarked, by way of greeting. "People normally come into the training chamber to, you know, train?"
Raylix jolted as soon as he'd heard Esdeath's words, visibly pulled from whatever thoughts he'd been buried in.
"Oh." He replied, glancing towards the bluenette. "Hey."
He straightened a little.
"Just got here." He added.
Esdeath raised a blue eyebrow immediately.
"I was literally watching you stand there, staring into space, while I walked over." She informed him, dryly. "You didn't react to the doors opening or shutting.
"…Right."
Esdeath folded her arms loosely beneath her chest.
"You want to get it off your chest?" she asked. "Why you're looking like Lilith's decided to lock your dick up?"
That got the faintest huff of amusement out of Raylix.
"Don't even joke about that." He replied, half-committedly. "It wasn't anything like that. Was just… thinking."
"Mmhmm."
A short silence settled between Raylix and Esdeath for a couple of seconds, before the former continued.
"You remember last year?" he asked. "When we had that talk? When I let all of you in about… about Sabemka and Tomosei?"
Esdeath's expression shifted slightly.
"I remember." She replied. "Probably the most honest you'd been with any of us, up until that point. Hell, probably a top 3 most honest you've been with us since I joined you."
"I'd argue top 2." Raylix remarked. "Anyway… there was more to my noble life than just them and my parents."
Esdeath didn't reply. Raylix noticed that immediately, of course. She didn't push for him to immediately continue, but at the same time… she wasn't giving any signs that she wasn't interested.
That was a good sign, he figured. Letting out a quiet breath through his nose, Raylix continued.
"Back when I was still next in line to be Duke Gremory," he began slowly. "I had… I guess you could call it a revolving door of female servants assigned to me, paid to make sure that I was taken care of. Make sure I'm fed properly, keep my rooms clean, make sure I'm good for whatever functions Mother and Father wanted me attending, that kind of thing. You know, typical servant stuff… as well as the more physical side of things."
"You mean sex." Esdeath replied, immediately. Raylix let out a humourless huff, and nodded.
"I mean sex, yeah. Honestly, that's just how things were. And almost definitely still are, in most noble households. Young male devils are encouraged to spread their seed as much as they can, so the whole 'repopulate our numbers after the Great War' thing doesn't crash and burn. And I guess NOBLE male Devils get that encouragement a little harder: got to make sure the aristocracy doesn't fizzle out, after all."
Esdeath let out a quiet breath through her nose, smirking.
"And I bet you made good use of that revolving door, didn't you?"
"Very." Raylix replied. "During the last decade-or-so I was living in that castle, before I left, there were four maids that fell under that umbrella for me: Zest, Narberal, Hannah and Rheliesh… and they were probably the best at what they did out of anyone assigned to me in that way. Kept me satisfied however you'd want a young noble Devil to be kept satisfied… until I left."
His tone dropped slightly, as he folded his arms.
"I'm told they were dismissed, after that. Fired. Blacklisted, even."
Esdeath raised an eyebrow.
"Blacklisted?"
"I guess," Raylix continued, dryly. "The logic would have been that they'd failed in their duties, somehow. Didn't keep me attached enough to the Clan, didn't notice I was leaving, didn't try to stop me, whatever the hell."
"Didn't you literally sneak out during the exact time that someone would have been least likely to spot, and therefore try to stop, you?" Esdeath asked.
"You think any noble worth their salt would give a shit about that fact?" Raylix immediately asked, by way of response. "Welcome to Underworld nobility, you're at the front of the bootlicking line, now get on your knees."
Esdeath rolled her eyes, clicking her tongue as Raylix continued.
"So thanks to me flying the coop, their chances of finding work anywhere even tangentially related to demonic society are essentially nil." He continued. "Can't even get a job at Six Girls, or whatever that human-world burger place is called."
Silence settled over the chamber for half a moment, as Esdeath studied him quietly.
"Why are you thinking about them?" she asked. "Why now?"
Raylix was quiet for another half a moment, before responding.
"I've been thinking about them for a while before now." He replied. "Honestly, the last year or so's got me looking back a little more than normal."
Esdeath unfolded and stretched her arms.
"I'm not sure what there is to look back on, with what you've told me." She replied. "They were always vulnerable, if their entire lives and futures hinged on one person. And they paid the price for it, when you left."
Raylix turned, his eyes narrowing ever-so-slightly. He didn't respond, though.
"It's not fair." Esdeath clarified. "I'm not even saying they deserved that kind of treatment, because from what you're saying, they seemed like good people. But dependence, to that degree, gets people ruined. Or abandoned. Or killed."
Raylix sighed, closing his eyes and turning slightly.
"I'm guessing you're speaking from personal experience, there."
"Impressive deduction skills." Esdeath replied, dryly.
Raylix turned back towards Esdeath, running a hand through his auburn hair.
"I guess that's not exactly untrue, what you said about dependence. But still… pretty harsh, Esdeath."
For a few seconds, he looked like he was debating whether or not to continue.
Then eventually-
"One of them died."
Esdeath's expression sharpened slightly at Raylix's admittance.
"Which one?"
"…Rheliesh."
The name left Raylix's mouth more softly than the others had. Something that Esdeath picked up on immediately. And judging by the faint grimace that crossed his face right afterwards, Raylix seemed to have picked up on it himself.
"When I look back, she was probably my favourite." He continued. "Out of the four that were around, near the end. The others were great too, don't get me wrong, I liked them all a lot, but… she was different. More genuine. I got less of a feeling from her than the others that she was only doing what she did for me because she was being paid to. She… she loved me."
Esdeath blinked.
"She loved you?"
"She told me, herself." Raylix explained. "Couple of weeks before the wedding… was meant to happen. Before I left. I think that's enough reason to think that if any out of the four was gonna get blamed above the others for helping me escape, and… have an example made out of them, it'd have been her."
The logic of it all was painfully obvious, with the benefit of hindsight.
Raylix's jaw tightened, faintly.
"I think… that apart from what happened with Sabemka and Tomosei, not taking Rheliesh with me the night I left might be the biggest regret of my life. I should've let her know what I was planning… shit, looking back on it now, she'd definitely have chosen me over the Clan."
A brief, humourless laugh escaped him.
"And Grayfia would have let her come, too. She didn't exactly try to stop me, and she had to have known about what Rheliesh felt for me."
Silence stretched between Raylix and Esdeath as the former noble's thoughts drifted further back into memory, of the memories he and Rheliesh had shared as master and servant. And then, like a rubber band being stretched back and let go, they sprung forward, forward and further forward still.
That night, if he hadn't been so paranoid and at least brought her along, how different would things have been? Would she have stayed by his side within the Old Satan Faction?
Probably.
Would she have helped keep him steady during the initial awful years, both in and out of Hebeth?
Oh, yeah. Gods knew he needed it then, more than ever. Back then, looking back, he'd been spiralling. He cared more about the possibility of returning Sabemka and Tomosei to life than his own life. Because if he'd somehow fallen on his ongoing journey for the Sephiroth Graal without ever getting to it…
Well, wherever Devils went when they died, at least he'd have seen them again. Hopefully.
Maybe Rheliesh would've noticed his suicidal tendencies before he'd noticed them himself. Maybe she'd have helped him keep himself together. Maybe she'd have sat beside him as much as he needed her to, reminded him that there was something worth living for beyond finding the Holy Grail and using it to return his friends to the (under)world of the living. Maybe…
Raylix blinked a couple of times.
"…Huh."
"What?"
Raylix didn't answer immediately.
Because his thoughts had just gone somewhere that he absolutely had NOT expected them to, when his feet had automatically taken him to the training chamber this morning.
He might have fallen for her eventually. She might have ended up as his girlfriend, removed from the concepts of master and servant altogether. They might have gotten married before Lilith ever entered the picture as anything even vaguely resembling a feasible option.
They might have even had a child by now. That would have been the long shot to end all long shots, but if this life had taught Raylix anything, it was that long shots and impossibilities were two WILDLY different things.
And if the past few moments of introspection had taught him something, it was that the idea that Raylix MIGHT have fallen for Rheliesh, pleasant as it was, was inaccurate.
Evidently, Raylix's thought process had shown, in one way or another, across his face, as Esdeath spoke up to voice the very same thoughts that had arrived in his head.
"You loved her."
Raylix blinked a couple of times, his eyes drifting down to the ground.
"…I think I might have." He replied, after a few seconds. Back then, he'd been so consumed by the life he thought he'd known for centuries collapsing in on itself, and what he was going to do next, to stop and properly examine what Rheliesh had meant to him. And once the deed had been done, once he was gone, there was always something else demanding his immediate attention.
The OSF.
Surviving in the human world while looking for potential base locations for the OSF.
Lilith.
The Khaos Brigade.
The URF.
Marriage.
The baby.
Life had come at him MUCH faster than it usually did for Devils nowadays. But standing here right now, in the URF leaders' compound's training chamber, able to look back at that period with full hindsight and honesty for the first time… ever…
Yeah.
Raylix might have actually loved Rheliesh.
And the realization hurt. More than… quite a few things he'd physically been through, as a matter of fact.
Taking a breath and running a hand across his face, Raylix looked over at Esdeath, for the first time in a couple of minutes.
"So… look." He began. "Hypothetically, if Rheliesh were… alive…"
Esdeath returned his gaze.
"And we somehow ran into each other again…" Raylix continued, slowly. "You think that, maybe, she'd still…"
He trailed off. The question remained unfinished. Which was fine, Esdeath understood what he was asking fine enough, even if she didn't respond for a few seconds.
But when she did, it came in her usual plain, perhaps even blunt, manner.
"If she's alive," she said, "then she hasn't forgotten you. Not a chance."
Raylix was silent for a few seconds, enough for Esdeath to elaborate while shrugging.
"If you made enough of a mark on that woman for her to come out and confess that she loves you, then you're not going to disappear from her mind a few years after you left physically."
Raylix let out a faint breath. Esdeath was right about that, of course: not a day went by that at least one thought of Sabemka and Tomosei didn't cross his mind. And he hadn't even confessed to them that he loved them.
Not while sober, at least.
"That does make me curious, though." Esdeath continued. "If she was your favourite, and she came out and said she loved you, then why didn't you take her with you?"
Raylix grimaced.
"I had… three reasons." He admitted. "First being… well, I had intention to join an organisation of Devils that, let's say, aren't exactly friendly to nobles. And Rheliesh was… well, my maid. A better sign than most OF my noble status. I doubt that bringing one of my personal servants into Hebeth would've ingratiated myself with the Old Satan Faction: not when I was already showing up as the Crimson Satan's little brother, apparent outside candidate for the position of Satan Asmodeus and Heir of one of the most influential Clans in Hell."
Esdeath raised both eyebrows.
"You were a Satan candidate?"
"I was very, VERY low on the list, but… yeah, apparently." Raylix replied. "If the old Pillars had truly been unable to convince Sirzechs to take the Lucifer mantle, then my hat would've been thrown in the ring. But as soon as he agreed…" he made a clicking noise with his tongue while making a strike-motion across his neck. "No-one was gonna tolerate the possibility of two kids from the same family among the four leaders of Hell."
He let out a short breath.
"And I'd have been a shit Satan, anyway." He added, letting out a small snort. "Anyway, as for the second reason…" he sucked in a breath "It would've been too dangerous for Rheliesh. I don't remember her being a combatant by any stretch of the imagination: maybe she had some training, but if she did, she never showed it around me."
His expression faintly darkened.
"I don't think she'd have done well in all the scrapes we got ourselves into." He admitted. "Fighting exorcists, the trolls we met in Sweden, hell, the shit that happened when we went to Nasu and found Tamamo. And that's just among the things that happened AFTER we met."
He gestured between himself and Esdeath, who slowly nodded.
"Maybe I'd have been able to train her once we got into the faction… if we got in at all." He remarked. "But even if I did, assuming she wanted to be trained, dragging an at-best novice into as many combat situations as I anticipated we'd get into, never mind how many I ACTUALLY got into, would've just been irresponsible."
Esdeath nodded.
"I see." She replied. "And the third?"
"The third…" Raylix repeated, slowly inhaling. The biggest reason of the lot.
He exhaled slowly, his tone dropping further still.
"I was scared." He replied. "Of the possibility of her running to my parents."
That had been putting it mildly. One wrong move, in the mind of his past self, could have resulted in whatever small freedoms he had leading up to the wedding with Ruvella disappearing altogether. 24/7 surveillance, scrutiny from every angle, obligations that kept him trapped at all hours so he wouldn't have the opportunity to slip away. Hell, maybe even outright confinement and only being let out on the day of the wedding, where it'd have already been too late.
Raylix had been mentally trapped in a corner by the time Malech's offer time, and when it did, he was in a state that he'd have moved Hell and Earth to grab it with both hands.
"No-one could know." He admitted. "If I'd told Rheliesh, and she'd reacted badly, or gotten scared, or just decided loyalty to the Gremory Clan mattered more…"
The hypothetical remained unfinished. Which was fine, the consequences he would have spoken of were clear enough without him needing to spell them out.
"Looking back, though…" he continued. "That was mostly paranoia talking. Not that it does her any good now, but I don't think Rheliesh would've turned me in. Not really."
Esdeath hummed, nodding.
"You didn't trust many people back then, huh?"
"Nope." Raylix shook his head, letting out a faint laugh devoid of humour. "Only person I somewhat trusted back then was Malech, and even then, that was pretty much dependent on his ability to find me a way into the Old Satan Faction. Which, of course, we did, else we wouldn't be having this conversation."
Esdeath nodded, letting out a small noise from her nose as she did so.
"Hard to blame you, under those circumstances." She remarked. "But whether or not she would've followed you, your hesitation cost you when it came to Rheliesh."
Raylix closed his eyes, letting out a breath of his own.
"It did, yeah." He replied. "If I'd trusted her more, maybe just taken the chance instead of overthinking it… she might still be alive. It's something I want to try and work on… not hesitating anymore. At least when it comes to things I want."
Esdeath raised an eyebrow, prompting a snort from Raylix.
"I mean…" he continued, gesturing widely to the chamber at large and beyond. "The life I've got now: the URF, you guys, Lilith, my kid…" he shrugged. "Who knew that if you stop second-guessing yourself all the damn time, things get better?"
A faint smirk tugged at Esdeath's mouth, as she nodded in approval.
"Good. Hesitation leads to an early grave. Or at the very least, not a great life."
Raylix glanced sideways towards her.
"That also come from personal experience?"
Esdeath hummed, but didn't reply beyond that immediately. She went quiet for a few seconds after what Raylix had said, looking slightly thoughtful.
"Maybe."
She folded her arms, gaze drifting towards the far end of the training chamber.
"Thinking about the past?"
Esdeath blinked, and turned back to him.
"How'd you guess so quickly?"
Raylix gestured to her face.
"That look, I see it all the time." He replied. "Mostly in the mirror."
It was finally Esdeath's turn to let out a snort, before she turned back to face him.
"Impressive observational skills, again." She replied. "Guess you're not the only one."
"Never thought I was." Raylix remarked.
"My father…" Esdeath slowly began, ignoring the remark "always taught me that strength was survival. Nearly every day, I remember him saying something like that."
Raylix had opened his mouth to let loose another barb, but closed it again before he could. Esdeath was hardly the type to volunteer emotional introspection like this.
"So, when our tribe was slaughtered," Esdeath continued. "I accepted that explanation immediately. They died because they were weak, that was simply how things were. What I believed… for years."
Raylix frowned, faintly.
"But ever since you said that thing to me, about intelligence mattering just as much as strength," Esdeath continued. "I've been wondering, lately, if my father might have meant something else. Maybe he wasn't purely talking about power."
Silence settled between the two of them for a few seconds, as Esdeath shifted herself slightly, looking down.
"Maybe he was just telling me to live however I wanted." She admitted. "…In his own way, at least. He wasn't exactly the best when it came to talking. That was more my mother's thing… or at least, what I can remember of her. Which isn't much."
Raylix stayed quiet. Honestly, he couldn't think of much- if anything at all- to say to that.
"Still." Esdeath continued. "Just like you, I'll never actually know. And he's a bit too… dead… to question what he meant by it now, so all I can do is move on. Without hesitation."
"Mmhmm." Raylix hummed, nodding.
Silence stretched out between the two again for a moment, as Esdeath looked around the training hall before her eyes settled on Raylix again.
"So…" she slowly declared. "Since we're… here…"
Her hand outstretched to one side, and her sheathed rapier appeared into it from a magic-circle beside her, while her eyes locked onto Raylix's.
"We should get some exercise in before breakfast, don't you think?"
Raylix stared at her for a second, as cold mist began to roll outward across the chamber floor from beneath her feet, before smiling.
"Yeah."
Stretching both hands out, a pair of crimson magic-circles flickered briefly before them as Rubilacxe materialised into his left hand, while Gaeneron appeared in the other. Twirling Gaeneron around his right hand a couple of times, he glanced over at Esdeath as he shifted down into a ready stance, grinning.
"Winner tops tonight?"
Esdeath's lips curled into a grin of her own.
"You're on."
And without another word, she was the first to lunge.