When you wake up the next day, you indulge yourself and just lie in bed, looking up at the stone ceiling for a few minutes. Your body aches a little, but it got used to Lu's rigorous practice at this point.
You had a good night's sleep and feel ready to tackle the day, energised and content; your feelings about what happened last week have been blunted over time, too; while you still think it was not right, you also understand that things are different in the UD. You will not go out of your way to kill people, but it can not be prevented at times.
The prospect of having to actually go out and fight makes you feel a little nauseous, but you doubt anyone would actually like going to war.
What you also notice is that you stink; not more so than most others, but enough to gather some comments from any humans, if there were any around.
Which means that after you had breakfast and a short conversation with your Imp, you head out to take a bath. You only bathe once a week these days, as most people do around here. That means you have to do it now either way, with your period coming soon.
In difference to the previous times, you do not go to take Maya or Paoras along; having them there is nice, but you want to be clean
now.
. . .
IDENTIFIED BREAK LINE
. . .
What you had to get used to after arriving here is that the UD does not have individual baths. Every last one of them is communal unless you are a particularly vain General or higher on the totem pole than that. Several dozen other women are in the water with you, idly chatting with each other. Some rather sit outside and splash themselves with buckets out of regard for their feathers or fur. Heating arrays at least make it easy to get those dry.
The only thing you really feel unhappy about in here is that basically everyone is taller than you. It was a novelty for a week or two, but by now it is a little grating; nobody says anything though, so you will not make an issue out of it either.
"I tell you," a red-skinned woman whispers to you and another of her kind, that one with clawed fingers and enough teeth to make a shark jealous, "working with the Dark Stars is great. You've met Epsilon Aaron, right?" You both nod and she continues with a grin. "They call him Bane of the Fey for a reason: I was back in Dark Star territory with him half a year ago; they sent me to reinforce his position. We got a few
dozen Fairies coming at us, but they just killed them all in two seconds. Except the last one, he was captured alive."
That is news to you, though you heard that the head of R&D is incredibly powerful when fighting Fairies. You rub a washcloth over your arm as you contemplate that, curious. "What happened to the captive?"
She shrugs at you in response. "I didn't ask."
"And we honestly don't want to know," the other one chimes in with a frown. "That Dark Star does all kinds of experiments on their live prisoners. I heard things can get really ugly in R&D whenever they capture a new batch."
And now you are back at things you were better off not knowing; not that you blame those two, it's nice that people don't clam up around you all the time. Nonetheless, you feel that you should ask: "Do you really think it's that bad?"
"Oh, not bad per se," the toothy woman admits. "Just ugly to talk about." She pushes herself out of the water on strong arms and throws you a smile that might be far more malicious than she intends; the other one follows a moment later, both of them done cleaning up. "If you excuse us, though, we need to get back to our unit."
"Sure, stay safe." You wave them goodbye and switch the washcloth to your other hand, pretending not to see the bewildered looks on their faces. You never thought that confusing Demons with niceties could be that much fun.
The two wander off and you consider talking to someone else, but notice a single woman wading over to you; she appears familiar, but you can not say for sure where you met her before. Tall as she is, her greyish black hair does not even pool around her on the water. Her bright blue eyes catch your attention as she considers you; they are bigger than any human's eyes and flames seem to be whirling around on her iris. She has a polite smile is on her lips and aside from the eyes and her rather pale skin, she could go for a human without any trouble. At least from what you see, her lower half might have another obviously nonhuman trait.
The puzzle holds as long as she opens her mouth. "I see you have settled in properly by now, Adelheid. How is your training going?" You would recognise that friendly yet polite alto everywhere. The fact there is still a faint scent of fire hitting your nose a moment later hammers home that yes, this is Elisabeth.
Looks like she is not of the vain sort, seeing that she bathes with everyone else. You manage to smile at her with little trouble.
"Pretty well, I think. Lucifer says I will be ready to progress into using my magic to fight better soon enough." She nods amicably, but the actual sparks in her eyes make the notion appear completely different. You can not help but snort. "Pff, now I get why you wear that mask normally."
She frowns for a moment, then sighs. "Indeed." After all, the look in her eyes is not malicious or horrifying or anything, she just looks overeager and cheerful; it even makes the frown appear barely threatening; you do have to remember that she is far stronger than you, though. Even if those anime eyes make her look silly.
"I took to wearing it for obvious reasons, though I got used to it by now." She runs a finger over her pale skin. "Though it matters little in the end."
Her gaze returns to you, and you in turn get back to cleaning yourself; your flexibility is wonderful for scrubbing your back, as you can now easily reach behind yourself like that. If the Demon thinks anything of that, she does not say it; looking at her, she seems to be clean already. You figure she came over to talk to you, not to soak.
"Either way, I found myself curious about a little detail we have not yet spoken about." You almost roll your eyes over how elaborately she phrased that, but manage to stop yourself and push some of your hair back aside instead. Once she got you nodding, she asks: "How old are you?"
"Fifteen." You carry on a moment longer, then pause as a thought presents itself. With how much happened and how much time passed... "Wait, how long have I been here?"
Your own question makes the Demon lower her head in thought, and you finish with your back in the meantime. Your hair is as clean as it can get here, so you consider that resolved and wring out your cloth. Then you bunch it up and throw it into the bin for used ones further down the room, only narrowly hitting it.
Elisabeth answers only after seeing the cloth land where it was supposed to go: "Mhm, about ten weeks. I take it this is important?" Her curiousity is audible, though a little silly with how her eyes spark.
You ignore it in favour of sighing, though; you already did the mental math. "Yeah, my birthday would have been two weeks ago at home. I'm sixteen now."
Your birthday is the seventh of August, and it is weird to know that if you make it back home, it will probably not have arrived yet. It has already been two and a half months, yet you only feel a little pinch of sadness at the thought. You do not have time to lament being so far from home, anyway.
It is nice of Elisabeth not to mention how your face falls; you can tell she noticed.
Instead of asking however, she continues with a thoughtful expression: "Ah, I heard that the day of one's birth has more significance among mortal races. Most Demons merely keep track of them to roughly guess their age, at least those that are immortal."
That gathers your attention and chases the sullen mood away rather quickly. "Aren't all Demons immortal?" Your thoughts flash to Maya, Orux, and Dragul; then to everyone else you met here.
The other woman shakes her head, the blaze in her eyes weakening. "Many are, but not all. I, ah, met a few of the mortal ones in the past. You could not tell without the passage of time."
"And how old are you?" You can not help but ask; with how she just said that, she has to be
old.
Elisabeth ponders the question for a moment and answers slowly: "Four hundred and fourty nine, I believe. I might be a few years off, though; I have... not kept track as well as I should have."
Then she averts her gaze, though none of her other expressions indicate it; if you were not seeing her eyes, you would have no idea anything changed. That makes you curious, though you wait for a while in case she wants to say something.
"I, ah, do recall the significance of one's birthday." You almost point out she said that before, but bite your tongue. "If you so desire, I could have a word with Lucifer about giving you tomorrow off. So you can celebrate today."
The fire in her eyeballs has turned into glimming embers and with her hair not covering her ears this time, you can see the faint blush there. Elisabeth does not meet your astonished gaze, waiting for a response.
You consider her words carefully; this would be a nice change of pace, and a second day off would be nice as well.
Though... what would you spend today on?
-------------
[] Invite the girls to a slumber party
[] Go out and take a loooong walk through the countryside, maybe with someone else
[] Sleep in, have breakfast in bed, and mess around with magic
[]EXP-Plan
-[] Write-in what to buy
-[] Save it
=====
+16xp Happy Birthday
EXP gained: 16
Total EXP: 201
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