Tea Time

Townspeople gasped, mortified, hurrying away from the woman stained in blood and her arms dripping with bits and pieces of viscera from her elbows to her fingertips. The afternoon sky was bleak and grey, cold rain drops lightly but steadily pattering on rooftops and cobblestone streets. The woman had jet black hair, wet and sticking around her blood-stained face and down her back. She wore formal clothes; a white sleeveless blouse with a partially undone wine-colored bow and a form fitting indigo skirt that stopped just above her knees with a modest slit running up the side of her thigh to expose pantyhose that were an opaque purple black against alabaster white skin. She stopped in front of a boutique with ornate but garish golden framed windows. The wooden sign that hung over the shop was marked with a peculiar heart-shaped leaf in an aqua to gold gradient from the leaf tip to the stem. Her gloved hands pushed back some of her wet black hair away from her face and she ruefully examined herself in the reflect of the shop window. Sullen, icy blue eyes stared back at her.

Aura, a caramel skinned demoness with curved, upright steel colored bull horns sat upon sea foam tinted tresses prowled within the boutique and was curious why business was slower than usual. While the weather was unfavorable for foot traffic, it had been over an hour since her last browser or prospective client. From behind her wooden register in the far back of the shop, she noticed a lone woman standing before the window. At first, she assumed perhaps the woman was browsing at the front store displays of potions, baubles, crystals and strange wooden fetishes. When Aura noticed the blood…

“My word, the poor girl…” Aura started, gasping softly to herself. “Also! She is driving away my customers!” She growled softly but irritably. She grabbed a fine silk robe and wrapped herself with it before padding to the entry door to confront the woman. The weather was also chilly. “E-Excuse me,” she managed, prying the door open with a shoulder and hugging her robe closed over her chest. “Are you alright, dear?” Her eyes scanned the mess of blood staining the woman’s clothes and skin. The woman turned slowly, eerily, their eyes meeting. Something about the woman’s eyes set Aura uneasy, her hairs on her arm standing on end. Despite this, she felt an overwhelming sorrow emanating from her.

“I am not ‘alright’,” she said, despondent but still with a slight bite to her voice. Aura chuckled nervously, opening the door further. “Please come in for some tea, it’s absolutely horrid outside today. You’ll catch a cough!” The woman leered for a moment, scanning Aura up and down. She hesitated but turned on a heel and stepped into the boutique. Aura followed behind her, the door chimes ringing as she closed the door.

The pair were in the back room of the boutique of curios and Aura provided the strange, black-haired woman with a towel to dry off and wrapped around her. The tea came speedily, without suffering quality. The aroma of sweet, floral tea wafted before the two of them. They were both seated on pillows before a low, square mahogany table. “What is this place?” The woman asked, tentatively bringing the small, handless teacup to her lips. Aura fussed around with the placement of the saucers, napkins and small decorative trinkets adorning the table as makeshift centerpieces. “Ah, just my fortune-telling boutique of potions and curios! Business is a bit slow, but I’m just starting up, after all.” She trailed off, pouring herself a cup of tea.

“Now… Why so… erm, pardon me for my presumption but, glum?” The demoness winced at her own inquiry, carefully watching the woman’s reaction. She sat there for a moment, pondering while she watched the steam dance from her tea. “Glum,” she repeated. “That’s a word for it, I suppose.” Aura’s back straightened and she flashed her an accommodating smile. “You don’t have to say if you’re not comfortable, of course.” The woman thought on this silently for a little longer. There were a lot of pauses with this guest, Aura thought to herself, almost as though words often escaped her.

She drew in a deep sigh, then explained herself to the boutique demoness in detail.

“Have you ever… been in love? I know. It is a strange, almost painfully human mortal matter for us demons to understand, let alone take seriously. I know what you may be thinking… You would not have guessed that I am a demon as well. I was created as my master made me… All those years ago, anyway. But yes, I did find myself in the human mortals’ predicament… ‘love’ or whatever that may feel or mean to the likes of us. We were star-crossed, I think. How else would it be explained that my… um, heart, or feelings or… whatever it is deep inside of us demons that feel the things we feel and so strongly… felt the way it did with him.”“He was a cleric. I happened upon him in my travels when I was released from the ruins of the Avaltierra Estate to wander on this mortal plane and fend for myself. A servant demon with no master. We were natural enemies, or so our titles would have led us to believe. But… it never felt that way. Not when we first met. Not when we talked. Not when we stole into the night to talk some more.”

“As all things much reach an end because we could no longer pretend our stations in life did not matter to either of us or would it be without consequence… he chose something else. He decided, or convinced or… It doesn’t matter. He decided that I was not real. My very existence is an affront to his precious faith, his church. And so… he collaborated with his superiors. I was trapped in a Holy Binding. I was tortured, but briefly. My skin seared with blinding white heat, and I could feel every fiber of my being singe away, bit by excruciating bit. He watched, of course. There was pain in his eyes, this is true. But he did nothing to stop it. He made up his mind. He made his choice.”

She took a moment to collect herself, swallowing a small sip of her now lukewarm tea. Aura listened on, a concerned and empathic expression worn on her face and her eyes never leaving the woman’s when she spoke.

“My heart… or whatever it is that demons have… it broke. When it broke, everything I ever felt for him was eclipsed by rage. I am… not sure how I broke out of the binding, but I did. I barely remember the faces of the order as I killed them, one by one. They were swift deaths, to be sure. My shadow-weaving is weaker on consecrated ground, but my wrath was enough to supplant. All I remember is… red. Squishing, human flesh. The crack of bones. The cowering and the shrieks of these holy men.”

A satisfied smirk flashed briefly at the corner of her lips.

“I saved him for last. This one, I remember in great detail. No, he did not beg for his life. He came to peace with himself and with his god, for what he schemed against me. For what he schemed against someone he claimed to have loved. I was angry. Angry that he did not beg for my mercy. Betrayed that he was not the slightest remorseful. Sorrowful that he did not pick me. And so… I took his life. Not in the gruesome way that I did his peers but… I sank my shadows deep into his pores like a snake’s bite and drained his soul completely and utterly until he collapsed forward, a lifeless sack of flesh. I could not bring myself to shred his corporal form, making play with his body as I did his clergy colleagues. I wish I could have but… Love is odd in that way.”

Aura’s mouth hung open. The woman, who had come to be a demon like her, was a menacing force to be reckoned with. She was stunned by all that she heard, and quite frankly, a bit terrified to be in her presence. Not as though Aura would admit it to her, but the woman had a skewed and sick sense of love… But it was love nonetheless, Aura decided.

She placed a hand over the woman’s gloved one, sat upon the table. “I am so sorry you had to go through all of that, dear.” The woman’s eyes lightened ever so slightly at Aura’s compassion. Her touch was a small gesture, pleasant but not invasive. It was what she needed right now. She swallowed nervously, fighting back a croak in her throat and fearful that tone of her voice would betray her, exposing her vulnerability. Her loneliness.

“Thank you.”