Exodius Demon

Alucard

Great, I thought to myself, is this stupid Dryad going to be hitting on Leli for however long she decides to follow us?

“We’re dressed now, Alucard.” Leli gently placed a hand on my shoulder to let me know I could turn around.

I picked up our pack and we continued on our way through the grasslands. The destination I had chosen for us was only a few miles from where we’d stopped to help Melic. It was a village of Orcs, strangely enough. I had decided to stop there before we continued on to the human capital. The Orcs would be fairly easy to get money from, provided they were still the green-skin clan I’d seen there the last time I’d passed this way, without Leliana.

Green-skins were a very different kind of Orc. Unlike their nomadic and barbaric relatives, they had slightly more intelligence and chose to live somewhat peaceful lives. They had cut the plundering, pillaging, and warring out of their lives and settled in one spot. Green-skin Orcs still had the brute force and barbaric nature of other Orcs, but to a more controlled degree. No matter what kind of Orcs you came across, the thing they valued most highly was honor. By their definition, that meant never surrendering but fighting to the death, no matter what you were up against. There was no room for fear among their people; in their eyes, if you felt fear, then splattering you against the nearest rock was a kindness.

Leliana had no idea that was where I was leading us, but I thoughtshe might find it intriguing to see the way the green-skins lived when they weren’t constantly on the march, picking fights. I was more concerned about the mouthy Dryad, although the prospect of her being splattered against a rock by an Orc was oddly pleasing.

She enjoys the Dryad’s company more than yours, you know. My demon suddenly felt the need to speak to me again. What a foolish creature you are, thinking she could possibly care for you. You’re an idiot, and weak to love her.

“Shut up,” I mumbled as I continued walking. Leli and the Dryad were quiet behind me.

Besides, all that will come of her continuing to travel with you is that you’ll eventually get her killed, like you did Merrick. Stupidest human boys I’ve ever seen. Oh, how I would love to see that look upon her face, the pain of betrayal in her eyes as she died. You could plunge your dagger deep into her heart and twist it; her blood would be almost as sweet as her expression.

My head began to hurt as the demon continued to aggravate me, trying to twist my thoughts to gain influence over me. He did this often some days, and though it had never worked for him yet, still he tried, always poking me about the thing he thought would hurt me the most. Usually he was right on the mark.

Right now you could kill her, then the Dryad, too. It’s not like you like her, anyway! Its voice was more excited now.

“Shut up,” I said, louder this time.

“Alucard?” Leli sounded concerned.

“We weren’t talking, you idiot!” Melic shouted.

“Melic, stop. Something is wrong,” Leli scolded.

You could murder them both and drink their blood as you raped their dead bodies. It would be delicious! My demon laughed horridly at the idea.

“Shut up, you damned despicable bastard!” I shouted. I dropped our pack and began smacking myself in the head in an effort to get the demon to stop talking.

“Alucard, stop it!” Leli put gentle hands on my shoulders. “I don’t know what he’s telling you this time, but he couldn’t be more wrong about you. You are a good person, and he knows that; otherwise he wouldn’t feel such a need to torture you the way he does.”

She walked around in front of me and put her arms around me, hugging me tightly for a moment. “Remember who you are, Alucard, not who he wants you to be. I had something important I wanted to tell you, but I’lltell you later. Hopefully I can say it without unwanted listeners,” she whispered in my ear.

The demon talked to me for a little longer, trying to get to me with digs about Leliana and Merrick, but his voice was slowly fading out. When he finally stopped, I shook my head a few times.

“Are you all right, Alucard?” Leli checked my eyes tentatively, as though I had lost control of myself.

“What are you doing? He’s a demon!” Melic shouted, yanking Leli away from me quickly.

“Let go of me. He is not!” Leli yanked her arm out of the Dryad’s grasp. “Alucard is a human being!”

I felt a heaviness in my heart as they argued back and forth as to whether or not I was safe to be around. I had never thought of leaving Leliana, but at this moment I was seriously considering disappearing in the middle of the night while she slept. As off-putting as it might be, the Dryad was reacting the same way a lot of people did when they found out about the demon.

“He is possessed, if nothing else, which means he is a sleeping Drow! It’s only a matter of time before he wakes up and slashes out your heart and plucks out your eyeballs—”

“Enough, Melic! Alucard is a good man, one of the few I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. Leave him alone!”

Leliana was protective of me with everyone who doubted me and insisted that I wasn’t to be trusted and would kill her as well as anyone else who happened to be close by when I snapped. It was probably well past time for me to go a separate direction from Leliana so she would have a chance to make a better life for herself. At least with the Dryad there, I wasn’t leaving her alone.

Yes, a bitch like her is plenty able to scare off anything she can’t fight, my demon chimed in. I quietly took one of my daggers out and set it softly on top of the pack, so as not to leave Leli unarmed.

She and Melic were still going back and forth, arguing with each other about me and my demon. Neither of them noticed when I walked away. I went in the direction we’d been heading, only now I intended to go around the green-skin village and avoid it completely. I had grown tired of being judged, not for what I did but for what was inside me. My hope was that, without me there, Leliana would find happiness and peace.

Memories of Merrick flooded back to me as the demon willingly let me use his speed to go as far and as quickly as possible; for once he made no effort to control me. It was abundantly clear that he had something in mind when he allowed this, but I didn’t care any more.

There would be no more fighting for me, no more defending myself, no more hiding the truth of what I was. The world saw me as a demon, and that’s what I was. My fate would be whatever I made it from this point on, and I wouldn’t share it with anyone. If my life was to end by being stoned to death or caught by hunters or eaten by something bigger than me, it was past time to face it.

Leliana was better off without me, I decided. She should never have come with me and left her home in the mountains. Had she stayed with her own people, she wouldn’t have had to endure the misery of following me around and being involved in all the random conflicts that arose, then being rewarded by having to sleep on the cold, hard ground.

That’s right, you make her miserable. She hates you, but she won’t say so because you might abandon her, my demon said smugly.

“Silence. I didn’t ask for your opinion,” I grumbled. I finally slowed so I was no longer using his speed to travel. It didn’t take long for my body to get too worn out to continue using his powers; the human body wasn’t meant to take the stress it created. Besides, I had a good head start on Leli now; even if she took to the air as soon as she realized I was missing, it would take her some time to catch up. I only hoped it would take enough time that I could go around the green-skin village, not much further from where I was, before she caught up to me. I worried about what would happen if the Orcs caught her wandering their lands, but I figured if worse came to worst she could fly away to escape them. I honestly didn’t care much about Melic. I was sure that at this point my demon was more than willing for me to just keep walking and forget about Leli, even though he wasn’t saying anything right now.

As I proceeded, I thought of my past with Leliana, rememberingsome of the happier moments we had shared as we laughed and enjoyed each other’s company, talking about anything and everything, wandering around with no real destination in mind.

That quickly changed to memories of the bad times, however; almost every pleasant moment had ended with something that put Leli in danger. Leliana had even nearly been executed once by some traveling crusaders because of me.

We were in the hill lands, many miles south of the Dar’Gol mountain range where Leli was from, when we came upon the crusaders. They were being attacked by some strange creatures the likes of which we had never seen before—a couple of large, brutish monsters with large wooden clubs in hand and no armor or clothing. They were slow and clumsy, and their swings missed often, but still the crusaders couldn’t get close enough to them to attack. Their size alone was enough to deter the crusaders from rushing in rashly; the monsters were about ten feet high, giants compared to men.

Leliana and I didn’t stand there watching for long but headed for them at a run. From what we had observed, an aerial attack on at least one of them would probably be the most effective, so Leli’s wings were a huge advantage for us.

“Fly in low, Leli, and toss me at one of them. Aim for the head so I can kill it quickly, before it does any more damage than it already has!” I called to her. She dove in towards one of the monsters, which was swinging its huge club around at the crusaders. Leli swooped in at an angle behind it and let go of me just as the creature’s club hit the ground with an overhead swing.

I landed right on its back with a hard thud, as though I had been thrown into a brick wall. These beasts were definitely sturdy creatures, if not intelligent. As soon as I began trying to crawl up to its head, it started to flail. The creature was trying as hard as it could to throw me off, swinging and turning so violently that I had to drive my dagger into its back just to hang on.

“Alucard! Throw me your other dagger!” Leli shouted, flying past as I was being tossed around on its back. Easier said than done, I thought to myself, but I struggled to get it out before her next pass.

It took several tries, but eventually I got the dagger out of its sheath and managed to throw it more or less in Leli’s direction the next time she passed, swooping as close as she could to the flailing creature. I could only hope she’d managed to get hold of the dagger somehow. Evidently she had, because after a few more passes she dove straight at the creature’s head from directly above and began stabbing madly into its skull, forcing the dagger as deep as she could. At that point I slipped my own dagger out of the monster’s back and leaped away before it could collapse on me.

Now I took my remaining dagger out of its sheath and examined it as I walked; the shiny black blade showed my reflection as I gazed into it.

Are you still sobbing over that stupid girl? I’m not sure which I hate more, Merrick or her. You mope over both of them all day long, my demon snarled.

“Deal with it. You got what you wanted. I’m going to regret losing them for the rest of my life, but at least Leli is still alive,” I mumbled, heartache and depression slowly overwhelming me.

Oh, wonderful. If I have to deal with this much longer, I might have to kill myself just to get away from it! Of course, that means I’d be killing you, too, the demon said slyly.

I only shrugged at his irritation, ignoring it for the most part. Though the idea was tempting, I hadn’t yet reached the point where I thought killing myself was the answer. I wasn’t really sure why I was still going on, but here I was. A tear hit the dagger blade as I continued to stare at it.

Part of the guilt was over now. Leli could be at peace, without me there to stop her.