Chapter 24: 1-24: Museum Tours and Family Ties

I awoke early the next afternoon. Hayli was already up and dressed, having gone out to buy us both some new clothes. I thanked her with a hug before getting dressed. The dress she handed me to wear was extremely cute looking, and comfortable. It was sometimes scary how well she knew my size and tastes. Hayli braided my hair into a pair of pigtails before forcing me outside with her. 

It was cloudy out, but none of the white wisps would dare to cover the sun. Demons bustled to and fro, a few humans mixed in- mostly royals, traders and diplomats. Olli had sent a servant to check in on us. Hayli informed them that we were fine then asked for any suggestions on places to go.

"Oh, there's a museum on Honi Avenue. It's a good spot to relax in. Just remember Avenue, not Street. Street is a place where the human shouldn't go."

"Cages or beds?" I ask.

"Could be both."

"Got it."

Hayli thanked him and we began to walk. I noted the horns I passed, still amazed by the variety of the looks and such of them. Some originated from the front, others began from the back. Some were fat, some were skinny, some long, some short, some straight, some curved, one even had a pair the ended in orbs. 

As we continued on further into the city, I began to realize the area we were in was the same place where a few years back I had accidentally blown up the city. I must have started nervously laughing at that because I could hear whispered voices talking about me, that were quickly stopped by Hayli's sharp toothed grin. I thanked Hayli who forced me to hold hands with her so I wouldn't stop to laugh at the deadly destruction I had caused in the past. Soon we saw a sign that told us the museum was two blocks to the left.

We did as the sign told us, as we had to trust its directions having no other way of navigating the city. We arrived at the museum, a very museum-y looking sort of building with the steps and the statues outside and the columns holding up a roof and the whole white and grey stone look it had going on. Hayli and I were caught in a small crowd and pushed inside the museum. Hayli was drug further away with a tour group, so I just wandered into the first room I saw.

Inside were the Three Demon Kings that had participated in the first war against humans, Thane the Burning, Eris the Grateful, and Ulz the Exterminator. Some on had painted a mustache on Ulz, reducing him from intimidating genocidal war criminal conqueror to very angry dad upset you got home so late as a result. Above me was a stained-glass dome with figures of animals in a repeating pattern. Pig, bear, sheep, lion, tiger, dragon, whale, fish, ant, bee, wolf and monkey. It was probably some calender or something that I had no idea about because I never bothered to learn. 

As I was staring again at the beautiful vandalizing mustache, admiring how much it changed the context of the expression on the statue, I was tapped twice on the shoulder.

I spun around and came face to face with an older demon and what looked to be his daughter. He was a bald man in a multi-piece suit and horns in a L reverse L on each side of his head. He was slightly taller than Sairah, even despite his slight hunch. His daughter, I assumed, had pink hair that was cut into a pixie cut. Her horns both began in the center of her head and continued out into a look not dissimilar to a handlebar mustache. She had on a very old looking dress that seemed to be one of the uniforms for tour guides and seemed utterly bored.

"Excuse me young lady, have you been asked for a tour yet."

I shook my head.

"Well, that type of thing is no good, no good indeed. I am Oliver Verilily, owner and curator of this establishment. Must say it is nice to see a human take interest in the museum, most don't care for fine art. My mother's side of the family doesn't even visit me here- my mom was half human you see."

"Um, cool." I reply nervously. I really didn't trust people being nice to me, especially not in this city of all places. It was either an attempt to get me to waste money, trick me into being killed, or a spy hired by Olli to make sure I was doing as I said and staying in the city.

"Good! Now, I will leave my precious daughter to guide you. She's a little grump because all her friends are in diplomatic meetings, and she had to work here." He bowed and walked off.

"Ahem. Hello, guest. My name is Shera Itala. I will be your tour guide today."

"That's a different last name." I say my thoughts out loud.

"I was adopted."

"Oh. I'm sorry for mentioning it."

"Oh, no. It's fine. Happens every time dad forces me to guide a lone visitor. Now, before we begin, what is your name?"

"Terra Thornell."

She seemed to think for a minute at my last name and then straightened and began walking around the room. "I take it you know these three, so let's move on." She grabbed my wrist and pulled me along at a speed neither of us should have been walking given what we were wearing.

The first hallway was exclusively paintings of war.

"Fun fact around half of these are from battles demons lost to you humans. The look nice though."

"We only paint surrenders." I say looking at a knight getting impaled in multiple places.

"Cool. Moving on." 

The whirlwind tour continued. New hallway, five paintings of demons.

"Who are these?"

"Point and ask." She smiled in the same way Callie did at customers while working at the general store.

Well. I point first at one of a fat, bald, male demon with four eyes and large, slightly curved front horns.

"That would be Natasli Ved, first demon to agree to trade with humans. This caused our kingdoms and your border towns to have a strange sort of symbiotic relationship."

"And this one?" I point at a young ram horned woman with pink hair and a cocky grin.

"That's Lady Elanie Truth, first demon to learn of Transmutation Magic- specifically Human to Demon and vice versa. She died testing if it could go both ways. It can it was just her method was deadly."

"And this thing?" My finger now lay on a blob with no eyes.

"That's Dret Meti. Creator of the postal service, progenitor of the Cercomic System, and heaviest demon ever recorded."

I pointed next at a red skinned demoness wearing very little clothing. Her horns curved from behind her head. She held a spiked whip in her hand as she stood over a few chained humans.

"That would be Terri the Torturer. I take it you can figure out her whole deal."

"And the portrait of the blonde twink?" I point at a long faced blonde male with short black horns and a shit eating grin.

"No idea. Haven't seen that one before."

"Really?"

"Hey, I'm bored most of the time, so I don't really pay attention to new arrivals."

"You work for your dad at a museum."

"Don't patronize me, human." She replied before carrying on further along into the museum.

(Olli was a weird girl. She had to be if she kept hanging around Vern. Getting put in danger so often would drive a normal person off, but not her. No, she stuck around us like corn in your teeth after eating it. 

Currently we were both hanging onto the roof of the local courthouse. The abandoned one, not the nice new one.

"Vern, help!" I cried using all of my tiny arm strength to not fall the very sizeable distance to the ground below. Olli was beside me, hanging on with one hand while scratchng her nose with the other. I stared at her in disbelief. How could she be so nonchalant about this? I heard demon's bones broke less easy than ours but even for her this drop would at least do some damage. But no, here she was itching her nose while hanging off the edge of a roof.

From below Vern called, "Let go!"

"And fall to my death?"

"Then pull yourself up."

"To the hole covered roof? The one you just fell through?"

"I only sprained it."

"You fell onto the second flo-" I began but Olli shushed me and jumped off. Vern ran forward and caught her before any damage could be done.

"See, perfectly safe." Vern said up at me.

"I swear to the High Mother, I don't trust you to catch me."

"Well unless Avery gets done with training and decides to rush over here or Quaza arrives a week early, it's just me. So, trust me."

"Fine." I said with a heavy sigh. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath and let go.

Then felt my legs crack as they slammed into the ground.)

(The next week was spent waiting for the town healer to return back from his retreated so my two broken legs could be healed. While Avery punished Vern by forcing him into even more training than usual. Olli was off somewhere, and I was sitting on the coach being watched over by Quaza who had just arrived in town this morning. Her mom had business in Olli's town, so she was able to come over and visit all of us.

Right, Quaza was another demoness we had made friends with. A daughter to Honi- High Princess herself, she was above Olli in rank though Olli never treated her that way. Quaza and I had met under less-than-ideal circumstances, but now we were as close as Olli and Vern. Best friends. 

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"Quaza, why is this drink red?" I ask eyeing the glass in my hand. It was supposed to be water.

"I tried flavoring it. Plain old water isn't tasty enough."

I held it up towards the sunlight and then downed it, feeling the taste flow down my throat. It was tasty, apple with a strawberry aftertaste. Quaza stared at me, her antler horns covered in a cobweb, her long straight tan bangs nearly covering her greyish purple eyes, full of expectation. I smiled and gave her a thumbs up. She beamed, face glowing with joy and plopped down on the couch beside me. My face grew red from both the pain of her landing shaking the couch and from how happy she was over me enjoying her flavored water.

"So, um... how was your day?" I asked.

"I had to help mom organize a dinner party and help set it up, but the girls covered for me on that. Still got to do the dinner tomorrow, all day affair- and they can't cover for me."

"Aw. Just plain water for me tomorrow?"

"Sorry." She grinned and leaned on me. Her horns were way to close to me. I was sweating as her head bobbed slightly, inching the deadly things closer to me.

Besides that, it was nice to have her close to me. We didn't have any clean blankets and she was warm. A very awkward and dangerous warmth but I would take it. I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.)

There was a single grain of rice in a cage.

"This is 'Single Grain'" Shera said, sounding even more bored than she looked.

"This is shit." I say just as bored.

"Agreed, but the artist made a big donation."

I rolled my eyes and glanced at all the other dumb pieces in the room. A corncob painted black, two clay figures that looked like melted people, and a painting of a red circle on a red background- or so the plaque said, I couldn't see the circle.

"Well, this tour has been fun." She stretched and turned to me.

"Demons sure do have a weird definition of fun. Jumping off roofs, exploring ruins, boring museum tours, eating raw fish."

"What kind of demons have you met that enjoyed leaping off roofs."

"The kind that I made friends with.

Shera laughed. "So, human. Why are you in town?"

I stopped to think of an answer. I couldn't well say I was a trade or an aristocrat because my dress was not of that level of opulence and saying I got here from an island was bad. Then again, clearly Olli was important if she had her own building and guard so perhaps I could... no. That sounds insane. Oh yeah, my childhood friend used a corridor to get me off an island and is keeping me here. Best to keep it to a simple lie, "Oh, I'm her with my girlfriend. She's a humon, not a demon if you were going to ask."

"Oh? Your girlfriend? Where is she?"

"She kind of got dragged away into a tour group when we came in."

"Yeah, that happens. I think she'll probably be in the front." She motioned for me to follow her. I did, being lead back through the wings and such I had previously visited until arriving at the place we met.

Hayli was standing by a wall, looking nervous when she saw me and did her patented hug tackle on me. 

"Terra! Why didn't you help save me. I was tortured by the most boring tour guide ever, and he wouldn't let me go until the tour was over."

"Sorry, you got pushed away and I didn't want to get caught by a tour group."

Shera coughed, "Well, now that you're reunited with your girlfriend, I guess the tour is over." She hadn't even looked at us, busy reading from a pocket-sized book she had pulled out.

"You got forced on a tour too?"

"More like my tour guide got forced to give a tour to me."

Hayli glanced over at the top of Shera's head. She stared for a while. "That's your tour guide? She looks better than mine."

"She wasn't much good for information, but she was fast."

Shera scoffed, still reading, "I told you who the people in the paintings were."

"I could have just read the plaques next to them."

"There were none in that room."

"There was also a painting you didn't even know who it was or when it was added."

"Whatever." She walked past us and stared at the door as a woman walked in. They strode over and let out a giant sigh. They had on a large sun hat that hid her face beneath its shade and two coral-like horns stick out of a hole in the brim of it. She was in a dress that screamed that she was rich and had what looked like scales on her arms and neck.

"Shera, seriously. We told you to meet us at Dans Le Sons after work."

"Who is us, Il?"

"Me and Lili and Olli's Favorite Guard. Her highness is busy- you know top candidate stuff. Plus, Olli wanted to see her for something."

"Really? Why do those two never relax."

The girl looked over at us and let out a squee. Shera and I exchanged shocked looks as her friend picked up Hayli into a hug, "Hay! Why didn't you tell me you were in town. Wait... shouldn't you be on that island?"

"Ilyah. Please let me down, you're causing a scene."

"Oops. Sorry. It's just been a minute, Hay."

"Yeah, sorry." She straightened her dress out. "Why are you here? Didn't think Aunt Plesia was doing shows over here."

"Oh, no. I'm here to see some friends. Why are you, here? How are you here?"

"Well, I was exploring a ruin, went back in to look for my girlfriend and saw her being killed, did some things and then Olli and her team showed up."

"Oh, that's what miss Gaia rank was discussing when we asked her where Olli was last week."

"Yeah, I was stuck in her building for a weak while Terra healed." She motioned at me.

Shera was by this point glancing rapidly between the three of us. "Hold on, Ilyah. Is that... Hayli? That cousin you always talk about?"

"Yep. My little twin." She posed next to Hayli, showing off how similar they were. They were, Ilyah just had a squarer jaw, was taller and had those horns- besides that the family resemblance was undeniable. "Can't believe she wouldn't tell me she was here. Or Olli tell me."

"She probably wanted to spend time with her girlfriend and not a weirdo like you."

"Wow, Shera. Rude." Ilyah glanced over at me. "And, you are?"

"Oh, Terra. Terra Thornell." I instinctively curtsied like Quaza had taught me when I first used the name Terra.

She looked me over then grinned, "You related to that Hero who used to live in that town a mile over?"

I looked over at Hayli who nodded slightly, "Yeah."

"Cool. Same boat as me then. At least you aren't also pals with some Candidates like me. Real annoying to deal with most of ypur friends going off to parties and stuff because an oracle or seer made a new correction."

"Hey, Ilyah. Lunch."

"Oh, right. Hey, you two want to join us?"

Hayli nodded and I nodded in turn. 

"Great! I wasn't going to let you say no anyways." Ilyah remarked. "Hayli, you better tell me how you met this cutie on the way."

Hayli grinned and happily began to relate her version of the first thirteen chapters of this book to her cousin as Shera and I walked behind them in silence, both only wanting to get out of the museum and into a place to eat.

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