Chapter 12: Twelve

"Rida, I don't mean to insult your method..." Janilari hesitated, as the bottle kept spewing colorful fumes. "But I don't think this is how potions are usually brewed."

"You know a lot about potions?" The mage grunted. The demoness looked up.

"I know they usually don't leave a hole in the ceiling."

There was a small explosion inside the bottle. Rida froze, and only relaxed after a couple of seconds with a sigh. She closed the glass and started working on the next one.

A day had passed since the whole orc thing. Without Ardiane in the way, they didn't have many problems getting the farmers to agree to the treaty. With her part of the reward, Rida had bought supplies to restock in potions.

Now the mage was sitting on the floor, in the middle of her room, which was even more crowded with the addition of the brewing materials.

"That just means it's more effective." The sorcerer quipped, but winced when she looked upwards.

Janilari eyed the damage made to the wooden ceiling. "Is that supposed to be 'non-lethal'?" She asked, and got a groan as a response. "Oh! Now you can kinda see the stars from here! Let's hope it doesn't rain soon, though."

"Alright, fine! I messed up." The mage confessed, but didn't stop mixing a new potion. "Can't you fix that?"

"Well I could, but I feel like this is a learning experience." She smiled.

"Aren't you supposed to help me?"

"Not helping you here is helping."

"So you are just here to watch, then?"

"Yeah!"

"And criticize how I do things?"

"Uh... Yeah, that too." She shrugged as the mage glared at her. "Hey! I deserve a pass, don't I? I solved the Ardiane thing!"

Rida looked at her, frowning. "That you did. Care to tell me how you managed that?"

Janilari laughed nervously. She had the slight feeling Rida wouldn't approve of the use of live brain dissection to "influence" someone to make a magically binding deal.

"It was completely 'non-lethal'." She deflected instead, earning her a skeptical look.

"What did you do?" Rida demanded, flatly.

"Uh... Let's just say Ardiane will struggle to even think about hurting anything again."

He would have problems thinking at all, but she left that part unsaid.

"But just to be clear..." She added. "It would have been so much better if I just killed him." The mage sighed, but didn't respond. "Wouldn't that help you reach your goal? I mean, according to your views, the world is a better place without seven mass murderers running around."

"Well." Rida hesitated. "It doesn't matter now, does it?"

The demoness rolled her eyes. "Maybe not. But for the future. Won't you agree that some people are better dead?"

Again, the sorcerer didn't respond. She pretended to be extremely busy mixing the potion. But Janilari took that as a win.

She felt like she understood a bit better how human values worked now, and she could see Rida and her friends differed slightly in views. The main difference was that Rida seemed to have no objection to violence itself, if it helped further her peaceful goals.

And Janilari was more than willing to exploit that.

Then her thoughts were interrupted by another soft explosion, coming from the new bottle. In an instant, the glass started spewing a golden, thick smoke. Rida instantly recoiled, screaming, and immediately covered her mouth and nose with a piece of cloth.

But Janilari saw the rapidly expanding golden smoke and inhaled deeply. In an instant she was on the floor, almost coughing her lungs out.

"Why did you do that?" Screeched Rida, voice muffled by the cloth.

"I was curious!" She yelled back, between coughs. Slowly her stupid human organs got used to the strange substance. "I don't think you should breathe that."

"No shit!" Remarked Rida, moving to the window and doing her best to get fresh air.

Janilari rolled her eyes, which were also burning with the smoke, and with magic moved all the potion vapors to the now convenient hole in the ceiling, making the room breathable again.

"I'm assuming that wasn't intentional." Said the demoness. Rida threw the cloth on the ground and collapsed on her bed.

"I'm a failure." She concluded in a fatalist tone. Janilari gasped.

"Don't say that!"

"It's the truth."

"Even if it is, don't say that!" Rida looked at her. "I'm not saying it is."

The mage sighed, dispirited. The demoness pouted and leaned over the bed.

"Well, you try your best, don't you?" Said Janilari in the softest tone she could manage. "That counts for something, right?"

"... You are not making this better."

"I mean, you did pretty well considering the resources you have!" She gestured at the brewing materials. "And not many people can say they summoned a demon, can they?" She hesitated. "Even if you got the wrong one... And forgot to bind it... Those are small details anyway."

"Really, you are not helping." The mage groaned.

Janilari sighed, looking around the room. The place was somehow in a worse state than when she was summoned. She looked back at the mage.

"What do you do for fun?"

"... What?"

"For fun! Recreational activities are very important for humans, aren't they?"

The mage stared at her. "Not for me."

The demon tilted her head. "Why not?"

"Because there are more important things to focus on."

Janilari bit her tongue, but not even that stopped her from saying her next words out loud. "Like being a disaster?"

Rida glared at her and turned on her bed to face the wall, and avoid seeing the demon.

"Oh, come on! I'm just joking!"

"Can't you leave me alone?"

"Never! Listen, you've been working on stupid missions for days now, don't you think you deserve a break from work?"

"I don't do 'breaks'." Rida hissed, still not looking at her. "I don't get anything done with 'breaks'."

"... As opposed to everything you get done when- Sorry, sorry!" She backtracked as Rida threw a pillow at her. "Don't you think that, maybe, you are a little burned out?"

"What would you know about that?"

Janilari crossed her arms. "I happen to have first-hand experience."

"... How? You are a demon."

"Yeah!" She groaned. "You want to know something about demons? We can't sleep. Our minds are always working."

"Is that why all of you are insane?"

"Well, you can't possibly know, because you only know one- Hey!" She pouted, but couldn't help but smile again as Rida snorted from her point on the bed. "My point is, you have to leave your mind to rest from time to time and do something simple that you enjoy!"

"I-..." Rida hesitated, then shook her head, seemingly out of arguments.

Janilari sighed, then leaned over a wall. "You want to hear a story?" She asked. The mage made a small, non-committal noise. "Hell is boring. Extremely boring. So sometimes I didn't feel like even moving around, like what was the point? There's nothing to do anyways. Well, my mom helped me to learn how to stay moving, and find things that- What!?"

She interrupted herself, as the mage turned around and was staring straight at her, frowning. She hadn't expected her story to elicit that kind of reaction.

"... you said your 'mother'?" Asked Rida, slowly.

"Yeah!"

"You have a mother!?"

"W-what- Yes! I do! Did you think I was spawned into existence or something?"

"... Yes."

"Well." The demon scoffed. "That's a bit rude. You are lucky she didn't hear you say that."

"Uhh... Would you mind?" Rida gestured at her. "Explaining? How do you have a... Mother?"

"Oh! It's a funny story, actually. You see, mom had an argument with a neighbor, so she sliced them into pieces, stole a part of their soul and put a fragment of their mind in each body part to make my siblings and me."

Rida blinked, her mouth agape.

"What?" Janilari asked. The mage looked elsewhere.

"Nothing, nothing." Rida replied, raising from the bed. "You convinced me, let's go."

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"Oh... Really?"

"... Yes." The mage put on her robe and moved to the door. "But tell me more about your family on the way."

"Sure! You see..."

*

"... And well, Carilane hates humans." Janilari said, talking about her sister. "She says all of you are gross, which, I mean, I don't fully disagree with."

Rida rolled her eyes. "Thank you."

"You are welcome. Well, anyway, she also likes being summoned. But she usually prefers to torture her summoners for 'wasting her time', even though she could avoid being summoned if she wanted to."

"... She sounds lovely." Rida deadpanned. Janilari laughed.

"I wouldn't say that. Once she told me mom made her from her neighbor's head, and made me out of their ass."

The demoness was startled as Rida laughed at that. It was the first time she heard her laugh, she was pretty sure. It was a beautiful sound, and Janilari had a permanent smile as she walked along the mage, her eyes not leaving the human.

Unfortunately, they had no success finding a recreational activity that Rida was interested in. The demoness had to admit there wasn't much of a selection. While talking they had been in almost every corner of the town, and the most interesting sight was of the two blacksmiths playing a game consisting of which of the two punched the other the hardest.

At least Rida seemed to enjoy hearing about hell... Inexplicably so, but Janilari wasn't about to complain. When the topic of her family got old she started talking about some of the other demons, like Azlador, and how he had been responsible for the extinction of three different species before humans were even a thing.

"... I'm glad I didn't summon him." Rida admitted eventually. Janilari gasped, beaming at her, and the mage just rolled her eyes. "I still believe I could have got a better deal." She said, but didn't sound truthful, or Janilari elected not to believe her.

"Well, you are wrong." She said regardless, in a fake mocking tone. Rida seemed about to retort, but Janilari stopped suddenly, looking to the side of the street.

They were in front of a small garden, its thick greenery out of place in the middle of the town. But that wasn't why the demon stopped. The garden had a strange pull to it, which awakened her curiosity.

It didn't feel dangerous. Just as if a weird type of magic held the place together.

"... Uh... Is everything fine?" Asked Rida beside her, her eyes darting around the garden.

Janilari grabbed the mage's arm and started walking to the garden. "We have to go in there."

"... What? Why?"

But despite her protests, Rida didn't struggle, and they both entered the closed garden. There was enough space for them to pass, but the place was crowded with plants of all types.

"And you complained when I said you were insane." Rida snorted, then looked around. "What are we doing here?"

Janilari crouched to stare deeply into a blade of grass. The mage, probably finding the situation funny, did the same.

"These plants are grown with magic." The demoness concluded.

"How do you know that?" Asked Rida, frowning. Janilari shrugged.

"They don't feel like they grew on their own, that's for sure."

"... Alright." Rida stood up. "You know, this is probably a private place..."

"... And?"

"We probably shouldn't be here."

The demoness frowned. "Why not!?"

"Its... Well... Considered rude by most people." The mage raised an eyebrow as the demon looked at her, dumbfounded.

"Seriously?

"Yes!"

"You humans are complicated." Janilari harrumphed while standing up. "Do you have a list of rules where you keep track of all your dumb conventions?"

"... Something like that. We have laws."

"... Laws!?"

They were walking out of the garden, but stopped when they noticed a pale woman standing at the entrance. She wore a black robe, and seemed to be examining every plant thoroughly. Rida sighed.

"Great." She said under her breath. The pale woman froze, confused at seeing them inside.

"I- am sorry... What are you...?" The newcomer hesitated.

"Good morning. I'm sorry, my friend here got lost." Rida explained quickly, gesturing at Janilari. The demon frowned.

"No, I didn't!" She protested. Rida glared at her.

"She's not from around here." The mage continued between clenched teeth. "We are leaving, I'm sorry to disturb you."

"Oh, that's alright." Replied the woman in a pleasant tone. "I don't mind people seeing my plants."

Rida nodded and then tugged on Janilari. "You grew them with magic, right?" Asked the demon. Rida just sighed, letting go and resigning herself.

"Oh! How did you...?" The woman sounded confused, and approached them slowly. The closer she got the paler she looked, and she was taller than it first seemed, taller than Rida. "I did grow them with magic, yes."

"Are you a vampire?" Janilari tilted her head. That would explain the paleness. Rida slapped her on the back of the head and the demon cried out. "Woah! What was that for!?"

"What you get for asking something stupid!"

"... It's just an innocent question!"

"It was rude!"

Their arguing was interrupted by the strange woman, who was laughing at the scene. "Don't worry, please." She said chuckling. "I'm not offended. And I'm not a vampire." She kept laughing. Rida pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Look, I'm really sorry for this." Apologized the mage. The woman raised a hand.

"No, there's no need. I'm just glad you found my garden interesting. My name is Eiril."

"I'm... Rida." The mage gestured at the demon. "And this is... Uh..."

"Jani?" the demoness suggested.

"Jani... Yes." Rida agreed, frowning. Eiril raised an eyebrow, amused.

"I agree too!" She quipped. "Nice to meet you, Rida and Jani."

"Nice to meet you too!" Janilari beamed. "How many people did you kill for this garden?"

Eiril's smile dropped, and Rida looked at the woman, frowning.

"I... No one? Zero?" Doubted Eiril.

"... You said you grew them with magic." Added Rida, looking at her with suspicion. Eiril glanced between both of them.

"I believe you are confused. Nobody died for these plants."

"Then how did you...?" Rida looked around the garden.

Janilari stared straight at Eiril. The pale woman looked back at her and smiled.

"I can show you?" Eiril suggested.

Rida hesitated, looking at Janilari. The demoness shrugged. "Sure. Let's see it."

She eyed the woman as she sat on the ground and gestured for them to follow her. Rida, still doubting, was the first to do it.

Janilari was curious, yes, but she was aware that the woman could be trying to attack them by surprise and turn them into a pair of bushes or something. Obviously, she didn't have to worry about that herself, but Rida?

Deciding that a simple human wouldn't be able to react fast enough to manage to hurt her summoner with Janilari present, the demoness finally crouched on the ground. The three formed a circle, a small patch of naked dirt between them.

"Do you know something about blood magic?" Slowly asked Eiril, an odd smile drawing on her face.

"Uh... No." Replied Rida, almost flinching as the woman produced a knife from her black robe.

With slow and graceful movements, Eiril raised her left sleeve. Her arm was as pale as her face, and was full of small scars, painfully obvious on her white skin. Smiling widely, she drew her knife against her wrist. The cut was so shallow Janilari didn't even see it: she only saw, disgusted, how the two drops of blood ran along the blade.

The three women followed the blood with their eyes, as it fell down the steel and dripped one drop at a time into the dirt below. The crimson fluid flickered white for an instant, then as clear as water, before being swallowed by the ground.

It took a second. Janilari almost believed the woman was messing with them. But then, a green tendril began emerging right where the blood had disappeared.

In a couple of instants the new plant grew its first small leaf, with another following a few seconds later. Finally, the tip of the tendril finished in a bulb that slowly opened up, blossoming into a white flower.

Janilari looked up. Rida was staring at the flower, mouth agape and wide-eyed. While the... Blood mage, watched over her creation with lively eyes and a wide toothy smile.

Eiril then looked up, meeting her sight. Her smile only widened. 

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