The villagers were hunting him down.

He should’ve known that he’d give himself away when he did it again, but his emotions had got the better of him once more, and now a man was dead on the ground with his head splattered everywhere, even on Aarien’s armour. This made it the fifth – or was it sixth? – time that it happened.

He couldn’t help it, though. He couldn’t help feeling so enraged at the injustice that happened before his eyes. The man had beaten his dog into submission for ignoring his commands, but the dog was still young, and so didn’t understand why he was being so brutally punished for something he didn’t understand. It wasn’t right at all, and, before he knew it, Aarien had left out of the tree he had hidden in and then… Aarien didn’t know exactly how he had managed to make that man’s head explode – it couldn’t be magic, he’d been tested and they said that Aarien couldn’t do the simplest spell – but he did, and now he had to run as fast as he could into the woods until they lost him – “they” being the angry villagers who wanted to hunt Aarien for his crime.

Aarien panicked, ran back into the woods, and climbed up the branches of a tree for safety. He’d been living in those woods for days now, sneaking into the village at night for food. But now he couldn’t – they’d be on the lookout for him. He had to wait until they relaxed, then go on the move again, which he guessed would be three days without food, unless he got lucky and found something in the woods. He could hear them in the distance, so he quickly climbed up higher, as a means of making it harder to see him and for the sake of a better view. They were not too far away, so Aarien stayed as still as possible, clinging to the tree tightly, trying to hear for them.

They weren’t too far away – but they were going in the wrong direction. Aarien almost sighed with relief before reminding himself to not make a sound. His big green eyes scanned the area, but despite the height he was at, he couldn’t see them.

After a while, Aarien’s paranoia and fear lessened, and he started to relax slightly, his mind starting to wander. He silently berated himself for everything – for killing the man, for ruining his opportunity to be close with nature and still be close to civilisation, and for running away in the first place. It was stupid to run away from the Lair of the Desperim, which was no longer a home of the supernatural race it was named after – they had died out long ago. It was now the lair of the Desperim’s most hated enemies – demons. Yet people still called it the Desperim’s lair, despite demons having hold of it long before this war had even started.

Aarien was taken there… some time ago. He knew that some time had passed since he was dragged there, he just didn’t know how long. He tried to guess his age, but it was difficult – there were little mirrors back at the Lair, for one, and nothing and nobody to tell him how old he was now. He knew he was eighteen when he was brought there, but that was all. He didn’t even know where he was taken from. All he had of that was a vague memory of two half-demons like him dead at his feet, before being dragged away.

Aarien had tried before to remember his life before the Lair, but… he remembered nothing. Just the odd flash of memory here and there, and – for some reason – his name, but Aarien wanted desperately to know why he couldn’t remember the rest.

And yet those flashes of memory were almost enough for him to think about the world outside the lair. It was a memory of being outdoors, with a small cat by his side that had made him run away, to see if the outside world was as truly beautiful as he remembered. He was right and wrong.

The outside world was full of such natural beauty. He enjoyed watching the sun set after every day, and when he couldn’t sleep, he’d watch the sun rise, admiring the many colours and shades of the sky. He also preferred hiding in forests, surrounded by a countless number of trees of varying height, life and colour. When he wasn’t running away from blood-thirsty humans, or desperately trying to keep himself fed and watered, he enjoyed just watching and interacting with local wildlife. He ached to draw some of the things he had seen, to keep them close with him forever, but it was hard enough finding food without detection, never mind paper and ink.

Aarien sometimes wandered whether he was truly meant to be the fighting type – sometimes he felt a stronger bond with an animal that had happened to come across his current “home” than he could with anybody else. Well, not all – that would be unrealistic – but Aarien always felt closer to, say, a dog than any human, and sometimes wondered whether he should’ve really trained the way he was, as he was taught to fight with speed instead, as well as rather unsavoury skills, such as hiding and stealing. (Not that the skills weren’t useful to him…) Then again, maybe it was just because all the humans saw him as a demon, so it was difficult to make friends with any human anyway, especially now, as there was a war against demons spreading from the Central Rift.

There were other Rifts, and Aarien knew when he was close to one, as he always felt this strange, unpleasant tingly feeling all over his body, not too different from magic, and yet the Rift magic always felt more unpleasant than even a fireball to the chest. It had always felt more invasive somehow, as if it wanted to pierce right through him, but wasn’t strong enough to make him feel anything but uncomfortable.

He wasn’t interested in joining the demons or humans in their war. He just wanted to live peacefully, on his own… no, this was a lie. He had always felt alone, and he hated it. As a child, he never had friends, as far as he knew, and none of the other Numbers – a group of fighting slaves of all races unique to the Lair’s demons, a group that he was part of before he ran away – liked him at all. Well, all of them, but one.

Lirielle, a half-angel, half-human beauty of a woman, his dearest friend and lover. Sure, she’d told him to do the odd thing here and there that might seem wrong in other circumstances, but she assured him it was for the greater good. He was just upset that he couldn’t take her with him, but he did not plan his escape – he had just taken advantage of an opportunity, an opportunity that would have probably been lost if he went to find Lirielle first. On the other hand, she was far more intelligent than he was – she could probably devise a plan for them both to escape easily. He tried to push away the guilty thoughts in his minds, but with nothing to distract him, he couldn’t help it. He didn’t want to face her if she found him; the look in those beautiful yellow eyes would hurt him almost as much as he felt this hurt her.

Suddenly, just as he thought all this, he felt the flutter of wings nearby. He turned, expecting a bird, but it was Lirielle, flying down from branch to branch of the tree with her feathery white wings.

“Aari!” Lirielle yelled.

He couldn’t turn away from her, though he desperately wanted to.

“Aari! You’re okay!” She laughed as she flew to the branch he sat on. It was a very sturdy branch, so it could support their weight easily, much to Aarien’s relief.

“Lirielle…” He said softly with a smile. “I missed you.”

She held him tightly in her arms. “I know.”

Aarien gulped down his nerves and wrapped his arms around her in return.  “I’m sorry. I should’ve taken you with me. At least we’re together now…” He broke apart slightly to look her in the eyes.

“It’s okay, love…” She said sweetly, stroking his face.

“No, it’s not okay! I should’ve let you come with me somehow.”

“No, Aarien,” She said, kissing him gently on the lips, “You didn’t need to. “

Aarien kissed her back, slowly, passionately, and she returned his kiss, only to break apart once more. “After all, I’m not here to be with you anyway.” She smiled brightly, her cheerful tone unchanged.

Aarien smiled at her for a moment before he realised what she meant.

She stroked his face, her eyes full of a strange, unnatural light. “I’m here to bring you back to where you belong, love. Don’t worry, it’ll feel like you’re there in mere minutes.”

Aarien’s eyes widened as he suddenly felt drowsy and weak…

*

Lirielle caught the half-demon in her arms as he fell, a perfect smile on her perfect face. “Ah, that was too easy. I suppose I’ll have to take him back to the Lair now.” She cradled him in her arms – Aarien was never heavy, and Lirielle suspected that this little escape attempt had made him lose weight – and placed a kiss on his forehead. “That sleep spell really was worth learning…” She muttered to herself as she took flight once more.