The Riddle Of Magic

Chapter 30: Sentire Suspirare

"Would it be so terrible, my darling?" Alastor asked. "If you were changed?"

Charlie's head tilted down slightly as she thought, and his thumb just brushed against her lip. "If it made everyone hate me," she replied sadly. "If I lost everything I'd worked for, then, yes."

"You wouldn't lose everything, I'm sure."

"But, how do you know?" she murmured. Her rose-red eyes looked up to him, and there was a silent plea there for him to show her some certainty.

Spirits, his throat was dry. "Well, how exactly do you think you've changed, my dear?"

Her bright eyes looked glassy as she stepped back slightly, hugging herself. "I'm not... honest anymore. I hide so much of what I feel. From Vaggie, from you and everyone... from me."

"It's perfectly reasonable to hide some things from others, that doesn't make you a liar! It's only natural to guard some things to yourself. Creatures in the wild do so, and nobody calls them false!" the deer demon offered.

"A creature," Charlie echoed, "That's what I feel like. That's what I've always felt like. Not a demon... not an angel... something that doesn't belong. Anywhere."

He could understand that sentiment - at least, the idea of having two competing heritages. "Well, that's why this wacky Hotel exists, isn't it? To build someplace for people to belong? Hell may be the land of sinners, but not everyone belongs here, truly. Of those of us in this Hotel, only Angel Dust and I took another's life whilst living! And he even repented before he died."

"But I talk about saving my people, and I've... consumed them," the princess lamented, her expression full of pain as she bit her lip.

She moved away from him, leaning on the kitchen island, her shoulders trembling.

A raw feeling gnawed at the Radio Demon's gut. "I know you don't like it-"

"No," Charlie Morningstar cut back, and when she turned to look at him her eyes were a brilliant burning gold. "That's the problem, Alastor. I do like it."

Her horns slid from her hair, and the dark red color reminded him of deer velvet. He felt the pull of his own antlers, and he willed himself to keep them in check, to keep his control. He clenched his hands behind his back to keep them from reaching for her.

"I want more, and I shouldn't - it's what makes me a hypocrite! I don't just want blood that's chilled. I want to feel it hot, right out of the vein, when there's still essence pulsing in it." Her bone-white fangs flashed as she spoke, and the shape of her mouth was as beautiful as he'd ever seen. "What does that say about me?" she demanded. "That I would bring pain like that to someone?"

"Wanting blood doesn't mean you want to bring someone pain, my darling. You could taste that without killing someone, or even hunting, for that matter."

The blonde demoness' eyes widened. "I could?"

"I could always heat your drink, if you wished. Or bring you something fresh."

"That's still the same, though!" the princess protested. "You'd just be a proxy! The intent is the same." Her eyes faded back to the rose color in her grief as her horns vanished back into her hair. Her eyes looked toward the floor, flooded with pain. "I'm still a monster."

A wild thought struck him - so outlandish Alastor was stunned he even suggested it - but the words left his mouth anyway. "You could take from me," he proposed.

The blonde demoness' head snapped up to him, wide eyes staring at him as though she didn't believe him either.

But the deer demon lifted his hand in offering, slicing into his pointer finger with the claw on his thumb. He had no idea where his glove had gone, but it scarcely mattered as her smaller hands took his larger one with trembling fingers.