The Miscreants of Xiphoid Camp [NOT UPDATING CURRENTLY]

» 2130 « Chapter 16 - The days grow long

Malvolio stood on his favorite balcony again.

Xiphoid Camp was quiet now. Each cabin was dark inside. The front gate was locked. Everyone had packed their things and resumed their ordinary lives.

And only Malvolio remained.

He was alone. He was alone a lot, of late.

He missed the days when he would receive hundreds upon hundreds of visitors, flocking to his door in droves in the hopes that he might bestow a scrap of timeless wisdom upon them. He missed the days when he was celebrated, when he was heralded as a great seer, magician, hero, whatever his visitors needed him to be. He used to be revered by man and demon alike.

Now he was just Malvolio. An aging man all by himself in a mansion way out in the forest, making deals with fate and diffusing petty grievances between time and space.

Well, not really. It was mostly in his head, anyway. The mansion was quite lonely.

He comforted the young, freshly turned-demon part of his soul when he sat alone by the fire by remembering past visitors.

There was the werewolf who had arrived in the middle of the night, begging and pleading for a cure so that he might be able to stay with the love of his life forever and ever with no fear, no worry that he might wake up the night after a full moon to an empty home and blood on his hands. There was the man with long, dark hair who had sunk to his knees, breath halting and staggering in his chest, and begged Malvolio that he turn back the clock so that he might undo the terribly wrong decision he had made. Malvolio had laughed in his face. Demons are not meant to assist.

He could not offer his visitors a true solution, an end-all to their woes, a remedy for pain. After all, being a demon, he needed there to be suffering for him and his legion to feed on. Without it, he would wither away. But he could provide magic, and hope, and small acts of assistance when needed most. He loved his visitors dearly, each and every one of them.

And there was the most recent one. The child.

The boy with the bright blue eyes and the inky black hair that had just begun to grow out over his ears, with the skin so pale he may as well have never seen the sun, with the vibrant enthusiasm of someone with very little perception of danger and the impish smile of someone who understands exactly what he is getting himself into. The boy who had sought Malvolio out to see magic and power and the promise of a world that is brilliant and shining and so, so much more than one could ever dream of.

Malvolio thought of him often. He hoped the boy would return one day.

Perhaps he had forgotten the way to find him. Humans forgot things often.

Malvolio did not. He had been alive for nearly six (seven?) hundred years, and his memory was sharp enough that he could still remember the first time he had brushed with demonhood.

But that was many, many years ago, and life was much faster then. Now the minutes slowed to a crawl, each ticking of the clock reminding him that another moment was gone, another moment during which the Saviors grew stronger and he grew weaker.

The Saviors were those who were trying to get rid of him and his demonic comrades. They were caught in a cold war of sorts, each side threatening to overtake the other but never actually inciting change.

Privately, Malvolio thought that he was winning.

But the days were inching their way by and he was running out of time.

What would become of him, then?