"Well, not all of them are human, but this definitely proves that they are present within their ranks... Most humans don't do well in this territory or with most of the demons in it, which is why their involvement is so troubling..." The demon removed the cloak, pushing it to the foot of the bed along with his belt. "It's all just baffling to me, really, but hopefully they won't be able to cause...too much trouble..."

Right when his eyes had closed, they snapped back open upon his hearing of Wrenna's request. A place to sleep? Yes, that was probably important, but where could...

His face went blank before he grabbed the pillow he had been hugging earlier and quickly buried his face in it. "Ah, um..." The comfortable object muffled his voice, he realized, so he pushed it away from his mouth and just hid the rest of his face behind it. "I guess...no, that's a terrible idea, I'm sorry for bringing it up...please forget it..." He gripped the pillow a little tighter before looking up fully. "B-but then...oh, the room! Turn right and go down the hall! The first door on the left is another bedroom!"

Taking hold of the blanket, Soreth pulled it over himself and turned to face the other side of the room. "Be careful going out, make sure nobody's coming this way before you leave. A-and lock the door from the inside when you get in the room! I'll give some kind of excuse to keep everyone out of there, so just don't get caught in the hall or anything!"

Wrenna listened carefully as he explained. If they were humans that worked closely with demons, they weren't the type of humans that she should get involved with. But considering that how shew as being with Soreth...well that was a completely different case. Wrenna sighed as she watched him fall asleep for a moment, only to wake back up and then tiredly tried to figure out where to house her. Finally, he came up with an idea that surprised her...and she was unsure about. "Shouldn't I stay a little more hidden than that?" She asked him, but then sighed again. She guessed that Soreth would know what to do in this case and which rooms would be the safest...

"Never mind...Thanks. I guess I'll stay in there till you come and get me or something..." Wrenna said before going back to the art room and quickly scryed around to make sure no one was around near his room or anywhere on the path he told her to take. "Good night Soreth..." She told him, not sure if he was even awake anymore, and then stepped out and quickly rushed to the room. She had never been so relieved to get behind a closed door in all of her life, except maybe that one time where that man crazier than her own father had decided to...ugh, it was too late for memories of any kind. Wrenna quickly locked the door before going to the bed, wondering if she should keep her armor on...no. She was going to trust that she was going to be safe in here, so she took her armor off. She did keep her sword next to her in her bed as got in. Sleep came upon Wrenna faster than she expected it to, and all worries about the immediate future slipped away from her for the time being.

The young demon stayed quiet as the hero got ready to leave, wondering if maybe he should be a little more cautious about where she stayed for the time being. Would it be better to have her stay in this room overnight after all? But wouldn't that be kind of awkward? I suppose it doesn't matter if the alternative is being caught by the people who work here, though. Really, I shouldn't be letting superficial thinking get in the way of making a sound decision. I'm a ruler, people depend on me to think things through clearly now! By the time he had changed his mind and rolled back over to tell her that he agreed after all, she was already closing the door. "Um...good night." He answered quietly when the door had already closed, feeling a bit ridiculous for not having been quicker. At the very least, he should have gone to make sure that nobody would spot her as she moved to the next room.

He lay there for about another minute, questioning all of his decision-making skills before the question of whether she had found the room safely popped to the front of his mind. He really hoped so. It would be awful if she had gotten caught already. He hadn't heard any sort of commotion from out in the hall, so he assumed that everything was alright, but the thought kept bothering him until he rolled out of the bed and tried to stand up again.
"Ugh...Maybe this is why I didn't go with her..." Soreth grumbled to himself as he eventually pulled himself into a standing position. Moving was still tiring and made his head ache more, somehow. Perhaps he was coming down with a cold in addition to the rest. I really hope not...

Walking slowly over to the door, he leaned on it before speaking a command to block the door down the hall from anyone else. He wasn't sure what he would do if anyone with the right access tried to open it themselves, but hopefully Wrenna had remembered to lock the door. They wouldn't be able to stop that lock, after all. When he finished, he stumbled back to the bed and lay there, thinking a bit more about the day's strange events before he fell asleep.



When Soreth opened his eyes again, it was morning, and the clock tower bell somewhere off in the distance was ringing to wake people for the day. He burrowed down into the blankets a bit further, not wanting to get up just yet. The bed as so warm and comfortable...

Of course, he changed his mind quickly as soon as he remembered the guest hidden down the hall. She was actually here yesterday...Is she still here? Hoping that she hadn't sneaked off in the middle of the night or been captured while he was out, the demon king nearly fell out of bed in his rush to clean up for the day. He couldn't just show up in his nightclothes with his usual bedhead, after all. He still had to hurry if he wanted to get there before the servants started coming through the hallway to do their jobs, though, so he he rushed through his basic preparations before leaving the room.

Looking down the hall carefully as he made his way to the room, he was relieved to find that nobody was there just yet. Once he made it to the door, he knocked lightly, still checking to make sure that he wouldn't be heard. "Hey, are you awake? Wrenna?"

"You were supposed to save us! Be our hero! Traitor!" Was just some of what the many voices that Wrenna was trying to run away from was yelling at her. They had been chasing her after she had escaped from a web built from red strings, and they were gaining on her fast. She was going to get trampled at this rate. She just had to keep running. But up ahead, there were two people blocking her way...Father...and Soreth...Suddenly Wrenna's sword was in her hand...she just hand to get rid of one and she would be free...The closer she got time seemed to slow down, even the bell in the distance seemed to ring slower and slower as well. It was time to make a decision. Wrenna pulled back her sword and swung towards-

---

"Ah!"Wrenna gasped, sitting bolt upright and swinging her sword wildly, losing the grip of it mid swing and it ended up going into the wall in front of her. She took a couple of deep breaths, trying to figure out what had woken her up since there wasn't anything trying to attack her. then she heard it...A soft knock and Soreth's voice. The memories of yesterday came flooding back, making Wrenna feel even more tired...But she had to get up and face the day. She quickly got up and grabbed her sword before carefully opening the door for Soreth, noticing that thankfully he was alone. She quickly let him in with a sigh and turned back to him. "Morning I guess..." She could only imagine how drastic she looked now from yesterday. Going from heroic looking hero to girl with plain, slept in clothes, dishevelled hair, and a face that obviously said it needed more sleep before it would become decent to look at. At least her looks matched her mood.

Soreth entered quickly before he turned back to get a good look at Wrenna. "Ah, good morn...ing..." He stopped, slightly stunned by the appearance of the girl in front of him. She looked so different. She didn't even have her armor on anymore, and he couldn't remember having seen her without it yet. Her hair looked a little wild from having been slept on, but he couldn't seem to think that it actually looked bad at all. Her face told him that she wasn't really in the best state, however, and he began to wonder if maybe he should have waited a bit longer before going to find her. She looked like she had only just been woken up, after all.

Shaking his head a bit to return himself to the present, he tightened his wings a little closer to his back and looked down at his feet, a little embarrassed that she probably caught him staring. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you. I just, um, wanted to be sure that you made it here alright a-and all. Er..." He chanced a glance back up to her face, looking a bit worried. "Are...are you alright? I don't think I had anything contagious yesterday...oh, unless I did end up with a cold, but I don't feel anything quite like that today..."

Well, Wrenna didn't have to imagine to hard about how bad she looked considering Soreth's tone and expression as soon as he laid eyes on her, not to mention the fact he was starting to fuss over possibly making her sick. "Listen, you don't need to apologize for waking me. It's probably not a good idea to sleep-in in here anyways. As for my health, I'm fine I think. I'm just...tired...I always seem to wake up tired. Everything that happened yesterday didn't really help with my ability to get a good nights rest but my life isn't in danger." Besides, Wrenna was pretty sure that even if Soreth had a cold, that humans couldn't catch demon colds and vice versa. Then again, maybe she could and it would be twice as deadly. Either way, she must have been fine if she could start having her mind go down these paths that really didn't pertain to the conversation at hand in the end.

After telling Soreth she was fine, she went to sheath her sword...only to forget that she wasn't wearing any of that...She rubbed her face for a moment before putting her sword on a nearby dresser. "Anyways. What are we doing now? I mean I doubt I can stay here and I really doubt you can stay with me all day." Wrenna told him trying to carry on with what really mattered now.

"Ah. I see..." Soreth looked off to the side, still a bit concerned. Did she ever get a good night's sleep, then? It made him want to try to fix that somehow. Waking up tired for him always meant a day of misery and an inability to spend more than a few hours being productive before he started having some sort of problem that sent him back to his room. Of course, it was probably different for her, but it still sounded like a terrible way to start the day.

Deciding to wait until later to continue pursuing that thought, the young demon turned his attention back to Wrenna and her question. "I guess...I really didn't have much of a plan, to be honest." His tail swished behind him and he scratched the back of his head, some slight color painting his face at how silly it likely sounded. "I'm not sure what I expected to happen at this point, but you are right about both of those. You could probably move back to my room for the moment and we could discuss it over breakfast, though. I probably won't have much to do until a bit later in the day unless something happens, since I'm supposed to be 'recovering' from yesterday."

Wrenna didn't like that look he was giving to her...it was a pitying look. She sighed and started to mess with her hair, trying to straighten it out with her hands or at least try to. Try to make herself look better at the very least. When he spoke up about his plan, or rather his lack of one, she didn't let out a sigh of annoyance or anything like that. She couldn't really be surprised that he didn't have a plan. Neither one of them really forsaw this happening...Besides, at this point, she was getting used to Soreth.

"Alright then, let's go back. Just let me grab my things." She told him before going back and quickly slipping on her leather armor and slipping her sword back into its sheath at her side. "Okay, lead the way." After they were sure it was safe and were quickly heading back to his room, she asked him, "So what did you tell them about yesterday? I mean you didn't tell them about me I know, but they saw the state of your throne room and probably noticed how weak you were when you went down to the dungeons with them."

The demon shrugged a bit as he led the way back to his room. "Well, they knew that there was going to be a fight of some kind, so I was able to just blame most of it on that. That part wasn't that far from the truth, anyway. They'll probably be cleaning it up today so business can resume as usual soon enough." He stopped for a moment, raising a hand in warning as he listened to some faint sound. Once he determined that it was still at a distance and moving away from their hallway, he let out the breath that he had been holding and tried to usher Wrenna to the door a bit more quickly.

Once back in the room, he was quick to close the door before leaning on it. "Ah... We need to come up with something quickly, or that's going to become really stressful to deal with pretty soon." Pushing himself off, he walked over to the dresser and started looking around for a brush to hand to the hero, since she had seemed to be trying to do something about her hair before they had left the other room. "Here, use this if you want. There are some ties in the box there if you need any of those, too." He pointed over to the small, simply adorned wooden container before he turned back to the kitchen door and flicked his wrist to open it. "As I was saying, they think it was just part of the fight. It wasn't all that much of a secret that some kind of hero was supposed to come to the castle again, after all. But...well..."

He shifted a bit uncomfortably as he stood at the opened door and eventually looked back, rather than just walking straight through. "The more tricky part is probably going to be the meeting later today, though. I managed to push it off until after I got the chance to rest, but I still have to tell the counsel what the exact outcome of that fight was..."

So his counsel knew that the fight was coming to him...either they really believed in prophecies or else they didn't care what happened to him, cause even though Soreth could kind of hold his own, if Wrenna hadn't had that mini break down at the sight of him just getting into a coughing fit mid-battle, she might have actually finished him off. Wrenna froze mid-thought as Soreth brought his hand up, her hand immediately going to her sword out of reflex even though it could very well be just a servant. Not that it mattered in the end. Whoever it was didn't come by them and they managed to make it back to the room quickly and peacefully.

"Well I do have illusion spells for disguises and what not. I might be able to create the illusion I was another demon but I don't know how well that would work on others." Wrenna told him when he said they needed to come up with a better plan for moving around. She had only done it before in large, crowded areas where people were not interested in her as long as she kept to herself. She watched as Soreth went over and got her a brush and pointed out some hair bands for her (she wondered why he had them as his hair wasn't really long enough to constitute having them but that was something that maybe she would have time to wondered about some day but that day was not today). She started to brush her hair, the familiar motion relaxing her a bit as Soreth continued on with their earlier topic.

"Well then, can't you just tell them I got away?" Wrenna asked as she started to put her hair up into small pigtails, which looked cute but out of place with her armor. "I mean you don't got to say you greatly wounded me or anything since there wasn't really much blood. But we both know you know powerful magic. Tell them you scared me off." Almost as soon as she finished, it hit Wrenna with what she was saying. If he told them that she had simply ran away...it would get back to her kingdom...then...it would really be out that she not only failed, she didn't even die honorably. That she ran away like a coward. Even if she didn't run, she still didn't do her duty and it was going to get back to her father especially and..."I think I need to lie down..." She told him before taking off her sword belt and dropping it onto the floor unceremoniously and then just as unceremoniously, flopped onto the bed. She really wasn't ready to deal with that...

Soreth tried his hardest not to smile at the cute hairstyle Wrenna had chosen, but it gave him such a strong urge to start another portrait at the next possible opportunity. It was something unexpected, yet just a bit charming all the same, and he found himself needing to refocus quickly before he missed something important. "Scared you off? Would that be enough to convince them? I guess it's not impossible, though I'm sure they'd probably...Wrenna?"

Seeing her mood suddenly change before she dropped everything to collapse on the bed, the young demon moved away from the door he had been near to go check on her. "Hey, are you alright? You didn't actually get sick, did you? Or is it something else?" He sat next to where she had ended up on the bed, a little unsure about how to go about dealing with whatever was going on just yet. "Do you need me to get anything?"

"Fine. I'm fine..." Wrenna told him, her voice muffled by the bed as she didn't lift her head up. "The gravity of the situation just hit me is all. I just need a moment to pull myself together." A few moments after that she rolled over so that she was at least talking without her face planted into the bed. "Sure, scared me off will be good...it's our only option if you think about it. You can't say killed me as you don't have a body and you didn't wound me enough to say I retreated really. Even if you do just say I retreated, they'll probably warp it to scared me off. So...you scared me off." Wrenna told him, trying to stay logical and calm...and oddly she was. But it wasn't a good kind of calm. It was the kind of calm that overcame people when they knew they were at the end. She stared up at the ceiling for a moment before glancing over at Soreth to see him staring at her with concern. Ugh...

"I...I don't know what I'm going to do Soreth, and it's not a good feeling. I never needed to know what I was going to do before...I just knew the overall goal, taking you down, and the littler goals someone else always told me what to do, usually dad. But now...I basically lied to my whole kingdom. But I may be able to avoid the consequences they would want to inflict on me, if I can manage to make a decent plan, but I don't know what they're going to do to my father. I mean...they mostly thought he was mad anyway, but who knows what they might still do to him...and I'm not sure how concerned about that I really am....Soreth, my resolve I came here with was only strong enough to face and kill you and the thought of dying. I wasn't prepared for any of this...But, it'll harden...I can get through this...yup...yup..." Wrenna was basically rambling now as she tried to get herself back into her normal mindset, but her normal mindset was usually in a normal situation as well.

The demon found himself a little lost for words all of a sudden. It was a pretty heavy situation once the full extent of it could be seen in the light of day. It sounded even worse when the consequences for family and what probably amounted to treason came up. The whole thing really was more complicated than it had seemed when he was nearly half-asleep earlier. "I...I'm sure we can come up with a better plan. There has to be a way to get through this without giving either side here the wrong idea, right? W-we just have to think carefully about what we say for the next few days." He tried not to sound too bothered, but he could tell that at least some of the turmoil slowly mounting in his head was probably finding its way out somehow. He couldn't really help feeling at least a little guilty for what was going on, either. After all, none of this would have even come up if he had been able to finish his job himself.

Or if he were dead, which he had honestly been expecting a little more. The fact that he was able to worry about this today proved that ship had sailed, though.

After another minute of thinking, he was about to stop to suggest that they pick up after eating when another thought hit him.
"...Why don't I say that we were interrupted?"

The boy shifted his position and placed a hand to his chin, trying to follow the train of thought as far down the track as he could before he lost it. "It's probably not the most ethical thing to do, but technically, there was a breach in security while we were distracted before. We could always use that to our advantage. If someone else got in the way, it's not like either of us really failed, right? Just delayed the inevitable." It probably wasn't the most concrete idea yet, but if there was something in there that could work, he wanted to figure it out. Turning back to Wrenna, he gave a slightly more hopeful look. "There wasn't a time limit on this, was there?"

Either Soreth was more optimistic than Wrenna was or he was hell bent in finding some way to cheer her up. Either way, it didn't help much, but it did help a bit. So far, he was more helpful then the royal family that she was supposed to be loyal to. And then he got an idea that made Wrenna sit up. "Interrupted?" She asked as she watched him go deeper into thought.

"Soreth, it's technically not ethical for me and you to be talking like this but here we are now." She told him when he mentioned that first bit but went on to say, "But that is good. It'd certainly buy us time, which is something I have quite a bit of. I actually made it here a lot faster than what they thought I would so yes. I have quite a bit of time. But there are two things that worry me about that plan. First, when they ask you who interrupted you, what will you tell them, because someone would have had to. And two, what will they do about me and you? Surely if I was going to come back to try and kill you they would bump up security? And they would certainly go looking for me. We need to make sure all these loose ends are tied up...But this could work for the time being." she wasn't the most hopeful sounding right there, but for the first time in a long while, she had a small smile on her face.

Soreth smiled a bit as well, happy that they at least had something to start with. "Then that's what we'll work out! The first part is the really tricky part, because it kind of depends on that guy in the dungeon and his friends who may or may not have gotten away. After all, they didn't find the other two, or at least they haven't told me if they have, so they could be anywhere. They've probably escaped by now, so we just have to make them think that whatever they did while they were still here caused a big enough interruption to halt our fight."

"As for the second part..." The demon's smile faded a little as he looked down and played with his tail. "Well, the rules on that are kind of..." He grimaced slightly, trying to find the best way to explain it. "Mm...yes and no. Depending on whether they thought that you were still in the castle or not, the decision might change. If they thought that you were still here and waiting to just assassinate me at night or something like that, they would probably increase security and throw you into the dungeon to be ceremoniously executed later. If you got out, however..." He paused for a moment, thinking of the most likely options. "...security would be more likely to increase because of the other thing that happened yesterday. If a hero were to return, I would...probably be the one who would be in charge of dealing with it...again."

He shifted a bit on the bed again before getting up and walking towards the open kitchen door. "The citizens would probably be warned about your presence within the kingdom as well, but I can't imagine that they would actually put together a group to go after you unless I asked them to. The other nobles would be in charge of dealing with any trouble themselves unless they specifically asked for help, so it wouldn't really be necessary to do anything else unless we knew where 'you' would be headed."

"Okay yeah. That would be good...so...what did they do yesterday that was so bad?" That had confused Wrenna as there hadn't been any outside commotion. It had all been relitivy quiet...then again, she might have been to invested in the fight to really notice. Wrenna grimaced as well as he continued on with the second part. "Ah...I see...Well then, I don't think it would be to hard to convince them that I'm not in the castle anymore. Your generals mentioned I wouldn't be able to get past your doors, and thats because they didn't know you were helping me so I think you can make them think I got out."

Wrenna got up as well and started to follow Soreth to the kitchen. "Well why should they be so concerned? I'm a lone human trying to go agasint all your guards and allies. I wouldn't really have a chance under normal conditions. But yeah, I don't think you need to worry about coming up with a place I could be heading. It could be anywhere."

"That's a relief, because I had no idea where I would send troops if I had to. The fact that you came alone really helps, I suppose." The young demon laughed a little as he began looking around the kitchen for breakfast ingredients. "Like I said yesterday, or I think I said it, the Red Dawn Brigade kind of sent people in here for some reason or another some time between when we started that fight in the throne room and when you went back later for your sword. Exactly what they did besides trespassing and creating a general disturbance..." He shrugged as he placed the rest of the bread from the day before on the table along with a few fruits of slightly odd coloring and texture. "...we don't have the whole story yet unless something changed during the night. What I did get from the guy in the dungeon was that they were supposed to leave a 'message' for us, but they apparently didn't expect the 'trap' to be set up to separate them."

Turning to the small stove, he snapped his fingers beneath to produce a spark and placed a kettle over it. "I don't remember any traps where they were supposedly separated, so I guess that must have been around the time I used the command on the doors so you could get to your sword without being caught. Do you like tea, by the way? I have a new one that I got as a gift about a week ago, but I must have forgotten that it was here."

"Yeah, helped the both of us I think." She told him as she took a seat at the little table in the kitchen. She then listened carefully as he told her what he knew about the Red Dawn Brigade...trying not to get distracted by the odd fruits he was sitting down in front of her. "I wonder what the message was...and that makes sense. I kind of wish I had run into of them." But then Wrenna thought about what would have happened if she had ran into them..."No, it just would have made things complicated." She looked up when he asked her about tea. "...Sure, that would be good to drink right now." It had been awhile since she had any tea and it had been a longer while since she had it with someone she generally liked.

The male nodded and brought out two cups to put on the table along with a jar of honey. "I'm actually a bit worried about that message, to be honest. Everything about it is just really suspicious, so I doubt it's just something intended to be heard or read calmly. Perhaps we should be tightening up security even more..." He frowned a bit as he thought more on the situation, but turned his attention toward getting a knife to cut the bread with after a moment.

"By the way, you mentioned that you could use illusion magic earlier, right? About how much can you do with it? Do you use it often?"

"Yes, I was trained to use it specifically for this mission. I've only done it a few times now outside of training, but I'll show you what I can do." wrenna told him and stood up to give him and example of what she could do. "Watch." With that she casted her spell. Her skin grew dark until it was the same dark grey as another demons, a pair of grey wings came out of her back along with a tail, and even her hair and clothes changed, her hair becoming longer, still in ponytails but braided now and instead of armor she was wearing a dress. "Well what do you think? Am I recognizable?"