Family is Forever

Callum, once a king who had led his armies to victory and now a hero who wandered the land doing good deeds, was at the end of his rope. Leaning heavily on his staff, running shaking fingers through his dark hair, he pleaded with the greatest villain his country had ever known. “Midnight, could you please not do this?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Across the darkened chamber, the demon’s sharp smile flared. When the sun at last rose and the clouds outside cleared, she might appear a normal human -- but for the fact that she was deep blue and scaled and poised to attack. The gun in her hands glinted, echoing the bright flash of her teeth.

“Just think for a moment. Think of all the people who depend on--”

“Ha! Do they ever think of me?”

The barrel of the gun clicked into place, and Callum’s breath came in a rush. “What,” he tried again, more strongly this time, “would your mother say, Midnight?”

The demon’s silver eye glanced over the hero curiously. “Who do you think taught me to call bigots on their arrogance?”

“Would she really want you starting fights though?”

Midnight’s smile returned. “She always said girls are the strongest of all.”

#

Demons don’t have families -- such is the popular belief across the wild land of Doenall. But everyone is small at some time or another, and Midnight, dark blue demon armed with firepower and attitude, had long ago been taken in by a woman who was strange herself. 

Barbyra was from the southern lands. In Doenall’s snowy climate she was met by hard winds and frosty stares, but no amount of cold could deter her. She put on an extra woolen shawl, a hard shell against the elements, and she faced the world as it was. 

According to family legend, Barbyra found Midnight wandering the muddy village streets with nothing more than a tattered tunic and stone dust clinging to her thin hair. The little demon was barely five years old, but scowled as ferociously as any full-grown beast. And in that time-honored tradition of those who have known hardship and are determined to save others from it, Barbyra charmed the child. Mostly by offering food. 

One bowl of stew and one sweet bun at a time, the little Midnight was coaxed into the family home. She was never an easy nor a mild-mannered child, but she didn’t mind that Barbyra’s cooking was foreign, and -- aside from a small mishap with an explosion around the family hearth early on -- she would not harm her newfound protector. And as she grew, wiry and fast, it was clear to Barbyra that she was naturally inclined to the family business as well. 

Barbyra believed in nothing more than family. The Doenallian man she’d married worked in dealings as dark as Midnight’s scales -- and yet, she was known to say, who could say for sure that black was bad, and good was white? Color looks different to each person’s eye.

So it was that, with her adopted siblings, Midnight entered her father’s school of thievery and plunder. Every morning each little student, demon and human alike, set off into the streets with bread and cheese and a kiss on the top of the head from their mother. 

“Remember to bundle up,” Barbyra would tell them. “And pay attention to your teachers. And remember that no matter how big someone else seems on the outside, you’re even bigger on the inside!”

The other children, even Barbyra’s, would make fun of Midnight for her size and color. While her siblings did it lovingly -- mostly -- the other children in the town could not say the same. Midnight was a demon after all, and demons inspire fear. 

“It isn’t my fault I stopped growing,” complained fifteen year old Midnight, no taller than a ten year old child. 

Barbyra shooed the other children into the yard, away from Midnight’s often explosive anger, and took her daughter in her arms. “Of course it isn’t, sweet one. And it isn’t your fault they let their fear rule them. But . . .”

She paused and lifted Midnight’s chin, one eyebrow arched. “Can you tell me what is your fault, daughter?”

Midnight grimaced. “I hit Bobby and knocked him down. I kicked Espen twice and she lost a tooth. I took Red’s journal and threw it into the pyre in the square, and I told him that if that if he was so big, he ought to go and get it down from the flames.”

“And what do we call that?”

“. . . Revenge?” Midnight ventured hopefully. 

“Bullying,” Barbyra corrected, and over her daughter’s heavy sigh continued, “We both know that they are smaller than you, Midnight, in mind and talent. And we do not hit or kick or taunt the people who are smaller than us. Save that for the big people, the people who rise up by pushing everyone else down. Then we can call it revenge.”

Now, Barbyra was foreign, but she was still human. She did not know that to a demon, humanity is the big person. Humans all together press down upon other creatures, upon the things they despise -- upon demons. And because Midnight loved some humans, she hated the rest all the more. 

Barbyra didn’t know the effect she’d had on Midnight; so few people ever realize the change they make in others. But she did know her daughter, and she knew exactly what Midnight was planning on a cold winter’s evening when she kissed all her little siblings kindly before going to bed. That night, Barbyra took care to leave the extra loaves of bread out on the stone hearth. And when at the darkest hour Midnight crept down and reached out to take them, Barbyra struck a candle. 

For a moment mother and daughter stared at each other over the flickering flame in the silent house. Barbyra’s tan skin and dark eyes, Midnight’s deep blue scales and piercing silver gaze. 

“Take some of the jerky, too,” said Barbyra quietly, so as to wake no one else.

“Ma, I -- I have to. You know that.”

“Aye, I know you have to eat,” Barbyra answered, a wry smile visible in the night. “I’m not sure if you know it, but you’ll learn in time.”

“I’m hardy,” said Midnight, and together the two of them laughed. Then Barbyra reached out and said gently, 

“Everyone has to find their own purpose.” This belief was the second most important in her heart. She followed it by admitting the first: “Family is forever, Midnight. You’ll always be my daughter.”

“Gods above, Ma, you’re going to make me sick.” But from the shadows, Midnight smiled. 

“Get along, then,” Barbyra told her, “and make sure you take your cloak and hat.”

#

Said hat hung limply from Callum’s hand. It was a hat too large for Midnight, but brash and bold and perfect, a feather waving lightly from the band and the hat brim slanted downward to cover her lost eye. 

That is -- it could cover her eye, and more importantly keep her head warm -- if she wore it. 

“Midnight,” Callum said, with an air of bone-weary finality, “I have fought battles against you, pursued you across the country, even seen you on trial. You know that my word is unshakable. And I swear to you, by all that’s holy, if you do not put on your hat right now before we have to ride out in this blizzard to face a snow monster, I will deliver your icy remains to Barbyra myself and I will tell her exactly how foolish her daughter was.”

“It’s not the snow monster that’s the trouble, it’s the stupid laird who disrupted everyone else -- everyone depending on him, as you say -- in their preparations for winter,” said Midnight, sticking out her tongue. 

“I’m going to tell her you caught hypothermia and your brain is a block of ice because you were showing off.”

“I think it’d be good for the precious laird to see what an ugly scar can look like. Then he can thank me later when the ones I give him are more dashing.”

“Midnight! No one is getting any more injuries today, least of all you!”

“Fine!” snapped the demon. She slammed her readied gun into its holster at her back and stomped across the inn room, yanking her hat from Callum’s fingers, all the while muttering, “Damned jury should have just killed me outright, rather than forcing me to act as page to some to-good-to-be-true godsforsaken hero.”

“Thank you,” was all Callum replied. He smiled at her as she settled her cloak over her shoulders. “Take off your hat when we’re in the laird’s hall, if you like. But I’m not about to explain to Barbyra -- on only my second time meeting her, no less -- that her daughter was lost on my watch.”

Midnight paused, then grinned up at him. “As if you or that relentless woman would ever let me die in peace. Even though I’m a criminal, and a demon to boot.”

“I have a feeling that Barbyra has a different definition of ‘criminal’,” Callum winked back.

“Oh, the whole family does.” As she turned toward the door Midnight tossed her head, her good eye sparkling. “Alright, Callum, I’ll help you face the snow monster, or whatever it actually is. But that laird’s gotten too big for anyone’s good and you can bet I’m going to give him a piece of my mind -- don’t think you can tell me otherwise. I’m going to make Barbyra proud.”