Life had a habit of returning to normal at an oddly fast rate. Within no time at all, everything returned to normal.

The moments after Fate’s death had ended as such:

The Dragon Council had come in case of Fate acting wildly and she would be quickly subdued. But nothing of the sort happened. She became a spluttering mess and was swiftly dealt with, she (more or less) committed suicide. The problems she had committed were minimal and were fixed rather easily.

So, once they gathered Fate’s corpse, they made their exit.

Even the Four Princes of Hell were allowed to leave because Erebus didn’t “feel” like dealing with them any longer.

Not that they were complaining.

Now, fast forward two days, and it was the present time.

Currently, Erebus was once again sitting in his throne room and shuffling through his seated positions.

He wasn’t exactly bored currently. But it wouldn’t be correct to say that he was entertained. Erebus was somewhere in the gray area between the two, and it was not a pleasant spot to be.

“Nya, Erebus,” Mae purred as she strutted into the room. As per usual, she had managed to put on revealing

“What is it?” he questioned his old friend.

She clapped her hands together. “Let’s go out somewhere.”

“Huh? I’m still mad at you, you know?” He wasn’t really. Erebus had always found it difficult to feel anything towards Mae other than an acute sense of annoyance. She was even a tiresome person to get angry at, that was the type of person that she was.

Mae gasped. “Huh! Eh? No way, even after I worked so hard.” She spun around and spread out her arms, clearly expecting Erebus to ask her a question.

“What exactly did you do?” Erebus humored her.

Mae puffed up her chest and exclaimed, “A vacation! Yay, cheers!” she clapped for herself and let out shouts of excitement.

Erebus eyed her with distrusting eyes. Mae was not the type of person who would act out for the benefit of others. “What do you really want?”

Mae pouted, seeing that her front was easily destroyed. “Well, there’s a seed that I planted and I want to see how it grew up. It’s been killing me all this time but a watched pot never boils, you know?”

“Hmm?” Erebus rested his cheek on his fist. “And?”

“You see, I carefully took care of it and cultivated it a few years back. It should be ready to bloom about now! Because they’re idiots, it should have turned out quite nicely...”

Erebus tilted his head. “And why do I have to go?”

“Mmm, well... I’m going to incite a war, ya see!” Mae smirked. “And so maybe we could play a game?”

“Oh?”

“So ya see, isn’t the battlefield a great place for you to let out some of your pent up stress? But, you know, for someone as strong as you, it quickly becomes a hassle, right? So I thought, what would make it even more entertaining and satisfying? And there are some Demon Lords around that would jump at the opportunity of a fight, uh-huh.

“And then I knew that still wasn’t enough for it truly to become a nice vacation. And so, I was like, his problem is that he’s too strong! Wouldn’t that just be fixed if he placed a limit on his strength?”

Erebus nodded his head. “I see what you mean.”

“So for our stress-free vacation, let’s try being weak!” She clapped her hands together excitedly. “And you can go under the guise of saying that you’re making sure it doesn’t get out of control, so the Dragon Council shouldn’t have any complaints.”

He smiled. “Mm, that’s right.” There was always someone who monitored wars or any skirmishes, even if they did it from afar. That said, being directly involved in the war would be unprecedented. Erebus had never bothered to involve himself in disputes anyway, he saw them as a hassle.“How do you plan on starting the war?”

“Ah? That’ll be easy, don’t worry, don’t worry.”

Erebus sighed. “Pass.”

“Eh? Really!” Mae’s eyes widened. Erebus had turned down such an interesting idea and he had moved with much less before. “Why?”

“Mm,” Erebus muttered. “They’ll pester me.” They being the Dragon Council. Especially with the recent events with Fate, all of them were going to be especially high-strung and irritating.

Mae pursed her lips and crossed her arms. “Can we at least go down to check on them?” It would bother her if she wasn’t able to find out how everything was holding up. She could do this without Erebus... But she didn’t want to. There wasn’t any real reason as to why, though. Well, at least on the surface.

He sighed once more. “Fine. Get Xaltiq... Ah, and Tear. It’d be nice if those two got close... His blood is interesting, after all. I wonder what would happen, hmm.” Erebus rubbed his chin in thought.

She furrowed her brows. Once again, she couldn’t understand his intentions. What was so special about his blood? “The human boy? Why? What’s with him?”

“It doesn’t concern you. And also, we’re friends,” Erebus answered easily. “A vacation should be made with friends, correct?”

Mae’s face collapsed. “Hah? What’s with that?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Erebus threw Mae’s words back at her. “Bring them here and then we’ll go check on your seed.”

She weighed her options. Xaltiq would probably hold her back a little because his morals conflicted with her own... But, it was better than nothing. Tear would be fine, though. She rather liked that girl (it certainly spoke volumes for Tear’s character). “All right, I understand.” Mae paused. “What about the other one... Wolf, was it?” She couldn’t understand why he was being excluded if Erebus planned on bringing one of his new recruits.

“Ah,” Erebus muttered. “That child’s still rather weak and is training to get stronger, so I’ll leave him be for now.”

Mae put her hand on her hip. “Well, I’ll be back.”

“Be sure to make sure the others don’t notice.”

She squinted her eyes. Wouldn’t it be even more of a problem if Erebus left without telling them? “Why?”

“I don’t want them making a scene. And also, they’ll try to weasel their way in and I’ll have to listen to their incessant bickering.” Erebus fanned his hand as if he was trying to ward away the bad memories. “So I’ll just tell them once I leave.”

“They’ll still try to follow you,” Mae remarked.

“I won’t tell them where, they can go on a wild goose hunt for all I care,” he paused for a moment, “actually, no. They’d wind up in some trouble somehow someway.”

She smirked and clucked her tongue in a chastising manner. “They must’ve been afflicted by your curse.”

“My curse?”

“Whenever you go somewhere, trouble always seems to follow. You’re a magnet,” Mae explained with a hearty laugh. “Have you wronged someone in a previous life?”

Erebus snorted. “Not that I know of.” He raised an eyebrow. “Is that why you want me to come along? You think that something will happen because I’m there.”

“Eh? What? Such a thing! I would never...” Mae focused her eyes in the space next to Erebus’ head.

“Uh-huh.”

“As you know, I’m not the type of person to put any weight into superstition,” Mae continued on. “They’re absolutely preposterous. It was a joke, you know? I was just joking about you being a storm of bad luck.”

“Just keep digging, Mae,” Erebus said as she tried to cover up.

She crossed her arms. “Tch.”

Erebus scratched his chin. “Well, if anything bad happens while I happen to be there... I’ll still get blamed for it no matter what.”

They definitely wouldn’t believe that he was innocent. Well, the majority of the times, he was the one who incited it. He had a rather terrible personality, after all.

Erebus leaned back in his throne. “Mae? I have a question for you.”

“Yes?” she answered, her cat ear flicking.

“Why are you still here?”

“We were having a conversa--”

“Were we?”

Mae’s ears flicked in annoyance. Erebus knew that she hated being cut off more than anything in the world. He was doing it to piss her off, right? Mae smiled tightly at him. She’d play it cool. Cool, even though she felt like clawing the skin off of his face right now. “I thou--”

“We weren’t. Go and get Xaltiq and Tear, shoo!”

Mae jammed her tongue in her cheek but nodded her head and went off to go and find the human boy first. Tear wouldn’t be that hard to find since she was normally working.

Mae crossed her arms behind her head and started kicking out her legs with every step that she took. “Where is he? Where is he?” she whined. “Where!”

“Um,” a small voice spoke up from behind Mae. One of the servants had been trailing behind Mae awkwardly because the woman was more or less in her way. But it’d be rude of her to pass Mae, so she stayed behind. “Is there someone who you’re looking for?”

Mae spun around on her heel and kicked her leg up so that the tip of her foot pushed up the girl’s chin. “Maybe I am looking for something... or someone. What’s it to you?”

“I... I was just wondering if I could help you.”

“Hmm.” Mae contemplated this as she pursed her lips and squinted her eyes. “Fine, I shall enlist you in my search for Xaltiq!”

“If it’s Mr. Xaltiq then I kno--”

Mae's arm shot out and she pressed her finger against the woman’s mouth. “Shh, silence.”

It was petty revenge for Erebus cutting her off.

What a strange person, the servant couldn’t help but think as she witnessed Mae’s eccentricities. Still balancing on one leg and with her arm still behind her head, Mae painted quite a strange picture. Not to mention, she reeked of liquor and smoke. The smell was so potent that the servant almost wanted to puke.

“Okay, speak now,” Mae commanded.

“Uh... I saw him earlier near the entrance playing cards with Mr. Wolf.”

Mae dropped her leg and spun to point in the other direction. “Then, let’s go!”

“Why do I have to come?” the servant’s face seemed to scream. “I’m sorry, you’ll have to excuse me. The Head Maid has given me work to do and I’m already late... because you were walking so slow,” she said the last part in her head.

Mae’s lips parted in understanding. “Then, go ahead.”

She resisted from smiling in relief. “If you’ll excuse me...” The servant scuttled away.

Mae watched the young woman leave while scratching the back of her head. “It’s no fun to bully them if they just leave so easily.”

She sighed heavily and skipped through the maze of hallways.

It was getting hard for her to contain her excitement. She was already seeing visions of the fun vacation that they were going to have.