Albaer opened the door and disguised the pain in his voice as best he could, “Mom, I’m home!” No answer came and he frowned, “Right… long shift… she’ll be asleep for hours…” He reminded himself with a whisper, then walked as quietly as possible over to her door, cracked it just a bit and peeked in. Sound asleep and quiet.

He closed the door with the knob turned far to the left so that even the catch didn’t make a noise, and turned the handle with a very slow motion to the right so that the door was securely closed without a sound.

His own room was very quiet, the very slight noise of the game system at work told him that Raziel and Lialah were still in there, the telltale noise of a magic casting character’s lightning attack would have been like whitenoise to someone else. But to Albaer who logged at least a thousand hours or more on the game, it stood out like a sore thumb.

He almost opened the door, then he paused. ‘What if they’re changing…?’ Then, pain or not, he thought again, ‘Wait… What if they’re chaaaaanging…?’ He couldn’t keep the pervy smile from his face, pain or no pain, he was still a young man and human or not, they appeared to him to be radiant beyond measure. He closed his eyes, ‘Don’t be a jackass.’ He reproved himself and lightly rapped on the door with one knuckle. “It’s me.” He whispered.

He didn’t hear any opposition to his entering, and so he turned the knob and opened the door.

His right eye was starting to get blurry by then, ‘I guess it’s starting to shut.’ It was an abstract sort of thought, like he was observing, rather than enduring.

But even blurry as vision out of that eye was starting to be, he could see the dismayed faces, demon with her many fangs, angel with her quivering wings, and both covering one another’s mouths.

“Was there a battle out there?!” Lialah asked as she got to her feet.

Raziel set the controller down, leaving her character to continue taking hits from a foe Albaer couldn’t quite make out.

“Did you slay your enemies, or just escape them?” She asked and approached Albaer while he closed the door.

He brushed past them both, walking in between and throwing the backpack on his bed before flopping down in the chair at his desk.

He ignored their questions and went for the zipper, yanking it open, he began pulling out the library books. “H-Here.” Albaer said and handed the stack over to Lialah. “Something for both of you… I’ve got homework to do right now, just… just keep it down, okay? I need quiet… I need quiet…” He said twice, softer each time.

He winced at the pain in his arms and hissed as he drew the books out, his eyes were squeezed shut to hide the tears of pain, he could feel them looking at him from behind but had no desire to talk.

“Albaer can I-” Lialah began, a tiny, tentative voice barely louder than a whisper.

“Leave me alone! I’ve got work to do!” He snapped and flipped a book open with a satisfying crack of its spine, opened up a blank document on his computer, and began to get to work immediately.

His fingers created a constant clatter on the keyboard, but it wasn’t without pain, ‘I must have landed harder than I thought, or they hit harder than usual.’ Albaer wasn’t sure, but his elbows, forearms, and biceps screamed at him while he worked.

‘At least it’s easy.’ He told himself as he pounded out an essay from memory.

“Albaer…” Lialah tried to get his attention again, she had a tiny little voice, delicate, really.

“I don’t want to talk, let me work.” He dismissed her perfunctorily, a part of him didn’t like that, and he could feel the sting his words left behind.

“You’re not ‘spotted’ are you?” Razelia demanded and put a hand on his shoulder.

He whirled on her so fast, shooting to his feet when her fingers touched him, that the chair fell tumbling to the floor where it made a dull, heavy thud on the carpet. “Don’t touch me!” He hissed with tears in his eyes, she yanked her hand back.

“That- That still hurts…” He softened his voice when she drew back a pace and held her hand at the wrist as if he’d bitten it.

But then he caught her question, and it was so utterly absurd that his anger vanished, “I’m sorry… Did you ask if I was spotted? Like covered in ‘spots’?”

His right eye was shut completely now, and it hurt like hell, and he regretted the sudden motion throwing Raziel’s touch away, the pain of that jerking motion was added on to the rest like additional interest on a loan he never wanted to take out.

“The marks, from this morning, injuries of some kind, or am I wrong?” Raziel remained a pace from him, and Albaer turned away from her to return his attention to the book and his schoolwork.

“It doesn’t matter.” Albaer answered, “Nothing can be done about it. But… no, there was no battle, I didn’t even fight back.”

Tears of anger formed so fiercely that he was rendered blind in his left eye, while in his swollen right, they burned where they were trapped, unable to escape. The unutterable humiliation made Albaer’s body shake with impotent rage, he balled up his fists and swallowed his anger and hatred the way he always did. His mother’s admonition still rang on.

‘Just be good. Don’t hurt people, don’t fight. Be a good boy.’ And Albaer tried. But it wasn’t enough to keep the hate at bay, nor the tears of anger that came with it.

“Albaer, let me help…” Lialah asked, more gently than any human ever could, and her small voice, so sincere, it was impossible to take it poorly.

“How can either of you do anything? You don’t know anything about this world, you barely know anything about me.” He didn’t turn around to face her, he cleared his throat, “Just let me do my work, I need to get it all done tonight, I’ll explain more to you after my mother’s shift is supposed to begin, sorry I snapped at you… just… I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Let her, Albaer, trust us.” Raziel gave a fangy smile that was anything but trusty looking, her hand came out, hesitated to touch him, and then she brought it back to hold one of her hands in the other.

“I don’t have access to World Magic, but I still have access to Body Magic, the ‘internal magic’ remember? So I can at least do this much.” Lialah’s smile came and went with nervous energy, and then her hand went up as Albaer turned to the side in his chair, he wiped his left eye clean.

“Fine, whatever, if it will get you off my back, go ahead and do it.” Albaer quipped, eager to just get it over with.

Lialah’s open pale palm developed a bright, otherworldly glow, it was merely a pinpoint at first, but it grew, and grew, and grew, becoming the size of the head of a pin, then a baseball, and finally the size of a human head.

She was gritting her teeth and growling like an angry puppy as she put in the effort, and the ball of magic redoubled in size and began to wash over Albaer himself.

The steady glow grew and hummed like a fresh new hard drive, and his entire body was coated so that he was blind as if he were in a fog of the purest white. While it might have been the color of the hottest flames, Albaer immediately thought of it like being wrapped up in a warm blanket in front of a warm fire on Christmas Eve. “This is… wonderful…” He whispered in reverence, the swollen eye began to heal, the scrapes fading, the bruises returned to normal flesh, inch by inch he was bathed in the healing angelic light until no ache or pain of the body troubled him in the slightest.

‘So that is an angel… so then… What does a demon do?’ He wondered, and then focused instead on the healing process itself, as the light gradually began to recede like floodwaters returning back to their point of origin.

Lialah lowered her hand with a smile and then asked with a proud little smile, hands on hips and all when she leaned forward a little, “How did I do, Albaer?”

Albaer moved his arms around, he touched his back, his sides, the back of his head, the side of his head all pain and all injuries were completely gone.

“I… yes, I’m much better… thank you…” Albaer said and bowed his head in hushed reverence while she preened, and he tried desperately to think of something else to add.