Moments later, the lights began to flicker on and return to life, lighting up the apartment.

Raziel put her hands behind her head and whistled as if she had absolutely ‘not’ done anything wrong. “You know what’s funny, Albaer?” She asked as she proceeded to run her hands through her silky black hair and gave her head a vigorous shake.

“What?” He asked as he headed past them toward his bathroom, thinking to grab a towel.

“You humans developed a lot of the same beliefs about demons, succubi in particular, as our homeland. Some of those beliefs are even kind of true, we have a natural affinity for certain types of dark magic. Succubi can infiltrate and manipulate dreams, it’s one of the first things we learn how to do. I just… paid Trevor’s dreams a visit. If you see him again and he asks you if you had any unusual dreams, it’d be a good idea if you said ‘Yes, of a beautiful and terrifying demon, but you just don’t remember any details… or something like that.” Raziel preened, stretched her limbs and wings out, and batted her dark eyelashes at him for a moment, “Emphasize ‘beautiful’, of course.” She added with a taunting laugh when Albaer rolled his eyes at her theatrics.

“Ohhhhkay, I don’t think I want any details.” Albaer said while they followed after, he rubbed his head vigorously with a brown towel and tossed it to Raziel.

“I wasn’t as subtle, Lisa was awake.” Lialah explained what happened, and Albaer’s face was carefully neutral, showing no emotion while he reached out and took another towel to throw to her.

Lialah caught it and began to dry herself off. “She is genuinely sorry for what she said, and what she did.”

“I don’t care.” Albaer shook his head. “I literally, really do not care how sorry she is.”

Lialah approached, “I think she’ll make it right, confess, so that you don’t get more… bad treatment over it.” She put a hand on Albaer’s arm, he looked down at it.

Then up at the angel inches away from him. “If she does that, that’s more than I expect, but it just prevents future attacks that haven’t happened yet. I’m still on the bottom at school, and that’s how it will stay as long as I’m in this place, and I can’t leave.”

Lialah looked away from the hardness in his lustrous brown eyes.

“I’ll heal you, every time… I promise. Every time you come through that door. I don’t have all the magic I used to, how could I? But we’ll help. It’s the least we can do…” Lialah’s eyes became steady, “I hope that’s enough.”

Albaer softened, one hand came up and touched the hand that still held his wet arm. “You know, if I hadn’t met you two, I might have forgiven Lisa. I might have been willing to let it go just to keep her around. Humans are social creatures, we need community, we need each other. We’re unhealthy in the absence of others in the long term. I was so desperate just a few days ago that if she’d done that, I’d have said ‘I forgive you’ just to pretend I had a friend.”

“Oh come on, no you wouldn’t.” Raziel said, straightening up as she dried off her hair.

“Yes, I probably would have.” His lip curled up a little at the corner, “I hate to overuse the word ‘pathetic’ so I won’t, but there aren’t many other words. Let’s just say, I think of you two as friends, it hasn’t been long, but maybe because we’ve traded trust… I don’t know.” Albaer shrugged, “If I’ve got friends here, I’m not worried about being out there.”

Raziel rolled her eyes, “My sister is right, but you know, I still say you should just learn to fight. There’s no reason you shouldn’t defend yourself, why should you get beaten up, just because you were unlucky about your dad and…”

“From who?” Albaer asked and peeled off his soaking wet shirt. “Look, I know a lot about history, military stuff, but I don’t know anything about fighting and there’s nobody who would teach the ‘Bad Seed’ how to fight. Anybody who could, just wants me to bleed anyway.” His voice was thick with sarcasm, and Raziel was not without a quick retort.

“Us? Our world has lots of war, and my sister and I are both well trained, we had to be in order to subdue any hero we summoned, you know, just in case.” She explained, and Albaer shook his head.

“Thank you, but no thank you. I’ve got no reason to fight, and all my mom asked was that I- you know.” Albaer said, his face was warm again, a light flush on his cheeks, “I’ll stick with my books and video games.”

“If you say so.” Raziel replied, “Now, about our wet clothes?”

“Oh, right.” Lialah replied and held up a hand.

Seconds later the water was drawn out of the fabric of each of them and combined into a ball of undulating and pulsing water easily the size of all three of their heads combined.

She guided it to the bathroom and with a light flick of her wrist, it arced into the tub with a powerful echoing splatter, and then began to disappear down the drain.

“I can’t get over how useful magic is.” Albaer grinned stupidly, giddy all over and his hairs standing on end every time he saw it.

Lialah had a little smirk at his praise, “Thanks.” She said, and smoothed out her clothing.

“Now,” Raziel eyed the console, “Do you mind?”

“Go ahead.” Albaer said and went to flop down on his bed, the worries of his day were gone, school would come, if not for a few days as he was already thinking of the excuse he would use to call in sick. ‘Mom won’t notice, she doesn’t notice anything anymore.’ He thought, and stretched out with a groan.

“Keep the volume down, Raziel, but the screen won’t bother me.” Albaer said. He didn’t hear what she said, because before he knew it, he was out like the lights were earlier.

No sooner than he was out cold than Raziel was on her feet. The game paused.

“Raziel, what are you doing?” Lialah asked while laying out their sleeping bags and folding her wings around her body.

The demoness was standing over the sleeping Albaer and staring down into his resting face. “I can’t do healing magic, my race can’t do that… but there is something I can do. I can make his dreams into utter bliss.”

“Raziel-” Lialah hissed, “You didn’t ask him.”

“I’ll ask him in his dreams.” She said without looking at her sister, though even without looking, the demon felt the reproachful look of the angel.

“You know that isn’t the same thing.” Lialah critiqued her.

“We know he bled out there to get us things to wear. And standing out in that storm, he doesn’t have fur, or a thick coat, or heat magic. It’s nice to be put first for once. Is it so strange for me to want to show my gratitude?” Raziel replied with the rhetorical question.

“If you insist, then why not just stimulate the pleasure centers of his mind, going into his dreams now is probably not the best idea.” Lialah pointed out, and Raziel relented.

“Fine, it’s no worse than putting an extra blanket on him, so I’ll do that instead… but the other way would have been fun for me too.” Raziel pointed out with a pout.

“Gah, just do it, finish your game, and come lie down, we’ll ‘reset’ and hope to the gods he’s as good as we believe.”

Raziel put a hand on the sleeping young man. “I shared, with him. I’ve been wrong about a lot of things, but not this. Not this. Dream. Dream wonderful dreams that fill you with bliss all night long.” She said and uttered a string of complex syllables, and she watched the smile start to form on his face.

Suddenly no longer in the mood for games, she saved, turned it off, and slid into the sleeping bag at the foot of his bed beside her sister. “Before we do this,” Raziel asked, “did you ever regret our binding?”

“No. No I didn’t. And not just because it made us the most powerful summoners in the world. I didn’t regret it, because nobody could have asked for a better sister, or a better friend.” Lialah asked, and kissed her sister’s forehead, she pinched the demon’s cheek.

“Alright. Then let’s do it.” Raziel took a deep breath.

“Shua nesi.” Lialah whispered.

“Xtpk zxpl.” Raziel whispered at the exact same moment.

“Square One.” They uttered the phrase in the language of the world in which they now lay, and clung together hand in hand.

Before each of their eyes, their skills appeared, and began to disappear, yellow squares in summoning, in strength enhancement, in speed enhancements, in flight, their body magic spells, everything. It took an hour for it all to happen, but it did.

“C-Can you move?” Raziel asked in a tiny whisper.

“N-No. So this is how weak I was as an infant… I can’t say I like it.” Lialah whispered back and managed to flop her head to the side to face her sister.

“It won’t be long at least, so just be patient and keep trying to move. When Albaer wakes up, everything will be fine.” Lialah added.

“I know.” Raziel said, for the first time in her life, confident that her sister was right.