“Is … something wrong?” The female escorting The Emperor asked, her canine ears raised high up in alarm.

The tall demon fixed her with a murderous glare, making her tuck her head in instinctively.

“Is she … not to your liking?”

“I got plenty of other girls, if you don’t like this one,” The Emperor looked more composed, even though his voice revealed the worry.

The demon turned his head back towards me, his eyes focusing on the collar and the chain attached to it. The maid extended her hand even further, expecting him to take the leash, as if she didn’t notice his reaction.

Then, another demon approached, putting his arm over his friend’s shoulder. Although he wasn’t as menacing or square-faced as his compatriot, they were clearly of the same race as he was also missing his ears. His colors didn’t hint at any elven lineage though. Both his eyes and hair were colored in a dark shade of brown. His skin, although white, was nowhere near as pale as the other one’s. I noticed some small but consistent wrinkles on his face and realized that he was probably middle-aged.

“Gift!” He said joyously, being the only one to have such a mood in the crowd, “Strange gift but nice. Like it. Is nice is not?” He asked the menacing, golden-haired demon.

Getting no response out of his friend, he started ruffling my hair gently, “Look. Good gift! No reason for sour face. Oh! But I know! Why he no satisfied.”

“If she’s not satisfactory …”

“No no she is! No no satisfied because of that! It is strange for us. See …” the animated demon took the leash from the indifferent maid, showing it to The Emperor and his escort, “no collar people in us land. No know the word. How you call people with collar like this?”

“Oh! We call them slaves.”

“She no free? Can no do what she want? Must listen to master?”

“Yes. You have nothing to worry about. She’s well trained to obey her master.”

The demon nodded his head in understanding: “I see I see. Yes this strange to us. No know with. He is champion. Have his values,” the talkative demon started shaking his golden-haired friend’s shoulder, “He no open for collars. He no get other people have other rules. He mad now but calm later. He will get.”

He started whispering to the side of the menacing demon’s head. Only then did I realize these demons do have ears, but theirs are very small and positioned on the sides of the head instead of on top of it. The whispering didn’t have any effect though. The eyes of the menacing demon didn’t change one bit.

After a short while, the talkative demon patted his friend on the shoulder and turned towards The Emperor, bowing slightly.

“Thank you for gift. But know we can no give same kind of gift in turn. We have no … how you say, slaves? All our people is free, so we can no give them.”

“Oh, that’s ok! It’s a gift, not a trade! Our Majesty just wanted to show his appreciation.”

The demon bowed once again: “Thank you. Nice gift. But please no such gift in future. Hard to explain to us people. Bad topic for talk.”

“Sure, we respect that.”

The demon ruffled my hair once again, looking me in the eyes while doing so. I couldn’t find any malice in him.

But still, the lack of proper ears and tail made it impossible for me to even guess what he was thinking.

“No fear. You in good care. He is mad now but no hurt you. He no as danger like he look now.”

He turned around and extended his hand towards the menacing demon to give him the leash. He got nothing but a cold stare in return. It even looked as if the menacing demon was about to murder his friend right there and then.

Even so, the small smile didn’t leave the talkative demon’s face, confirming my conclusion that those two were demons. Only a wicked demon would stare death in the face with a smile like that.

Then, he started talking to the menacing demon in their tongue. The conversation was one-sided, with the menacing demon completely refusing to participate in it.

But, it did work after some time, and he finally took the leash in his hand. Much to the joy of his more talkative friend.

-----

After many pleasantries and idle conversation, the demons finally said farewells to their hosts and started walking away. I did my best to follow my new master, but he stopped after just a few steps, turning towards me.

“Next to I.”

I stood still, like a statue, transfixed by his exceptionally deep voice.

“Walk next to I,” the demon repeated.

The other demon leaned in above me: “He want you to walk next to him. No behind.”

I looked at him uncertainly, hoping that my eyes are asking the question my mouth couldn’t.

“He strange but you’re master. Listen and do.”

I quickly realized that the worst thing about these demons is that there is no way of telling what mood they’re in! They have no ears nor tails, so you never know if they are serious or not, if they are friendly or threatening. So, not being the one to argue with the blood-thirsty demons, I did as I was told and moved hesitantly next to him. He was so tall, his armpits were on the same level as my eyes.

He took my hand with surprising gentleness, opening my palm carefully with his fingers. Then, he put the leash in my hand.

Puzzled with the gesture, I looked up at him. The rage in his eyes was gone, replaced with the mysterious gentleness of an intimidating giant.

“No walk behind. Next to I. Always. Now go.”

He continued moving, only to stop after a single step.

“I say with I. No behind.”

“Come come. We no have whole day. Listen to you’re master,” the other demon said with a wide smile, patting me on the back as he hurried me on.

So, I started walking reluctantly. Walking next to your master isn’t just alien to timkik society, it’s punishable. It finally dawned on me that everything I knew about people and society counts for nothing now. Not only was I, a slave, walking next to my master, the other demon followed us closely behind. Too closely, in fact.

I realized what he was doing. I had no choice but to keep walking next to my new master, with him walking so close behind. He knew I had an instinctive urge to stop and follow, but I couldn’t do it with him right behind me.

That gave me all kinds of ideas: “Does that mean he’s a slave too? I mean, why would he walk behind me if that’s not the case? He doesn’t look like a guard. Speaking of which, where are their guards? I’d expect their leader to have an entire retinue following him. And it’s only these two. Is he making sure I don’t assassinate my new master from behind?”

“Or do I have a higher social standing than the other slaves because I’m about to become a mistress?”

“But wait … didn’t the demon following me say they don’t have slaves? How would that even work? Or, are we about to get married? Is that why he wants me to walk next to him because it would be disrespectful to have his wife walking behind?”

“Speaking of which, there’s no way their champion is a virgin. I bet he has an entire harem out there. I’ll probably become a part of it. There’s no way he’d marry me. It’s not like he’d gain anything from it, my family isn’t influential.”

“This is bad. If I have to compete with dozens of mistresses, what chances do I have to get on his good side? I’ll be just yet another whore to him. How will I fulfill my mission and redeem my family then?”

“I guess I could try going after some other demons to learn about them. But if he ever finds out, I’m done! I don’t even want to think what these demons can do to a person.”

“Hmm … I bet I could befriend his other mistresses. I bet some of them will open up if I make sure they don’t see me as competition. I can also find mistresses of some other influential demons and try to get them on my side. Maybe even one belonging to the demon king.”

“Yes, I guess that would be my safest bet.”

We stopped, and the demonic champion extended his hand in front of me, gesturing for me to move on.

In front of me, I saw some … I had no idea what it was back then. An open door was right before me, leading into a strange, tiny room. A long sofa stood right next to the door, and it went all the way to the other side of the room, which wasn’t much. I assumed some four or five people could sit there.

“But considering how big and tall these demons are, three at most.”

Looking around, I realized that was an entrance to some kind of carriage. It certainly didn’t look like one, and horses were nowhere to be found, but I realized it couldn’t be anything else. After all, these demons needed a carriage to get back home.

I heard the other demon laughing affectionately at me, looked rather amused.

He said something in their demonic tongue, after which he ruffled my hair yet again.

“He certainly likes touching my hair a lot. I guess it’s interesting to him because their hair doesn’t grow much. Both of them have it really short. Which makes sense since they are demons and all.”

The talkative, smiling demon got in front of me, hunching down and squeezing himself through the door, taking a seat on the sofa inside the carriage. Then, he motioned for me to enter.

“Come come.”