the demon is an evil being of evil who is evil

Sionn forgot Reem existed until she poured scalding water on him, which was unfortunate. Worse even was her using the good tea set when he'd explicitly told her not to (through the bulletin board... and it might've been as a PSA...).

To avoid this fate, he tried, and failed, to time-jump. He'd done so earlier during the duel (and when he awoke and nearly knocked his lucky vase off the night table with his horn). Had he not been shot twice during the duel and this might've worked a third time, but alas; all he managed was to steady the tea tray... for an instant or two. Then it slipped off his hands anyway.

There went the good tea set...

Reem flinched at the ruckus, but she was too busy gawking at him in terror to react otherwise. She didn't even breathe. It was fine. It was understandable, and human.

Rather than say words that would fall on deaf ears, Sionn continued to walk. Some of the BURNING tea had landed straight on the gunshot below his rib. It fucking hurt, fucking shit. Not that anyone would be able to tell by looking at his face. Either way, it'd take a few minutes to heal at most.

Something tugged at his sleeve.

Said something was Reem. Her hand shook. She was insane. "I'm... I... are you alright?"

He was not, and he was too baffled to respond coherently.

"Um. The. S. Sssfff..."

Sionn looked at her fingers on his sleeve instead of her. "I'm fine."

"...survive?"

"Oh." She'd probably misspoken and meant 'the hunters' instead of 'you'. That explained why she spoke to him while trembling like a chihuahua. She worried about the hunters who'd mocked her earlier. How gallant. "They'll live."

"And you?"

"What? Of course. What a stupid question."

"I heard gunshots earlier," Reem said. "You mentioned before that one bullet could k-kill you back at the medic's office remember and like, I dunno. You seem to be in pain."

"Stop being unhinged."

"It's not that." She gripped onto his sleeve as though she held something important. "You're not fine."

Something twisted under those words. Ungallantly, Sionn yanked his arm off her paws. Porcelain clinked under her feet as she stumbled upon it. Lest she turn into minced meat, he caught her a second before she hit the floor.

Reem froze. She did not scream. Perhaps she couldn't.

"For—"

"Sorry!" She leaped away.

"—give me. No I—"

"Nope! Nope nope nope nope..." Reem staggered backwards until she toppled a stack of books, kicked a sheathed sword, and knocked over a box containing his eleventh bottle cap collection. To be fair, none of those things had any business lying in the middle of a hall.

At least she was semi-lucid again. For her standards. As blood and tea stains invaded her outfit, she grimaced, as did Sionn, as did the mutt witnessing the shitshow, as did the half-eaten meals outside, for unrelated reasons.

Why did she refuse to understand that this would continue to happen so long as she kept speaking to him?

"Aaaaa..." Reem's pseudo-cry trifled into nothingness. "These are new... come on..."

"You have yourself to blame for that."

Predictably, Reem teared up. "Can't you stop breaking stuff for one second?"

"The actual audacity—"

"Two things can be true at once! And I break myself, not other... things. You break everything, though. Everything! And I haven't even gotten paid yet!"

"Well, whose fault is it!?"

"Yours!?"

"Oh, true."

He would've paid his four employees in a timely manner (Cai didn't count because reasons) had he not been constantly distracted by futile assassination attempts. Besides, he'd spent two thirds of this month's income on an auction in a neighboring city and was still figuring out just where he'd conjure the money to—

Such matters could wait. He said, "In any case, one of the other maids will fix this disaster later. For now, kindly fix the disaster that is yourself."

"Thanks," said Reem. "Can I use your bath?"

"No."

"It'll be quick."

"No?"

"I don't have clothes."

Oh, right. She refused to be a stay-in maid for some reason. If she were to wash her outfit, she would have nothing to wear. Was her plan, then, to clean herself... and then slide the dirty clothes back on? Should he hang her upside down from a tree for the rest of the day? "Head to the tea room," said Sionn. "Abstain from doing anything but breathing until I join you. Then, we'll figure out what to do about that."

"Aight."

The world moved again after Reem left. Demon hunters wailed outside as Elial attempted to heal them. A halfling fidgeted at the lobby. A curse without origin or meaning threatened to eat the world. Everything hurt. The manor's finances were in shambles. The good tea set was a tea set no more.

The original plan had been to wash himself, tell Elial to kick the mutt out, and swallow a bottle of painkillers or two, but Reem's nonsense had paradoxically cleared his mind. Sionn asked, "To what end did you invite yourself to my castle?"

***

Lev was beginning to see what Reem meant by the demon lord 'putting on a show'. It was... strange. The exchange he'd just witnessed almost felt as though it'd happened between Reem and a completely different person to the demon lord that now spoke to him. "Well... um."

"Speak with haste."

"I will. I just... they... they'll be fine, right?"

"The hunters? Like I told Reem, they'll live. You must've heard this, surely."

"No, I know, but I can... smell... what they're feeling."

The demon lord glanced at Lev from the corner of his black eye. Did Lev look that creepy when...? Surely not, right? "Any kinder and they might consider returning," he said. "Any harsher and I would face the laws of this place. Pain is a good shield against foolishness."

"I don't get it. If you're actually strong, why aren't you ruling this place?"

"Is that what you came for, mutt? Pointless interrogations?"

Patience was a virtue Lev did not possess, and apparently, this went for demons in general. "Fine, sorry. I'll just say it outright: I think I found a cure for the curse."

While the off-handed insult failed to infuriate him, the demon's apathy certainly did. "Is that so?"

"I'm—I'm serious."

"Truly..."

"Don't you care about this at all? Like at all?"

"What is there to care about when the outcome is inevitable?"

"It's not." Lev stood up. "Haven't you ever thought that the reason why this keeps happening is because everyone thinks it's inevitable even though it's not? What if it's a self-fulfilling prophecy? Think about it. How is someone not going to snap if they feel like there's no way out and everyone hates them and thinks they're a monster? Of course one would become a demon king if there's nothing but hatred around... one."

"Then what is the cure?" Asked the demon lord. "What is the opposite of hatred?"

Lev didn't realize how stupid it'd sound until he almost blurted out the answer.

There it was, the smirk. Lev felt like strangling him. "Is it quite telling that you'd spout such nonsense, yet are unable to follow through to the end. Tell me, mutt. What is your cure against becoming a monster?"

The same that turned Hanan into a shell of his former self. The same that doomed their parents. "The same that you felt when Reem talked to you."

The demon's eye narrowed.

"I smelled that, too, you know."

It was that silence, that tiny dent in the shield, which finally allowed Lev to speak.

"That's what I'm saying. You're not the first marked one I've tried to convince. When I heard about you and came to this town, I just kind of figured it'd be impossible to have a civil conversation, so I put up that ransom. Yes, that was me. I've had to do it this way for a while now. Anyway, after I heard you survived the duel with Demonsbane, I realized this would be way harder than I'd anticipated, so I'd probably have to retreat, but then I saw Reem again, and she kept trying to convince me you're that good for some reason?"

He did not have to smell hope to know it was there.

"And like... I don't know if I'd agree necessarily, but after that conversation earlier, I'm at least convinced of something: you don't want to abandon the world yet."

"No," said the demon.  "I suppose I don't."

"Then why not try, at least? Just try." When the demon had no answer to that, Lev continued: "You don't even have to do anything. I'll let you know once I've done enough research. I just want to, um. To make sure that you'll help and not try to kill me for invading your territory or anything."

Had the demon noticed Lev's hands trembling? Probably. This sucked. The human half cowered at the predator; the demon half bent to the stronger one. Wait, no, that sounded bad. Point was, this guy was scary and he knew it, and he exploited and reveled in this. Was there any good reason for him to glance at Lev—at everyone, really—as though he were a mongrel begging for food?

Still, Lev held his ground. Someone had to. "So... deal?"

"Under one condition."

Of course.

"Answer with honesty: what do you gain from this?"

The easy response was 'the same as you'. For once, the easy response was honesty. 

However, it wasn't what Lev wanted to say, nor was it what the demon lord wanted to hear.

Instead, Lev said, "Time."