Episode 8.3 - The Púca's jig

"Honestly? I don't know," Lady Lila says resignedly.

 We’re in Eshu's room, the girl herself lays on her bed, sleeping surprisingly peacefully all considered. Ko, Lila and I are standing around the cluttered place. Eshu has a fairly varied sense of aesthetics, a bit chaotic. Anime posters and figurines from a near-perfect intersection of the shows that me and Ko like. Clothes are strewn over chairs, little bare space to be seen - it's a mess but an endearing one all the same.

"Back home, healing magic isn't even that common. I'm a bit rare to have learned as much as I have. Illness of the mind, though, maybe if I studied more? I'm just not sure, most demon generals would simply send someone with shellshock right back into the field, it's really not my area..."

"There must be something we can do," Ko whimpers, "Aren't we pumped with all those chemicals on the outside, shouldn't that fix this?"

 I shake my head, the thought had already crossed my mind, "Can we be sure that chemical cocktail is still in effect? It has been a few months, and would they apply it again? The same people happy to let us live in a world that's been invaded and nuked and so on? Would it even work again? Our minds are firmly in Escape now, right? Can we be sure we're even connected to our old bodies anymore?" I shake my head, that's all just info-babble, "No more than that; all the anti-depressants, SRIs, anxiety meds, would they be enough to suppress whatever is hurting her right now? If stabbing that villager thrall sparked this because, like, she’d witnessed such a thing in her real life, then that’d be pretty deep shit, right?”

Ko looks at me with a crushed expression. And a silence falls in the room but for the quiet sound of Eshu’s breathing.

What are the chances, like come on, the level of unfairness, that the one NPC I get closest with and think is the best fit to introduce her to, is the dad of the corpse she stabbed! I mean, come on! I never thought to ask Flint, 'hey, by the way, aside from the mutilation to his brain via metal enslavement helmets, did your dead son also have a slashed throat?', now did I!

 To think she'd react so badly. I… For the first time, I really feel the weight of how we never talked to each other about the lives we led before Escape. What might Eshu have already been through? Is it something like a past experience with a stabbing, or maybe something even worse? What the hell can we do for her when we can’t even say for sure what’s brought this on!

"Yo," a sleepy voice snaps us all out of our thoughts.

"Eshu!" Ko shouts, diving atop the girl.
      "Eheh, sorry, I caused a scene, I guess?"

A couple of minutes of relief and tears pass by before Lila gently pushes us aside and floats at Eshu's bedside, "You wanna' talk about it?"
     With a slight shake of the head, Eshu reaches her hand out to grab Lila, "Make me a demon too, please."

"""HUH?!"""
    I have no shame in saying our collective reaction is one of total bafflement.

Eshu smiles a small grin, but it lacks all of her usual playfulness, "It'll fix me."

"Whoa whoa whoa, how will an exceedingly painful, one-way ticket to demonhood 'fix' anything!"        Lila explodes, and I find myself nodding along. What sort of crazy request is this?

"Please," Eshu says again, not letting go of our demon's wrist.

****

None of us had any idea what to make of Eshu's request at first, and more or less turned it down, but she stayed firm on the matter, insisting to Lady Lila over and over, growing more desperate with each plea.

 Something about her must have been convincing ‘cause here I am in the corridor outside the 'ceremony room', still conveniently set up from Ko's. I've never waited in a hospital before, but I suppose it's like this. Standing here, sitting here, pacing around here - for hours, all I can do is lounge, being startled when occasional screams sound through the heavy set doors.
    It was different with Ko, lots of preparation, her enthusiasm on the matter and so on. With Eshu, it’s all so sudden; how can this possibly help her mental state?

At some point, Major Tom arrives, offering me a drink. I gladly accept.
      Like the cool guy he is, he's since just stood leaning against a wall, head bowed, arms crossed, waiting far more restfully than me. It’s embarrassing, but I just can't sit still right now. I mean, it's my damn fault, to think I’d take her to the worst person possible - and now all I can do is stand here and wait.


Eventually, late into the night, the sturdy wooden double door creaks open and a pair of fluffy white neko-ears, followed by their owner, emerge. Ko looks utterly exhausted.

"Well?" I can't help asking.

"She's ok, more or less."

"More or less?" I blurt and feel bad for it. Ko cringes, closing the door behind her and all but whispering, "It was successful, same as me in fact, full blooded demon, not an imp."

"Well, that’s great then!"

"It is," Ko nods, "But well, you remember when mine finished?"
      I think back on that, "Ya sure, you were real sleepy for a few days. After that, Lila went straight to advanced magic training for you to make sure you could handle your new magical reserve."

"Right, except..."

"Ya? You're scaring me here, Ko."

"She's utterly hyper Sek!” the evidently flabbergasted catgirl hisses, “She’s bouncing around like she has all the energy in the world. Not just that, Lila says Eshu's new magical reserves are perfectly in balance; such a result is unfathomable, she says. Eshu, she's more 'herself' than seems plausible. First thing she did after it ended was grab Lila's breasts! All that stress and anguish just vanished..."

"I don't think I follow; those all sound like good things," I admit, and before Ko can go on, I suddenly hear a chilling war cry.

"Kooooooooo where'd you goooooooooooo? Hey Sek!!!!" I don't get adequate time to act. The doors bound open as a leaping Eshu soars through the air and right into me, sending us both to the floor in a heap, "Ehehehehe!"

"Eerr, woah, hey there!" I stutter out.

"Hey dog, tell me you don't want the pact too, I only have so much blood," a tired, coarse voice calls from above, and Lila floats into my line of sight, patting the waiting Major Tom on the shoulder as she passes, and looking like a deflated balloon.

 Honestly, I just can't keep up with these girls anymore!