The Turquoise Demon

Once upon a time, there was a terrible place. It was a place for villainy and individuality. Almost no one had a family, and the ones who had families only used them to gather more power. This was Ferro Valley, twenty years ago.

This was the tale Ember Lascander was telling us. Not only were the nomads of Raed and the noble Ishaan with us, but Hiyoko and Nikolay also decided to come after the Turquoise Demon, both because Mom was their original master, but Nikolay wanted to have more conversations with Raed about Stanzas.

“We have dealt with Elemental Demons; a town filled with scum is not going to stop us,” said Hiyoku confidently.

“No need. Ferro Valley is not that anymore. Thanks to one person who was born there.”

“Markus Terracota,” I guessed and Ember agreed with it.

“He didn’t have a family. He grew up in the streets and everything in his life should have led him to become a villain, but he was stronger than that. He created a community and united all people there before deciding to help the entire world.”

“Wow, he sounds like a great guy.”

The person who entered our conversation was a boy from the nomads. He was the same age as me and wore a bandana on his head.

“He was, but he was just killed by our enemy,” said Ember Lascander sadly.

“Sorry about that. Both my biological parents died when I was younger. But all the nomads here are my family. Ah, I’m Shuuja by the way, nice to meet you all.”

Between all of us Reinarians, it was Nikolay who was most interested in Shuuja.

“So, do you have the Sandstorm Stanza as well?”

“Of course not! That is very rare, between all of us, just Raed has it. I only have the Earth Stanza.”

“Only Earth? And is it about stability like ours?”

“I guess so, but my focus is my family. My signature makes whoever I consider family stronger if they are in danger.”

“Your signature is just for others? That’s weird.”

The young nomad laughed and put his arm around Nikolay’s shoulder. While the two were having fun, Ember Lascander stared at the boy with sadness in her eyes.

“Your signature is just like Markus’s, but instead of getting stronger yourself, you make the others around you. That’s beautiful actually.”

“Thanks. But for me, you are the weirdest prince. The power to teleport anywhere? Most of the nomads here would love that. “

That topic made the boy stop for a moment.

“What happened?” Shuuja asked.

“I can’t teleport anymore…”

The only one in our circle that seemed to already know was Hiyoku.

“You lost your Stanza? How?” I asked, worried about him.

“I’m not sure… This time I spent with my father… I’m the only heir to the kingdom, I have a lot of responsibilities, even marry a princess… I feel that I can’t ignore it anymore like I did before. If I’m not free, how can I teleport around?”

“I know that this is hard right now, but that is not the end of the world. People start developing their connection with the Stanzas around the age of 13, but we change a lot in our lives, especially in your teenage years. You are maturing and your Stanza changes with it, you might develop a new signature or even change to a completely different Stanza,” mom told us.

“But I liked to teleport…”

Hiyoku grabbed his hand and I could swear I saw her blush.

“I will be here with you along the way. If you change your powers or even if you have none anymore… even if you married a princess…”

“And what about you?” asked Shuuja to me. “I heard you used multiple Stanzas. Someone having two is already more than expected, but people said that you used six of them.”

“These people are exaggerating. I did use four, though. Void and three others that simply made sense to me.”

“This is still a lot!” exclaimed Hiyoku, showing some weird emotion. Maybe it was envy?

“I’m sorry, I have no explanation for that, only theories. I know that there were people in history who used more than two Stanzas at the same time, but this is rarer than the Void Stanza itself. Maybe because you feel so empty inside, you could fill it with multiple other Stanzas.”

“I have as much clue as any of you. It is what I said: those powers simply made sense for me. Love, family and connection, I think these three are very similar. Is there a Stanza with all this?”

Of course, I knew the answer. The passion of the Fire Stanza was more intense than simple familial love. Having connections is both present in the Water and Earth Stanzas, but with the Earth, it is more a sense of community while the Water was about understanding, or trying to, everyone else.

“And even after all that I still have the Void Stanza, so clearly I still don’t know who I am,” I concluded my thoughts.

“Or maybe you just think you don’t know who you are, but you know, after all you have accessed three different Stanzas,” said Nikolay still

Could it be possible? Did I know who I was now? I mean, I knew I had changed, but I still couldn’t define with words who I was, or even the meaning of this question.

“Wow, you guys are so insightful. I think I’m discovering things about myself in this conversation!” Shuuja said but we were all too deep in our own questions to continue this conversation.

We saw a colorful town in the distance and Raed stopped in front of our entire expedition.

“The winds… they are wild coming from here.” He pointed to the west of the town.

“Do you think the Turquoise Demon is in that direction?” asked Ember Lascander.

“I’m not a gambling man, but I bet everything I have on that, hehehe.”

We changed our course and the winds did start getting stronger, just like the effects that the Yellow Demon had on the area around them.

“We don’t have Elemental Demons where we came from. What should we be worried about?” the leader of the Nomads wanted more information from us.

We already told them the basics, but there were some differences in this case.

“If the Turquoise Demon is empowered, it might be another experience like what happened with the Yellow Demon,” suggested Hiyoku.

“Or maybe there is someone controlling them. It was the last thing Foraz did with his life, but he did make the Green Demon way stronger with the Original Poem of Nature.”

“Find a poem-orb and defeat the biggest of these Demons. Easy peasy!” Raed’s humor was never down. During our travels he used a bo staff and even though he was so good-humored, I was certain he did know how to use it to break a few legs.

When we saw them, it didn’t appear to be ‘easy peasy’. They were even bigger than the armored body of the Orange Demon, with three pairs of wings in a long body and their face had a longer version of the cute bunny-like horns.

The first thing I did was try my Void Bubbles, but they were flying so high in the sky that I couldn’t reach them. Every flap of their wings was like a hurricane, and we had to try hard not to be blown away.

“I can’t reach it!”

“Don’t need to say another word!” the crazy Raed spun his staff, and I felt the air around me propel my body into the sky. The Demon saw us and started to attack, but our group was well prepared.

All the nomads could hold their own with a multitude of Stanzas. Not only that, but Ishaan summoned a bright fire sphere that looked like a miniature sun, and, together with Ember’s flames, consumed any wind attack and hit the monster directly.

I was getting closer and even with all the fear of being propelled to the sky by another person, that freedom was wonderful, just like when I felt flying on the hurricane frog. Their ginormous face was near now and I summoned more Void bubbles than ever, consuming their entire body in one go. A shining turquoise dot was in the middle of the monster. With the freedom that Raed gave me I was ready to grab the Original Poem of the Sky.

The next second, however, a strong wind gust came from it throwing me toward the ground and, around the Original Poem, the Turquoise Demon reformed to the same size they were before in just one second.

We all realized that defeating this Demon would not be easy.