I'm Your Papa Now

It had been an assault to the boy’s senses the first time he felt the heat of the sun caress his skin and his lungs were filled with warm, light air that wasn’t heavy and stale with the taste of iron. He thought that the ground might swallow him up, but his feet only sunk slightly with every step, the tiny granules a strange sensation against the bottoms of his feet and through his toes. He experienced the coolness of the breeze, felt it drift through his hair and make it weightless, pick up the grains of sand and pelt them against him. The sky was forever and bright as were all the colors around him, the blues above and the whites below, the endlessness before, behind, and all around him.

He hadn’t known what to do. Never had he had the opportunity to do anything other than wait and then watch, his life always in another’s possession. So, he followed the man who had freed him as the fallen angel practically skipped along with Zero’s father’s head in hand, babbling on and on and on. About what Zero had no idea. The man spoke so fast and used so many words he didn’t understand. He could only observe his father’s decapitated head swing back and forth.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

The man led him for days through the desert and across barren plains that became more fruitful the farther they traveled, until he was surrounded by trees so tall they touched the blue above. The man instructed him to sit against one of the endless trees near a pond, saying not to get in or he’d drown, and disappeared into the sky, lifted by black wings and taking his father’s head with him.

Zero sat and waited, unsure of what drowning was but not wanting to test the gently rippling waters to find out. He watched the trees, waiting for them to move, to lift their lumbering forms from the ground and walk or change positions, but they never did. He watched the birds and the rabbits and the squirrels come and go, just as weary of them as they were of him. He watched a moss green snake slither across his legs, felt it’s smooth cream belly glide across without a care as his heart sunk into his stomach at the unknown.

He watched the sun rise and set. He watched the moon in the sky.

Felt the warmth. The light. The comfort.

He listened to the song.

So much louder out in the open.

He thought of the man who had told him to wait. Of his long limbs, dark curls, and bright blue eyes. Of the monstrous black wings that sprouted from his back, like his mothers, but so much larger and darker. He wondered if the dark angel would do the same to him as he did his father.

It didn’t seem so bad.

Peaceful.

So he sat, watching everything around him, waiting until the man returned with two leather bags. He tossed them to the ground and instructed Zero to stand and turn around which he did without a word.

“Do you want long or short hair?” the angel asked.

“Hair?” Another strange word.

The man grabbed and tugged lightly at Zero’s scalp. “This stuff that’s dragging on the ground behind you. It’s called hair. You want more or less of it?”

What did it matter?

“I don’t know.”

The man walked slowly around him, those blue eyes running up and down his body before stopping on Zero’s own eyes. “Less it is.” His lips curved up and he continued on, stopping where he had first started. “You’re not beholden to The Kingdom, you won’t participate in their customs.”

Zero felt his head lighten as clumps of white and red feel to the ground around him. The angel started in the back and made his way around to Zero’s face with a large hunting knife, cutting the dirty strands effortlessly. The boy knew better than to flinch as he watched the blade without blinking.

“Sorry,” the angel said, his voice quieter. “I’m sure this is uncomfortable for you, but just bear with me. This will be the worst of it. Do you have a name? A word that you’re called?”

“Zero.” Zero knew his name.

“Zero?” the man repeated, voice loud again. “Your name is Zero?”

“Because I am nothing.”

The man stopped, the blade stalling against the hair. He looked at Zero, his brows coming together, his eyes looking at the boy in a way he’d never seen. “Fuck,” he muttered before continuing to cut. Another word he didn’t know. “You wanna keep that name or change it?”

What else would he be called?

“Keep it,” Zero decided.

“Alright. Well, Zero, I’m Ren. I’m going to be your new papa.” He paused again, his face scrunching up. “But don’t call me that. Call me Ren. Can you do that?”

New papa?

“Are you going to kill me, Ren?”

“I’m not. I figured you could be my new little buddy. We could go new places. See new things. Eat new food. Have a good time. That sound alright?”

Zero didn’t know how that sounded, so he didn’t say anything.

The man wasn’t fazed by the lack of response and continued on. “Plus, I’m looking for someone. Could you help me with that, Zero? I’d really appreciate it if you could.”

“Are you going to kill them?”

Ren laughed; a deep, booming sound that did make Zero flinch slightly from the strange and unfamiliar noise.

“No.” The man sheathed the knife at his belt. He put his hand on Zero’s head and tussled the hair that now fell around the boy’s ears. “But she might kill me. Come on. Let’s get you washed.”

He helped the devil wash in the pond. The boy kept the fear of the new experience to himself at first, but soon the fear faded, and it felt… felt…

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” the man told him as he scrubbed the remaining dried blood from his now shorter hair. “The water. I assume you’ve never been in water. At least not like this.”

“Nice?” He’d never heard the word.

“Like…” Ren clicked his tongue in succession, trying to explain. “Not bad. It doesn’t hurt. You’re not scared of it. You like it. It’s good. You want more.”

Zero nodded. “It’s nice.”

The angel gave him new clothes; brown pants, a blue long sleeve shirt, and a pair of brown boots. He promised the boy he could pick something he wanted later on as he burned the old clothes he had found for him in the fortress and the hair that he had cut, the boy silently staring transfixed into the flames. Ren pulled a bracelet from one of the bags and slipped it on his wrist. He laughed at Zero’s awkward expression as the devil watched in confusion as the wings disappeared.

“Don’t worry,” the man told him. “You’ll get used to it. It’s easier this way, anyway.”

Zero followed Ren everywhere. The angel would tell him the name of some town, or city, or village and ask if he wanted to go there. The devil would agree, simply because he knew the man wanted to go, and the boy didn’t really have any preference either way. He had no idea where anywhere was. What difference did it make to him if they went there or not?

Ren taught him how to read and write. Zero didn’t like writing. The letters never looked like Rens, even though the man said that that was normal, all writing is different. He didn’t like the messy lines. He didn’t like not knowing what words to use.

Reading was different. It had been challenging at first, but as he caught on, he wanted more and more words to decipher. Talking to people could be arduous, their voices too fast with too many unfamiliar phrases strung together, expecting responses from the boy immediately. But when it was written word, Zero could take his time in understanding what was being conveyed and anything he didn’t understand, Ren explained. The boy absorbed everything he could, his favorite texts being on how things work and are created. He had been locked away in the nothingness for so long that the opportunity to learn was hypnotizing. He couldn’t resist.

Ren taught him how to count money and barter with merchants. How to speak politely so even if his crimson eyes spooked someone, his courteous behavior would make them stall long enough for the two to continue moving on without much fuss. The man explained when the devil could put his head up, and when to keep it down.

When Zero stared too long at a pair of katanas at a sword smith shop, the man bought them and taught him how to spar. He’d have the boy fight pests while he doubled over and barely maintained standing on his feet, bursting with laughter, watching the devil struggle and blunder around. Then he’d correct his mistakes and carefully track his progress, improvements, and shortcomings. Sometimes, they would happen across a group of men sparring or even a tournament. The angel’s eyes would light up, his grin consuming his face as he pushed the boy into battle, always excusing his crimson irises with big words that everyone always seemed to awkwardly accept without further question.

The man would buy the clothes that Zero preferred and grumble every time he outgrew his pants and boots which seemed to happen often. He would complain about the new clothes, then complain that the boy was too skinny and make him eat more. That only seemed to lead to the devil growing more and needing larger sizes again, which the man was not pleased about. It was a vicious cycle.

Ren taught him new words and did his best to explain the thoughts and feelings behind them.

“Who are we looking for?” Zero asked one evening after having traveled with the angel for several months. He sat on the banks of a river watching Ren in the water. The man had rolled up his pants and was standing in the slow-moving current, his hands submerged as he looked up at the boy.

“Oh my.” He grinned, ecstatic that the boy had initiated a conversation. “Are you finally showing some interest my personal life? How you’ve grown.”

Zero stared blankly at the man.

“We’re looking for a girl…” he started.

The devil interrupted, “A fox demon.”

“Let people finish when they’re saying something,” Ren told him, more a gentle correction than a reprimand. “But yes, a fox demon. I see you’ve been eavesdropping on my conversations.”

Zero waited, making sure he had finished. “That’s because you’re loud.”

The man couldn’t deny. “I need to find this fox demon. Her names Sakura.”

“And you don’t want to kill her?” the boy asked, the concept still so strange.

“Oh no, my sweet summer child,” Ren chuckled. “There’s a lot I want to do to her, but killing is not one of them. Far from it. We were raised together. She’s my One. I love her.”

Zero waited.

He looked back at the water. “Love is… wanting to be with that person because it makes you happy, and you want to make them happy. It hurts you when they hurt. It makes your body feel... all sorts of different ways. They make you crazy. Like, really crazy. Like, smash your skull against the wall and finger paint with your brains because you’re so tired of her shit. But you’re a fucking moron and you chase her crazy ass all over Fonentine because you pissed her off and now you have to start all over again, but you gotta catch her first.” Ren glanced back up at Zero, blinking hard. “Ignore that last part. That’s just me. I’m the moron.”

Zero didn’t think that any of what the angel just said sounded appealing.

“I know,” he sighed, sensing the boy’s apprehension. “You’re still but a boy, so don’t worry about it. Your time will come. But for now, that’s who we’re after. We just gotta find someone whose seen her and that’ll get us on the trail to tracking her down. She’s a sneaky and stubborn one, always has been. She wants to be found, though, and sooner or later, we’ll find her.”

It didn’t seem like she wanted to be found. They hadn’t even heard so much as a rumor about a fox woman. “What are you going to do when you find her?”

“Probably get my ass beat. Then I’ll beg and plead and ultimately seduce her all over again. After that, I’ll drag her back home and she’ll birth all my babies.” The man nodded to himself, extremely pleased with his well thought out plan.

“You sound like an idiot,” Zero told him, a word he enjoyed saying to the man, as he watched the swirling of water at the angel’s knees.

“Yeah, well…” Ren’s hands quickly clamped together. He raised them with a giant smile, a fish flopping in his grasp. “Patience, my friend. Patience pays off.”