Conclude

Dorothy's gaze was trained on the blazing hearth, but her mind was admittedly elsewhere in the world. Her wine colored nails tapped against a cherry printed mug, steam wafting from the tea inside of it. Every so often she would raise it up, not to sip from it for it was still too warm, but to inhale the fragrant aroma. Her feet slowly slid back and forth over the plush, blush pink rug that covered the built-in cream carpet flooring. She could hear a heavy storm push wave upon wave of rain onto her windows, but her curtains had been firmly closed since the last ridge of daylight had left the sky.

Curiously, despite her absent-minded respite from reality, she didn't so much as flinch when a very long and very mangled hand rested lightly upon her bare shoulder; tipped with nails filed down to a dagger's edge, raven black with sickly, needle thin purple lines running over it like the cracks in sun-baked earth, fingers crooked just enough so that only the tips rested upon her tank top.

"Hello, Rath." She greeted quietly, eyes finally moving from the crackling flames to the man easing himself down into the parallel armchair. The man freezes shortly, eyes flashing from neon yellow to scarlet red for just a brief moment before reverting back and he settles down. Dorothy's eyes scanned up and down the new body, from the almost too perfect dark waves to the boot clad feet, lingering on the now large and very human looking hands.

"Hello Doe." The human appearance was broken up by the eyes glowing like fireflies in his skull, and Vilrath, a demon of seven hundred years, took a minute to push his shoulders back and settle more comfortably into the chair. The two beings let the silence take over the room once more, one gazing back into the fire, while the other took stock of the room.

"I didn't take you for someone who accumulated mementos." Rath spoke up after finishing his perusal. "Did you make a lot of friends these last few years?"

Dorothy smiled, looking away from the fire and straight into Rath's unnatural eyes. "I guess so."

"You guess?" Rath parroted.

With a shrug, Dorothy replied, "I never intended to, and I let them know I wasn't looking for anything like that and yet . . . they stayed. So I got used to them, but I made sure to leave some clues behind so that they don't question my death for too long."

Rath smiled, something mean lingering at the corners of his mouth despite the overall expression being something rather fond. "You not only have friends, but people who would actually despair at your passing? Well, look at you, my dear! I suppose I'll have to keep things neat then."

Dorothy hums. "Were you planning on leaving my body a bloody mess here for someone to find?"

"It's usually something fun I do," Rath paused, looking up to the ceiling in thought. "Usually done after someone starts annoying me."

Dorothy chuckles quietly, bringing her mug up for a sip, before asking him, "Am I annoying you?"

"Not just yet." Rath assured her.

"Yet." With a snort, Dorothy places her slightly cooled mug down on her thigh, sighing at the pleasant circle of warmth on her skin. "Right . . . can I ask you something then? A favor."

When Rath waves his hand in a 'go ahead' motion, Dorothy meekly requests, "I'm ready to go. No fuss, no pleading or anything like that, so . . . Don't call any hellhounds to grab me, okay? I-I wrote a note, and . . . Don't leave behind a mess. I'm . . . I am happy to end our deal tonight."

Rath doesn't answer immediately, eyes appraising her from the tips of her heather gray toes to the highest, dark flyaway curl piled atop her head. He meets her steady, soft gaze and shrugs. "Sure. So you'll frame it as a suicide then- whatever works, right?"

Dorothy lets a wisp of air escape in the tiniest sigh, smiling at him in thanks as she nods to his question. "Then we can leave now if you want. I'm sure you've got a lot more to do here than just sit in some old chair with your debtor." She starts to rise up, moving to toss her tea into a nearby orchid pot when Rath makes a mocking, high-pitched humming noise with a grin.

"You're my last soul of the week so I think I can spare a bit of time to let you finish your tea. Go on!" He encourages her when she hesitates, looking at him strangely, before she slowly sinks back into her chair with the cup of tea. One leg rises up to curl underneath her lap, both hands coming up to clutch her tea to her lower belly.

"Would . . . you like a cup of tea?" The shyness in her voice makes the demon smiles wickedly.

"I've been waiting for an invitation all this time!" Rath chirps as he raises a cup of tea to his lips. Dorothy's eyes widen, because she hadn't even seen him pause before that cup had just appeared out of thin air. She watched his eyes close briefly as he took a deep whiff of the tea's fragrance before taking a long draught of it. "Oh this is a good flavor . . . I'm more partial to green tea but this is tasty too. Since when did you become a tea drinker Doe? The last time I saw you, you were very partial to Smirnoff vodka."

Dorothy blushed, and her smile carried a hint of shame, but she answered without hesitation and even some humor. "The last time you saw me, I was descending into addiction with whatever tylenol I could swipe from the nurse's office at school, and trying to fill all the holes with people who only created more. Smirnoff was all they could nab from the corner stores . . ."

Rath hummed low in his throat. The shadows that had previously danced by the whim of the fire became stiff, unyielding, and curiously so much darker than they had ever seemed. "You were a furious, lost little thing then. A hurricane still at sea. Eighteen, then, weren't you?" He paused to let the woman nod before continuing. "Pushing away your foster parents; they so badly wanted to love you, to be let in, but you were nearly vicious in shunning them. Remember how hard you tried to get your siblings to stay with you, to mistrust your foster parents? But your ferocity just fostered resentment amongst them . . ." Rath paused here, waggling his eyebrows at you with a silly grin. "See what I did there? Fostered."

Dorothy hid a roll of her eyes by raising the mug of her tea until it was in danger of spilling over onto her chin, working on relaxing the grip of her fingers around the mug. The shadows from the corners had grown, creeping over the floor until they were just under her chair. With a deep breath, Dorothy relented, "Yeah, it was clever. And I was a dumb kid."

"Did you ever speak . . . ?" Rath cut himself off when Dorothy looked away and shook her head. "Oh, well, can't blame them for wanting to keep skeletons in the closet eh?"

Dorothy paused, staring at him with glassy eyes before releasing a huff of breath that mixed with a rueful chuckle. "No I can't. They're all happy though, living good lives. I'm proud of them. They had every right to decide to cut me out because I fully realize how awful I was then."

"We love character growth." Rath snickered. The shadows that had sneakily crept over Dorothy's toes were retreating behind the chair. He eyed Dorothy's now slumped shoulders and small smile, clearing his throat as he tilted his mug around to swirl the liquid within. "Well Doe, are you proud of yourself? Did you do everything you wanted?"

For the first time that night, Dorothy's eyes started to get a little shiny as she nodded. "I did," her voice wobbles with tears. "I did so much more than I thought I was going to be able to . . . I wouldn't have any of this if it weren't for you, Vilrath."

Silence blanketed the two as they stared at one another. The flames dimmed until nothing was left but burning embers, the glow not enough to deter the shadows from swallowing everything from her toes up to the tops of her thighs. Half of Dorothy's body was too cold and her hearing became too sensitive to the sharp ticking of the pretty yellow and purple clock on the wall adjacent to the duo.

The hands stopped at exactly 3 o'clock. "You know my name." The demon whispered.

Dorothy nodded slowly, almost feeling like she had committed a faux paus. "It took some digging and more than a few strange looks from a pastor . . . but I did."

"What were you planning on using my name for? Leverage?" Rath pushed gently, yet with an edge of command.

"No, just curious. I didn't lie to you when I said I was ready." A beat. "I just wanted to say your name once. As if . . . As if we really knew each other." The raw honesty and quiet bashfulness that exuded from the woman was enough to prompt Rath to sit back in his seat again.

The next (the last) fifteen minutes were spent quietly finishing their tea. Once the mugs were finally placed down upon the coffee table, they were summarily vanished by Rath.

Well!" the demon's hands clapped together. "As promised, no hellhounds. No decapitation, evisceration, nada. You must simply," a large hand reached forward into the open space between them. The hand, once chestnut, began to show lines of vicious scarlet crawling up from the hell of the palm like spiderwebs. ". . . Take my hand, Dorothy."

Dorothy considers the hand, her own rising up as soon as they last syllable had dripped off his tongue. "What will happen when I go? Will I become a demon like you? Will you really eat my soul and I won't exist anymore?"

Her hand slipped into his and grasped firmly just as his own fingers curled around hers with gentle persuasion. His sphinx-like smile is accompanied by a murmur of, "You'll simply have to find out." He pulls her towards the fireplace.