Chapter 7: Daily Life With a Demon Prince

The sun rose above the horizon in the gentle comforting warmth of the morning. The birds perched on the tree branches sang songs of the day's glory while wild butterflies flutter playfully in the garden where myriads of flowers unfold their gorgeous petals to showcase to the world. Ruby's eyes slowly opened due to the sunlight passing through her window, rousing her from another wonderful dream with the prince whose face she can't remember.

The witch sat up from her bed and checked the time from her bedside clock and saw that it was only 6:10 in the morning, still too early for her usual morning activities so she sank back down into the comforts of her soft mattress. Her mind slowly wandered to the things that she wanted to do for the day and how to complete her chores faster.

The gentle cold of the atmosphere lulled her to slowly doze back to slumber until an arm wrapped around her waist making her eyes instantly open. She bolted upwards and pulled the wolf fur off of her body to see who was with her and saw the demon sleeping soundly by her side, casually hugging her waist.

"Aleister, wake up! What the hell are you doing in my bed?! Are you trying to rape me or something?!" Ruby shook him by his shoulder trying to rouse him.

"Shut up, little witch, it's still too early. It's so hot in my room while yours has air conditioning." the demon replied groggily.

"Let's just sleep some more. You're quite soft and so fun to hug like a teddy bear. Do you know that you cuddled closer to me at four in the morning? However, your face was so annoying when you started mumbling about this Phoebus dude and horse rides..." Aleister trailed off burying his face closer to her waist.

"Oh no, you don't! You're gonna fetch water from the well while I prepare breakfast. Come on up!" Ruby pulled the comforter from the demon and placed it on a random chair. She grabbed him by his ankle and proceeded to pull him out of bed but the demon only stayed asleep while hugging her ice bear.

It has been two weeks since Aleister crashed into her place and her life couldn't be messier with his presence, literally. He doesn't clean after himself, he doesn't help with the household chores, he sometimes scares her customers inconveniencing her with more memory erasure spells to keep her business going and he only knows how to eat, sleep, slack around, and repeat. Ruby felt like she had another pet cat with Aleister's attitude and antics but this one is definitely not cute and not stress relieving like a real feline. He also eats voraciously putting a big hole into her wallet and never even doing the dishes once.

Her research on how to break their bindings continued but none of the books she's read so far bore relevant information regarding the subject but she still has her hopes up. Her determination is relentless and her greatest motivation to succeed in her research is Aleister's awful personality. He's too narcissistic, egotistic, and rude that she wanted to kill him the minute that she sees his face, which is quite a lot since they live in a relatively small house.

Oh, and he also started wearing her clothes. Of course not the tight dresses, which would have been very funny, but he chose to steal her loose neutral colored shirts and oversized dress shirts she used for sleeping as well as her sweat pants and her other pants that seem to fit him. The last draw was when he wore her purple Gothic dress as a joke and broke the back part. Ruby was so furious that she made him kneel over frozen peas with ten cement blocks weighing 50 kilos stacked over his lap under the burning sun at 50 degrees Celsius for five hours.

After that incident, Aleister started chopping the firewood and somewhat cleaning his room in his own version of clean. Ruby, feeling a bit generous slash somewhat guilty, invited him on a small trip downtown to shop for his own clothes which Aleister didn't refuse.

"I may want to go to town but the two of us together will attract a lot of attention. You're a witch and I'm a demon. A mob will be waiting for us before we even set foot inside the town." Aleister said, buttoning up his red flannel shirt which he matched with navy blue denim jeans.

"We won't stand out if we pretend to be just like them. I know a glamor spell that would conceal your demonic appearance just wait here." the witch left in a hurry and fumbled with a near shelf knocking some of the potions to the ground and evaporating the floor or turning into a weird depressed suicidal yellow rabbit with a beak.

"Found it!" Ruby presented him with a really tiny crystal-shaped vial about the size of her thumb with a glowing pink liquid inside.

"Do I drink this or do I just stare at it until something happens?" Aleister asked, monotonously holding up the vial between his fingers.

"Actually that goes inside your butt. Of course you drink it!"

"Snob." Aleister removed the cap of the vial and brought it up to his lips.

"What the hell?! That tastes so vile!" exclaimed the demon holding on to his throat making gagging sounds.

"Just hold on a minute. It should work right about... Now."

The demon's appearance slowly morphed into that of a normal human's. His horns slowly shrunk and vanished, his tail disappeared which alarmed him quite a bit since it's his favorite appendage. His lavender skin tone turned pale only a shade darker than Ruby's pinkish pale skin while his hair gained color. His alabaster tresses turned brown and his black scleras turned white while his oddly asymmetrical irises balanced into a glowing scarlet.

"Hmm, tolerable." Ruby commented scrutinizing his new appearance circling him like a falcon.

"Meew meew mew mew." added Manticat who had just finished doing his bow tie. How he did it with no fingers is more of a mystery than why he hasn't broken his neck with such a big head on a small body.

"What do you mean tolerable? I always look good, little witch. My mere look can make your panties fall on the ground, reeewr."

"I tremble with fear." Ruby retorted sarcastically.

"Let's go already. I want to see the town."

Aleister grabbed her wrist and dragged her out of the house. He unfolded his wings and suddenly carried her in his arms before taking off without as much as a warning making the girl scream at the top of her lungs. Manticat somehow caught up to him even with his small wings, gliding casually in the air and giving Ruby a look that says "non-fliers sucks". The witch held on the demon's neck tightly, nearly straggling him and shut her eyes closed while screaming at the top of her lungs.

"I don't know what you're screaming about but the view is so great, little witch. Open up your eyes and see it for yourself." Aleister spoke encouragingly.

Ruby can already see the smirk on his stupid face by the tone of his voice. Nonetheless, she slowly opened her eyes and gazed at the clouds rapidly passing around her as if they were in a hurry though they were the ones moving. She stretched out her hand and grabbed a puff of cloud slowly squishing it between her fingers, testing if it was really as soft as they say. It was quite disappointing when it melted into moist in her palm. Her huge smile turned into a disappointed frown. She turned her attention to the demon when she heard him chuckling in amusement.

"And what is it that you find funny my dear demon?" she said snobbishly.

"Nothing. Your face was just stupid." Aleister teased directing her with a Cheshire grin.

"I'm planning on punching you but I don't want my body dismangled on an apple tree so you're just getting a later use punch coupon."

"I tremble with fear" Dyrroth quoted chuckling.

Ruby ignored the demon and wandered her eyes to the beauty passing all around her. The trees below them looked like an ocean of greenery and the mountains at the distance appear mystifying, standing tall for hundreds of years like proud wizards of old. Her eyes were filled with joy at seeing the great scenery, amazed by everything that she sees. Staring into the world with a different perspective makes it feel like you're in a different world. Everything is zooming around them like everything's in a rush but when she looks back everything stays right where they are. They may look different but they are still the same, never changing, and never leaving like the mountains standing over the horizon, or the trees rustling below them, or the sky with its passing clouds or the sun with its ever-burning fire. Everything stays exactly where they are. Just like her.

Ruby saw a flock of birds, hawks to be precise, gliding over the horizon, flying on top of everything that the light touches. Free as the wind and unbound to any land. Roaming every corner of the world that their precious feathers can take them. What an envious privilege, to have wings and to be able to use them to go where you want, to be where you want, and when you want to be there.

"You okay? I can pull up for a while if you want to puke or something? Pee maybe, cuz you didn't pee back at home?" Aleister suddenly said, interrupting her thoughts.

"Meow meow." her familiar added.

"No, I'm fine. I'm good and my bladder is in perfect condition, Manticat. Just don't let me fall." Ruby mumbled the last part before looking back into the scenery.

"I won't." he whispered but the maiden didn't hear.

They soon reached the village at the span of 10 minutes and Aleister landed a few meters outside of the forest to avoid eyewitnesses of their odd pair. He carefully placed the witch down and tucked his wings before following after her into the town.

"Here, this is yours now. Buy as many clothes and shoes you can but don't get into shady deals." Ruby advised handing him a pouch filled with gold.

"Meeew mew mew meeeoow." Manticat said insecure of the gold Ruby gave to the demon.

"Here you little greedy cat. And he's not my favorite familiar, I don't have favoritism." Ruby handed him a small drawstring sack that the familiar placed inside his pocket. He placed it on his waist and it disappeared without even a bulge. How come he has pockets when he doesn't wear clothes at all is a mystery even to Ruby.

"You're so loaded, it's so suspicious how you get this much money from your shady portions." Aleister wondered.

"Well, I conjure demons and sell them in the black market where they get raped and butchered. That's the reason why I'm dressing you up and fattening you with my waffles." Ruby joked with a straight face. The demon only chuckled before placing his hand around her shoulder.

"So where do we go first?" he asked.

"I was thinking about checking Hydrogen Alpha first because they have decent men's wear but we can go around to see if you like somewhere else."

"Let's just check your suggestion first."

"Okay." And so they went on a shopping spree.