The Emperor's Black Swan

Ep 5: Taming A Demon Dog (2)

Sania's POV

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I am the last of my tribe. A witch tribe with borne magic for darkness. People fear us because we walk among nights. They called us the Demon's Child tribe.

Along with our dark magic, Demon's Child tribe has dark eyes, pale skin, and even paler hair. Our hair resembles the color of snow.

However, I have grey eyes. And my hair, instead of white, is more like silver.

Some of the Demon's Child tribe members develop wings on their backs. The truth is, our ancestors are faeries. But because our wings are black and not white, we were hunted.

The Aluthians hunted us out of fear. They annihilated our village, saying if they didn't we would turn the world into darkness. They murdered each one of us until I was the only one left.

Aluthians made it impossible for us to live anywhere on the continent.

So, when Robb, the King of Tollyria offered me a hand to live with him. I accepted it without looking back. I was only ten, standing in the middle of bloodshed in my old village. Of course, I would take his hand.

The years following that were the best years of my life. It turned out that I wasn't the only one being adopted by Robb. He also adopted a shape-shifting red-haired girl named Scarlett and a girl from a warrior tribe named Nakia. We could never tell why Robb made us his princesses. Especially when he already had his own actual daughter, Lyria.

I was young. I thought I had found a home in Tollyria. I really wanted it to be my home. So I worked hard to protect it.

I promised Robb I would take care of his kingdom.

But five years prior, the hell gate suddenly opened right in the middle of Tollyria. To subdue the demons, Robb sealed Gavar, the Demon King, in his own body. Yet Robb was losing a mental battle, and Gavar slowly took control of his body. In just a year, Gavar has ruled as the King of Tollyria, using my adoptive father's body. Gavar's goal is to make the world succumb to the demons.

I knew that Robb had been infested, and that Robb was losing. That was why I sent Lyria out of the continent to get help. While I stayed. My plan was to keep the demons in Tollyria and ruin their plans from the inside as we wait for help.

The help never came.

My plan failed.

I failed.

And the entire world still doesn't know that there are actual demons in Tollyria because we kept it a secret.

It is too late now.

Because I have died.

I am actually glad I have passed. That I don't have to carry this burden to save the world any longer.

Now, the only problem I have is to deal with the demon dog in front of me. It lunges at me at high speed. And I hold my ground, locking my eyes to its wild eyes. It opens its mouth wide, ready to tear and snap my neck for instant death.

Gritting my teeth, I push out the pain on my back for a while. Putting myself in that focused state of mind, my arms move in perfect coordination with my legs. I twist my body and hit the wolf on the nose with the tree branch.

I hit it hard.

Wolves have a very keen sense of smell. Lots of animals do. They navigate their surroundings with smell and identify a lot of things through their noses. So, when I hit its nose, I disrupted its sense enough to make it stop and become confused. Without a good sense of smell, wolves feel lost.

The demon shakes its head, trying to subdue the pain in its nose. The pain helps in slowing the demon down. So I have time to create a distance from it.

I roll the branch in my palms. "Did I break your nose, little guy?"

It turns to face me again and growls. Apparently, it doesn't like to be called 'little guy'. Tch. Men, am I right? Always want to be called the 'big guy'. I roll my eyes as I turn and run at high speed. The wolf howls as if declaring its prey and lunges after me with an even greater speed.

Now I don't have sensitive hearing and high speed like elves do, but I am pretty sure that warrior woman is readying her crossbow again. I get a feeling that she is hesitating whether to shoot me or let the wolf eat me alive.

But come on! If you see a naked lady being chased by a wolf, choose to help her instead of killing her, okay? Or just stay out of her way. 

Luckily, I always make plans thinking that no one would help me. It's always been that way. Me and the burden that I do not share. But that was the past, and this is now. I need to be alive if I am to investigate why I am cursed in the pond of Aluthia Castle. 

My feet make crunching sounds when I run through the shrubs. I can see a few animals are peeking from their hiding spots, holding their breaths for me, while others are closing their eyes, not wanting to see the demise they have pictured for me. 

The demon wolf barks again. I can feel its hot breath on my back. It feels disgusting, especially when its saliva is slobbering everywhere and finds its way to my skin. Yuck. 

In front of me is an enormous oak tree. I know I am running out of space to run and logically I should have changed my course. "What are you doing?" cried out the warrior woman, "You're going to crash–"

Before she finishes her sentence, I have already stepped onto the tree trunk and haul myself up in the air. I backflip with the help of the tree and roll my body in the air. The demon looks up instinctively, its smile–which is obvious because it thought I would have nowhere to run anymore–dies down as it realizes it has not stopped moving.

In another fraction of a second, it crashes to the tree trunk, nose first. A second hit to its sensitive nose. The tree shakes tremendously as I land my body on top of the demon. I am much smaller than a demonic wolf, but with the crash momentum, my body weight can make the demon fall to the ground.

It whimpers, obviously in pain. I would whine too if I crash that hard.

The next thing I do is put my claws on its neck. Even though we cannot run as fast as elves or is as strong as elves, other than magic, our claws separate us from humans. Our claws can elongate, turning into razor-sharp talons. When my talons are out, I can grab a larger creature’s neck easier. For this demon, I have to use both hands. My nails cover its furry neck, ten digits digging slightly into its skin, drawing out blood. The wolf goes still under me.

Of course, if it yanks me with just a small force, it can throw my body far. But with my talons on its neck, I am telling the demon that I do not hesitate to dig my talons deeper if the demon tries to do anything.

Mother nature doesn’t always favor the strong. It favors the fastest creature. Fastest to act, fastest to react, fastest to think, fastest to take control of a situation.  

When the wolf growls, I hiss back at it, baring my teeth. No, I don’t have fangs. I am not a vampire and elf, remember? My teeth are normal human teeth. But the sound I make is loud and powerful enough that the demon wolf becomes still. Its wild eyes widened at me.

“You may be a demon, but you are still a wolf,” I say, digging my talons just a tiny bit deeper. The large wolf whimpers under me. “And in case you didn’t realize my presence before, I am not prey. I am an Alpha.”

The wolf scoffs. “Humans can’t be Alpha.”

“Oh, so the demon talks.” I dig my talons deeper when the demon is about to thrash itself to throw me down. See? Because I use my talons faster than his reaction, I am able to still control the situation.

Mother Nature always favors those who can play the prediction game.

“I am not human.” Gritting my teeth, I summon my shadows. The burn on my back comes instantly, but I hold on. I tell myself it is not as bad as a real-time fire hell when Gavar burned me and my troops using Rob’s body. The shadows weave a dark, colossal form behind me. And the demon widens its eyes when it sees what creature the shadows are making.

I can also hear the woman warrior gasps and I see some of the cursed animals hiding again from the corner of my eyes. This time, they are scared of me. Because I am the top predator now.

The wolf whimpers as my shadows get larger. What all of them don’t know is that I am holding the pain of being burned on my back. I realize that the stronger I use my power, the more my back burns. I can’t show weakness to the wolf. I need to ascertain my position as the Alpha.

Wolves have a pretty natural genetic makeup. They need to obey the Alpha. To obey the strongest and the leader.

“Th–that is just a creature you make up on your own,” the demon says. Its voice is dwindling.

“That is my magic manifestation,” I reply, “And in case you’re blind, it is a proof that I am much stronger than you, little pup.”

The demon wolf whimpers. It holds my gaze for a while, still trying to assert its dominance. But when it sees the creature made by shadows behind me, it finally settles down. The demon’s muscles relax and it elongates its neck, a sign of submission.

How cute.

“That’s a good pup,” I have to reward it with verbal praise. Without revealing it, I am actually relieved it submits to me quite easily. If it had tried to challenge myself again, I would have been in trouble because the burn in my back is no joke. I can hear the slight sizzling sound in my ears. Even the demon pup sniffs in the air.

“That’s the smell of my creature,” I tell it, “My creature loves to eat her food burnt.”

The wolf whimpers. I can feel it gulping through my talons. Slowly, I retract my talons.

As it has been a good dogie, I must reward it, right? I pat its head. “Good dog.” At first, the wolf is apprehensive, wary, because the creature is still staring directly at it behind me.

“C–can you put the dragon away now?” the warrior woman asks.

“Sure.” I am actually glad I can release my connection with the shadows. I take a deep breath, hoping my back skin will heal fast enough for me not to feel any more pain. All the while, I am hiding the pain with what I call a sinister-evil-smile. A smile that says I am the winner, no matter what, even though everything is hurting, even though I feel like a failure deep down. Sometimes it is wise to pretend to win. 

The wolf seems to relax under my touch when the creature dissipates, too. It rolls to its side, revealing its belly too. More sign of submission. But it is still on alert, still tense.

“You have tamed it,” the warrior woman whispers in disbelief. She walks closer to us. Even a few of the cursed animals start coming out from their hiding spots. A duck approaches me and I already forget which duck is it. It quacks at me.

I realize then that I can no longer hear the duck speaks in my original form, I can only hear the duck quacking. A lot. But previously, when I was in a swan form, I can still understand the woman warrior when she talked.

That is interesting. The cursed animals can understand humans but humans can't understand them.

“I dominate the wolf side,” I say, “But it is a demon too. I cannot stop its bloodlust.”

I look at the warrior woman sternly. She understands what I am asking without me having to ask her.

“Bifta,” she says.

“Sania,” I reply.

Bifta scoffs mockingly. “Everyone knows you.” She spits on the ground and returns a venomous gaze at me.

I expected that to happen. And just like always, I let it slide. It is no use to explain everything to her, anyway. “Do you have raw meat you can give to quench the demon’s hunger for today?”

Bifta thinks for a moment. I guess she remembered that I cannot get out of the pond garden earlier. So, thinking that I cannot go anywhere, especially because I am naked, she eventually says, “Wait here.”

The demon growls at her unexpectedly, which shocks Bifta. “Pleaase…,” she added, and I smile. I pat the wolf again.

“Such a good dog.” Wolves are very protective of their Alphas. No one and nothing can disrespect the Alpha. And it is always a wolf’s instinct to submit to one when a creature is proven to be stronger than itself.

Bifta turns and walks out of the pond garden. The animals still do not have the courage to come out. I feel like that’s not really my problem. I let them hide however they want. Except for the still quacking duck. That one duck seems very passionate about the story it is telling with the universal duck language. Unfortunately, I do not understand it in this form.

It is not my interest, anyway. Because I suddenly feel something bulge under my thigh. I feel the wolf tensing again. So I look down to check.

And for the first time in like forever–I cannot remember the last time I did it–I laugh when I realize what is poking my thigh. My laugh makes the wolf covers its eyes with its paws.

So that is why the wolf tensing again.

“I guess you’re not a ‘little guy’, huh?” I tease the wolf, “Is that you, demon?”

“Or the man inside?” I feel it bulging even more. Definitely not a little guy down there.

It is such a weird situation to be turned on that I cannot help laughing again. I didn’t even know I can still laugh like that.

The wolf whimpers under me. “At least you still have control of that area over the demon,” I say to the man inside with a huge rare smile painted on my face, “Better than nothing.”

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