After having settled in their rooms, both Aura and Zephyr felt that it was too early to retire for the day. Their bodies ached for each other's touch as they did every other second of the waking hours; however, being in new territory–one not even Aura had visited before–they had work to do, the same as always.
Getting themselves a table at the inn's diner, they sat facing each other with a pitcher of beer in their hands. Sitting quietly for a while, they listened to a bard playing with a harp string in the far-off corner. With a sip of the crude beer that smelled and tasted too cheap for how fancy the place appeared, their heart sank with sombre nostalgia.
"We used to run from place to place, hiding our faces." Wearing a smile on her face, Aura turned her head back to her man in front. "'The Dastardly Devils,' what wordsmith even came up with that name? They could've just called us a couple of devils, but ohhh~ The theatrics~ GaHaha~"
Reaching across the table, Aura placed her hand on top of Zephyr's and laughed.
"Aura," though he placed his other hand on top of hers, his eyes squinted ever so lightly to remind her that she was still in disguise. "The past is the past; those years are behind us now."
"Mhmm," nodding her head as her smile eased, the succubus leaned back into her chair. "Sometimes I miss those days, but I know that it can't be as it was forever."
Noticing a waitress coming their way with a hefty-looking plate, the succubus leaned forward yet again. Furrowing her brows, she straightened her spine and stretched her neck to peek at what she'd brought.
"Braised pig's belly with honey and chilli, a speciality item." Placing the dish on the table, the well-mannered waitress folded her hands at her waist. "There was a reservation today that got cancelled. Consider yourself lucky, Miss Freya told me to hand the dish to you guys as you're new to our village."
Smiling at the two, the waitress bowed lightly and took her leave, but not without adding one last sentence.
"I'd kill for a free meal like that any day, but Miss Freya would kill me if we so much as looked at it the wrong way." Her words were inked with caution and detached from any gluttonous desires, making it much harder for the devils to read her and yet they figured out one thing from the way she talked.
"The business is struggling, it seems," Zephyr said, slowly turning his head back to Aura.
"Mhmn~ Y-yesh~" To his surprise, the succubus was already digging into the swine with half of her mouth already full as she spoke. "I-isz gowd though…"
Breaking into a smile again, Zephyr held the urge to laugh. But in his attempt, he was reminded that old habits die hard.
'Why am I…' What was he so afraid of? Why couldn't he let himself laugh? So what if people saw? So what if they noticed? He was no longer the boy that he once was.
And so, feeling a new sense of liberation washing over him like a steam cloud, he allowed himself to laugh, and although Aura was shocked by his voice sounding so happy, she too joined him not too long after.
"Hahaha! The food isn't going anywhere!"
"But what if it did?!" Faking a sudden, serious expression, Aura pointed a fork at her man. "Hmm? This hog ain't tied~"
To her horrendous joke, a dwarf and a couple of wood elves sitting next to the couple burst into laughter. They laughed like drunken idiots, slapping their knees and making their table wobble quite a bit. But as the dwarf's hand accidentally touched Aura's side, she turned her head towards him with her eyes glowing a raging blood red.
Covering the part of her body that the man had brushed against, she dug her fingers into it and was ready to tear it apart. However, noticing her anger in time, Zephyr reached into her mind and whispered.
'A man dies the day we visit this town. That won't look good, my beloved.' Closing her eyes to mask her frustration, Aura got off her chair and started walking towards the reception.
"I need to use the restroom…" She said while making her way there.
In the meantime, Zephyr noticed the other table looking at them with a look of concern. They were not blind; they knew that something about them laughing had upset the girl.
"Everything, oka–"
"FREYA!" Cutting off one of the elven girls, Charlotte came barging in through the front door. Her voice echoed throughout the inn, and as the silence lingered between the sound of her panting breaths, her head twisted and turned, trying to find her cousin-sister.
Two other girls came rushing behind her, and the moment they stepped in, Zephyr decided to check their stats and their pasts. In the blink of an eye, his invisible aura blanketed the girls, and by the time his eyes opened again, he knew everything about them, even the number of subtle moles on their bodies.
'Hmm, even the hair she has down there is a patchy dark and grey.' Looking at Charlotte, he was fascinated by her, and not only because of the obvious, but because of the fact that she was a whole five levels higher than everyone else. That and… 'Thirty-eight and still a virgin somehow.'
"WHAT ARE YOU SCREAMING FOR YOU WILD CAT!" Before the archfiend could judge her any further, Freya came rushing out of the kitchen with a spatula in her hand and a sharpened tongue for her demi-human sister.
"It's Rudy! We…" Watching her sister getting closer, Charlotte tried to reveal what had happened, but then she realized how exactly she had to phrase it. Even so, gathering her courage, she lifted her head and looked right into her sister's eyes. "He…he got left behind at the goblin cave."
"W-what…" Halting suddenly in her path, a nervous smile took over Freya's face. "You're joking, right? Where is he?"
Unable to accept that fact, she tried to peek behind her sister, assuming what she was spewing was nothing more than a bad joke on her part.
"Tell me you're joking…" But as her eyes returned to Charlotte, her heart began sinking like an anchor plunging into a deep, dark sea. Shaking her head violently to wash away the forming tears, she angrily flung the spatula at her demi-human sister. "Y-YOU HALF-BREED! YOU LEFT MY SON WITH THOSE MONSTERS?!"
As soon as the insults came in, everyone inside the hall gasped audibly. Some glared at the mother for having the audacity to fling that slur, and the others were simply keeping an eye on the situation so they could slip away from this awkward encounter, as the next logical step in this mess was the recruitment of adventurers to save the so-called hero blood.
Zephyr, on the other hand, ordered another beer.