A Lovely Friend
Warnings: Mentions of Abuse, angst
Shor Henswort. An average twenty-one-year-old college student. Well, a little more than average, but more on that later. She had always gotten good grades and been the star of her family and class. No one knew the troubles she faced as a result of who she was. She always had a bumpy relationship with her father. He always pressured to make the highest grades since she was in grade school. God forbid she ever make a B, that was a one-way ticket to a slap in the face. No one knew of Shor’s abuse.
Shor kept her mouth shut, being told that if she told anyone, anyone, that everything would be much worse. So, she went on with her life, trying to keep her nose out of other people’s lives in order not to overstep her boundaries. That didn’t work. She was naturally curious, never being able to keep to herself for long.
But then she met Chal. Chal was amazing to Shor. This is how she was different than most college girls. Because not every college girl has a friend demon. Not a friend that was mean, a literal demon. Shor remembers the first time they met:
Seven-year-old Shor had just run out of her house and through the woods to where the rocky coast to the Pacific Ocean lay. The beach had been her safe zone ever since she found it. Her father had just beaten on her back badly with the buckle of a belt.
Her steps faltered as she saw a man dressed in an almost black blue. He looked over at her, causing her to stumble back. He knelt, holding his hands up in a surrendering motion.
“I mean no harm to you. It’s okay for you to be curious, come here.” Shor hesitantly walked over to him.
As she got closer she observed his facial figures. From what she could see under his hood, he was of dark skin color, dreadlocks, and had bright red eyes. Shor figured she should be scared, but she could not resist herself from getting close to him. She wanted to know what it was about him. Her mother had told her repeatedly that her curiosity would be the death of her.
But she couldn’t help herself from getting closer to him as she took a few more steps.
“Tell me your name.”
“Shor.”
“Well, Shor, my name is Chal. It is lovely to meet you. Say, you aren’t bleeding, are you?”
“Of course not, sir.” Shor was nervous now. She could not tell anybody. Everything would get worse for her.
“You’re lying,” Chal stated bluntly. Shor squared her shoulders and glared at the man in front of her.
“What if I am?” Chal smiled lightly but his eyes showed his concern.
“It’s not very nice to lie. How would you feel if someone lied to you?”
“I wouldn’t like it.” She immediately answered.
“Then why lie?”
“It’s for a good reason. He’ll hurt me more.” Her hand flew to her mouth, her eyes widening. Chal gritted his teeth.
“Who is hurting you?” When she stayed silent Chal used some of his powers to influence her. “Who is hurting you?” His voice dropped several octaves, a result of using his demon abilities.
Shor visibly paled, natural human instinct kicking in. She knew to be afraid, yet she could not move. Not yet.
“my papa. He hates me, I think. He hits me all the time. He forbids me to tell others. He said it would get worse if I told anyone.”
Chal gave her a soothing smiled, relaxing his powers from her. She relaxed as he did so.
“Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone. I would give you my word but I doubt that means anything to you.”
“Why would it not?” She asked.
“Because I am a demon.” He dropped his hood fully revealing his bright red eyes and what she had previously thought to be a big hairstyle was actually two horns bent back.
“Should I fear you?”
“Are you afraid?”
“No.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“My father.” Chal sighed, his eyelids covering his red orbs.
“I will protect.”
That was the first time she saw him. The next was when he knocked her father unconscious for nearly hitting her with a crowbar. Chal continued to show up and protect her. But he was not always there. Including the most recent time.
Shor was in college. College was hard in and of itself. Add the stress from an abusive parent to make perfect grades and it was worse than hell. She went to her local tech college, as per her father’s threats. So she still lived with him, her mother died long ago.
She hated all science classes, having to put five times the amount of work into them just to get an A like her father wanted. She nearly killed herself with work in High School to get through Chemistry. And guess who had to take it again in college.
She dreaded having to go home. She failed her Chemistry paper. It was not a major grade thank god, but it wasn’t an A. Her father was going to kill her.
She did what she was best at: she ran.
She went to that beach. The beach where she always went when she needed comfort. It was especially nice since it was Wednesday and it was overcast the entire week, the place was void of any human life.
“Human life? Yes. All life? No.” Shor jumped as Chal said from behind her.
“You know I hate it when you do that.” She said and he laughed as he plopped down next to her on the rocks.
“What’s wrong, Dove?”
“Nothing.” Shor immediately replied, raising Chal’s red flags. He knew her. Hell, he had been her friend for nearly fifteen years.
“Don’t lie to me. I’ll just read your mind.” He threatened, but he knew she knew he wouldn’t do that. It was one thing to skim one’s current thoughts, a completely different thing to pick through one’s memories. He valued her privacy too much to do so.
“It’s nothing.” Her voice cracked despite her trying not to cry.
“ah, Dove, come here.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to his side. He wrapped his arms around her as she cried into his chest. He stroked her elbow length hair and spoke soothing words in her ear.
“It’s your father, isn’t it?” She cried harder and Chal gritted his teeth. He knew he should have killed him a long time of go. Once Shor calmed down enough he pulled away from her, keeping his hands on her shoulders. She kept her eyes on the rocks knowing that if she looked at him she would break down again.
“Let me kill him.” Shor’s gaze immediately snapped to his. He was looking at her with such sincerity she slightly cringed back. She often forgot he was a demon seeing as he was such a kind soul. But when her father was acting up, that is when she remembers his species.
“No.”
“What did he do this time? Let me see it, I’ll heal it.” She shook her head
“He hasn’t done anything yet. But I failed my chemistry paper. He’s going to kill me.”
“No, he won’t.” Chal abruptly stood, causing Shor to look up in confusion.
“Don’t go home today. Stay at a friend’s. Use it as a study session. Just don’t go home.”
“Chal-“
“Do as I say. Please.” Shor took a deep breath and went to say something else but he had disappeared.
“Chal?”
She didn’t like it, but she did as he said. She went to her friend, Lisa, showing her the paper. Lisa allowed for her to come in. They stayed up until well after midnight studying and crashed in the middle of their study session. That night she dreamt horrible images of her father’s mangled corpse.
She woke in a cold sweat to Lisa shaking her and telling her to get ready. Right as they were about to leave at ten, her phone rang.
“Is this Ms. Henswort?”
“Yes, who is this?”
“I am Deputy Herod, I am deeply sorry to inform you that your father was found murdered in his house last night.” She hung up the phone and turned to Lisa.
“My dad’s dead.” Lisa dropped her stuff and gathered Shor in her arms. Shor wasn’t paying it much mind though. Because even though her father was an abusive fuck, she was hurt that her best friend had murdered her own father.
“I need some air.” Lisa nodded. “I’ll be gone a while.” Then she left. She started out walking but ended up sprinting towards the rocky coast.
Chal was waiting for her.
“It wasn’t me.” Was the first thing he said.
“But you had something to do with it.” She stated. Chal sighed and nodded.
“Shor, he needed to die. He’ll rot in hell for eternity now. I’ve wanted to do that since I met you.”
“WHY DO YOU CARE? You’re a demon. You’re supposed to be the bad guy. Oh, wait, you are. Because you murdered someone.”
“I didn’t do it. I told someone who owed me a favor to do it.” Chal defended himself.
“Pah-lease. Like you didn’t help.”
“I didn’t. I wanted to. But I had to make sure you weren’t going to do anything stupid! And you know how I am. You know the title ‘demon’ doesn’t automatically make us the bad guys. If we listened to stories about humans, all humans would be evil. They're good demons and evil demons just like with Humans. You know this!” Chal yelled as he turned around.
Shor silently cursed herself. She knew that. She knew how he felt about the human stories of Demons and yet she used it against him.
“Chal… I didn’t mean it like that. But he was my father-” Chal immediately spun around.
“He abused you, Shor! Don’t you get it? He didn’t deserve to live.”
“You can’t decide that.”
“Actually, I can. That’s who I am. I am a demon, sure. But I can cast judgement occasionally. So I told my brother, an executioner, to kill him. So he did. Because I was raised a judge. To rid the earth of scum like your father. To raise his hand against his wife and daughter. Other women. No one like that deserves to live.”
“Chal-”
“Save your complaints.” He turned to leave.
“Chal!” She caught his arm causing him to turn to her. “If you would listen to me, I was going to say thank you.” When he didn’t say anything, she spoke again.
“I understand why you did. I wasn’t strong enough to tell anyone who would change it. So, thank you for taking the initiative. Granted, I don’t like your methods, but I do appreciate you. You are the best person I have ever had met. You’re my best friend. And my savior.” He suddenly pulled her into his arms causing a squeak to live Shor’s lips.
Chal laughed at that but turned serious quickly.
“You’re the purest being I have ever had the pleasure of knowing, Dove. I would do this all again for you for the rest of eternity if I had the opportunity. Don’t ever doubt my devotion to you.” Shor quickly nodded.
“Now, how about we go for a little stress relieve swim?”
PART 2?
