Categories > Anime/Manga > Demon Diary
Meruhesae
It was Lord Raenef who offered me my freedom.
I don't mean the current Lord Raenef, the fifth of that name, but rather the one who came before (and, most curiously, briefly after as well).
Seers are tools, you see. Do not mistake me, just because seers are tools does not make them weak, but it is a rare seer who can call her visions at her own will and not to the tune of the gods and whatever Demon Lord she calls Master. The power of a seer is such that a Demon Lord would do almost anything to possess it - their pride and endless court games that are games in name only demand it. Lose face in court and soon you have the fine lords and ladies circling you like jackals, and they higher up you are the more people who would find it a pleasure to climb your corpse to reach the heights. You do not get to be the first in existence by being nice.
By seer I do not mean someone who can fill a silver bowl with water and chant some doggerel over it and almost catch a glimpse of what they'll have tomorrow at breakfast, or the fools who walk out on midsummer's eve to try to catch a glimpse of their true love in the local millpond. I mean real seers, the kind that see the lines of fate as they are being woven. The oracles that break strong men and demons, and send kingdoms to war. Ones like me.
I was not surprised when Eclipse came to me, and not because I had seen him. It was only logical, and logic is as important a tool for a seer as the sight is, for if you do not understand the world, you will not understand what the sight tells you. I had heard the task placed upon the great Eclipse, and the seeming impossibility of it. To find a single child out of all the children of the world, knowing nothing but a name? It was not even certain that the child would go by that name. The ones born so all know their true names, but they do not always use them.
So Eclipse came to me because he knew something of the debt between his old Master and me. Not the whole of it, but a big enough part that he had reason to hope that I would look on his request with favor. It is not a small thing to have the great Eclipse in your debt, even if the debt itself is small.
I looked, and I saw something I had not expected. It was a tangling of fate, a possibility for change, for Eclipse to change the shape of his self and for both to change the shape of the world. Perhaps. If both survived, a thing by no means assured. And Eclipse had not been handed as impossible a task as we had both thought at first, for if Eclipse went looking, he was sure to find the child. Fate would see to it, and she is not a lady that oft lends herself to such intimate certainties.
I am sure that Eclipse was not pleased with the answer I gave him, but he should have expected it. I gave him enough to start, enough that he could occupy himself in his search and not bother me further, but not so much that he would feel eager to seek my aid again soon. I am no ones dog to be called to heel or hunt at whim, for which I owe Raenef, fourth of that name. In a way I am not sorry he is dead, because he is no longer in a position to call in the debt that is owed.
What was my debt, you ask? Why, only that he taught me how to be the wielder and not the tool. Only that he granted me a part of his own lands on which to live when I came into my full power. Lands held in my name that no one might force them from my hands. His friendship, as much as he was capable of such, he gave me, and for that I guarded his back as a near equal. He taught me to steal my freedom from those who would cage me, and not look back.
It was Lord Raenef who offered me my freedom.
I don't mean the current Lord Raenef, the fifth of that name, but rather the one who came before (and, most curiously, briefly after as well).
Seers are tools, you see. Do not mistake me, just because seers are tools does not make them weak, but it is a rare seer who can call her visions at her own will and not to the tune of the gods and whatever Demon Lord she calls Master. The power of a seer is such that a Demon Lord would do almost anything to possess it - their pride and endless court games that are games in name only demand it. Lose face in court and soon you have the fine lords and ladies circling you like jackals, and they higher up you are the more people who would find it a pleasure to climb your corpse to reach the heights. You do not get to be the first in existence by being nice.
By seer I do not mean someone who can fill a silver bowl with water and chant some doggerel over it and almost catch a glimpse of what they'll have tomorrow at breakfast, or the fools who walk out on midsummer's eve to try to catch a glimpse of their true love in the local millpond. I mean real seers, the kind that see the lines of fate as they are being woven. The oracles that break strong men and demons, and send kingdoms to war. Ones like me.
I was not surprised when Eclipse came to me, and not because I had seen him. It was only logical, and logic is as important a tool for a seer as the sight is, for if you do not understand the world, you will not understand what the sight tells you. I had heard the task placed upon the great Eclipse, and the seeming impossibility of it. To find a single child out of all the children of the world, knowing nothing but a name? It was not even certain that the child would go by that name. The ones born so all know their true names, but they do not always use them.
So Eclipse came to me because he knew something of the debt between his old Master and me. Not the whole of it, but a big enough part that he had reason to hope that I would look on his request with favor. It is not a small thing to have the great Eclipse in your debt, even if the debt itself is small.
I looked, and I saw something I had not expected. It was a tangling of fate, a possibility for change, for Eclipse to change the shape of his self and for both to change the shape of the world. Perhaps. If both survived, a thing by no means assured. And Eclipse had not been handed as impossible a task as we had both thought at first, for if Eclipse went looking, he was sure to find the child. Fate would see to it, and she is not a lady that oft lends herself to such intimate certainties.
I am sure that Eclipse was not pleased with the answer I gave him, but he should have expected it. I gave him enough to start, enough that he could occupy himself in his search and not bother me further, but not so much that he would feel eager to seek my aid again soon. I am no ones dog to be called to heel or hunt at whim, for which I owe Raenef, fourth of that name. In a way I am not sorry he is dead, because he is no longer in a position to call in the debt that is owed.
What was my debt, you ask? Why, only that he taught me how to be the wielder and not the tool. Only that he granted me a part of his own lands on which to live when I came into my full power. Lands held in my name that no one might force them from my hands. His friendship, as much as he was capable of such, he gave me, and for that I guarded his back as a near equal. He taught me to steal my freedom from those who would cage me, and not look back.
Sign up to rate and review this story