Lil OC story that I spent too much time on. For Pearlescentmoon12335

 Um... angels and demons world... Sort of.

"Another goddamn day working for 'er." Thi grumbled to herself as she neared the royal chambers. "And she won't ever do anything for people like me. Not that we ever expected 'er to, mind you." As she drew nearer to the heavy door, she heard the echoes of a conversation, between the Queen and her adviser, Savannah.

"I thought you were their queen, why- why aren't you ever- sleeping? Or at least relaxing for five minutes."

"Because they don't see me as their queen, Savwav. They never will. So I might as well continue to work in the hope that they'll like me more."

"Perhaps they would like you more if they didn't keep their leaders as.... never mind." That was all of the conversation Thi heard as as soon as she tapped on the door with her wiry tail they went quiet.

"Your food, missus?"she spoke into the awkward silence with a sarcastic little bow, as was compulsory. Not the sarcastic bit. The bow bit.

"There." Savannah replied, gesturing vaguely to a wall. Thi knew what always happened next. She would put it on one of the shelves, get yelled at, put it on the other, get yelled at again, be told the Queen would rather something else for breakfast, and finally wait in the awkward hum of the kitchen for an hour being shot dirty glances by the head cook. As had happened yesterday. And would probably happen tomorrow.

Rather unsurprisingly, it did happen (again), and as she was leaving the kitchen for the second time she paused to glare at the portraits on the walls. She had personal favourites and hatreds, as did all, or at least most of the slaves that walked the long hallway up from the kitchen.

They were all painted brilliantly, of course, or they wouldn't be in the castle, but there was one that particularly stuck out to her as the best. It wasn't that she liked the person, or the setting, or how he looked- god forbid- but it was just so well painted. His painted eyes stared into your spirit, judging what he saw, and from the look on his painted face it wasn't good.

Gabriel. Old king of the Liminal, and the current Queen's grandfather. Famous for blatantly murdering Red in hundred-on-one combat. Guess who had one hundred soldiers and who was on their own.

(Hint- Gabriel had one hundred soldiers)

It was all very well and good, of course, but Red was kind of- maybe her grandad. She had never met him, and hadn't even known until she was first- hundred. Most daemons lived until fifth-hundred, the same as Angeles, like (Queen) Ashyln II or Gabriel. Now Thi was first- hundred- and- quarter, and probably going to stay there for the rest of her long life.

Not wanting to be too miserable on a Tuesday morning, she turned her thoughts back to the conversation before. It was, honestly, true. Since the majority of the population of The Liminal were daemons, they wanted a daemon ruler. Simple. Red was very popular with the older Daemons, but the younger ones knew they would have to deal with the aftermath. Thi wasn't even born then, and her dad was only half- quarter hundred. (a/n to work out age equivalents in human years, divide by five, so the father would have been 75 / 5, so his mentality and body would have been 15, and Thi is 125 / 5, so 25.) Red ended up (rather predictably) losing the fight, causing Angeles to declare themselves on top, disrupting the balance of the Liminal for the first time in generations.

Seventy percent of people (the daemons) wanted a Daemon leader. Twenty percent were half- decent Angeles, who thought that Gabriel had cheated slightly. (No $#!? Sherlock) Basically only ten percent of the population liked Ashlyn. She was a fair, just ruler when she was young, but now she was getting paranoid in her old age- she was almost halfway through her life. And because she was young so long ago, the eighty percent that hated her had forgotten she had ever been bearable.

Ashlyn had ordered the smallish horns of each and every Daemon in the palacehold to be cut off, which had... hurt, to say the least. Not because they used to be a literal part of her, but because in Daemonic culture the size of your horns represents your status. She should have had quite large horns compared to others, maybe ten or even fifteen centimetres long, as she was from one of oldest Daemon families. Some people only got five. Instead, she had none.

As she ended her tangent of thought, she saw she was (conveniently) at the Queen's chamber, but Savannah had left. Rapping at the door, using her tail as her arms were full, she heard a disgruntled, but still somehow very posh,"Enter." Easing the weighted door open with her leg, she shuffled inside trying to look as lowly as possible.

"Where do you wannit, missus?"

"Hmm.. do you know what, I'm not hungry."

Biting back the impulse to utter several Draconic swears under her breath, she turned around, bowing her head with a "Yes, missus."

"Don't call me that." came the reply, quick and sharp as a dagger.

" 'Scuse me, missus?"

"Don't call me 'missus.' You say it with an awfully Draconic accent."

"Well, maybe that's cos me 'ome language is Draconic." was the response she stopped herself from snapping back.

"Yes." was the response she actually said.

"Yes, your highness."

"Yes, your 'ighness." And with that she left the room, glad to be out of there. It was true, she had spoken Draconic only until she was first-hundred, learning a few phrases of Galactic but not much. It was unfamiliar on her (forked) tongue even now, and it was very true she had a noticeable Draconic lilt.

Zoning back into the world, she realised she had taken a wrong turn, and was staring at an old portrait of Queen Ashlyn at the other end of the palace. The queen was rather beautiful, she supposed, but in a cold and untouchable way, like the moon or the stars. In white ceremonial dress, and with pure white white wings fanned out around her, people would call her dazzling, celestial even. Tha thought the wings made her look rather like a chicken, but she would never say that out loud. Ashlyn's gold hair was pulled back into an elaborate bun. Daemons never had gold hair.

***********

Four more days of incidents like that happening hourly, and being shot progressively more dirty looks by the head chef, it was finally Sunday afternoon. And Sunday afternoons meant free time.

Almost oddly conveniently - she assumed Savannah had something to do with it- the royal prison's opening hours were on a Sunday afternoon. So, weekly, she would go and visit her family.

The only reason she wasn't currently in one of those cells was because she was only first- hundred when Ashlyn had tracked Red's bloodline for the "nation's safety" and so they had (cough cough) "taken pity" on her. Well, if you can call turning someone into a lifelong slave taking pity. As she smiled at the Daemon gatekeeper on her way out, Tha subconsciously plotted a route that she could take without having to go down any main roads. Both the palace and the jail were (unsurprisingly) in the city's largest and most elitist Angele community. To get through without being spotted was admittedly a bit of a challenge, but Tha managed it nonetheless.

Most weeks, anyway.

Today, worse luck, she was spotted by a group of three posh- looking Angeles, all maybe third- hundred. As she struggled to rush past she instinctively tucked her head down.

That was a rookie mistake.

When she lowered her head, they could see very clearly the place where her horns were meant to be, and only one group of Daemons that she knew of had no horns.

"Hey! Ap, look! She's hornless! There's only one group of hellspawn that's hornless." She ground her teeth at this. Hellspawn was a slur used against Daemons, and like any slur, highly offensive. She could be killed for saying less than that to them.

"Queen's slaves. Right , Om?"

"Yeah, and if she's a slave, she must be related to the devil known as Red."

"Red! Really?" The third Angele, not Ap or Om, seemed shocked and somewhat excited by this, and towered over her with a toothy leer. "How are you related so Satan himself?" Tha couldn't see a way out. She had tried the time- honoured tactic of pushing past with a muttered " 'Scuse me" but sadly it didn't seem to be working.

"E- 'e's me grandad." she managed to push out, wincing at the accent.

"Grandfather. Really? We've caught someone important. Did you know they'd pay for someone like you in certain places, very well."

Judging on how the conversation was going, she managed to jump into the road fo get past, nearly being run over but still escaping. A few minutes later, and luckily avoiding any more people who wanted to sell her on the black market, she got to the prison.

The Angele receptionist smiled a blindingly white smile, showing off perfectly straight teeth. "Thi!" She positively beamed in a sickly-sweet voice that made her want to gag. "How lovely! You know where to go." Tha did.

But she also didn't.

And that was the problem.

You see, Tha knew that her dad was in one of these cells. Everyone knew that.

But no one knew which one he was.

Tha spent hours every week wandering up and down the three corridors of the Prison. Trudging up and down the worn stone bricks, staring through the bars on each individual cell to see all too similar Daemons in their binds. Peering more and more desperately at the inmates, hoping, praying for a spark of recognition, or love, or even a faint smile. Trying to find the man she had admired since birth. She had given up trying to talk to them long ago, as everyone who had been there for a long time- aka the ones who were possibly her father- had gone silent long, long ago.

Hours and hours looking for something that never came.

Shoulders slumped, defeated yet again, Thi stepped out into the gloomy grey skies of The Liminal. Stepping towards slavery. Stepping towards a queen no one had ever wanted or would ever accept. Stepping towards a city that would never accept her. Stepping away from her lost father.

Day after day, week after week, year after year.

(Wc= 1750 words)