The daemon scoffed, her stringy brown hair falling from the mass atop her head. Several layers of old hide covered her shoulders and her shoes looked as if they’d been passed down through generations. “What makes you think we’ve got any for you? You should run along back to where you came from. Maybe they’ll have more silk for you to play dress up in.”
“I beg your pardon?” Xia shrunk back and twisted her hands in the hem of the gown.
The daemon only shook her head and turned back to building a fire in the pit before her. An empty rusted pot and a large charred stick sat beside it.
She guessed it was for cooking or purifying water, so she took another shot at conversation. “Do you need water?” The woman looked back, and Xia couldn’t tell if it was incredulity on her face or anger. “I can wield water. It may make it easier to fill the pot rather than carrying it to the river and back.”
“Fuck. Off,” the woman spat. “We don’t need help from the likes of you.”
Tears stung her eyes, and just as Xia turned to run someone grabbed her hand. Relief flooded her system as she turned and expected to see Brooks, but froze when she saw an unfamiliar face.
“Thank you, Ariadne. I’ll take it from here,” the stranger soothed the hag. She turned to Xia. “Come with me and we will get you all fixed up.”
“We don’t have the resources to waste on her!” Ariadne called from behind, contempt lacing her scratchy voice.
“If I recall correctly, Ariadne, we didn’t have enough to waste on you either, but we made do,” she said as they walked away.
“It’s okay.” She offered Xia a placating smile.
The stranger was quite a bit shorter than Xia and more petite in build. Her nose came to a point and a small dusting of freckles dotted her pale cheeks beneath fuchsia irises. She wore a hood over her head but a single pink curl fell to the side.
What an odd color, Xia thought.
“We don’t have a lot, but I think I know someone about your size who may be convinced to give up at least a shirt to cover you.”
“Oh,” Xia said, still a bit dazed. “That would be lovely, thank you.” She tugged gently from the woman’s grip again and this time she let go.
“I’m sorry about Ariadne back there. She’s been through a pretty shit life and I think it wears on her.”
“It’s alright. I shouldn’t have scared her like that.”
The pink-haired daemon snorted a laugh. “You didn’t scare her. Though I’m surprised she didn’t scare you. That mess of hair is starting to look like a hydra’s nest.” She laughed again and Xia smiled tentatively.
“If you don’t mind my asking, what is this place?” Xia waved a hand around toward the houses.
“You can think of it as a refugee camp. Daemon come and go. Some stay forever while others only stay for a night. This is one of the few places where the tainted chaos can’t touch. They call it hallowed ground because, supposedly, this is a place of worship to some dead, long forgotten god. Unforgotten because he never deigned to care.”
Xia pondered the answer before asking, “Tainted chaos?”
The woman quirked a brow as she asked, “Have you been living under a rock?”
If she only knew.
“Something like that.”
“Well, after Zeus and the Olympians won Titanomachy there were a solid few years of peace. We rebuilt, and even started to flourish. Little did we know that a sleeping disease was waiting to take us out. And when it woke up?” She turned to look at Xia. “It woke up andraged.”
“How do you mean?”
“Crops wilted, plague spread, water sources were soured with poison… It all just, I don’t know. Fell apart. And it wasn’t like this giant explosion happened as we were left dealing with the fallout. It crept in over years and we never saw it coming, until it was all we could see.”
Xia's stomach dropped. Just how secluded had she been on her cursed island?
“Does everywhere look like this?”
“Ha!” the woman threw her head back with one loud laugh. “No. It’s sweet you would think that.”
Xia shook her head, totally missing the joke.
