Mimi's Demons

Chapter 10: What are Friends?

Honrye didn't talk much. He, for he gave off the distinct feel of 'boy' to her, seemed to like listening.

But occasionally, he'd asked clumsily worded questions, like what exactly friends did.

"They spend time together," said Mimi hesitantly, having never thought about it before. "They do stuff they enjoy together. Lots of together stuff. Talking and playing, you know?"

The slow blink of his green eyes meant, no, he didn't know.

"Well, they also try to make each other happy. You want your friend to be happy. You look out for them and keep them safe—oh! Like when you gave me back my lion? That was you being my friend."

The demon gave a short, purring chirp of pleasure. "Did demon bad with lion, but friend good. You like lion."

"I do."

The demon hesitated. "Meant to scare."

"Yeah, I figured. I'm sure it would have scared anyone else, I'm just weird."

A quick blink of the eyes. "Yes. Weird."

She smiled. "Thanks for being honest. A good friend is honest."

That seemed to make him a little uncomfortable, and he later explained to her that demons were masters of lies. They whispered lies into the ears of humans, as well as the temptation to use those lies. Though unseen, humans could hear a demons voice and did so all the time. But, for some reason, Honrye found he simply could not lie to Mimi, and he told her so.

"It's the blood," he said. "It confines us. Conscripts. Lures. Entices. In Mimi's eyes, in Mimi's smell, in Mimi's look."

That would explain why demons usually tried to avoid being looked at by her. It wasn't that they were shy. It was that, when she looked at them, they could feel themselves being compelled, and Honrye made it very clear that demons, above all else, hated being told by anything to do something. They were the epitome of doing the opposite of whatever their told just so they could. On the other hand, they loved, above all, usurping the agency of others, demons or humans.

"I should hate you," said Honrye in a somewhat awed voice. "Am I just bad bad demon?"

"Maybe," said Mimi. "Thanks for not hating me. I don't hate you."

The green eyes shivered. "Weird Mimi."

"Yeah. I think we've established that."

"But demons also love you," he said. "Love smell. Love blood. Hate and love."

"Sounds complicated."

The eyes nodded in agreement.

"Being demon complicated. Work of hypocrisy."

"Yeah, hating being controlled but loves controlling others. Do you hate being lied to even if you guys love eating up lies?" Lies sounded like fine music to demons.

Honrye had to think about that for a moment.

"Yes," he finally said. "I'd hate it if Mimi lied to me. Might scratch."

"Can you scratch me?"

"No. No body."

"But a demon touched my leg the other day. I'd scraped my knee. It licked up the blood."

She could see the frown in the corner of the green eyes.

"Something with blood, perhaps?" he hissed. "Curious, curious. Sometime, demon can touch one thing in world."

Mimi perked up. "Like how you can pick up my stuff animals?"

There was a pause before he responded, very quietly, "I like soft things."

"Does you liking it make it so you can touch it?"

"Not know. Sometime can. Sometime can't. Can touch Mimi's soft things. Why Honrye gave lion, Honrye liked touch. Weak demon. To like soft things."

"So what decides if a demon can touch things?"

"I know with Mimi blood, demon can touch anything, for time. But not know why...rare, demon touch sometime...sometime sometime." He sounded sad as he said it and trailed off into quieter and quieter mutters of "Sometime. Sometime."

"It's okay that you don't know. Thanks for telling me what you do."

At first, Mimi's mother, light sleeper she was, would come in to tell Mimi to be quiet on threat of punishment. She just figured Mimi was talking to herself and never questioned it, which Honrye found amusing for some reason. So Mimi learned how to be a very good whisperer, though Honrye never had to whisper. His voice was naturally soft, like the slide of a velvet ribbon being pulled between two fingers. She loved his voice. It filled the emptiness in her chest and lulled her to sleep every night. When she told him so, he'd bounced about beneath the bed in alarm, so much so that she managed to get a flash of a long black tail tipped with a little paddle. He probably hadn't been complimented in his life, to which he verified through intermittent purrs. He seemed to be rocking back between unbelievably flattered and terrified.

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When I was a kid, I always tried to recreate the walking slinky trick they showed slinkies doing on commercials going down stair steps. Every time it only ended up tangling my slinky (which all us slinky owners know means a dead slinky). Like, what the heck slinky makers! That aside, the story doing good so far? What ya think? And thank you to all y'all who have already commented. It fills me with many much happy flutterings.