The Demon’s Bride

The White Mansion became busy in the early morning with maids cleaning the east side of the castle. While the rest of the maids gathered on the East side, Elise was the only one told to take care of the garden.

But before she leaves for the garden, Elise took care of the vases around the second floor. Bringing the crimson roses in her hands, Elise gathered the stem to bunch them together before placing it carefully in the vase. Once she had placed the roses on the vase just like the way she was told to, Elise looked out the window in front of her.

In her mind, she can't shake away the nightmare she had in the early morning. The dream was far too realistic and she can't help but think that the dream warned her about something. Elise agreed that Hallow's words were somewhere correct. Nightmare is a projection of her fear. It was one of her fear to see Ian showing her the expression he did like in her dream where he was upset with her presence.

Whenever Elise remembered the dream and the look on Ian's eyes, she can't help but feel a sting regardless of knowing that all of it was just but her dreams. Letting go of the flower, Elise then left to the garden without knowing what effect she did on the roses on the vase. The lively roses which had just been placed inside the vase were nowhere to be found with scattering ashes laying around the vase.

"The wind is cold," said Hallow who peeked his head out from Elise's pocket. He then suddenly felt the cold air on his nose and sneezes aloud. "This body is inconvenient. I can feel cold, hot, and sleepy."

"Grim reaper does not sleep?" questioned Elise. She picked up the broom and pulled the dried leaves together at one large pile.

"We don't. We can't even feel hungry like human much less tired," Hallow saw the acorns lying on the ground and want to take some to see how far the distance was and decide to laze on Elise's pocket instead of taking the acorn. "One reason why we can't fell asleep which I suspect is that we don't know when we would have to reap souls."

Noticing something from his words, she asks, "You suspect?" 

"Grim reapers are strange you know," Hallow decided to reply, seeing that there will be no problem as Elise was a girl who kept things such as this to herself unless it is necessary, "They are beings who were once a human but then died because they took their own lives. That was what we were told when we wake up by our senior grim reapers. We work mainly to reap lives and except for grim reapers, the normal reapers would not have names; there will only be numbers use to call them. The rest of the things I found regarding grim reapers are just out of my hobby of searching for knowledge. Most grim reapers don't even know what they are doing unlike me who is curious and kept searching for reasons why grim reapers do things."

"Don't you remember your life in the past as a human, Hallow?" Hallow had told her not to feel pity for his death which became his reason to turn into grim reapers but she can't help to feel sympathy for him who had taken his own life.

"No and I don't want to," Hallow who kept on staring at the acorn finally took a step put and tottered to take the acorn.

Elise thought that she should not ask more about his past as Hallow seemed uncomfortable with the topic. He didn't avoid the topic but she felt as if there was a wall to prevent her from continuing to ask him about his past.

She let Hallow play and kick the acorns he found and meanwhile cleaned the rest of the garden. As winter was near, she could tell this would be her last day cleaning the garden as the snow was about to come.

Elise turned to one tree, after seeing the branch that was broken she stepped away to see a body of a bird laying unconscious on the ground. Bending her knees, she picked the bird's body to her hands, to feel that the bird had died.

An unrest emotion settled on her chest when seeing the bird that died and Elise didn't know if it was because of the dream she had in the morning, to see the bird died, make her feel that the day which was about to come would not be a peaceful one.

"He must have died after wounding his wings while flying and fell from the sky," came the voice from behind Elise and she knew who it was. Ian smiled sweetly at her when their eyes met but the devilish look still covered his red eyes that were now looking at her after breaking gaze with the dead bird. "I saw you cleaning the garden from up above there," Ian pointed his hand on one of the windows in the castle.

Elise stared at the window and somewhere she found delight that like her, Ian had constantly watch what she had been doing through the window.

"What will you do with the bird?" Ian questioned her.

"I will be burying them. Not every animal in the wild could get a proper burial but for one's soul to rest, their body has to be buried under the soil," she replied. Most girls of her age would not know what to do when seeing a dead animal body and would be hesitant to touch a dead bird's body upon seeing it at first, but Elise was used to it. She had lived in a place near the forest where animals often died and most of the time, she would be the one to bury the body out of compassion.

"That sounds great, we have plenty of soil here, you can make use of it as Maroon did," replied Ian, and when seeing Elise, he added, "He often buried things here, like roots of plants and the rest," by the rest he meant was bodies of the people they wanted to discard that work well as a fertilizer for all plants in White Mansion grew abundantly.

Elise wondered what Ian meant by the rest. At times she could be slow but she had never missed details when a person speaks.

Her eyes then moved to the scattered leaves that had turned brown orange as they lose the green color. Apprehensively Elise looked at Ian's face as if to confirm something in her mind and Ian stared back at her with his brows lifted. He waited for her to speak, "Master Ian, could you bring the bird back to live...?" The question sounded impossible to Elise herself for anyone to bring what had died alive and Elise would not have said this if she had not seen what Ian did before. "Like the wilted roses, can't you bring the bird back alive?"

"Hm..." Ian sang his reply, droning in propose to hook Elise's interest. He stared at the bird which was brown in color with a round stomach and a stripped colored wings. "That is easy but once this bird came back alive, he would not be what he was before."

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