Demon Queen Wants to Paint

You have to be kidding me…

Rosa stared at the giant mountain of gifts with a mixture of awe and fear. Gunna and Faenor, who were together with her, had similar expressions on their faces. 

The grand birthday party was over, and all the received gifts and presents had been brought to an empty room near Alphegor's bedchambers. After passing a thorough inspection by the castle staff. Although only the most obvious dangerous gifts have been disposed of, there could still be some nasty surprises inside. 

"Do we have to look through all of them?" Faenor asked, pale as a sheet. 

"His Majesty said that we're to inspect every gift that Lady Morrigan wants to open," the nanny said, and both of them looked down at her. 

Excellent, then I can just leave. 

Rosa hummed and turned around to leave the room. Gunna instantly panicked and blocked her way.

"Lady Morrigan, how about we look at a few of the gifts? Surely, there should be something you like there?" the dwarf woman said with a smile, but her voice sounded a bit shaky.

Alphegor probably never expected me not to want to open my present. Gods, how annoying. I'll open a few just so Gunna and Faenor don't get into trouble.

With a sigh, Rosa waddled back into the room and inspected the giant pile. Normally, she'd be happy to receive gifts for her birthday, and on Earth she had treasured every gift that she had received even if she wasn't close with the gifter anymore. But with this many, they had completely lost their appeal. After all, she had no idea whom the gifts were from.

A gift wrapped in dark green wrapping paper and an aquamarine band around it caught Rosa's attention. She went closer to it, and saw that smile on Gunna's face grew larger.

"From Gunna?" Rosa asked and pointed at the gift.

"Yes, that one is from me. How did you know? Young Lady is indeed very smart," the nanny praised, and went to open the ribbon tied on the package. It wasn't really difficult to deduce that it was from her. After all, it was the only gift with a gentle color scheme. Well, this one and one other which Rosa assumed to be from Faenor.

Once the ribbon was undone, Gunna handed the present to Rosa, who swiftly tore the paper off. Inside was a long scarf in a beautiful verdant green color. The color looked so odd in this mostly dark place, but it was so refreshing and vibrant that Rosa instantly hugged the scarf close to her chest.

"Thank you, Gunna," Rosa said, doing her best not to sniffle. 

"Aww, it was just something I made in my spare time. I-I never expected you'd like it so much, L-Lady Morrigan," the nanny said and began crying. This broke Rosa, and she too began crying. Gunna then hurriedly picked her up, and both of them wailed for a moment.

"You two are being a bit dramatic," Faenor sighed but he did so after giving them a few minutes to calm down.

"You're just impatient because you want Lady Morrigan to open your present too," Gunna teased him as she wiped away the tears.

"N-no! I am perfectly capable of waiting!" the elf retorted and crossed his arms over his chest.

But you never denied that you wanted me to open the gift. 

Rosa waddled over to the other colorful gift which was in a pale lilac package with bright violet ribbon. 

Rosa tugged at the ribbon and it slipped off effortlessly as did the wrapping. Underneath was an unusual, somewhat shabby looking book.

"Faenor, what kind of a gift is that? Certainly you could have done better!" Gunna pressed her arms against her hips and looked at Faenor incredulously. 

"For your information, this book is extremely rare and extremely valuable. I've had quite a hard time finding it," Faenor replied with a puff. "It contains information about all of the known magical stones from other worlds."

Magical stones? Like the alexandrite gifted by Lucious. I wonder what exactly they could do.

Rosa reached her hand to touch the stone in the protection talisman Azrael gifted to her. She wondered if it was also magical in nature.

"We can look through it during our next story time," Faenor promised, and Rosa nodded enthusiastically. 

"Thank you!" Rosa held the book close, wondering what could be written inside it. 

"As long as you like it, Lady Morrigan," the nanny sighed and conceded. "Now which gift shall we open next?"

Oh, right… There were other gifts…

***

A few hours of intensive gift opening later… Rosa, Gunna and Faenor had barely made a dent in the giant mount of gifts. They had unpacked clothes both adult sized and child sized, a whole bunch of plushies that depicted one monster or another, shoes of every size and shape imaginable, books of all genres and fabrics of every color. There was even a live bird in one of the presents which had flown away as soon as the box was opened. Rosa was just grateful that the poor little creature had survived.

"Too many…" Rosa muttered, her little hands tired from unwrapping and ripping all of the paper and packaging. 

"We'll never get through all of those on our own…" Faenor agreed as he grimaced at the remaining amount of gifts with unhidden disgust.

"Yes, I thought that we could make decent progress today, but there's far too many gifts," the nanny agreed with a grim nod.

Why do I even need to open all of these gifts on my own? I know that they're meant for me, but it's not like the people, or demons, who gifted me these know me. They only gave me these for Alphegor's sake.

"No more presents," Rosa grumbled to her caretakers, and waddled towards the door. Gunna caught up to her, and picked her up.

"Yes, that's enough gifts for one day."

"What if somebody has put another live creature in their gift box," Faenor suddenly said with a pained expression. Rosa's heart clenched. It was so sad seeing the poor bird trapped in that box. She had wanted to feed it and give it something to drink, but the poor thing was so startled that it flew out of the windows before anybody could properly register what had happened.

"But we can't just sit here opening gifts all day. Lady Morrigan is already tired," Gunna objected but her eyes were downcast, showing that she didn't want to abandon whatever poor animal may or may not be trapped within the many boxes. Rosa thought for a second.

This is a magical world, isn't it? Surely there must be a spell or something to make this process quicker. Or perhaps a spell that could find whether there was a live creature inside. And if there was somebody who knew spells…

"Azrael," Rosa said, startling both of her caretakers out of their glum thoughts. Gunna's face seemed to lose all color while Faenor looked at Rosa quizzically. 

"Who is Azrael?" the elf asked but before his question had fully formed on his lips a dark shadow appeared before Rosa and out of it rose the aforementioned demon.

"You called, Princess?" he said with a pleasant smile, standing proud and tall above the dwarf woman, who was noticeably trembling. "My, my, I didn't know you had slaves for caretakers, Princess. I thought your father would surely provide you with someone better."

Rose glared at him, then pointed towards the remaining mountain of gifts.

"Help open," she kept her speech simplistic, and deliberately ignored the fact that he had appeared out of nowhere. 

You were expecting something sort of reaction out of me, weren't you? Sorry, I'm not giving you the satisfaction of that.

"No way! I'm a magic teacher and a guard, not a servant," Azrael rejected her request outright, a smug grin on his face. Gunna's lip quivered, and it appeared she wanted to say something but couldn't find the courage to do so.

"Open," Rosa persisted and pointed towards the gifts again. 

"Sorry, Princess. I am not obliged to comply with your requests," he teased, his grin wide. He was waiting for Rosa to start crying and throw a tantrum. If she was an actual baby, she would have no doubt done that. 

"I tell father," Rosa stated flatly and the temperature in the room got noticeably colder.

"Nice try, kid. But I won't be intimidated by a baby," Azrael sneered, but Rosa noticed that there was a bead of sweat forming on his forehead.

So despite his nonchalant attitude, he is afraid of the King. That will work in my favor.

"Lady Morrigan, perhaps we could just continue unpacking another day," Gunna finally cut in, finding the courage to speak. 

"Help or I call father," Rosa repeated and adopted the icy expression she'd seen the Demon King use.

"Alright, then, call your daddy!" Azrael waved his hand dismissively. He no doubt thought that the Demon King wouldn't just come at the beck and call of his one year old daughter. Honestly, Rosa didn't think he would come either, and hoped that Azrael would have been more cooperative.

Oh, well… It's worth a shot…

"Father!" she shouted in a voice that reverberated throughout the hallways of the castle. 

How did I do that? It seems similar to the way Alphegor speaks when addressing a large crowd.

Before she could ponder the question any further, another large, dark shadow appeared in front of her, and out from it rose the Demon King himself.

He really did come…

As Alphegor emerged from the shadow, he had the largest, goofiest grin on his face and he instantly bent down and grabbed Rosa into a bear hug.

"My darling daughter called me 'father' for the first time! I am overjoyed! What do you need, little one?" 

Silence stretched for an awkwardly long time as everyone stared at the Demon King in utter disbelief.

M-My darling?

"Your Majesty, are you quite alright?" Azrael broke the silence, smiling somewhat awkwardly as he slowly, step by step, neared the exit.

"Azrael no help," Rosa said before the demon could run away. Alphegor's expression instantly grew as cold as ice, and the temperature in the room dropped even further. Only this time Rosa was sure that it grew colder for real as she could see Azrael's breath in the air. Gunna and Faenor began shivering.

"Really now?" Alphegor said a sweet tone that didn't match his icy glare.

"I-I just said that I couldn't do it now since I have to…" Azrael trailed off as ice crystals began forming around feet. "What I mean to say i-is that I'll be glad to help!"

"Excellent!" The King smiled pleasantly, and the cold instantly disappeared from the room. "See that it's done as Morrigan demands. I'll be finding out all the details later."

"Of course, Your Majesty," Azrael said with a forced smile while shaking off the thick layer of frost that had formed on his feet.

Alphegor patted Rosa on her head once, then handed her to Gunna and disappeared back into the shadows.

"You little brat…" Azrael muttered quietly. Rosa decided to ignore the comment since she came out victorious this time.

I do feel a bit bad for forcing him to obey me, but it is for a good cause. We must find if there are any more animals trapped in those boxes.

"So, which one we're starting with?" Azrael grumbled and skulked over to the mountain, grabbing a random gift and throwing it up and down in the air.

"Find animal," Rosa commanded.

"Animal? Why would there be animals here?" Azrael scoffed, but Faenor stepped forward, gathering his courage to speak.

"We previously found a bird inside one of the presents. The Princess is afraid there might be more animals trapped inside."

Azrael regarded the elf like a mosquito that had dared to bite him, then looked at Rosa and sighed.

"I suppose it wouldn't be nice if they died and their corpses began stinking up the place," his purple eyes lit up and carefully looked over the pile of gifts. He then waved his hands and some of the presents began floating around the room and rearranging themselves. 

Wow, he can even make things float. That looks useful. I wonder if I could learn that.

After a minute or two of sorting, one smaller box floated to Azrael's hands.

"This is the only live creature I could find," he said in a cold voice, and then the box burst into flames.

"Wha-?" Rosa gasped in shock, the creature inside shrieking in pain as it burned alive in a matter of seconds.

"I'm sorry, Princess, but this is not a friendly creature. It is without a doubt that somebody sent this in an attempt to harm you."

"What creature was that?" Faenor dared to ask.

"A soul worm," Azrael said coldly, and then five more boxes floated out of the pile. Their wrappings burned away, revealing five creepy looking objects – a dagger emanating dark aura, a black rose, a bracelet made from teeth, a necklace with a tiny vial that seemed to contain blood and rattle made out of tiny bones.

What the hell is a soul worm? On second thought, I'd rather not know. And what's with all these objects? They look like something a witch would use to curse people.

"All of these are cursed. So I guess it's a good thing I caught them before the Princess unpacked them," Azrael scoffed, and set all of the objects on fire, burning them until nothing was left.

"W-What would have happened if Lady Morrigan had opened them?" Gunna asked with a trembling voice.

"Hard to say. Probably nothing too horrible since she is the Demon King's daughter. But it might have been… unpleasant."

Rosa shivered at the thought, and decided that she wasn't going to open any more of the birthday presents anytime soon.