Demon Queen Wants to Paint

Wet and soaking, Morrigan, Alphegor and Azrael stumbled into her small studio apartment, dripping water onto the parquet floor. Small puddles formed underneath them, making the floor slippery.

"I am not a fan of this Overworld weather," Azrael took off his jacket and squeezed the water out of it right onto the floor.

"Hey! Go do that in the sink," Morrigan grumbled as she hurried to the bathroom to find some towels and a rag. There were some neatly stacked on the washing machine, she must have forgotten to put them in place after washing. She grabbed them and hurried out to the hallway.

Much to her surprise, Alphegor stood completely dry despite being soaked just a few moments before.

"I assume you don't need this," she chuckled awkwardly and handed the towel to Azrael who began wiping off the excess water. Morrigan threw the rag onto the water puddle, allowing the cloth to soak up the moisture.

"Let me help you," the King smiled and knelt down beside Morrigan, hovering his hand above the wet rag. Within a few moments, it became dry along with the floor around it. Then Alphegor put his hand on her head. A pleasant warmth spread from it down her body and she felt the cold and wetness dry out and disappear. Half a minute later, she was completely dry.

"Thank you, Father," Morrigan chimed, and Alphegor scooped her up in his arms, carrying her into the apartment.

"Hey! What about me?" Azrael called from behind.

"If I recall, Eirwen offered to teach you how to properly apply fire spells to smaller outputs for drying and similar tasks. But you just wanted more power," the King retorted.

"Fine, but I am not staying in these wet clothes," The demon began taking off his clothes. As he removed his shirt, Morrigan saw the round mark on his chest – the oath he had sworn to her. However, when he began to take off his pants, she quickly hid her face in Alphegor's chest.

"Do you have no manners, Azrael? You are in the presence of a princess!" Alphegor growled and put his hand over Morrigan's eyes.

Thank you! I have no desire to see Azrael naked.

"Where am I supposed to go? This place is so small!" Azrael complained, and the King glared at him. The white-haired demon shrunk back a little and went to the bathroom where he proceeded to undress.

"Princess, do you have any clothes I could wear?"

"Oh, for the love of all that is dark," the King groaned and sat down on one of the chairs, carefully placing Morrigan in his lap.

"No. I don't wear men's clothes," Morrigan called back, but an idea popped into her mind. She slid out of her father's lap, who observed her curiously. She winked at him and began rummaging through the closet. "Wait, actually I might have something suitable for you."

"Really? Bring it over," Azrael yelled from the bathroom, and Morrigan snickered as she pulled out one of her long summer dresses. The fabric was stretchy and light, so it should fit even somebody with a larger build than hers. Seeing what the girl had in mind, the King smiled and put one of his legs over the other, watching the scene with amusement.

She went to the bathroom entrance and stuck her hand with the dress draped on it inside while making sure not to look. Azrael took it, no doubt not understanding the foreign fabric at first, but after a moment Morrigan heard him gasp.

"This is a dress!" he spat in outrage. Morrigan and Alphegor both laughed.

"Well, you asked for clothes. This is the only thing I can offer."

"Nuh-uh! I am not putting this on. I'll just walk around naked," The bathroom door opened, and Morrigan hurried to cover her eyes. But before Azrael could properly exit, Alphegor lunged forward pushing the young demon back into the bathroom.

"You will wear this or you will sit out on the street naked," the King snarled.

"Yes, Your Majesty," Azrael squeaked, and Alphegor retreated from the bathroom. Morrigan almost felt bad for him as she could hear him whimpering in the bathroom. Almost. 

After a few minutes, the bathroom door opened again, and Azrael came out wearing a flowery white dress that seemed to stretch to its absolute limits. Morrigan stifled a laugh, while Alphegor didn't bother to hide his sneer. For the first time, she saw something akin to a blush spread on his face. 

"It suits you," the King teased, and Morrigan lost her composure, letting out a hearty laugh. Azrael glared at her at first, but as she continued laughing, his expression softened and he chuckled.

"What doesn't suit me?" Azrael moved his hips like Morrigan had seen concubines do so many times when trying to catch Alphegor's attention, and she laughed even harder. In fact, her cheeks and stomach began hurting from all the laughter.

"Enough, enough," Morrigan held her stomach in laughter, trying to regain her composure.

"Your Majesty, look at my giant breasts!" Azrael's voice turned eerily feminine, no doubt a work of some magic, and Morrigan snorted, completely unable to control herself. Seeing her laugh, Alphegor and Azrael laughed too. They enjoyed the light atmosphere for a moment, and then Morrigan began to think.

"Once we go back to Doppelta, I'll have to properly learn to become a worthy Crown Princess," she said, thinking about all of her sisters who would no doubt give anything to take her place and their mothers who did everything in their power to catch Alphegor's attention.

"Yes, that is inevitable," Alphegor said solemnly.

"What if… " she began, looked at her father nervously, then continued with her gaze glued to the floor. "What if I don't want to be the Crown Princess?"

Azrael roared with laughter, the fabric of the white dress barely holding together under the strain. After a moment, he calmed down and said, "Why would you not want to be a queen? You get to rule over everybody and do whatever you want!"

"No, you have a responsibility over people, to take care of them and solve issues that could threaten their lives," Morrigan objected, but Azrael waved his hand dismissively.

"That's why you have the ministers who does all that stuff for you. You just tell them what you want to do and voila! It gets done," Azrael sat down on the bed, and crossed one of his legs over the other, revealing more skin than Morrigan had wanted to see. Alphegor and Morrigan sighed in unison and shook their heads.

"Father, are you sure he is over two hundred years old? Many humans my age understand that things are not so simple," she asked the King.

"I'm afraid Azrael has stopped aging past the age of 20," Alphegor replied, then turned his attention to Morrigan. "I understand your concerns, Morrigan. It is no simple matter I am asking of you. However, with magic as strong as yours there is nobody better suited to rule."

"But I–" she began, ready to reject the idea, but Alphegor raised his hand to silence her.

"Before you deny this role completely, give it some time. It is not something you have to learn today or tomorrow. You'll have hundreds of years to understand it," he explained. Morrigan nodded.

If there is no rush, then I suppose it won't hurt for me to at least try. Perhaps I'll come to like ruling in time. Although I doubt it…

"I'll give it a try, Father," she said.

"Good girl," Alphegor smiled and ruffled her hair gently.

"Hey, if she doesn't want to rule, could I maybe get a shot?" Azrael perked up, looking hopefully at Alphegor.

"I'd sooner let the Underworld freeze over!"

***

Morrigan stared at her bed, looking at it from one side to the next, assessing it from every possible angle. It was just a regular single bed. Bed meant for one person. A sleeping place that was made to accommodate the body of a single individual.

Then Morrigan looked at Alphegor and Azrael who were sitting at the table, one flipping through her childhood photo album while the other was messing around with her laptop, going from one program to the next and amusing himself with their features. Azrael was dressed back into his clothes which Morrigan had put in the dryer. Meanwhile, Alphegor had been learning everything about Morrigan's life as a human. 

However, the issue was not within the activities they were doing. Even if Morrigan wanted to pull her laptop away from Azrael and hide childhood pictures from her doting father. The problem was their size. They were two large demons. Fully grown male adults. Morrigan looked back at the bed again and groaned.

Where are we all supposed to sleep tonight? I don't think Alphegor could even fit on my bed.

"Is there a problem, Morrigan?" Alphegor asked as he continued sifting through the photos with a smile on his face. 

"Uh… I'm just trying to figure out where we are going to sleep tonight," she explained, and he tore his eyes away from the photos (although he didn't seem to want to) and looked at her.

"Surely there must be a space in this large mansion where we could sleep. I saw so many rooms on the way up here," Alphegor said, clearly unaware of the issue.

"Haha… Actually, only these few rooms over here belong to me. Well, not really. I am paying rent to live here but it still belongs to somebody else. All those rooms that you saw in the hallway belong to other people," she said. Alphegor blinked his eyes in disbelief and even Azrael paused his tinkering with the laptop to look at her.

"Wait… this tiny space is your whole living space? Just these three rooms?" Azrael asked in disbelief, motioning with his hand to emphasize the smallness of the apartment.

"Yes. I'm not really rich or anything. I can't afford a bigger place," Morrigan huffed and sat down in her bed.

"No, Morrigan. You can afford to buy anything your heart desires now. In fact, let's purchase this whole building right now," Alphegor stood up, walking towards the exit, no doubt to make said purchase. She quickly jumped up to her feet and ran after him, grabbing him by his hand.

"No, Father! It's not that simple. Each apartment belongs to a different person, you can't just go and buy the whole building all at once. And even if you could, the current tenants would have thirty days to move their belongings to a new home," she explained, and the King scowled.

"How convoluted. The human ruler is most inefficient."

"Humans don't really have a single ruler for a country anymore. Well, not in most countries at least. The country is usually led by a group of people who change at least once every eight years."

"Every eight years? What can one even do in eight years?" Azrael barked out a laugh, and then returned his attention to the laptop, losing his interest in the topic.

"Wouldn't that just create problems every time the ruling group changed? Normally each ruler brings a set of big changes with their reign," Alphegor questioned, rubbing his chin in contemplation.

"Oh, it certainly does create problems. But enough about that, we need to figure out where we could sleep tonight," Morrigan said and pointed towards the small bed to accentuate the issue. Alphegor nodded in agreement.

"Are you sure there isn't a place we could buy?" the King asked. She was about to say 'no', but then she realized that there was a place they could buy.

"Oh, we could stay in a hotel!" she said the word 'hotel' in English as she didn't know the demon word for it.

Do they even have hotels in the Underworld? Probably not.

"A hotel?"

"Yes, it's like an inn. People can stay there overnight if they pay money."

"Are we going to see more of the human world? That's fun! Can I take this along?" Azrael beamed and lifted the laptop up, the opened internet browser window playing a video of cats. "It has moving pictures!"

Morrigan sighed. Taking two demons to the hotel would surely result in trouble, but she didn't have much of a choice.

I'll just deal with the problems once they arise.