He was setting the meat chunks aside as he made them while most of the scraps ended up where he had tossed the dessert lion remains. Those that didn’t ended up as the occasional snack for him that is, and he had also taken to lapping up the blood and juices that came out of the organ while he worked. At one point, he paused at a section of meat for a moment before carefully cutting it away from the rest that deviated from his original method. Once it was free, he stepped away from the remaining parts of the heart and what I had come to label as the ‘good meat’ and over to his scrap pile.

  The meat looked fine to me, if untrimmed but I was starting to get the feeling he never did anything without a reason. I focused harder on the large chunk, wondering what was so suspect about it and saw it move. Or rather something in it moved and I felt myself shiver in disgust at what could be in there. Furthering that feeling, I soon found out as he carefully poked a hole into the chunk and a pale worm the size of a snake shot out of it at him.

  He dropped his ‘knife sword’ to grab it and pull the squirming nasty from the meat it had been inhabiting. The knife floated in the air like the other but stayed close by as if it was waiting to see if his needed him. He didn’t and, after pulling it completely out of the meat, he slurped it up like it was noodle and gulped it down.

  “EWWWW!” I exclaimed out of reflex when I saw that.

  I couldn’t help it. I had seen a lot of disgusting things while living in the gutter, but that one took the cake. The demon, on the other hand thought my reaction was hilarious and chuckled a little before sucking the cavity dry while I watched.

  “That was disgusting!” I told him. The meat shrank to half its size before he stopped to reply.

  “That may be, but it was the most effective way to keep it from possibly infecting the rest of the meat I am setting aside for you to practice with. Monster parasites can only survive within other monsters, but they can still do some damage before they die if given the chance. I doubt you would be affected by it because of your Fate and demons aren’t really bothered by parasites unless they are mana eaters. However, I had thought the same when it came to giving you the Soul Vessel skill and when I chose how to fix it. We both know how that turned out, so I decided to err on the side of caution this time.” He explained to me. While he spoke, he snagged the knife he had left to wander about the room from the air and used it to carefully cut open the meat and cut small pieces from it to snack on.

  “Still you could –” I started before catching the smirk on his face and bolted up right into a sitting position to glare at him.

  “You smarmy little shithead! Of course you could have! You did that on purpose! You conniving little fucktard!” I ranted at him, and he just laughed quietly at my tirade.

  “My apologies, Samuel but it has been ages since anyone new has talk to me like an equal rather than a ‘lord’ or someone to be used.” He explained and I could hear the humor fade from his voice.

  “So you’re what? Lonely? Sad?” I asked and he sighed.

  “Mostly bored, I think and perhaps a little sad. There is a sort of afterlife for us demons to rest in between our lives spent carrying the burdens of others. We are free of them and our cravings and filled with the good things we have experienced in our lives and past lives, but we become listless and… well bored if we are not fulling our purpose to some degree. However, a certain amount of a specific type of miasma is needed for a demon to be reborn. For those who can be born from others, it is fairly easy thing for them to come back. For those born without, much more is needed and has to be in a high enough concentration in a specific sized area for a demon to manifest. Stronger demons need more but they can also gather from a wider area. That is the way for most of demon kind.”

  “As for us Seven Elders, it's a bit more complicated. We require vast amounts of our specific miasma in order to come back and we can gather it from the whole world. We can even gather it from the demons who are assigned to share our fate and mortals who seek the power that it can give it….. We don’t care much for the later. Never have….damn cultists...making – ” He started mumble to himself as he got distracted for a moment before catching himself and attempted to clear his throat in a very human manner to hide his embarrassment.

  He failed the human part of it as all of his throats were cleared simultaneously which was very strange to hear. Realizing his mistake, he stuffed the remaining ‘infected meat’ into his mouth and cleaned himself and ‘his sword knife’ to make himself feel better. I smiled slightly as I came to understand that was what he was doing which only made him a touch more flustered when he saw the look on my face. He faked a cough that time and was more successful when there was only one.

  “Ehm! Anyways… Errr where was I?” He said, looking thoughtfully over at me as if I could remember it better while he absentmindedly tapped the blade in his hand.

  “I think you were getting to the end of telling me about miasma gathering for you Seven Elder demons.” I told him and he nodded in acknowledgment.

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  “Right…” He started before taking a moment to think. He also exchanged which sword knife he was holding, taking back the one with the hooks along its spine back and leaving the one with the saw edge free to float around the room once more. I watched it for a moment while he muttered to himself as he walked back over to what was still uncut of the giant monster heart.

  “Means of gathering aside, we Elders need quite a bit more than even the strongest demon. So much so that none of us have been able to collect and store enough to re-manifest. We do not have any parents other than circumstances of this world so we have no other means of coming back. Greed and I are the closest by far while Wrath is not all that far behind with all the fighting over land and resources there has been during the recent centuries. Most of which have been instigated by cultists working in ‘his name’ and it has been pissing him off to no end. Greed, on the other hand is happy with how his ‘Merchant’s Guild’ is doing and frequently projects himself to them to make certain they stay on the right path. Doing that burns the energy we get from collecting miasma which is probably why he has not been able to return. The generous efforts of his Guild may be why there hasn’t quite enough to bump us over. The more people are willing to give and do, the fewer people suffer from the lack of things and the less they fight to get what they need.” He explained as he went back to work on the heart.

  “As for Envy and Pride, they are happy where they are. They never liked fighting in the first place and hated the War the Empire instigated by doing what they did to us. They still supported us fighting it though as they saw it as being a necessary thing. I believe them having children of their own and seeing what had happened to ours help to fuel their desires. Sloth in turn is also happy where he is at and, considering his burden, I am not surprised. Depression is not an easy thing to bare, even for a demon. As for Lust….” He paused then in his work, causing a somber silence to fill the air for several minutes before breaking it with a heavy sigh.

  “As for Lust, she was the kindest and gentlest of us all. Her burden was also the hardest of them all to bare. Not even Wrath’s could compare to it.” He told me and there was another silence that didn’t end until I broke it.

  “What was it?” I asked quietly, having a good idea of what it was but I wanted him to say it to continue the story.

  “Loneliness. Heart ache. The need to be loved. To belong. A Hunger of the Heart.” He answered, drawing it out piece by piece like a mouth full of rotten teeth. He went quiet for another long moment, but he didn’t need any prodding from me this time.

  “She was the one I first encountered after Elyasa had passed. Even then, Lust had trouble bearing her burden and considering what it is born from it would have been impossible for her to do it alone anyways. I helped her bare it and learned to even take some of it from her when I had to. Having her children also helped although it nearly broke her when she miscarried her first.” He said before pausing again.

  This time I didn’t know what to say to break the silence… but apparently, his swords did. I flinched as something nudged my shoulder out of nowhere and when I turned to look, I saw the one that had been floating around all this time. It flipped to ‘look back’ at me before nudging me insistently a few more times with the dull outer hook. I pointed questioningly at Gluttony, and it bobbed in a sort of nod before flipping around to hover in front of me like some weird cane.

  Getting the message, I draped the blanket around my shoulders and carefully hopped down from the raised flat thing I had been on ever since it was made. I found out I was very unsteady on my feet when got down and was grateful for the floating sword’s assistance, as odd as it was. Despite it bobbing up and down while it had been floating aimlessly around the room, it was rock steady for me as I leaned on it to totter over to its owner.

  As I got to him, the one that had remained stuck to his back drifted away so I could comfort him without having to worry about getting hurt. As for the other, he was holding it tightly in both hands with one wrapped around the blade. I thought it curious at the time that he wasn’t bleeding or hurt by the action but the grinding noise I could hear from his hands helped to persuade me away from asking to focus on my own task.

  I let go of the sword that had been helping me to wrap my arms around him in a cautious hug, keeping the blanket between me and most of the gore that had collected on him. Then it was his turn to flinch at the unexpected contact and he went all stiff for a moment as he tried to figure out what was going on. He relaxed when he realized it was just me and let go of the sword’s blade to give me a tentative pat.

  “Ah.. the attempt is appreciated but you really should not surprise a predator like that. It can end badly for you if the predator is not careful with its reaction.” He scolded me