I mean, meow?

A Living Legend

Eighteen hours ago.

She silently pondered the condition the witch had voiced. She did not like it.

"If I do this, I want to be in my human body." Raven declared.

"Why is that? You're much nicer without your human mask."

Raven was a little silent. "It makes me look less like a monster."

"What's the point of hiding the real you behind a human mask? I don't understand that."

"Of course. You're not human." Raven didn't notice as she sat back in the padded chair across from the witch.

" You're a guesser. And you know... Sometimes, to call yourself human is to insult yourself. After all, people can be complete bastards, but there are good ones, too. And it's not just among people. Here's the rub..." She began slicing circles around her. "Few people believe that devils come with a golden soul, too. So I prefer to be the one who can choose either side, no matter who I was born to be."

Raven only hummed back.

"It's so funny sometimes, like if a person has a sex change, a lot of people will tell them that 'it doesn't matter what you got cut off and sewn on, you're going to die the way you were born.' You know, chromosomes and other details of the body. These are all such little things, but people pay the most attention to them because they don't want to admit that a guy can call himself a girl if he trusts his chest and groin to a surgeon's knife. They don't care about their feelings. They'll keep calling him gender by birth, even if he doesn't look like his old self. Pressure him. Just because they can, because it pisses them off that someone decided to do it. And why do they care about other people's tastes?"

Raven wondered. She hadn't lived among people much, but she often heard Damian talking to his brothers when they came into his room or when they sat in the living room. They discussed news and silly jokes on subjects ranging from funny to downright unpleasant. And from time to time she would read the newspapers she had left in plain sight; there were all sorts of stories, and of course the unpleasant ones were there, too. And she had the pleasure of observing the atmosphere of the family itself from somewhere in the corner of the room on a cushioned bed. And of course, during her life in hell, the ghosts of people behaved horribly at times. Sometimes, looking at such people, it occurred to her that they deserved to go to hell.

"Yes... People sometimes care about too many things... and sometimes..."

"And sometimes they don't care about anything. On a subject, they scream 'pay attention, it's important, it needs to be publicized!' and then if you change the subject a little bit... It's the opposite of 'never mind, it's not worth your time. They have an interesting way of looking at what's worth paying attention to and what's not. And you know what I've noticed... They don't know how to define it at all the way they should.

"They're too sticking to the rule of 'You can't mess with what nature created.'" she muttered back. This lesson was on Azarath as well. With empathy, Raven clearly fell into conversation with the witch.

"Yes." The witch gave her a not-so-pleasant look. "But nature can be cruel, can be wrong. If a man is born ugly, he has no right to an opportunity to fix it? People's logic is strange. I mean, they're all one link, but they're so indecipherable. Conflicted. Struggling to keep each other in line." She was silent for a moment. "Isn't it better to number yourself a demon rather than a human? Demons don't care what you look like, what you think of yourself, you want to do something with your body, do it. It's your choice. And the best part is, they won't judge you for it. They're free to do it. And for all that, people think they're evil. But it's simpler than that. People are pissed off that demons have the right to disobey them. Getting in the way, so to speak.

"Is that why demons started a war with humans?"

The witch raised her eyebrows in surprise, slowly widening her smile.

"Already managed to rummage through my memory, commendable. Honey, the humans started the war first. Lured demons out of hell, human women seduced our boys. And human men our girls. To spend the night with them, and in the morning the demons' bodies were already lying in their own pools of blood.

The witch opened the doors of her memories to her, allowing ... no, even forcibly holding Raven in her mind, showing her the most horrible of them.

"The humans set it up as if they were defending themselves against them..." Raven began to understand the malevolent attitude of her former local hellbenders toward humans. More than once she caught their stares, the look of murderers. But many in Hell knew her position in their branch of government and dared not touch.

"Yes, sweetheart. A night with a demon can cause some pain, you know, claws and all, leave a few scratches on people, not dangerous, but people then used them as proof of attack. So people created a 'false truth' for themselves, supposedly they can fight demons. Although, as you understood, it was just sex, our people never thought of attacking or defending themselves. And when war broke out, people failed. Of enormous proportions. Which didn't please the demons in their world."

"You mentioned that not all humans are bad. Neither are demons?"

"That's how you and I exist. There have been a few cases where a demon and a human have had real feelings, some have even been able to give offspring. But they didn't live long either, when their secret was revealed. And children had to be protected. So the demons who weren't happy with the rules of hell escaped to their lovers in the human world and tried to live there like humans. And fight against their own — us. On the same side as humans.

Raven was silent for a little while longer.
"And all those girls..."

"Descendants of the very ties between humans and demons."

"You killed them because they are the offspring of traitors?"

She chuckled in response. "I didn't kill them." The witch showed a few more scenes, more bloody, full of pain, screaming, chilling to the point of wanting to skin with her fingernails.

"But they're... Oh my God, they've..."

"Killed themselves." The witch said it for her. Well, not the best habit, but it helps to finish a thought Raven didn't really want to utter herself. She silently closed her mouth and continued to listen to her. "Yes, killed themselves. As I mentioned before, you're very guessing."

"Why did they do it? What was the point of taking their own lives?"

"They're not exactly deprived of life. They're all here."

As if by order, ghost cats with two burning red eyes crawled out of the shadows and whoever crouched where, lay down and watched the girls' conversation with fascination.

"Why..."

"I sought them out, got inside their heads, studied their thoughts," she paced right and left, twirling a small knife between her fingers. "Told them our story, other interesting things, until they'd go into a frenzy, burst into laughter. I offered them the option of redemption. Those whose psyches couldn't withstand the transformation agreed to physical damage from my babies, "she stroked one of the invisible creatures as she passed that one. "And those who were conscious of accepting their nature could transform their souls themselves, leaving a miserable body somewhere in the road. They had no use for it anymore anyway. Genes are a magical thing. Descendants with demonic blood were born through the generations. My job was to make sure they didn't progeny any more. It was time for them to go home. And so should you.

Raven pondered her words briefly. "Getting inside their heads." She felt something right now. Another question popped into her head.

"Why cats specifically?"

"Mmm. Have you ever heard the omen about a black cat running across your path, boding so bad luck?"

"Perhaps..."

"It really was. But that cat was a real little demon. People didn't just have bad luck. They were dying. In the alleys where she was most often encountered. I don't know how, but that's how this little demon cat gathered a lot of souls. Became a symbol of death. Although, I'm so flattered that an omen was made about him that is still believed today.

"Flattering to you.... This demon is--"

"I am this demon." She smiled contentedly, baring sharp fangs. "And I really need your little help. Help a good friend of mine..." She ran a sharp claw across her cheek. "But this time, to the end, and I'll gladly leave you this miserable body of yours, since you want it so badly."

"And... how exactly do I do that?"

"The main thing is to get in the house. And then I'll give you a hint." The witch winked at Raven and with a deft flick of her fingers all the girl could see afterward was darkness.