Of everyone in the community, Lilith's eyes are the only one that are naturally red.
Lilith tightens her grasp on the pencil as she makes an effort to tune out the kids' whispers about her and concentrate on the lessons the teacher is trying to impart to them all.
Then a different child remarks that Lilith appeared to be a demon—a devil dressed in human skin and clothing. After that, Lilith hears someone speculate about whether she could absorb other people's SOULs or was a monster masquerading as a child.
Lilith occasionally found herself asking the same question. She despised mankind, after all. Since she could remember, she always had...After all, Afora, her mother, shared Lilith's Determination SOUL characteristic, yet neither her father nor she had red eyes. Salenor, her father, possessed a Justice, yellow SOUL attribute. He helped the magicians imprison the monsters underground with a magic spell before becoming village chief because he wanted "Justice" for all.
The hero's daughter...
Lilith asks her parents if she is related one day. Salenor was furious when Lilith asked that stupid question, so he struck her with a ruler, and her mother pinned her down, forcing her to accept it.
Lilith limped to school the next day, nursing a burning right leg and back. Lilith stumbles into the room after being 10 minutes late for school, and her teacher asks about her unexpected injuries.
"I slipped and fell down the stairs," Lilith says falsely, knowing that no one would believe her if she revealed that the town hero had abused his daughter. "I was rushed and missed the last few steps to avoid going to school late."
Lilith's basic response angered the teacher, who told her to “be more careful next time” without thinking.
Lilith has no steps in her one-story home. The teacher ignored or forgot her home's layout despite having been there for a parent-teacher conference.
Even though it's wrong, Lilith's parents beat her. They believe it will strengthen Lilith and teach her discipline so she can rule the village like her father.
The village youngsters think her parents have a monster child, so when they return home late at night, they hit her. On one occasion, Lilith was severely injured to the point that she inadvertently conjured a blazing red dagger using her Determination power, which sliced her father's cheek open. Even now, a year later, he still bears the same scar.
Occasionally, they'll explain that they adore Lilith and genuinely believe that hurting her is in her best interest. Their hurt from the rumors requires someone to take it out on, but Lilith is too little to grasp why they selected her, but she will. And that she would benefit most from it.
Lilith attempts to convince herself that her father has a reputation to preserve because of his job, and her mother is busy handling things alone while her father works. Of course, her parents love her very much, and hearing those allegations will just infuriate them more. It's completely Lilith's fault that her eyes are crimson from birth; why didn't she get it now?
Lilith is perceptive. She is aware that they are merely using that as an excuse, and that the word "love" may be a deception. If they told Lilith they loved and yet, they still hurt her, it would eliminate the remorse and make her parents blameless. Assuming they were successful in persuading Lilith of that...
Lilith stealthily enters the kitchen and slashes her wrist with the knife that night.
The next day, Lilith screams in frustration at her failure as she awakens in the hospital bed of the village, attached to various devices.
In the week that followed, she suffered numerous bruises, scars (including on her wrist), and whiplash on her back. Lilith wears a thick, long-sleeved sweater with green and yellow stripes to disguise her scars, even during the summer.
When Lilith's wounds bled through her sleeves, the teacher saw her wrist scar. Lilith wasted little time in explaining that the cut was the result of a careless use of a box cutter during a diorama-making session.
On top of Lilith's crimson demonic eyes, everyone now teases her for being foolish and clumsy.
After apologizing profusely, Lilith goes to class the following day with a grin on her face.
Now that she knows it's easy to laugh it off and hide behind a joke or two, she puts on a smile to mask her suffering.
Some months later, Lilith learns about the ten-year-old Human-Monster War and how her father protected all humans and buried them with six other Magicians behind a magical barrier.
The other magicians are still alive and serve on the village's highest council, which advises the leader on policy and legislation, but Lilith ignores the fact that they deserve respect for risking their lives. Lilith returns to the lesson when she learns that climbing Mt. Ebott will make anybody who tries disappear.
Later, Lilith promises her classmates to climb the peak one day.
When Lilith discovers that her classmates are setting fire to the botanical volumes she had acquired from the Ebott Library, she follows through on her vow ten days later. When Lilith asked the kids why, they said a freak like her was too stupid to read difficult novels like this. She tried to tell her parents that evening, but they chastised her for reading meaningless literature and said a leader wouldn't garden.
At that moment, Lilith made up her mind to ascend the mountain.
As the sun rises above the Ebott woodland the following day, she makes her way cautiously towards the forbidden peak. She felt that nothing could impede her at this moment. The cursed village left her with nothing to live for.
As Lilith persisted in her ascent, she beheld a bright flash in the sky, and then, not long after, a rift in the sky had materialized.
"What the heck?" In a fit of gasp, Lilith raised her head to stare up. As if shot from a cannon, three multi-colored creatures sprang out of the portal, and her gaze followed their every move. Lilith kept a close eye on the three individuals as they descended near her trekking spot after she heard three small cries.
She started to quickly make her way toward the direction in which the three bizarre animals had fallen, her curiosity getting the best of her. Lilith quickly reached where the trio had landed in that bush. Are these three creatures monsters that escaped from the mountain? Lilith puzzled as she approached the small colored ones, hoping they weren't hurt despite the long fall.
The silver-armored blue creature resembled a Brachiosaur or Parasaurolophus, and the texture of its skin was similar to that of a human instead of scales. Within its chest, encased in what appeared to be a deep blue diamond, was a strong metal-like structure that resembled steel.
A plateosaurus-like pink one had floating devices and pearls on his arms and shoulders. Silver armour covered its entire body as well, and it had soft, short pink fur all over its small body.
The yellow and grey one resembled a centipede, thought it had just six legs, dragon wings adorned with scarlet spikes, and a plethora of golden armor covering its entire body.
When the three noticed the girl, the pink one squeaked in surprise before fleeing behind the yellow and grey baby dinosaur, covering his eyes with his hands and wrapping his tail over himself. In an effort to look as scary as possible, the gray one spread its wings wide and opened its mouth right away. Given that the peculiar infant beast was barely half a foot tall and without any teeth with which to menace, this proved to be a challenging task. Because of its unusually curved lips, the small gray one gave the impression that it was always grinning.
Like the others, this small blue one was about the same size as the other two, and it tried to look menacing by baring its two little fangs on the underside of its jaw while making growling noises.
“I won’t hurt you, I promise.” Lilith implored, showing her hands to indicate she was unarmed. Upon noticing this, the blue one moves forward with caution.
Lilith is pleased by this, but she remains still so as not to frighten them.
As soon as she sees that the infant is staring at her with an inquisitive look, she slowly moves closer to stroke his head. The blue one observes Lilith's touch for a moment before responding with a soft nuzzling and a purring sound, clearly pleased.
"You are the most adorable creature ever, aren't you?" In her constant caress of the tiny blue one, Lilith can't help but giggle. "Hey, little guy, what's your name?"
"Mmmrm... Dia!" The little blue one chirps as it looks over Lilith. As his tail wagged, Dia gently headbutted Lilith's palm while petting him.
"Dia? What a sweet name you have." Chara approves. After some consideration, Chara says, "My name is... Chara." Dia cheerily chirps before getting to his hind legs and putting his front legs on Chara's knees, tail waving the whole while.
Why did she say that? Lilith has been her name since birth, not Chara. These little ones diverted "Lilith," who had intended to climb the mountain and disappear. As a symbol of Lilith's death, ‘Chara’ decided to discard her old name, even though she hadn't fully climbed the mountain to continue her mission.
"Crara! Crara!! Crara!" Dia wags his tail even more, chirping happily. Chara chuckles as she delicately lifts Dia and cradles him above her head.
"Awww, little Dia, you're fond of my name?" Chara asks as Dia keeps chirping her name and kicking his small legs, which makes Chara smile.
"Crara! Crara!" Dia chirps excitedly as he flicks his tongue out at her in a humorous manner while giggly.
Chara was no match. Without this adorable little guy to watch over, how could she even consider vanishing?
For the very first time, Chara smiled with sincerity. She carefully picked up Dia off the ground and snuggled him against her chest before looking back at the gray and pink one, who hadn't moved one inch from where they were standing. However, as he observed Chara tenderly handling his sibling, the grey one appeared less defensive.
When Chara notices that they are more anxious than Dia, she smiles gently and waits patiently.
"It's alright. You two may trust me. How about we exchange names, too, small ones?"
The gray one then makes a low-volume "Grir," and the pink one mutters a "Parr" with more anxiety.
"So, Grir, Dia, and Parr, eh? What sweet names you have. It's perfect for you little ones," Chara says with a smile, Then she spots a fruit bush nearby, so she takes a few berries and tries to entice Grir and Parr by presenting them to her. "You three must be ravenous after falling from the sky. Here, they're called "strawberries.""
While Grir and Parr continue to avoid her, Chara offers Dia a strawberry, which he examines with curiosity before devouring it from her hand. He then lets forth a cheerful chirp, clearly enjoying the flavor. A small glimpse here and there reveals Grir and Parr making slow but steady progress ahead, as Chara smiles and keeps giving Dia strawberries.
Chara then cautiously presented the young ones a handful of strawberries, waiting for Grir to eat one first once he was close enough, as Parr had stopped again, wrapping his tail about himself.
Grir gets a beakful of strawberries and starts munching. He then chirped, clearly enjoying the flavor. Grir deftly snatches two or three additional strawberries from Chara's hand, transforms his wings into hands, and returns to Parr with great care, dropping the strawberries for Parr to collect with his tiny claws. Parr starts eating, but he eats his strawberry much smaller than the others.
Chara observes the three with a smile on her face and keeps petting Dia while he eats. "So, you all seem too young to be living by yourselves. Where's your family, little ones?"
Dia and Grir glance across at Chara and begin chirping at her, attempting to inform her that Palkia inadvertently opened a gateway here when he sneezed, and that an entity called "Arceus" is unaware of their whereabouts but will discover them soon. Their chattering resembled the language of long-gone dragons, rendering Chara utterly bewildered by their words.
"Um, are you implying that your parent is unaware of your whereabouts?" In a perplexed tone, Chara asks, and the infants respond with a nod. “I see…. How about I care for you till your folks discover you? The area is largely home to wild goats and deer, so there really isn't much in the way of predatory animals that could harm you three, but I still don't want anything bad to happen to you."
The infants make joyful noises as Dia leaps onto Chara's breast, topples her over, and licks her face, which makes Chara giggle and wiggle. "That tickles!!"
Grir chirps and pads over to lick Chara's face as well. After a while, Chara pulls both babies off of her and gently sits up.
With a mischievous grin on her face, Chara begins to blow raspberries into their bellies while simultaneously tickling Grir and Dia and, every so often, petting Parr's silky fur to make him feel included. Before she knows it, time flies by.
When the sun began to set and visibility diminished in the forest, she began to comprehend the gravity of the situation.
She really wanted to remain with Dia, Grir, and Parr indefinitely, even though they had only met moments ago. She could play and care for them every day for the rest of eternity if their parents would accept her. It wouldn't matter to her if she lived as a monster or a wild animal; any kind of life would be better than her current one.
However, she was well aware that she could not do that. Despite her parents' intense dislike for her, she anticipated that they would seek her out in the forest. If her parents did this, and Chara remained in the woods with the children, she would be endangering their safety and would bear full responsibility in the event of an attack...
These three might be monsters that managed to get beyond the barrier... The villagers back home were so terrified of monsters and believed they were all equally dangerous, so Chara felt an even stronger need to protect the infants now in her arms.
Considering that, Chara decided to make sure the villagers never found them, including her.
Chara knelt down and cradled the three priceless babies in her arms, promising to defend them to the death if necessary. "Let's find a place to stay for the night..." she said, her voice trembling with fear. "Somewhere around here, there must be a cave, mustn't there? Before nightfall, we must leave, or it will be difficult to navigate..."
Chara felt as Parr hooked his claws around the soft cotton of her green sweater, and Dia and Grir did the same to keep her from dropping them before she climbed higher into the thick foliage and trees around them.
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