That day we met.

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Human Avatar
[x] by grim
[x] by apricots
[x] by Hitherto
Profile by Athene
Story is an extract by me from my Nanowrimo Novel.

"For the last time, it's pronounced Llew-eh-lin." The short brown haired boy frowned at the tall boy with horns as he failed once again at trying to pronounce his name. "Why does everyone have trouble with it? It's not difficult." Llywelyn sighed and turned back to his book, anxious for his teacher to get back into the room so that he wouldn't have to listen to Cephalus, who he, quite frankly, was terrified of. He flipped his book to the next page, but froze in shock when he felt the strong hand of Cephalus on his shoulder.

"Whatever. What are you reading there Louis? Oh and I'm calling you Louis because I give up on trying to pronounce your weird ass name." Cephalus stood up and leant over Llywelyn, staring at his book, the open pages meaning nothing to him. He brought up his tail and slid it under the front cover, using it to close the book without thinking twice about it, genuinely curious about the small foreign boy's reading habits, momentarily forgetting that he hated using his tail around Humans, and that it was actually strange to them. Llywelyn was frozen in his seat. He knew he was being incredibly rash for judging this boy based solely on the fact Cephalus was a demon, but he found it incredibly difficult to look past the fact he was afraid of what the boy could probably do. He squinted his eyes closed and made a snap decision - bolting out of his seat and grabbing the book from the table, leaving the classroom as fast as he could. The rest of the class all stared up to watch him run out narrowly dodging his teacher in the process, leaving Cephalus stood completely confused.

Llywelyn didn't stop walking until he reached the unused classroom at the end of the hall, the room he usually went to whenever he needed to be alone. He physically couldn't bring himself to stop until he got there. He was breathing heavily by the time he sat himself down on a chair, and his eyes were filled to the brim with tears. He hated how utterly afraid he was of Cephalus, but, wasn't that a human response? The more Llywelyn tried to reason with himself, the worse off he felt. He was being, even though he didn't mean to be, a horrible person, and he hated himself for it. He uttered a quiet sob, then sniffed and pulled his glasses off, rubbing at his eyes with his sleeve to dry them off.

Llywelyn hadn't realised there was anyone else in the room with him until he heard the chair being dragged next to him, and he just assumed it was Mr Jeffries. But he was caught off guard when he looked up to find Cephalus sat on a chair three feet away from him, with his arm outstretched holding up a tissue for him. Llywelyn sniffed back another sob and went to speak, but Cephalus got there first.

"I..I'm sorry I used my tail. I'm using my hand this time, that's better, right?" Cephalus' head was turned in the opposite direction to Llywelyn, seeming very interested in the various bright informative posters that adorned the walls. Llywelyn blinked and delicately plucked the tissue from Cephalus' fingers, this time not completely trying to avoid all physical contact with him.

"Diolch...Th...thank you." Llywelyn's voice wavered a little bit, but he carried on. "I'm sorry I ran. That was so mean of me but I'm just so... so.."

"Scared?" Cephalus turned to face Llywelyn, who nodded. "I know you're scared. Everyone is. But I can't help that I'm like this and I just want to be treated like everyone else and hopefully not have to beat up some douchebags." Llywelyn's expression dropped in horror, but Cephalus laughed it off. "I was kidding. I'm in no position to beat up anyone, so you don't have to worry about that."

"What do you-" Llywelyn started to ask, but Cephalus snapped, interrupting him.

"Leave it be, It doesn't matter." Cephalus realised the harsh tone of his words and frowned. "No wait I'm sorry. That came out wrong. I mean, I just... Don't worry, okay?"

Llywelyn couldn't react, he physically couldn't move. The whole reality of his situation came crashing down on him. He was sat in a classroom of a school in America, thousands of miles away from his home, and he had a Demon less than three feet away from him. In the moment he realised how absurd the whole situation was, he couldn't help but stifle a giggle. Cephalus tilted his head to the side in confusion, had he done something weird? Llywelyn giggled again, and again, until he was laughing rather steadily. Cephalus was actually starting to get rather concerned about the Welsh boy's outburst, so he reached over and placed a hand on Llywelyn's shoulder.

"Uh...dude. Are you okay?"

Llywelyn didn't even flinch at the touch on his shoulder. Instead, he placed his hand on top of Cephalus' and dragged it down in front of him, holding it with both of his hands, staring at the bottom of Cephalus' right wrist just above his gloves, where his arm markings stopped.

"Seth, I'm fine. Perfectly fine. I'm sat holding a Demon's hand in a classroom in a school which is at least twelve hours away from where I should be. I feel wonderful!" His accent raged fiercely at the sarcasm and anger in his voice, and another load of tears started forming at his eyes, and Cephalus stood, his hand still encased by both of Llywelyn's.

"So that's a no." He squeezed his hand against one of Llywelyn's, and his tears started flowing down his cheeks again. "Come on, let's go get you cleaned up in the bathroom or something." He tugged lightly at Llywelyn to pull him up, and Llywelyn complied. He stood and loosed Cephalus' hand go, but fell straight into Cephalus, wrapping his arms around his waist and pressing his cheek against his shirt, holding him tightly.

Cephalus stood stunned for a moment, but returned the embrace, wrapping his arms around Llywelyn's shoulders.

"I'm so sorry. I'm just so sad and lonely here and you're the first person who's really talked to me and even though I'm still so scared of you I just-" he choked on a sob, and Cephalus smiled sadly, placing his arms on Llywelyn's shoulders and pushing him back a little, to look down at him.

"You know you don't have to be scared right? I'm just a kid like you. You know I'm...half....human, don't you?"

Llywelyn blinked and looked up at Cephalus, stunned. "So...so you're not all a demon?" Cephalus shook his head softly.

"Nope, my Mom is one hundred percent Human. So is my Sister, but she's hellish in other ways."

"How is your Sister human if your Dad..." Llywelyn was thoroughly confused. Even a basic knowledge of Biology was enough to know that wasn't right. He dropped his hands from Cephalus and took a step back, bringing his hand up to his chin in thought. "Shouldn't she at least-"

Cephalus anticipated his question, "Demon genes work in weird ways when paired with humans. They kinda...choose whether they're going to be dominant or remain dormant. Like if the kid is going to be too weak to handle the demon stuff, they'll be completely human. If the kid won't be weak, the demon gene will completely dominate and they'll be all Demon. Then if you're somewhere in the middle it could go either way, or split and end up as a normal gene pairing, like me. My Dad taught me and my sister all this stuff when we were younger, because she was always jealous of my horns and I was always jealous of her hair." He laughed a little to himself, and rubbed at the base of his left horn with his left hand, rubbing the thick leathery skin that encased the base of where his ebony black horns grew from.

"You do that alot." Llywelyn stated.

"Hmm?"

"Rub your...horns. That's the second time I've seen you do it." Cephalus stopped his hand in the motion and flicked his eyes to it, unaware that he was actually doing anything. "Oh right. It's just something I've always done. They hurt like hell," he narrowed his eyes at himself at the pun, "when they were coming through, and I always found rubbing them helped like, soften the skin or something. That's probably a load of crap but It helped me."

Llywelyn nodded at nothing in particular, then wiped the almost dry tears from his cheeks. "Should we go back to class? I haven't missed a lesson since I've been here so I don't want to break that streak." He looked up at Cephalus for the first time without any trace of fear and smiled genuinely.

"Well I haven't been to a class since I've been here, so I think I should probably break that streak to be honest." Cephalus grinned back at Llywelyn, letting the shorter boy lead the way.

"Hey Louis, do you think we could be friends? I'd like that."

Llywelyn thought for a moment, then nodded, "Ydw, yes, I think I'd like that too."

Pet Treasure

Beats Book

Book of Books II

Book of Books III

The One

The Connoisseur Magazine

Secret Love Letter

The Wind-Up Lain Chronicle

Atebus Murder Mysteries: Part 1

Atebus Murder Mysteries: Part 2

Pet Friends

Cephalus
Don't ever make him mad...