Sometimes she had nightmares.

No, not even "sometimes." The nightmares were a constant element of Basille Filimer's life, for the haunting imagery followed her even out of sleep and into the real world.

That might have accounted for all of the screaming. (She got better after a while.)

She sometimes asked herself where she had gone wrong. If the answer hadn't been obvious or present before, it definitely was clear as day at this point. As she thought about this question, it had not yet dawned on her that she had not awoken with the regular chills and spasms that had marked every other morning ever since --

Instead, she had a splitting headache. Definitely preferable, if she was honest with herself. And even if she wasn't, a terrible headache was much better than a paralyzing paranoia.

But as soon as her still-fogged-with-sleep blue eyes had set onto the demon floating in her room, the headache was instantly joined with a whiplash of paranoia.

Luckily (for the neighbors? for herself?), her muscles had tensed up before she had thought to scream. Slowly regaining her composure, Basille took several deep breaths as the previous night's events came flooding back into her mind.

She had made a contract with a demon. If she wasn't damned already, she was definitely damned now. But being damned was a far cry better than having to live with this fear for the rest of her life and she had already seen (what she thought to be, at least) the depths of hell anyway.

One more look at the demon she had named "Azazel" and Basille buried her head in her arms, incoherent thoughts rustling and elbowing for space inside of her poor, crowded head.

At least they kept the chills and spasms away and she was thankful for that. She had to be thankful for that. If she wasn't thankful, then --

( Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages; )

Perhaps he had something to be grateful for. To give thanks, however, was a slightly alien concept to the newly rechristened demon. Perhaps it was -- not worth thinking about. The simple things were better. Simple is better. Complex is bad.

It's just a matter of trust, isn't it? The demon shifted slightly, twitching irritably as the girl-human jumped noticeably.

At least the girl-human kept him well-fed and (relatively) content. They had sunk into a dulling sense of tentative truce, where the girl-human rarely ever left the house (how had the girl-human found him in the first place -- why had he picked a human like this anyways) and kept him in eyeshot at all times, while still seeming to avoid him.

To put it frankly in terms the imp might not have used, it was agitating and confusing. He did not know what the girl-human wanted, or what this "source of fear" was. The contractor was secretive.

Azazel did not think he liked secrets.

Basille seemed to like them quite a bit.

( To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust. )



// o1. "perhaps"