Moonlight Demon

For the next few hours, Kaori had a pout permanently fixed on her face. At the same time, the half-demon Savior would occasionally sneak a smug look aimed at her, that would make Kaori's scowl intensify. The blood that had fallen on top of the half-demon, and that she'd so graciously shared with Kaori in that hug, had dried a while ago and still smelled awful. And yet, she looked like she didn't have a care in the world as she kept her hands behind her head and her eyes closed, while most others in the carriage grimaced. 

"Okay!" The coachman yelled from the front, as his vehicle moved over a bridge. "We're makin' a stop! If ya wanna do your business, feel free to head out and do it." 

Hearing that, Kaori looked around to see where she was. 

Oh, wow...  Her eyes widened.  This... Is this what Pearl's region is like? 

Around her was a verdant, gorgeous forest with vibrant trees. The lush vegetation was enough to lift her mood up, so much so that she grinned as she looked out at it.

"Hm, hey, Sin," Vermia said, as she turned toward the woman. "Didn't you used to spend a lot of time out in the forests like this?" 

"Yeah," Sinneah nodded. "That's how I got these," she added, flexing her arms. 

"Indeed. Personally, that outrageous size of yours makes you a suitable travel partner. If I ever get stuck out here with you, I'll just eat you." 

"You can eat me right now, if you'd like," Sinneah countered, and Vermia's smirk went away as she rolled her eyes. 

"How vulgar." 

Kaori was too distracted to listen to any more of the exchange. Especially as she spotted something important. Under the bridge, stretching almost endlessly was a sparkling river, and as soon as Kaori spotted it, she stood up. 

Thank the gods! I need to wash this off of me, she thought, before racing out of the carriage.

Desperate to get out of these stained clothes, Kaori undressed one step at a time, ignoring the eyes she felt on her back from the guards traveling with them. 

Naked and feeling a little refreshed already, she went to dip into the water, but a hand on her wrist stopped her. 

"W-Wha-?" She asked, looking to her left, and finding the half-demon there, holding her. 

How did she reach me so fast? Actually, never mind that, what the heck is she doing? Why did she stop me?

"Hold on," Ash said, with a serious expression. 

"I-I just want to clean up," Kaori replied.

"I could guess that. Just let me check the water first." 

"... Oh." 

The thought that there could be some sort of dangerous creature in the river hadn't even crossed her mind. To be fair, she normally didn't spend much time thinking of dangerous monsters. She would rather think about the next play her troupe would perform, or where she could go to have a fun night if she was feeling bored. The way the Savior was acting though, it seemed like this was a normal everyday thing to her. 

Ash walked forward, transforming that weird cube on her belt into a sword, and then reaching in and poking the water. When she noted a lack of a reaction, she did something Kaori would have never expected. 

She started taking her armor off. 

There were many things Kaori was sure of, in terms of her own identity. One of them was that she wasn't a prude. And yet, as the half-demon stripped off piece of gold after piece of gold in front of her, Kaori felt herself blushing. 

It might have had something to do with the fact that now, covered in blood as she was, she could actually see that physique she'd been wondering about. This woman didn't look real, to Kaori's eyes. Muscles that alluded to a life spent mostly in training, curves that nearly matched Kaori's own, and most prominently, a back so sculpted it looked like if Kaori tried to poke it, her finger wouldn't even sink an inch. 

"What are you doing?" Kaori couldn't help but ask. 

"What, do you think I like the smell of monster blood or something? I'm going in the water." 

"Is there some form of blood you do like?" Kaori lifted a brow. 

"What the- where did that come from?" Ash did the same. 

"You specified 'monster' blood," Kaori replied, crossing her arms under her boobs. "So?" 

Ash paused, narrowing her eyes at Kaori, with that infuriating smirk of hers. Then, she said:

"... Actually, yeah, there is. Human blood is personally super appealing to me. Especially young, blue-eyed actress blood." 

"... That's not funny." 

"Eh, I got a kick out of it." 

With that being said, Kaori tried to ignore the woman and she went into the river, sitting on some small rocks, with the water reaching her chest. She thought Ash would go somewhere else, but instead, the Savior sat down right next to her. She bent down, plunged her head into the water, and snapped it back up in a motion that sent water flying everywhere. 

Once both of them were settled, they started to remove the blood off of themselves. 

"By the way, I didn't know your show was going to start so early." 

"What?" 

Ash just shrugged though, refusing to elaborate.

"I... What do you mean?" 

"The way you took your clothes off in front of all those guys back there," she gestured at the carriage. "You definitely gave them a show, didn't you?" 

"Oh," Kaori looked away, as she realized what the Savior meant. "Meh." 

That was all she had to say. She didn't really think it was a big deal. And, yet, as Ash continued to look at her, she got the sense that the other woman disagreed, so, she explained herself a little. 

"It's not like I'm ashamed of my body," Kaori said, as she began trying to scrub the stains off of herself. "And... I don't know, it is a little bit of an ego boost to know I can have that effect on people," she smiled to herself. "So, yeah. I don't really care." 

"..." Ash took a pensive expression when she heard that. 

"I don't know why you're so confused," Kaori added, "you probably get those kinds of looks all the time. And, you don't even have to take your clothes off to get them." 

Ash scoffed. 

"The only looks I get are like the one you gave me a little while ago. Scared."

When Kaori heard that, she turned to look at the woman, and that smug expression had given way to something far less confident. She was smiling, still, but the way her eyes were half-closed, low, and unfocused, she looked like she pitied herself. 

"Well, in my defense," Kaori mumbled, "I thought you were going to hit me." 

"You were laughing at me, so I can't say the thought didn't cross my mind." 

"I wasn't laughing, I was just... chuckling." 

"That's just laughing, but quieter." 

"Yeah, so it's not as bad." 

"Yeah?" Ash briefly looked her way. "I'd rather you didn't laugh at all." 

When she heard that, Kaori knew her response had a very large chance of making Ash very unhappy, but she couldn't help it. She was always the type that talked before she thought about what she was going to say. 

"That just wasn't an option," Kaori shrugged. "You looked too funny." 

The silence from the woman next to her made the actress quickly wonder if she'd stepped over the line. 

"H-Hey, if you punch me, I'll start sobbing. I'm serious. I hate fighting," Kaori let her know, before turning to look at her. 

Instead of scorn, though, what she found was just a sort of puzzled amusement. 

"I looked funny?" Ash asked, then. 

"... Yeah." 

"Heh. Noted," Ash looked away. "That's a first." 

"What do you mean?" Kaori asked. 

"I..." She shook her head. "I've been doing this job for a few months. I've been to a few different cities already, just cause Kasumi thought it would be good to train in different atmospheres and cause the Royal Council doesn't really care whether they send me halfway across the world or not. And... Not once has someone told me I 'looked funny'. That's the first time I've heard that." 

As Ash finished saying that, neither of them spoke for a while. Kaori paused altogether. Her first thought was, "don't your friends ever tell you that?" but, she stopped herself just in time, as she realized the answer was no. Likely, because of a reason that she could glean from the two horns on the girl's head. 

She hadn't thought about that much at all, mostly because she didn't really care. Kaori hadn't exactly been friends with any half-demons in the past, but she'd always felt like she was a decent judge of character, and she didn't get the sense that this woman was some man-eating beast. 

"Eh," Kaori shrugged after a minute passed. "It's not that big a deal," she muttered. "You know, in this little gig we've got together, the other girls and I have been running around Jade for a long time now, and not once has anyone ever told me I look smart. Most people just assume I'm an airhead. Probably because I am one, but still." 

"I would never have guessed, blue-eyes," Ash said, with a dramatic tone befitting an elementary actress. 

"I have a name, you know." 

"Oh, I know you do, but every time I call you blue-eyes you get this funny look on your face, and I like seeing it." 

"Hmph. See if I ever try to empathize with you again," she resumed her pouting. 

"... So," suddenly, Ash changed the topic. "This acting stuff. How did you get into it?" 

Her question came so suddenly that Kaori pulled back. She hadn't been ready for it. 

"Ehm," Kaori tilted her head. "You really wanna know? I didn't think you'd care about that sort of thing." 

"I don't. You can call it a mild curiosity, I guess," the half-demon shrugged. 

As she heard that, Kaori ran through her memories in her mind, trying to identify the starting point for this little dream of hers. 

"... It started when I was a teenager," she smiled. "I had this girlfriend, a long time ago. She was the one who introduced me to this whole thing. She took me out on plays often, and, yeah, I loved her a lot, and the love that I had for her sort of... spread to the art form, you know?" 

"Used to? What happened?" Ash asked. 

"Her parents moved out of Jade, and we couldn't see each other anymore," Kaori took a sad little smile on her face as she said that. "I don't know where they went, but even though we kept in touch through letters, we ended it on the day she left. I've been in a ton of relationships," she admitted, feeling no shame at all, "but, that one was the longest. And, absolutely, the best. So far, anyway." 

"Hm..." Ash hummed to herself, as Kaori kept going, caught up in her own mind now.

She remembered her old girlfriend then. Her beautiful, silky black hair. Her thin, adorable frame. The way she treated everything Kaori did like it was just as important to her as it was to the blonde herself. 

"Y-Yeah," Kaori laughed awkwardly.. "It was great."