Trusty pitchfork in hand, Lyle wiped a thin layer of sweat from his brow; his long quest had come to its climactic conclusion. The heart of the Demon King's Tower - a throne room of glimmering, quartz pillars - had been littered with the corpses of fallen fiends; their mistress struggled to maintain consciousness.
"H-H-How?" Inheritor of the Demon Lord's mantle, Dark Princess Altrea, could barely speak, "It's i-impossible, you are vermin. The e-extermination of your kind w-was to be...my....ascension." The horned sorceress had been dumbfounded by her defeat, pride irreparably devastated, as her form slumped lower; a simple had farmer bested her.
"Nothin's impossible, darlin." The rancher interjected, approaching with a calm yet assured demeanor; a man of no notable origin, upbringing or substantial wit had saved the world all by himself. "Your days of evil' doin' are finished, little missy."
She wanted to rend reality with a psychic scream, to tear his insolent head from those broad, well-worked shoulders, but the defeated demoness could do nothing but sneer and spit at his feet. "Just kill me, you rat. What are you waiting for!" Altrea winced at her own weakness, lying in a crumpled heap of her tattered ballgown; the Princess of Evil could not bear to look at him, platinum and azure locks obscuring her downward gaze.
Well, Lyle had no intention of killing anybody that didn't need killing; he was raised better than that. The rancher approached, though he couldn't help but chuckle at his own intentions.
"This -- This is worse than death." Altrea scrambled her newfound 'companion's' eggs on a rustic iron skillet; a life of commanding the demonic hordes had prepared her for conquering the world, not playing housewife.
With the crow of a cock and an orange sun crawling over the hillside, the first day of Altrea's new life had begun.
"Oh, come on Alty," Lyle quipped from the other end of the modest kitchen, already dressed for a day of hearty work, "Yer doin' great!" After his victory over the forces of darkness, Lyle could've done and been just about anything; he'd been celebrated as a champion and offered the world. Accolades, riches, power -- those things meant nothing to a simple man such as he. No, he wanted to give Altrea one thing no one dared to try: a shot at redemption.
His fiendish companion hadn't see it that way, of course, but was powerless to stand against this compassionate cultivator; was he blessed by the Gods? Such questions no longer mattered. Altrea dusted off her apron, finished with her sad attempt at cooking and spitefully slapped his breakfast platter together.