With Vautur's spear stained in the tainted blood of a most wicked monster, tonight was indeed a celebration for the frail human race; for the immortal Jahr, the Devil Queen herself, had finally been bested by the hand of a hero in her own palace of corruption, centuries after she had declared her gruelling war against mankind!
The once mighty dark lord of terror, the monster that parents would tell their child stories of, was now clutching at the open wound found at her side oh-so pathetically. A gash, as dark-red in its colour as the wrinkled, demonic body of the two-thousand-year-old Devil, slowly oozed fresh blood down onto her regal robes as she bent a knee and cradled at her wounded side, her hooves trembling from weakness as she looked upon her conqueror with glistening yellow, bloodshot, demonic eyes.
"P-prithee…!," the sadistic queen of all monsters pleaded to her conqueror oh-so pathetically, scrambling to crawl back as the blonde human youth of seventeen summers slowly approached her with his spear held at his hip. "Do me no harm, o merciful mortal…! I intend no further evil against your puny race!," the crimson-skinned devil cried out in the hoarse rasp of an old woman as her hooves began a pathetic dance of pleading on the cold marble stone of her own throne hall.
If one were to ignore the more inhuman aspects of her form—such as her caprine, dark-furred lower half ending in hooved feet, the pair of long, black curled horns jutting from the sides of her head, or that deep, dark crimson hue which ran across her whole frame—one would mistake this royal monster as some kind of aged matron. And quite the fair-looking at that. seeing as the harsh rivers of time had not done any favours in making the Devil Queen seem much less beautiful, for even the many wrinkles and creases etched on her face could only accentuate and emphasize the potent mature allure of the devil crone's countenance.
Raising his spear higher and aiming true for her black heart, the hero growled in the depths of the darkness, "You were the one to rob me of my mother, you heartless bitch!" the seventeen-year-old hero yelled in a rage, the vivid images of the Devil Queen's troops sacking Vautur's home in his younger years, and his late parent screaming for help before her demise flashing in the corner of his memory.
Although having realized that this stranger possessed a personal grudge against her, the old woman was not yet deterred in her attempts at pleading for her life and well-being. "I meant no harm to you!," claimed she, despite not having the first clue of what the young hero meant, and continuing to cling at the wound, hoping in vain for a miraculous miracle of the gods themselves. "Pity my plight! My p-plea for clemency! If you desire, I shall reform my vile and wicked ways! Yes, yes! No longer will my minions ravish, plunder, and pillage in the streets and villages of human land! So, prithee! Spare this elderly devil of her life, young sir!" cried out the wicked, red demon as she begged the man who bested her in battle in the middle of her castle itself.
The oil chandeliers overhead shined their flickering candlelight against the dark marble floors of the grand castle's great hall. "Then, become mine, you wicked witch," the blond human commanded. "You took something precious away from me, so you shall now pay by providing another. Become my mother, or you will perish."
"W… What?"
⁂
Following the death of the Devil Queen at the hand of the young, courageous hero that had bested her, the many kingdoms of mankind celebrated their collective victory in her wake. Vautur was heralded throughout the human lands as perhaps the most heroic of all men, for it was said he had taken down an entire legion of demons by himself in order to slay Jahr.
Five months after his long journey to save humanity's souls, the blonde, beautiful seventeen-year-old Vautur could now rest at last in peace, free from the shackles of revenge and quietly living in a quaint, desolate manor far, away from all civilization. The manor had no servants or other workers present, as the great hero asked the kings and nobles to let him live the rest of his life in peace.
Tonight was a stormy one, the downpour battering against the manor window like the waves from the sea outside. Vautur, dressed in his homely attire of a grey tunic and dark breeches, stood before the door leading to the large basement and proceeded to fumble with the heavy, metallic lock. A soft click rang in the silence, and he threw open the heavy iron door, walking down beyond the dark recesses of his basement's stairs.
The rhythmic sounds of stirring pots filled the dark staircase leading down. At its terminus, lay the brightly-lit cellar room, fitted with many ornate furnitures such as a couch, few chairs, a table, a bed and a cooking pot—each kept meticulously cleaned by the cellar's denizen. And sure enough there, standing before the heating pot filled with meat porridge on her two cloven hooves, stood the former Devil Queen, clad in a white, frilly apron over a yellow dress, the very clothing of a human housewife.
Noting his arrival with a hoarse sigh, the elderly devil wearily greeted her captor, the mortal youth who dared make her do this. Her devilish, yellow eyes simmering with a lingering grudge, her crinkled lips faked a small smile. "Welcome back, my son… How was your day?" she rasped out, doing her best to ignore her five-months-long imprisonment in the human manor's basement and play the part of his human "mother."
"Come closer, dear, I have prepared food for both of us," said she, the aged woman turning to face the human. For the last few months, she had spent the most of her time alone down here, and has become quite sick of her current role. Despite her ill-will towards Vautur and his kind in general, she was willing to act out the part of a good "mommy", so as not bring any trouble on herself and be executed. The former queen of the many monster races, the woman once feared by all, now forced to pretend at caring for and nurturing a human. How truly pathetic.
But, the worst part about this charade was that the youth seemed to take pleasure in forcing the ageing devil into serving as a substitute for his late parent. With a smile so innocent, Vautur approached the feminine, crimson-skinned form of the two-thousand-year-old devil he kept prisoner, and proceeded to