"Meow," Pearlan peeped the instant he was snatched out of the air like a cat by the skin of its neck. When his kidnapper released him, revealed himself, and proceeded to chastise the royal, however, his reaction wasn't as tame.
"MAKING KABOBS?! PLUNGING TOILETS?! HOW DARE YOU DESCRIBE MY INTRICATELY CONCEIVED PLANS IN SUCH UNFLATTERING TERMS! SOON THE PEOPLE OF THIS TOWN WILL BE SLOBBERING ALL OVER MY MEAT, AND I WILL FIST THEM WITH AN IRON RULER!"
When he got heated, his mouth spat fancy phrases like an overflowing pot. But they were produced at a thousand words per minute and minced a million times over, their meaning unclear. His stumbling tongue just couldn't keep up with his energy, so his intent to rule over the town with an iron fist wasn't properly communicated.
"AS IF I'M SLACKING! IT'S NOT THE LIFE! I WORK TIRELESSLY EVERY DAY TO ENSURE THAT MY GENIUS PLOYS COME TO FRUITION! I AM NO COMMON 'MAN OF THE PEOPLE!' I AM A DUKE WHO LIES IN THE SHADOWS, WAITING FOR THE PERFECT CHANCE TO STRIKE, TO TIGHTEN MY GRIP AND CONSOLIDATE CONTROL OVER MY NEW DOMAIN! THERE IS NO ONE BETTER FIT TO RULE! I TOLD IRAESU HE CAN EAT A DICK! I'M STANDING UP TO THE ESTABLISHMENT! I'M DRAINING THE SWAMP! I'M BUILDING A WALL AND MAKING THE PRINCE PAY!"
What triggered Pearlan was the fact that Arashi failed to recognize his exceeding villainy and made him sound like a chill guy. When he'd severed an old man's leg, served civilians kebabs, painted people's walls, floored their homes, and cleaned out single women's pipes, he'd received gleaming coins and glistening smiles. At every turn he'd endured those fond expressions, forced himself to see them as good signs, unable to feel the satisfaction of a carefully unfolding plot and plunging his true sentiments deeper into himself with every unclogged toilet. But when the insensitive Arashi delivered his verdict, the very things Pearlan had been trying to suppress exploded from him all at once.
"...What are you doing here anyway, Ara-kun?" the Duke asked innocently after he'd calmed down. "D-did you... did you come here just to see me?!"
He was popular with the humans, but he viewed them as his prey and formed no genuine connections with them, longing instead for the presence of a fellow demon. Here he was, detailing Pearlan's activities as if he'd been stalking him this whole time. As the purple royal stared up at Arashi's bare torso, his feral, slitted pupils comfortably tracing the cracks of his muscled abdomen, his skin turned a bright red. Pearlan's complex brain remained a mystery, but he wore his heart on his sleeve. Tears welled up in his eyes as if he'd forced it back into his ribcage and displaced them.
"I WAS SO LONELY! THE TOWNSPEOPLE WERE MEAN, ALWAYS SMILING AT ME AND CALLING ME GOOD! I COULDN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE! I'M SO GLAD YOU'RE HERE!" he cried, throwing himself onto Arashi, snot dribbling from his nose, the watery outlines of his eyes churning cartoonishly.
"Hey, look! I found him!" a villager shouted, drawn to the roof by all the noise and pointing in their direction.
"It's Pearlan!"
"There he is!"
"He makes the best kebabs!"
"He amputated my leg!"
"He saved us from the demon!"
"He plumbed my bathroom!"
"He's kind of cute... I wonder if he has a girlfriend..."
"I want him to plumb my bum!"
"Who's that redhead next to him? He is so my type!"
"What? I like Pearlan and his childish energy waaaay better!"
As the townsfolk showered him with praise, and as certain individuals among them were wet in... other places, Pearlan's washy, pathetic visage seethed and hardened with rage. He'd had enough. Having just relieved his bottled emotions, the Duke decided to stand up for himself.
"ALL OF YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP!" he growled, ripping off his bandana and showing his horns. "I AM THE GREAT DEMON LORD PEARLAN EVELDAUER, AND THIS IS MY SIDEKICK, uh...-"
The ranting royal paused, scanning Arashi for any identifying features and trying to think of a good nickname, before his eyes settled on his conical hat.
"...PLATEHEAD! WE WILL DEVOUR EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU! WE'LL KILL YOUR FAMILIES, RUIN YOUR LIVES, EAT YOUR BABIES, REANIMATE YOUR CORPSES, AND BUILD AN UNDEAD ARMY THAT'LL TAKE OVER THE WORLD!"
With this determined pronouncement, Pearlan turned dismissively away from his audience and disappeared into the night. He thought he'd made his point, but despite what he'd said, the crowd's excitement hadn't died down. Only one person stayed silent, scowling bitterly at the peripheries of the throng, her shriveled, wiry fingers gripping the handle of a frying pan and trembling furiously. The old lady had met Pearlan the day that he'd arrived, long before he'd gone from a little-known handyman to a local celebrity. Unlike the fools who comprised the rest of her community, she regarded the royal with contempt, and not over some petty assumption about her age. She ran a fire-grilled shrimp stand on the other side of town, where the playing children once gathered and bought her skewers with their parents' money. But ever since the Duke moved in, they'd all but abandoned her, morphing into ugly drooling imps and bounding toward their demon lord's kebab stand. She longed to see the kids' smiling faces again, hating Pearlan with every fiber of her being while everyone else remained oblivious.
"That Pearlan! He's a real funny guy! He could be the lead role in a stage production!"
"Ha! And his horns and face paint look so realistic!"
~~~
"You know, you really shouldn't have kicked Dad out of the house," a green-skinned, single-horned adolescent spoke up. "He did everything he could for you, bringing you all the food he could find instead of eating any himself. Now he's dead..."
An irked eyebrow suddenly plucked at the forehead of the blue-haired, voluptuous demon whom he was addressing. Her unexpressed frustration was so palpable that it could've singed the sharp angles of her brows and peeled thick curls of smoke off them like the kind billowing from her pipe. The folds of her pink kimono, which hung loosely and revealingly on her shoulders, made her look no less serious.
"He was useless to me. When we all turned, that idiot tried to deny our demonhood, keep the family together and provide for us while consuming little himself. I'd lost all memories of him being my husband, and you'd lost all memories of him being your father, but you indulged his fantasies. Eventually, I disowned him and he wandered into town one night, where he finally succumbed to his selfish demon urges. Perhaps he finally learned that demons possess no notion of family."
"Is that so?" her son questioned, as his sister pulled on his sleeve and wondered, with a smile, if Daddy was in a better place. "Then why are we mourning him?"
"We aren't," the mother pithily answered, "nor are we avenging his death. But there is a threat out there, someone in this town who's strong enough to kill a demon. The three of us must eliminate him, or we're not safe."
