Chapter Text
Well... This is as far as he had come, right?
At sea, drowning, as he slowly grew weaker from the water seeping into his body extinguishing the flames he was born with. As the debris of his former ship floated by mocking his very bad luck.
Red Son was not salty, or so he wanted to believe. His bad luck was never an issue that burdened him enough to seek by all means possible to fix his situations. In the end, they were only about failed experiments, his clumsiness, or things that, at the time, had represented a failure that made him feel an emptiness in his stomach. Currently, he felt that all those problems were banal compared to the ones he had now.
The echo of his failures earlier in his life had motivated him to be more ambitious and eager to help his parents expand their domain.
He was very helpful, even if all he got in return was a pat on the head or a mild sentiment from either of them. Sure, it was their world when that happened. His parents were his world.
It had to be that way, didn't it, after all, love for one's parents is usually something natural that arises at the first moment of physical contact. While a little hand squeezed the little finger of Princess Iron Fan for example.
He lived and loved his parents, he lived to see his parents' goals realised while he was a part of the orchestra that had been formed since the Demon Bull kingdom had been raised with the stench of blood and fighting. Therefore, it was nothing but satisfying to find himself at an exquisite dinner to celebrate his victory every night.
Is this what they meant when they said that you see your life through your eyes when you die?
Well, looking at it from this perspective, the last few minutes of the footage I was mentally watching had been nothing but depressing and miserable. Well, how could it not be?
He could always remember the night terrors that haunted him as a child. Lying in his big bed hugging a stuffed cow he had named "General Taurine of Terror", shaking with fear as he cried out his mother's and father's names over and over again in tears.
Iron Fan had never been a very loving person to his son, perhaps at the middle level when he was old enough to fend for himself. But every nightmare night he had come to his son's room, with a tired and to some extent annoyed expression while the delicate and precious face at the end, worthy of a heavenly lady, had a frown on its face because of the interruption of his restful sleep.
She had sat on the edge of her bed, calling his name to come to her. Red Son settled his little head in his mother's lap as she stroked her son's soft hair trying to lull him to sleep, and it worked, it always did. She held him gently and was finally able to cover him with blankets, as she settled the little cuddly toy next to her son.
Red Son as he grew older thought with great certainty that he had conquered any night terror or terror in general. He always looked for the logical side of things, or was simply not intimidated by such a small thing as a shadow in the middle of the dark. In the end, no member of the Demon Bull family gave in to fear.
Always looking up, he played with the idea that he probably no longer feared anything at all. Terror had been left far behind in the days of his childhood as he cried out for comfort from his parents to sleep once more.
Red Son was brave.
But not brave enough.
When the sky turned a blue, not one you might see on sunny mornings or forget-me-nots in spring, but a bone-chilling, bone-chilling blue. When the rot came to their lands it subdued their population into a slow death throes as they screamed in horror and pain that would not die out until they were frozen solid. Made into an ice cube that reeked of death and destruction as it advanced. The piercing screams of the mortal and lesser demons made a symphony of eternal pain and heralded the fall of the empire they had formed as a family.
Red Son thought he was brave.
Until he watched as Princess Iron Fan writhed in the ice that held her captive, trying to reach her husband to keep him close to her and refusing to submit to the witch who was doing this to them. Fear was instilled among the family members as the rot literally overtook them by the throat.
Red Son had never seen either of his parents cry, he had never imagined any situation where his parents would shed tears as he did when he was sad about something, or when he was having a tantrum, or when he was afraid. Always so straight and cold in the emotional aspects that he had settled into the idea that if you were strong, nothing bad would happen because in the end the pain wasn't going to reach anyone as long as everything that could hurt you was under your feet.
But at that moment he could have sworn that the Demon King Bull's treacherous tears were trickling down his cheeks as he watched his wife's desperation to reach him. At one point, now almost completely submerged in the cold ice, the king gave Princess Iron Fan a sad smile. While his eyes reflected nothing but adoration.
If he was to die, at least he would be dying with his wife.
After that, the king took his last look at his son. And that was the end of it. With his parents frozen on a giant ice floe with no way of getting them out.
Red Son thought he was brave.
But now he was submerged in terror.
He couldn't really remember much from there. He was probably too busy screaming and hitting the big ice floe that held his parents captive with lethal blasts of fire that his brain didn't have time to process too much. Not until she arrived.
Lady Bone Demon
Even in death, he could say one thing for certain. He hated her, really hated her.
When she reached out to him in such a fucking creepy way, offering him a deal that to this day would be his doom he had accepted in desperation. And you know what? He would do it again and again because he loved his parents and wanted to see them free once more.
But his bad luck had struck once again. He never thought he was salty, but looking at the surface from below he was sure that at some point he must have had a cleanse or an overhaul in those respects.
Lady Bone had given him the task of catching the four celestial monkeys.
A task that had been a fucking martyrdom because those guys hadn't stood still, not to mention the fact that on many occasions he hadn't managed to get out without a broken bone or a probable cranial contusion.
They had 3, one was missing. Who was sadly missing.
Only one to be able to free his parents and run away from the yoke of that witch.
Too bad that in their search for Flower Fruit Mountain an aquatic demon had wiped out their entire crew, robotic or not. It had shattered their means of transport, causing them to fall into the deep sea that swallowed them like a beast hungry for the poor victims of fate.
Red Son was one of those poor victims when he closed his eyes. He could not stay awake long enough to see a flash of light that had pulled him from his impending doom.