Arvid knew it was a risk stopping in the human town. It would only bring trouble. But months on the forest trails alone, drinking his homemade berry and root wines, left much to be desired.

The constant itch in his mind was soothed by another pull from the thick green bottle the barkeep sold him for far too many singers.

The fire whiskey burned his throat and insides as he kindled a fire in the small, soot-covered alcove near the bed.

Humans knew how to brew a strong spirit. He’d give them that. He’d have to buy a case before he left.

Arvid whispered to the kindling the true names he knew of fire and brought it dancing to life. He then hung his cloak on the chair but kept his knives hidden, sheathed under his tunic. While his kind was not permitted to carry weapons and were killed on sight for much less, he never slept without them on his person.

Not that he needed to sleep more than a few hours each night.

Arvid took another pull from the bottle, slammed it next to the dusty mirror by his wash basin, and stared into his reflection.

He could see why the humans feared his looks. The rusty-red eyes are so often mistaken as belonging to a Blood-Demhain. The sharp black horns protruded from his forest-green tangles of hair. His deep brown skin was the color of wet earth.

Arvid scowled at his reflection, which admittedly made him look terrifying, even to him.

He smiled a broad, pointed-teeth smile, though he couldn’t decide if that made it all worse.

Arvid spat in the mirror before he grabbed the bottle and sat down on his dusty, mold-covered cot.

He swallowed the fire whiskey deeply and imagined what the men and women below must have been thinking of him.

How he must be drinking his storages of blood from his latest newborn humans, stolen in the night from un-supervising parents.

Hell, from the few Blood-Demhains he’d known, they might not have been far off if he were one of them.

Should he explain how he was different? Some Neraida gained their energy in different ways. Not all of them were the same. The names the humans had given them were misleading.

Demhains, Hokleek, Vrozka—all words for Neraida in the land of the fae, and all words clouded with fear and judgment.

Arvid was a Neraida of the sun and needed only the light or fire for sustenance.

Would they allow him to prove he was different than what they thought they all knew of him?

No. Of course, not. They wouldn’t give a flying fek; never did.

Arvid sat on the floor by the fire and took another swig. He watched the flames dance and let his mind’s eye wonder to stare out through the fire crackling in the tavern’s first floor below. It brought the voices and humans as if he, too, were welcome in their now gathered circle of hushed voices.

***

“Are we to sit down here while that filthy Hokleek sleeps above us? In a room with a fire and a bed? Planning his next kill, no doubt?” a bearded man whispered as he leaned into the center of the barstools now placed around the fire.

“Aye! And practicin’ dark magics with the devil, no doubt!?” a woman threw in, shaking a fist angrily as she nearly fell off her stool.

“I heard they don’ even need te sleep,” a man with an ale-stained tunic said as he spilled another slosh of his drink on the straw-strewn floor, holding up a pointed finger as he did so.

“Aye!” some shouted and muttered in agreement.

“Keep it down, the lot o’ ye, unless ye wan’ tha’ devil comin’ down an’ bewitchin’ ye all,” the bartend whispered as she stormed over to the circle and refilled several mugs with a pitcher.

“Aye, sorry, Mum,” one man said as he held out his cup.

“She’s not wrong,” the constable spoke up from where he stood facing the fire.

“For all the stories ya’ heard of Demhains, there’s no mistakin’. They have uncanny ears, they do,” the constable whispered. He turned his face to the circle and lowered his head.

All made the same silent gesture in prayer against the Demhain above them. With the palms of their hands, they covered their ears, then their eyes, then brought both hands together.