Chapter 93: Interlude: Nona - Part 1
Ever since she’d been given a second chance, there wasn’t a day that went by when Nona didn’t remember the angelkin who’d saved her.
When she’d first arrived, she’d been regarded as something of a curiosity. Maledict told his court that he "had plans for her," and that meant that everyone had, at first, asked her endless questions, even when she was taken away to be cleaned and stuff.
She couldn’t say much though. She knew her own story, but that was boring to them, and when it came to the fight and the angel and Maledict... she really couldn’t remember much. Just that the angelkin had made a bargain with Maledict for her life. That Maledict had used magic to fulfill that bargain.
Once it was clear the only interesting detail was that she’d met an angel, their interest in her waned after only a week or so... It was hard to tell time indoors when the sky was always dirty and black, and she was indoors all the time for the first month or so.
Despite what he’d said, after the first day of their arrival, Maledict didn’t have her doing anything, so Nona just wandered around the palace, occasionally going into the kitchen where churlish-looking demons would feed her before shooing her out.
After a few days, however, they started to warm up to her. She even made friends with the cooks, whose names were Yahzi, Laef, and Rzzk.
The food surprised her.
Most of it looked unappetizing on the surface, but there were these scaley, grey fruit things that were bright green inside and tasted yummy. And they had normal stuff from Ayther, though most of the time that was all dried out. And some tato-things always looked burned black when fried but the demons would salt them - there was always plenty of pinkish salt for some reason - and they’d go crunch when she bit them.
The meat was just meat, not people-meat as she’d feared. She found out when she’d asked on her second day and got shown a pen full of demon-pigs, which were just like Ayther pigs only big and mean and hairy with big tusks instead of pink. Laef told her they were "boars" but Nona didn’t think they were boring at all.
The other thing that surprised her about the food was that most demons didn’t actually eat.
The important demons only seemed to do it for fun.