The Mist and the Lightning. Part 19. Ви Корс

you’re essentially a child! You have not developed as a person and personality! I have seen you! I have seen how your so-called mother treated you! Little lonely abandoned boy! Nobody needs an orphan, defenseless from the cruelty of adults and their arbitrariness. Dependent on them in his childish weakness. This creature tortured you! Kept you in some kind of closet, as if in a grave!”

      “A-a-a-ah…”

      “I’m really sorry! You began to take drugs and alcohol in order to forget about the dislike and indifference of others. You never found a core inside yourself, you didn’t even learn how to comb your hair! You are a lost man of the social bottom, and you will never be able to rise to a normal society without support! Drugs, alcohol, promiscuity, perversions, cruelty, lack of honor and dignity…”

      “Stop doing that!” Nik literally howled and covered his ears with his hands hidden by bandages.

      “Look at yourself! Who do you look like? Who have you become? You stopped listening to me and instantly rolled back into the pit. Without my support, attention and education, you immediately sank down and gave up. Not a couple of weeks have passed since our quarrel, and you again rolled back to where I pulled you from! Instead of stupidly devouring me, evoking emotions and feeding on them and on my blood, you should have obeyed me! A bad demonic essence merging with an equally bad human, why don’t you listen to your father? If you listened to me, everything would be fine!”

      “Leave.”

      “Okay, I’ll leave, but you know…”

      “Get out already, fuck you!” yelled Nik, and, abruptly sitting on the skins, he threw one of his heavy unclean boots in Kors.

      Kors barely dodged, rushing out the door.

      He was very offended.

      Chapter 4

      Trembling with resentment and anger, Kors was standing at the threshold of their camping tent in the drizzling rain. In lace and a half-buttoned luxurious camisole, decorated with buttons with precious stones and gold embroidery on the lapels, in pants made of expensive suede leather, and at the same time barefoot. He looked down at his feet. A true black, noble gentleman, the elite of the World without a sky, standing barefoot in the mud, in a rain puddle. Kors didn’t remember at all when the last time he walked the earth barefoot, probably, it was in his long forgotten childhood. And now he was in complete shock. He was simply kicked him out, barefoot, in the rain, in the mud, not really dressed, and dressed not at all according to the situation. Nik kicked him out like a dog! He doesn’t listen to anything! He threatened to kill Kors! And where should he go now? But he won’t come back, if so! To ask to be taken back, to ask for forgiveness, to crawl on his knees again – no!

      Barely overcoming disgust, Kors cautiously stepped into the liquid mud, mixed with hay and dung. Afraid of injuring his feet on some loose horseshoe nail or broken bottle, he took a few steps forward. The edges of his trouser legs were already wet and dirty. Probably, it was necessary to immediately pull them up or roll them up, but then he would look even stupider. Where’s his damn horse, fucking Grrkh? Kors called out to him loudly, immediately hearing a whinny in response from quite a distance away. He quickly passed several low tents. Smoke curled over them, for sure there were housekeeping Verniy and Valentine there, maybe even at that moment they were boiling water for Kors. But Kors didn’t want to see them, and even more didn’t want them to see him in such a pitiful state. He found Grrkh tied up under a rectangular canopy set up on tall poles. His horse stood calmly next to Unclean Power and Beauty. In addition to the fact that a roof was built for the horses, protecting them from the rain, Grrkh was unsaddled and carefully covered with a woolen blanket. Next to him, on a clean pallet, lay hay and a bucket filled to the brim with water. “The horse is treated better than me!” Kors thought angrily. He looked around for his saddle, but couldn’t find it, there was not a single saddle at all. It looked like Verniy had taken all the saddles and harness to his tent, away from dampness and rain. “The horses are well-groomed, and there is more order here than in the tent of Nik and Arel! Only you always have dirt, cold and a mess! Well, go to hell!” Still being angry, Kors roughly pulled off the blanket from the horse and jumped on him without a saddle, feeling a strong shiver ran through Grrkh’s body from the scruff of the neck to the tail. The horse twitched under the rider, and neighed, nervously stepping with his hooves, but Kors paid no attention to this. Yelling a command furiously and kicking the horse’s flanks with his muddy heels, he urged him onward to where he had come from the day before, and where his Parky and Adrian had been.

      Responding to the call, Parky jumped out of his tent, and, since Kors took him by surprise, the unclean one couldn’t restrain his emotions, and admiration flashed in his eyes for just a second. Kors noticed this and understood the reason. Yes, the camisole was really luxurious, but Parky couldn’t realize the fact that wearing it in such a situation was inappropriate, just like Nick, and by the way, all the other unclean couldn’t either. And the fact that Kors was wearing expensive clothes, but at the same time had bare feet in the mud, didn’t seem strange to Parky at all.

      Kors dismounted. The fact that he was without shoes was incredibly depressing to him.

      “Parky! Set up my tent immediately! You have five minutes!”

      “Yes, commander! I can suggest you, commander, to take shelter in my tent for the time being. It’s raining.”

      Kors didn’t want to go into the unclean’s tent at all, but standing there like a fool in front of his subordinates was also a dubious option.

      “All right, just move quicker!”

      Kors entered his captain’s tent. To his relief, it was fairly clean and comfortable inside. A table and chairs stood against one wall, and a sleeping place was located at the other, it was a low flooring littered with skins. Tyutya was sitting on it, cross-legged. Undressed, with her bright hair disheveled, she looked in horror at Kors, and he looked at her terrible burn scars in place of her breast and a deep vertical scar on her stomach. “What kind of pervert do you have to be, Parky, to want that?” Kors thought, and, apparently, disgust was involuntarily reflected on his face, because the slave, coming to her senses, grabbed her dress, put it on very quickly, threw on the cape in a matter of seconds and rushed out of the tent. Kors sat down at the table and, taking Parky’s cigarette from the box lying on it, lit it. He heard that there was a fuss in the street, the cries of the unclean, Parks was giving out jerky commands.

      After trying to calm down a bit, Kors decided to analyze the situation. What did he do wrong again? Now why did he offend him? What did he say to Nik that was so hurtful? Nothing! He hadn’t said or done anything wrong! It was Nik who offended him, deceived, sucked him out and ate as he wanted. The demon was cynically eating the victim, who didn’t suspect anything and was confident in his honesty. And even after everything that the Demon had done to him, after the lies and betrayal were revealed, he, like a father, sincerely wanted to help him with the treatment! And Nik, as a gratitude, yelled at him and threw a boot at him! His unreasonable outbursts of rage were simply unsettling. Even Prince Arel, despite all his foolishness, behaves more adequately and consistently. Nik is very sick. How annoying it is! Inadequate moron, an orphan with crippled psyche, and in addition sharing a body with a punished outcast Demon. What had Lis told him once? “I’m no longer surprised that your demon friends kicked you out of their world!” Exactly! Lis was right! And what can I want after that? What reasonable action can I await from the abnormal? But, in spite of everything, I’m nice to him, and he is evil again! Why is Nik angry again? He absolutely cannot stand being told the truth. He doesn’t want to hear the truth about himself. He cries, he gets angry. But at the same time, he does nothing to change for the better, and doesn’t listen to anything. “He gets through only thanks to his cute appearance, for which, by the way, he should be grateful to me! And I always looked after him and loved him! And how can I help him, if he rejects everything himself, tramples, repels. Any patience will burst!” Kors thought.

      Kors often thought: what if he had remained silent that evening, had not said that he had seen the truth? Everything would remain the same, and the Demon wouldn’t punish him? But then they would continue to consider him a fool, over whom they could make fun and brazenly use him. No, that was not an option either. Now they will at least know