Watching and Waiting

She turned around.

When I saw her mouth drop I waited for the scream, but it never came. She just sat there with her mouth slack. After a few seconds she took a deep breath, looked away and then looked back.

“I have to say that you are pretty scary, no offense.” She said this in such a matter of fact tone,
“The green scaly skin and the snake eyes are very, well... creepy. You don’t have a forked tongue do you?” To reassure her I poked out my sound and sighed. She wasn’t taking this as I expected but she also wasn’t taking this seriously. She looked at me like it was just a mask.
“Okay I can handle this” and then she smiled. Children of this era are far too accustomed to frightening scenes.

“That’s it?” I almost wanted her to scream now, she was the first person to see how I saw myself, I couldn’t even handle it.
“What else did you want me to say? Did you actually want me to run screaming?” She was still staring at me.
“You are the first person who has seen me as I’ve seen myself for the last 400 years, I guess I expected more of a reaction. I guess I thought I would deserve more of a reaction.” I felt deflated, robbed of what I thought I deserved for so long.
“Well I have seen a few scary things in my time, don’t get me wrong you are on my top ten but after I found a chopped up, decaying corpse when I was ten I’m pretty much numb to hideous, scary things.”

Maybe it wasn’t the children of this era, maybe it was just her.

“So why do you look like a snake of all things?” I decided that it was now safe enough to sit next to her as I started another tale.
“It was part of the curse. My kind originates to before the great Greek cities were established. We were first named by them as agathos daimons, we were good daimons, those that would protect a person or sometimes a whole family.”

She looked a little sceptical for a moment so I continued
“There were also bad daimons. There legacy, as you know, has lasted longer than ours, it is where Christianity gets their name for the creatures of hell. These evil or, kakodaimon as they’re called do the opposite of us. They put people in danger and often lead them down the road of destitute and misery.”

“Anyway as the Greeks discovered us they made myths about our origins and also attributed us with snakes. In the beginning they thought we took the form of the snake, that was soon changed into just a symbol and they thought of us as young men holding horns. That is why the witch chose the snake, which is slightly ironic really.”

She was silent for a while and then...

She just laughed. Dislike coursed through my bones in that moment. I just turned and stared at her waiting for her to stop laughing.
“I’m sorry for laughing, really. It’s just... well it really is ironic and I really like ironic things.”

This girl was not as I expected, I don’t know if that is good or not yet.

“So what happens now?” That was a really good question.

A lot had changed since my last ward, especially since I was visible now. I don’t think I’d be able to follow her around for the rest of her life. I didn’t know how to handle this situation, how to always be there to protect her.

“Alright since you don’t seem to have any ideas, how about we go to my house and you can think on the way. I’ll just tell my flatmates that you’re an English exchange student and I’m getting you accustomed to American culture and society. By the way why do you have an English accent if you originate from Greece?”

She was a fast thinker but also asked a lot of questions.

“My kind originates from Greece; I was trained and started in England, that is also where my wards lived therefore the accent.” We walked in silence until we got to her house. I was apprehensive about meeting other people; I hadn’t actually been in human society for a long time and especially never in the company of my ward.

It was like I was learning everything again.

I only just realised how late it was when we got to her house. It was almost midnight and yet everyone in her house was still awake. Altogether there were five people who lived there. It wasn’t a big house, the rooms were small but they seemed to manage. The kitchen was large, which was good because it seemed like the focal point of the house. When we got there all four other flatmates and a few visitors were standing in the kitchen, not cooking anything just talking in there.

They were strange.

When we stepped inside they all fell silent and just stared at me. Some looked in awe, others stunned and one angry.
“Guys this is...” she looked back at me, I hadn’t told her my name because I didn’t really have one
“... this is Daimon” she had only paused for a second, almost as if for effect so no one questioned whether she actually knew my name or not. She then went on to explain in amazingly great detail why I was there, who I was and why I would be hanging around a lot. It had only taken us ten minutes to walk here and I hadn’t come up with a story near the believability as hers.

Then she surprised me.

“Well he’s going to be staying the night on my floor until we find him a place that isn’t flooded.” Guess I missed that part of the story.
“He can sleep on the couch” the angry girl said,
“No he couldn’t, that couch is far too short and my floor is much cleaner anyway.” With that she dragged me off to what was her room and she was right, her room was much cleaner, than the whole house.

“I would really like to see you how they do, you must be really handsome to make them all fall silent.” She smiled as she pulled blankets and a pillow from under her bed and made another bed on the floor.
Her room was small but clean and organised. She only had a single bed but that gave her room for her extra large desk, which had neat stacks of paper covering most of top but leaving room for an old looking desktop computer.

“If you don’t mind I’ve got some work to do, so you can sit there and do what you like.” I don’t quite know what she expected me to do but I took a seat on her bed and then just watched her for the rest of the night.

She went through many papers, highlighting and making notes all over them and then putting them in another pile. After two hours of this she turned the old slow computer on and made some more notes. It was all pretty boring but it gave me insight into her. She was a hard worker, able to concentrate even when her flatmates were making a lot of noise. Once she finished she got ready for bed and then we both went to sleep.

I’m thinking her life isn’t all that exciting...