Chapter 73 - Understood

After finishing his bath, Eiro stepped out of the tub and quickly dried himself, before taking a look at the Fawn. Eiro himself wasn't really all that dirty to begin with, considering that he had been sitting in the river water for hours, and that cleaned any dirt on him off. Not that there was much dirt there anyway, considering his daily baths.

On the other hand, the Fawn had a bunch of dirt intertwined with its fur, and he was stinking quite heavily as well... "Come over here." Eiro said finally as the water seemed to take on a regular, albeit still warm, temperature after Eiro had put the fire out. After bringing some of the water away with a bucket, Eiro quickly tried to get the young forest creature into the tub.

"Just get inside already, you wanted to before..." The Imp muttered with a deep sigh, before he pushed his arms underneath the young Stag's body, trying to pick it up. Luckily he wasn't as large as Eiro thought he was before when he saw him and the big Stag by the river, as it really was just a regular fawn now.

So it actually wasn't much heavier than Arc or Sammy, and he was a fair bit lighter than Rudy, so it wasn't that hard to lift him into the tub, albeit against its will. "Stop it already!" Eiro exclaimed when the fawn unsuccessfully tried to get out of the tub for the fifth time after being lifted inside, and then slightly calmed down, it seemed.

"Good. Now stay still, alright?" The Demon requested as he grabbed a bowl standing next to him and quickly scooped up some of the water in the bowl, before pouring it over the fawn's back to clean him up a little bit.

Before Eiro knew it, the water had turned a light muddy brown from the dirt and small rocks finally being washed off. "Hmm, I wonder, can I borrow Arc and Clementine's Horse brushes?" The Imp asked himself, but in the end simply shrugged. "Guess I should ask them later..." Eiro muttered quietly as he for now just continued pouring water over the fawn before rubbing through its fur to try and clean it as much as possible.

And then, once the Imp was done with that, he swiftly stood up to go grab a towel to dry the fawn, although before he could do that, the young animal swiftly jumped out of the tub and started shaking its body to quickly dry itself, and those drops of course reached far enough to cover Eiro's desk, where he had been working on trying to level his language comprehension up more by writing different things.

The fawn mostly caused mist-like droplets to fly around, so the paper wasn't completely soaked, but some of the Ink still started running again. "Would it be cruel to make it stop moving by freezing its wet fur..?" Eiro asked himself with a wry, annoyed smile, simply sighing as he stepped forward with the towel and then swiftly used it to dry the small animal.

"Quit it already!" The Imp exclaimed as he tried to hold the fawn in place, although it seemed like the juvenile deer itself was fighting against him as if trying to save his own life. "There! We're done." Eiro sighed as he finally finished drying the fawn, and then placed the towel he used over the rack that the towels were over, before he started to pour out the dirty bathwater and cleaned the tub a bit, and then properly got clothed again.

"Come with me." He added and jerked his head over toward the door, making the fawn quickly follow him outside to get over toward the main part of the house, where Eiro opened the door and quickly let the fawn inside, before it curiously took a look around at the new people that were walking around in here.

"Wh-What is that?" Sammy asked surprised when she saw the fawn, and Eiro just looked down at it and back toward the young girl. "A Baby Deer." He pointed out, although Sammy still seemed nervous. Both Arc and Clementine, however, seemed to be incredibly excited about this.

"Whoa! So cuutee!" Clementine exclaimed as she tried to extend her hand forward to pet the small animal, which quickly responded by pushing its head against her palm as well. In the meantime, Arc started rubbing over its back. "Where did it come from?" He asked with a bright smile, and Eiro just shrugged.

"He started following me in the forest, so I took him along. Jura said he might be a good Familiar, so... I'm thinking of keeping him." The Demon said as he looked down at the small, innocent animal right next to him. And yes, of course he would hide what else happened. And it wasn't like he was lying to them either. Technically, that's what happened as, so he had no qualms about what he said.

"Ooh! It's a boy?! How can you tell?" Clementine asked, and Eiro looked at her with his brows raised. "Well, I just cleaned him, so that's how." He pointed out, and Clementine looked at the Demon with a blank, embarrassed expression. "Hehe, right..." She muttered quietly as she scratched her cheek, while Eiro just slightly smiled at her and rubbed his hand over her head.

"Anyway, for now, I'm heading to bed. It's been a long night." Eiro said with a slight laugh as he slowly made his way over toward his bed and simply dropped down into it after taking his clothes off, while the young fawn simply climbed on top of him, although the others had different worries at the moment.

"What... What was that..?" Arc asked, with an expression more terrified than he's ever shown before, and Clementine looked around at the other children confused at what just happened. Rudy nearly dropped the pan he was cooking food in, and Sammy didn't notice how Avalin was stealing food from the sleeping Leon's plate... Only Jura was slightly smirking.

"Did... Eiro just laugh?" Sammy asked in disbelief, although the Demon in question had already dozed off with the ball of fur sleeping on top of him.

---

From then on, life once more entered a quite regular routine. At night, Eiro went to the river and cared for the seed together with the Fawn, who was soon named 'Lugo', after the 'Ancient Language' word for moon, one of the few words whose meaning was actually known. The reason why Eiro thought that was a pretty nice name was, that the two of them only ever were really awake when the moon was out.

At least at first. They were still awake in the day when Eiro went to town every couple of weeks, where Lugo simply went along with him each and every time. And then the next exception came when spring came and the days started becoming longer again, meaning that they now went to the forest before sundown, and came back after sunrise. But even then, they were always out the whole night.

Somehow, while he could have just started going in the day when he had the chance to, he somehow thought he should just continue to try and make it grow during the night. It just felt right to him.

And soon, he found that it might have been a good choice, because once all the snow had actually properly frozen and other plants grew as well, the small seed started sprouting and turned into a small sapling.

Somehow, it was always surrounded by a cold mist, but that wasn't anything that Eiro really minded. It seemed rather nice, really.

Over the next few months, while Eiro stayed practically the same with the excpetion of managing to get his Fire Magic skill to Apprentice grade, the others kept changing more and more. The speed at which the skills of the children leveled up picked up quite heavily, meaning that they were slowly stopping to be 'children'. They were all ten now as well, and got a little taller as well. Not by much, so they were all still shorter than Eiro was, but they did still grow a little bit.

Both Leon and Avalin started talking a fair bit more, and soon after either of them spoke their first words, they started walking as well, and at this point were simply running around the house at every chance they got, meaning that Sammy's stress increased a fair bit.

But a thing that both of the toddlers picked up was... calling out to Eiro as their father. They still couldn't talk that well, so it was still a broken version of 'Daddy', but it was obvious that both of them somehow saw Eiro as a sort of father figure. And it wasn't like he minded either, it just felt somewhat off sometimes, considering who and what the Imp was.

Not only the children grew, however. The fawn also grew a little, although still not by much. However... It grew its first antlers! Or well, they were more like two single spikes at this stage, so maybe calling them 'antelrs' was a bit too much. But either way, they looked pretty nice!

Somehow, after Eiro's evolution, only then did he really start appreciating the beauty of such things. Horns were pretty cool, weren't they? At least that's what Eiro himself thought.

Then later, the Spring Equinox came around. It was basically the same thing as the Winter Solstice, because the Lady of Spring would appear then. Once more, Eiro helped Jura out with the gathering of different plants and materials, however... When the Lady actually appeared, she seemed to practically scowl at Eiro whenever she saw him.

Even the 'Daughters of Spring', the young spirits that were following the Lady of Spring around, weren't all that happy with Eiro. Was it because of his blessing from the Lady of Winter? Were they maybe not on good terms with each other?

The Demon wanted to ask Jura about it, but it seemed like he didn't really want to speak about it.

And then when summer came around... Jura finally told Eiro exactly what the Imp wanted to hear.

"You passed. You can now start studying under me as my apprentice, Eiro." Jura said in a clear tone, and somehow, Eiro's excitement could hardly be contained anymore.

He had been working toward this for a whole year after all! However... There was still something that worried the Demon.

"But... will I have the time to keep caring for the tree?" Eiro asked, and Jura slowly shook his head. "You will not. But it does not matter, due to your constant infusion of mana into the seed, its nature changed. It's far more resilient than a regular tree. You should still give it some of your mana every once in a while, but it will continue to grow into a splendid tree from now on." The old man said, relaxing Jura's worries, before the young Imp nodded his head in satisfaction.

"I see..." He muttered quietly, while Jura sat down right next to Eiro and started carving into some wood, quickly giving it the shape of something that Eiro had been living without for the past half year. A new wooden hand. But this one was much different than the one before.

"You see, this hand will be one that will shatter in exactly five years. At that point, your Apprenticeship under me will be over, and you will carve yourself a new hand out of a branch from the tree you yourself planted and cared for." Jura said in a clear tone, and Eiro just sat there as the old man placed the new wooden hand onto his stump.

And while Eiro, for the first time since the incident in the Demon town, managed to move fingers on his own hand individually, the Demon just smiled back at Jura.

"Understood."