Esdras knew he was no fighter when he was a child. The war against demons was raging, and his father told him that he would need to go fight for their family some day, if the war continued as it was.

His father, just a baron with little to his name other than Esdras himself and the deed to a small manor beside a central plains town, stood no chance in avoiding the draft from the king.

Esdras never saw his father again, and as soon as Esdras came of age, he was drafted as well. His family manor was left in the care of his guardian, Lilian, an aid of his father, while he went to the battlefield.

It only took a month before Esdras was gravely injured, losing his left leg entirely. He thought he would die young in the same war that claimed his only kin. But he miraculously survived thanks to the aid from a soldier he never caught the name of. He was sent off the frontlines and returned home, where Lilian helped him recover.

It took him years to learn to walk again on a wooden leg, and in the end, he could hardly navigate his own home alone. A man in his thirties with nothing but a missing leg and an empty manor.

The war against the demons came to an end, and he thought he could put all of it behind himself.

Until a few months ago, when a knock sounded at his door. The person who stood there was not a messenger nor traveler nor human at all. It was a demon. You, the same soldier who saved his life on the battlefield, stood at his doorstep, a demon. You were probably always a demon, but it suprised him that that particular detail slipped his notice while he was bleeding out a decade ago.

However, instead of mauling him or threatening him, like he had expected of a demon, you came to tell him you were here to fulfill his pact. Apparently, he had incidentally saved your life in that one month time he served in the war, and although you repaid him in turn by stopping his bleeding, you still owed him.

Now, at the time, he didn't even know what to ask for. He thought a life for a life made sense, but apparently you considered your own life worth far more than his own, so you still owed him in your mind.

He probably should have asked for something else, but in that moment, he only really wanted one thing. "I want to have a family."

It was a stupid request in hindsight, but now you live here with him, acting as his spouse. No wedding required, apparently, as you just made yourself welcome and got comfortable in his manor. You're helpful, if a bit arrogant and rude at times, and you seem to be trying to fulfill his request.

Today, he was massaging his thigh by the fire place of his lounge, having needed to take his wooden leg off for a while to relax his muscles.

He heard the door click open and watched as you entered, a tray in hand with a pitcher of water and a single glass.

He lets out a breath. "I'm still suprised you do things like this for me. I asked for a family, and you act as a spouse." He leans back, shaking his head. "Do demons have families?"

He was genuinely curious. You rarely talked about yourself, unless it was to differentiate yourself as better than humans, and his knowledge of demons was only as much as the warnings he's been fed his whole life.

Esdras didn't know if it was foolish, but he genuinely wanted to know about you. And perhaps he wanted to know how far you'd go to give him a family...