He meets his advisor

“Hello, my lord!” If it were possible for spoken words to be followed directly by an image of a heart, Hollow believed that this voice would have it. He wheeled around to see a male healer walk toward him. He nearly mistook him for a woman, but that was a common mistake made when dealing with male healers. They dressed very effeminately, and had very thin frames, and also spoke in voices that sounded perfectly female. In spite of all this, many of them would get upset if one used the wrong pronoun to address them, or at least would feign offense. While Hollow was not privy to many of the social customs of demons, he was privy to that particular fact.

“Oh, uh, hello.” Hollow replied.

The girlish boy wrapped his arms around Hollow’s frame and nuzzled against his shoulder. Almost entirely by reflex, Hollow flinched back and away from the sudden show of affection.

“Aww don’t be shy! I don’t bite I promise.” The healer wiggled in place. “My name is Lulu, and I was Vegnus’ court advisor! I guess that means I’m yours now. Heehee.” He giggled cutely. His female affectation was definitely spot on, if Hollow didn’t already know the deal with male healers, he would have been totally fooled. Then again, didn’t he hear that some of them genuinely were female? Or at the very least identified as female? He couldn’t remember exactly, and he was a bit too overwhelmed to care at the moment. Something else about Lulu was bothering him, something that felt much more important to Hollow at this moment.

“So, you were Vegnus’ advisor, and you are a healer, correct?” Hollow asked.

“That’s right!” Lulu replied cheerfully.

“Why weren’t you healing him in our battle? I might have lost if you were supporting him.”

“Perhaps, my lord, I wanted you to win. You’re definitely much hunkier than Vegnus.” Lulu once again placed a hand on the breastplate of Hollow’s armor, moving in close.

“You think I’m ‘hunkier’ than a literal dragon?” Hollow cocked an eyebrow. Once again, his one-track mind was focused more on getting to the bottom of this than reacting to what Lulu was doing to him at the moment.

“Everyone has their preferences.” Lulu whispered.

Now becoming more aware of Lulu’s proximity, Hollow backed away again, this time less suddenly, and began to walk to the back of the throne room. He still had more important things on his mind than Lulu’s obvious flirting at the moment, not the least of which was what the fuck to do now.

Hollow cleared his throat, and heard Lulu’s soft footsteps on the huge blood red rug behind him. “So, uh, Lulu, what exactly do I… do?” He said this in a slightly hushed voice.

“What do you mean, my lord?”

“Like… what am I supposed to do as… an overlord?”

Lulu was silent for a moment, Hollow assumed he was taken aback, and perhaps for good reason.

“You mean, you went through all the trouble to overthrow the overlord and you didn’t even have an idea of what was next?”

“Killing Vegnus has kind of been my primary concern.”

“But… why?”

Hollow thought about this as he finally reached the throne and sat down on its red cushion, leaning Harbinger the Black Blade of Woe on the golden arm-rest next to him. He rubbed his chin between his fingers thoughtfully. “You know, I honestly can’t remember.”

Lulu’s jaw practically dropped. “You can’t remember why you wanted to kill the overlord?” he reiterated.

“It was a long time ago. I guess I just got so caught up in wanting to kill him that I forgot why. Did I have to have a reason? Don’t all demons want to become an overlord?”

“Well,” Lulu began, putting his hand on his girlish hip cutely, “some of us are perfectly happy serving overlords. Especially cuties like you.” Hollow felt like he could tell that Lulu winked at him, but thanks to the thick curtain of his bangs, he couldn’t see it. “Well, you’ve reached the apex, really. There isn’t much left you need to ‘do’ as an overlord, just enjoy the good life. Vegnus certainly made it easy for you, every one of Vegnus’ servants here, the cooks, the cleaners, the assistants, the guards, they’re all hired on as concubines for the overlord as well. All except the prinnies.”

Concubine. It was a word that Hollow had heard before, but it took him at least ten seconds of silence to truly remember what it meant. In that moment he looked at Lulu with disbelief. “Wait, really? All of them?”

“That’s right!”

It was in that moment that Hollow began to realize that all of the soldiers and guards he had fought on the way to the throne room, the prinnies excluded, were female. Female armor knights, female warriors, witches, even alraunes. He then looked at Lulu, the only male non-prinny he had encountered. Was Lulu even male?

“So, are you a guy?” Hollow asked without an ounce of tact.

“Yes! You can call me whatever you want though, my lord. I’ll be anything your heart desires!”

“I just couldn’t help but notice,” Hollow began, mostly ignoring the last part of Lulu’s answer for now, “that all of the servants here are women. Barring the prinnies of course.”

“It’s true.” Lulu put his hands on his hips and pouted. “He hired me thinking I was a girl! He kept me on because I’m a really good advisor.”

“But I imagine that he never did anything with you. He clearly had a preference for women.”

“Not a thing! That was okay though, like I said, everyone has preferences. I’m not so much a fan of dragons. I prefer humanoid guys.”

“So, you have a preference for men, then.”

“Hmmm, I like to put it a different way. Women are like lettuce on my sandwiches. I’m not gonna go looking for sandwiches that have lettuce on them, but if someone gives me a sandwich to eat and it has lettuce, I won’t turn up my nose.” Lulu giggled. “But I do like my sandwiches with some nice, thick, salami, and I will seek those out.” Once again, Hollow felt like Lulu ended that statement with a wink or perhaps a suggestive eyebrow wiggle. This time however, the innuendo was lost on him.

Suddenly the doors to the throne room burst open, which was impressive since they were made of stone, and a figure rushed inside. The figure was blazing toward him, literally leaving a trail of fire behind them. Hollow couldn’t make out any of their features or even get to his feet and defend himself before the figure’s foot came crashing into his’s face.

The last thing Hollow heard before fading into unconsciousness was a husky voice yelling something. “I’ll save you, lord Vegnus!!”