Demon Tale: Tainted
Title: Tainted
Author: angelic_amy
Rating: PG-13
Summary: When Eli is orphaned by the death of his father he runs to the one place where he believes he’ll be able to blend in. LA.
Disclaimer: Any and all Joss-verse characters used are being borrowed without permission. No copyright infringement is intended and no money is being made from this story.
Author’s Notes: Just wanted to apologise for the lateness of my entry - my computer decided to eat itself and all my files. *sobs* Luckily I had most of my files backed up, unfortunately this fic was not one of them. I’m in the process of rewriting what I had so this fic is going to be posted up in segments, not all at once.
Tainted
By angelic_amy
Part 1
Sometimes Eli wished he’d never moved to Los Angeles. The day he’d set foot in the city of angels was the very same that his life went from being unpleasant and strange and became much, much worse. In a city with more diversity of demon races than celebrities, you’d think it would be the perfect place to blend in, to disappear. Apparently for him at least, that was not the case.
Life for a half-caste wasn’t easy. Thinking about his past, about the pain his very conception had brought his parents, he almost wished he’d never been born.
Cross breeding in the demon community wasn’t an entirely new concept, it was just not the done thing by his people. The elders of the Kumarish clan had taken one look at his newborn self and immediately disowned him as one of theirs. Green blood ran his veins, the same as which coursed through the bodies of his ancestors, but that was basically where the similarities stopped. Eli bore no webbing between his toes; there were no scales protecting his spinal column, and instead of being violet in colour, his eyes were brown.
Eli was ostracised from his kin and banished to live a life not of his own. It was only because of special circumstances surrounding his conception he’d been permitted to live. The Kumarish were an unforgiving race, pure breeding was prided above all. Their people were to be kept clean, and as such any infants born as the result of outlawed inter-racial relationships were immediately dealt with. Eli was not a pureblood. So he was exiled, expected to live for the duration of his existence live in his father’s world. As a human.
One of the only things a pureblood Kumarish shared with a human was a fragile respiratory system. Had his mother not been the darling of the tribe Eli would’ve been drowned at birth. Breaking tradition the elders allowed him to live but expected-and demanded-he be kept from their sight until the day he’d assimilate into the human world. For the first six months of life his presence had been tolerated, barely, allowing his mother to savour a few precious months before he was sent away. Eli had few memories of his mother; the most vivid was of her waving goodbye, a sad smile gracing her lips as silver tears tracked down lime coloured cheeks.
The first few years of Eli’s life were happy. His father, Steven, forcibly shut away the feelings he still harboured for the mother of his child, so he could give his son as normal a life as possible. He reared Eli as best he could. But not even time would heal his broken heart. The pair of young lovers had known the elders of the Kumarish would not approve their union nor accept their offspring. In fact, they’d prepared to elope. However their plans were discovered the night before their planned getaway. One day Steven had been happy and in love, anxiously awaiting the arrival of his son, and the next his beloved Delneeka was torn away from him.
For many months Steven searched for them but it was to no avail. They’d disappeared without a trace. It broke his spirit and he lost the will to live.
Then one day he’d heard a knock on his front door, and when he answered it was presented with a child’s pram. A small note was pinned to the soft material of the bunny rug that wrapped around his son.
This belongs to you.
Steven wheeled the pram into the house and then stopped. He didn’t know what to do, how to react. Just when he’d been about to give up hope of ever finding his family this gift was bestowed onto him. His son was delivered right to his very door. Steven stared at his son in equal parts awe and shock. He looked like any other human child. After the surprise had begun to subside slightly he had carefully lifted the infant from the pusher. A small square of folded up paper fell onto the ground. It was from Delneeka.
My darling Steven,
I’d like to introduce you to Eli, you son. I wish I could be here with you, that they’d let me stay, but it is not to be. We shall meet again in another life.
My love always,
Neeka.
Eli had found the note stashed away in a small box his father had hidden in the basement, when he'd been looking for supplies to build a fort when he was six. He’d asked his father for an explanation but none had been forthcoming. In fact, he wouldn’t find out about his demon heritage until he turned twelve. It was around that time the genealogical traits from his mother's side began to develop. Freckle like spots, jade in colour, appeared along his spine. Similar colouring filled the spaces between his fingers and his fingernails hardened like shell grit. The kids at school picked on him for his ‘mouldy fingers’ and for his ‘beast-like claws’. It was after one particularly horrible experience that had reduced him to tears that caused his dad to finally relent. Steven spilled the entire tale-from the forbidden romance, his mother’s disappearance, to the day Eli was left at his front door. Lastly, he was informed why his ‘people’ would not accept him.
For months the pair held out hope that more changes would develop-most importantly Eli’s eyes. The only real reason the Kumarish excluded offspring of mixed races from coexisting with their people was because of irregular coloured orbs. A little splash of genetic paint.
Kumarish demons weren’t warriors. They couldn’t physically defend themselves. In situations of conflict it was the flight-not fight-response that they took. In a battle of the strengths the Kumarish would always come off second best, but a battle of the minds…they were undefeated. They were mind readers. Seers. It was their ability to predict the future that saved them, time and time again. And this soothsaying ability was all dependent on their eyes. Which is why Eli could not and would not ever be accepted. Without psychic capabilities he would always be a liability.
Not exactly what every child wants to hear.
A few years later it became too much, Steven gave up hope of ever reconciling with his beloved. Eli was convinced his father died of a broken heart.
So what does a half-human half-Kumarish fifteen-year-old orphan do when they find themselves all alone in the world?
He ran.
Too odd looking to fit into the human world and not demon enough to fit in with his people, Eli went to the only place he knew of where he’d be able to blend in. Los Angeles, California.
He didn’t go to LA looking for anything, it found him.
To be continued…
Author: angelic_amy
Rating: PG-13
Summary: When Eli is orphaned by the death of his father he runs to the one place where he believes he’ll be able to blend in. LA.
Disclaimer: Any and all Joss-verse characters used are being borrowed without permission. No copyright infringement is intended and no money is being made from this story.
Author’s Notes: Just wanted to apologise for the lateness of my entry - my computer decided to eat itself and all my files. *sobs* Luckily I had most of my files backed up, unfortunately this fic was not one of them. I’m in the process of rewriting what I had so this fic is going to be posted up in segments, not all at once.
Tainted
By angelic_amy
Part 1
Sometimes Eli wished he’d never moved to Los Angeles. The day he’d set foot in the city of angels was the very same that his life went from being unpleasant and strange and became much, much worse. In a city with more diversity of demon races than celebrities, you’d think it would be the perfect place to blend in, to disappear. Apparently for him at least, that was not the case.
Life for a half-caste wasn’t easy. Thinking about his past, about the pain his very conception had brought his parents, he almost wished he’d never been born.
Cross breeding in the demon community wasn’t an entirely new concept, it was just not the done thing by his people. The elders of the Kumarish clan had taken one look at his newborn self and immediately disowned him as one of theirs. Green blood ran his veins, the same as which coursed through the bodies of his ancestors, but that was basically where the similarities stopped. Eli bore no webbing between his toes; there were no scales protecting his spinal column, and instead of being violet in colour, his eyes were brown.
Eli was ostracised from his kin and banished to live a life not of his own. It was only because of special circumstances surrounding his conception he’d been permitted to live. The Kumarish were an unforgiving race, pure breeding was prided above all. Their people were to be kept clean, and as such any infants born as the result of outlawed inter-racial relationships were immediately dealt with. Eli was not a pureblood. So he was exiled, expected to live for the duration of his existence live in his father’s world. As a human.
One of the only things a pureblood Kumarish shared with a human was a fragile respiratory system. Had his mother not been the darling of the tribe Eli would’ve been drowned at birth. Breaking tradition the elders allowed him to live but expected-and demanded-he be kept from their sight until the day he’d assimilate into the human world. For the first six months of life his presence had been tolerated, barely, allowing his mother to savour a few precious months before he was sent away. Eli had few memories of his mother; the most vivid was of her waving goodbye, a sad smile gracing her lips as silver tears tracked down lime coloured cheeks.
The first few years of Eli’s life were happy. His father, Steven, forcibly shut away the feelings he still harboured for the mother of his child, so he could give his son as normal a life as possible. He reared Eli as best he could. But not even time would heal his broken heart. The pair of young lovers had known the elders of the Kumarish would not approve their union nor accept their offspring. In fact, they’d prepared to elope. However their plans were discovered the night before their planned getaway. One day Steven had been happy and in love, anxiously awaiting the arrival of his son, and the next his beloved Delneeka was torn away from him.
For many months Steven searched for them but it was to no avail. They’d disappeared without a trace. It broke his spirit and he lost the will to live.
Then one day he’d heard a knock on his front door, and when he answered it was presented with a child’s pram. A small note was pinned to the soft material of the bunny rug that wrapped around his son.
This belongs to you.
Steven wheeled the pram into the house and then stopped. He didn’t know what to do, how to react. Just when he’d been about to give up hope of ever finding his family this gift was bestowed onto him. His son was delivered right to his very door. Steven stared at his son in equal parts awe and shock. He looked like any other human child. After the surprise had begun to subside slightly he had carefully lifted the infant from the pusher. A small square of folded up paper fell onto the ground. It was from Delneeka.
My darling Steven,
I’d like to introduce you to Eli, you son. I wish I could be here with you, that they’d let me stay, but it is not to be. We shall meet again in another life.
My love always,
Neeka.
Eli had found the note stashed away in a small box his father had hidden in the basement, when he'd been looking for supplies to build a fort when he was six. He’d asked his father for an explanation but none had been forthcoming. In fact, he wouldn’t find out about his demon heritage until he turned twelve. It was around that time the genealogical traits from his mother's side began to develop. Freckle like spots, jade in colour, appeared along his spine. Similar colouring filled the spaces between his fingers and his fingernails hardened like shell grit. The kids at school picked on him for his ‘mouldy fingers’ and for his ‘beast-like claws’. It was after one particularly horrible experience that had reduced him to tears that caused his dad to finally relent. Steven spilled the entire tale-from the forbidden romance, his mother’s disappearance, to the day Eli was left at his front door. Lastly, he was informed why his ‘people’ would not accept him.
For months the pair held out hope that more changes would develop-most importantly Eli’s eyes. The only real reason the Kumarish excluded offspring of mixed races from coexisting with their people was because of irregular coloured orbs. A little splash of genetic paint.
Kumarish demons weren’t warriors. They couldn’t physically defend themselves. In situations of conflict it was the flight-not fight-response that they took. In a battle of the strengths the Kumarish would always come off second best, but a battle of the minds…they were undefeated. They were mind readers. Seers. It was their ability to predict the future that saved them, time and time again. And this soothsaying ability was all dependent on their eyes. Which is why Eli could not and would not ever be accepted. Without psychic capabilities he would always be a liability.
Not exactly what every child wants to hear.
A few years later it became too much, Steven gave up hope of ever reconciling with his beloved. Eli was convinced his father died of a broken heart.
So what does a half-human half-Kumarish fifteen-year-old orphan do when they find themselves all alone in the world?
He ran.
Too odd looking to fit into the human world and not demon enough to fit in with his people, Eli went to the only place he knew of where he’d be able to blend in. Los Angeles, California.
He didn’t go to LA looking for anything, it found him.
To be continued…