Lilith and the Black Cat

Lilith had left for the library at seven in the morning, and had planned to roam the marketplace for some time before that. She had thought an hour would suffice for her to roam around, however she soon found herself bewitched by the items sold there, especially the food.

She simply loved the crispy wheat biscuits of Brightbay and the melt-in-the-mouth sweets of Fairwolf.

She spent hours in the market, wandering from vendor to vendor. She cursed herself for leaving most of her money in the inn, but perhaps that was a good thing for of she had bright it along she may have finished all the money in it.

But still she ended up buying too much food. As much as she wished she has a bottomless pit for her stomach, she didn't, and all those years of eating too little didn't exactly help. Weaving through the busy streets, with the bag of delicacies in her hand, Lilith cursed Gibson for making her eat way too little for so many years so much that the God of Curses would perhaps consider adopting her as his successor.

All around her the vendors called to the customers showing off their bright and colourful wares that contrasted with the dull walls of the place. Most of the people here were nomadic traders, who moved place to place, selling their wares and buying what would soon be sold in another place. Soon their calls faded away as she moved to a quieter part of the city. It was the residential area, where the vendors had been banned from. Instead, the calls of the vendors was replaced by children's laughter and women's quiet talks.

The residential area was one of the best areas of the city. It was neat and well kept and there were parks and other places of entertainment in every subsection. It had been one of the projects of the Queen and had been built on a once desolate land that had been abandoned after a fire had scorched that place to ashes several decades ago. Houses were built, parks were set up and roads were made, all of them well planned. It had been believed that the area would be given to the Nobles as places to stay during the Yearly Meet, but to many's suprise, it had been distributed to the citizens who didn't have land.

Lilith plopped herself down on a bench in a park, under a hemlock tree. The place was really beautiful and well kept, and the Queen really was someone she looked up to. Too bad, she thought, as a murderer like her would never be able to talk to the Queen.

She looked around for children to give the food to but the park was mostly empty, for the children had gone to their homes for lunch, and no one was crazy enough to be out in the afternoon sun, well, except for Lilith.

Lilith wondered if she should dump the food into a trash can, but that, she decided, would be a waste of such wonderful food. But it wasn't like she could eat it as her stomach had been filled to the brim with food that if she did try to eat more, she was sure her belly would burst.

Suddenly, her eyes caught sight of a little black cat hiding in some bushes a little distance from her.

"Here, kitty. Are you hungry?" she asked, looking at the cat. The cat slowly moved away from her, as if it was afraid of her.

Smiling gently, Lilith took the bag with the parcels of food and opened one of them. She picked some of the meat from the pack and placed it next to her.

The cat stopped moving and seemed to sniff the air.

"You are hungry, aren't you? It's alright to be afraid of me, but you really need to eat, kitty."

The cat took tiny slow steps towards the food. After what seemed to be an eternity, the cat began nibbling the food and was before long looking at Lilith for more food.

"Well, I'm not hungry anyway, so here you go, little kitty." said Lilith, placing the opened pack in front of the cat. The cat quickly began to devour the food.

A cool breeze blew through the park, offering some respite in the hot summer afternoon.

Lilith looked at the cat as it gobbled the food with a gentle look in her eyes. She probably knew why the cat had been afraid of her earlier; it could most likely smell the blood of it's kind on her. Anyone would think that she was crazy of they knew that she has killed many animals, and perhaps she was. The part of her that was still sane knew that a part of her had been broken long ago, and she would perhaps never be the same again.

Ever since she was ten, she had slowly been losing herself. But what destroyed her the most was the fifteenth year of her existence, the year that changed her from a person who could love and smile to a demon that hated everything. That year drove her to the edge of her sanity. She never was the same again.

That year, all she cared for fell to pieces, and so did she. After that, all she lived for was for Gibson's death.

She remembered that before that she loved cats and dogs dearly. After that, she no longer felt the same. To be more exact, she could no longer feel anything but hate. Hate for her fate due to which all she loved was taken away from her. And she let herself be consumed by it. And in that hate she killed the cats and dogs that she had once loved. She became something that her younger self would have hated.

She became a demon, just as the seer had prophesied at her birth.

But she refused to be one any longer. She now just wanted a quiet life in which she could truly live. She wouldn't let Gibson restrict her even after his death.

The cat finished eating the meat in the pack and moved towards Lilith, who was deeply absorbed in her thoughts. It then rubbed itself against her legs and mewed in gratitude. Then, with a leap, it rushed into the bushes, waking Lilith from her thoughts.

Lilith smiled and stretched her body.

"Today's a nice day. Now I really should head to the library...." she said to herself standing up. With the bag of food still in her hand, she went to the library, and if one looked close enough they could see that now her eyes held a strange glint that wasn't there before.