After having heard stories about him for most of my life, I thought I had a pretty accurate image of the oh-so-infamous demon that supposedly destroyed my clan single-handedly. There are requirements to being evil, you know.

I expected...a tall, burly man. I expected muscle and scars and the evil gleam in the bulging eyes to go with it. I expected the earth to tremble beneath his feet as he stomped across the room. I could see the spiky, unruly hair, the sneer twisting the face already twisted by scars and an often-broken nose.

I expected arrogance, malevolence, rudeness, and boorishness. Manner was beyond his grasp, I believed, for the image I conjured in my head was quite frightening. I expected a demon, an animal, and an evil creature. In my mind, from the first moment I heard and understood what my elders were talking about, I imagined a monster, in every sense of the word, in the place of the one that crushed my race.

I wasn't prepared and he is nothing that I expected.

He is slight, slender, and only a hair taller than me when he actually stood with both feet on the ground. When he's not floating, he walked with a light step that betrayed his presence to no one. His face was pale and unmarred, handsome even, almost delicate enough to be mistaken for a girl's. Instead of spiky hair, the purple strands fall straight, barely brushing his shoulders. I rarely see his eyes, but I always see his smile. When he actually opened his eyes, I was always reminded of my teacher's saying... "Evil does not mean ugliness."

He is polite, unaffected, and respectful even when he is insincere. About the only thing he radiates is a sunny and cheerful naughtiness. There is a perverseness to his humor, but it takes digging to unearth the cruelty. When looking at him, one sees a rather strange person, but certainly nothing that came straight out of a nightmare.

The first time, I looked and looked, not finding anything to prove that he was indeed the one that I should hate. Everything about him was unexpected, be it his appearance and his dress and his manner, so easy yet proper sometimes that it's not hard to forget that he's a...

Monster.

He is nothing that I expected. Yet he is everything that I expected.

Trust not your eyes, for they can be deceived.

He is nothing that I expected.

- end