She Belongs To The Devil

Arion slightly nodded his head and repeated Herbert's sentence to reconfirm what he had just heard, "You will be turning three thousand years old soon? No wonder you are so immature!"

"What?" Herbert wrinkled his nose and raised his voice a tad bit, "I'm not three thousand years old!"

"Then how old are you? Three hundred?" Arion asked while widening his eyes a little.

Herbert scoffed thinking that Arion was mocking him even when he knew exactly how old he was. However, he couldn't raise his voice again because he didn't want to risk being melted by that horse in front of him.

So, without trying to sound rude, Herbert corrected Arion, that is if the latter didn't already know, "I will be three years old." He immediately lowered his head and looked down thinking that Arion would start to bully him even more now that he knew how weak and young he was.

However, unlike what he had expected, Arion didn't laugh at him. Rather, he was extremely shocked. So, he asked in disbelief, "You are just three years old?"

"Yes," Herbert affirmed.

"Wow! No wonder he doesn't know anything about how to present himself to others. He doesn't think before speaking because he is just too young!" Arion looked at the poor boy and thought to himself.

He then cleared his throat and said to the young boy, "I never thought that I would ever get to meet the other magical beasts who were born in heaven, let alone meet someone as young as you. I'm happy to meet you kid."

Herbert cautiously looked at Arion. To him, Arion looked like someone with great wisdom, someone who had seen a lot of things, and someone who had experienced his fair share of good as well as bad things in the past. "He must be really old…" Herbert thought to himself.

And immediately after, Herbert voiced his thought to Arion, "How old are you, Mr. Horse?"

Arion neighed and replied to the boy while trying to look mysterious, "Who knows? I lost count of my age a couple of thousand years ago."

"Whoa! So, you are as old as the universe?" Herbert asked Arion in awe.

And Arion replied with a proud look on his face again, "It would be a lie if I said I wasn't. Almost… I'm almost as old as the universe. A couple of thousand years younger, give or take."

Herbert gaped his mouth wide and then looked at Arion with an even more amused look on his face. "You are ancient!" he exclaimed.

"I'm not ancient!" Arion cleared his throat and collected himself. He suddenly gave a warning glare to Herbert and asked, "Now, do you know why I was asking you for your age?"

"Umm…" Herbert rubbed the pointed tip of the ear and politely replied, "Because you… wanted to know how much beating I could take in?"

"No, silly!" Arion rolled his eyes and said, "Because I couldn't see you giving off any prominent aura."

Herbert gave a nervous laugh and sighed, "Oh, thank god! I thought you were going to melt me down to my bones."

His sigh of relief didn't even get to settle down because Arion instantly scared him to his core.

"Boy!" Arion gave off a very powerful and scary aura, gave a piercing glare to Herbert, and then growled at him, "If you want to live within the walls of this Palace, then there is one major thing that you need to remember. Aren't you going to ask what that is?"

"What that is?" Herbert reiterated Arion's words.

Arion replied in a similar raging tone, "You are never, and I mean never, allowed to take his name here within the Palace boundaries. You are especially not allowed to do so in front of Ariel's father."

Herbert blinked his eyes in confusion and asked, "His name? Whose name?"

Arion gritted his teeth and whispered from between his teeth, "The name that you took when you exclaimed!"

"Oh! I'm not allowed to take God's name here?" Herbert repeated his mistake again.

And almost instantly, Arion lightly kicked the boy on the leg and scolded him, "I was asking you not to take his name! I didn't ask you to repeat!"

"Ah!" Herbert dusted his white pair of pants and then asked again, "Why though? Is it because of the bad blood between the two of them?"
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"Yes!" Arion gave a nod and said, "At least it seems like you are aware of that. He must have similar rules in Heaven, right? Is that how you know about the enmity between the two of them?"

Herbert pouted his lips and innocently shook his head. "No. There's no such rule there. He simply likes to sit down in the garden and rant about everything to us creatures. He keeps on talking about Ariel and her father, especially her father."

Since Herbert was talking on his own, Arion probed further, "What does he say about Theodore?"

Herbert closed his eyes and hummed for a while. And then he replied after recalling everything that he had heard, "He mostly says that he regrets banishing his son… his sons to Earth. He doesn't really like the ones who are in Heaven. He says he has made a lot of bad decisions and poor judgment in his life. And I once heard him saying that banishing and abandoning Theodore was his biggest mistake.

He said that was the unfortunate point since when his family slowly started to fall apart."

Arion was greatly shocked to hear everything that Herbert just revealed. He couldn't believe his ears because never in his life had he heard or seen God criticizing his own decisions. "He is even capable of doing that huh…" he thought to himself.

"I see," Arion mumbled and then said to Herbert, "But still, don't do that in front of Theodore if you don't want to get your arse handed to you."

"Okay, I will keep that in mind," Herbert said while a nervous smile got reflected on his face.

After the awkward silence for another half an hour, Herbert asked Arion, who was starting to get drowsy by now, "It looks like Ariel respects you a lot. How did you manage to win her heart? Will you teach me?"

"Sure." Arion neighed to chase off his sleep and answered, "The task of winning hearts is very simple for us familiars. All we need to do is be very loyal to our masters and their family. Tirelessly fight for them, if required, sacrifice our life for them. And most importantly, agree to all the commands from them."