In the open garden, Eleonoré tended to Aurené, who gurgled contentedly on a soft blanket on a couch, while Augustus himself was absorbed in a baffling task: meticulously arranging a pile of symmetrical, ordinary rocks he'd acquired....somehow. His parents, the former King and Queen, sat next to the table in one of the gazebo.
"Still sorting those blasted rocks, are we, August?" the former King finally rumbled, his voice rough but clear. "Always had strange notions, that one. Even as a kid."
Augustus, without looking up, shifted a particularly sharp stone into place. "Order. It's needed."
"Order, he says," the former Queen sighed, a long, weary sound. "August always thought too much, that boy. Remember, my King, when he was just a fledgling Demon Lord, barely able to control his own source-sight? He used to just stare at things, calculating. Remember that time he was just standing there, holding a piece of rebar he'd found – a perfectly normal bit of refuse. And he just… focused on it, eyes wide with intense concentration."
The former King shuddered, a full-body tremor. "HAGH?! Like that time he thought, out loud, 'What if this iron rod I'm holding just grew across the city and hit a person waking up with this stuck up his ass?' He said that! And then he looked at the rebar, as if expecting it to stretch! And he just calmly stated, 'Hmmm, It's possible. I'd just need more iron.' The senator, bless his soul, just blamed a void-pipe rupture. Never knew his backside was a random target for… thought-crime."
Eleonoré's mouth hung open. She stared at Augustus, who was now holding up a rock to the faint light, examining it with the intensity of a seasoned war chief. He seemed utterly unfazed by his former King's recollection.
The former Queen, rubbing her temples, continued. "That was just his normal childhood. Then came the… the teenage years. Oh, you'd think a Demon Lord would be beyond such… fads. You'd be mistaken." She leaned in, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "August got it into his head that he needed to be 'approachable' by the young Umbralis. He saw some strange ones… all clad in black, moping. He decided it was a clever tactic."
"He discovered 'emo'," the former King growled, a sound of profound distaste. "Gods, the robes! Too long, long enough to cover the throne to the stairs! always tripping him. His hair! He'd spend hours trying to get it to flop just so, over one eye. Always springing back into his face. And the 'piercings'!" He waved a hand in disgust. "Void-stone pebbles, glued on with void-sap! They never truly pierced his flesh. They'd pop off, clattering across the floor, usually during his most dramatic 'brooding' sessions."
"I asked him, 'August my son, why are you sitting in that puddle of void-slime, clutching a withered vine, dressed like a shadow in mourning?'," the former King recounted, mimicking Augustus's former pose with a dramatic slump. "And he looked at me, completely deadpan, and declared, 'I thought it would help me make friends. And attract women. Logic dictated this display. Women are said to appreciate troubled warriors. Or so… word goes.'"
Eleonoré, who had been trying desperately to hold back a giggle, suddenly burst into loud, unrestrained laughter, clutching her sides. It was too much. The terrifying, implacable Demon Lord, once attempting to gain popularity through a meticulously researched, utterly absurd, and completely misunderstood emo phase. The former King and Queen looked at her, then back at Augustus, sharing a weary, knowing glance.
The former Queen then cleared her throat, a glint of genuine, bewildered amusement in her eyes. "And then there was the academy, when August was just starting to learn about… administration. Our esteemed Principal Valerius had this terribly shiny, bald head, you see. Augustus was studying 'spatial reorientation for tactical advantage' or some such nonsense."
The former King snorted. "Nonsense it was. He decided the Principal's office, being centrally located, was the prime spot for an 'experiment in human directional navigation.' So what does he do?" He threw his hands up in exasperation. "He goes and slaps a glowing, perfectly legible 'BATHROOM' sign right on the Principal's office door!"
Eleonoré's eyes widened, a fresh wave of laughter threatening to escape.
"And wouldn't you know it," the former Queen continued, shaking her head slowly, "poor old Janitor Grimshaw, bless his bladder, was having an emergency! Had to go, right then, right there! He saw the sign, probably didn't even read the nameplate, and burst through the door, pants half-unzipped, a look of pure desperation on his face. And Valerius, the Principal, was just leaning over his desk, head glistening under the void-lamps. And Grimshaw… he just… leaked. Right on the Principal's shiny, bald head!"
The former King slammed a fist gently on the pillar. "The Principal was furious! Grimshaw was mortified! And August? He was standing in the hall, notebook out, calmly jotting down, 'Human reaction to urgent bladder stimulation: predictable. Target acquisition: successful. Principal's rage: amusing. Cleanup protocol: suboptimal.' And he wrote it all down in that perfectly normal voice of his, as if he hadn't just orchestrated a liquid assault."
Eleonoré was openly sobbing with laughter now, tears streaming down her face. She couldn't breathe. The sheer, unadulterated absurdity of it all. Augustus, the terrifying Demon Lord, capable of cosmic destruction, had once engineered a urinary assault on his principal for academic observation.
The former Queen took a deep breath, steeling herself. "Oh, but the best was when August was in the reserves. He joined up, thought it was a logical step for 'force projection.' But he had issues with the barracks. He thought the standard soap was too weak to clean off dirt properly. He watched his comrades struggling, grunting, scrubbing. So, he thought of an idea. He even told his bunkmate, his own brother Kael, 'You shouldn't worry about cleaning now. I'll create something more effective to remove dirt from the barracks. Something that will truly clean.' Kael, bless his naive heart, was excited."
The former King shuddered. "Excited, he says! The next day, August went to the gymnasium – the main one! The one that spanned across two whole universities, mind you, it was that big. And he was in there, in the storage room, concocting his powerful mix… of pure bleach and industrial-strength dishwashing soap! He had buckets of it, FOR ONE BARREL!"
Eleonoré's eyes were wide with a mix of horror and utter, helpless amusement.
"Then, wouldn't you know it," the former Queen continued, voice a strained whisper, "So, he used telekinesis to carry all buckets, looked away and he realized he had training to do....he just dropped both chemicals in the barrel, already bubbling in the storage room, and left, as if nothing happened. Just left it there! After that, there were twenty squads in total that had to use that gymnasium. And after one of the cadets opened that storage room… His powerful concoction… it burst into the whole gymnasium!"
The former King threw his hands up in despair. "It was a veritable chemical fog! The air itself was trying to eat you! The biohazard cleanup team and the medical staff… they had a field day," he said, dripping with sarcasm, "cleaning up his mess! They were there for weeks! The cadet who opened the storage room looked like he became a skeleton from the immense gas! All because he thought the soap was too weak!"
The former Queen then leaned forward, her voice dropping to an even lower, conspiratorial tone. "And during his PT with his own Drill Sergeant, August actually thought the sergeant was being nice to him. Really nice. Probably because the Sergeant had just given him punishment from his previous antics, and was in a surprisingly good mood (in his eyes). So, August, in his infinite wisdom, thought of giving him a gift."
"A gift," the former King echoed, burying his face in his hands. "He created a peanut butter sandwich. But not just any sandwich, mind you. He added so much peanut butter inside, with such meticulousness and accuracy, that the excess couldn't be seen outside of the bread. He emptied 5 jars of it and it was a monolith of peanut butter, just perfectly disguised."
Eleonoré gasped, connecting the dots of impending doom.
"So when August gave it to his drill sergeant and said, 'This is a gift. For you,' and left afterwards, the Drill Sergeant, completely unknown to August… ate the sandwich. The whole thing. In one single bite, leaving nothing left." The former King took a dramatic pause. "Then, seconds later, the Drill Sergeant was found unconscious. His face was severely swollen, turning an alarming shade of purple, and foam bubbled from his mouth due to a massive, severe anaphylactic reaction to peanuts!"
Augustus, oblivious to Eleonoré's renewed hysterics and his parents' theatrical despair, finally finished arranging his rocks into a perfect, miniature void-fortress. He looked at the formation, then at the hole in the wall. "Those were ineffective methods. I learned better. My objectives are rather clearer now. Less… public urination. And less… large-scale environmental decontamination. Also, less… unexpected friendly-fire. Void-slime… it stains. Badly. But these rocks? These hold."
The former Queen sighed, a sound that carried millennia of accumulated exasperation. "See? Still utterly convinced it was a scientific experiment that yielded poor data, not a horrific social miscalculation or an act of pure, unadulterated mischief. And he says it all so… normally."
Eleonoré, wiping tears of laughter from her eye, nodded. Amidst the cosmic dangers and dark prophecies, the sheer, unyielding absurdity of Augustus's past, recounted with such weary affection by his parents, the former King and Queen, provided a vital, hilarious anchor. He was indeed a creature of terrifying power, but even he had a history filled with hilariously unacknowledged embarrassments, where the most mundane of aspirations led to the most bizarre of outcomes. And he remained, utterly and magnificently, unfazed, speaking every word with perfectly normal, unsettlingly straightforward clarity.