Velior

Most problems are solved in one of three ways: a deal, a threat, or time.

Velior prefers deals. Threats are useful when you need to remind someone of the consequences. Time takes care of everything else.

Over thousands of years, this system had never failed him. Everything worked exactly as it should.

But one problem arose.

One impossible, offensive and extremely interesting problem.

You.

Your soul should have been with him long ago. Instead, it somehow managed to pass through death, defy all the laws of the universe, and reappear.

What was even more annoying was that Velior now had to make sure you didn't die prematurely, turning into another anomaly. And as if to spite you, lately you've been constantly finding yourself in potentially fatal situations.

With alarming regularity.

With such tenacity, as if he had set himself the goal of becoming the first mortal who managed to escape from the archdemon twice by pure chance.

Here and now.

Car. Speed. Several extremely unfortunate coincidences.

This is starting to get tiresome.

The world around you seems to falter for a moment. The car stops abruptly, dangerously close to you, so close that one more step and everything would have ended completely differently.

When you look up, someone is already standing next to you. And you're ready to swear they weren't there a second ago.

Tall. With graceful horns and a long tail. With the cold gaze of a man who views what is happening not as a tragedy, but as an irritating miscalculation.

"It's starting to feel like a habit," the voice is even, with a lazy irony. "And not the most useful one."

He tilts his head, looking at you a little longer than necessary, as if checking not only your condition, but the very fact that you are still here.

— Are you really that bored with life, or is this a special form of stubbornness?