• I love the desert with the sun on my face, the cool breeze on my body and the silky sand under my tail; it makes me feel so alive as I slither across the desert to Demetri’s home to the grassy lands where he care for sheep for their milk, meat and mostly wool. Even though Demetri is a human who claims that he is a hermit who doesn’t need anyone, I would come to his house every morning to see his lovely sheep, make sure that he doesn’t sleep the morning away and cook him a decent breakfast. It was something that I enjoy doing, but Demetri would never admit that we are friends.
    I arrived at his house to see all his sheep standing around in a flock. When I first started visiting Demetri’s house, they would run away because I’m a demon naga, but now that I’m a regular, they love it when I come and see them. The sheep would start to huddle around me, brushing their wool against my scaly tail. I would then lie on the patch of grass so I can greet everyone who welcomes me.
    “Stop it! That tickles.” I said with a giggle.
    When I was done, I moved to the house and ducked in. The palace ceilings were high so Nagas can stand up straight, but humans normally live in houses with lower ceiling. Luckily for me, I could move around the house without bumping my head on the ceiling by using more of my tail on the grown. Inside Demetri’s house was so odd and mysterious, because he was born in the northern part of the world. There were paintings of a world that seem so unusual and mounted on the walls was strange items that I would sometimes stare in wonder.
    I opened the door and said, “Demetri! It’s time to get up!”
    Demetri grunted and grabbed his shutter goggles like he always do. I knew Demetri for two years, and I never once seen his eyes.
    “Why must you wake me every morning?” his said
    I only replied, “why must you always wear those stupid goggles?”
    Demetri roll out of bed with only his goggles and underpants, and then started searching for some clothing on the floor that was not covered in dirt.
    “What do you want for breakfast?” I asked
    He said, “there should be some eggs and milk in the icebox and flour in the cabinet, so how about those soft flat bread with the sweet gooey stuff?”
    “Pancakes, coming up!”
    I started whipping up some pancakes while Demetri put on some clothes. Demetri is hopeless when it comes to cooking, before I started visiting, he would eat only desert rat in boiling water. Demetri came into the room almost tripping over my tail, but manage to make it to the chair at the table.
    “So tell me, Ana, how are things at the palace”?
    I replied, “There fine, the princesses are as clinging to their favorite food as ever”
    “I see,” he said
    Demetri believes that I’m a servant girl for the two daughters of Scar, the Naga deity; it was simpler for him to not know that I’m a princess, so I would have to remove all my royal clothing and jewelry and put on common attire.
    “How do you make the flames appear again?” I asked, looking at the big metal box called a stove in front of me.
    He got up with a match and lighted the stove for me. I love using the stove; it’s way better then using an outside fireplace. There are so many things that humans have made that would just be perfect to have in the palace like stoves or an icebox, but my sister, Teresa, would never allow it. She claims that humans where feeble and a low form of life, so she would strip anything human from our castle.
    As soon as I was done cooking up the pancakes, I joined him at the table. However, I’ve broken plenty of Demetri’s chairs in the past, so I curled up my tail and made it into a seat like all Nagas do when dining.
    Demetri was staring at his cup of sheep milk in silence when I joined him, so I nudge his arm gently to wake him from his daze. He shock with surprise and smiled at me, but I knew under his shutter goggles that he was reliving an unpleasant memory.
    “Sorry” he said, “for a second I thought I was wearing my extending katars and retractable shield”
    “Oh, those arm things that’s mounted on your wall? Why don’t you throw those cursed things away?”
    He replied, “I can’t explain it, I just need to know that they’re here with me, rusting away as I grow old.”
    Before Demetri came here to become a shepherd, he use to be an highered escort for a town called Steam town who then enroll in the great and bloody war between humans and demons. The humans and demons made a truce to end the war, but the psychiatric damage to Demetri forced him to abandon his old life and move to the Demonic Desert region in solitude.
    While we changed from dim conversation to more cheerful talk, we finished our breakfast and headed outside for the sunshine and chores that Demetri always dose in the morning for the sheep such as feeding them, giving them water, milking them and trimming their fur. I would help him out when I can, like lifting heavy sacks of food or holding a stubborn sheep that doesn’t want to be trimmed by wrapping my tail around them.
    “Now, Ana, be careful not to squeeze him too hard.”
    I replied obnoxiously, “I’ve been doing this since I was a little girl, I think I know how to or not to crush a living creature.”
    The flock wasn’t well protected because there were no attack dogs or fences to guard away predators, yet Demetri told me that after half a year of living here and defending off predators like bandits and demons, they all stop coming here because he claims that he kicked their buts back to kingdom come.
    When the sun was at it’s zenith, it meant that it was time for me to head back to my sister’s palace.
    As I sliver away with a wave, I heard Demetri yell out, “See you tomorrow morning”
    Demetri is a great and noble guy, ever since I knew him. We first met each other when things in the Demonic Desert were still in anarchy from the war, because even though the truce was made, it took over a month for things to calm down. He found me when bandits attacked my guards and me in the middle of the desert, knocking me unconscious. When I woke, I was laying on Demetri’s bed all bandaged up where I was attacked.