"Once there was a very strange Mazoku, different from the rest. Oh, he was evil, all right, and he loved to scheme and plot and generally cause chaos, but to his great dismay and chagrin, he had discovered that he had feelings.
Now, feelings in and of themselves were not what was so unusual...most Mazoku felt anger, lust, fear, and amusement...but he was feeling other things; softer things; happiness, pleasure, care, concern...and although there was nothing and no one in the dim recesses where he lived to love, he knew he was capable of love as well.
"Now, he might have been different, but this Mazoku was far from unintelligent. He knew he could never let on to other Mazoku that he had this ability, so he buried his feelings deep, and hid them well. But the life of a Mazoku is a long one, and generally a fairly solitary one. For a being capable of love, this is a very lonely existence, as the strange Mazoku discovered. He thought and he thought about the dilemma of his loneliness, and then he thought some more. Finally, late one night as he was torturing a particularly nasty rapist, an idea came to him. If he could create a child of his own essence, perhaps that child might inherit his abnormalities... Yes, he decided, it would be the perfect solution. His master had been pressuring him to increase her power by bringing her more minions, so he was even following her orders...in his own fashion, for let it not be said that this strange one was lacking in that all-important trait of ambition.
"So the Mazoku plotted and schemed and planned and prepared. He knew that in order to attain the most perfect human-like form, a new Mazoku must gestate in the womb of a human. Knowing this, he was determined to find a beautiful and kind woman to carry his child; one who was already pregnant, for then he could let his child grow in close proximity to another and hopefully it might understand humans better. So he searched and he searched, to the north, east, and west, and found no human more perfect than when he searched to the south. In a small village he found a young healer, newly married. She had beautiful long wavy sea-green hair, and opalescent pale green eyes, and was, by far, the kindest and gentlest woman he'd ever seen. He almost regretted not having met her before she was wed, but even so, he knew she was not the kind he could truly love. Although she would make a wonderful mother, she was too soft for his more nasty side; for remember, even if he was capable of love, he was still a Mazoku, with all that implies. No, the one for him would have to be strong of heart ad faith...but that is another story.
"That night, while the beautiful healer lay sleeping in the arms of her loving husband, the Mazoku watched them. Concentrating within himself, the Mazoku pulled bits of his essence together into a ball of energy, imbued that energy within a small amount of his cells, then teleported the precious little bundle into the healer's womb next to her own child, making sure to hide it from her senses so she wouldn't expel the Cuckoo's Egg. For the next eight months, the Mazoku kept close watch over the healer carrying his child, who had turned out to be a girl, and when the woman was ready to be delivered of her burden, he slipped in during the night and teleported the infant into warm blankets he held in his arms, then teleported the two of them back to his lair.
"For the next twelve years he diligently raised the child in secret, and she was every bit as affectionate and caring as he had hoped for, although her powers were one or two magnitudes lower than his...but this was to be expected, and would increase with time. During the following four years, he gradually taught the girl how to hide her differences and fit into Mazoku society, and on her sixteenth birthday he introduced her to his master.
"His master seemed reasonably well-pleased with this new addition, and settled at once on a mission to test her mettle. Not a hard mission, for his master was a mistress of stratagem, and to send an untested greenling on a difficult mission would only be detrimental to all involved in the long run...no, her mission was a relatively simple one, she had only to investigate the state of the temples in Sairaag. Their master knew that within the next few decades, something important to the Mazoku would transpire there, and she wished to have an edge up over the other lords in her preparations.
"Full of excitement and a little bit of worry, the Mazoku girl set out on her first mission. In the beginning she made weekly reports, but after the first couple of months, their master was satisfied that she was competent, and after that, her reports were monthly. The Mazoku was proud, for not only was his daughter succeeding well in her mission, she was managing quite adeptly at hiding her true nature from their master. It made him sad to think that his loving daughter had to be so cold in public, but when they returned to their sanctuary and she ran into his arms and called him 'Daddy', he was content again.
"After the sixth month of her mission, he started to notice a change in her. Instead of being a little reluctant to leave when it came time for her to say goodbye to him, she seemed almost eager to return. He could tell she was keeping something from him, but he didn't want to press her for it yet...better to let her come to him in her own time rather than strain the bond they had formed by asking for more than she might yet be willing to tell.
"A month later his patience was rewarded. After reporting to their master, she flew into his arms as soon as they were alone, eagerly telling him stories of the wonderful young acolyte she had met and who had told her he loved her. The Mazoku girl told her father that she was in love with the Acolyte as well, and that he had made her very happy. Her father was not wonderfully pleased at this news, but he hid that fact from her. Likely this would pass if the young man in question ever learned of her true nature, and the Mazoku didn't feel it necessary to burst the bubble of his daughter's happiness and dreams just yet.
Everything continued on the way it had been for the next four months, but on the fifth month after she told him of her love, the Mazoku's darling daughter, who had just turned seventeen, came to him crying. Now the Mazoku thought her tears must have come from her love's rejection of her, and his heart both ached and burned to harm the one who had hurt his precious daughter...until, that is, she told him of the reason for her tears.
"The Acolyte had known for a month of her true nature, and still loved her just as deeply. His superiors, however, had become suspicious of his actions, and had been watching him closely. The had discovered his dalliance with a 'young student' (the pose she had adopted in order to serve her master's wishes) and when they confronted him, she tried to come to his defense. She was unsuccessful in defending him, however, not wanting to expose her Mazoku nature, she was unable to keep them from confining him to his quarters. Later that night she had teleported into his quarters and been caught...her darkness exposed... The Acolyte tried to defend her in turn, but they were overpowered and thrown into penitent cells beneath the Holy Tree Flagoon. She had managed to escape, but did not have the strength left to return and save her love on her own, so she begged her father to help her save him.
"Her father was at first reluctant, but in truth he loved his daughter too much to deny her a chance at the love he had yearned after for so many centuries. The two of them teleported to the Acolyte's cell, and the Mazoku girl quietly explained their plan to him. The brought him back to their realm, and the Mazoku was quickly impressed with his daughter's choice. The Acolyte, he decided, would make a great leader someday, or a great priest, if he continued on his present path. When the Acolyte nervously asked him for the right to marry his daughter, should all their troubles be sorted out, he gave his consent, oddly touched by this obviously human gesture.
"With the Mazoku's help, his daughter and the Acolyte turned the tables on their accusers, and all was put right again. Better than right for her, in fact, when the Acolyte asked her to be his bride. They were wed soon after in a small private ceremony, and their great happiness was marred only by one thing...her master could never hear of this. It would be looked on not only with scorn and contempt, but as a failure in the mission she had been sent to accomplish.
"All went well, and the couple were blissfully happy for two years. The young Mazoku was well settled into Sairaag, and her master found her information so useful that she made the assignment a long-term one. Things can no longer stay the same, however, than one can expect to stay the sun in her daily course, and by-the-bye the Mazoku girl became pregnant. This blessed event, which should have brought only joy, deeply saddened her father, for he knew their mistress would look upon it as a betrayal, and would force her to give up her child. If she found out the truth about the child's father, it would be even worse. He knew he could never force his daughter to give up her child, his grandchild, the ultimate expression of the love between her and the Acolyte, who was now a Priest. All he could do was caution her to be careful, and do everything in his power to help her.
"All was in vain, however. She managed to conceal her pregnancy for a good while, and thankfully her wardrobe had always included voluminous cloaks, which helped in that respect immensely, but at seven and a half months, her belly was too big to hide any longer, and she had no choice but that it be visible. Pregnancy had affected her powers in ways she could never have anticipated, making her unable to cast an illusion around herself. The Mazoku offered to help his daughter, but she was adamant, and made him swear by the strongest of oaths not to get involved, for she loved him too much to bring him down with her.
"With a heavy and sad heart he swore as she had asked him, and was forced to watch as his daughter defied their master and was banished for it, her precious baby attacked by their master's power. That was the last he ever saw of his daughter. He never even knew if her child had lived or died, for his daughter had made him swear also, in their last moments together, that if anything happened to her he was to wait some years before searching for her child, so as not to endanger it by bringing it to their master's attention."