My demon roomate sat on his bed, elbows on knees, staring at me earnestly. "You've got plenty of battle scars, Jeff. I see them all over your hands. You just have to SELL them."
I stared at Grimshaw curiously. "Sell them. That's a fancy way of saying 'lie', right?"
"No! Oh my ... no no no ... don't LIE ... you have to keep true to how you got it and what you learned from it." He grinned. "But, yeah, it's OK to EMBELLISH it some."
"So give me an example," I said. "Like that raised puncture scar on your leg."
"Mace injury. I did come out victorious."
"What's the real story?"
Grimshaw laughed. "Now you're getting it. I was carrying the mace myself in my pack. It kept swinging as I marched, knocking me in the backside. Developed a nasty wound from it repeatedly bouncing there."
"i SEE ... and how did you fix it?"
"Accidentally 'lost' the mace a few days later."
"That's very valiant of you."
"OK your turn now. I see a ragged scar all around your right thumb."
I rubbed it. It didn't stand out as much as it used to. "When I was about one year old, my mom let my grandmother babysit me. When she came back my thumb was nearly torn off, bleeding all over the place. Grandma said I must have been chewing my thumb. Mom took me to the E.R., got it patched up, and didn't trust my grandmother to watch me alone after that."
"Hm. Do you know how it got ripped?"
"Best guess is there were these heavy iron heater vents in the floor. I must have picked one up then dropped it on my thumb and not known how to get it out."
Grimshaw raised an eyebrow. "Jeff, that's actually better than anything I've got." He thought. "It really was caused by an iron trap. Hot irons no less. You'd been left in the land of your ancestors, far out of your depths, but by sheer determination you escaped. You would have died of your injuries if your party hadn't rescued you in time. You learned, even for your most trusted companions, to always retain an edge of skepticism."
"I suppose you could put it that way."
"And you DO retain that edge of skepticism, don't you?"
"Most definitely. Though I don't think I could honestly point to that as the cause," said Jeff. "OK, you do one Grimshaw. That thin cut across your left cheek."
"Sliced clean open. Narrow blade. I hadn't been paying proper attention before. But I did after. I can honestly say that's the last thing that blade ever sliced."
"Nice. And the real story?"
"Paper cut."
Jeff rolled his eyes. Then asked, "What sort of paper?"
"I believe it was an acceptance letter for a previous roommate," said Grimshaw. "I'd been waving it around, keeping it out of their reach."
"Self-inflicted again? Is this a pattern?" I asked.
"Coincidence," said Grimshaw, "don't read too much into it. Your turn. How about this other thin scar around your pointer finger?"
"Oh, I was trying to make a kite, but it would only fly straight into the ground. I tried running faster but it just dug into the ground harder. Eventually I got frustrated and tried yanking it up into the air by its string by brute force, but the string cut into my finger, leaving this mark. It turns out string is stronger than flesh."
"And did you eventually learn to build a proper kite?"
"No."
"What did you learn?"
"To take 'no' for an answer."
"Hm ... air demon?"
"It was certainly a cursed object."
"Cursed? You're sure?"
"Absolutely, I was cursing it left and right."
"Hrmph," said Grimshaw. "I don't see where to go with this one."
"How'd your previous roommate's acceptance work out?"
"Not so hot."
"No?"
"Evil boss."
"So, was that actually a later cut by the same blade?"
"Nah, more of a blunt injury to his head, which he bounced back from quickly. He quit after two weeks."
This was a response to a prompt on reddit.com r/WritingPrompts, "Demons are proud of their scars, altering clothing to have them always visible, telling the stories of how each scar was earned, no matter how mundane or terrible the cause. Your demon roommate has been helping you turn your own scars into something to be proud of."