Boore-Saa was a demon like any other, except she was a little better than most; at least, she liked to think that was the case. Why else would she have been entrusted with such an important mission? And by the Queen herself, of all demons? Well... not directly by the Demon Queen, the order had come through a long hierarchy, but it was the thought that counted.
Either way, now wasn’t the time to preen. She was in the middle of a fight, and combat was to be taken seriously, even against such stupid, smelly, hairy, barbaric animals.
Again, like any other demon, Boore-Saa had a dim view of humans.
So she ignored her pride and took this fight seriously, feeling the familiar tizz as Aura threw her body into overdrive.
Heart-beats thundered together into a painful roar in her chest, and every sensation flared into overexposure, until even the air developed a sharp scent.
Sights especially were painful, as visions seared through her optic nerves.
The demon restrained a wince. Strange colors aberrated her vision. A needle headache spiked through her skull.
Boore-Saa was quite adept with Aura, and – unlike Cas – was having a Matrix moment genuinely. Visions clouded her head and – in the brief flicker of an instant, as her flame blast sparked through the air– she noticed that the humans were moving faster than even she could discern, every stray motion of theirs blurring through her perception.
Time Bubble!
Accelleration!
Solid walls.
Probably planning something.
Faster than you!
Your Aura will destroy it.
Boore-Saa’s thoughts rose in unison, running on parallel tracks, vying for her attention as they screamed warnings and solutions.
A time bubble? These animals were more formidable than she gave them credit for. The flames soon obscured the spell, however, her aura destroying the bubble like was made of soap.
Boore-Saa then felt her driving spell break as it touched an Aura, but the flames only shuddered at the speed-bump before exploding.
Flaring her Aura, she compressed the air around her into a natural shield, just in time to greet the explosion.
Gfrooom!
Contact!
Her air shield deflected the shockwave like it was a stiff breeze.
Mirroring her, the light haired woman stood on the other end of the room, crouched behind an air-barrier of her own.
Boore-Saa was tempted to call her unoriginal, but even she had to admit the human’s shield spell was more advanced. The area behind the woman was completely untouched despite the recent explosion. The cloth walls of the palanquin hung undisturbed, retaining even the delicate covering of frost which chilled over every surface in the room.
The woman’s eyes were set in a scowl. She let out a long exhale into the chilly air – breathing out a white cloud through snarled nostrils.
The expression made the woman look like a raging bull. But then again, what else could be expected of an animal? Boore-Saa laughed a bit at the funny sight, though her humor was killed in the crib as she noticed something.
The other human was nowhere to be seen.
Dead.
Burnt to a crisp.
Killed.
Ashes were piled on the ground next to the mage, but… something was off. Humans always tried preserving each other's lives. It was a senseless instinct of theirs. So why would such a talented mage…?
Trick.
Look in her eyes.
She’s laughing at you.
The ashes aren’t human.
They used the desert-eel corpse to make them.
The other human is still alive.
The conclusion hit like a ton of bricks. Boore-Saa flared her Aura to ridiculous heights until waves of degenerating static filled her vision, and she felt like she was dying.
The consequences of this were well worth it, however: because, for just the briefest moment, time stopped for Boore-Saa and she was given a moment to think.
The first thing Boore-Saa noticed was the light.
The palanquin interior had a tented ceiling. Hovering in it, near the apex, was the floating glow-bulb.
Humans considered light to be a ‘holy’ thing.
Despite the simple stupidity of that sentiment, they sometimes managed to create beautiful things out of it. The ‘glow-bulb’ was one such artifact.
The centerpiece of every monastery, a glow bulb was light incarnate. Made entirely of magic and feeling like sunlight, it shone tastefully with a thousand esoteric colors.
The strange light danced beautifully across the glimmering frost.
Light only glimmers when you move.
You’re standing still
Why is the ice glimmering?
The ice is melting.
The mage is returning the heat where it belongs.
The woman’s Aura was flaring subtly with a secondary spell, and the ice was sublimating.
More than that, the human was forcing her Aura into the ice. The steam it generated was muggy with Aura, and – the woman’s Aura signature was disappearing into the general fog.
It was a standard tactic. Fill the air with Aura and hide your signature. But… it was usually used at night wasn’t it? Kind of pointless to hide your Aura when your opponent could see you.
None of it made sense. Why waste so much time? Why obscure Aura when the glow-bulb let them see each other?
Boore-Saa raised another air-shield and sent a quizzical eye-brow over at her opponent.
Sara, no doubt in the midst of her own matrix moment, caught the flicker of expression and returned an evil smile.
Wait…
She was forgetting something, Boore-Saa realized.
The ash pile.
It’s moving.
In her accelerated frame of reference, her eyes were heavy stones to be heaved into position, coaxed into focusing on the next point of interest.
And the ash pile was interesting indeed, because it was draining away.
They cut a hole in the floor.
About fist sized.
Did they put something underground?
No!
This is a palanquin.
It’s a raised platform.
There’s three feet of clear space below us.
The human is walking underneath us.
Probably running.
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Cas raced underneath the palanquin frame on all fours, darting through the impromptu crawlspace, careful not to bump against the wood veneer above her.
It was dark down here. A skirt of tent material covered all sides, blocking all light.
Worse than that, the palanquin blocked her Aura sense, blinding her to the signatures of everyone inside.
Cas stopped suddenly and sat up into a low crouch. She drew her dagger. Having to guess the demon’s location was frustrating, but it was comforting to know that the demon wouldn’t be able to see her, either. Hah! The demon wouldn't even be able to guess that she was still alive, much less beneath her feet.
Admittedly, Cas may have gotten a bit too comfortable, considering how completely off guard she was taken when the wood-veneer above her burst open, and a clawed hand snapped through digging bloody fingers several inches into her chest.
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The demon’s hand racketed down with a brief burst of violence, gripping hard enough to warp the bars of her ribcage, before yanking up hard enough that Cas’s toes flew from the earth.
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Boore-Saa was ecstatic, feeling her claws sink true.
‘Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!’ She’d caught her! First try! Was fishing always this fun?
Maybe she could ask her quarry?
Brbrbrbkghagh!!
The floor exploded into a fountain of wood chips as she hauled the human through, feeling the satisfying crunch of a breaking body reverberate through her grip.
The human – broken, covered by a veil of blood – managed a valiant but ultimately pointless strike with her little dagger.
Boore-Saa dodged easily, snatching the woman’s wrist with a lazy grab.
The ethereal light of the room turned a bit more orange. The air temperature dropped a few degrees.
Heat drive.
Mage is casting fire.
Coming from behind you.
Boore-Saa spun, raising the dying human’s body to block the fire storm.
Her improvised shield let out a funny scream of pain as flames engulfed her. The priestess retched at the smell of burning flesh, scampering away.
Boore-Saa ripped her hand out of the woman, feeling the beating heart squirm in her bloody grip. She squeezed her fingers and the heart mashed into useless ness.
No longer supported by the arm digging into her chest, Cas fell but arrested suddenly as Boore-Saa's free hand caught her face. The grip around her head tightened, pressure rising, until-
Gkrlorp!
Cas’s head collapsed, falling apart like a clay doll filled with splattering paint. Her body went limp, left arm twitching slightly.
“Nhooooooo!” Sara nearly collapsed in her despair, letting out a very convincing scream filled with agony and guilt.
Hi-larious, Boore-Saa thought. In fact, she found it so funny she could laugh, but she settled on killing instead.
She flexed her hand, slipping her claws from the headless body. It fell with a dead thud onto the carpeted floor behind her.
The woman screamed again and threw some ineffectual fire blasts which were easily blocked by a pair of air-shields.
Ahh, yesss, the mental breakdown followed shortly by death. Bore-Saa’s favorite part. But her jubilation was halted by a nagging doubt.
You didn’t confirm the human’s death. Her first voice came.
She’s headless! Her second voice retorted.
However, her other two voices vetoed the sensible retort.
The mage has blocked your Aura sense.
A lack of Aura is the only guarantee of death.
If you can’t see her aura. You don’t know if she’s dead.
Why else would the mage block your aura sense? She has no other reason to with the glow bulb still active.
Again! She’s headless!
Boore-Saa felt increasingly frustrated at such nagging doubts in the midst of her inevitable victory.
But Boore-Saa’s mother had always taught her to trust her gut, so just as she blocked the second fire-blast – she ventured a glance back at where the dead human should have laid.
Instead, she found that the headless body had – inexplicably – regrown a head, and was rising up to stab the charred blade in her direction.
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Seriously! What was with this demon!
Cas stabbed forward, over committing to the blow and stumbling over her own feet.
The demon twirled aside at the last second, turning a sure stab into a glancing blow, rearing back with a snarl of pain and eyes full of bright fury.
Cas noticed the demon drawing back a hand, and her death was averted for a second as Sara threw a far more serious fire blast which obliged the demon to block. But it only delayed the demon for a second, and that was too short an interval for Cas to dodge.
The demon threw a hand forward that stabbed wrist deep into Cas’s chest. Briefly, she felt an intense heat forming just before her body splattered apart into a mixture of flame and fluid.
The demon’s snarl turned victorious, but Cas was tougher than that, and she immediately reformed into a bell shape in the Demon’s hand, blasting it with a hot cloud of sulphuric tear-gas.
Boore-Saa ate the shot, blinked, and huffed it in before smiling at the thing in her grip. She flared her Aura once more as another, intensely hot feeling fell on Cas’s location.
This time, Cas dodged shortly before the explosion hit her.
Rather, she didn’t dodge as much as she ‘abandoned ship’ for lack of better words. Leaving her destroyed body in the demon’s grip, Cas leapt out in flight form, flitting upward and pulling back to fly just along the contour of the ceiling..
As she flew, Cas considered everything she’d learned in her recent, and rather violent, education about demons. She learned very quickly just how different they were from monsters.
For instance, there was their teeth. Demons had white enamel, far different from the obsidian black shards characteristic of Monsters.
Secondly, Demons could do magic. She wasn’t jealous.
Cas twisted her wings and changed course, darting down from the ceiling and flying straight through the magic glow bulb. The glow bulb touched her hostile Aura and winked out, leaving the room in near perfect darkness.
And, then... there was the third thing:
Demons, unlike monsters, didn’t have night vision.
Cas, on the other hand, could clearly see that the demon was growing worried as it glared blindly around.
Sara sprung forward in the darkness, charging a dart of compressed air.
The demon fell into a low stance, charging her own spell.
There was a game of chicken among mutually blinded mages. It was called, 'Who should Cast light?'
Light was useful. It lets you see your target. But, while you were busy casting light, invariably your opponent would be preparing a spell to kill you.
So, what was to be done?
Why, fire blindly and hope for the best, of course.
Both mages knew this best practice.
The demon dodged to the left and fired her ray blindly.
Sara cheated.
And Sara aimed true, shooting her compressed dart, which struck the demon’s flesh before expanding. A horrendous noise of popping air and warping flesh screamed through the darkness, and the demon stumbled, carrying on for a moment with the momentum of her dodge, trying to force herself into a stand, before wilting into a collapse.
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The demon had lost much of her charm in her death throes.
Her breaths came labored. Her sweaty face was barred over with sunlight that filtered through the jagged strips torn out of the palanquin walls.
The priestess sat kneeling, almost catatonic to the side.
“I…” she whispered. “… I’m a failure,” she admitted with a bowed head. “I should never have become a priestess. I don’t even know why I did. I thought I was doing well, but… when the demon queen gave me a way out… I only became-”
Sara raised a hand to silence the woman, face drawn down into a stony expression as she turned back to the demoness.
Cas, lurking in the shadows, was surprised to see Sara completely abandoning that genial familiarity which was her hallmark.
“I-” The priestess tried to speak again, but this time the demon raised a hand, and a shot of flame burst the woman’s neck. Blood flowed out, stifling the gurgles as the woman grabbed at her wound and collapsed.
The demon chuckled. She reclined painfully against a cloth wall, thin arm resting across her slim stomach, careful not to touch at the crescent hole which had been bitten out of her side. “There,” she laughed. “I saved you the trouble of killing her yourself.”
Sara scowled. “We wouldn’t have killed her.”
The demon only laughed harder, stopping with a painful cough. “Right... and let her blab about your human-monster. I assume you're keeping her secret?" She nodded over at Cas.
“We weren’t going to kill her,” Sara reiterated.
"You certainly didn’t try very hard to stop me."
Sara remained silent.
The demon smiled victoriously at Sara's hard demeanor. "You can thank me later. Consider it a peace offering,” the demon let out another soft chuckle, pausing suddenly.
“I take it you’re going to kill me?” she asked, serious at last.
“Yes," Sara answered. "I take it you're not planning to answer any of my questions as to what brought you here before I do?"
The demon laughed and nodded 'no', but a fresh wetness appeared in her eyes.
The confirmation of her death, it seemed, had disturbed her, and her breaths were becoming more of a gasp.
Sara raised her hand, Aura flaring.
“Wait-” the demon suddenly cried out, raising a hand and immediately regretting the action. She looked nervous in the ensuing silence, as Sara actually held back her attack.
“You,” the demon said, pointing over to Cas who was on the floor, now, reconstituting the splattered parts of herself. “You’re a Water Prince, aren’t you? You saw me in the dark, I’m guessing?”
Cas was fully human before the sentence finished, rising up into a crouch. Her face intersected a slant of sunlight, seeming to float in the darkness as a quizzical expression.
“Yes?” she answered feeling strange to be responding so politely to a demon.
“Don’t kill me,” the demon begged.
Cas surprised herself with how easily the laugh escaped her. “Ahahaha!” Maybe it was the adrenaline catching up to her, but she felt suddenly unabashed.
“Seriously?” Cas asked.
The demon only looked at her, speaking more seriously this time: “Please don’t kill me?”
Cas’s surprised chuckle turned into a full throated laugh.
“I promise!” The demon shouted. “I promise never to act against you. I promise to aid you however I can. That’s the truth!”
Cas was nearly doubled over at this point. “Sara!” she shouted. “Can you believe this girl? Hahahaha! She tries killing me and now she’s bribing me with nothing! Hahaha! I thought this only happened in dumb movies!”
But Sara wasn’t laughing, and Cas quickly lost her humor when she noticed that.
“Well?” Sara said, voice shaking with restrained patience. “What’s your decision?”
Cas blinked. That… that couldn’t be right. She had to be hearing things wrong. Was…
“You’re not taking her seriously?” Cas laughed again, trying to draw Sara into her good mood and failing. “Like… what kind of world is this? You can’t just say ‘please don’t kill me’ and get away with anything.”
“It’s not that kind of world,” Sara confirmed. “But a demon’s promise is a powerful thing.”
Cas's face became downcast. “And… what? You’re waiting for me to say yes or no?”
Sara answered with silence, and that was when it became all too real. Sara was being serious. They were all being serious. And they were waiting for her to make a decision. They were asking her to decide if they should kill someone.
The adrenaline crashed out of her system, and Cas felt suddenly on the verge of throwing up. Her jaw started shaking as she looked over at the demon and – before her mind could process it – answered.