Naji didn’t want to die, which could have been a simple enough desire to fulfill had he not been kidnapped thirty minutes prior. Now, he was fairly certain his life had reached its peak during the Glaciture Regional tournament last month when he had come in second place. His life was going to end here, on his first mission. A failed mission.
His father had gone on a dozen solo missions before she was eighteen. His mother had thirty under her belt before she was sixteen. He was almost twenty, and he couldn't even handle this lake-demon case with the full support of three talented companions.
He groaned. He had started running an extra half-mile every day to prepare for the tournament. To prepare for his party's first mission without their master, he tacked on another half. Those weeks of gasping breaths and aching muscles were for nothing but a silver medal and an urn.
The manacles bit into his wrists. He bit his tongue in turn. That jogged the last remaining tethers of his sanity. Master Bluestone would be disappointed. He was already giving up. What wisdom would his revered teacher impart at such a scene, if he could hear his thoughts?
“You’re a sorry excuse for a Laudknight! Your father would have escaped three times already in your shoes. Your mother wouldn’t have even been captured. You can’t even handle one simple mission before losing your head and your life? You’re lucky they’ve got you right now and not me. I’d be ringing your pathetic neck! Get your ass out of your head and fuck shit up already!”
Naji shuddered. He was glad Master Bluestone wasn’t here. Still… Maybe he wouldn’t die. He had no idea why these demons attacked his party and less idea what they wanted of him, only that it wasn’t good. But not good could mean a lot of things. If he was still breathing now, maybe he could keep it that way. Which meant fictional Master Bluestone was right; he needed to figure out what the demons were up to, what they wanted from him, and how he might escape. Easier thought than done…
“Pay attention to your surroundings. Not your thoughts!” He could almost feel the bop to his head, and snapped to attention. “Your thoughts are your weakness. You don’t need them. Look around and figure out how to get out of here. If I have to tell your mother you died, I’m going to raise your corpse just so you can copy our faction’s precepts twenty more times before your undeserved untimely ‘rest.’ LOOK AROUND YOU!”
The forest floor crunched as his captors led him through the woods. Most of the demons here were fairly humanoid, though their extra limbs or eyes or animal parts were more than conspicuous. A few wolves trailed beside them with eyes of red and smoke curling from their maws as they panted. Hellhounds. That was a bad omen. Such beasts were difficult to control, and they were currently pretty damn controlled. Which meant there were pretty damn powerful demons in this group.
Perhaps the one with bat wings and a visible aura of blue fire at the front of the group was one of them. Perhaps that hypothetical Master Bluestone was wrong and Naji should just give up and fall on the blade he could easily snatch from the demon beside him. Perhaps he could die before these demons got the pleasure of killing (or worse!) him themselves.
The creature with the sword beside him was scrawny, more human than insect (he hoped those extra parts were insect) which unfortunately did his looks few favors. His hair hung in greasy chunks from his pale head like he’d chopped them with a dull kitchen knife a few days ago and hadn’t brushed it since. Or washed it. Or ever washed it. It actually looked like he’d never heard of the concept of bathing in however exceedingly long his pitiful demon existence was.
He also looked like he could topple over at any second, as beneath his dry, thin skin, there didn’t seem to be much between the flesh and bone. Even the extra legs, armored with a green exoskeleton (like a mantis? He’d never seen a mantis leg so textured before. He was on team mantis legs, though. Those spindly appendages had to be insectoid, right? Right?) were pitifully flimsy. The wind bent those insect (oh gods, please be insect) limbs out of shape every few steps.
Which meant he was weak. Which meant even subdued in these shackles, he could probably hold his own against this creature. Which meant despite the uncanny twists and shutters of those insectoid (Naji was choosing to believe such to preserve his sanity) limbs, this demon was the least terrifying of the bunch. He’d rather talk to the greasy bug boy than the twenty-mouthed rambler or the tiger-headed fiend or especially that blue-blazing bat brute at the front of the crowd, at the very least.
“Hey,” he whispered.
“Ererrk?” insect boy politely responded, cocking his head. His eyes were too-shiny, like some of his hair grease had slipped into the sockets and slicked up those fleshy obsidian marbles within. There was even a yellow crust where you might find tears on a mortal human, which unfortunately forced that image of putrid eye grease to linger in Naji’s mind.
“Where are we going?” the young man asked as he succeeded at not puking.
Insect boy’s eyes darted around the group. What an anxious, jittery little creature. He almost felt bad. But just before his emotions settled to that conclusion, the chains attached to his manacles hooked onto the foliage below. Its cuffs dug into his wrists as it yanked him back.
“Fuck!”
Every eye was on him, except the ones under the clothes of some of those multi-eyed monstrosities, he supposed. He was very grateful the eye creatures’ eye nipples weren’t gawking at him eating shit on the forest floor. He could only take so much embarrassment in one artificially shortened existence before he might artificially shorten it a tad more. His gaze flicked to the insect boy’s sword longingly as he fumbled to his feet.
“Sorry, I’m getting up, I’m getting up,” he promised them. Which would have been true if the chains hadn’t tangled into the same branch and pulled him back down in the next breath.
It was at this time that greasy spindly insect boy (of all creatures!) took pity on him and helped him to his feet. Unfortunately, he used his spindly insect limbs. Unfortunately, they were soft and porous, like a sponge. Unfortunately, he knows that now.
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NOT AN INSECT.
He could cry. Thankfully, he didn’t. He didn’t know if he could handle losing any more face right now. He didn’t know if he could handle the amount of face he already lost. At this point, he was pretty sure he was going to come back at a no-face spirit once these creatures finally let him leave this mortal coil. It would be better than having to face them. He wasn’t sure face was even a word anymore.
Insect boy brushed him off with his human hands, which left a fine powder of skin flakes wherever it wiped off the leaves.
“Thanks,” he muttered, and despite his embarrassment and disgust, he meant it.
The rest of the group kept going, starting to chatter their creaturous tunes once more. Once he tuned his ears to their song, he could even pick out some words. It seemed to be the demons here spoke a pidgin, where his native Glaciturial language had merged with the animalistic clicks and howls and screeches and squelches of the demonfolk’s variable tongues. Whatever words prescribed his fate (if their speech minded him at all) were lost in the demonic side of the pidgin. On the other hand, Glaciturial words like “trip” and “faceplant” and “ugly little human” and “pathetic” and “weak” and “embarrassing” and “loser” were incredibly abundant. His face burned, which turned even his deep olive skin a warm pink.
“Ignore them,” the not-insect said in Glaciturial. Or maybe those were convenient remnants in the pidgin.
Naji laughed awkwardly. “That’s hard to do, considering.” He lifted his wrists weakly, pointing out his manacles with the gesture.
Not-insect nodded like he understood. Naji wondered if he was used to being the target of their snide remarks. Naji then pretended he didn’t care, because caring about the self esteem of the greasy little not-insect in the gang of demons who kidnapped you is fairly inconvenient. Still, as the not-insect looked him over with worry in those too-moist glassy eyes, like he knew the pain all too well, the human couldn’t stop the human heart in his human chest from twinging just a little.
“So,” the human said in his human tongue, “are you all going to kill me? What’s the plan?”
Not-insect shook his head, and his grease-clumped locks puttered gracelessly against his scalp. “We eraekek you ajsf uff uff.”
The human stared at him, not comprehending (for obvious, human reasons).
Not-insect titled his head again and stared back, confused (for way too long before remembering the human-shaped human in the room).
“Apologies. I do not speak Glaciturial well. I can understand you if you speak. Such helpful! Please forgive me, small mister,” the not-insect said in a thick, chittering accent. The form of address was off, but at least he could understand him. “You will live. Not die. You will be…” he trailed off as he thought of the word… “uncomfortable!”
“Torture?” Naji guessed.
The demon shook his head. “Behave then no.”
“Slave.”
The demon tilted its head considering, before shaking it once more. “No. No… services. Iron wall house go. Stay with king.”
That made no sense.
“I’m going to a castle?”
The demon scrunched up his face in frustration. It was almost cute, except some of the yellow crust flaked off as the skin beneath it crinkled. “No! No.... Metal building. Metal doors. Metal rod doors. Keep in metal walls.”
“Dungeon,” Naji realized. “I figured as much. Do you know why? Is it for ransom? Or did I commit some kind of demonland crime I’m unaware of? Or is it supposed to hold me while I wait for something worse to happen… do they… uh, you?... uh, are demons going to eat me? Or will I be sold? Or is some spirit going to take my body from me?”
The demon shook his head. “Only sit. Not punish you… uh…” he clicked thoughtfully. “You name Laudknight.”
His stomach plummeted lower than his bowels should reasonably allow. His gut ached in the shock of it. He had no idea how these demons figured out who he was. His party didn’t even know! Well, they were about to find out. They were hopefully heading back to the training center, and hopefully telling Master Bluestone exactly what happened. This was, in fact, the first time he had ever hoped they would tell Master Bluestone exactly what happened and as soon as possible at that. Unless his master was able to save him before his parent’s monthly check in (which was about three weeks away), then every human mage in Glaciture was going to know exactly who he was. The two most powerful demon slayers in the realm would scorch the earth looking for their son, and his face was going to be bound up with them forever. Even if he did escape these demons, he was about to be plunged into their shadow. The whole realm would know just how big their shoes were on his feet, how impossible it was for their embarrassment of a spawn to fill them.
He stared at not-insect’s sword again.
“I am not a Laudknight,” he lied. He wasn’t a good liar.
Not-insect just shrugged, as if to say I’m not the one you have to convince. Disgustingly, that shrug included his not-mantis spindle-limbs.
It grew to be night before they reached their destination. Sure enough, Naji was escorted to a dungeon below a castle-like fortress that oozed demonic energy stronger than an improperly etched protection talisman. Not-insect was by his side until the end, which was strangely comforting. He even helped him undo the manacles. He wouldn’t need them once he was behind those bars, it seemed. As he was locked inside the cell, the many-eyed demon chuckled wetly, like there was some kind of joke no one deigned to explain to its pitiful target.
Not-insect didn’t find the joke funny. He gave the human an apologetic smile before rushing out of the dungeon. Not-insect had been especially jittery on the way down, so Naji didn’t blame him for the quick retreat. It was actually a bit endearing that he had kept by his side so long.
Still, that untold joke was starting to unsettle him. He rubbed his aching wrists nervously.
The dungeon was cold, damp, and uncomfortably dark. He was in an offshoot of the main chamber, separated by two separate metal doors and a short flight of stairs between them. There was only one cell here. At least, judging by the vague contours of those iron bars. The torches that flickered by the stairway cast most of the space in unperturbed shadow. He had no true measure of the room nor the cell, and he had no way to surmise the contents of either. Anything could be waiting for him.
That thought was immediately confirmed, as the many-eyed demon laughed once more. “Hope you enjoy the company, little Laudknight,” they said before leaving the little Laudknight to rot alone. Or not alone. Most likely not alone.
A chain clanked behind him. The hairs on his neck stood on their end. Someone was with him in that cell.
From the imperceptible corner, a dry voice croaked, “They promise me a snack, you know. Do you think they meant you?”
He was screwed.