Gov’es
She just took control over my fire and made it hers!? How does she know our names? How is she this strong!?!?
“Will you two please stop attacking me. You can’t beat me, so relax. Please…”
Billybilly tries to rush forward again once the shock of having our names spoken by the Grey Demon wears off, but I raise my hand and stop her. Our attacks are futile anyways. The Grey Demon’s Aura has this entire place under her complete control, and her shadows can attack us from anywhere. Not to mention, if she wanted to, she could simply push us down with her Aura’s pressure at any moment. We can only move around right now because she is letting us.
She is simply too powerful. Even her shadows, something that should be easily burned away by my flames, seem to be ridiculously resilient, and I have tested my fire against brother Cratvi’s shadows. His are far from reaching her level…
Going from how her Aura feels, only Father’s flames could be a match for her…
This is bad… I can’t face her. No matter how much I want to kill her right now, to avenge Fitfif and my forces, she is simply out of my reach. I need to prioritize. What is most important right now?
…
My top priority is getting information back to Father. My second is Billybilly and my own survival. If at least one of us can escape, then we can return to Father and warn him of his enemy... Either Billybilly or myself. Only one of us has to make it…
“Billybilly, stop fighting for now.”
“But big brother-“
“No, listen! One of us needs to make it back to Father and tell him everything that happened here. Either you or me. If we see a chance to escape, then we need to take it, even if one of us has to die to do it. Do you understand?”
She looks to me with a worried expression before turning towards the Grey Demon, her eyes filling with hate.
“I understand Gov’es… But how do we get out of here?”
“I don’t know, but we need to look for an opening. Maybe I can take one of the smaller humans hostage?”
“Would that work against her? Her shadows can attack from anywhere.”
“I don’t know, but watch for any openings that you can fin-“
I get cut short as the Grey Demon final speaks again, having been curiously watching the two of us talk for a while. “What are you guys talking about? I think I can figure out a couple of words from context, but… hmmm…”
We can’t understand her words, but she is definitely speaking in some other language.
Watching her warily in case she tries to attack us, I take some careful steps around where she is sitting and move for the door. She doesn’t bother standing up or moving, but as soon as my hand reaches for the door, a line of spikes shoot up from the floor and completely bar off the exit.
Well, was worth a try…
“Sorry, Gov’es, but no escaping. Your name is Gov’es, right? Hey, I’m sorry about us killing your dog. Fitfif, right? At least I am guessing that was its name?”
More words that I don’t understand, but when she mentions Fitfif with a sorry sounding voice, I can’t help the rage that spills out of me, not caring in case she retaliates.
“DON’T SPEAK OF FITFIF, YOU CURSED THING! I will rip your head off and burn away your soul, Grey Demon!!!”
I try to throw another fire ball at her, no matter how small and week it may be, but before it can even leave my hand, she simply waves it away, robbing the magic away from me with a simple gesture. Billybilly takes this chance to throw herself at the Grey Demon, but is easily caught with one hand by her wrist and forced to the ground.
“Yeah, that was definitely your dog… Shit, now I feel like the bad guy. All I can say is that I am sorry, but you guys are attacking us. I guess this is what war is like… I was much more for this when I thought that you guys were just a bunch of dumb Goblins. But you’re people… mrmrmrrrr~”
She lets go of Billybilly once she finally stops fighting. Once she is free, she quickly crawls away into a corner of the room under the Grey Demon’s gaze. She thankfully doesn’t look injured and is just sulking at being manhandled.
The Grey Demon simply remains quiet after that and watches us, still just relaxing in her chair. With her not moving to stop us, I take the chance to look around the room more, but I fail to find any ways out. Besides the door, which appears to be made out of metal, there is also a large dark window that is occupying an entire wall. Looking through it, I can’t find anything on the other side, and instead just see our reflections.
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There is another chair in the room, but I am quite certain that she would stop me if I tried to use it to break the window. So, instead of doing that, I move over to it and sit down like she is. We proceed to stare at each other for a long while; not a word being said between us. Billybilly slowly works her way over and crouches behind me, peeking out slightly to stare at the Grey Demon with hate filled eyes.
Eventually, a knock comes at the door, and a human lets himself in after a few words with the Demon. They come in pushing a cart that smells of food. Billybilly immediately bolts for the humans with her teeth and claws bared, but she instantly gets wrapped up in shadows and glued to the ceiling, letting out muffled screams and curses through a gag in her mouth as she flails her legs in protest.
I don’t move an inch, the Grey Demon’s eyes locked on mine and practically asking if I am going to try anything as well.
The human pushing the cart, though temporarily startled, is quick to get back to work as they get to setting plates of food onto the table in the room.
This human looks much more different than the bigger ones. It doesn’t even have horns or a tail… Is this their version of our little ones? Hmm, if that is the case, then the horned ones must be like us demons, and maybe the Grey Demon is their Father?”
The human quickly finishes their work and pushes the cart out of the room, sending the occasional glance toward myself, Billybilly, and the Grey Demon. Once he is gone, she pushes two of the plates towards me and then releases Billybilly from her bindings, gently lowering her back down to the floor.
On the plates, are each a big cut of meat, and they are letting off a wonderful smell that brings drool to your mouth with just a single smell.
She gestures towards the cooked meat after making some kind of shadow stick with three prongs and a knife in her hands. When we don’t immediately go for the food, she simply shrugs and then starts eating her own food, cutting the meat into squares before stabbing them with the stick and bringing them to her mouth.
Why are they feeding us? What do they want?
Billybilly is swallowing down saliva as she watches the Grey Demon eat, and I don’t bother stopping her when she finally breaks down and goes for one of the cuts of meat, grabbing it with her bare hands and tearing into it as she hides behind my chair.
“So good!!!!! Tasty! Gov’es, this is good, try it!” She cries out between bites of meat.
Watching them eat for a short while, Billybilly tearing into hers like she is starving, and the Demon eating in what seems to be a… refined and dignified manner, I reach out and take the meat to try it.
My eyes widen in surprise at the taste of it. The meat juices running over my tongue, the taste of salt and something else that seems to bring a heat to my tongue. It doesn’t just smell delicious, but also tastes amazing.
The Grey Demon smiles as she chews on her meat and watches us devour ours.
…
“You guys are weird…” The Grey Demon eventually says after a while, our food already eaten, and the plates licked clean. Billybilly had tossed aside her plate afterwards, but it got caught by shadows and returned to the table before it could hit the floor.
Now, the plates are just sitting stacked up off to the side of the table along with my stolen fire in its little cage of shadows.
We still can’t understand her words, but she speaks regardless. “I mean… it’s not just how you look, but also how you act. You’re still behaving like Goblins, but I doubt I would ever see one properly using a chair like a person. You even wear clothes, though… these’re hard to call clothing really. Still a lot better than the Goblins I’ve seen before where you would be lucky if they are even wearing anything to cover their junk…”
She stays silent for a while as she just continues to look us over, Billybilly shrinking away to hide behind me as I return her gaze, examining her weird coverings that both look soft and also hard like a monster’s shell. Her left arm lays completely exposed and uncovered up to her shoulder, her grey skin lined with scars and the marks of glowing golden branches and leaves, a pitch-black shadow adorns the back of her hand.
Staring at her arm brings a series of ideals and promises to my mind, like the gods are trying to speak into my soul through her very flesh.
A promise of protection, of love, of truth, of freedom.
If I allowed myself to open up more to these whispers, these promises would be made clear to me, their contents are left open to the world for anyone to see and judge, but I don’t let them in and look away. I care not for the promises made by my father’s enemy towards others.
“You guys almost look human… I mean, even the regular Goblins have human like traits. Arms, legs, hands and feet, bits and bobs between your legs, and a face… an ugly face… but if you look past that, it is still human like… But you guys; you are even closer to being like humans.”
Her eyes go to Billybilly, looking her up and down, stopping at her long, messy, brown hair and ash coated light-green skin, a handprint of dried blood marking her face. “Honestly, I would even say that you are almost attractive. Sort of like primal humans or something. Like looking at a humanish~ alien… I like your big pointy gobo ears by the way, those are nice… You even have your own language now… I don’t know what the hells has been going on with you and your people, but you seem to be doing something similar to Sky. You’re becoming human… You know, I’m still waiting for more Kobolds to end up like her? To follow in her footsteps and start changing too. I just have a feeling that it won’t be too much longer until some of those little furballs start growing and changing to be like her. Start becoming Evolved Kobolds… or maybe I should call them High Kobolds? I think that works better… What about you guys? I guess the best thing to call you would be Hobgoblins, right? Though you probably have your own name for yourselves…”
She gets a sad look on her face as she rests her head on her hand, the claws on her other hand clicking at the metal table as she looks down and thinks about something.
We remain silent, waiting to see what she is about to do. Billybilly looks like she wants to bolt for the door, with the Demon seemingly distracted, but I stop her with a hand. The effort would be wasted anyways.
Eventually, she takes a deep breath and clicks her tongue, her eyes of black and golden halos looking straight at me. A feeling of dread filling me as she speaks.
“I’ve never killed a person before… You would think that with it being the end of the world and everything, for me to have survived this long, that I would have by now. Bandits, unfriendly scavengers, maybe a rapist wanting to try his luck when he doesn’t have to worry about the laws anymore… But nope. I’ve honestly been pretty lucky. I have yet to actually end up in a situation where I’ve needed to kill a person yet. I mean, I’ve killed Goblins, yes, but I am pretty damn certain that they weren’t people yet back then…”
She wets her lips as she looks me in the eyes, pointing to a circle on the back of her left hand. “I made promise, a contract. I have to protect humanity from you guys. Even if I don’t want to kill people, I have to do it, because you guys are threating the people that I have sworn to protect, the people I love… I’m going to have to kill you, here soon… I can’t stay here and keep your magic under control, and the soldiers can’t keep you contained here without killing you. You’re just too dangerous…”