Daemons felt little empathy for each other, robbing, cheating and even killing their own race with little to no compunction. But at the same time no daemon could live alone. Their aim in life was power after all, and half of the word was being able to rule over subjects. That created this paradox where a daemon looked himself from his kin, considering them a constant source of danger while needing them as servants, agents or allies for his plots. Even as enemies, since to daemons, at least most of them, the game was as entertaining as the prize at the end, and that meant that worthy opponents were often as prized as good pawns.
That was why Ulvanach was alright in Kiarak’s books. Another part of her Ur-nath, her “strangeness”, meant that she had always taken less enjoyment from all the plotting and fighting and far more from the conquering. But even she could enjoy the challenge a worthy rival could provide, or the results from the drive of competition.
Not trust, never trust, but as close to friendliness one could have while keeping in mind that stabbing or being stabbed in the back was always a possibility.
Ulvanach crouched among the branches of the things she decided to call Tolgran for lack of a better name. The big daemon stood completely still, even his breath seeming to stall. Without a sound, his scales writhed for a moment, then he disappeared, turning the same color as his background. The camouflage was so perfect that Kiarak wouldn’t have noticed him if she hadn’t seen him disappear. It sparked a mix of envy and respect. She couldn’t suffer Zongatis, and Zubar was still stuffing his face so the less said about him the better, but Ulvanach? For an idiotic meathead, he had the skills, and that, well, that could almost be attractive.
Kiarak heard the soft brush of his tail against Tolgran. She mimicked it with her own, sending the signal of “no enemy in sight” to the rest of the group.
Zongatis emerged from among the foliage a moment later. The elder daemoness’ expression was tight. She made a show of glancing at the strange, vaguely heart-shaped things hanging from the Togran she had gathered for studying, but it was clear she was unnerved. Not like Kiarak felt different, but she was still going to enjoy it.
“Thinking too hard again.”
Kiarak swallowed a yelp at the sudden murmur in her ear. Angry, she swung, and a big hand closed around her wrist.
“You think too much, even when you scratch,” Ulvanach said, far too close. He smelled of fire and brimstone, Kiarak noticed as her instincts screamed in contradictory ways.
Ulvanach grinned, and she realized she had been staring back.
“Trying to get us killed again?” She hissed, firmly repressing the parts of her that were attracted to a daemon able to sneak up on her and put a clamp around her wrist like that one. Strenght and skill were paramount in courtships.
“Told you,” he hissed back, clearly pleased. “It would make a good story. And I bet there’s space for some rolling around too. This dirt looks pretty soft.”
To her eternal shame, Kiarak was tempted for a moment. If nothing, it would send Zanbotis into a tizzy seeing two of her team getting up to mischief. But then, what would the Father say? And she wasn’t so far gone as not to hope to get back in one piece.
“Cut it out,” she snorted, snatching her wrist from his grasp.
Ulvanach let her. To her chagrin, his grin didn’t even flinch. “Whatever you say,” he shrugged. “We got time.”
Kiarak showed him her teeth, and he just chuckled and ambled away. She watched him go, attraction and disgust mixing together in a confusing way that she hated. She shook her head.
“What are you doing?” Zongatis asked as she walked to her, in a stern way that made it clear it wasn’t a question at all.
“What you told me to, leader,” Kiarak snarled. She slapped a fruit out of Zubar’s hands, eliciting a disappointed sound from him. “Reconnoissance, right?”
Zongatis narrowed her eyes, and Kiarak felt a thrill of anticipation. She had been waiting for this skank to try something…
“We are daemons,” Zongatis began, voice low. “We aren’t friends. Sometimes we are allies, but those are brief moments, funded by interest. We aren’t close, and surely we aren’t kin. The nature the Father blessed us with means that we live our life on the Urnath, the Path of Fire. We walk it alone, and we ask for no companionship, and that’s what makes us strong, what makes us the Children.” Her expression couldn’t have been colder. “But even our confrontational nature doesn’t explain your rancor toward me. You will explain.”
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“I don’t have to explain anything,” Kiarak spat. But then, why not? She wasn’t going to die here, but might as well take something off her chest. “You think yourself so much better than us because the Father tells you things and you think you can just order us around. Well, you’re not. You are weak, and He just uses you because He knows that weak tools make for obedient tools. You are a disgrace, Zonbatis, hiding behind your magic while a true daemon fight with tooth and claw and fire. You are unworthy of fear, let alone command.”
It may have been close to questioning the Darkness’ and all that entailed, but as angry as she was, Kiarak wasn’t stupid. The Father never actually endorsed Zongatis with actual command, only with further instructions.
“You can order us around because we let you. Nobody would follow you otherwise.” She smirked, challenging her to deny it. Zongatis hadn’t followed the Urnath, the path of the daemon. She was closest to the Darkness than all of them, and that meant she was born Ascended. What did she know of the strife a true daemon had to go through to earn the rank? Before entering the Ascended, Kiarak hadn’t ever even heard her name, not even in passing.
“You should have stuck to your books,” she said. “Out here, it’s real daemons that thrive, and survive.” She curled her lips, showing fangs.
Forgetting his fruits, Zubar shifted a terrified gaze from one daemon to the other.
If she was impressed or taken aback, Zonbatis didn’t show it. Instead, she watched her the same way a daemonlord would look down on a meat-slave.
“Are you really so envious, lowborn?”
Lowborn. Those daemons were born with a far relation to the Darkness. They were considered weak, inferior, and the name came with all manners of insults and indelible shame.
The only thing keeping Kiarak’s claws from Zonbatis’s neck was the shimmering shield that appeared between them.
“Who are you calling that?” Kiarak barked, claws wreathed in scarlet fire raking trails of sparks against the shield. “I slaughtered thousands to earn my throne, and ten times that number to get here. You know nothing. You are nothing. You spoiled, pampered wretch! Put down this spell and face me like a real daemon! I will rip out your limbs and slash you open one kurvak at a time!”
Zonbatis didn’t answer, nor she lower her aura-wrapped talons.
“You are the weak one,” she sentenced coldly, and her shield flared out, pushing her back.
Kiarak landed at some distance, feet digging burrows in the dirt. She hissed furiously, sheathes of scarlet fire covering her claws, and made to attack.
“Found someone,” Ulvanach informed, apparently having appeared from nowhere. The daemon had the look of someone thoroughly enjoying what he was looking at.
Kiarak hesitated, but then the blue fire Zongatis was discreetly holding in her hand disappeared, and the daemoness swept off in a whirl of her cloak.
“Show me,” she ordered, and marched after a smirking Ulvanach without a glance back.
Kiarak glared at her retreating back, before noticing Zubar trying to sneak after her, re-gathered fruits piled into his arms. The fat daemon squealed a protest as she smacked them all off his hands.
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Zongatis narrowed her eyes quizzically at the little creature. Small, diminutive in fact, he – she? - was busy gathering what she knew to be leaves into a little pile. To her slight confusion, he jumped into the pile he made, scattering all the leaves as he rolled around, laughing cheerfully for a while, only to start gathering them again.
Frowning, she focused her senses on him. Though the energy composing him was the same, alien strand that that whole world was made of, it was but a minuscule charge, enough that she was confident that even its repellent nature against their own wouldn’t have been enough to harm them.
Fascinatingly, the creature had no scales. Rather, his skin was smooth and as golden as the bark of the trees, with eyes a denser shade with no interruptions for irises. If she had to compare him to a daemon, his features and size was closer to a bairn than a full-grown specimen. Thin tendrils emerged from his head, covering the top half of it in a tight tuft that seemed never to lose its orderly nature despite his rolling around. A kind of flowing cloak the same color as the leaves covered his childish body.
Zongatis turned his frown to Zubar, the daemon watching with a slightly curious expression while he suckled on a fruit.
“Feels like a Thilgra,” he said thoughtfully. Juice spilled down his chin as he sank his serrated teeth into pulp, greed flashing in his eyes.
Repressing her disgust, Zongatis thought about it. The Thilgra was the idiotic, half-mindless slave race the daemons exploited for food and labor. To find another example of the same there would have been an incredible stroke of luck, and Zubar’s particular… expertise in the topic of slavery would give weight to the possibility. Still, she didn’t wish to stake the mission just on his word.
A quick exchange of orders later, they took positions in a scattered formation around the small glade the being frolicked in. Zongatis glanced at Zubar to make sure he was still close by before her gaze met Kiarak’s hostile one. Lowborn…
She disdained her, focusing on the creature. A flicker of energy spilled from her finger, signaling for Ulvanach to start.
The daemon, efficient and obedient for a change among misbegotten lowborns, gently rustled a branch in a way that the breeze couldn’t justify. He dashed away, already invisible, as the creature turned to look his way. As exotic as his features were, Zongatis saw no alarm, or even surprise, just a moment of realization, followed by a delighted chirp, followed by an eager dash toward the point where the sound had come from.
No sense of danger? It would make sense, considering those massive walls, and how no reaction was had even after blowing a hole into them. Compared to the desert outside, that place could easily be a self-enclosed ecosystem without a prey-predator system and all the resulting countermeasures.
She felt a hint of pity for creatures unable to taste the glories of the Urnath, forever locked in self-indulgent stagnation and unable to prune themselves from weakness. Still, there were uses even for beings such as those. That said, there was also the possibility of those beings being apex predators who wiped out any competition. Someone had to have built those walls and fire-being after all.
Deciding what pawn to sacrifice was the question of a moment. A small pulse of magic activated Kiarak’s collar, making her stumble out of her hiding spot and into the glade. Cold satisfaction flickered as Zongatis watched her freeze like a meat-thing caught under a hunt, confusion and realization warring in her expression.
The creature noticed her right away, and, sure enough, dashed her way. To Zongatis’ surprise, he took flight, a golden glow briefly enveloping him before he turned into a bird-like being that seemed carved out of stone.
He moved with surprising speed, but it wouldn’t have been enough to avoid Kiarak’s claws, if Zongatis didn’t keep her still through her collar. The creature pounced, but instead of the familiar sound of crunching bone and ripping flesh, there was just a light thud as he impacted against her lap and started chattering excitedly.
Zongatis nodded slowly. Thilgra it was then. Very good.
She met Kiarak’s gaze, finding it filled with outrage and surprise. Another burned bridge, it seemed. Did it matter? It definitely did not.