#the demon prince

[carlatsukinamistolemyhamsandwich]

The Demon Prince - Demon!Shin Tsukinami x Reader Part 2 of 3

Part 1

Part 2 is here! I’ve been really excited to share it with you so I hope you enjoy it ^^

Trigger warnings for this chapter include descriptions of gore/violence, choking, some minor self harm and a brief description of vomiting.

Once again, a huge thank you to @akumacaron​ for beta reading this fic.

Now, without further ado...

Part 2: The Game

The night you were meant to meet the demon fell on a new moon. You’d known it would, had planned it that way in fact, but that didn’t mean you’d anticipated just quite how dark it would be as you trudged your way towards the woods, the sky devoid of even a single slice of the moon’s glowing silver surface. Even the stars seemed to have dimmed, like they too could sense the demon currently headed towards your village and did not want to draw his attention.

It was cold for a summer night, and you couldn’t help but shiver as you pulled your old jacket tighter around yourself. In truth though, it wasn’t just the dark and the cold that had you on edge—you were exhausted. Ever since you’d made the deal, any time you laid your head down to rest you found yourself transported into the same awful nightmare, left to be dragged into the acid by that warped wretched creature. It’d made you reluctant to get any rest at all, and even when you did, you woke up feeling worse than you had before you’d gone to sleep.

You didn’t even know if it was some mind game the demon was playing on you or whether it was just some terrible invention of your own subconscious. Or maybe, it wasn’t either of those things, maybe it was the magic of the deal giving you a preview of what was to come if you lost tonight.

Shaking your head, you quickened your pace toward the wood, the small torch in your hand providing barely enough light to avoid tripping over the large stones scattered along the uneven path. You couldn’t afford to fail, the lives of everyone you knew depended on it—as did the fate of your soul.

The further you strayed from the heart of the village, the more aware you became of the oppressive quiet, broken only by the soft sounds of your footfalls. The lack of people around didn’t concern you, the folk of a simple farming village had no reason to be out late at night when they would need to rise early to tend to the crops the next morning—and that was without taking into account the fact that everyone knew not to venture near the woods on the first new moon after the summer solstice. Well, everyone except the demon you could just about make out standing before the treeline, the faint starlight painting him in grey monotone.

All of a sudden, you couldn’t blame the animals and insects for abandoning you to face him alone, if it weren’t for the markings that felt like a lead weight wrapped around your wrist, you were pretty sure you’d turn tail and go to ground somewhere too. The demon had been terrifying in the overcast light of day, but at night he was something else entirely. You could swear his horns looked larger and more curved, the pointed tips jutting proudly towards the sky. Shadows seemed to leak from his dark cloak and, in the flickering light of the torch, you could almost have fooled yourself into thinking he had a pair of phantom wings.

Your pace slowed as you took in the sight of him and when he turned to face you, his eye gleaming a bright gold, you stopped altogether as a jolt of fear ran through you. This was a horrible idea, you should just have tried to run no matter how futile it might have been—anything would have been better than having this creature carved out of night and darkness and every evil that had ever been born from a man’s heart, staring down at you like you were its next meal.

“Well you certainly took your time, I was starting to think you’d finally realized what you’d signed yourself up for and had tried to flee like a coward.” Even his voice sounded different than it had days ago—deeper, richer. Your effort to keep him at something of a distance was quickly trampled on as he stalked towards you, the sound of small stones crunching under his thick-soled boots uncomfortably loud in the otherwise still air. It was all you could do to stay rooted to the spot, to at least try to look a little braver than you actually felt as he came to a stop close enough that you could smell the lingering scent of blood on him. Gods knew how many people he’d killed while you'd lain wrapped up in a thin blanket at home, trying to stave off nightmares.

“I still made it here on time,” you told him, slipping the hand not holding your torch into your jacket pocket and pulling out a small polished stone. In spite of the chill in the air, the stone radiated a soft warmth against your palm as you turned it over for the demon to look at, revealing a faint purple glow emanating from its centre.

“An Eye of Niht, huh? I didn’t think I’d see one all the way out here but I did wonder how you’d even know when to meet here on a new moon. Still, it’s pathetic that you have to use a magic artefact just to know what time of the night it is, when it’s simple instinct for demons.” He sneered down at the small stone—the only magic item in your possession and quite possibly the most valuable thing you owned—and you felt compelled to stuff it away back into your jacket.

“Yeah, well, I’m here and it’ll be midnight soon, so if we’re going to enter the woods from opposite sides then we’d better start heading there now.”

“In that much of a hurry to get your soul eaten are you?” The demon leaned closer and you fought off a shudder as you felt his breath ghost over your ear. “Or is it that you’re trying to appear brave? I can smell the fear on you, you know? And taste it.” With no warning, he leant forward and you felt something cold and wet brush over your cheek.  You flinched back, just catching a flash of the demon’s forked tongue as his lips pulled into a smirk. “Humans always taste better when they’re afraid.”

Taking a pointed step away from him,  you wiped your cheek with your sleeve as you turned towards one end of the woods. “Which side are you going to enter from?”

The smirk dropped from the demon’s face. “It’s boring if you just barely react like that, the least you can do is cower a bit, you know? Or better yet—” with no warning you felt something wrap around your ankle and yank it out from under you, sending you tumbling to the ground in a graceless heap “—you can fall to your knees.”

Whipping your head back, you tried to see whatever it was the demon had used to grab you, only to catch a thin black shadow slipping back into the darkness of his cloak. You were quickly distracted however, by the demon laughing at you as he bent down over your prone form. “That suits you way better than the brave face  you were putting on earlier. This is all your kind are good for, human, as dirt beneath my feet—and food.”

You kept your mouth shut, dropping your gaze and hoping he’d take it as a sign of defeat. Even if you weren’t sure whether he would dare to kill you while the deal was in place, you didn’t want to think about what he might do if he really took against your attitude.

The demon opened his mouth to say something else before pausing, tilting his head as though he’d sensed a change in the wind.

“Tch, there isn’t much time left, I guess I’ll just have to settle for teaching you the sort of respect you should show me once I’ve obtained your soul.” He turned away from you and looked up and down the border of the woods. “I’m taking this end,” he said, jerking his head toward the north, “you’d better hurry up and get to your end or I’ll drag you there myself.”

You got to your feet as the demon stalked away from you, brushing dirt from your clothes and wincing at your stinging palms as you stopped to grab your fallen torch. Stupid demon, you thought, but your irritation quickly paled in comparison to your nerves as you made your way to your end of the woods. You’d gotten lucky that the demon had chosen the northern end while the dead man’s roses were slightly closer to the south, but it felt like a minor blessing all things considered. Feeling in your pocket for the Eye of Niht, you drew it into your palm as you reached the edge of the woods.

You stood there, mind buzzing as you turned the polished stone in your hand, waiting for it to signal midnight had arrived. What if the demon was lying about wanting to draw this out? What if he found you before you could get to the dead man’s roses? Glancing away from the stone, your eyes travelled along the faintly illuminated path, the same path that—many years ago now—you’d stumbled along as a child, blundering around with only the faintest starlight to guide you.

It had been a silly thing to do. You hadn’t been allowed to go out and play at night anyway, but you could remember your parents telling you specifically that you had to be back before dark when you went out to the woods with the other children that day. And you’d listened to them, dutifully returning just as the sun had started to set, but as you’d sat down to dinner, you’d realized your favourite toy—a small stuffed rabbit with fabric worn threadbare from play—was missing. Your parents had still put you to bed, promising that one of them would help you look for it the next day, but as you’d lain hugging your thin blanket, all you’d been able to think about had been your small rabbit, cold and abandoned on the moss-covered ground.

That alone would have been bad enough, but the day had been spent wondering why none of the grown ups would let you go into the woods that night. Some of the older boys had told you it was because there were monsters there that came to life only on a single night in the summer, ones with big teeth and claws that would gobble up anyone they saw.

It should have been enough to scare you off and keep you in bed, but it was the thought of poor rabbit being eaten that had sent you hurrying out of the front door as soon as the candlelight from your parents’ room had gone out. You weren’t allowed near your father’s flints and if they'd been disturbed then your parents would have known you’d gone out, so you’d stumbled half-blind to the border of the woods and ventured inside. How you'd thought you’d ever see your small toy, you had no idea, but you could still remember the fear you’d felt, wandering through the empty wood, careful not to make too much noise in case the monsters found you—right up until the moment you’d tripped over a tree root and landed face-first in a bunch of tangled thorny vines with velvet black leaves.

A sudden warm wind whipped up around you, snapping you out of the memory as it urged you towards the woods. Glancing down, you saw a solid white ring had formed in the Eye of Niht, the sign midnight had come at last and the game had begun.

Not wanting to waste any time, you jogged into the wood, only to be stopped by another gust of wind, this one carrying with it the scent of sulfur as it snuffed out the flame on your torch. Damn demon, you cursed, fingers clenching around the now useless stick in your hand. You hadn’t thought to bring the materials to relight it so you cast the thing aside and held out the Eye of Niht, the faint glow staining the trunks and branches of the trees a dark purple. It wasn’t much but at least it was enough for you to see where you were going.

Quickly but quietly, you followed the same path you’d travelled days earlier, pausing any time you heard the slightest rustle of leaves or crack of a branch. You had no idea how long it would take for the demon to track you down, so you couldn’t afford to risk letting him get close without your notice. Even the sound of your breath was too loud in the quiet that pervaded the forest—it was far quieter than you remembered from your childhood, likely the demon’s presence sending anything else that might want to hunt in these woods scuttling.

By the time you finally reached the clearing and the tangled mess of vines of the dead man’s roses, you felt like your heart might burst from your chest. Oh thank gods, you’d made it here.

Without a moment's hesitation, you slipped the Eye of Niht back into your pocket and set about climbing into the network of vines, wincing as the thorns scratched at your skin. You didn’t stop, not until you were fully crouched down amongst them, effectively hidden unless anyone looked closely. It was hardly comfortable, blood welled up from the scores on your hands and all you could do was dab at them half-heartedly with your sleeve, unable to make any large movements without inviting further injury.

It was about to get a lot worse though—or at least, you hoped it was—or else this entire venture had been for nothing. There was a reason why these plants were known as dead man’s roses, one you’d learned when you’d fallen into them all of those years ago, and it was the same reason why everyone in the village knew to avoid the woods that night. These flowers were special in two ways; the first was that they only bloomed once a year, on the new moon after the summer solstice, while the second—

There was a noise, a sharp snap of a stick that sounded suspiciously like someone had stepped on it. Shit. There wasn’t anywhere you could go, fleeing now and giving away your position entirely would be suicide, not to mention the length of time it’d take you to untangle yourself from the vines. Hurry up and bloom , you thought viscously at the rose buds settled around you, hurry up and bloom you stupid flowers .

Another noise, this one closer than the first, the sound of a branch breaking as someone pushed past it. Fuck. You could feel your eyes start to burn with tears as you tried to keep your breathing quiet. If these dumb flowers didn’t bloom—if the demon found you before they did—you were going to die. No, worse than that, everyone you loved would die while you’d be left to become another pair of eyes and a broken mouth on that awful monster from your nightmares, screaming for help that would never come.

A lone, hot tear, trickled down your cheek as you heard the snap of dry wood breaking once more. You should have just let him kill you in that field—joined the weaver and her grandson as carrion for the crows. At least you wouldn’t have felt it when they picked you apart. Your limbs were shaking so badly, you were sure the demon must be able to sense it, that he knew exactly where you were and was just taking his time to let you marinate in your own fear. Oh gods, you were going to—You were going to—

It was then that you heard a faint hiss coming from all around you. You smelt them before you saw them, the overwhelming stench of rotting meat that nearly had you vomiting into your lap. Glancing up, you saw the heavy buds dotted along the vines slowly opening up, revealing silky dark petals outlined by the faint starlight filtering into the clearing.

Dead man’s roses.

The smell was truly awful, somehow worse even than you remembered from your childhood—when you’d choked on it as you’d tried to untangle your hair from the vines and their thorns. You hadn’t managed it, you’d ended up ripping chunks of your hair out as you’d crawled away from the roses, retching. No matter how hard you’d tried, you hadn’t been able to get your legs to work, so you’d had to drag yourself out of the woods using only your arms, sobbing at the awful smell that simply wouldn’t leave you no matter how far you got from the flowers.

Your parents had been waiting for you when you’d finally made it to the treeline, looking both relieved to see you and horrified by the state you were in in equal measure. They’d tried to get close to you, to pick you up and check you over but they hadn’t been able to without gagging, the scent of the dead man’s roses having soaked into your skin and hair. In the end, your mother had been forced to toss a bottle of her homemade lavender water over you before they were able to get you all the way home where you’d then been lain up in bed for days with a fever.

You hoped that your adult body would be able to better cope with whatever toxin was responsible for the foul odour, but when your eyes and lungs started to burn from it, you suddenly weren’t so sure. As it soaked into your hair and your clothes, however, you knew it was too late to go back now—all you could do was hope the folktales about demons using scent to track their victims were true. And that even if the demon weren’t as disgusted by the stench of rotting flesh as you and your fellow villagers were, then the scent would at least hide your own.

Tugging the hem of your shirt up over your nose and mouth, you made yourself take deep breaths to get used to the stench you were sitting in. Dawn was a long way off so you’d better suck it up and get used to it—although that was a lot easier to think than it was to actually do.

You were so wrapped up in trying to keep your meagre dinner firmly down in your stomach that you almost missed the muttered curse word coming from somewhere close-by, followed by the sound of someone sniffing the air.

Heart in your throat, you continued peering into the dark of the wood, waiting for the demon to suddenly come charging through it, to declare that it was all a ruse and you were even stupider than he thought for thinking such a plan would work. But he didn’t, instead a hard gust of warm wind swept through you, thorns brushing over your skin as the vines swayed with it.

You held your breath, not daring to make even the slightest sound as you waited for whatever would come next. It was an effort not to jump when a harsh low growl that came from a throat neither human nor animal rumbled through you, making the hairs on your arm and neck stand on end. A strange noise followed, like that of rending flesh and bone and you fought not to flinch away from it.

There was a rustle of leaves just as something moved into your line of sight. It was too far away and too dark for you to make the dark shape out clearly but whatever it was, it was big—far bigger than the demon should be.

The thing shifted, little more than a clump of shadows in the dim wood, but you thought it might have raised its head. It let out a couple of low wet huffs—like a hunting dog trying to catch a scent—followed by another growl that was so low you could feel it reverberate through the ground beneath you.

Suddenly, it was off, bounding away through the trees in a motion too quick for your eyes to follow. You waited for a count of sixty before you took a breath, and even when you did, it was light and slow in spite of the burning in your lungs. Another breath. There was no noise in your ears aside from your own pounding heartbeat, and no matter how hard you squinted into the darkness, you could only make out the lines of the trees.

You sat there for a while, just breathing, watching and waiting, with only a thin trickle of starlight and the awful stench of the dead man’s roses for company. For exactly how long you stayed there, you had no idea, you simply watched the sky for the faintest hint that dawn was on the horizon while your limbs ached from remaining crouched and your throat and chest stung from inhaling the foul air.

The sky had just started to faintly lighten—or at least you thought it had, although it could just have been tired eyes and your own, stupid optimism—when the demon next decided to remind you of his presence. The exhaustion and stress had started to weigh on you to the point you were almost falling asleep with your eyes open and you just barely caught a noise from somewhere nearby—the sound of claws scraping across tree bark. Shit.

You snapped fully awake almost instantly, jolting out of your slumped position so you could better peer through the small gap in the vines. Daring to take only a thin shallow breath, you listened out keenly  for the next sound from the demon, the one that would tell you whether he was moving towards or away from you—and in turn just how worried you needed to be.

There was no need however, not when the next thing you heard was the demon’s voice speaking directly into both your ears at once.

“Where are you hiding, human?”

You snapped your head from side to side, half expecting to see his face right by yours only to find  more thin vines and rust-coloured petals instead.

Another scraping sound, closer this time.

“You know I’ll find you soon, but if you come out now of your own accord, I promise it’ll be much more pleasant for you.”

Scrape.

“If you’re willing to beg for it, I might even be generous enough to give you a taste of pleasure before I get a taste of you .”

You felt a phantom set of claws trail across the curve of your inner thigh, your muscles tensing involuntarily as you bit down on your lip hard to keep from making a sound.

“On the other hand—” a cold hand wrapped itself tightly around your throat, sharp nails digging into your flesh, and your hands flew to your neck only to find nothing there but your own skin ”— if you don’t come out now, then I’ll have a lot of fun slowly pulling you apart when I do find you.” The hand tightened and you couldn’t breath, could only scrabble uselessly at your own windpipe as the edges of your vision started to go dark. “And by the time I’m done, you’ll be begging me to finally consume your soul.”

Several more seconds passed, the already dark woods getting dimmer in time with your heartbeat, before the demon finally released whatever magic he’d been using and the pressure around your throat vanished. It took every single ounce of self control you possessed not to immediately take a deep gasping breath, instead taking the time and care to be quiet in case he was listening out close by. By the time your lungs had just about recovered, the demon spoke again and you felt your blood turn to ice in your veins.

“Fine, if you won’t come out then I’ll make you. ”

A beat later, the most terrifying howl you’d ever heard echoed through the wood. It sounded like the calls of a thousand great wolves on the hunt woven together and sent every instinct you possessed into overdrive; all telling you to run and run and run as fast as you could to escape whatever imminent death was stalking you. The urge to flee was so strong, in fact, your body moved on its own, an arm reaching out to clear the vines so you could spring to your feet and take off. It was only when you caught yourself on one of the thorns hard enough to  draw blood that you snapped out of it, quickly shoving the wound into your mouth lest the scent of it carry over that of the dead man’s roses and attract the demon’s attention.

The howl trailed off, replaced once more with deathly quiet. You tried to brace yourself against whatever trick the demon would try next, but no matter what you’d done, nothing would have prepared you for the terrible deafening roar that ripped through you moments later. It was so loud you slapped your hands over your ears and even then it did little to drown out the sound of pure primal rage. The demon was starting to get desperate, you realized, a small kernel of hope blossoming in your heart, he’d started to realize he might actually be at risk of losing.

That brief spark of optimism only lasted for a second, right up until you heard a loud thud followed by a colossal crash. It came from some distance away, but the sound still made your heart speed up in terror.

Another heavy thud, followed by a creak and a crash. Then another, and another, and another.

Your muscles went rigid as you had the awful thought that the demon might intend to tear the woods apart to find you. The dead man’s roses might help to hide your scent and deter the demon from getting close but they’d do nothing to prevent you from being crushed by a falling tree. Would your deal still hold if the demon found your dead body? A wave of hysteria washed through you at the thought and you let out something between a laugh and a sob just as another crash—closer this time—resounded throughout the wood.

With nothing else you could do, you curled up into a ball, arms over your head and rocked yourself quietly as you tried your best to ignore the noises. The loud thuds followed by the heavy  bangs of the trees, the sound of claws tearing through wood, the heavy low breathing and rumbling growls that only seemed to get closer and closer.

And closer.

You wept silently, not even daring to look at the sky for fear it would tell you just how far away you were from the end of this nightmare; how likely you were to be dead or worse before then anyway, alone and choking on your only source of protection.

The noises stopped all at once and you glanced up, blinking away tears, expecting to see the demon staring down at you, face contorted in a malicious grin. But you were met with only an empty clearing, signs of the devastation the demon had wrought upon the woods visible beyond the first line of trees. You stared at it for a moment, taking in the splintered wood and crushed branches as your eyes adjusted to the light. Wait a minute—the light!

You had never known such relief as you did when you looked up to see the sky above you had turned to a medium blue, lightening as you looked in the direction of the horizon and there—just visible past the fallen trees—a ray of golden sunlight signalling the dawn of a new day.

Before you could start to process it, a thunderous roar tore through you—carried on a blast of scalding hot sulfurous air. You dug your fingers into the earth to stop yourself from being blown away, wincing as thorned vines were thrown against you.

The roar faded as quickly as it had started, but it took far longer for you to stop feeling like your heart was about to beat its way out of your chest. You stayed frozen, waiting for the demon to come charging through the wrecked foliage. He did not come, however, there was only silence as the golden glow of the sun continued to leak across the sky. And then, just at the edge of your hearing, a chorus of birdsong—the sweet melody lifting a weight from your chest.

You’d done it. You’d won.

For a moment, you felt nothing but joy as golden light continued to spread across the horizon. Your village was safe and you—a simple commoner living in the middle of nowhere—had bested a demon.

Just as you were starting to form the story you’d tell to the travellers who passed through, thinking about how your tale would travel across the land, you sensed a change in the wind. It felt warmer than it did just moments ago, and even surrounded by the scent of dead man’s roses, you could detect a trace of sulfur in the breeze.

Your hand—the one covered in demonic scrawl—grew warm and thick dark smoke started to pour from the symbols. It must just be a sign of the deal being completed, you thought, the demonic magic lifting as you claimed your victory. But the smoke didn’t lift, instead it curled around you, winding a slow path up your arm and across your shoulder—your efforts to bat it away having seemingly no effect as the fingers on your other hand passed right through it.

The smoke twined around the side of your face, and you panicked, taking in a sharp breath as you tried to work out exactly what was going on. You couldn’t see the smoke enter your mouth, but you could feel it, taste it as sulfurous ash coated your tongue. Spitting and retching, you raked your fingers across your neck, trying to physically rip the smoke away—but you couldn’t, instead you could only claw at your skin helplessly as the back of your throat started to burn and blister. Had you lost after all? Had the demon somehow managed to confuse the wording of your deal enough to trick you? Did the dead man’s roses count as a trap, meaning you’d lost by default as soon as you sought shelter amongst them?

You didn’t know—had no way of knowing—the only thing you were sure of was that it felt like the magic was burning you alive from the inside. It was agony and just as you’d convinced yourself you were going to die from the pain, you felt something else.

It was an odd sensation, like something was being forced inside of you but not at the expense of tearing your insides apart. You shuddered, nails scraping against your skin as the foreign thing roiled inside of you. Whatever  it was, it was wrong —terribly, horribly wrong. It was wrong and it was inside you and you wanted nothing more than to get it out .

You choked and gagged and scratched at your throat until your nails drew blood—anything that might draw out whatever awful thing had entered you.

The thing writhed and thrashed but remained stubbornly inside you, like it too sensed that it didn’t belong in your body, but was trapped there nonetheless. Your limbs spasmed involuntarily as both you and the thing fought against whatever magic had forced you together. The sharp movement made you lose your balance from where you were crouched in the copse of dead man’s roses—the awful stench of them still thick in the air along with the sulfurous fumes of demonic magic—and you tumbled forwards.

As you fell your head spun, the rust-brown petals of the roses warping before your eyes one moment and then with a sharp flash of pain through your skull—

The scent of the roses was gone, replaced instead with the rich tang of blood that filled the air after a particularly vicious battle. No, there had never been any roses, just this yellowing, drought stricken field against a dark grey sky—a field that had once been full of soldiers some old King from the west had sent to hunt you down. Now it was just littered with a bunch of corpses. What a joke, you thought as you bent down and grabbed hold of the lead commander by his chest plate, dragging him to his feet—the metal so cheap, your claws pierced straight through it as you lifted him. The sound of the man’s ragged breaths were loud in your ears, especially now that the bodies behind him had all gone silent.

“Now that’s no good,” you said, and your voice—something about it was wrong, it wasn’t your—

Of course it was your voice, who else’s would it be?

“It’s not fair for the commander to stay alive when he stupidly ordered all of his men to a meaningless death, is it? Well, that’s what you humans like to preach anyway, personally it just doesn’t sit right with me to let anyone live when they were arrogant enough to go against me.”

The commander coughed as you held him so he was at eye level with you, it was a wet noise and sent blood dribbling down his chin; you suspected that even if you just left him on the field he’d succumb to his injuries before too long. But as beaten down as he was, the commander was still glaring at you, his dull, pale grey eyes filled with contempt. No, that was definitely no good—you wanted him to die afraid.

“My men gave their lives for King and country and I will do the same,” he spat at you, his saliva flecked with blood, “and someday, demon, you’ll join us in the afterlife.”

“Hmph, as if!” you said, grabbing hold of his throat with your other hand and ripping off his chestplate, the leather straps tearing as you did so. “You know, human’s like you really piss me off the most, the ones who just won’t learn their place. So let’s see if I can’t teach you a little lesson before you die.”

You lined your claws up so they rested between a pair of his ribs, and then you drove them in, the sharpness of them easily ripping through his flesh. The commander cried out and you grinned while he struggled uselessly, your fingers coated in the slick of his blood as you curled them around as many of his ribs as you could reach and twisted. There was a loud satisfying crack when the man’s feeble bones gave way and you tore part of his ribcage out. He screamed as his blood gushed onto the already stained earth and it would not be long before death came to claim him. But you still weren’t done.

You reached into his chest cavity, laughing as the commander wailed and sobbed, all traces of the dignity he’d so tightly clung onto now gone. This would teach him for looking down his nose at you. Your fingers brushed against the beating muscle of his heart and you took hold of it, ripping it from his chest in a spray of gore.

The thing went still in your hand and the expression on the commander’s face as he realized the last thing he’d ever see was his own unbeating heart was priceless. The light was already starting to fade from his eyes, his face etched in fear. There was one last thing you wanted to do though—just to really drive the point home. You lifted the bloody organ, running your tongue across your lips as you opened your mouth wide. It would probably taste like shit from the look of the guy, but the heady scent of horror on him drove you onwards. The commander was dying, but he was still just aware enough to try to scream as he watched you bite down and—

You vomited, the taste of blood and sulfur coating your tongue as you spewed blood mixed with black ichor onto the moss-covered ground of the wood. You felt horrific, like you’d been dragged through the blackest pits of hell. There was something not quite right with your body — hands that were tipped with black claws just moments ago, now ended in dull human nails and the shade of your skin was off too. How did you even get here when you were on a field —

No that wasn’t right, you’d been here, in these woods. These hands were yours and they looked human because you were human. You retched once more, another thin trickle of blood spilling from your mouth and down your chin. The fog started to clear a little and you realized that you weren’t quite sure where you were. The sun had started to rise proper, tinging the overhead sky with red, even though you swore that much time shouldn’t have passed.

You were no longer surrounded by the dead man’s roses either—though their stench still clung to you—instead you were sprawled amongst some of the fallen trees, a few of their more fortunate brethren still standing tall beside you. Although you didn’t know exactly where you were, the faint burble of a stream told you that you were probably somewhere near the centre of the woods—and you’d crawled here on your hands and knees if the state of your clothing was anything to go by.

Something was wrong with you, but you didn’t know what. The pool of blood you’d just spat up made you wonder if you were dying, and you couldn’t help but see visions of that poor commander reflected in the dark liquid — the look of fear on his face as you’d held his bleeding heart in your hand.

Not your hand, not you.

You didn’t know what that was—you didn’t want to know, just to blank the whole thing out entirely. A shudder ran across your limbs, another wave of nausea and something else rolling through you. Pitching forwards, you closed your eyes as your forehead met the cool, damp moss carpeting the ground and—

You were standing next to a throne of sculpted bone. There was a man sitting in it—no, not just a man, he was so much more than just a man

The Demon Lord of the Obsidian Citadel.

Your older brother.

A lesser demon—some sort of imp from the small stature and pinkish skin—was kneeling before the throne, begging for some favour or another. The creature should have known by now that the Demon Lord did not grant favours. Part of you was annoyed at the imp for wasting your brother’s precious time, but then, every so often, its eyes would flicker to you with the same sort of reverence the creature was showing the actual Demon Lord, and you couldn’t help but be a little bit pleased.

It wasn’t often you got to stand at your brother’s side, especially when he met with petitioners like this. He was busy and could deal with things like this himself, you just happened to be passing through at the right time today, and although he didn’t say you could stand in attendance, the fact that he hadn’t outright dismissed you meant he was allowing your presence here—allowing you to witness the duties of the Demon Lord.

He bore the role even better than your father had, although it had been so many centuries now that it was hard to picture anyone other than your brother sitting on that pale throne.

The imp was waffling too much, and you could tell it was testing your brother’s patience even before you started to taste his magic in the air. It took longer for the imp to sense it, and when it did, it lifted its head, eyes wide with fear.

And then the imp was no more, just ash scattered on a warm wind that spiralled through the throne room.

“Hah, what a useless guy, huh brother? I can’t believe he had the nerve to waste your time like this. The lower demons really think we’ll listen to whatever nonsense they pedal out just because they’re slightly less pathetic than the humans, it makes me sick,” you said, running your fingers over the grip of the legendary blade sheathed at your side. Maybe you’d hunt a couple of them down the next time you left the citadel, teach them just how far the gap between them and a true demon was.

“It’s the fate of those who hold power,” your brother’s deep voice echoed. “The weak will always seek shelter under the strong, and if you offer it, sooner or later their feebleness turns into conceit.”

“Hmph, I say we should just crush the lot of them. It’s not like they’re actually good for anything other than grinding them beneath our boots.”

“Control yourself Shin,” the Demon Lord said, his long white locks shifting as he turned to look at you.

A part of you that was not you shuddered at his gaze.

“For as irritating as the occasional arrogant whelp may be, I am still their lord. There is no sense in massacring all of your subjects while they remain mostly loyal.”

“Tch, whatever.” You allowed your hand to fall from the hilt of your sword, as you started to walk towards the heavy ebony doors that acted as the only entrance and exit to the throne room. “It’s fine if I let off some steam with a couple of humans though, right? With most of the kings still refusing to swear fealty to you—as if they’re worthy of having any sort of pride—they deserve a good beat down.”

“Do as you like in the human lands, but Shin—” you paused, turning back to face your brother for a moment. The image of him sitting on the throne was one that inspired a mix of feelings in you. Pride was one part of it—pride at the fact that your one and only brother was the most powerful being that had ever graced the land or ever would. Even the walls of the citadel trembled at his power.

But none of that could detract from the kernel envy in your heart—that your father had two sons and only one of them was worthy of sitting upon that throne and it was not you.

“Do not go so far as to do something foolish. For as weak as the humans may be by themselves, even father met his end at the hands of their kind.”

“I know,” you replied, the faint echo of the memory repulsing you, “but it’s not like the human’s who finished him off are around anymore. Besides, there isn’t even one of them alive who could best me with a sword.” You turned back and resumed your walk towards the heavy wooden doors, your footsteps ringing off of the polished marble.

There were footsteps, you thought, blinking at the dark green moss you saw in front of you. But they weren’t the footsteps you could hear just moments before—for starters they weren’t yours, not as you were currently lying on the ground, the scent of the wood around you even though you could swear you were just in a throne room.

Secondly, it was not the sound of feet on polished marble you could hear, but the rustle of dead leaves being stepped on — and quickly. The footsteps were coming towards you, and whoever was making them seemed to be in a hurry. You blinked again and caught a glimpse of something dark moving at the limits of your vision. Another blink and you realized it was a pair of boots that were rapidly moving in your direction.

You should probably have tried to move but your limbs felt oddly heavy, even if the pain from earlier—was it minutes or a lifetime ago you were clawing at yourself amongst the roses?—seemed to have subsided. In fact, if you actually focused on your body, although something still seemed odd, it felt less like you were in the process of dying. Maybe that was a bad sign though, perhaps it was a final rush of hormones gifted to you so your end didn’t feel so bad.

���You!” a voice snarled—a familiar voice, although it sounded a little different than when it was coming from your own throat—as the boots stopped in front of you and a clawed hand hoisted you up by the front of your shirt.

As you were hauled to your feet, you took in the person before you—the tight dark pants, the silver knives hanging from his hips, and finally the eyepatch and the lone golden iris that was glaring at you quite intensely. The demon—Shin, you now knew, although you were still fuzzy on how you knew—had found you, and he looked very, very angry. You might have been a little more concerned if your head were less shrouded in fog, less full of images that did not belong to you.

Shin sniffed at you and somehow the rage on his features intensified. “You cheating human filth!” he hissed at you, his upper lip peeled back to show off his too sharp canines as he shook you a bit.

“Didn’t cheat,” you mumbled at him, the taste of blood and ash and sulfur still in your mouth. You really should have been more afraid than you were, you thought, with a demon prince literally shaking you down—but for some odd reason, you were sure he wasn’t actually going to harm you, no matter how angry he looked.

“If this disgusting stench wasn’t part of some stupid trap you came up with, then tell me why you’re covered in it!” His nails ripped through the fabric of your shirt as he tightened his grip on you, but they didn't so much as scratch your skin.

“The roses,” you told him, too exhausted to do anything other than reply plainly, “the woods contain dead man’s roses. I hid in them.”

“Dead man’s roses?” There was a pause for a moment before a sudden look of realization flashed across his face. “ Corsbled ? Damn, I thought I knew that smell from somewhere, but I hadn’t considered it could grow anywhere in the human realm. Fuck!” he spat, tossing you to the ground. “And you spent the night there? You should be dead from inhaling their poison for more than a few hours.”

“Oh,” you replied slowly, barely feeling the sting from the impact with the earth. “Is that why I feel so strange? Am I dying?”

For some reason this just made Shin look even more infuriated—if he were human you’d have worried he was about to give himself a stroke.

“Hah, I wish you were. You should just have died amongst those flowers and rotted there, but for some reason you’re still alive and now—Dammit all!” he bellowed as he turned and delivered a sharp kick to one of the remaining nearby trees. There was a loud bang, followed by a crack as the wood splintered and broke clean across the trunk, the bulk of the tree falling miserably to the earth with a deafening thud.

“I don’t understand,” you said, more images flickering before your eyes. Hands that were not your hands covered in blood, bodies upon bodies upon bodies, the white-haired Demon Lord sitting on his throne of bones. “I don’t understand what’s happening to me.”

Shin whirled on you once more, crouching so he was sneering right in your face. “You don’t understand? It was your own idiocy that got you here, and that dragged me into this mess! Fuck, I should slash your throat out.” His hand hovered in the air in front of you, claws twitching as though fighting against an invisible force to carve a path towards your neck. He was glaring at you so intensely it was almost a physical thing. That molten gold burning into you, like he was staring right down into your soul.

Your soul.

Just like that the fog started to clear almost instantly.

You’d won the deal, which meant—

“If you win, you get my soul. If I win, I get yours.”

Something was inside of you and it was not meant to be there.

Oh gods.

A hand flew to your mouth as you felt bile claw its way up your throat. There was someone else’s soul—a demon’s soul—inside of you and you were going to be sick.

“Get it out,” you whispered around your hand. “I didn’t know it would be like this, I’ve changed my mind, take it back .”

Shin’s face twisted and for as much anger still showed on his features, there was something not unlike shame and regret there too. “You really think I’d just be standing here, letting my soul inhabit some fragile human if I could do anything about it? I knew you were thick in the head as soon as you opened your mouth to propose a deal but your stupidity is really on another level.”

He looked like he might strangle the life out of you, but you knew he wouldn't. Couldn’t would be a more accurate way to put it. Trying to harm you while his soul was still resting inside of you would be akin to attempting to tear apart his own insides—worse even. In some ways you wished he’d try it, at least it would put the pair of you out of your misery and save you from having to explain the sorry situation to anyone in your village when you trekked back from the ruined woods with an unvanquished demon in tow.

“There must be something, some way out of it. I mean, I thought beings vanished without their souls so how are you still…” you trailed off, unsure if you could even call a demon alive to begin with. You supposed he must be if he’d had a soul for you to take in the first place.

“Moron,” he jeered at you. “Sure the body vanishes if a soul gets eaten, but you’re just a pathetic human, only full-blooded demons can actually eat souls. I can’t die just from having my soul outside of my body but what it does mean—” he leaned in so close you could feel his breath on your face  “—is that now I’m stuck with y ou . A deal is a deal, you can’t go back on it just because you don’t like the result, if that were the case do you really think my kind would get to eat at all? I wish I could just—” he let out a hiss as his fingers curled into his palm, thick black blood welling up where his nails pierced his skin. You felt the faintest twinge in your own palm and fought not to flinch at it.

This was it, you’d really gone and bound yourself to a demon. A very angry demon who looked like he wanted nothing more than to rip your head from your shoulders.

“No I—” you started, desperately trying to think of everything you knew about demons and souls. It wasn’t a lot, in fact if anything this recent development showed that you knew even less than you’d thought. Apparently all of those fools in the stories were much smarter than you ever were. But then you thought of the image of a demon sitting on an off-white throne. “What about your brother, the Demon Lord? If anyone knows about souls and magic then it must be him, and he’d help you right?”

Shin physically flinched as the words left your mouth. It wasn’t a big flinch, in fact you doubted many people would have noticed it, but right now you felt hyper aware of him, of every movement, even the aggravated swish of his tail hidden in the shadow of his cloak.

“When did you—No, it’s not important, but listen here,” he gripped hold of your face in a way reminiscent of the day you first met him, but with far more care. “My brother can never find out about this. Do you have any idea what he’d do if he learned that I’d let a human—” his face twisted in disgust at the word “—gain possession of my soul? He’d view it as an insult against our kind and you and I would meet a fate far worse than death. Do you understand?”

More images flicked across your eyes as he spoke. The Demon Lord annihilating a platoon of soldiers sent to try and seize the citadel, their armour from centuries ago but still shining like new; his claws ripping the skin from some small horned creature that had dared to utter an insult against him; those same claws ripping out your—Shin’s—eye, his expression devoid of mercy as he did so.

You felt the blood drain from your face and you nodded faintly. No, you decided, you definitely did not want to ever meet the Demon Lord.

Shin stayed still for a moment, as though waiting to see if you’d really gotten the message before he let go and stood once more. “No, my brother absolutely can’t learn of this, which means no one else can either." He started to pace along the moss-covered ground in front of you, a hint of sunlight catching on his horns as it started to filter through the trees. “If I learn you’ve leaked a word of it to any of your pathetic village folk, then…” he paused and turned to look down at you, his single eye gleaming a sinister gold, “I might not be able to physically harm you but there are plenty of ways I can make your life very miserable.”

“Believe me, I wasn’t planning on it,” you told him. It was the truth too, you had no idea how the people of your village would react to learning that you now had a demon’s soul inside of you but you doubted they’d take the news well. You looked up at him, trying to take it all in, and as you did so, something niggled at you from the back of your mind. “Wait a minute, if you can survive without your soul, and you can’t take it back from me, then why are you still here? If it’s just to threaten me into silence so your brother doesn’t find out about our deal then I’ve gotten the message.”

“You really are completely clueless, aren’t you?” His tail was thrashing so hard you could actually see it outside the darkness of his cloak now, it was long, thin and black, with a sharp spade at the tip. “I might be able to live without my soul but do you think I’d have one at all if it wasn’t important?”

“Er… No?”

“No, that’s right,” he sneered. “And do you think I’m going to leave something that important inside some completely defenceless human who only has it in the first place because they just happened to get lucky?”

You wanted to argue that it had been wit rather than luck but it didn’t seem wise to test his patience with the way he was glaring at you.

“What exactly are you getting at?” you asked, certain you were not going to like the answer,

“What I mean, human, is that you’re part of me now and I can’t just leave you alone no matter how much I might want to. So now I’m stuck here, with you, in this hell forsaken village. At least,” he muttered, more to himself than to you, “until I can work something out,”

Well shit.

You blinked at Shin from your spot on the ground, trying to imagine him, with his horns and his claws and his too sharp canines, standing in your small but cosy home, settling into quiet village life—it was a poor fit. While a part of you wanted to argue and send him on his way, you knew in your bones—perhaps from the fact his soul was currently taking up residence inside you—that there was no argument you could levy that would change his mind. Unless you could find some way to offload his soul, you were well and truly stuck with him for the foreseeable future.

He was awful, you thought, as your mind conjured up the image of the bodies on the outskirts of your village—the blood spilled there little more than a drop in a deep red ocean if the memories of violence still pouring into you were anything to go by. He was awful, and if either of you succeeded in finding a way to prize his soul out of you, you were pretty sure he’d force you to endure things even worse than those you’d seen in his memories.

Suddenly, the fate of being eaten away by a demon’s stomach acid didn’t seem quite so terrible after all.

Once again thank you so much for reading! As of posting this chapter, this story is officially the single longest fic I’ve ever worked on so please do let me know if you enjoyed it!

[westonxbelmont]

[insomnia-productions]

@nureyev-steel-institute hell yeah you can! the ones i've been thinking about most recently are these three kiddos i've had since high school, which i recently revamped:

This guy is Karna, a changeling and exiled prince. Magic is a largely unknown, secretive world in his story, so he had no idea he wasn't fully human until his magic started to manifest when he turned 21. Karna's mother, the queen, was always afraid of him, because she knew his father, one of the Folk, was a pretty terrible person with pretty powerful magic. Because of her fear, she kept him at a distance, and so he grew up with deeply-rooted people pleaser tendencies as he spent his whole life trying to gain her approval, or the affection of literally anyone he met. When his magic manifested, it took the form of cell manipulation -- specifically growth and healing. So he would heal wounds and grow pretty flowers, all in service of getting people to like him. But as soon as the queen found out that he had magic, she had him arrested and sent to be executed, saying she should have done so from the start. Karna escaped and eventually made his way to an island largely populated by exiles and refugees. He was deeply changed by this betrayal, and so his magic changed too, turning from growth and healing to rot and decay. He basically turned from a cleric to a necromancer.

The whole story is about Karna coming into his own as a changeling, learning more about the world of the Folk, and, of course, getting revenge by taking back the throne. It's like a villain origin / corruption arc story, but framed as Karna's liberation. Basically it's like if those ex-people pleasers talking about how they're entering their "villain era" actually went on to commit atrocities, and the comment section was 100% on their side.

This is Ashe! He's a mercenary swordsman that Karna meets on the island at an underground fighting ring. Karna becomes the first person to best Ashe in a duel, and Inaya (Ashe's partner in crime) insists that he join their duo. Ashe was dead-set against this, but Inaya always gets what she wants, so he begrudgingly allows Karna into the group, although there's a strong one-sided rivalry there for the first few months. Ashe likes to think of himself as the pragmatic one, but he's die-hard loyal and kind of a softie at heart when it comes to the people he loves, a list which includes only Inaya and Karna. When Karna decides to seek revenge on the queen, Ashe is the one who insists they go with him (only because the payout for them would be huge, of course, and not that he cares or anything but Karna would get murdered within a week if left to his own devices). Ashe and Karna also eventually become lovers. He thinks it's super romantic when Karna lights a city on fire to spell out "I love you" from above (he's right). Ashe becomes Karna's advisor after they take over the kingdom; Karna really respects his counsel.

Finally, this is Inaya, Ashe's partner and the primary scheme-haver and gunslinger of the mercenary duo. She was originally a merchant’s daughter, but fled home to avoid an arranged business marriage to a much older man and to seek adventure. She met Ashe, already a mercenary thief at the time, when he tried to rob her father’s vessel. They joined forces, combining Ashe’s know-how with Inaya’s insider knowledge of the merchant world. Inaya is much more chaotic and impulsive than Ashe, she really fucking loves pyrotechnics, and she has a girlfriend in every major city. Despite being generally the most reckless of the three, Inaya is also the most pragmatic. She might choose to give in to her impulses a lot, but she tends to make her actual decisions based on reason, while both Ashe and Karna tend to act purely on emotion, and Ashe just finds logical explanations for his actions after the fact. After they usurp the throne, Inaya becomes Karna's general, being the best strategist of the three. I haven't yet figured out the exact technologies available in their world, but I really want her to have a giant over-the-shoulder firearm of some sort, like a really big bazuka or something. She deserves it <3

[rockymountainqueen2]

From this -

This post is mostly for those who don't want to have to click on the link in order to read the entirety of The Owl House's series bible.

[scruntassdude]

i love gary so much he really gets me

bonus:

[radiance1]

So, Ghost Prince Danny. Except that he also, ALSO, is Damian's younger twin brother who was sent to keep an eye on the Fentons because of their discovery of a substance that looked like Lazarus Water yet isn't Lazarus water.

In truth, it was really just Talia's way of getting Danny out of the way because he lost against Damian in the battle of heirs (No Danny did not hold back, Damian was just better than him) and she didn't want him dead so that was the next best thing.

Danny does pop up in the League at odd times, mostly to report about the research done by the Fentons. When he became half dead he's around a lot more, mostly to be monitored for his unique condition (somehow someway they don't know about Vlad) and because Danny can just come and go as he pleases cause ghost powers.

So, Danny gives Damian a flute that he handcrafted himself as a birthday present because really, what can he buy that Damian himself couldn't? Also, because he didn't actually want to spend money on his older brother.

They're brothers, but they don't have the most cordial relationship. They don't hate each other, but they don't like each other either.

So, Damian takes this flute and is like: "Fuck you gimmie this for I don't need this shit."

And then Danny is like: "Just take the gift you stupid ahh fruitloop."

So, Damian takes it while berating that Danny would give him something as stupid as this, but then does a full one 180 by keeping the thing on his person at all times.

Not that Danny knows that, really.

So, cut forth to Damian being known by Batman and taken in. Trying to kill Tim and being an overall little shit, I can see one of the Batfam coming across this flute just, randomly really, and then Damian is fucking pissed that they dared to touch it and then takes it back.

Leaving basically everyone stumped over the significance this random ahh wooden flute has but decides not to touch that landmine.

So then the Batfam don't know that Damian has a half sibling (Danny came from Jack and Talia, so he isn't blood related to Bruce but is to Damian) running around out there and Damian isn't gonna say anything and you already know Talia isn't since Danny AIN'T his kid.

Plus, he got a job to do that being with Bruce Wayne would make harder.

So then Damian becomes robin an allat, then the entire Batfam pull up to the Justice League for some big threat and then both Constantine and Zatanna are like: Yo why do you kid carry round an item drenched heavily in death energy to the extreme

Batman is obviously like: Excuse me?

Damian, meanwhile, just does not give a fuck about the flute given to him by his half-brother on his birthday is apparently drenched in death energy to the extreme because that is his and he isn't going to just give it up.

So then one way or another Damian ends up playing it, maybe he was told to play it by both Batman and Constantine just to make sure it isn't actually anything dangerous or whatever and also because Damian wouldn't let anyone else hold it, let alone play it.

Which Damian smirks at because he's played it before and literally nothing happened aside from very good music, but Damian hasn't played it since he came to the Wayne household and has missed it. So he reminisces over how he got it, thinking of his half-brother and their relationship.

He plays it, but this time, since he genuinely thought about Danny death energy just condenses in waves. Damian couldn't see it since he was too focused on playing and reminiscing, everyone isn't really that calm and tries to get him to stop but the death energy blocks them.

Then a summoning circle appears in front of Damian and Constantine recognizes it as being from the Infinite Realms category and it seemed to be a high-level summon circle too so he's like: Well fuck.

Then, contrary to their expectations of some eldritch abomination, it's just Danny. Who, fun fact, was in the middle of his coronation as prince and such, dripped out in royal wear.

Safe to say, Constatine goes: Well double fuck.

The tension is just broken, as all Danny does is cry. Like, genuinely, he just cries because Damian still kept his flute that he made, he genuinely thought the guy just threw it away since he hated it so much.

Danny: Ancients, my big brother actually liked what I made this is making me emotional.

Damian: Why the hell are you crying this thing is still trash btw.

Danny: Yea whatever you say big bro, you love it.

Batman: What do you mean big brother?

Danny: Who in the hell is that-

Damian: Right, I never told him about you.

[knightscanfeeltoo]

What could be So Much Worst than the Asylum/Stray Demon for Poor Oscar? 

A F*cking Prince of Demons...

[neanmoins-que]

[art-story-by-deroko]

"I've created a monster..."

[imagine-darksiders]

Samael absolutely delights in pushing the Bride's boundaries.

[bon3zzzka]

Pathetic TV head guy when his crush said ,,No” to him :3

[carlatsukinamistolemyhamsandwich]

A quick demon!Shin titbit that I can now share with you after posting chapter 2. Big old spoilers for the chapter below so if you haven't read it, please do so before reading this post.

So full-blooded demons like Shin usually keep their tails concealed because 1) it really freaking hurts if someone pulls on it and 2) while they can control them if they make a conscious effort to, their tails will often reveal a bit too much about their emotions (Carla does not have this problem nearly as much as Shin does).

Anyway, I don’t think it is going to come up properly in chapter 3 because The Demon Prince is, at heart, a horror fic and this gets slightly too close to being cute for me to feel comfortable throwing it in there but after you get Shin’s soul and you have to live together, anytime Shin is in your immediate vicinity and isn’t making a conscious effort to control it, his tail will end up curling around your wrist or ankle. It's not out of any fondness for you but having his soul exposed and vulnerable is deeply uncomfortable so it's an unconscious effort to keep you as close as possible. The touch is often gentle enough that you don’t even notice until you go to move, at which point it tightens on you like a leash which makes you stagger or trip, in turn pulling on it. Barely a second later, Shin, fool that he is, is hissing in your face that if you pull on his tail one more time, he is going to find some way to permanently maim you, soul be damned.

[devildomwriter]

I’m sorry what??? I don’t remember this part! You’re telling me instead of using magic, Diavolo just walked over to an out-of-control BEELZEBUB and JUST PINNED HIM?!!!!!

[fauvester]

little moshang fan kid <3

spoiled, aloof, a bit of a bitch, terminally 'weak constitution'-ed, lowkey lazy, prefers reading his dailies in the office and pretending to do paperwork to fighting

[romancemedia]

Anime Series - Main and Alternate Posters

[deadshadowcreature]

Redesigning Ink Nezha 🖋🪷